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Quest for Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero () (pc) [Any %] [Single Segment] [Character: Thief]
Verifier Responses
1 other verifier withheld their comments, but accepted.
Decision: Accept
Reason: Based on the verifiers' recommendations, we'll accept the DOSBox setting to avoid the crashes, and therefore the "DOSBoxEdit" run.
Congratulations to Paul 'the Reverend' Miller!
Quest for Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero () (pc) [Any %] [Single Segment] [Character: Thief]
Verifier Responses
Quote from Crow!:
A/V:
The magical twinkling sound effect (for example, on the character select screen) has severe clipping, but all the rest looks and sounds good.
I prefer the "OriginalScreen" encode's aspect ratio to the "DosBoxEdit" one.
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First, a quick mention: the "GOGDefault" file is a different run than the other two files. It uses an older route and has worse RNG. It uses the default DosBox settings of the GOG release of the game, which are erroneous and make the game crash.
I suggest allowing the DosBox settings changes which fix this (so long as his run notes are updated to actually document those changes).
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One persistent issue with this run is that he was unaware you can summon the inventory by pressing tab rather than accessing the menu at the top. The menu at the top costs a little over 1 second each time. In this run, that adds up to about 10 seconds lost.
Also, he doesn't anticipate when the cursor will change from one screen to the next. Story events and accessing the special menu cause the cursor to revert to the previously selected icon when the next room is loaded, and this on multiple occasions leads him to use the hand instead of the running command.
Anyway, on to specific time losses:
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His final time will be hard to beat because he had very few input errors throughout the game, and he got perfect Spirea RNG. You have about a 20% chance to get the Spirea seed during each cycle, and a lot of things can go wrong in trying to climb the cliff to get in position to try (each failed climb costs about 3 seconds, while each time the Spireas choose to do something other than give you the seed, it costs about 5 seconds).
I want to accept this run due to the effort clearly put in, but 20-30 seconds worth of time loss that can be directly attributed to not understanding game mechanics is too much in a 10 minute game. In particular, even a casual speedrun watcher is going to be surprised to see that the runner did not simply reset after the error at Erana's Peace.
Also, I recommend a reject on the run notes, if that's allowed, because they are are outdated/wrong. If the run is accepted, I would insist on an update to those run notes, otherwise the run would be better off posted without notes at all.
If I understand SDA timing correctly, this run clocks in at 9:56.
The magical twinkling sound effect (for example, on the character select screen) has severe clipping, but all the rest looks and sounds good.
I prefer the "OriginalScreen" encode's aspect ratio to the "DosBoxEdit" one.
----
First, a quick mention: the "GOGDefault" file is a different run than the other two files. It uses an older route and has worse RNG. It uses the default DosBox settings of the GOG release of the game, which are erroneous and make the game crash.
I suggest allowing the DosBox settings changes which fix this (so long as his run notes are updated to actually document those changes).
----
One persistent issue with this run is that he was unaware you can summon the inventory by pressing tab rather than accessing the menu at the top. The menu at the top costs a little over 1 second each time. In this run, that adds up to about 10 seconds lost.
Also, he doesn't anticipate when the cursor will change from one screen to the next. Story events and accessing the special menu cause the cursor to revert to the previously selected icon when the next room is loaded, and this on multiple occasions leads him to use the hand instead of the running command.
Anyway, on to specific time losses:
Erana's Peace went badly. He forgot that you can't run in that screen, which subsequently messed up his cursor for the next screen (hence the "No, that's not a palm tree." message). Around 5 seconds are lost here, and it's very embarassing.
We do not understand what leads to the fast vs the slow Faerie dance. The difference in time between a fast and a slow dance is about 45 seconds, but since we don't know what triggers the fast dance, I'm willing to overlook it even though it's technically a huge time loss.
You can grab the water from the flying falls by using the hand icon rather than accessing the inventory to save about 2 seconds.
Issuing pointless movement commands actually causes the game to lag. It's not noticeable in the 10k cycles setting, though.
You need to wait for the Minotaur to sleep before casting Open, but not before walking up to the door. Walking up to the door first would save a fraction of a second.
In Yorick's room, he doesn't seem to know where the triggers for walking off the screen are. You need to use the Walk command directly on the transition triggers rather than merely issuing commands that incidentally cause the hero to walk to the correct spot. About 5 seconds are lost here.
We do not understand what leads to the fast vs the slow Faerie dance. The difference in time between a fast and a slow dance is about 45 seconds, but since we don't know what triggers the fast dance, I'm willing to overlook it even though it's technically a huge time loss.
You can grab the water from the flying falls by using the hand icon rather than accessing the inventory to save about 2 seconds.
Issuing pointless movement commands actually causes the game to lag. It's not noticeable in the 10k cycles setting, though.
You need to wait for the Minotaur to sleep before casting Open, but not before walking up to the door. Walking up to the door first would save a fraction of a second.
In Yorick's room, he doesn't seem to know where the triggers for walking off the screen are. You need to use the Walk command directly on the transition triggers rather than merely issuing commands that incidentally cause the hero to walk to the correct spot. About 5 seconds are lost here.
----
His final time will be hard to beat because he had very few input errors throughout the game, and he got perfect Spirea RNG. You have about a 20% chance to get the Spirea seed during each cycle, and a lot of things can go wrong in trying to climb the cliff to get in position to try (each failed climb costs about 3 seconds, while each time the Spireas choose to do something other than give you the seed, it costs about 5 seconds).
I want to accept this run due to the effort clearly put in, but 20-30 seconds worth of time loss that can be directly attributed to not understanding game mechanics is too much in a 10 minute game. In particular, even a casual speedrun watcher is going to be surprised to see that the runner did not simply reset after the error at Erana's Peace.
Also, I recommend a reject on the run notes, if that's allowed, because they are are outdated/wrong. If the run is accepted, I would insist on an update to those run notes, otherwise the run would be better off posted without notes at all.
If I understand SDA timing correctly, this run clocks in at 9:56.
Quote from gammadragon:
As per Crow's comments, I used QFG1VGA_THIEF_DOSBOXEDIT_IQ.mp4 for verification.
Audio / video is good, no cheating detected. There's an FPS counter in the top-right of the video (FRAPS?) but it doesn't block visibility of anything.
The route looks good and is mostly well executed, with a few minor interface accidents. Travelling is minimised and timed events are ordered well. There's a healthy dose of luck to avoid random encounters too.
Not sure if there should be a ruling on changing the default DOSBox settings to avoid the crashing issue, but I'll let an admin weigh in on that one. It certainly seems justified in this case.
Accept
Audio / video is good, no cheating detected. There's an FPS counter in the top-right of the video (FRAPS?) but it doesn't block visibility of anything.
The route looks good and is mostly well executed, with a few minor interface accidents. Travelling is minimised and timed events are ordered well. There's a healthy dose of luck to avoid random encounters too.
Not sure if there should be a ruling on changing the default DOSBox settings to avoid the crashing issue, but I'll let an admin weigh in on that one. It certainly seems justified in this case.
Accept
1 other verifier withheld their comments, but accepted.
Decision: Accept
Reason: Based on the verifiers' recommendations, we'll accept the DOSBox setting to avoid the crashes, and therefore the "DOSBoxEdit" run.
Congratulations to Paul 'the Reverend' Miller!
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