Username:
B
I
U
S
"
url
img
#
code
sup
sub
font
size
color
smiley
embarassed
thumbsup
happy
Huh?
Angry
Roll Eyes
Undecided
Lips Sealed
Kiss
Cry
Grin
Wink
Tongue
Shocked
Cheesy
Smiley
Sad
1 page
--
--
List results:
Search options:
Use \ before commas in usernames
Game Page: Doesn't exist yet

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.

----

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.


----

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


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!
Thread title:  
A little clarification:

Crow's comments indicate a few aspects of the game mechanics of which the runner was not aware - for example, accessing the inventory more quickly by pressing tab. However, the overall run is strong, and the route planning and general execution (given the runner's knowledge) do meet the SDA standard for a run of a new game.

The runner submitted multiple versions of this run to us, on the basis of not being sure whether the DOSBox setting changes would be accepted. The run comments were based on the first submission, which used the GOG default settings, and therefore they are erroneous with respect to the accepted "DOSBoxEdit" run. Ultimately, the run comments are up to the runner's discretion, but we did reach out to ask for an update if he'd like to do so.
Edit history:
mrprmiller: 2015-02-21 04:54:00 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-02-21 04:53:18 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-02-20 11:58:50 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-02-20 11:57:46 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-02-20 11:57:06 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-02-20 11:56:52 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-02-20 11:55:09 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-02-20 11:53:44 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-02-20 11:04:16 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-02-20 11:04:03 pm
Everyday is puppies and sunshine...
I really appreciate this, to say the least, and am more than happy to do an update of the comments new comment file is uploaded.

Will redo the encodes to crop out the FRAPS counter, of course, as that black space is useless.  For clarification, though, am I using the 4:3 screen or the 16:9 screen?  Crow! suggested that the 4:3 looks better in our Quality Test discussion from a conversion that was had, but Gammadragon did his review off of the 16:9.  I have the original FRAPS recording, so either is doable; just need a verdict.

Will also address particulars mentioned by Crow!.  Smiley  His feedback is always straight to the point but helpful.

Want to apologize to Crow! for the TAB strategy I neglected.  He mentioned it in the discussion forum in the middle of one of his posts a while back and I did not even see it.  This approval is cool but bittersweet, because I have beaten this Thief run now through better click optimization and RNG.  Did it even without using TAB, which would be a major (and necessary) re-learning process.  This time is beatable; I already did it and have the VGA beating the EGA run time.  :/
Edit history:
mrprmiller: 2015-02-21 12:01:27 am
Everyday is puppies and sunshine...
Quote:
Also, he doesn't anticipate when the cursor will change from one screen to the next.

Something I originally thought was random or bad programming... it might be bad programming, but it also has to do with when I use the 'rest' mechanism.  I don't have this problem anymore in my recent runs.  Growing pains.  Tongue

Quote:
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.
...
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.

Totally agree.  I completely flinched when I watched it because it was so embarrassing.  As I mentioned, I have a better run which I have recorded afterwards (if you're willing to go back to verification :D) that does not have this black-eye and still has perfect Spirea RNG (I would argue better :D).

As to why I did not reset, it is because I never do.  I did not intend this to be an official run when I started, and record and review most of my practices only deleting them when I am done reviewing and ready to try again.  I only realized I was going to beat my time when it turned dark at the Meeps right after the awesome Spirea seed.  It is such a short game that I just keep going even when I know I am going to fail.  There are other areas that need practice so I just keep going and use the opportunity.  There is a sick amount of frustrating and strange RNG with stat gains in this game on top of all the crashes.  The unsung villain of RNG is that stone door to the brigands, because you could save 5 seconds at least depending on whether door opens in 5 clicks (with good Strength stat gain) or 30 clicks (with bad gain).

Quote:
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.

This is a mystery I actually solved not too long ago.  It was after two accidental clicks which led me to check my stats before and after the Faerie Dance, and I noticed my Agility score had increased.  After glitching my stats intentionally, I found that at 24 Agility you are almost guaranteed a "fast" dance, whereas at 25 you always get the "slow" dance.  As the Thief starts with a base Agility of 25 (and it goes up when you train other stats naturally), I've concluded a "fast" dance is not possible with the Thief without glitching your starting skills (which is easy enough to do, because of an opening stat bug, but something I would call 100% cheating).  I have a link to two save files which demonstrate this at 24 Agility and 25 Agility here, if anyone wants to try.  The 24 Agility hits the fast dance everytime; the 25 never: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0Bz8PB20oNMfrfnZCa1BIUnZraWRXRDhXMGczLUdVeWI4enJ5VlhoWkQ4bXdFM1VDMmtGVnc&usp=sharing

I mentioned jokingly that the Thief-Fast-Dance run was akin to chasing a unicorn; I was more correct than I knew at the time.

Quote:
You can grab the water from the flying falls by using the hand icon rather than accessing the inventory to save about 2 seconds.

Wow!  Did not know that.  Cool trick!

Quote:
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.

Yeah, the other bane of this game is this room.  The walking mechanics are different in here, as you can click to turn around as opposed to moving (sounds strange writing it out) which makes for some weird situations.  I hate this room, and will always feel like more time could be saved here no matter what I submit.
Edit history:
mrprmiller: 2015-02-21 04:54:40 pm
mrprmiller: 2015-02-20 11:46:06 pm
Everyday is puppies and sunshine...
One more important thing to mention!  I got in contact with the guy who designed the DOSBox package for this game's release on GOG.com at the "Quest for More Glory" forum.  At his request, I sent him the save file of the glitch I encountered in the Brigand's Cafeteria.  I also made a recording showing him the glitch in action, including the DOS message errors.  He is currently in the process of getting ready for 1.1 of "Quest for Infamy," but said he will be looking into this.

This game expects save/loads, which prevents more crashes than they probably realized.  Speedrunning this game produced crashes that shouldn't happen.  Really want to thank Crow! for his DOSBox config fix, which he mentioned finding out about from Puri.  I will mention what I changed in my new run comments which I will likely get to tomorrow or Sunday is already uploaded.
Might be magic...
Quote from mrprmiller:
Want to apologize to Crow! for the TAB strategy I neglected.  He mentioned it in the discussion forum in the middle of one of his posts a while back and I did not even see it.  This approval is cool but bittersweet, because I have beaten this Thief run now through better click optimization and RNG.  Did it even without using TAB, which would be a major (and necessary) re-learning process.  This time is beatable; I already did it and have the VGA beating the EGA run time.  :/


SDA is always keen to accept improvements to existing runs. Submit your faster time which addresses Crow's suggestions - I'd definitely be interested to see the faster time up here. Although, if it interrupts your other speedruns there's no rush to go back to this one, as sometimes it can be a bit heavy to take on multiple runs at a time.

Plus, watching 5% of my childhood get well and truly whipped is quite entertaining to watch Smiley