StarCraft cheated speedruns

presjpolk

2016-07-26 07:09:06 am

HELLO!

The problem with the concept of a 'glitchless' speedrun is that not all glitches favor the player or are avoidable.

mrprmiller

2016-07-26 07:33:44 am

Everyday is puppies and sunshine...

Quote:

The problem with the concept of a 'glitchless' speedrun is that not all glitches favor the player or are avoidable.

I think that would just be a matter of semantics, but for a literalist, I could see the problem. A URL to the definitions and base rules implied on the videos would suffice if there were people that didn't understand "glitchless" to mean "beneficial glitchless."

Quote:

In particular the invincible drone, teleporting drone / floating scv and to a lesser extent cc slide glitches. Oh, and I almost forgot the zergling to muta glitch.

There are some game-breaking ones, to be sure. I would imagine the way to get it started would be for someone to submit the game for verification as a "glitchless" category for either SS or IL.

presjpolk

2016-07-26 11:43:32 am

HELLO!

It's not just a matter of 'glitchless' vs ' beneficial glitchless.' The concept of 'glitchless' play assumes an ideal of games that normally work correctly, and only 'glitch' when forced by the runner.

But we know that's not the case. The ideal simply doesn't exist.

gammadragon

2016-08-05 05:28:13 pm

Might be magic...

I think the main problem with "glitchless" speedruns is that it's often impossible to determine what does and doesn't constitute a glitch in a game. There are obvious ones to be sure, but ultimately the definition of a glitch is something like "unintentional behaviour of the game's engine". Who confirms what aspects of a game are "unintentional"? In some cases, the "glitch" could actually be a secret feature put in by the game developers to be discovered by crafty players. There's a hugely subjective blurred line there where everyone has their own opinion.

A couple of cases in point:
* Starcraft - something like the "open the menu to pause the game and wait for the audio cut scene to end so that it doesn't count towards the total level time" manouvre (here)
* In the Jedi Outcast speedrun, there's a moment (here) where the runner uses special key bindings to roll around in an impossibly tight circle to take less damage and complete the level faster.

Glitches? Creative use of the game engine? Who decides? Possibly the only real authority in this situation would be the game's developers/publishers, who have likely moved on to some new project and aren't interested. Some sort of "glitch court" would be required to keep it fair and at that point it becomes a little ridiculous and time consuming.

I think the main problem with "glitchless" speedruns is that it's often impossible to determine what does and doesn't constitute a glitch in a game. There are obvious ones to be sure, but ultimately the definition of a glitch is something like "unintentional behaviour of the game's engine". Who confirms what aspects of a game are "unintentional"? In some cases, the "glitch" could actually be a secret feature put in by the game developers to be discovered by crafty players. There's a hugely subjective blurred line there where everyone has their own opinion.

A couple of cases in point: 
* Starcraft - something like the "open the menu to pause the game and wait for the audio cut scene to end so that it doesn't count towards the total level time" manouvre ([url="https://youtu.be/__qstrvzBKA?t=18m37s"]here[/url])
* In the Jedi Outcast speedrun, there's a moment ([url="https://youtu.be/OEDiY6SMUz8?t=26m6s"]here[/url]) where the runner uses special key bindings to roll around in an impossibly tight circle to take less damage and complete the level faster.

Glitches? Creative use of the game engine? Who decides? Possibly the only real authority in this situation would be the game's developers/publishers, who have likely moved on to some new project and aren't interested. Some sort of "glitch court" would be required to keep it fair and at that point it becomes a little ridiculous and time consuming.

Freezard

2016-08-05 09:37:00 pm

You're in luck. Blizzard has just announced an SC1 remaster which means you'll be able to watch the missions without the major glitches once people start to run it. Unless the remaster adds new glitches that is.

ymh

2016-08-05 10:05:36 pm

Quote from Freezard:

You're in luck. Blizzard has just announced an SC1 remaster which means you'll be able to watch the missions without the major glitches once people start to run it. Unless the remaster adds new glitches that is.

Tide

2016-08-06 01:39:51 am

Insanity Prelude

Quote:

I think the main problem with "glitchless" speedruns is that it's often impossible to determine what does and doesn't constitute a glitch in a game.

Qft. In some cases, you can have a bug or glitch that is completely unavoidable. The Evade glitch/bug in FF6 is pretty well known and literally, the only way to avoid it is to play a hacked copy of the game that fixed the bug so evade actually matters (it's all tied to M.Evade otherwise).

The other issue with this IMO is just regarding verification and getting people to watch. Everyone says, "I hate glitched runs!" and stuff, but ask them to sit around and verify a run that is 3 hours compared to say 30 minutes, and most of them will say no. So if you're demanding it and not watching, why should anyone pay attention to what you're saying? We do runs because we're interested in finishing the game faster, not putting on a talent show. It's why you also get "good speedruns" (ones with lots of tricks, strategy, technical aspects) and "bad speedruns" (very one dimensional, boring, repetiive). Some runs are just naturally not very interesting.

Runners are people too and people have preferences. If the community is large enough, chances are, there are people in the same camp that don't like using glitches (the Japanese Nico community for RPGs for example has a strong dislike for them in gneeral) and a glitchless run might exist. I suggest looking that up instead if glitches bother you that much.

[quote]I think the main problem with "glitchless" speedruns is that it's often impossible to determine what does and doesn't constitute a glitch in a game.[/quote]

Qft. In some cases, you can have a bug or glitch that is completely unavoidable. The Evade glitch/bug in FF6 is pretty well known and literally, the only way to avoid it is to play a hacked copy of the game that fixed the bug so evade actually matters (it's all tied to M.Evade otherwise).

The other issue with this IMO is just regarding verification and getting people to watch. Everyone says, "I hate glitched runs!" and stuff, but ask them to sit around and verify a run that is 3 hours compared to say 30 minutes, and most of them will say no. So if you're demanding it and not watching, why should anyone pay attention to what you're saying? We do runs because we're interested in finishing the game faster, not putting on a talent show. It's why you also get "good speedruns" (ones with lots of tricks, strategy, technical aspects) and "bad speedruns" (very one dimensional, boring, repetiive).  Some runs are just naturally not very interesting.

Runners are people too and people have preferences. If the community is large enough, chances are, there are people in the same camp that don't like using glitches (the Japanese Nico community for RPGs for example has a strong dislike for them in gneeral) and a glitchless run might exist. I suggest looking that up instead if glitches bother you that much.