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Speedrunning Thread - RESETRESETRESET

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Most of you probably have heard of Siglemic or CosmoWright, some might even have watched their streams at some point, or maybe some of you have watched a speedrun marathon.
This thread will be dedicated to speedrunning, and give you the basics of what's going on with that, and if you are interested, where to go if you want to find out more.


The heck is "speedrunning"?
Speedrunning, in its basic gist, means playing a game as fast as possible.
There are many different types of speedrunning, but the most important ones as TAS and "normal" speedruns.

TAS stands for Tool Assisted Speedruns. This means that the person who speedruns the game uses emulators and their built-in tools such as slowdown (down to frame by frame slowdown) in order to optimize the button inputs, routes, and even find exploits and glitches. TAS are NOT using any cheats or cheat devices.

Normal speedruns are just someone picking up a controller and playing through the game as fast as they can. Even if you are just casually wanting to beat your favorite game as quick as you can, and even if you aren't world record material, you could call yourself being a speedrunner.

TAS and normal runners often work together, some do even run their game in both ways. This thread is mostly focusing on "normal" speedrunning, although I wanted to mention the TAS as well, as they are a significant part of speedrunning in general.


Okay, that sounds cool. How do I start?
Just pick up a game you really enjoy playing, and don't mind playing a LOT in case you wanna get really good at it. You will have to play that game over and over again, hundreds if not thousands of times.

Most speedrunners stream their games on Twitch nowadays, so it's very easy to find a runner you can watch and pick up tricks from. Watching recorded speedruns as well as TAS videos also can help you to find the quickest route, possible skips and glitches.

Almost every game has several categories it is run in. The most common ones are any% and 100%. Any% means that a game is run as quickly as possible, taking every skip and exploit you can, and possibly leaving out large portions of the game. 100% means that you, for instance, pick up all collectibles, or complete all levels in a game.
There's more categories for specific games, if you wanna know more about your game, it's best to read up on it a bit, and see what feasible categories there are.

Games usually also are completed either segmented or single segment/real time attack (RTA).
Segmented means that you save in between certain levels or sections of the game, and manipulate your luck rolls by loading until you have the possibly best outcome.
Single segment/RTA means that you play through the game in one sitting, and deal with whatever the dreaded RNG (Random Number Generator, which is the speedrunners' universal name for randomness/luck in a game) throws at you. There's a small difference between SS and RTA, which is that one of them allows you to reset in between (e.g. for RNG manipulation or save file corruption), while the other doesn't.

Maybe find other people who wanna play it or are already doing so - having someone around your level of skill to race and play with is great, and if you find someone who's much better than you, they can teach you a few tricks.


Alright, what can I speedrun? Are there any games I can't?
Just run whatever the heck you want! Almost every game can be speedran, although there are some games that don't lend themselves very well to speedrunning (e.g. fighting games), or they already have an established progression that cannot be sped up (e.g. rhythm games, and a lot of shoot em ups), or they have no actual end (e.g. MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, or social games like Farmville).
Every other genre is being run, though - and it doesn't matter what generation it is from either. You can find speedrunners for popular and well-known games such as Mario or Final Fantasy, up to speedrunners for really obscure or terrible games, including recent ones such as Sonic 06.

Of course, different games mean different expectations from you as a player. There are very execution heavy, skill-based games. Other games are very long to speedrun and pretty much require you to keep notes and have quite some endurance - RPGs often fall into this category.


Do I need recording gear, or do I have to stream my stuff?
Nah. If you want to submit your run to SDA (I'll get to that in just a bit), you should, and if you want to race on SRL, you should as well. But there's no requirement. If you just wanna run your game and noone should see it, that's just as fine as streaming it to other people, or recording it and sharing it on video sites.


Okay, you say I should check for other people running those games. Where should I go?
For you as an aspiring speedrunner, there are 3 major sites you want to look into:

TAS Videos is as its name suggests, a site dedicated to videos of TAS runs.

Speed Demos Archive (SDA) is a site dedicated to presenting high quality recordings of speedruns, and their forum is one of the biggest communities to discuss strategies for speedruns.

SpeedRunsLive (SRL) is dedicated to the live streaming aspect of speedrunning, focusing on races between speedrunners, as well as a leaderboards system, thus shifting more towards the competitive side of it.

You can find links to each just a bit further down. SDA and SRL are your go-to sites even if you are not interested in running a game yourself, but just wanna watch some streams or know what's going on in the speedrunning community.
Quite a few games also have sites or wikis dedicated to collecting strategies and/or best times, which you should easily find out by either asking at the respective threads on SDA, or asking a runner who does the game you're interested in.


Cool! You mentioned marathons earlier, what's up with that?
Most of the speedrunning community is very dedicated towards getting together and streaming speedruns live in marathons over several days, in order to raise money for charity. The most notable marathon in this regard is Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ), which is an annual event hosted by SDA every January that usually runs for about a week, and raises money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
There's also an off-shoot during summer (Summer GDQ), and there's also many more marathons hosted for different reasons - last year saw, for instance, the Hurricane Sandython hosted by SRL, which raised money for victims of the titular hurricane.
Usually the marathon hosts try to not schedule their events during other speedrun events, so it's unlikely there'll be more than one marathon at a time.


Useful Links:
Speed Demos Archive (SDA)
SpeedRunsLive (SRL)
TAS Videos
Team Ludendi - A Swedish speedrunner/gaming community that hosts the European equivalent of AGDQ, the ESA marathon (European Speedster Assembly).
The Sunday Sequence Break - A weekly podcast (each Sunday @ 7PM EST), covering each week's speedrunning news, such as world records, as well as a game of the week that gets special showcasing, and weekly special guests.


Stream pages:
There's a LOT of speedrunners, and I wouldn't do any of them justice if I just linked those I was watching. You can find just about every speedrunner in one (or more) of these Twitch TV team pages:
http://www.twitch.tv/team/sda
http://www.twitch.tv/team/srl
http://www.twitch.tv/team/ludendi
 
Nice!

Since AGDQ I started seeing what I could do for running on a couple games I have. Yeah, I'll need to play games a bit more to get near their times haha.

Also, might be cool to do profiles of speedrunners periodically so people can look for who to watch besides simply wandering around aimlessly, though SRL helps a lot.
 

Judderman

drawer by drawer
Subscribed. Pretty hyped for today's Sinisterthon! I'm going to try speedrunning Hotline Miami, will probably end in rage.
 
I currently hold the THPS3 3 Medals World Record. There are technically a couple more categories (All Goals/All Golds, 100%), but neither have had much if any planning go into them at all. To add to that, I believe there are 6 different routes depending on the skater you choose. THPS3 is a difficult, category-heavy game to speedrun that has very few people interested in it.

I also probably hold the THPS4 world record for completing 1 Pro Challenge (90 Goals/1 Pro Challenge), but it's hardly polished and easily improvable. I intended to run the game at AGDQ this year, but I just couldn't make it to the marathon and never put in the work to improve.

For the OT, DEFINITELY link to The Sunday Sequence Break. It's a weekly stream/podcast that goes over speedrun news (WRs and that sort of thing), general speedrun discussion, and a different game every Sunday at 7PM EST. They also have a handy archive full of games covered in the past in the stream info section. If you're interested in getting into or learning about a specific game that's already had a show done on it, this could be a great starting point.
 

Anth0ny

Member
I currently hold the THPS3 3 Medals World Record. There are technically a couple more categories (All Goals/All Golds, 100%), but neither have had much if any planning go into them at all. To add to that, I believe there are 6 different routes depending on the skater you choose. THPS3 is a difficult, category-heavy game to speedrun that has very few people interested in it.

Considering it's one of the greatest games ever made, there should be more interest! Incredible run, congrats on the WR!

Happy there's an OT finally. I'll do a real 70 star SM64 speed run someday...
 

JoeFu

Banned
I currently hold the THPS3 3 Medals World Record. There are technically a couple more categories (All Goals/All Golds, 100%), but neither have had much if any planning go into them at all. To add to that, I believe there are 6 different routes depending on the skater you choose. THPS3 is a difficult, category-heavy game to speedrun that has very few people interested in it.

I also probably hold the THPS4 world record for completing 1 Pro Challenge (90 Goals/1 Pro Challenge), but it's hardly polished and easily improvable. I intended to run the game at AGDQ this year, but I just couldn't make it to the marathon and never put in the work to improve.



lol @ the THPS3 run, so ridiculous. Would've been awesome to watch during AGDQ! Maybe next year?
 

Burnburn

Member
Hell yeah! I've been waiting for this OT.

I'm right now casualy running The wind waker and about to start Wario Land 4.

I would have tried The Wind Waker some more serious if not for that damn zombie hover in the first real dungeon. Seriously how is anyone supposed to tap b that fast?

For Wario Land 4 I'm still looking for a good site that has all the techniques and best paths. It's kind off hard to find a good community/site for a game that not many people run.
 
Subbed so hard. I had a very marginal interest in speedrunning prior to AGDQ 2013, but I watched a good 30 hours of the stream during that week and am now sufficiently hooked.

Is there still a "lol, goddammit Mirrored" team anywhere? I wanna be on that one!
 
Guess I should re-post this info in here now that there is an OT (good job by the way OP). Sinister1 is doing a mini marathon today here he will be running a variety of games. I think some of these will be more casual play-throughs, but it should be interesting either way; there will definitely be some good races. If at any time he gets 1000 viewers he will do blindfolded Mike Tyson's Punch-Out; imo that was one of the most hype moments at AGDQ, so everyone should check this out.

From his post on the SDA forums:

Sinister1 said:
I am planning to do a 1000th+ follower stream this Saturday and it will probably be a long one. Maybe even a mini-marathon. I will be playing every game I know and probably a lot I don't so hopefully people will stop by and see some runs. My plan is to start with the usual Saturday Ninja Gaiden races and just keep rolling afterwards with Super Metroid 100% and then everything else. I might also edit this with a schedule once I decide on a time.

EDIT:

Preliminary schedule subject to change. Also note that I have not played some of these games in a long time so estimates might be off:

1:00 - 3:00pm Ninja Gaiden I and II races vs. the field
3:00 - 4:00pm Batman races vs. srkfunkdoc
4:00 - 6:30pm Super Metroid 100%
6:30 - 7:00pm Setup 1
7:00 - 8:00pm Mega Man X 100%
8:00 - 8:30pm Contra low%
8:30 - 8:45pm Double Dragon II: The Revenge
8:45 - 9:15 TMNT IV: Turtles in Time
9:15 - 10:00pm Mega Man 2
10:00 - 12:30am The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
12:30 - 1:00am Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! *

*If at any time I get 1,000 viewers or more I will do blindfolded MTPO as the next game.
 
Thanks for the OT. The AGDQ marathon made me want to go back to speedrunning (had a phase with a couple friends a few years back).
 
Sunday sequence break also broadcast on twitch/sundaysequencebreak every sunday evening, well worth watching, different batch of games every week and they go over any new records achieved.
 

Jokab

Member
Seems like AGDQ was a turning point for both Siglemic and Cosmo.

Siglemic is learning OOT 100% with ZFG (WR holder) guiding him through the tricks. Siglemic used to be really good at Majora's Mask, probably one of the best, before he started doing SM64 fulltime, so he mostly needs to get the route and some tricks down before the run starts.

Cosmo on the other hand has been playing Paper Mario, and seems to be serious about running any% (skipping chapter 2, 3, 4 iirc).

I can understand Cosmo at least temporarily switching because of WW's poor showing at AGDQ and that it probably won't be eligable for next year. Siglemic I dunno about.

Oh and great OP!

EDIT: Maybe clarify a bit about single-segment/RTA. Single-segment means you can't reset the console, so you can't savewarp. RTA is anything goes.
 
EDIT: Maybe clarify a bit about single-segment/RTA. Single-segment means you can't reset the console, so you can't savewarp. RTA is anything goes.

Nah, they're both the same. The difference between single segment and RTA is that RTA is what the Japanese call it.
If you, for instance, can skip cutscenes by resetting a game or so, you're allowed to do so. As an example, Mike89 runs Wario Land 4, and uses resetting the game in order to skip every cutscene. I think OoT also uses savewarps and skips like that as well.

I've never heard of "no reset/savewarp" categories.
 
Let's start page 1 with a bang, sonic 06: sonic segment speedrun http://www.twitch.tv/parax0/new

This run actually includes a loading screen skip, crazy.
I clicked this to find he is currently live speedrunning a sonic game, and I couldn't find the archived video you are referencing on the page anywhere

I'm still kind unfamiliar with how the twitch layout works. Or maybe I have to wait until he isn't live broadcasting something on his channel?
 
I clicked this to find he is currently live speedrunning a sonic game, and I couldn't find the archived video you are referencing on the page anywhere

I'm still kind unfamiliar with how the twitch layout works. Or maybe I have to wait until he isn't live broadcasting something on his channel?

Oh sorry he is running live right now, he should have an archive but the new layout doesn't make it too clear. He just returned from AGDQ and I doubt anything from over 7 days ago was saved.
 

Revven

Member
I can understand Cosmo at least temporarily switching because of WW's poor showing at AGDQ and that it probably won't be eligable for next year. Siglemic I dunno about.

I think it's also partly because he hasn't gotten his GBA to GCN link cable back yet from Trihex (well depends on how soon after AGDQ Trihex sent it out). Which would be pretty crucial to have to run/practice WW again.

Additionally, I am super glad this was made. I'm not sure if I can seriously get into speedrunning (full time college student) but there is a game I do want to seriously practice/run... I just don't have the time. D:

Anyway, looking forward to all the amazing speedrun discussion! *subbed*
 
I currently hold the THPS3 3 Medals World Record. There are technically a couple more categories (All Goals/All Golds, 100%), but neither have had much if any planning go into them at all. To add to that, I believe there are 6 different routes depending on the skater you choose. THPS3 is a difficult, category-heavy game to speedrun that has very few people interested in it.

Already told you on youtube but your performance must be highlighted. I love seeing speedruns o not-so-common games.
 

kylej

Banned
Seems like AGDQ was a turning point for both Siglemic and Cosmo.

I can understand Cosmo at least temporarily switching because of WW's poor showing at AGDQ and that it probably won't be eligable for next year. Siglemic I dunno about.
.

There's nothing nefarious about it. Cosmo explained the reason a few days ago; basically AGDQ is the end of the speedrunning "season". All the hard work you put in throughout the year leads up to this exhibition with lots and lots of viewers (not as huge for Cosmo, but for dudes who average ~50 viewers on Twitch, being able to play in front of 30k+ people is a dream). Now with AGDQ over, there's a break where people can clear their heads and try other things.

Unless you're insane like the OOT guys. Runnerguy was running OOT last night, just like he has for 6 years.
 

Jokab

Member
Kirby's Dreamland and Dreamland 2 are the only games I have ever done a speedrun with. Those and a few Sonics.

Oh yeah? I made the TAS for Kirby's Dream Land 2. The route is admittedly quite poor, and I hadn't played the game before I started the TAS. If I remember correctly there was no speedrun on SDA to base any route off, so I just made it up as I went.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MIyTqusPNA (Soulrivers is my usual internet nick)
 

bjork

Member
I used to try runs for SotN awhile back and wasn't far off the record at that time, but people figured out a reliable pattern for the Richter skip and reduced the time by like 20 more minutes. But it was fun to go in and really learn the ins and outs of how a game is laid out. Wish I had the time to do runs and not just watch them, it's a cool hobby.
 

shaowebb

Member
The only games I have ever speed ran were games in my youth that pissed me off so badly I had to beat them to prove I was better than their bullshit. I'd grind and grind so that I could quickly just get back to wherever I left off to try again.

I have only ever Speed Ran "Bad Dudes" and "Dirty Harry". Im pretty sure as a kid I must have had that world record beat on Bad Dudes and NO ONE has a Dirty Harry run. Hell I memorized the sewers in the dark so I could run it back without detouring for the flashlight. The first time I hit the kill screen trap where you are right before the last boss stuff and going into the wrong room got you bricked off and trapped forever I hit the ceiling. Go to hell "Dirty Harry" nes. I had to speed run the whole game just to reach the end and try the other damned door instead so that I could finally beat the game proper.

I could probably train to do both again fairly simply since I still have both and an NES, but the thing is I just don't ever want to play these games again.Fuck them both. Fuck them so hard may their anuses look like an inverted cherry cobbler from the hate fuckery. If someone wants my crown they can have it. I will not go back for my title defense.
 
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