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This is something I’ve posted about in the AGDQ chat thread a few times this year (and in previous years too actually), so apologies for anyone tired of hearing this from me. I’m not a speedrunner and I don’t really know much of the speedrunning community, but I do enjoy watching them sometimes, especially watching the GDQ events and every time I do I’m inspired to try speedrunning a game which is always something specific close to me: Star Control 2. The problem with this is that I’ve only ever played the game casually many, many years ago in a friends 3DO. Naturally as I haven’t played it for years I would learn as much as I can casually before learning speedrunning techniques. I also don’t have a 3DO so I would want to run the Ur Quan Masters free PC port. A problem with this is I think the Ur Quan Masters isn’t officially recognised by the community because it’s an unofficial port of the game - I’m not 100% sure about though, but I do remember reading a topic on one of the speedrun websites about this once a couple of years ago. However I cannot find much information on actually speedrunning this game, with techniques and whatnot, and I can only find a few runs of it on YouTube. I’ll admit possibly I’m not looking well enough or in the right places for information. My questions: with a game with little information and a few runs, what would be the best way of learning it? Study the videos there are and try to replicate what they do and see if I can contact the runner(s) to ask for advice? Like I said at the start this is something I’ve thought about for some time now but I am unsure if I could even manage to do it, I am a casual games player, I don’t usually stick to a specific game for long after completing what I want to do in it, so maybe I’ll not actually end up even speedrunning this. However I think I’d like to try!
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Jan 20, 2018 10:50
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 07:08 |
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Hello friends, after GDQ I always have an interest in trying to speedrun (usually Star Control 2 but I end up getting distracted by there being so many games I need to play casually). I asked this in the chat thread but thought I'd come here to ask too. I've been looking into getting a SNES Classic Mini since GDQ because I realised it has a large number of games I don't own (all of them), some I've never played such as Final Fantasy VI (which I'm interested in playing after seeing the speedrun) and Earthbound which I've heard is good, and some others, and a couple that I'd like to try dabbling at speedrunning such as Super Metroid or a Link to the Past. Would a SNES classic mini be a good investment for this sort of thing, or is there a better way to play these especially if I want to try my hand at speedrunning them? Would there be any disadvantage or advantage to using one that might make it not allowed if for some reason I find myself being good at speedrunning a specific game?
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Jul 2, 2018 16:33
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Phone posted:A SNES Classic Mini is fine for getting into speedruns. A bunch of people in the ALTTP Randomizer community use them for their races and runs. Nep-Nep posted:SNES classic is great I love mine and it's generally considered legitimate as a platform for speedruns. Great, thank you both! I can't afford one right now but I'll definitely get one when I can  I'm quite interested in trying out some of the games, and especially trying a little speedruning for the more popular ones, I never owned a SNES and didn't play so many of the games.
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Jul 2, 2018 19:03
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Oyster posted:Keep in mind the SNES Classic does have a bit of extra lag on flash-heavy games like Earthbound, making it run a bit slower, so if you're looking to speedrun that it might not be the best idea. Most games aren't affected, but some are. Star Fox 2 is a victim of this as well, but since it's the only legit way to play that game it wouldn't disqualify you from running it. (run Star Fox 2 so I have motivation to pick it up again). Ah, that’s good to know. I was planning on playing Earhbound anything but casually (I’ve not played it before), but for the other games I’ll keep that in kind. To be honest I’m sure if I did try my hand at spedrunning I wouldn’t be very good at it. I’ll definitely try Star Fox 2 if/when I get a SNES Classic Mini! I’ve always kept this dumb idea/dream that I want to become really good at running Star Control 2 and end up running it at GDQ, but ever time I try to play it other games just distract me away.
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Jul 2, 2018 21:38
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A bunch of pages back I was asking about a SNES classic, both to try my hand at learning to speedrunn a few games (such as LttP or Super Metroid), and also playing a lot of games on there casually that I've never played before. I've just picked one up and I plan to start playing some things on there when I'm done playing a couple of games I've been playing a lot lately. I think I might try playing LttP first and trying some speedrunning with that because I'm in a big Zelda mood lately - I'm playing through Twilight Princess for the first time in many years and I'm planning to replay Breath of the Wild too, albeit casually, but LttP is something I want to do and figure out how to go fast. I do have a couple of questions related to this, if I may: 1) I've often read of the LttP randomiser in this thread and it sounds interesting to try when I get a better feel for the game, plus when I asked about the SNES classic someone mentioned it could be played on there, but I don't really know how to do it. Is it some kind of setting in the game? 2) This is not exactly related to speedrunning but recently I've been streaming a lot of games I've been playing via my PS4 and sometimes PC (even though my PC isn't very good), not many people at all watch me and I'm boring to watch but I still do it, it's more a project to give myself something to aim to do and keep me occupied and try to "succeed" at I guess. I just needed something to keep me positive and going for the goals/achievements on twitch is helping me. As I've been doing this a lot I've been wanting to stream from other systems too, such as my Switch or now the SNES Classic. I've been told there is hardware that can plug in to the console and my PC so it will stream through OBS like I'm streaming on PC. I've heard two names mentioned, Elgato and Avermedia, but they have many products and I'm really not sure which would be best for me. Do any of you use these type of things or have knowledge of them? As this isn't really related to speedrunning maybe there is another thread on SA someone knows that may be better for me to ask in?
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Jul 17, 2018 17:05
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SuccinctAndPunchy posted:I use an Elgato and it's fine but like, you can do better at that price point. It functions without too much and has its own passthrough so you don't have to fiddle about with splitting the video signal which can vastly simplify your setup and I like this, but I've known it to be somewhat temperamental, sometimes requiring a reboot of my computer to actually output signal for seemingly no good reason. That's great info, thanks, it helps me understand them better. I'll admit I don't have much of a budget for this, I'll probably consider a refurbished or used capture card if I decide to get one. My PC isn't too good (I haven't upgraded it for many years now but saving towards it, as it's got issues), so maybe one that's external would be best. I can stream okay with OBS, even if games aren't really going on high settings, so I think it would be okay for a streaming console related things. Peewi posted:Randomizer is a romhack and not an official thing by Nintendo. You'd add it to the SNES Mini the same way you'd add other games (also not something supported by Nintendo). Oyster posted:The SNES Classic is good for experiencing LttP, but if you're intending on learning the speedrun of the most popular category, No Major Glitches, you'll need the Japanese 1.0 version, as the American version on the Classic patches out many of the minor glitches used in the run. That is also the ROM used for rando. It can be loaded onto the Classic with the wonderful and easy to use tool Hakchi (myself and Nep-Nep almost run exclusively on our Classics), but finding that ROM is completely up to you. Ah, I see. I don't really know much about ROMs and whatnot, that's a shame I'd need the Japanese version too if I wanted to learn it. I thought it could use the LttP on the SNES Classic itself for this sort of thing, I guess I misunderstood a post someone made about that. I'll look into that tool you mentioned but I guess as I don't have a Japanese version that wouldn't help me. Thank you both for the info though. Are the other games, such as Super Metroid, on the SNES Classic okay for learning to speedrun? Nothing really complicated or long of the games it has, I just want to try a little now I have one.
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Jul 17, 2018 22:45
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xamphear posted:The SNES (and NES) Classic is a little linux computer running emulators. There's a USB port on the back and if you plug it into your PC and use the Hakchi2 software, you can load it up with all the ROMs you want. You can even play NES games on the SNES classic. Hell, you can play GameBoy, Genesis, etc... If you're interested in learning, you can turn the SNES Classic into a hell of a retro box. Oh I see, that sounds really interesting, I didn't know any of that! I'll check out that retro thread for sure. Still somewhat disappointed about not really being able to do a lot of the glitches and things with the LttP that's on the SNES classic though because I really wanted to try doing some speedrunning with that. Hopefully other games on the system would still be okay if I felt I liked the games enough to want to try learning those.
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Jul 18, 2018 11:22
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Takoluka posted:If you were to go out and buy a Super Nintendo and a copy of A Link to the Past, you wouldn't be able to do it there either. You would have to find an original Japanese 1.0 copy, which can only be played by having a Super Famicom or by physically modifying the Super Nintendo itself or the Super Famicom cartridge. Ah I see, that makes sense then. I didn't realise that before I bought the SNES classic, I just misunderstood a post or two I read in this thread and a couple of other bits of information I saw elsewhere, but no problem. I have the SNES Classic and I'm very happy with it though, especially as I can causally play a whole bunch of games I've never played before! I also looked into the Hakchi tool someone mentioned and installed that on it, I have a button combo to go back to the menu instead of pressing the reset button now which is fantastic. I can still learn to speedrun some of the others on the SNES Classic I'm sure (super metroid seems fun!), which is why I've been posting here about it, I've always enjoyed watching speedruns but never really tried it myself. I've probably derailed the thread enough though, apologies for that everyone (especially when I was asking about capture cards). Thank you for all the advice and information, I'm sure I'll post more speedrun specific questions to games and whatnot as I try it more.
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Jul 18, 2018 18:05
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I realise I've been asking about the SNES Classic a lot in this thread (and I still plan to play those games soon) but do any of you have any experience with speedrunning Dragons Dogma: Dark Arisen? I've recently started playing it casually after getting it for my PS4 and I remember how much I love this game from playing it back on the xbox 360. After I've completed a playthrough or two casually to re-familiarize with the game, I'm thinking I might try my hand at speedrunning it. It has a inbuilt speedrun mode too which is pretty awesome! It's such a fun game and I really think I want to learn it. I've found a couple of guides for a speedrun on normal new game mode and also for the speedrun mode (although the setup section for the speedrun mode isn't there as far as I can tell so I'm not sure what level or items I'd definitely need are) but I'm definitely very interested in giving that a go and I was wondering if anyone here had any experience or advice.
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Jul 22, 2018 10:42
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I really love the Darksiders series, I’m super hype for 3, so I hope this run is good Edit: I made this post thinking I was in the esa chat thread, sorry, I only just realised my mistake 
RoboJoe fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Jul 24, 2018 |
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Jul 24, 2018 16:13
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Captain Invictus posted:Man. I finally finished the ff6 run from sgdq. That was so, so good. Had to break it up over multiple sessions but what a great run, full of great comedy, great rng, great commentary, and great SINGING and DANCING! Yeah that run was fantastic and so much fun to watch, I’m glad I watched it live even though I had to stay awake all night until 7am or so to finish it. I always enjoy watching the long RPGs at marathons. I think tomorrow I’m going to watch the entirety of the FF9 run  It also helped inspire me to finally want to get a SNES Classic which I did a couple of weeks ago) so I can play some of the games casually, especially FFVI, and try speed running a few, because I’ve never played any of the games on it!
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Jul 24, 2018 16:27
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I'm trying to learn a run of a game and I could do with some advice about how to do this if anyone can help, particularly if you have experience running RPG type games. I'm familiar with the game itself now and I can do one of the categories fine enough (even though I can still improve on that I think) so I generally know most of the routes, quests, and other things I need to do. The Any% route I'm trying to learn is a bit different with other routing variations and it's much much longer so I'm still a little unsure of some aspects which I need to practise and learn better. I'm thinking I could do it in about 1 hour 30m to 1 hour 45m (compared to the 18-20m for the category I know). I learned the shorter speed route much easier even though I can still improve but the amount of things I need to do and where to go is overwhelming me now in the longer run. Which leads me to my questions: How do some of you learn games/routes for a run similar in length (or longer)? Would it be best to focus on doing multiple runs in a day or would doing one or two every day and trying to improve upon yesterday be a better option? If I find myself struggling with a specific area is it best to practise that part specifically multiple times? (Even though that's somewhat difficult to set up in this game due to needing items I bring along from other parts.) Or should I try to do full runs as much as possible and just complete them to get a finish time? This is the first game I'm seriously trying to speedrun so that's why I'm struggling a little now I'm doing a more advanced category and have dumb questions. EDIT: I submitted a run and it got accepted! I'm officially a speedrunner now with my first game and 7th on the leaderboard  https://www.speedrun.com/ddda/full_game This makes me far happier than I should be reacting probably but it's fantastic to see! RoboJoe fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Aug 6, 2018 |
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Aug 6, 2018 13:29
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heeheex2 posted:I think category length isn’t necessarily something that changes how you practice, but with like 18 hours difference between the categories it’s obviously a lot more feasible to focus on tighter optimization of whatever gets you past things faster (RPG so I assume menuing, grinding, routing etc), instead of just a general “follow a route as fast and exactly as I can for 18 hours”. Figure out what you aren’t totally comfortable with, and (IMO) just keep doing it til you understand the way it should go, and how you can fix small things you mess up. If it’s possible to practice on an emulator, save-states make it a thousand times less of a pain in the rear end. Sorry, I made a typo, the category I know was 18-20 minutes (at least that's my usual time, the WR is 14m or so!) compared to the 1 hour 30m or so category I'm trying to learn. However your advice still makes a lot of sense to me, I like the idea of sometimes just practising areas and other times not resetting no matter what. I just don't want to get burned out on playing the game constantly which is a worry, usually that happens as I mainly play games casually and play one a lot then just suddenly drop it. SO I'm trying to work out a way to keep improving my PB and keep playing the game. I actually just loaded up a game I had backed up that's in the end game area I had some struggles on my last attempt, just so I could practise a series of drops to rooms because I still find the area quite confusing. I think if I make sure to check out that area before I start a run just to refresh myself on it that will help for near the end of the proper attempt until I don't need to reference any notes or even check it out before I do an attempt. There are a couple of other areas (particularly early in the run, it's basically an annoying escort quest) that I'm not too sure how I could optimise though, I think I need to watch some videos of other peoples runs to see if that will help me get better ideas to improve. Thank you!
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Aug 6, 2018 21:04
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Roflex posted:RE: Long RPG runs: Thank you, that's very useful information for me! Especially regarding point two there, I have loaded up a save multiple times just to practise the endgame area and make sure I go to the correct parts to get through as efficiently as possible. I've been watching part of the world record run too to try to give me betters ideas of how to get some routes faster like when I'm travelling through a mountain area or wherever. I realise the run I'm doing isn't really as long as other RPG runs (and it's more an action RPG) but still, I was struggling trying to get into it and learn things to get my times down, plus I still find it hard to just sit down and solidly concentrate on it for even 1 and a half hours. I've been getting better at the run, but I'm still struggling to remember certain things like "at this time I go back to the main city and buy 18 health restores and 110 stamina restores" because I can't get the numbers or exactly what I need at that point into my memory. I'm still quite reliant on the notes I use for that sort of thing and trying to stop using them is difficult for me. On a positive note, things are going well with my runs, I'm now on the leaderboard for two categories  It felt super good to get the time, especially on any%, I can't even imagine how great it'd feel to break into the top 3 or even get a world record on a game (not that I think I would) but it's pretty great to see my name up as there officially as a speedrunner. I guess that sounds stupid though.7th place for Speedrun mode (NG+)! https://www.speedrun.com/ddda/full_game#Speedrun_Mode_NG%2B 5th place for new game any%! https://www.speedrun.com/ddda/full_game#Any I think I should be 4th place though, I guess I entered my times the wrong way around when submitting it and I don't know how to get that fixed :/ However I didn't think I'd do much better than this which is why I submitted a few days ago, but today I got a new PB of 1h 25m 53s which is so close to taking third place (1h25m51s) in this category which I think I might be able to do, I just save 3 seconds somewhere on a good run! I won't submit a new run to the leaderboards until I manage to do that because I don't want to spam submissions (I don't really know the protocol on when I should submit runs to be honest because I know it wastes peoples time if I do that).
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Aug 10, 2018 14:47
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That's great Kaubocks! Being first to sub-20 in the NA is still something to be proud of. I did another run of DD:DA yesterday and beat my PB again, which I never expected, I was a full minute faster than before which would put me in third place for this category! I'm going to submit this run today and hope everything is okay. I'm still struggling to remember some details without my notes though. I did question on the forum about how my previous run times were reversed and also how much I'm allowed to submit runs and the mod there just said submit whenever I feel like it, so I'm glad I don't feel like I'm wasting his time. I had another thought in that topic too and I wondered if this category is time on real time, or on ingame time like the other category I run. I thought it was real time but I was told this one is IGT too, so I checked my IGT for the run again and it's 1:17:00. That would put me in second place  I didn't expect that at all, especially as my real time is 3 minute slower than the run in second (but 1 min faster IGT). Playing on PS4 adds a lot of extra time it seems so that's just amazing for me to see.I never expected to break into the top three for this category, or well, any category on any game, so I am super happy about this as long as the run is accepted anyway I think I might go back to running the main category again too to see if I can improve my time there.
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Aug 11, 2018 09:17
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I did something I never thought I'd do: I took 1st place to get a World Record in something! I thought because I was playing Dragon's Dogma so much in the two main categories I thought I'd try for another category there so I did a run and ended up going fast enough to get 1st place . It's not too impressive considering only 4 other people have done this category I suppose, but I never thought I'd be able to get 1st anywhere when I started speedrunning a month or two ago, so I'm very happy. This was the category:https://www.speedrun.com/ddda/full_game#Dragonslayer Also, I took second place in new game any% too (which is the main category I do) with the last run I submitted so that's fantastic! I didn't think I'd get 2nd but I found out it's timed on IGT rather than real time so that put me there. https://www.speedrun.com/ddda/full_game#Any I'm going to start running the Speedrun (New game+) category again to try to improve my time there too now! Maybe people here aren't too interested as not many people run this game but I was inspired by some of the posters here (especially Punchy) and all the events and I finally found a game I enjoyed enough to speedrun rather than dropping it when I was done. Plus all the help and advice I received from the thread is fantastic so I thought I'd let you all know how it's going for me. Maybe I'll try learning other games too!
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Aug 15, 2018 14:23
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 07:08 |
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iospace posted:Grats! Thank you! MORE TAXES WHEN posted:Grats on the wr. You trying for 1st on ng any% or planning on doing speedrun mode? For now I’m going to improve my times in speedrun mode, to see if I can break into the top 3, but getting under 16:30 or so would be challenging. My PB is 17m 11s now though so it could be possible. I don’t think I’d be able to take the WR in New game any% though, the WR time is absurdly good, and I’m not sure I’m good enough to improve my time that much. I’ll be keeping at both categories though!
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Aug 17, 2018 06:50
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