4 ms·

So, is the opinion that he just fabricated the photo, or that he had a knack for figuring these glitches out? Because as far as I know, glitching things is con

by bbarn 9y ago

So, is the opinion that he just fabricated the photo, or that he had a knack for figuring these glitches out? Because as far as I know, glitching things is considered all well and good with speed runners, and lots of his other high scores imply some kind of glitching or another.

jerf 9y ago
Glitching is not universally considered "well and good" by speedrunners. There are multiple categories. Claiming you have a glitchless run that uses glitches is cheating. You may also run in a category that permits certain glitches, in the no-holds-barred category that must be run on real hardware, or the tool-assisted category, or any other game-specific category. Same deal. This is the current state of the world. 10 years or so ago and before, there was a much stronger presumption of glitchlessness. Though you'd still encounter the problem that rigorously defining "glitch" can be quite challenging.
tomku 9y ago
Twin Galaxies is notorious for banning glitches completely and it's one of the many reasons the speedrunning community abandoned TG. If he glitched, his runs would be invalid by TG's own rules. As far as glitching in speedruns nowadays, it depends. You play by the rules of the category you choose to run, which may allow no glitches, some specific glitches or all glitches. To give an example, let's take a look at a popular speedgame, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time[1]. The "Any%" record, meaning beating the game with all glitches allowed, is 17m09s. The "Glitchless" completion record is 3hr48m38s. Categories like "No IM/WW" and "MST" are glitch limit categories where specific glitches are banned and the times are intermediate between any% and glitchless. Less-popular games will have fewer categories, but if there's interesting glitches, there'll usually be at least "no/few glitches" and "more/all glitches" categories. [1]: https://www.speedrun.com/oot https://www.speedrun.com/oot
- xamuel 9y ago
  >banning glitches How can you even define glitches? In the original Super Mario Brothers, you could dash and then crouch and then slide through narrow tunnels while crouching. It wasn't documented in any official manual or anything, but everyone did it. Is that a glitch?
  - balls187 9y ago
    Speedrunslive defines a glitch as an "unintentional mistake in games code." In your example, the dash-crouch in SMB is a glitch.
    - glhaynes 9y ago
      Unless we're talking about something different than I'm imagining (like sliding through a wall or something), that seems obviously not a glitch. Mario has momentum that continues to apply when he changes to a crouching state and it would look really weird if it didn't. (I recognize that this is just proving the point that "glitch or not" is hard to define... and probably harder to define than one would expect.)
      - munchbunny 9y ago
        Ultimately the definition of what is or isn't a glitch isn't the most important question because it's often such a fuzzy question. Like how some competitive gaming communities often have informal rules to keep competitive play interesting by banning specific overpowered mechanics, the more important reason for allowing/banning specific glitches or types of glitches is to keep the competition interesting for speedrunners and viewers. Obviously some games are more interesting than others to speedrun, but like in the example of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, by ruling out specific glitches you can make sure that speedrunners continue to explore the surface area of the game rather than only trying to optimize a specific glitch with outsized impact on run-time.
      - balls187 9y ago
        Yeah you're right, I'm thinking of a different glitch, sliding through walls above mario which, unrelated to running, crouching, and using momentum.
  - tomku 9y ago
    Different speedrun communities define "glitches" and decide which to allow/ban differently. There's always going to be some subjectivity. In the community I'm most familiar with (Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past), we assume that the devs did not intend for you to wiggle through single-pixel diagonal holes in sloped walls to get out-of-bounds or trigger the flute you may not even have by using a potion on the same frame you go through an east-facing door, and because those techniques allow you to play the game very differently than designed, we consider them major glitches and put runs using them in different categories. There are several glitches that we classify as "minor" and allow in every category like item dashing and spin speed. Some people argue whether bomb jumps are glitches or not, but they're also allowed in every category. At the far glitchy end, there's something called the "exploration glitch" that allows you to change Link's sprite's layer to one that allows you to walk semi-freely between map tiles. Exploration glitch is banned in all but a few very specific categories because it completely trivializes the game and lets you walk to the Triforce room within 90-120 seconds of starting the game. The point of all this isn't to determine the single valid way to play the game (hi Twin Galaxies!) but to allow for sets of rules that make the speedrun more interesting. The same goal (reach the Triforce room) takes 1m31s with no restrictions, 26m50s with the "worst" game-breaking glitches banned and 1hr23m19s with all major glitches banned, and all three are completely different experiences. Edit: some extra info on minor glitches (https://pastebin.com/zYM6TPmS https://pastebin.com/zYM6TPmS) and major glitches (https://pastebin.com/bb0vHjcm https://pastebin.com/bb0vHjcm) as defined by the ALTTP community, and the leaderboard with all the categories: https://www.speedrun.com/alttp https://www.speedrun.com/alttp
unreal37 9y ago
There's no photo. There's no evidence at all, except that Activision accepted the score back in the day.

by bbarn 9y ago

jerf 9y ago

Glitching is not universally considered "well and good" by speedrunners. There are multiple categories. Claiming you have a glitchless run that uses glitches is cheating. You may also run in a category that permits certain glitches, in the no-holds-barred category that must be run on real hardware, or the tool-assisted category, or any other game-specific category. Same deal. This is the current state of the world. 10 years or so ago and before, there was a much stronger presumption of glitchlessness. Though you'd still encounter the problem that rigorously defining "glitch" can be quite challenging.

tomku 9y ago

Twin Galaxies is notorious for banning glitches completely and it's one of the many reasons the speedrunning community abandoned TG. If he glitched, his runs would be invalid by TG's own rules. As far as glitching in speedruns nowadays, it depends. You play by the rules of the category you choose to run, which may allow no glitches, some specific glitches or all glitches. To give an example, let's take a look at a popular speedgame, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time[1]. The "Any%" record, meaning beating the game with all glitches allowed, is 17m09s. The "Glitchless" completion record is 3hr48m38s. Categories like "No IM/WW" and "MST" are glitch limit categories where specific glitches are banned and the times are intermediate between any% and glitchless. Less-popular games will have fewer categories, but if there's interesting glitches, there'll usually be at least "no/few glitches" and "more/all glitches" categories. [1]: https://www.speedrun.com/oot https://www.speedrun.com/oot

xamuel 9y ago
>banning glitches How can you even define glitches? In the original Super Mario Brothers, you could dash and then crouch and then slide through narrow tunnels while crouching. It wasn't documented in any official manual or anything, but everyone did it. Is that a glitch?
- balls187 9y ago
  Speedrunslive defines a glitch as an "unintentional mistake in games code." In your example, the dash-crouch in SMB is a glitch.
  - glhaynes 9y ago
    Unless we're talking about something different than I'm imagining (like sliding through a wall or something), that seems obviously not a glitch. Mario has momentum that continues to apply when he changes to a crouching state and it would look really weird if it didn't. (I recognize that this is just proving the point that "glitch or not" is hard to define... and probably harder to define than one would expect.)
    - munchbunny 9y ago
      Ultimately the definition of what is or isn't a glitch isn't the most important question because it's often such a fuzzy question. Like how some competitive gaming communities often have informal rules to keep competitive play interesting by banning specific overpowered mechanics, the more important reason for allowing/banning specific glitches or types of glitches is to keep the competition interesting for speedrunners and viewers. Obviously some games are more interesting than others to speedrun, but like in the example of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, by ruling out specific glitches you can make sure that speedrunners continue to explore the surface area of the game rather than only trying to optimize a specific glitch with outsized impact on run-time.
    - balls187 9y ago
      Yeah you're right, I'm thinking of a different glitch, sliding through walls above mario which, unrelated to running, crouching, and using momentum.
- tomku 9y ago
  Different speedrun communities define "glitches" and decide which to allow/ban differently. There's always going to be some subjectivity. In the community I'm most familiar with (Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past), we assume that the devs did not intend for you to wiggle through single-pixel diagonal holes in sloped walls to get out-of-bounds or trigger the flute you may not even have by using a potion on the same frame you go through an east-facing door, and because those techniques allow you to play the game very differently than designed, we consider them major glitches and put runs using them in different categories. There are several glitches that we classify as "minor" and allow in every category like item dashing and spin speed. Some people argue whether bomb jumps are glitches or not, but they're also allowed in every category. At the far glitchy end, there's something called the "exploration glitch" that allows you to change Link's sprite's layer to one that allows you to walk semi-freely between map tiles. Exploration glitch is banned in all but a few very specific categories because it completely trivializes the game and lets you walk to the Triforce room within 90-120 seconds of starting the game. The point of all this isn't to determine the single valid way to play the game (hi Twin Galaxies!) but to allow for sets of rules that make the speedrun more interesting. The same goal (reach the Triforce room) takes 1m31s with no restrictions, 26m50s with the "worst" game-breaking glitches banned and 1hr23m19s with all major glitches banned, and all three are completely different experiences. Edit: some extra info on minor glitches (https://pastebin.com/zYM6TPmS https://pastebin.com/zYM6TPmS) and major glitches (https://pastebin.com/bb0vHjcm https://pastebin.com/bb0vHjcm) as defined by the ALTTP community, and the leaderboard with all the categories: https://www.speedrun.com/alttp https://www.speedrun.com/alttp

unreal37 9y ago

There's no photo. There's no evidence at all, except that Activision accepted the score back in the day.