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> 1. Are we allowed to set our system clock to a time in the future? These rules were written to apply to console games, which typically didn't have a system c

> 1. Are we allowed to set our system clock to a time in the future? These rules were written to apply to console games, which typically didn't have a system clock, or didn't use it to affect gameplay. (It's also not clear that it was even known at the time that the system time was used as the RNG seed.) > 4. Can two segments of a segmented run come from different savefiles? Generally not. Otherwise, a "run" would degenerate into starting the game, saving at the first opportunity, then loading a save which has almost completed the game and finishing it from there. That's clearly not a meaningful or interesting competition. The expectation is that segments are used as "checkpoints" in what could have, in principle, been a single-segment run. For some games where there's very little state saved - e.g. if progress through the game consists entirely of how many levels you've completed - there's some room for bending this rule. For a game with complex state like Diablo, though? Absolutely not.

thaumasiotes 2y ago
>> 4. Can two segments of a segmented run come from different savefiles? > Generally not. Otherwise, a "run" would degenerate into starting the game, saving at the first opportunity, then loading a save which has almost completed the game and finishing it from there. That's clearly not a meaningful or interesting competition. This doesn't make any sense. If you can do that with two savefiles, you can also do it with one savefile. Start the game, save, end your segment, play through the rest of the game without recording it, save, start your second segment, and defeat the final boss. Voilà. That doesn't work because the segment following another segment must pick up where the earlier one left off, which is just as possible with multiple savefiles as it is with one. It's legitimate, for example, to play through segments 1/2/3/4/5, then go back and redo segment 2, and then continue on from redone-segment-2 to an all new redone-segment-3, which has lost all pretense of existing in the same timeline as the original run did.
- duskwuff 2y ago
  > It's legitimate, for example, to play through segments 1/2/3/4/5, then go back and redo segment 2, and then continue on from redone-segment-2 to an all new redone-segment-3, which has lost all pretense of existing in the same timeline as the original run did. Even then that could be pretty dubious, depending on the game - you'd need to demonstrate that your redone-segment-3 ended at a game state indistinguishable from the end of the original segment 3.

thaumasiotes 2y ago

>> 4. Can two segments of a segmented run come from different savefiles? > Generally not. Otherwise, a "run" would degenerate into starting the game, saving at the first opportunity, then loading a save which has almost completed the game and finishing it from there. That's clearly not a meaningful or interesting competition. This doesn't make any sense. If you can do that with two savefiles, you can also do it with one savefile. Start the game, save, end your segment, play through the rest of the game without recording it, save, start your second segment, and defeat the final boss. Voilà. That doesn't work because the segment following another segment must pick up where the earlier one left off, which is just as possible with multiple savefiles as it is with one. It's legitimate, for example, to play through segments 1/2/3/4/5, then go back and redo segment 2, and then continue on from redone-segment-2 to an all new redone-segment-3, which has lost all pretense of existing in the same timeline as the original run did.

duskwuff 2y ago
> It's legitimate, for example, to play through segments 1/2/3/4/5, then go back and redo segment 2, and then continue on from redone-segment-2 to an all new redone-segment-3, which has lost all pretense of existing in the same timeline as the original run did. Even then that could be pretty dubious, depending on the game - you'd need to demonstrate that your redone-segment-3 ended at a game state indistinguishable from the end of the original segment 3.