Speedrunning - WikiHQ

thumb|Speedrun of a [[SuperTux level]]

Speedrunning is the act of playing a video game, or section of a video game, with the goal of completing it as fast as possible. Speedrunning often involves following planned routes, which may incorporate sequence breaking and exploit glitches that allow sections to be skipped or completed more quickly than intended. Tool-assisted speedrunning (TAS) is a subcategory of speedrunning that uses emulation software or additional tools to create a precisely controlled sequence of inputs or to slow down the game to perfect movements.

Many online communities revolve around speedrunning specific games; community leaderboard rankings for individual games form the primary competitive metric for speedrunning. Racing between two or more speedrunners is also a popular form of competition. Videos and livestreams of speedruns are shared via the internet on sites such as YouTube and Twitch. Speedruns are sometimes showcased at marathon events, which are gaming conventions that feature multiple people performing speedruns in a variety of games.

History

Early examples

Speedrunning has been a part of video games since the early days of the medium, similar to the chasing of high scores, though it did not achieve broad interest until 1993. Some groundwork for what would become modern speedrunning was established by id Software during the development for Wolfenstein 3D (1992), although prior games such as Metroid (1986) and Prince of Persia (1989) encouraged speedrunning by noting a player's time upon meeting certain metrics, including completion of the game. Wolfenstein 3D recorded a "par time" statistic which was based on John Romero's personal records for each level. Romero's best level times were also printed in the official hint book, which was available via the same mail-order system used to distribute the game at the time. His intention was that players would attempt to beat his times.

1993–2003: Doom and Quake demos, early Internet communities

The development of a strong speedrunning community is considered to have originated with the 1993 computer game Doom. The game retained the "par time" mechanic from Wolfenstein and included a feature that allowed players to record and play back gameplay using files called demos (also known as game replays). Demos were lightweight files that could be shared more easily than video files on Internet bulletin board systems at the time. in January 1994, University of Waterloo student Christina Norman created a File Transfer Protocol server dedicated to compiling demos, named the LMP Hall of Fame (after the .lmp file extension used by Doom demos). The LMP Hall of Fame inspired the creation of the Doom Honorific Titles by Frank Stajano, a catalogue of titles that a player could obtain by beating certain challenges in the game.thumb|A "[[grenade jumping|grenade jump" is used in Quake in order to jump over a large lava pit.|left]]

In 1996, id Software released Quake as a successor to the Doom series. Like its predecessor, Quake had a demo-recording feature and drew attention from speedrunners.

In 2003, a video demonstrating a TAS of Super Mario Bros. 3 garnered widespread attention on the internet; many speedrunners cite this as their first introduction to the hobby. It was performed and published by a Japanese user named Morimoto. The video was lacking context to indicate that it was a TAS, so many people believed it to be an actual human performance. It drew criticism from viewers who felt "cheated" when Morimoto later explained the process by which he created the video and apologized for the confusion.), a site dedicated to displaying tool-assisted speedruns.

thumb|upright|LiveSplit, an [[Open-source software|open-source speedrunning timer showing the current pace in a speedrun of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker]]

The creation of video-sharing and streaming websites in the late 2000s and early 2010s contributed to an increase in the accessibility and popularity of speedrunning. In 2005, the creation of YouTube enabled speedrunners to upload and share videos of speedruns and discuss strategies on the SDA forums. Routing is the act of developing an optimal sequence of actions and stages in a video game. A route may involve skipping one or more important items or sections. Skipping a part of a video game that is normally required for progression is referred to as sequence breaking, Video game glitches may be used to achieve sequence breaks, Some people, called glitch-hunters, choose to focus on finding glitches that will be useful to speedrunners. The use of glitches and sequence breaks in speedruns was historically not allowed, per the rules of Twin Galaxies' early leaderboards. When speedrunning moved away from Twin Galaxies towards independent online leaderboards, their use became increasingly common.

Tool-assisted speedruns

thumb|Example tool-assisted speedrun input file, showing which buttons will be pressed at which point in the sequence

A tool-assisted speedrun (TAS) is a speedrun that uses emulation software and tools to create a "theoretically perfect playthrough". These tools are designed to remove restrictions imposed by human reflexes and allow for optimal gameplay. The run is recorded as a series of controller inputs intended to be fed back to the game in sequence. TASes can also perform inputs that, while recognized by the console or emulator, are impossible to achieve with a standard controller, such as registering left and right inputs simultaneously on a Nintendo Entertainment System, which cannot be performed with standard unmodified NES controllers.

100%, which requires full completion of a game. This may entail obtaining all items or may use some other metric.

Community

Two speedrunners playing [[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time at Mang'Azur 2013|thumb]]According to many speedrunners, community is an important aspect of the hobby. Matt Merkle, director of operations at Games Done Quick, says that speedrunners "value the cooperation the community encourages," and many speedrunners have said that their mental health has improved because of their involvement in the community. Erica Lenti, writing for Wired, said a sense of community is vital to speedrunning because it motivates players and aids in the development of routes and tricks used in speedruns,

Speedrunners use media-sharing sites like YouTube and Twitch to share videos and livestreams of speedruns. the largest event is Games Done Quick, a semiannual marathon held in the United States. it has raised over $37 million for charity organizations since its inception in 2010. The largest marathon in Europe is the European Speedrunner Assembly, held in Sweden. Both events broadcast the speedruns on Twitch and raise money for various charity organizations. Alex Miller of Wired says the events have played an important role in connecting people and supporting international humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Speedrun races

Races between two or more speedrunners are a common competition format. They require players to be skilled at recovering from setbacks during a speedrun because they cannot start over. Video game randomizers—ROM hacks that randomly shuffle item locations and other in-game content—are popular for speedrun races as well. Tournaments and other events have been organized for randomizer races, and they have been featured at speedrun marathons.

Cheating

Methods

Splicing

Splicing is by far the most popular cheating method in speedrunning. Here, a speedrun is not recorded continuously, as is usually the case, but instead composed of various video snippets recorded at different times, sometimes with gameplay stolen from TAS composers or legitimate players.

In a typical case, splicing allows difficult segments to be repeated to perfection and edited together afterwards into one seemingly continuous effort, which can sometimes dramatically reduce the amount of time needed to grind out a comparable score. Dream later admitted to the runs being cheated about five months after his runs were rejected, although he claimed he did not know he was using a modified version of the game.

Lying about times

While all of the aforementioned methods are deceptive in nature, the simplest way of cheating is merely to lie about a time. One of the most infamous cases of this was done by Todd Rogers. Several of his records have come under scrutiny for being seemingly impossible or lacking sufficient proof. In 2002, Robert Mruczek, then chief referee at Twin Galaxies, officially rescinded Todd's record time in Barnstorming after other players pointed out that his time of 32.04 seconds did not appear to be possible, even when the game was hacked to remove all obstacles. Upon further investigation, Twin Galaxies referees were unable to find independent verification for this time, having instead been relying on erroneous information from Activision.

As listed on the Twin Galaxies leaderboard until January 2018, Rogers's record in the 1980 Activision game Dragster was a time of 5.51 seconds from 1982. At the time, Activision verified high scores by Polaroid. According to Rogers, after he submitted a photo of this time, he was called by Activision, who asked him to verify how he achieved such a score, because they had programmed a 'perfect run' of the game and were unable to achieve better than a 5.54. The game's programmer David Crane would later confirm that he had a vague recollection of programming test runs, but did not remember the results. In 2017, a speedrunner named Eric "Omnigamer" Koziel disassembled the game's code and concluded that the fastest possible time was 5.57 seconds. With a tick rate of 0.03 seconds, the record claim is two ticks faster than Omnigamer's data and one tick faster than the reported Activision 'perfect run'.

Cheat detection

In order to prevent most of these methods, some games require a video of the hands on the controller or keyboard ("handcam"), in addition to the screen recording, so that game-specific moderators in charge of authenticating a submission can ensure that the inputs are really done in the specified combination and by a human. Other methods include forensic audio analysis, which is a common method for detecting telltale signs of video splicing; this is why runs without high-quality audio streams are often rejected on speedrun boards.

Additional detection methods are the use of mathematics (as in the aforementioned Dream case) or human moderation of suspicious inputs (in games which record them such as Doom and TrackMania). Cheat detection software created for TrackMania was used to analyze over 400,000 replays and isolate a handful of cheaters, leading to hundreds of world records being determined to have been cheated using slowdown tools. This included those of Burim "riolu" Fejza, who was signed to the eSports team Nordavind (now known as 00 Nation) before being dropped following the scandal.

Notes

References

External links

Karl Jobst: The Evolution Of Speedrunning (Video essay on YouTube)
Speedrun.com, popular leaderboard-hosting website