Discussion about using the 180 turn key, and if it was ever allowed in Compet-N

[Andrea Rovenski]

I don't think it's a good thing to jump to accusations, I interpreted Andy's statement as an example, not a call out. Using an example in an argument is fine, no one's feelings have gotten hurt, even kintetic's. :)

 

also, apparently the next dsda-doom will have 180 banned and it's already been coded so I'm not sure if this thread continuing with people who aren't in the discord or aren't doing demos is ideal for anyone's cortisol levels. :D

[Gez]

38 minutes ago, skogsto09 said:

 

I started computing with an Amstrad PC1512, in the nineties to upgrade it I built a 386 from parts with my brother, I'm a big ol computer nerd and I have NEVER heard anyone before say "actually, 'utility' means 'hardware' instead of, you know, the actual definition of utility that everyone has been using forever".

 

37 minutes ago, skogsto09 said:

If dsda-doom would include a button called "spy on minimap" which entered "iddt" for you 2 times, then we would be in the same situation as now, where I could argue that in the compet-n days it would never be allowed. Where you could just make a counter argument saying there is no mention of it beeing disallowed in the rules.  If we actually did not have a direct reference to such a situation, to prove otherwise.  However it should give some insight to the context on the general ruling practice. So with that in mind, it should be pretty obvious what such a ruling would be regarding the 180 flip assist.

If the rules specifically include a clause that says "various Doom cheatcode input utilities are allowed", then yeah, I will argue your strawman.

Edited March 18, 2023 by Gez

[banjiepixel]

43 minutes ago, skogsto09 said:

Ofcourse the rules could have been improved, but like I said in my previous post. Using any tools that gave an advantage not attainable using the vanilla doom exes were strictly forbidden.

 

I am curious, wouldn't using NOVERT or physically modifying your mouse to only give horizontal movement input be tools that gave an advantage not attainable using vanilla doom exes? Rules do not seem to mention anything these being allowed unless they count as "Doom spinning utilities" and I would assume that tools like NOVERT were pretty much the standard at the time.

 

12 minutes ago, Andrea Rovenski said:

also, apparently the next dsda-doom will have 180 banned

 

But why tho? I seems to me like a just a good QoL feature and I don't think it really gives any major advantage over just making quick 180 turn manually.

Edited March 18, 2023 by banjiepixel

[Andrea Rovenski]

24 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

But why tho? I seems to me like a just a good QoL feature and I don't think it really gives any major advantage over just making quick 180 turn manually.

I am not in a position to answer that, I'm just relaying information.

 

I also think this thread might be past it's due date D:

[xit-vono]

I always assumed that doom spinning utilities meant something like 180 turns. I never used it because I didn't know how to set it up, and I didn't need it to get records, but I assumed I could have. In the end it comes down to what doom spinning utilities meant, and I never even considered the possibility of using trackball, joystick, etc. I suppose hardware interpretation makes the most sense considering the time.

[Grazza]

1 hour ago, skogsto09 said:

Using any tools that gave an advantage not attainable using the vanilla doom exes were strictly forbidden.

Like routinely using Windows to pause the game without pressing the pause button? I recall some people were a bit shocked to learn about that. At what point does this cease to be legitimate? Ancient competn rules did limit the use of the pause button, so it isn't clear what the consensus might be.

 

So with that in mind, it should be pretty obvious what such a ruling would be regarding the 180 flip assist.

If it weren't explicitly and unambiguously allowed in the only publically stated rules, then yes.

 

Unless someone can point to other ones, there are only two "spinning" utilities, and this is all they do. Xit's view of this matter seems completely natural, and yours looks like an attempt at revisionism.

 

[skogsto09]

 

24 minutes ago, Grazza said:

Like routinely using Windows to pause the game without pressing the pause button? I recall some people were a bit shocked to learn about that. At what point does this cease to be legitimate? Ancient competn rules did limit the use of the pause button, so it isn't clear what the consensus might be.

 

 

 

If it weren't explicitly and unambiguously allowed in the only publically stated rules, then yes.

 

Unless someone can point to other ones, there are only two "spinning" utilities, and this is all they do. Xit's view of this matter seems completely natural, and yours looks like an attempt at revisionism.

 

 

I have given you a fair explanation and a example with regards to how demos were invalidated on terms that were not explicitly covered in the rules. On the basis that it did not comply with the general ruling guidelines. If a ruleset needs to cover every possible angle, explicitly and unambiguously for you to recognize it...then compet-n demos based on those rules shouldn`t be your thing I guess then. 

By all means, make a thread about windows pausing and get peoples opinions on that. However it would be kinda off topic to go in that direction in this thread if you ask me. 

[banjiepixel]

7 minutes ago, skogsto09 said:

I have given you a fair explanation and a example with regards to how demos were invalidated on terms that were not explicitly covered in the rules. On the basis that it did not comply with the general ruling guidelines.

 

I feel that you are reading the rules too literally without considering the actual context. Something like using cheat codes were probably so obviously banned that it didn't need to be noted in the rules. It makes sense that the rules talk only about things that could be unlear or not obvious. Just like what "various DOOM spinning utilities" isn't defined better because at that time, it was obvious what it meant back then. And there seems to be alot of context clues indicating to the direction of 180 flip utilities having been allowed back then. This idea of wanting to be more strict and ban such utilities/features seems to be a more modern thing.

[Azafran]

I’m no Doom speed running expert, but I was reading this topic out of curiosity and I just want to point that “Various Doom spinning utilities are allowed” is listed under “other hacks” in the rules.

Taking into account that NOVERT was pretty standard at that point for mouse users and that we’re talking about “utilities” and “hacks” I can not see how the would be referring to hardware instead.

 

Anyways the best way to confirm this is just to ask to the people that were active at the time with Compet-N.

[Keyboard_Doomer]

While I can conceivably imagine someone referring to some computer hardware as a utility calling a piece of hardware "DOOM spinning utility" is beyond strange.

 

I don't know when Heretic-N began but the corresponding rule there explicitly says "Various spinning utilities are allowed : for example, use Doom Mouse Spinner, Novert and Sens are allowed."
The same text is on the oldest available version of the website on Web Archive, from 2012.
As you can probably guess, Doom Mouse Spinner is a software utility that allows instant 180 degree turn.

 

Istvan Pataki was the Compet-N admin for some time and he himself has several non-TAS demos from 1997 that have a turn 180:
pl03-nm.zip tic 4138
pl04-136.zip tic 14 and 3351
pl16-033.zip tic 124
pl20-101.zip tic 602
pl20-nm.zip used 7 times in this demo
pl26-nm.zip tic 2702
pl29-119.zip tic 1485, 1717 and 2228

 

There's also this note most likely from Simon Widlake if the file timestamp is to be trusted (which is questionable because many demos from the '90s have incorrect timestamps apparently because of originally being shared non-zipped) that explicitly says that turn 180 is allowed in the text file for Yonatan Donner's LV15-041.LMP:

Quote

 

[  Admin. Note :-)  It *is* OKay to use DKS (the/a DooM Keyboard [or mouse]
   Spinner) as it is just a "configuration device" and therefore *not* seen
   as cheating. The only(?) "method" that would be seen as blatant cheating
   would be hacking the DOOM.EXE...

S.;-) aka. The "Judge". ]

 

That would make for 2 Compet-N admins who thought that using turn 180 was OK.

 

There are several other pre-2001 non-TAS demos with turn 180 from before "Hegyi era" and EDIT: well, only one from that era. I would still argue the below. If this demo was an oversight, it was a significant one coupled with the fact that according to Andromeda's link the rules on the website still had the line about "various DOOM spinning utilities" being allowed in 1999.
PA23-055.LMP by Sedlo, timestamp: 12 June 1999
In this demo there's a turn 180 on the very first tic and again, if timestamps are to be trusted and if we assume the demo was submitted reasonably soon after the text file was finished this demo was the Pacifist record for 7 months. I think you would be hard-pressed to say that no one noticed or that it didn't spark any discussion if indeed using turn 180 was meant to lead to an immediate disqualification.

 

So, there doesn't appear to be any indication that turn 180 was ever banned in Compet-N. Does it matter in the discussion of if it should be banned from now on?... I don't really have an answer for that.

For what it's worth I can't imagine many scenarios where turn 180 gives you a significant advantage when "used as intended" outside of maps specifically designed for it. Where it does give you a considerable advantage is when it comes to aligning for tricks like glides or precise rocket jumps or as TimeOfDeath mentioned ZDaemon-style rocket jumping. If it should be banned selectively, I think it should be banned by purpose. Of course, the problem with that is lack of automation but then, it doesn't seem to be used often enough for it to be a significant problem.
 

Edited March 19, 2023 by Keyboard_Doomer

[Catpho]

What does it mean that 180 will be banned in the next DSDA Doom? Banned in recordings only? Or removed entirely?

[dsda-dev]

1 minute ago, Catpho said:

What does it mean that 180 will be banned in the next DSDA Doom? Banned in recordings only? Or removed entirely?

Like most speedrunning rules-related topics, this would just disable the feature while recording in strict mode. It would still work in normal gameplay and while recording demos not for submission to dsda.

[Andy Johnsen]

49 minutes ago, Keyboard_Doomer said:

While I can conceivably imagine someone referring to some computer hardware as a utility calling a piece of hardware "DOOM spinning utility" is beyond strange.

 

I don't know when Heretic-N began but the corresponding rule there explicitly says "Various spinning utilities are allowed : for example, use Doom Mouse Spinner, Novert and Sens are allowed."
The same text is on the oldest available version of the website on Web Archive, from 2012.
As you can probably guess, Doom Mouse Spinner is a software utility that allows instant 180 degree turn.

 

Istvan Pataki was the Compet-N admin for some time and he himself has several non-TAS demos from 1997 that have a turn 180:
pl03-nm.zip tic 4138
pl04-136.zip tic 14 and 3351
pl16-033.zip tic 124
pl20-101.zip tic 602
pl20-nm.zip used 7 times in this demo
pl26-nm.zip tic 2702
pl29-119.zip tic 1485, 1717 and 2228

 

There's also this note most likely from Simon Widlake if the file timestamp is to be trusted (which is questionable because many demos from the '90s have incorrect timestamps apparently because of originally being shared non-zipped) that explicitly says that turn 180 is allowed in the text file for Yonatan Donner's LV15-041.LMP:

That would make for 2 Compet-N admins who thought that using turn 180 was OK.

 

There are several other pre-2001 non-TAS demos with turn 180 mostly either from before "Hegyi era" or from lesser known players but one demo stands out:
PA23-055.LMP by Sedlo, timestamp: 12 June 1999
In this demo there's a turn 180 on the very first tic and again, if timestamps are to be trusted and if we assume the demo was submitted reasonably soon after the text file was finished this demo was the Pacifist record for 7 months. I think you would be hard-pressed to say that no one noticed or that it didn't spark any discussion if indeed using turn 180 was meant to lead to an immediate disqualification.

 

So, there doesn't appear to be any indication that turn 180 was ever banned in Compet-N. Does it matter in the discussion of if it should be banned from now on?... I don't really have an answer for that.

For what it's worth I can't imagine many scenarios where turn 180 gives you a significant advantage when "used as intended" outside of maps specifically designed for it. Where it does give you a considerable advantage is when it comes to aligning for tricks like glides or precise rocket jumps or as TimeOfDeath mentioned ZDaemon-style rocket jumping. If it should be banned selectively, I think it should be banned by purpose. Of course, the problem with that is lack of automation but then, it doesn't seem to be used often enough for it to be a significant problem.
 

 

This is interesting and good historical information, excellent post.
 

"S" aka the Judge is probably Simon Widlake, the founder of Compet-N who ran the place the initial years, not Istvan. Istvan took over the reigns from Simons original run with it, and from the Donner Lv15-041 run it is obvious Simons view on what was a cheat was very simplistic and uninformed compared to the standard set by Hegyi later on.
 

For all practical purposes, this was not an accepted tool you could use for speedruns during Adams Compet-N days,  as stated before, I can only claim this from being active through the Compet-N years from early 1997 until 2004 and intensely involved in discussions with all the most active players on a daily basis, both within the Deathmatch community and the Compet-N environment - who all converged on IRCnet #nightmare. Adam was also the first admin with a technical insight of enough value to concistenly check lmp inputs and disqualify runs that didn't meet the criteria. 

Although less surprised by the early days of moderation I'm very surprise to see Istvan use the utility, and this would no doubt have caused a spectacle back in the day if it had been common knowledge later on, and the runs removed from the record tables. These went unnoticed, and Istvan was not up front about using it in his runs either. His moderation came in the gap between Widlake and Hegyi though, and granted Widlakes take on what constituted "cheating" I suppose it's understandable.

As for the Sedlo PA23-055.lmp the explanation for not catching what was up is quite simple, the turn happen as the game start and cloaked by this very fact - possibly written off as quick start trickery at the time. It is very interesting that this is the only demo where he used the tool to preform a move that would have sparked a debacle it it had been detected. You don't see him using it in any obvious spots in any run, and for a good reason. Sedlo never utilized the 180 turn in any recorded deathmatch that I've seen either - and you can count those in the hundreds - which should be telling of the real feeling he had about using it. There would be exceptional good use for it in his fav. DM map (Doom2 Map01). So the one time he used it, he felt the need to hide the use of it.

In all practical sense, Compet-N submissions were handled very strict when it came to checking for anything beyond what was doable in the game without any modifications when Hegyi took over, and this is the most impactful and most important period of moderation for what set the standards. The lack of demos using it should be telling enough. One interesting exception from the purist stance was the use / acceptance of novert (we didn't have the option of turning it on/off ingame - that's another interesting discussion to have, and one I feel way less strongly about than automated turns, since you still have to perform your own movement). 

What the above post prove to me though, is that we were wrong in the 90ies assuming "spinning utilities" ment hardware; it is obvious this was what came to be accepted real early on as the explanation for the old Widlake rule set when the early days leniency eventually phased out. The gap following the early days until the modern days for the tools utilization should tell this story regardless of what I claim here though :}

[ZeroMaster010]

Keyboard_Doomer and me have both checked inputs of the demos and we both agree that there is only 1 single demo submitted to competn during the adam hegyi era, then there were a few non competn submissions and then primarily the Donner and Pataki demos before adam hegyi's time.

 

I count about 20 demos up until 2008 (of 20.000 demos) when gggmork started using it, and roughly 300 demos or so for 2022 (12.600 demos) for example. 

 

Sedlo's demo could easily have been missed, considering some blatantly cheated demos that have gone through and the only explanation could be because nobody watched them I think there's a decent chance of that being a possibility here, but who knows.

 

The explanations of why there's so few of them from 1995 to 2008 could be many, like xit mentioned because some didn't know how to set it up, maybe it wasn't well known despite being allowed according to the written rules, or maybe it was deemed illegal in irc chat and just never updated. Obviously the higher amount of demos in 2022 is mostly explained because it's easily available and allowed according to current rules.

[roadworx]

why don't we just drag hegyi into here and force him to elaborate instead of arguing over this?

[Andy Johnsen]

1 minute ago, roadworx said:

why don't we just drag hegyi into here and force him to elaborate instead of arguing over this?

Hegyi retired from the scene many years ago, and have been very unwilling to engage in anything related to the game since. He don't owe us his time in any sense, so that's fine... :}

[Keyboard_Doomer]

1 hour ago, Andy Johnsen said:

[reply]

I checked in vanilla and it seems the instant facing the other way is obvious even there but the assumption of quick start trickery sounds very plausible.

 

The gap during Hegyi era does say a lot. All things considered I still can't say that there's sufficient evidence of a strict ban. In Sedlo's demo the turn 180 doesn't even save any time. It wouldn't make any sense to risk his reputation with a "cheat" like that, the only reasonable explanation is that he just wasn't aware of any ban. Xit likewise doesn't seem to be and correct me if I'm wrong but I believe Heretic-N was hosted by Vincent Catalaa so he also either thought it was explicitly allowed or... decided to go against Compet-N?

Edit: Shared on the Discord, there's also Jonathan Rimmer saying that turn 180 was explicitly allowed, although confused why that was the case.

 

Not sure if tools were handed over from admin to admin but in Kai-Uwe's (TAS) LV30-030.LMP text file Simon mentions "unknown turn" which corresponds to turn 180 so tools for detecting it were available since at least 1996. But of course, even if the they were handed over, there's no guarantee they were used on each demo.

 

The situation seems at best unclear. There's a possibility there was a private agreement that happened sometime on IRC which didn't reach all players and didn't result in the rules on the website being updated... which is suboptimal to say the least.

Edited March 19, 2023 by Keyboard_Doomer

[skogsto09]

10 minutes ago, Keyboard_Doomer said:

While I can conceivably imagine someone referring to some computer hardware as a utility calling a piece of hardware "DOOM spinning utility" is beyond strange.

 

I think you would be hard-pressed to say that no one noticed or that it didn't spark any discussion if indeed using turn 180 was meant to lead to an immediate disqualification.

So, there doesn't appear to be any indication that turn 180 was ever banned in Compet-N. Does it matter in the discussion of if it should be banned from now on?... I don't really have an answer for that.

 

Great work on your research. 

Noone is calling a piece of hardware "Doom spinning utilities".  Its more about the acceptance of a wide range of drivers the various hardware (turning devices) was shipped with. 
The rule was not to be interpreted for free use in a way that would give you a clear advantage. If you look how the other rules are put down, it would not make any sense to assume. so either. At least not without asking for a clarification. The fact that people never even asked for a clarification, is a clue in itself. That it was considered to be a no-go. 

As others have stated,  that list and the number of demos is mostly from Istvan Pataki, the runs where not by any means high profile either. The use of 180 turn was not mentioned in his text files. So it went unnoticed.

AdamW certantly didnt seem to notice Sedlos 180 flip start at least, and he grinded the run down to 0:51. So that would be the only demo that such a discussion could possibly originate from, since the days of Pataki\Widlake era. AdamH himself did runs of the same map (uv speed) and did not use it, or ever used it. So I really dont think its resonable to belive that someone should actually have noticed. 

The lack of this tool beeing used by the top players at the time, from the AdamH era should be an indication that it was outside of what would be accepted. 
Compet-n in its infancy from 94-96\97 had a different interpretation on what was considered as cheating, mostly due to poor technical understanding.
So yes, the spinning tool mentioned, I can now see original story behind it. However when the AdamH era started, the meaning behind that rule was understood in a more general sense. As in there were no restriction with regards to your hardware\driver setup. Spesifically regarding the various types of mouse+keyboard configs. Some players still felt the need to elaborate what machine hardware they played on. As can be read from the old compet-n profiles.  

So clearly it was allowed during compet-n in its infancy. However compet-n did not mature with this ruling as it was originally intended from 98 until its end in -05.  As can be seen from the lack of demos having these tics. Had the original intent behind the ruling been known or noticed from -98, I`m pretty sure it would be pharsed differently from that point onwards. 

[Ryback]

Another old timer weighing in, although I wasn't nearly as active on IRC and so Andy probably has a better sense of the community consensus.

 

It's just a rarely considered edge case in the rules. Then, as now, there were very few keyboard-only speedrunners, during the time I was active I think there were just 4-5 others total. So there were never many active players who might have seen the need to use a 180 spinner utility. I never considered using one in one of my demos, although I wasn't aware of an actual ban in place and given the earlier recorded demos would probably have made the assumption that it would be fine. Were there players who might have used a spinning utility but didn't because they knew the demo would be rejected? I'd be pretty surprised actually.

 

The discussion is pretty much of historical interest only though, I don't know that we should take any lessons on what the current rules should be from this. DSDA gets to set what the rules are now, Compet-N had its time but it's dead, Jim.

 

 

[Andy Johnsen]

1 hour ago, banjiepixel said:

 

 

It is a very unnatural turn so getting used to it is going to take too much work compared to actually just perfecting natural 180ish turn. You actually only gain real practical advantage if your control method doesn't allow making fast 180ish turns. Natural turning has always more control, that gives it huge advantage and is just simply more fun for the top players. Turn180 is very rarely used feature for a very good reason in any context when mouse is being used.

Yeah this is most obviously not true. There's a substantial upside to using an automated 180 degree turn in certain situations both for speedruns and deathmatches. You don't have to play around with it for long to realize this, even if you're not a hardcore speedrunner.

 

2 hours ago, Ryback said:

 

The discussion is pretty much of historical interest only though, I don't know that we should take any lessons on what the current rules should be from this. DSDA gets to set what the rules are now, Compet-N had its time but it's dead, Jim.

 

 

Hi Ryback! Glad to see you're still around :} I agree with this sentiment. 

[Ryback]

Hey there Andy, Ry is Back (well around for a little while anyway)

[xit-vono]

I think the fact that Istvan used it is clear evidence that it is allowed, since he was the moderator of compet-n and also Adam's friend. Adam took over and kept the same language about Doom spinning utilities.

[Andy Johnsen]

1 hour ago, xit-vono said:

I think the fact that Istvan used it is clear evidence that it is allowed, since he was the moderator of compet-n and also Adam's friend. Adam took over and kept the same language about Doom spinning utilities.

 

Hi Xit!

It was definitely not furthered by Adam during his compet-n maintenence, the proof is pretty much in the submission rate for incidents where the 180 flip occurs. This tool would have been used consistently if it was in some way accepted by the speedrunning community. The DM and SP scene overlapped quite a bit during the late 90ies early 2ks, and it was esepecially frowned upon to use any additional tools like this within the deathmatch scene. It's evident they did allow it in Widlaks early days, and Istvan pretty much just picked up where he left it. By the late ninties, this would have fully unacceptable for submissions, despite the old rule sheet.

[j4rio]

It seems even peers from your recording period are unaware of spinner being as much of a dealbreaker as you're making it out to be. Can you show at least a tiniest ounce of actual proof that it was actually set-in-stone banned rather than thinking into existence a parallel universe in which said ban took place? A convo, a message, anything.

[Andy Johnsen]

1 hour ago, j4rio said:

It seems even peers from your recording period are unaware of spinner being as much of a dealbreaker as you're making it out to be. Can you show at least a tiniest ounce of actual proof that it was actually set-in-stone banned rather than thinking into existence a parallel universe in which said ban took place? A convo, a message, anything.

I suspect I won't convince anyone and I'm not sure it's super important to sway those in the need of hard proof since the point has been made and agreed upon; Compet-N was its own thing, DSDA is its own thing. How the latter decide to move forward on this should be up to the developers and the majority of active runners. I can just attest to how it used to be viewed, and you won't find proof of the top players from the given period leaning on a tool that was generally shunned.

I'll try to do a deep dive into old logs to see if I can find anything specific, but that aside you'll just have to decide to look at the stats and listen to some of the most active players from the 90ies era if you have interest in that time period, or ignore it on lack of factual proof and lean on Widlakes original draft. I don't blame anyone for disregarding it as old confused musings. :} I can just attest to the way it was viewed at the time I was very active, the time period between aproixmently 1997-2004. If the tool had been utilized by a select few during that time the rule set would have been worded differently now, I'm convinced of that - the general opinion of it probably negated the need to put it on paper, since it was such an obvious external meddlign with the player movement.

Some have already run the stats and displayed a picture of when it was accepted; really early on and then again popularized by a few modern runners. From the feedback in this thread it's quite obvious several active players have the same fundamental distaste for automated turns that we used to hold, and I'm not surprised by this. Most runners probably don't want to remove skill based precise turns in favor of automated turns. We'll see if this claim holds up better than the lack of factual conversations from back in the day. :} Historical context aside, the road forward is the current generations to decide. My opinion is quite obvious, and I think there's good arguments from a purist point of view still. 

Edited March 19, 2023 by Andy Johnsen

[Andrea Rovenski]

having old chat logs would be fun no matter what, just for historical purposes. I love reading old txts from the competn days :)

[Andy Johnsen]

27 minutes ago, Andrea Rovenski said:

having old chat logs would be fun no matter what, just for historical purposes. I love reading old txts from the competn days :)

Yeah, I really should get some of my archive out there in case of a drive failure, I have hundreds of logs from #Nightmare from 1998 until 2005 or so, lots of outdated, amusing discussions going on in those I bet. I also saved a ton of the old long gone Doom sites that were still online around the 2k mark, that's another portion I really should do something with at some point - not to mention untold quantities of long lost recordings (mostly deathmatch related stuff, but probably some notable sp runs as well). That's another topic for another day, tho :}

[j4rio]

My only point is that you convincingly claim it was 100% done and dusted banned, which requires a little bit more input from your side, given that circumstantial evidence doesn't exactly seem to back it up. The lack of submissions using it during Hegyi period is merely a correlation that could either mean that it was in fact banned or that there simply weren't submissions using it, thus motivating an update to a more robust ruleset. I'm leaning towards the second option, given that the spinner simply wasn't used in demos long after c-n era, and even in those cases it was used by pure keyboarders (one could argue they should be able to use it to level the playing field with mouse users).

 

The shift in reaching faster times using anything and everything allowed rather than trying to maintain puristic approach is happening in overall speedrunning scene and is not something doom-specific. So yes, unless something is concretely and explicitly disallowed, it is allowed.

 

For the record, I don't mind at all if 180 is completely disabled during recording. My point is that claiming all demos using it are filthy tool-assisted plague is simply unwarranted and possibly misguided. If the red line has never explicitly been drawn, we don't get to retroactively recreate it and act like it's always been there.

[Redneckerz]

11 hours ago, Andy Johnsen said:

In all practical sense, Compet-N submissions were handled very strict when it came to checking for anything beyond what was doable in the game without any modifications when Hegyi took over, and this is the most impactful and most important period of moderation for what set the standards. The lack of demos using it should be telling enough. One interesting exception from the purist stance was the use / acceptance of novert (we didn't have the option of turning it on/off ingame - that's another interesting discussion to have, and one I feel way less strongly about than automated turns, since you still have to perform your own movement). 

I know Heygi used LMPCHECK by Steffen "Rini" Udluft to check demo's back in the day (And LMPC) but the program is never to be found. So for reasons of complete verification, it would be useful to have this program somewhere and have that checked against any LMP with 180-turn that Heygi dismissed for whatever (Start trickery/not noted) so it can be found out what kind of checks LMPCHECK actually does.

 

Perhaps you have it?

 

As an aside, @Ryback asked the same thing in 2017:

 

 

2 hours ago, Andy Johnsen said:

Yeah, I really should get some of my archive out there in case of a drive failure, I have hundreds of logs from #Nightmare from 1998 until 2005 or so, lots of outdated, amusing discussions going on in those I bet. I also saved a ton of the old long gone Doom sites that were still online around the 2k mark, that's another portion I really should do something with at some point - not to mention untold quantities of long lost recordings (mostly deathmatch related stuff, but probably some notable sp runs as well). That's another topic for another day, tho :}

I for one would very much welcome this and if possible, could give this a more permanent home (/idgames, or whatever). History is history and as this thread's topic turns out to be, historic tracebacks are very important :)

[Andy Johnsen]

59 minutes ago, j4rio said:

My only point is that you convincingly claim it was 100% done and dusted banned, which requires a little bit more input from your side, given that circumstantial evidence doesn't exactly seem to back it up. The lack of submissions using it during Hegyi period is merely a correlation that could either mean that it was in fact banned or that there simply weren't submissions using it, thus motivating an update to a more robust ruleset. I'm leaning towards the second option, given that the spinner simply wasn't used in demos long after c-n era, and even in those cases it was used by pure keyboarders (one could argue they should be able to use it to level the playing field with mouse users).

 

The shift in reaching faster times using anything and everything allowed rather than trying to maintain puristic approach is happening in overall speedrunning scene and is not something doom-specific. So yes, unless something is concretely and explicitly disallowed, it is allowed.

 

For the record, I don't mind at all if 180 is completely disabled during recording. My point is that claiming all demos using it are filthy tool-assisted plague is simply unwarranted and possibly misguided. If the red line has never explicitly been drawn, we don't get to retroactively recreate it and act like it's always been there.

 

The history of this thing is obviously more complicated than I first assumed, given Widlake greenlit it in his early CN incarnation, I have no problem agreeing to that.

 

Putting words like "filty tool-assisted plague" in my mouth to drive a point home is not a good tactic, and uncalled for. Who are you trying to score points for with this? It's a bad look. I've simply stated the genralized viewpoint I claim was held on it back in the day and maintained a respectful understanding for why it might be viewed different today. The idea that it was "always accepted" is what sparked this topic in the first place, this is a claim that does not measure up to the general attitude towards its use, before it resurfaced in recent times.
 

I stand by the claim that using a tool to assist with automated turns in a run means it's tool-assisted. The question is more if you think such a tool assist should be allowed, I personally do not - but my opinion on that is not more than just another opinion. I can put into historical context how it was generally viewed back in the day, there's nothing missguided about that. How you chose to weigh that claim / tidbit is up to you. The red line was certainly drawn at some point by the admins and player base, but it was not explicitely noted the way it probably should have been, instead of a clear stance, it was simply phased out. It's quite likely the DM camp contributed to this viewpoint more actively than the speedrunning scene, at one point. These were intertwined communites in the late half of the 90ies, and impacted each other both with player bases and shared knowledge / ideas.

Edited March 19, 2023 by Andy Johnsen