HR -fast pack

[Ryback]

Well, another one. I got sick of having all these demos pile up so I decided to put them all together.

Here.

[Grazza]

Whoa! Some very interesting-looking times there. :)

[Opulent]

YES! oh yes. that feels good, that feels really really really good!! :D

[Kristian Ronge]

HOLY SHIT! :-0

Well, there goes my sunday...

[Erik]

uh oh, I smell awesomeness.

[Ryback]

* looks oddly at Opulent

[Opulent]

damn these are nice. I'm up to 14. 13 was really a great show -- one of the best Doom demos I've ever seen. can't wait for 15...

[DeDo]

OMG, looking very much forward to watching this.

[Searcher]

Very Very Cool!

[Grazza]

Opulent said:

13 was really a great show -- one of the best Doom demos I've ever seen.

That was one I immediately watched (despite its length). I really like that map, and especially its "against all odds" aspect when played with fast monsters. Funny - it didn't "feel" like 26 minutes when I watched it, probably due to the constant action and risk-taking. It's hard to pick favourites from this pack though, with many other very solid (to say the least) performances too.

[Opulent]

watched them all now.
wow, what a feast for the eyes!
13 -- great moments. the open field room was just fantastic.
14 -- does a great job of maintaining ammo -- hard -fast map. 2 close Cyber battles made to look easy.
15 -- slick optimization with no ruffled feathers. what's it take to make Ryback nervous?! a couple of the archies are handled so deftly it's absurd.
16 -- standard Ryback.
17 -- surprised with this one. a couple of fortunate happenings and some good Cyber control. good time.
18 -- his expertise and map preference shows. the Cyber->Revenent lift was a delight. Cyber telefrag, the teleport-stair room wasn't even there. You can almost hear him saying "When are the hard maps going to get here?" :)
20 -- sg longer than normal, but then it is -fast. I'm not sure, but this map could be easier in -fast than not.
21 -- not a challenge.
22 -- yet another fantastic treat from beginning to end. good map knowledge helped a little. charging the PE/Archvile tower was brave. some close rockets here. :)
24 -- very calculated for first 1/2... his control actually waivers towards the end when the Cybers are released. those darn teleporting Mancubuses(Mancubi? whatever...)! some close calls. good demo.
25 -- very clean; makes it look so easy. lots of infighting goes well.
27 -- Takes down the Cybers like they're Barons. great map.
28 -- standard Ryback again.
29 -- very controlled. Ryback in his groove and ready for action. Hell should have sent more demons. :)
31 -- surprisingly doesn't do the lift trick... but again, I think that is easier to manage with -fast
32 -- this map always has high action. He cleans the second room with such ease. just beautiful.

great set Chris! thanks so much for sharing. I feel like I just heard Dvorak's Ninth for the first time. :)

[ragnew]

AWESOME demos Chris! As always, pure perfection! Thanks for putting all the hard work into them, it did pay off!

[Doom Marine]

Excellent HR24 demo, I liked the the way you escaped all those archvile flames at the start, and plenty of close calls to boot :)

[Angus Thermopyle]

Love you, Ryback ;)

[Kristian Ronge]

The map 13 demo rocked... It's on my top 10 of all maps, ever, and it was a pure delight to see it being conquered like that. Some great braveheart fighting, especially when fighting those last few revenants out in the open.. just brilliant! I'm halfway through, can't wait . :-)

[Ryback]

Hey, thanks everyone for the comments. It's nice to know there's some people willing to watch these things...

[Schneelocke]

Wow. Looks like I have something to watch now for tonight - and hearing both "HR -fast" and "Ryback" really makes me look forward to these. ^_^

EDIT: Ryback, in case you haven't done so already, you really should upload these to compet-n, too. 5, 8, 10-18, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, 29, 31 and 32 at least all seem to be faster than the current records...

[Ryback]

I thought about it, but at least two thirds of those new records are just me beating my previous time, and uploading those sorts of demos is considered bad form, I think.

Maybe I'll just upload the demos that steal *other* people's points :)

[Schneelocke]

Why bad form? It's new records, so they should be on the site, shouldn't they? ^^

[Kristian Ronge]

I've seen other players have this notion as well. Perhaps it's one of the principles of the "sport"? ;-D Like the tradition in the romantic era of chess (the Anderssen, Staunton and Morphy era) to always accept a bold sacrifice. I believe it was considered rude not to!

Of course, not all players have these principles (Xit Vono is a good counterexample). Let Ryback decide what to do with the demos, to upload them or not. After all, he recorded them so they're his to share/not share, upload/not upload, delete/keep, whatever. Just my $0.02...

[Schneelocke]

Oh, yes, of course it's his decision. It'd just be a pity to not see these on Compet-N, especially since they do improve the existing records.

As for sportsmanship... many of his HR -fast records on there are relatively old (dating from 2000 to 2002), so I think it's safe to say that there is not much competition that it would be unfair towards to upload these demos now.

I agree it's ultimately up to Ryback, but this is what I think. Isn't it Compet-N's purpose to collect the fastest demo recordings in existance for the WADs they have? It would be a pity if you knew while browsing it that there may be faster demos out there that just weren't uploaded due to "sportsmanship" concerns.

[Kristian Ronge]

Schneelocke said:
It'd just be a pity to not see these on Compet-N, especially since they do improve the existing records.

Yes, I agree... I assumed (check out the COMPET-N forum!) he'd upload them, but he didn't and that's okay, too.

As for sportsmanship... many of his HR -fast records on there are relatively old (dating from 2000 to 2002), so I think it's safe to say that there is not much competition that it would be unfair towards to upload these demos now.

I cannot speak for Chris, obviously, but I suspect it's not a matter of what competition there is... but rather, a matter of principle.

Isn't it Compet-N's purpose to collect the fastest demo recordings in existance for the WADs they have?

Yes, but only as long as the demos are there with the permission of the author(s). There have been numerous examples of players beating existing records but not uploading for various reasons (respect for the previous record, feeling the new demo is too ugly to release etc...).

It would be a pity if you knew while browsing it that there may be faster demos out there that just weren't uploaded due to "sportsmanship" concerns.

Obviously, but it also depends on whether you think it's important to upload/watch, say, an "earthquake styled" 1 second improvement to a very slick and cool older demo recorded by a clearly better player but with an older, inferior route and fighting tactic. What is most important for a particular type of demo of a particular map? Speed? Aesthetics? A combination? Something else? ...

EDIT: Sometimes I cannot express what I want to say clearly. English is not my first language. Sorry. What I meant was, that even though we know there have been faster demos than some of the ones listed as records on the COMPET-N, it doesn't matter to me/bother me at all, if:

a) The recorder doesn't want to upload it for whatever reason, or
b) I can get a hold of the demo anyway, e.g. through the SDA, or
c) the existing listed record is also "good enough".

Sorry if I made this post hard to quote by editing it all the time. :-)

[Schneelocke]

Kristian Ronge said:

I cannot speak for Chris, obviously, but I suspect it's not a matter of what competition there is... but rather, a matter of principle.

That ultimately boils down to the same, though. If there is no competition, then there is no reason to not replace your own records.

Obviously, but it also depends on whether you think it's important to upload, say, an "earthquake styled" 1 second improvement to a very slick and cool older demo recorded by a clearly better player but with an older, inferior route and fighting tactic. What is most important? Speed? Aesthetics? A combination?...

Speed, but I see your point. But then, it's not like the older demos are deleted when a new record is uploaded...

EDIT: Sometimes I cannot express what I want to say clearly. English is not my first language. Sorry. What I meant was, that even though we know there have been faster demos than some of the ones listed as records on the COMPET-N, it doesn't matter to me at all, if:

a) The recorder doesn't want to upload it for whatever reason,
b) I can get a hold of the demo anyway, e.g. through the SDA, and
c) the existing listed record is also "good enough".

Heh, don't worry about the language barrier - english's not my first language, either. ^^

I'm not sure I can agree with "c)", though; I'd reckon that *all* current records on Compet-N are "good enough".

But yeah, as long as they are available from the SDA at least, I guess it's something one can live with.

[Kristian Ronge]

Schneelocke said:
That ultimately boils down to the same, though. If there is no competition, then there is no reason to not replace your own records.

Hehe, yes there is, if replacing one's own records is the principle you abide by. :-)

Speed, but I see your point. But then, it's not like the older demos are deleted when a new record is uploaded...

Indeed not. IMHO, Speed can be very important, depending somewhat on categories (espescially when it comes to barriers.. getting a time below x:00 for instance) but I hardly consider it the end of the world if a 2% faster demo of a long Tyson or something isn't in the archives. After all, those demos are COMPET-N records, not world records. ;-) But hey, maybe it's just me.

I'm not sure I can agree with "c)", though; I'd reckon that *all* current records on Compet-N are "good enough".

Hm, no, indeed you're right about that. That didn't come out right. It's hard to explain what I mean succinctly.

[DooMBoy]

Heh, I've been watching this Hr -fast pack the last couple days and it's all very impressive stuff. Good work Mr. Ratcliffe :)

[Schneelocke]

Hmm, hf181430 desyncs for me consistently (using prboom with -complevel 0 and 1). Does anyone else have that problem?

[Vile]

Where exactly does it desync? I haven't watched the full demo yet and I haven't had any problems near the start. Also, forcing a complevel for playing back a demo might not have any effect since prboom chooses the appropriate complevel that was used to create the demo (presumably).

I haven't watched many of these yet, but these seem to be quite an accomplishment. Great job Ryback, you have some extraordinary patience. :)

[Grazza]

Did you mean hf182418 (the one in Ryback's new pack)? hf181430 is an old TAS demo by Esko (requires DosDoom 0.47).

hf182418 works fine for me (with 2.2.4). Have you tried letting prboom autodetect the compatibility level? Normally that is best, except for unusual demo types (e.g. tasdoom) where the iwad and header info might otherwise mislead the program. I've just tested hf182418 in prboom 2.3.1, and it worked OK (well, I used -fastdemo, but that shouldn't invalidate the test).
prboom -file hr.wad hrmus.wad -playdemo hf182418

Desyncs are a known issue in hr map18 in prboom; e.g., Ryback's UV Speed record on this map (hr18-348) desyncs, and I recall cph not being able to sort out what the cause was (it still fails in 2.3.1). An older demo on this map (can't remember which) also desyncs.

[Schneelocke]

You're right, it was the wrong demo. I probably shouldn't post when tired like that. ^^

[VinceDSS]

Schneelocke said:

Isn't it Compet-N's purpose to collect the fastest demo recordings in existance for the WADs they have? It would be a pity if you knew while browsing it that there may be faster demos out there that just weren't uploaded due to "sportsmanship" concerns.

I think there are few dozens of demos that could be C-N records but never been uploaded. I guess mainly from Ocey, Sedlo and AdamH.