Beat Memfis Demos Month

[vdgg]

Relive MAP02 UV Max 2:18

rel2-218.zip

[4shockblast]

vdgg said:

Relive MAP02 UV Max 2:18

Damn, some solid-looking infights in this one.

Relive Map 01 UV-Max in 0:26.

rel1-026.zip

[Paul977]

Ryback said:

Alice's (Amazing Agonizing) Restaurant (AAAR20.WAD) Map01 max in 5:56

a myth

[Veinen]

Titania Map01 max in 6:45

tita-645.zip

[Keyboard_Doomer]

stevjobs UV Speed in 0:08.94

jobs-008.zip

[Grazza]

Liberty.wad, Map02 UV Pacifist in 0:09

This took more attempts than it should have done, because I am incompetent and have no movement skills. :p

li02o009.zip

[Grazza]

Connex2 by Ruba, UV Pacifist in 1:58

"My friend went to a map where a boss brain could be killed by lost souls and arch-viles, but all I got was this lousy cyberdemon kill."

Should go under a minute, but the run is tedious. A non-cyberdemon method shouldn't be much longer than a minute, though you need lucky spawns.

connp158.zip

[vdgg]

It's finished then, right? Sadly, the activity was pretty low... I really did what I could, I had that revival MAP02 demo and 2002ADO demos on my mind, but no time at all. The good thing is, the demos I watched were highly entertaining and some time improvements shocking. Congratulations to 4shockblast and basically to everyone for their new records!

[Memfis]

Yeah, I was hoping for more activity. Not sure if it's a problem with my demos, or with the time chosen, or what. But I really enjoyed watching all these! It was fun reliving my old speedrunning memories. Especially Ryback's entry was very surprising, I forgot that map even existed. :) And if I record on a wad, it usually means that I care about it at least a little. So I was glad to see new records on all these levels. Thanks to everyone and I'll try to participate in the next one (Anima Zero?).

[rehelekretep]

i must say January is a hectic month for many reasons, and the only Doom time ive had has been on the DWMC, and even that was basically finished after 1/2 the month (TNT)!

[4shockblast]

I was planning on making maybe a couple more demos for this before it ended, but ended up playing Doom even less than I expected. Overall, though, I think many people were put off by the number of obscure maps that they didn't want to learn maxes for. I'm generally ok with recording on obscure wads, but general lack of motivation pushed me to record on short runs or maps I was familiar with while I was able to do any work on this at all. :D

I don't know when the next event for this will happen, or if I should be the one to start it at all depending on how much time I end up spending on Doom in the upcoming months. I was hoping it would be someone who isn't too max-oriented to change things up, but maybe it doesn't matter much.

Another question is whether it's important get the permission of the player in question before organizing an event to beat their demos. I'm inclined to say that it doesn't matter because I don't see why a group of players would need permission to agree to beat some player's demos (after all no one asks record holders if it's fine with them to go for their times), but I've heard some opposite opinions, so may as well discuss it.

[Memfis]

Whaaat? Maybe these people are trying to defend their records this way? :D

For someone more speed-oriented we can try dew. I imagine it won't be easy though.

[vdgg]

4shockblast said:

Another question is whether it's important get the permission of the player in question before organizing an event to beat their demos. I'm inclined to say that it doesn't matter because I don't see why a group of players would need permission to agree to beat some player's demos (after all no one asks record holders if it's fine with them to go for their times), but I've heard some opposite opinions, so may as well discuss it.

I give you all permission of course, but in case I don't organize it but someone else, I will appreciate if you let me know. The reason: I have my idea of changing the rules; as an example, some of my runs will be worth 1/2 point (trivial to beat even by myself), some 1,2,3,5, maybe even 7 points (I'm not a brilliant player but I believe in some demos extreme effort is needed to beat me because I was super lucky or the run is very long).

[4shockblast]

vdgg said:

The reason: I have my idea of changing the rules; as an example, some of my runs will be worth 1/2 point (trivial to beat even by myself), some 1,2,3,5, maybe even 7 points (I'm not a brilliant player but I believe in some demos extreme effort is needed to beat me because I was super lucky or the run is very long).

I like this idea in theory, it would just take a long time for this information to be specified for any player with hundreds of demos (more work than I would personally bother with). If someone wants to do this for the next player that is chosen and put it in a readable spreadsheet that is preferably possible to order by points, then I wouldn't be opposed to this kind of a ruleset.

[baja blast rd.]

Memfis said:

Whaaat? Maybe these people are trying to defend their records this way? :D

For someone more speed-oriented we can try dew. I imagine it won't be easy though.

I think it can be dispiriting to a new runner. For example I'd feel picked on if people got together to try to beat all my times -- I've been running for less than a year and am no hotshot superstar like j4rio or something.

[Ryback]

I would have liked to record a few more, but the time just wasn't there. Fun event anyway though, I got to watch a bunch of runs I'd never seen before, and some very cool wads.

[Grazza]

I think the current simple format is OK. It encourages people to try a variety of maps and categories that they might not otherwise consider. And the fact that there is an existing demo may reduce the normal route-planning headaches (for those of us who don't see that as the main part of the fun).

I doubt scoring points is a huge motivation in any case, so putting a lot of work into a complicated scoring system seems a lot of effort for little reward. (Though perhaps it would make sense to invite the target player to list a few demos that they feel would be hard to beat, or that might be especially interesting to try for one reason or another.)

Yes, it means that if a player has done a number of rather unoptimized demos, then there is a fair amount of low-hanging fruit. But then again, recording a sloppy demo that just about beats such a demo leaves scope for another player to take this point away with a harder-worked demo. In that case, awarding just half a point for this demo (because of the quality of the original) would be a mild disincentive for that second player to record a higher-quality demo.

Regarding 'permission', of course there is no technical need to get the player's agreement before going medieval on their demos. But as we are a friendly community, it seems a good idea to check with them first, to make sure that they won't feel like they are being victimized. Different people feel differently about their creations.

On the topic of "tic improvements", I'm generally not a fan of them, but in the context of 'stealing' points in this "Beat X Demos Month", I agree that it makes sense for very short demos (less than 10 seconds?). But not for beating the original demo, which was probably not recorded with tic improvements in mind.

[Memfis]

Ok, I guess I see how it can be dispiriting. Personally, I think I'm always happy to see my records beaten simply because I tend to appreciate demos a lot more when I have some experience with the map myself and therefore can better understand the run's value, notice various improvements that other people might not see, etc. But I understand how it can be different for other players.

I think a system with different runs giving different points could be interesting and fair in many ways. Some demos are just silly 30 minute efforts, other are like Joe Abene's E3M8 Tyson (almost impossible to beat even with extreme dedication). So it makes sense to separate them, although choosing the exact values can be difficult.

[4shockblast]

Yeah, I welcome improvements on my demos always. Even when I was just starting recording and some of my demos would get smashed by better runners, I only took that as a cue to improve. :)

New players aren't likely to be chosen for this anyway, though, because there won't be a large enough demo selection to warrant it.

[j4rio]

The best way about it is initiating it yourself, I suppose.

[dew]

I was kinda thinking of "Beat Rich Sham Demos" where 1) you'd have to also set yourself a goal of XY seconds (minutes?) to beat them by, as he wasn't the fastest of runners, and 2) you'd also have to beat the current record on that map. The motivation is that Rich died 10 years ago, yet I believe the fact isn't very well known. A bit of a homage?

And just look at that tasty list to pick from...