PMniac

PMniac sent yesterday a new score on 1942, NES version.
He now pretend to play on NES version, despite he said to me, clearly, by PM last 3rd April:
"Every game that I've submitted that has a WiiVC, I've played on it, except for Super Mario Bros. which I've played on NES as well and have scores/times from both versions submitted. "
On this problem, if he changed what he said few months ago, it's not a trustable behavior, sorry.
You can't do what you want here, especially when you don't help or change your answers depending on the context (Wii VC splits, since this summer).

His actual proof picture don't even show the NES system/platform, as strongly suggested since this Game Rule changed and is applied since 09th October.
Also we can see he probably use a software to stream (with PC, Wii, or maybe emulator ?).
I'm not sure this comes from the NES.

So, please give us clear explanations about this, and as suggested in the Game Rules, with an additional proof of your system and of your original game (with a specific tag or personal signature), to see if you really played on NES. 
A demonstration of you skills and gameplay conditions would be appreciable, too, in a relatively long time.

You have now 15 days to answer to this, so until 25th November.
Thanks. 

I can't believe this is really happening ahahahah
There's thousands of scores unproved on the site and on retro games, yet you don't even bother to know which platform the other users played on. Even created a new term "Pause Save-States" was just an excuse to split my scores and Zimer's from the rest of the site and cherry on top of it, they don't count for the site rank. But I don't care about it, I'll still submit my scores on the platforms they were played adequatedly, I don't care about site rank anyways.
About emulators, I don't use them to submit for records ever since I got my first ban in wii-records, which was like 2011?

Now you say, "Ah you don't use for records, but does that means you still use them".
Yes I do play on RetroArch, but only when I'm playing on https://retroachievements.org/user/PMniac , my most recent addiction. No scores done there are submitted here or on CyberScore, which also explains my absence over the years on submitting both here and on CS.

Anyways, getting back to the topic I'm accused of.

You want proof of my skill on that game, sure, no problems. 4 years ago on 10th April 2019 I completed the whole game in 1h 12min 41sec and in that run I also beat max score the game can display. Check https://www.speedrun.com/1942 if you don't believe, there's video proof of the full run.

As of the quality of the image, I'm sorry it's so bad, but I use an Elgato Game Capture HD to record Composite signal comming from my American NES which I have bought on ebay some years ago, using OBS Studio, it's a free broadcasting software for PC.

Yes I have an American NES because I was hardcore speedrunning Super Mario Bros. since 2014, and started playing it on PAL Wii VC version, and PAL (European) version is slower than NTSC (American). So I moved from PAL WiiVC to NTSC WiiVC and then much later to NTSC NES because the WiiVC Frame Rate is slower than NES, allowing me to beat Super Mario Bros. in under 5 minutes.

There's proof of my buy on ebay of the NES.
After getting the NES I wanted to do the NES Mania project, like TheMexicanRunner, which is to beat all NES games, but I lost motivation right on the start, and the games I accomplished there were 10-Yard-Fight which is not on VGR and 1942.

"strongly suggested" doesn't mean it's enforced, and you want to enforce it, you need to make it for everyone, if you're just making it to A, B or C users, it can be considered pursuing.

To finalize, all of my cool content is done live at https://www.twitch.tv/pmniac be sure to give it a follow ;)

Thanks for your fast answer with details, I will study this next week and ask you other details, if needed.
Please continue to take care of this topic in the next days.

Your constant targetting of PMniac is quite embarrassing, this has now been going for more than a year. I have been watching this situation play out and been fairly quiet, but I would like to weigh in now.

You are using so little sense that more than 12 months later, you are watching his records as they come in & reporting him within 24 hours. You are making assumptions about the console that he played on with no basis (and being completely wrong). You are making administration decisions based on those assumptions that are incorrect and thus causing the website to have fake/incorrect records because of your incorrect assumptions. You are making assertions about the veracity of his records based on recording quality while displaying a level of ignorance on recording capabilities that startles me. We have been able to record NES gameplay in reasonable quality for well over a decade and the technology PMniac is using to do so is not new or untoward. There are 100+ other users on this website that record video proof using exactly the same capture card; and use exactly the same broadcasting software to stream. I would suggest you put in some serious effort to update your understanding on what modern recording standards look like, because you are making a fool of yourself by trying to support your frivolous and unjustified claims with a basis that became outdated before this website was even programmed.

It is frankly absurd for you to be making cheater topics and ultimatums based on a throwaway statement made a year ago and assuming that nothing has changed or that one sentence damns PMniac forever in all things. In the very same PM on the 3rd of April that you take as gospel that he is Wii-VC on every submission he has ever made and every submission he will ever make, PMniac quite literally communicated to you that he owns an NES. It's even in the same sentence.

All of this is also secondary to the fact that your entire crusade against Wii VC in the first place is so unbelievably ridiculous that I have a hard time understanding how you continue to login here and take the whole thing seriously. Why have you targetted PMniac and Zimer for a year for playing on Wii VC? There are hundreds of other users on VGR historically who have used Wii VC to play old games, this website's community and indeed the record-hunting community at large was at a golden age when Wii VC was current. Making sweeping rule changes more than 15 years after the fact and then claiming PMniac is a cheater for playing on Wii VC when it was allowed (and reasonably so) is absurd. Not only is that perspective on moderation completely incompetent, but the entire basis for the Wii VC rule-changes and splits is (like most other things you've done with relation to PMniac) forged in poor/incomplete understanding.

At this point, Zephyraz, your treatment of PMniac has become harrassment, I implore you to stop this. You're an administrator here and you need to do better. At the very least, it would be responsible for you to take yourself out of being involved in any further discussions on PMniac on VGR as you have shown consistently over the past year a complete inability to act sensibly, professionally, or treat him with respect. Have another moderator take over this situation permanently, please. Alternatively, drop it entirely.

Thanks
Grace

 

As long as there is suspicion of cheating, the admins must investigate it. You are taking this too personally, we spend our days adding games and validating records. Why would we want to slow things down ? It takes massive amount of time for you to prove your scores and it takes massive amount of time for us to validate them all. It is legitimate that anybody can ask proofs that you play the game regularly. zephyraz is just doing its part and he is doing a fine job dealing with all the players that keeps sending records based on emulation.
PMniac stated he plays ROM games on his computer, why would it be strange to ask if he hasn't doing it to get the best scores ?
The Wii-VC split is legitimate and has been discussed on council. Should I really say one more time why save-state/pause or whatever you do that modifies the original game is a stupid way to compete against players that use traditionals hardwares ?

You seems to think zephyraz is on a crusade against a few players where he gives you opportunities to prove you are as good of a player as you pretend to be. He's just trying to be precise to avoid the type of confusion he somehow ironically still gets.

Well said Grace.

PMniac's picture proof shows clearly that he play normally. Using screencam recordings isn't cheating. As time passes, more effective tools will appear to make good videos in old games. Also is possible to do 3DS screencam recording.

(signing in for the first time in however long just to give my two cents on the Wii VC split)

The Wii-VC split is legitimate and has been discussed on council. Should I really say one more time why save-state/pause or whatever you do that modifies the original game is a stupid way to compete against players that use traditionals hardwares ?

All major consoles released over the past decade have some way to suspend the game you're playing. By putting the console in sleep mode, you can come back later and resume whatever run you're in the middle of. Xbox Series X|S even let you suspend multiple games at once. The Xbox One, PS4, Switch, and PS5 all work identical to Wii VC's one-time restore points, and Series X|S is almost exactly the same.

To use a similar Wii VC/old consoles comparison, some Xbox 360 games are playable on Xbox One and Series X|S. If I'm in the middle of, say, a Sonic Generations level, on 360 I have to pause the game and leave the console running. On Xbox One, I can pause the game, put the console in standby, then come back after 12 hours to pick up where I left off. On Series X|S, I can launch a completely different game then return to the Sonic level with no lost progress. You could say this "modifies the original game" because the 360 didn't have the feature. That would mean all 360 games playable on later consoles (and 360 games with native Xbox One versions) should be split between "original hardware" and "Xbox One and Series X|S" because of this "stupid way to compete against players that use traditional hardware".

Could anyone seriously argue 360 players are disadvantaged because later Xbox owners can suspend a game mid-run? Or even argue PS5 players are disadvantaged because Series X|S players can suspend more than one game at a time and even turn the console completely off without losing progress?

I never think about 360 vs xbox one, you are right.

we could very well make the separation only on games which have an alteration depending on the console like with Pokémon Snap on N64 and WII, and perhaps others and keep the other games together

That would be very sensible, Foxof, however these points have been raised already quite a few times and ignored. Thanks for chiming in Groudon!

@ TJ7, I just want to reiterate, I'm not some newbie here; I do understand what it is to moderate (I am Zephyraz equivalent on Cyberscore; which is why the few times I pipe up here are usually moderation-related). The issue is that the thing that PMniac is being accused of is not actually cheating and a significant part of the community doesn't agree with the reasoning behind why Zephyraz started having a go at him in 2022. This has been going on for ages at this point. It needs to end.

When you say "You take this too personally", I think you're failing to understand that PMniac has had a very, very long time of striving to be a legitimate competitor, he's actually one of the community's most prolific players and has pushed to maintain an extremely high proof expectation on himself, resulting in him being one of the foremost examples of what good practices look like. For Zephyraz to be making cheater threads about him because of what is frankly a personal opinion is not just something throwaway, PMniac has a very solid reputation and I won't stand to see it damaged for such stupid reasons. It is quite important to me to be impassioned and come to someone's aid when I can clearly see that the accusations are frivolous.

"PMniac stated he plays ROM games on his computer, why would it be strange to ask if he hasn't doing it to get the best scores ?"

PMniac has also been discussing this situation in Discord for an entire month prior to this thread starting, in which he's already confirmed what console he played on and requested several times for the error to be corrected. He has been ignored despite going to pains to resolve the situation himself. His reward for his diligence was this thread. There is no need to create Cheater threads to fish and find out what console he played this specific score on when it's already known; there is also no need to ignore him and move his scores so that they're in the incorrect spot. The irony is that the most inaccurate submission on PMniac's entire profile is the administrations doing, not his own.

^ Note the date.
 

in the history of VGR, certain choices harmed VGR and resulted in a step backwards.
there can therefore very well be this return to all these separations and found another solution

Don't worry, I have (detailed) answers on what PMniac or Grace said before, but it is sad to repeat again the same decisions and argues. I will explain your misundertoods or details that you did not see, missed, don't know or ignored, in order to correct you when you're wrong, or what you wrongly or misinterpreted.

Sorry if I didn't have time to do yet, I'm (or we are) busy with other actual potential cheater's topics, but also 3 (other) new ones. 🙄
So, quickly:

PMniac: please send pictures of your NES system and NES 1942 game, with a personal tag/signature which identify yourself (you should know this as an old proof controller), and  group them together in the same picture, then delete the old proof (in Proofs zone, as you should know) and replace it with the new one, before 25th November.
Don't answer on Discord, please (Discord is not made for official or important topics, for another reminder 🙄).
If you can't download on VGR, please explain this (here in VGR) before 25th November.
I can be tolerant, up to certain limits. 😉

 

Ok, I'll leave you here a video showing you my consoles. I also have a SNES and N64 which are not shown in the video, because I'm not using them at the moment and I don't have much space as you can see in the video, and what I have here is already a huge mess cablewise xD

The only issue I can see you bringing up is the Everdrive, but I've asked Viviengaetan back when he was an admin about the use of flashcards and he said it was ok to use. I'll leave his quote after the video and I have saved it in my presentation on profile.

Anything else I can help you with, just let me know. You have now proof of my complete run, capture card, console, controller and cartridge, the only thing missing now is my citizen card 😅

Thanks for your participation, details and fast answer.

For reminder: 
Everdrive discussion
Sorry if this was not clearly written yet in the Rules, but Everdrive is not allowed.
If this was not written, you can't be blamed for this.

I can recognize we have our own difficulties to communicate about the Rules we made, mostly due to the time it represents without help of others, and that people can't search in all the topics (even if it's easy).
Despite all our old and recent reminders, it's embarassing for you and us.

I'm satisfied with your answer, for the moment.
First, I will write a more detailed answer, before 25th November I hope, for all previous comments here, and explain you again (or differently) why this topic was opened.
If you have any misunderstanding, tell me where and I will answer (depending on my time, due to other actual cases).
After, I will take a global decision next week, depending of this new context with Everdrive use.
Thanks again for your time and attention, continue to keep an eye on this topic for the next days, it's not ended.


 

Now saying Everdrive isn't allowed is making up rules as we keep going.

There's already tons of submissions on the site using R4 (DS) for example, and I literally asked an admin back in the day if it's allowed, and the answer was positive, as long as it's played in the original console, so why do you say it's not allowed now?

It's complete nonsense.

Well that's it, whatever your decision is, I don't plan to submit anytime soon to VGR.

The reason that there is no rule banning Everdrive and similar equipment in the Site Rules is that Everdrive was historically allowed on VGR. There are many, many records using R4 chips (R4 chips were extremely common amongst DS users in the late 2000s. We also have many of these users on CS!) and Everdrive.

There are examples on these forums of VGR administration confirming that Everdrive usage is allowed and also explaining the reasoning for why it's allowed.

It looks like you decided to change this at some time in 2020, however no rule has ever been written about it. The Site rules explicitly do not prohibit use of Everdrives or R4 chips.

As a reminder of the site's rules, the relevant section is article 2.2: https://www.videogamesrecords.net/en/rules

To be very blunt, if you want to formally ban Everdrive, formally ban Everdrive (and remove the 6 digits of scores using it, sure); but do not moderate your users based on rules that do not actually exist in the site rules. You have already done more than enough damage to the site's reputation and activity; making up prohibitions in order to further your vendetta is only going to harm VGR even further.

The 15 days delay for answering with details is now over, so I can now take a decision.
Sorry, but I will delay my decision, due to lack of time for investigations and detailed answer, and other things to manage.
My priority is now to fix this, as soon as possible.
Thanks for understanding, please continue to keep an eye on this topic.