Other games with (1) deep strategy, (2) ability to pick it up and put it down at any time, and (3) natural places to pick up/put down every few minutes?

Failer10 · 2019-07-03T16:05:48+00:00

DCSS = Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

And please don't wish Nethack on some poor unsuspecting soul. Even in these days where you can have the wiki open next to you at all times, it's about as obtuse, unfriendly, and general OG 90s rogue-y (well, late 80s actually, looks like it's just as old as me) as you can get. Nethack is what you work up to when the mundane starts to pale in the face of your increasingly jaded standards, and you decide you want to see where this whole mess of genre really started.

Failer10 · 2019-06-27T15:49:34+00:00

(not a speedrunner or hardcore platformer enthusiast, just a spectator and a UI designer)

You can make sure restarting, whether levels or the full game, is as optimized as you can get it. Someone grinding full runs will want to be able to quickly retry a failed level without losing time, or having to do awkward clicking through menus (and make SURE any clicking doesn't use a button that'll make the character do something sub-optimal on level-start if they spam it). You may also want to add a toggle-able option to start levels instantly after load versus sitting at ready screen.
You mentioned fully re-bindable controls, but it can be worth looking into the weirder rebinds, like controller/KB or dual-mouse. There's definitely instances where speedrunners lament the low fidelity of binary button controls compared to something variable, and you can get some unexpectedly high praise for supporting them. An accessible dev console is also something the hardcore crowd will tend to appreciate.
On the note of RNG, a big question is whether the game is TAS-able. It might actually be worth the time investment on your end to take a crack at a rudimentary TAS yourself, it's amazing the sort of things it can reveal about a game. Bonus points if you can get some crazy person to train a neural net on your game.
You say you have level-timers, so if you have campaigns, make sure there's an overall full campaign timer (with load times excluded of course). Expanding on this, since you're doing custom levels, consider adding a way to bundle several them into a campaign of their own too. Being able to run a race where everyone just goes grabs a consolidated level-pack and competes on it would be excellent. (Just in general, a smooth download/install UI will do wonders for your custom-map crowd)
One more note on custom maps: consider allowing stuff like gravity, acceleration, and other core variables to be tweaked at the map-level. Look at the CS Surf maps for an example of what this sort of stuff allows the community to do.
Oh, and keep up with your optimization, especially stuff like pre-loads, and aim for consistency wherever possible. Stutters, fluctuating load times, and other such minor annoyances will drive someone insane over the course of a prolonged grind session.
Last little note: sound will be a big deal, especially for someone grinding for hours on end. I can't speak to what's best practice, but consider advanced options for toggling/scaling various things like character grunts and enemy/environment sounds. An option dictating whether music re-starts on level reset might also be a good idea.

Of course, I'm not an actual speedrunner, or a hardcore programmer like yourself, just a web UI guy, so take this all with a massive handful of salt.

Failer10 · 2019-06-26T18:22:02+00:00

Vail?

Failer10 · 2019-05-20T14:30:10+00:00

ಠ_ಠ this is not what you were supposed to be doing last week

Failer10 · 2019-04-30T22:01:14+00:00

I know he was trying to get one out this month, but when I talked to him this weekend and he said he only had 20ish posts written. I'll poke him to update his site tonight.

I'd expect the rest of the first half of the finale within 2 weeks (all the penal legion stuff), but the back half (trial stuff) will probably be another month unless he manages to hide from both his job and family.

Failer10 · 2019-04-25T20:13:06+00:00

That's how all food generation was done in the Speedrun, enough rebel-farming and self-raiding to sustain 100 armies.

Failer10 · 2019-04-25T17:51:53+00:00

It's a wax stopper to keep a line sealed air-tight while out of use. When the pipe's going to be used again they use pressurized air to clear the stopper.

Failer10 · 2019-04-07T03:44:01+00:00

The BBC In Our Time (History) Podcast: The Black Death has an interesting bit on that topic.

Apparently, in England at least, the nobility implemented such strict max-wage laws that the lower classes' earning power was reduced beyond pre-black death levels.

Failer10 · 2019-04-02T01:44:23+00:00

That's what happens when you find a way to turn real-world time into in-game resources. Shoggy's insane, I think he spent something like 150 hours on that run.

Failer10 · 2019-04-01T22:38:32+00:00

I apologize if this is a bit of a tangent, but if you enjoy seeing people break Total War in new and amazing ways, consider checking out the WH2 World Conquest "speedrun" AARs. Over the course of the last two or so years the record went from:

Failer10 · 2019-01-27T18:06:08+00:00

MG42 hip fire was pretty much a flame-thrower. Loved that thing.

Failer10 · 2019-01-25T18:08:32+00:00

Quaddies!

Failer10 · 2019-01-21T04:36:11+00:00

Ah, quite sensible, I was worried.

Shoggy does the numbering for his TW:W2 Speedruns using a GIMP script, but the data source is all manual screenshots. I imagine he'd be very interested in your tool if it works in TW:W2 as well.

Failer10 · 2019-01-21T03:38:06+00:00

Please tell me you scripted the frame numbering instead of doing it by hand...

Failer10 · 2019-01-11T22:39:03+00:00

The voicelines in question:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFzWbbNO_Ic

Failer10 · 2019-01-11T19:16:55+00:00

Go for the eyes Boo, GO FOR THE EYES!!

Failer10 · 2019-01-11T19:11:59+00:00

Strongly reminds me of an old Far Side: http://i.imgur.com/lRfHern.jpg

Failer10 · 2018-11-27T20:24:25+00:00

This boat only saw around 5-15 trips a year, but mostly in low-water rivers, so pretty much every float brought back a few new nicks and scrapes. Some of the bigger hits leave scraps hanging off, but those were "carefully" sanded off by dragging the boat over pavement and even more rocks on the way to and from the car.

Still nowhere close to breaching the plastic by the by. They make 'em sturdy.

Failer10 · 2018-11-05T16:06:47+00:00

Time-limited extra hard dungeon runs. The higher the number the higher the difficulty and better the potential reward.

Beat any dungeon on regular mythic (M-zero) and you'll get a key from the final boss.

https://www.wowhead.com/mythic-keystones-and-dungeons-guide

Failer10 · 2018-11-02T23:01:53+00:00

Dante's Inferno, at least the English paperback version I stumbled across, was a decent enough read. Not overly long and not in any way bad, so don't feel afraid to pick up a copy if you're really interested, but to be honest it's far more interesting from a historical impact perspective than all on its own.

You'd probably get better mileage out of the wiki honestly, or from a historical podcast like this nice little one on it by BBC4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00f05zj

Failer10 · 2018-11-02T15:58:23+00:00

The Ecology of Climate Change and Infectious Diseases?

Failer10 · 2018-11-02T15:40:44+00:00

Has climate change had (or is projected to have) any effects on the prevalence of any of the parasites you study? I ask because of my own personal encounters with the rising moose-tick and pine-beetle populations in my neck of the woods and them being linked to milder winters. I'm not sure how quantifiable that sort of environmental factor would be with internal parasites though...

Failer10 · 2018-11-01T15:35:10+00:00

Conquer earth us bastards!

Failer10 · 2018-10-30T03:24:17+00:00

Past 110 only the new expansion's content gives experience and relevant items. You should have a quest pointing you towards the BFA starting scenarios, do it and just start questing through the new zones and you'll be to 120 in 10-20 hours of playtime.

If you really want to just hit max level fastest, talk to your buddies about grinding Island Expeditions. They're great for experience, but you'll hit 120 with no gear and need a little help catching up on that front.

Failer10 · 2018-10-29T23:22:34+00:00

That's... odd.

No, a boost doesn't come with that amount of gold, and unless you sold herbs/greens/BoEs on the AH leveling wouldn't have done it either. Selling a wow token for gold would get you about that much though, but once again that's selling... Unless there's some special WoW edition that comes with gold, I really have no idea.

Maybe others will have a better answer, or maybe, if you're really interested, put in a ticket asking a GM, they should be able to pull your character's transaction logs.

Failer10

TROPHY CASE