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Offline Parax

Recent Rule Changes
« on: May 11, 2013, 06:44:28 pm »
There's been a few rule changes over the last few months. Most of these have been announced on the TSC Twitter, but if you've missed those then here's a quick list of what's been updated.



General: The original game and all its contents must be preserved and unmodified.
Sonic Generations: Modifications of any kind, including cosmetic mods, are disallowed.


This rule should have been a no-brainer, but cosmetic Sonic Generations mods were generally overlooked, as they didn't have an effect on gameplay. However, it was recently found that a few "cosmetic" mods did have a small impact on gameplay that gave an advantage to players running mods. To that end, on top of the general rule, mods are explicitly banned again under the Sonic Generations rules, as that's where most of the issues were.

Even though this was mostly an issue with Generations, the rule applies to all games. Play the vanilla version.

As a side note - if you guys see any stats on the Sonic Generations charts that are in violation of this rule, let us know and we'll take care of it.

General: Any game running on a PC or emulator must perform at full speed while playing the game you're submitting for (60 FPS in most cases). The exception is if lag is caused by the game, rather than by bad hardware or emulation.

This is to prevent players from being able to slow down the game akin to using the slowdown function on an emulator and gain an advantage over players running the game at full speed. The rule is largely intended to combat bad hardware or bad emulation, though, so it only applies to PC games, and there's an exception for lag caused by in-game bugs.

Sonic Heroes: Use of the Team Blast Glitch -- switching characters while simultaneously using Thunder Shoot to rapidly fill the Team Blast gauge --  is forbidden for all Team Dark charts except Rings.

The Team Blast Glitch was previously banned for all charts except Chaotix Rings. This rule was somewhat arbitrary and inconsistent with our other rules, so it was removed. TBG is still banned for Team Dark charts, though, as it breaks every level excessively to the point of reducing them to TBGing over and over.

Sonic Generations: In Speed Highway, resetting a bell to make it dispense more rings than it should is not allowed.

This is a ring scalping bug that allowed you to collect infinite rings in Speed Highway that was largely forgotten about until recently; it's banned now.



That should sum it all up - now go submit some stats :P
« Last Edit: May 11, 2013, 07:14:31 pm by Umbreon »

Offline SB737

Re: Recent Rule Changes
« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2013, 07:35:45 am »
Just a few questions, I assume that by the bell glitch not being allowed that includes doppelganger races, and the challenge that it affects? Because on those there is a time limit, so maxing out the rings in the challenge/doppelganger isn’t actually possible, so maybe it should be allowed for that. When there’s a time limit involved it’s pretty much the same concept as this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=piZZTlRrXqY‎ , hitting the same rock more than once/getting the rings of the bell more than once within a time limit.

Also if cosmetic mods aren’t allowed does that mean previously submitted times using cosmetic mods should be removed? E.g this stat: http://www.soniccenter.org/members/brianuuu/sonic_generations/scores/rooftop_run/modern I don’t think it affects the time or sonic’s speed but it might do, if all previously cosmetic mods were to be removed then the charts would have to be gone through pretty thoroughly.
The other alternative (and I assume this is what you mean) is for cosmetic mods to be banned from this point forward.
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Offline Parax

Re: Recent Rule Changes
« Reply #2 on: May 16, 2013, 06:58:03 pm »
Yes, the rule applies to the Doppelganger challenges as well.

And yeah, cosmetic mods are banned; like the general rules say, if a new rule is enacted then all previously submitted stats in violation of that rule are void. Let us know if you see any stats using mods on the charts.

Offline Chackoman15379

Re: Recent Rule Changes
« Reply #3 on: May 17, 2013, 05:44:55 pm »
i know i sound like a derp but what is a cosmtic mod

Offline Werey

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Re: Recent Rule Changes
« Reply #4 on: May 17, 2013, 06:12:11 pm »
A mod that changes the appearance of how things look.

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Offline Chackoman15379

Re: Recent Rule Changes
« Reply #5 on: May 18, 2013, 08:33:59 am »
u mean like say a boost gauge layout or an unleashed renderer

Offline SpanielWare

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Re: Recent Rule Changes
« Reply #6 on: May 18, 2013, 08:43:34 am »
^ Provided that, as Werey rightfully said, these things modify the appearance of stuff in the game (I'm not really in-the-know when it comes to cosmetic modding), then yes.
« Last Edit: May 18, 2013, 10:50:30 am by danieldude »
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Offline FocusSight64

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Re: Recent Rule Changes
« Reply #7 on: May 26, 2013, 01:27:34 pm »
Understood, Paraxade.
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Offline SqwareEcks

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Re: Recent Rule Changes
« Reply #9 on: May 29, 2013, 11:28:14 pm »
One question. I haven't tried to use it to submit stats (yet), but I mostly play S3&K on the PC version because my Genesis ate a shit and died and I've heard people say it's not acceptable to use Mega Collection. Because I hate the quality of the MIDIs and the altered music for Icecap and Launch Base, I've been using the BGM modifying HD audio patch from Sonic Retro when I play it (and also a workaround patch that forces it to run at 60 FPS as it otherwise runs far too fast to play on a modern computer). Would that count as a banned cosmetic mod? If so, I'll probably just go back to playing it on emulator.
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Offline SB737

Re: Recent Rule Changes
« Reply #10 on: May 30, 2013, 05:12:00 am »
^ Well cosmetic mods have only been banned for Sonic Generations, to my knowledge any modifications to sonic mega collection don't give the player an advantage, whether a rule of not allowing mods to all games should be implemented I don't know.
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Offline Parax

Re: Recent Rule Changes
« Reply #11 on: May 30, 2013, 05:23:36 am »
Cosmetic mods are banned for all games. It's a general rule:
"The original game and all its contents must be preserved and unmodified." So that would include an audio patch, yeah.

...That being said, where did you hear that Mega Collection wasn't accepted? I'm not hugely familiar with the classic games, but I'm pretty sure it's perfectly allowed... in fact I think quite a few people here used to compete on it.

Offline flying fox

Re: Recent Rule Changes
« Reply #12 on: May 30, 2013, 06:08:58 am »
Speaking of S3&K for the PC version. I always wondered about whether the Classic Collection on the DS was allowed for competition or not. I haven't got it on me at the moment so I can't test it, but I'm pretty sure I remember the spin dash being awful in it. As in I couldn't do a 6 tap spin dash at all, or do certain things properly that I could do on a console or emulator. Really wish I had it on me now so I could test, but I remember mostly saying when playing it that I would never use it for competition because it wasn't as good as console or emulator.

Offline SB737

Re: Recent Rule Changes
« Reply #13 on: May 30, 2013, 06:47:49 am »
i have used classic collection alot ff, and I presonally find it fine, also the six tap spindash is actually faster and easier for me bacause the DS' buttons are closer together. If you want me to test anything on it I can because I have it with me atm.
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Re: Recent Rule Changes
« Reply #14 on: May 30, 2013, 06:58:16 am »
What about playing the game gear games with the unlockables in Sonic Adventure DX (GCN)?
Is that allowed?

Offline SpanielWare

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Re: Recent Rule Changes
« Reply #15 on: May 30, 2013, 09:24:15 am »
I'm pretty darn sure that Sonic Mega Collection (Plus), Sonic Classic Collection and Sonic Adventure DX (including the unlockable Game Gear titles) are all perfectly fine for competition here at TSC.
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Offline Parax

Re: Recent Rule Changes
« Reply #16 on: May 30, 2013, 05:11:22 pm »
IIRC Classic Collection isn't allowed because it doesn't emulate the games very well and SADX is fine. Again though, not totally sure.

Offline TimpZ

Re: Recent Rule Changes
« Reply #17 on: May 30, 2013, 09:13:35 pm »
IIRC Classic Collection isn't allowed because it doesn't emulate the games very well and SADX is fine. Again though, not totally sure.

You mean an official rerelease of the game isn't allowed? As long as "The original game and all its contents must be preserved and unmodified." or "Any re-released version of this game (official or unofficial) that has been modified to create a functional change to level layouts is not permitted for use in competition" is true it shouldn't be a problem, especially since ingame time usually is used.

I have played it myself and it's not really going to pose any threat as it is an inferior version. Any glitches exclusive to the version would obviously be banned though.

Offline SqwareEcks

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Re: Recent Rule Changes
« Reply #18 on: May 31, 2013, 10:10:38 pm »
Cosmetic mods are banned for all games. It's a general rule:
"The original game and all its contents must be preserved and unmodified." So that would include an audio patch, yeah.

...That being said, where did you hear that Mega Collection wasn't accepted? I'm not hugely familiar with the classic games, but I'm pretty sure it's perfectly allowed... in fact I think quite a few people here used to compete on it.

IIRC someone in the forum said it was possible to use the save and quit function to quit the game and then restart it on the same frame, essentially making it function like a savestate. This was some time ago, though, before I joined the site, so I might have read it wrong.
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Offline SpanielWare

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Re: Recent Rule Changes
« Reply #19 on: June 01, 2013, 04:07:46 am »
^ Sonic Mega Collection doesn't give the player the ability to save their progress in games that don't already have save capabilities, but Sonic Mega Collection Plus does have an in-game save feature that can be used in such a way as you have said (which I agree is essentially save stating). Nevertheless, as long as a competition run is executed from start to finish without any save files being loaded mid-run, then the stat(s) obtained is/are still perfectly legit (back me up here admins!).
« Last Edit: June 30, 2013, 12:43:18 pm by danieldude »
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