Portal: Prelude Forum

I have to agree.
Nowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww will this end?!

NykO18 wrote:

That was funny.

Fluffles wrote:

Nowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww will this end?!

I'm asking myself the exact same question.
I'm not deep into your little games, but he managed to get thirteen seconds on the twelfth chamber... congratulation, he's still not first.
To be honest, I really don't care about this story. Either I say, "Ok, he's right and I'm wrong" because he was really right and I look silly, or he really cheated and I look silly too, either I just say "I don't care" and don't care. And right now, I don't care.

Sure, I could forget about all this, but what would happen if he really cheated? I prefer to ignore him than to make mistakes. Stimich's youtube videos are still strange and he still didn't manage to reproduce any of his scores filming himself. I don't really care about looking silly, but not for no reason. By the way, if HE wants HIS scores back, he'd better ask himself.

Else, I can choose to close this effin' ladder and that's it. I've got more important things to deal with.

Yes, I understand how this may have been tiresome for you, and that you no longer care about this matter. However I think that this will only cause you more future problems. I think that you need to work out a decision from what you saw - where he displayed that he actually manages to get good times on test chambers in 10 minutes. Imagine what would happen if he tried for an hour straight? Would he get a record? Probably.

So - I know you probably don't care about this matter at all, but it is actually to some degree similar to a robbery put on public display. Sure, it isn't by far so serious. But adding a name in the newspaper that 1000's read isn't that much less similar from adding a name to a site were almost 1 000 000 people have come to download your mod.

If he didn't cheat - which is an easy decision to make seeing as he actually manages them on a camera, despite the fact that it wasn't a record - I think that the least you could do would be to post a formal apology on the front page. A apology saying not that you didn't do a good job on your research, but a apology saying that after all there isn't anything against him.

Over to the next part - the ban - it is quite obvious that when you can get so close to your old record in 10 minutes, and maybe if you try an hour straight you can get a record. Therefore, what is the point of using tools for speed running? It removes all the fun and the challenge. As of this, you can see that Portal and Portal: Prelude means a lot to him. I'm certain that he would appreciate it if he was un-banned for future ladder entry.

I think that you, Nicolas, for your own good should do some TAS related research. Download every tool you can find, try them, see if you can patch prelude so that people are unable to cheat. That should save you a lot of future trouble and make your game near perfect.

Overall, what makes his videos different from the speed runner next to him in the end? The 90 degree turn in two frames? I don't think so. King is by a chance the other speed runner - you saw on my earlier post that you did a 180 degree turn in one of your  videos. Don't believe me? Please feel free to go through it frame-by-frame.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP25f8W5 … annel_page
Images: http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s52/ … tz/4x1.jpg
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s52/ … tz/4x2.jpg

This all in all adds up that he has done nothing different then anyone else. I don't believe you need to add up much effort - a lot less effort then I added in writing this post to just simply unban/apologize.
This is a matter of integrity and maturity as well.

Knowing Stimich, me and a few others went in for research and without much trouble proved against every point and more, with examples and proof. I therefore believe that it would just be easier for you to un ban him, add his ladder entries again or similar, rather then replying negatively against each and every post and proof we put up to you. As a moderator you are not supposed to be small minded and instead of rejecting everything you are supposed to weigh and judge it in a fair manner. this is something you have honestly not done. I'd like you to do and think about that now.

Before you reply with your opinion, I'd like you to put yourself in Stimich's ###. Consider the possibilities.

Before I finish this post up I would also like to bring up your own statement saying;
"Enough I said.
I don't care who you are, I don't care what you want, I don't care what you're trying to achieve.
If Stimich wants his scores back, he just have to ask himself providing some proof." - As such did we!
That is now done. What more can you ask?

I would now like to hear your decision and further judgment.

Last edited by Shivhead3000 (06-07-2009 10:29:31)

Shivhead3000 wrote:

Over to the next part - the ban - it is quite obvious that when you can get so close to your old record in 10 minutes, and maybe if you try an hour straight you can get a record.

That is not true, I have spent countless hours on many chambers to lower them by 1 second. Lowering a time by 3 seconds will not take you an hour, even if the time is actually possible to get for a human. In this case chamber 12 is pretty much maxed out at 12 seconds, someone that takes 10 minutes to get a 13 has no chance in ever getting 10. I can get a 13 in about 1-2 minutes and a 12 in about 3 minutes, yet I find 11 seconds out of my reach...so unless Stimich was hit by a car or something over night, I doubt 100% that he actually got 10 seconds.

monkeyman wrote:

and i also dont think there should be people posting on this forum trying to offer proofs for whether he has cheated or not cheated.
i think what nicolas has done is right from the evidence he was given and acted correctly as a moderator.

The evidence he was given was faulty and so far there are no proofs against Stimich so why wouldn't we try to stop it?
If I suddenly said you were a hack and I made some conclusions and banned you are you saying that you wouldn't try to get unbanned? And you have the right to a FAIR trial?
Because nothing is fair about unfounded claims.

Kingpin wrote:

I can't believe you expect anyone to actually read that and I can't believe I did, it says absolutely nothing.

Summary of your post shivhead:
"we trust Stimich because he is our friend" - wtf?
"We have videos of him playing on youtube as proof" - proof? Hell no, 13 seconds is easy even for the non-speedrunners of prelude...before he gets 10 seconds on camera there is no proof.
"We have proved that frame glitches are a part of the source recorder" - Explain his impossible speed at the beginning of chamber 10 and when falling towards the end of chamber 5. Frame glitches are one thing, increased acceleration is another, this actually effects his final time hence it is a cheat in some way or form.
"We have no clue about speedrunning in portal but we trust him so he isn't cheating" - wrong answer.
"I'm so narrow-minded that I cannot see that Nicolas has been open-minded" - Matter of fact he has, we all have however there is absolutely nothing that you have shown that is in any way proof that Stimich isn't cheating.

What a waste of time this post is, but clearly not as much of a waste as yours.

I believe this wasn't an argument, but a discussion until you came along.

"we trust Stimich because he is our friend" - No. We know Stimich well enough to know what he may or may not do. It's called psychology. Obviously this wasn't supposed to be a big point. It's just an added notice.
"We have videos of him playing on youtube as proof" - I'll ask him later today to try and get his own records, if that pleases you so much.
"We have proved that frame glitches are a part of the source recorder Explain his impossible speed at the beginning of chamber 10"  - Even I can do that. It's called ABH - accelerated back hopping. I thought you'd know that. Here's a nice little tutorial for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia7fZ7SY414 - If you mix ABH with forward momentum you also get quite the speed, because portal does still think you are falling.
"hence it is a cheat in some way or form." - It's an exploit, like portal bumping... but there are 100's of ABH'ers - heck, almost every person speed running in portal does it... are they banned? I do not believe so.
"We have no clue about speedrunning in portal but we trust him so he isn't cheating" - I have tried speedrunning a while. I fail at it, but I've gotten one or two nice times. I know enough about it. I do not use source recorder, but I've tested it on non-related occasions, so I know a few things about that too. And, yes, on top of the evidence - all that proof - heck - the exact negative proof of what Nicolas displayed which SHOULD be handled the exact SAME was as any other peace of "evidence" we trust him. I stated it earlier, but it's supposed to be a small part of my post. What I see in you is that you attempt to pull out the tiny, most ridiculous parts of people's posts, turn it into a big thing and use it against them. You need to start re-considering what you write if you are supposed to be able to talk like a civilized person about this.
"I'm so narrow-minded that I cannot see that Nicolas has been open-minded" - here's the thing: we are both. what I did was find the part with least evidence, give them some - where I found out that that part was not cheating - when I discovered that and that you did not have anything against Stimich - yet you were still against him I stuck on this side. You do not have a single thread of evidence against him. If you were maybe a bit more open to the solution that he may not have cheated I may have considered opposite. But honestly - YOU are the people now with lack of evidence. All you have against him is ABH - something almost every speeedrunnder does. Thus his videos are NO different at ALL from the speedrun videos next to him. Transgenic's or Kingpin's for example. How can you prove that you have not cheated? We don't have anything against your videos, but it's the exact same situation concerning Stimich.

Fluffles wrote:

And you have the right to a FAIR trial?

Here's where I've been going with all my posts.

DZJB wrote:

Nicolas wrote:

Stimich is also banned from any future ladder entry, unless he proves his innocence.

That's a fair trail. Haven't seen any valid proof so far.

To the people going over the accusations. I don't care about some comments of posts on other sites. Just YT speedrunning vids.

Chamber 05: Acceleration around 11th second.
Chamber 09: Insane acceleration due to ABH
And the Chamber 12 vid.

Fact is, I don't know enough about demo recording or ABH to say that those are cheated. But they are weird indeed. Until I see some proof that he can reproduce some of those, I'm going to be suspicious as well. Therefore, I have to agree with monkeyman that Nicolas has made the right choice.


-DZJB

That's better. I would like for Stimich to explain those. I agree, I don't know enough about the demo recording to say anything about if he cheated or not, but I agree - they look suspicious. I'm not saying he cheated and I'm not saying he didn't cheat. I'll ask him myself what that was.

And, Kingpin - if you were trying to convince me - this would be the way to go.

DZJB wrote:

Shivhead3000 wrote:

That's better. I would like for Stimich to explain those. I agree, I don't know enough about the demo recording to say anything about if he cheated or not, but I agree - they look suspicious. I'm not saying he cheated and I'm not saying he didn't cheat. I'll ask him myself what that was.

And, Kingpin - if you were trying to convince me - this would be the way to go.

Oh wow.

You've started this thread by saying that you trust Stimich, and that you believe that the matter is solved 'cause of a mediocre speedrun. And a few posts later you start doubting the legitimacy of his runs?

Do you expect people to take you seriously now?


-DZJB

I judge matters and I am not taking one distinctive side. I judge and think of what is fair/not fair with rightful evidence. I still trust Stimich - I just agree with your thoughts on that it looks odd.

I am not as narrowly-minded that I consider whatever evidence from only one part - I put myself in the other part's position. Everyone who judge fairly should. Therefore I expect people to take me more seriously then ever.

NykO18 wrote:

I am not as narrowly-minded that I consider whatever evidence from only one part - I put myself in the other part's position. Everyone who judge fairly should. Therefore I expect people to take me more seriously then ever.

And you're welcome for this.
because anyway, if you were annoying, I would have banned you from the start.
But your argumentation is pretty solid, and you're polite, unfortunately, we have to agree that there's no proof in filming himself playing without actually breaking any record. This may sound nitpicking, but that's the way we roll.

Well, honestly I can say I have not been polite, but I've been considerate. We have all really started to give up due to the lack of possibilities to get real evidence. Your decision is understandable from what you have gotten of evidence. I don't blame you. I still don't think Stimich cheated, but all in all this has to be proved... and we don't know how - so I guess it ends here.

Well played though.

DZJB wrote:

Chamber 09: Insane acceleration due to ABH

the first blue portal is perpendicular to the wall o.O

@fluffles: yes, but if i wasn't a hack (or whatever) then it would be very easy for me to prove so... if stimich is as good as these videos make out (im not saying he isnt good, im just questioning whether he is THAT good) then he should b able to reproduce them, instead of just attempts at getting closish to the record...

@Shivhead3000: he can prove himself as nicolas said... if he sent a demo file of him actually beating the record that doesnt look weird or anything then that would be good evidence... we want it to be fair... im sure nicolas doesnt have anything against the guy, he just wants to be sure that the right decision is made...

You know, this silly argument would be over if he just gave us the demo's of these runs. You can almost always tell if a demo has been manipulated. I have a working version of the previous version of Portal (build 3740), so I can play his old demos correctly. That is the only proof you need IMO.

leetsauce wrote:

Kingpin stop being a pinhead. I mean people are just that good at timing. Some have the ability to jump at the right time. Others on the other hand do not. Incase you're too slow STOP BEING A PINHEAD

Guess you haven't tried pulling off consistent ABHing (without a script)? Being able to ABH without AHK is one thing. Reproducing it thousands of times for speedruns in a consistent matter is another thing. And I won't even talk about curved ABHing.


-DZJB