Whore-ding - The Bear and Badger

mk64

Drama over on the MarioKart world record site which I mod.

Basically the number two in the world at mk64 felt that he couldn’t over take the world champion because every time he got a wr the champion would grind to get it back within two days or so.

After this happening for about two years he changed his strategy and hoarded all of his world records from everyone with the oldest being almost a year old. He even submitted weaker world records than the ones he had obtained so people weren’t suspicious that he wasn’t playing while still active on the forum etc. He was furloughed during covid and smashed a load of records in June till he was world champion and came clean. There was a comedy video and a post. Since then there’s been a massive backlash from the community against him for what he’s done. He’s not broken any of the site rules per se but he has essentially been underhand in not telling people/the site his times when he had them to allow more competition.

His justification was that he just wanted to be number 1 for a day. He has also since, posted a lengthy apology but it’s going to be hard for him to live this down. People take speed running and time trials very seriously. Well, some more than others.

If any of you play games competitively in communities and someone did something like that in your game/community how would you feel or react?

Dinostar77

Sandbaging hey? Good on him.

In all seriousness hes been a twat and an unsporting twat. But its a game after all.

davyK

I'm not sure I see the problem. Surely by hoarding them there was a risk they would be overtaken anyhow with normal activity - so stealing his day in the sun away?

Odd that people would get annoyed at that.

I was in a small Athlete Kings competition on a sega saturn forum several years ago - we had a deadline by which we had to submit our best times/distances. We could submit up to 3 times for each event up to the deadline. The timing of submissions was a tactic in itself.

I suppose with an ongoing thing, as I assume the MK64 site is, it might be considered bad form - but it wouldn't bother me.

Syph79

I’m surprised people are still beating records!

SpaceGazelle

Nvidia and Intel have been doing this for years.

acemuzzy

How's "World Champion" decided - sun of all tracks or something? Sounds like lols anyway, fair post says I, I've attempted the same against moot after all :-D

LivDiv

Maybe it is unwritten rules or a cultural thing over there but I dont see the issue really. Records is records.

I'm more suprised people are still breaking records on MK64.

Eric

Ha ha!

I think I'm fine with it. If they're legit WR it doesn't matter when he's done them and whilst probably not in the spirit of the forum, good on him I say.

If others grind to beat him, given time he'll be deposed and then he can do it all over again!

Some people are just probably a bit bitter. Do you have a link to the fallout?

EDIT:Found it. Read the apology, I don't think he has anything to apologise for. I notice there's a forum poll been set up as to whether to ban hording or not

g.man

It amuses me that there are apparently as many as two people who give a shit about having a "world record" on a video game that's nearly quarter of a century old. What a time to be alive!

nick_md

Sounds like he's been the legitimate wr holder for a couple of years then? It's a bit underhand that he/they didn't give the opposition a target, but they have it now. Game on, imo.

Dark Soldier

Tbf they do this on The Elite which is the Goldeneye/Perfect Dark communiry. They have a couple days each year where people can reveal their hoarded runs, its pretty cool.

davyK

It's still a big thing with 2D shmups. Well - I say big - in the context of a niche community it is.

Some of the better games have insane depth once you start score chasing. DoDonPachi is a '97 game and it's still very much a thing.

The whole speedrunning community is huge as well - GDQ events have helped that along no doubt.

mistercrayon

There was that Russian pole vaulter who used to go above the world record at important events by exactly 1cm so she could claim a new world record prize each time because even those heights were within her range.

mistercrayon

There is something interesting about how video game world records can count if you do them anywhere but sports records only count in completion. The latter can add spiciness and greater importance to a world record imo while clearly it may not be a true reflection of the peak of human skill.

davyK

There's a lot of babble about high scores now with the aftermath of the exposes of Billy Mitchell and others.

Scores in those old arcade games should only be recorded live at events. The amount of nonsense that abounds about using doctored PCBs and MAME has invalidated the whole scene.

They would be better just scrapping the whole thing and starting again if they cared enough about it.

davyK

mistercrayon wrote:

There was that Russian pole vaulter who used to go above the world record at important events by exactly 1cm so she could claim a new world record prize each time because even those heights were within her range.

There was a male vaulter who did that in the late 80s-90s. Sergei Bubka picked up the bonus for a WR in most European meets when the bounty was worth it to him.

Vela

People are just mad he beat them.

Facewon

I just can't help but think this. Apologies.

b0r1s

davyK wrote:

mistercrayon wrote:

There was that Russian pole vaulter who used to go above the world record at important events by exactly 1cm so she could claim a new world record prize each time because even those heights were within her range.

There was a male vaulter who did that in the late 80s-90s. Sergei Bubka picked up the bonus for a WR in most European meets when the bounty was worth it to him.

They were the same person

mk64

You can go to mkwrs.com to track new world records.

I think the underhand bit is that if you’re world champion in MarioKart you will have put probably close to 10k hours I to it. Usually gradually passing players till you become number 1. Once you’re there you take your foot off the gas (so to speak) unless someone starts to threaten you by gradually beating your times. In which case you might defend against them. You have the benefit of only having to refocus your time on the track wr you lost. Which is what was happening. If I was the world champion and I was dethroned this way I think I would be pretty pissed. I’m not sure the other who aren’t ranked as highly have that right. One of the biggest commentators is the world champion in super Mario kart SNES who is clearly putting himself in their shoes.

Ds - the elite is a mess though

and it’s interesting that this can’t happen in trials due to the way it’s online and saves fastest automatically

LivDiv

On the other hand if someone is sitting at the top with most or all of the records per track then it is impossible to dethrone them as the ultimate champ in any other way.
The top dog just has to play whack-a-mole with records while anyone else has to somehow break every record in 48 hours.

Fastest time wins, deal with it.

mistercrayon

b0r1s wrote:

davyK wrote:

mistercrayon wrote:

There was that Russian pole vaulter who used to go above the world record at important events by exactly 1cm so she could claim a new world record prize each time because even those heights were within her range.

There was a male vaulter who did that in the late 80s-90s. Sergei Bubka picked up the bonus for a WR in most European meets when the bounty was worth it to him.

They were the same person

Well the time difference is distinct but also their sex . The person I was thinking of was Yelena Isinbayeva. You can imagine though it being a complete wheeze if you can do it.

acemuzzy

Yup. I don't buy this "not having the right" thing. All's fair in love and war.

nick_md

MK makes a perfectly fine point - not disclosing a WR intentionally to hide it is removing catch-up time from the others. I would be pretty irked as well, although I'd get over it and just crack on, leaving the new champ to enjoy their muddied reputation.

nick_md

LivDiv wrote:

On the other hand if someone is sitting at the top with most or all of the records per track then it is impossible to dethrone them as the ultimate champ in any other way. The top dog just has to play whack-a-mole with records while anyone else has to somehow break every record in 48 hours. Fastest time wins, deal with it.

That's kinda what happened in Punch Out, this was a cracking video on the quest to beat Matt Turk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBR9ypSOTGQ

Love me some Summoning Salt.

Paul the sparky

Shirley they have had the old time to chase for the whole time? Why do they need a new record to be set in order to chase it when they already have records to aim for?

nick_md

Paul the sparky wrote:

Shirley they have had the old time to chase for the whole time? Why do they need a new record to be set in order to chase it when they already have records to aim for?

I'm talking about if you're #1 - you don't know someone's beaten your record in the shadows and put you into #2, so may not be actively playing to grind out gains anymore.

Paul the sparky

Can't say my heart bleeds for them like.

Paul the sparky

And there's nowt stopping them from beating their own records either.

Moot_Geeza

@mk64 Can we see the best examples of two-footed lunges from the disgruntled community or would that be poor form?

Diluted Dante

I don't see how there is anything wrong with it. It allows records to be broken in non competitive settings, so when it's submitted shouldn't really matter as long as it meets the standards of proof.

You don't get the credit for the score until it's submitted, and if the idea of being wronged is you had a record that wasn't a record, well you've no idea if someone not in the speedrunning scene has faster times than you, so the only one that matters is the one posted on the board. And if it's that you can't just play whack a mole as Liv says then that's a bit pathetic.

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories