Cheating scandals in the shmup community?

[Eyvah_Ehyeh]

I've been enjoying following some speedrunning communities, and fascinated with videos about cheaters, and my conclusion is that many communities probably have had cheating scandals, even if I of course have a confirmation bias because only hear about some WHEN someone has cheated. But I've never seen a video about cheaters in shmups, so now I'm curious - is the community just too small, is it something else, or have I just not heard about these things, perhaps because people haven't covered these stories on for example youtube?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

The community's so small that the number of scandals is relatively small and aren't really worth mentioning, but there's also a number of factors that interfere with identifying cheating:

a) At high skill levels it's possible to get clears with some accidental, very silly dodges. Determining if a player is skilled and just made mistakes vs very obviously tool assisted runs where the player has no idea how to play and is simply dodging everything thanks to slowdown and savestate tools can be hard if the player knows the game. The only real way to know for sure honestly is to see someone play live, in person. Even streaming can be cheated such as cleverly making your footage look live when in fact you're playing back a prerecorded run. Falsely accusing someone of faking it when it is in fact a legit run is also a potential problem here, and again, the only way to know a skilled player is skilled beyond any shadow of a doubt is to see them play in person. Recordings can be faked.

There are a ton of Youtube channels dedicated to Let's Play style showcases of games that very obviously use cheats and those generally tend to be easy to spot. Anything with Longplay in the title generally is done with tool assistance but not all tool-assisted channels are marked as such. The giveaway is usually something like someone playing a game that's tricky to score in such a Progear and miraculously surviving it all with an abominable score that doesn't even take basic scoring opportunities (in Progear scoring well also cancels bullets and would be done for survival purposes). Channels don't always make it clear in the description. The "Paul Eales" channel on Youtube is rather infamous for posting tool-assisted no death shmup clears that are very obviously cheated due to the player moving in ways that signal unfamiliarity with the game and the use of slowdown or save states to survive. Only more recently have the descriptions on videos had disclaimers like "Some Games On this Channel use Save States. NO TAS, NO CHEATS are used", which seems to misunderstand that Save States are a form of tool assistance and cheating. They're not cheats in the sense that the game's memory is being edited and forced to do something it wouldn't normally do, but it's a cheat in that it is making the game easier for a player in a way that is not intended and would not be possible if played on the original hardware.

b) The community's not super concerned with weeding out cheaters. It's not a big enough community to really matter, and there's no money involved so cheating only entails one's ego. Anyone who's posting world-record tier scores generally understands that there's a much higher burden of proof compared to "hey I got to stage 4 then died, here's my score". The people who post world-record scores or are playing a game at a level where they know they're getting really good scores will generally record footage and not just post screenshots, or in a case where they got a run while not recording will redo the record a run to submit a score.

c) There's enough shmups gatherings of people meeting to play in person that generally speaking, the big names that submit crazy high scores have been seen playing live enough that there's not much reason to suspect their skill. Sure, they could potentially submit footage of a faked run here or there, but they wouldn't need to as their skill is good enough that there'd not be much incentive.

d) If you're that weird about wanting to see your name at the top of a shmup scoreboard, you're probably weird enough that you'd actually invest time in the game itself rather than time faking it.

[Eyvah_Ehyeh]

abcd

All good points, BUT often it is the people who are at the very top in their respective game community that cheat, because for them it matters the most to be best, to feel like they haven't just sunk a bunch of hours into something that's basically worthless (because being number one is the only thing that matters), and are also the players that most easily can rationalize cheating (oh I've been so close so many times that one could say that I've basically already have the record, I just haven't gotten THE run yet, but for sure will, and thus it almost isn't cheating but rather a foregone conclusion). So do not underestimate the need for people to cheat, no matter what level of play they are at, the risks involved, how much they've already played, etc.

And oh boy have I watched videos on youtube that break down how communities have caught cheaters, and the method's can be very VERY complex sometimes (I am awestruck by the complexities both in discovering advanced speedrunning ways, and also by the understanding that is taken to also catch cheaters), but I mean still it would seem that many times, sooner or later, a method will be found to uncover cheated runs, whether it be by discrepancies in sometimes quite obvious things (sound mismatches, points being different when changing level, pointing to splicing), discrepancies less obvious (things being different between levels that nobody caught, because it was learned many years later that RNG somewhere is decided on a timer, and when that doesn't add up between levels, it is due to splicing), or LACK of discrepancies (hey this guy is basically ALWAYS pressing this button in this way, which no way is a human even so consistent), to even more complex ways of catching cheating.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Back in the 1980s, attempting do a 1CC or a 2CC affair on said "x" arcade game cab was considered a "big/major deal" (considering that the arcade gamer was spending real quarters which was enough incentive/motivation to get better at said arcade game which was considered an expensive hobby forcing the arcade gamer to master the game from "rote memory" with the least amount of money spent doing it -- this was before the advent of the internet and smart phones and if you wanted to record such arcade 1CC stints, you needed access to a camcorder + a blank VHS tape which were quite expensive to rent/own or at least know someone whom owned one to do so). And plus the fact that it was easier to tell if the videocassette was spliced or not by subtle "frame by frame" jumps/cuts not matching up when viewed in "real time" -- if the recorded video footage was playing normally without any tracking issues/jump cuts, then it was regarded as a legitimate and genuine 1CC/2CC run.

On my 2CC stint with Capcm's Hyper Dyne Sidearms in April/May of 1988, my 1CC on a Data East Heavy Barrell cab in 1988-1989 and a 1CC on an Atari Games full-sized Klax cab done in May of 1994 -- those were all done in real time without any breaks whatsoever (as arcade games back didn't have that type of "pause" feature/functionality anyways) -- sadly no recorded video footage either but considered as "personal best records" at best. So be it.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Jonpachi]

Who will be the Billy Mitchell of shmups in the future? Some old sad fuck claiming WRs on Esprade or something.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Nobody gives a shit about shmups compared to how much Donkey Kong blew up in popularity in North America though, which will take out a strong source of the motivation. I suspect Billy Mitchell loved to toot his horn in part because people listened.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I do recall seeing Billy Mitchell at the 2003 California Extreme & 2003 Classic Gamer Expo shows playing on said hosted Donkey Kong cab. Of course, Walter Day of Twin Galaxies was present as referee at both the 2003 & 2004 CAX shows.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Jonpachi]

I do recall seeing Billly Mitchell at the 2003 California Extreme & 2003 Classic Gamer Expo shows playing on said hosted Donkey Kong cab. Of course, Walter Day of Twin Galaxies was present as referee at both the 2003 & 2004 CAX shows.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Ha, I was there! I didn't really know who Billy was at the time, so I ended up skipping his show to keep playing more games.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

That's hilarious! Talk about it being a small world. Imagine if you were standing beside each other and didn't know it.

[Eyvah_Ehyeh]

I'm so glad that I don't need the extra pressure of performing because of the cost of every game. That said, it would be cool to go back in time and hang out at some old timey arcade place, trying to figure out a game together, not having access to any guides, internet, etc, just you and a couple of maniacs pouring your passion into understanding a game, and getting better at it.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

If you ever have the chance, go to Japan to experience some arcades there. It's far different from anything we had in North America. It is quite normal to find guides to games, especially complex ones like Tower of Druaga attached to the cabs. I even saw an Arkanoid guide that had screenshots of every level! I don't think that kind of cooperation ever became a thing in arcade culture in North America, the games were seen as trashy quarter stealers and not fun, fair games to learn and enjoy.

I was at arcades that had USB recording setups that encouraged you to bring a stick to record, headphone jacks retrofitted to the cabs so you could hear the music even if it was noisy, autofire controls, dual PCB setups where you could press a button to swap from one game to another, card readers that could let you pay for credits with prepaid cards if you wanted to use that instead of 100 yen coins... it was wild.

Seeing Japanese salarymen busting out clears of difficult, lengthy games like the Capcom D&D games, or watching a dude sit down and nab an ura loop clear of Daifukkatsu on his first credit was super rad, some of the players there are really devoted.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Back in March of 2000, I recall one guy playing the Taito G-Net version of Psyvariar Medium Unit and he had gotten to the final boss but died during the intense danmaku bullet storm and quickly left -- so my cousin & I continued where he left off and finally beat the final boss which lead to the staff ending credits scene but my cousin pressed a button which cancelled it entirely (so I wasn't able to watch it). Eventually, by buying the PS2 based Success produced Psyvariar Capture Box released in 2002, I was finally able to watch the Psy-MU staff ending credits at my leisure with the included Psyvariar Appreciate DVD Vol.1 disc -- still an impressive Superplay DVD with both Psy-MU & Psyvariar Revision play-throughs indeed.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[MJR]

I've been enjoying following some speedrunning communities, and fascinated with videos about cheaters, and my conclusion is that many communities probably have had cheating scandals, even if I of course have a confirmation bias because only hear about some WHEN someone has cheated. But I've never seen a video about cheaters in shmups, so now I'm curious - is the community just too small, is it something else, or have I just not heard about these things, perhaps because people haven't covered these stories on for example youtube?

There has ever been only one controversy in shmups forum, but it was discussed as a ”problem” rather than ”scandal”. There were lot of suspicion that user called Perikles (I hope I remember that right!) may have been using tools to achieve some of his high scores.

The controversy came from the fact that he was very profilic shmupper who knew lot about the games he played, and there was little doubt that many of his scores were legit.

[maximo310]

The ones I'm most familiar with are Perikles/Edusword on multiple clears, along with some guy during TRP-STGT 2017 who claimed he got a 1-ALL of Mad Shark but iirc didn't have any evidence/ his story didn't add up.

The controversy came from the fact that he was very profilic shmupper who knew lot about the games he played, and there was little doubt that many of his scores were legit.

Yeah, I think some people was dismayed at his responses to the discussion with his Same3!/ Tatsujin Oh runs and that he shut down his entire YT channel shortly after. Oh well.

[Sima Tuna]

Roo sums everything up rather well. It's very hard to catch cheating when the only evidence is some footage online. I know Mark had a video up (since taken down) where he analyzed some footage he thought was cheated and tried to explain why. I don't know if the footage was actually cheated or not, and so maybe some were happy he took the video down so there was no chance of a false accusation. But I appreciated that video for showing his thought process in detecting movements/behaviors that seemed "off" to him, compared to what a legit play tends to look like.

Basically, if there a lot of very "suspicious" movement from the player ship, then that increases the likelihood some kind of assistance MIGHT have been used. Two tricks that are basically undetectable are using save states or running the game in emulation at 1/2 speed. Or even slower. Neither of these can really be detected once the footage is corrected in editing, so you're left examining the movement of the player ship and asking yourself it is seems reasonable the ship is moving that way or if that movement would make more sense for a player playing at half speed/some other cheating method.

It's all incredibly circumstantial and nobody can prove. Since big money isn't on the line, small wonder people don't bother disproving even obvious cheaters.

Almost every shmup longplay is a cheated run. Keep an eye out for notorious "players" like SCHLAUCHI who play every game, ever, completely hitless. World of Longplays used to not even mark that their runs use savestates, and you'd see storms of idiots in the comments congratulating schlongchi for his perfect play. Wonder how he manages to be so good at every game? Well, it turns out he very obviously uses save states to play tiny sections at a time and then the editors stitch it together into a "hitless" run. He's also probably playing at half-speed or slower, given some of the micro movement. When a player opts for extremely suspicious micro dodges over and over and over again, rather than bombing or using an easy macro dodge, that can be a red flag some kind of emulation trickery is afoot. Sus micro dodges are easier on a game running at slow speed. It's best to assume all runs on World of Longplays are cheated runs. WoL have admitted as such in comment chains and sometimes in passive-aggressive comments on their videos ("some run may use savestates.") Even this much admission is more than they used to give for their cheated garbage. I will reiterate they used to post all these runs with no indication whatsoever that they were edited in any way or modified compared to a run on original hardware.

From where I sit, the only "money cheaters" in shmups are youtube channels like world of longplays that make money off ad revenue by selling the illusion of these "perfect runs" as somehow legit longplay showcases of the games.

Further adding salt to the wound is the fact you can't learn anything about 1cc play for these games by watching Schlongchi's cheated runs. Since he's cheating, whatever he's doing isn't going to apply to your 1cc attempts.

[Kino]

VixyNyan did nothing wrong, btw.

along with some guy during TRP-STGT 2017 who claimed he got a 1-ALL of Mad Shark but iirc didn't have any evidence/his story didn't add up.

Pretty sure they were making us save inp files during that tourney, so somebody must've spotted something fishy in his replay.

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

Number one thing that comes to mind is the Perikles thread, which I would, in hindsight, describe as a bunch of angry nerds setting up a minefield for the man before he even comes in. The biggest issue was there was no proof - even things people picked out were just select moments out of hundreds of videos, even more if you account how much practice the man did. There were no demands either, and iirc watching him play shmups live was the closest thing. Suffice to say nothing was proven and he just left instead of trying to fight haters. I don't actually have a strong stance on whether he cheated or not, but i definitely consider the thread a mistake. There could've been many ways to handle it without so much idiocy and drama, no matter what you think of Perikles. I can't really elaborate without calling people shit, so I won't.

Some guy during TRP-STGT 2017 who claimed he got a 1-ALL of Mad Shark but iirc didn't have any evidence/ his story didn't add up.

Probably me, actually. My recording quality was abysmal due to IRL shenanigans. What really stung about this one was that way later I heard that apparently it had nothing to do with it, and my routing was just off. Still annoys me. Since then, after getting better hardware, I tried my hand at Calice and did streams/better recordings for my runs and obv everything was fine. So, scandal averted?

Almost every shmup longplay is a cheated run. Keep an eye out for notorious "players" like SCHLAUCHI who play every game, ever, completely hitless. World of Longplays used to not even mark that their runs use savestates, and you'd see storms of idiots in the comments congratulating schlongchi for his perfect play.

My favorite is Shadowserg, who obviously uses savestates, and claims that his channel is proof of skill or something similar in a description. My favorite is his Ironclad run in which he outright forgets that he has an OP charge attack for 90% of the game. Similar things in other shmups. (Then again, I watched Slowbeef play through R-Type Leo without knowing about the homing bits once, hahaha)

VixyNyan did nothing wrong, btw.

VixyNyan art is an infohazard, one that you can easily stumble across if you look them up.

[Sima Tuna]

On an impulse, I decided, "hey, the most recent arcade game I played was Rolling Thunder 2. Let's see what happens when I plug it into youtube's search."

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... +thunder+2

The first result is World of Longplays. The second result is World of Longplays.

When most people type in the name of any arcade game into youtube, the very first or second result is going to be a cheated run from world of longplays or one of these other bums. Even if the argument is that they're just "showing you" the game, they really aren't. Because they're not properly showcasing the gameplay. Since they are cheating, whatever gameplay you see on the screen is not going to be relevant to when you boot the game up to play yourself. If they're using save states/rewind then that means there is no RNG and they know exactly what is going to happen when. They're on a fixed seed. If they're playing at half speed or slower then their movement and button presses will be totally alien to anything you can or would do at full speed. It's just a big fucking mess. And most longplays represent themselves as legitimate runs. They would never, ever use the word "cheat" anywhere in their descriptions. At best, buried deep in the description, might be a small reference to using save states.

[Eyvah_Ehyeh]

The more you know! But superplays are still legit, right? The videos that that could be seen (back in the day) with Clover TAC or whatever they were called clearing cave games with super high scores, I mean.

I have actually been to Japan, 2013, and were in a couple of arcade halls, in Osaka, Tokyo, and Kyoto (although the one in Kyoto was literally just one room in a small building with an older lady at the desk, but still they had Daifukkatsu iirc, whereas the other one's I visited were multi-level beasts). See, it was just too noisy for me. Overwhelming. Antisocial, actually. I felt much more comfortable interacting with people OUTSIDE. And I've been sensitive for the last 15 years, since I burned out/got chronic fatigue. Maybe there were hours where it all became manageable, but honestly I crossed it off of my bucket list, and then just continued walking outside, exploring the country which I always wanted to go to, and finally did, by myself, 11 years ago when I was 27 years old.

It was magic, seeing basically the world outside Sweden and northern Europe for the first time irl, basically, but the arcade experience was a disappointment, and made me a bit sad, but I just thought that oh well, why dwell on this when there's so much beauty in this country that I can find outside of the gaming sphere. Ironically, it was video games that originally made me interested in Japan, but it very much isn't why I went there eventually, or why I would return, since I don't play Nintendo and Square Enix and Capcom and Konami and all that stuff I played as a kid, but rather play isometric RPGs, indie adventure games, etc, from the West. Sometimes you just gotta let go of what you enjoyed when you were younger, and although it took a while for me to accept that, it's worth it.

Psyvariar was nice, once I realized how one should play it. Had the PS2 collection with Medium Unit and Revision, think it might even have been PAL version, which wasn't the case with many other shmups, let me tell you (bullet hells, I mean, because R-Types and Gradiuses for example for sure were in Europe as well but they never were my cup of tea).

Now I'd like Mark to make a video where he and a couple of others just as an exercise create cheated runs in some ways, and then analyze and have to guess which runs were cheated, and with which method.

[Emerl]

There was that Inbachi-All clear replay by lionmanggg on the 360 SDOJ leaderboard. Widely considered to be pause-buffered. Cave never acknowledged it, and the player never publicly tried to claim he was the first legitimate clear of Inbachi.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Number one thing that comes to mind is the Perikles thread, which I would, in hindsight, describe as a bunch of angry nerds setting up a minefield for the man before he even comes in. The biggest issue was there was no proof

This is basically what happened. It was spurred on mainly by a couple of guys, both of whom had past personal conflicts with the forum and thus had personal motivation to stir up drama, and were discovered to be egged on by a group of three or four more people on 4chan who reveled in shit-stirring. Truly the pinnacle of neutral and unbiased judgments.

The evidence against Perikles was pretty lame, he was a prolific 1CCer but hardly a massive high-scorer, and even if some of his runs were cheated he had quite a large demonstrable knowledge of games and many people miss his discussion contributions now that he's gone, having apparently gotten fed up with the harassment.

(Then again, I watched Slowbeef play through R-Type Leo without knowing about the homing bits once, hahaha)

SPM did that as a challenge run using only the red laser weapon, really cool run to watch honestly! Even without the homing bits the game is apparently quite doable:

viewtopic.php?p=1469933#p1469933

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

The more you know! But superplays are still legit, right? The videos that that could be seen (back in the day) with Clover TAC or whatever they were called clearing cave games with super high scores, I mean.

Superplays are legit, yes, they're meant to be a high-level skill demonstration. I don't know who decides what's good enough to be a superplay, maybe it's the term CAVE decided on when releasing promotional videos showcasing high level score attacking and it stuck from there? But yeah, superplays are not tool assisted, it's someone actually playing the game normally very skillfully.

[copy-paster]

This is basically what happened. It was spurred on mainly by a couple of guys, both of whom had past personal conflicts with the forum and thus had personal motivation to stir up drama, and were discovered to be egged on by a group of three or four more people on 4chan who reveled in shit-stirring. Truly the pinnacle of neutral and unbiased judgments.

The evidence against Perikles was pretty lame, he was a prolific 1CCer but hardly a massive high-scorer, and even if some of his runs were cheated he had quite a large demonstrable knowledge of games and many people miss his discussion contributions now that he's gone, having apparently gotten fed up with the harassment.

But in the end they won tho, Perikles is no longer here and the promised Sengoku Blade 2-ALL never happened just as they wanted. I do still like his write-ups of the game reviews but then again an unwritten rule about people who caught "cheating" is all of their previous efforts even if they're legit will be void and invalidated and must be ridiculed until they never comeback ever again.

I myself still on grey area about this case and the way Perikles handled the situation was coming off really strange and it's like your typical deflection of people who cheated, went as far as showing other people's allegedly cheated replays (he was right with edusword and yace btw). Not to mention for whatever reason he nuked ALL of his youtube channel and IIRC at one point he said he refused to do streaming because of "technical issues/his setup is not powerful enough for streaming etc." while he claimed to own the retro consoles as real hardware and expensive everdrives.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

But in the end they won tho, Perikles is no longer here and the promised Sengoku Blade 2-ALL never happened just as they wanted.

If you embarrass yourself badly in the process I'm not sure it's a victory. Pyrrhic at best. Perikles could well have been eccentric and not cared to engage with the accusations for all we know, getting fed up with a community and deleting all your stuff is hardly unheard of.

[Rastan78]

Didn't he ask to have all of his score submissions removed? That combined with not even denying the accusations is more or less a tacit admission of guilt. I mean is it possible he's just eccentric? Yeah but a pretty big reach. If anything his weird convoluted response wss more embarrassing than simply saying guys all my runs are legit. Take it or leave it.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I have actually been to Japan, 2013, and were in a couple of arcade halls, in Osaka, Tokyo, and Kyoto... See, it was just too noisy for me. Overwhelming. Antisocial, actually. I felt much more comfortable interacting with people OUTSIDE.

Earplugs? Headphones? I mean, interacting with people in an arcade is a fun social experience but it's also about interacting with the games themselves, and noise level is a relatively easy fix. You went to shmup mecca and found it wanting, truly scandalous.

[ScHlAuChi]

Keep an eye out for notorious "players" like SCHLAUCHI who play every game, ever, completely hitless.

Hi, I´m that "notorious" player!
The reason you hate me is because you deliberately misinterprete the intentions behind those videos.
It was always done to document video games from start to finish, nothing more nothing less.
They were NEVER intended as skill showcase, and we made that clear in our FAQ for ages!

World of Longplays used to not even mark that their runs use savestates

That is not correct, we had the info on our site! People just didnt check there, so you are blaming us for the lazyness of people!
That is why we added the info to each video description.

and you'd see storms of idiots in the comments congratulating schlongchi for his perfect play.

That you use "Schlongi" to make fun of my name shows what this is all about - your ego.
How can anyone watch those terrible Schlongi videos when mine are so much better!
You want people to praise your skills in the comments that you worked hard for.
You deserve it! Instead they praise this lowskilled cheating asshole! Unfair!

But this might surprise you, I do not read Youtube comments! I dont care about the praise of randoms!
What I care about is praise I get from museums or game dev colleagues who tell me how helpful the videos are for research.

Almost every shmup longplay is a cheated run. Wonder how he manages to be so good at every game? Well, it turns out he very obviously uses save states to play tiny sections at a time and then the editors stitch it together into a "hitless" run. He's also probably playing at half-speed or slower, given some of the micro movement.

Everything you said is correct, but the problem here is that we are different communites with different goals and a different definition of what cheating is

Your goal is to showcase absolute skills and impress others.
Your defintion of cheating is very strict - Savestates arent Haram and anyone using them is an infidel that must be attacked!

Our goal is to record as many games as possible as videos to document them.
Our definition of cheating is that a longplay should not be done with modifications/memory hacks/in-game cheats. We are perfectly fine with savestates/slowdown etc, as those allow us to mimick better gameplay without having to spend an eternity on the game to be good enough to beat it.

When a player opts for extremely suspicious micro dodges over and over and over again, rather than bombing or using an easy macro dodge, that can be a red flag some kind of emulation trickery is afoot. Sus micro dodges are easier on a game running at slow speed.

Ask yourself - how many people in the world who watch videos on World of Longplays are smart enough to even understand what is going on in such a game?
Outside of a handful of elite players, pretty much no one will have the skill to analyze such a video.
They watch the video because they want to see the game, not to analyze the gameplay!

It's best to assume all runs on World of Longplays are cheated runs. WoL have admitted as such in comment chains and sometimes in passive-aggressive comments on their videos ("some run may use savestates.")

That is not correct, the text says "Most videos on World of Longplays use savestates" not "some" as you claim. The reason for that is, we do record some games on original hardware too, where no Savestates exist.
That passive agressiveness is your interpretation because our viewpoints differ. From our viewpoint, a bunch of random people showed up and started to sling dirt at us.

Even this much admission is more than they used to give for their cheated garbage. I will reiterate they used to post all these runs with no indication whatsoever that they were edited in any way or modified compared to a run on original hardware.

No matter how many times you repeat that in order to make us look terrible, it is still wrong, as that info was on our website.

From where I sit, the only "money cheaters" in shmups are youtube channels like world of longplays that make money off ad revenue by selling the illusion of these "perfect runs" as somehow legit longplay showcases of the games.

If you think those shmup videos make alot of money, you will be in for a rude awakening, it is such a niche genre that barely anyone cares.
Which isnt surprising when there is such elitist viewpoints and people go as far as attacking others for "playing wrong".
However, no one watches WoL vieos because they are perfect runs, they watch because they want to see the whole game completed.
It is only you and your community who cares about perfect runs, but that doesnt mean everyone else cares about it the same way.

Further adding salt to the wound is the fact you can't learn anything about 1cc play for these games by watching Schlongchi's cheated runs. Since he's cheating, whatever he's doing isn't going to apply to your 1cc attempts.

People who want to learn how to 1CC those games would not watch our videos. They would look for tutorials, not longplays.
There is a reason why it is called longplay and not superplay.
Several years ago I reached out to the shmup community and offered to remove all my "bad" videos if someone provided me with correctly played ones.
No one ever did, probably because helping the "enemy" is a no go and having a common enemy to hate is more useful anyway.

On an impulse, I decided, "hey, the most recent arcade game I played was Rolling Thunder 2. Let's see what happens when I plug it into youtube's search.
The first result is World of Longplays. The second result is World of Longplays.

Well I´m sorry that we started a YouTube channel so early and therefore had a headstart.
If I would have known in 2006 that making shmup videos would get me crazy haters several years later, I wouldnt have ever bothered with it.

When most people type in the name of any arcade game into youtube, the very first or second result is going to be a cheated run from world of longplays or one of these other bums.

So harassing those "bums" is perfectly fine, because after all they are cheaters according to you!
I wonder - what exactly gives YOU or your community the right to constantly hassle me or other WoL members?
Because we dont follow your rules or viewpoints? But why would we when our goals are completely different?
Oh I get it - our views are invalid, and only yours are correct, so everyone has to follow those!

Even if the argument is that they're just "showing you" the game, they really aren't. Because they're not properly showcasing the gameplay.

This sounds exactly like something a cult member of the Jehova Witnesses would say! Dont listen to the churchs arguments, only OUR interpretation of the bible is the correct one!
If a game video doesnt have the "Sima Tuna" stamp of legitimacy approval it isnt valid gameplay! Sounds like a god complex to me!

Since they are cheating, whatever gameplay you see on the screen is not going to be relevant to when you boot the game up to play yourself. If they're using save states/rewind then that means there is no RNG and they know exactly what is going to happen when. They're on a fixed seed. If they're playing at half speed or slower then their movement and button presses will be totally alien to anything you can or would do at full speed. It's just a big fucking mess. And most longplays represent themselves as legitimate runs. They would never, ever use the word "cheat" anywhere in their descriptions. At best, buried deep in the description, might be a small reference to using save states.

Here´s an uncomfortable truth for you - I have done more for the shmup community than you ever did in your life!
Due to my "terrible" videos, people have discovered alot of interesting games in the genre and started to play those.
And what are you doing? Spread hate about people in other communites becasue their views are wrong and their videos are degenerated.
If everyone in your community has such extreme views then I´m not surprised anymore about the toxicity!


Let the dogpiling games begin!

[Ray]

My favorite is Shadowserg, who obviously uses savestates, and claims that his channel is proof of skill or something similar in a description.

Talking about this guy recently was how I found out this website was still up.
I was watching a suspitious "hitless" Ikaruga run, and he straight up uses a no-hit cheat. He just disguises it by moving around.
Some parts are - would be - dead hits. He also couldn't score for shit, which was the first hint, actually.

[beer gas canister]

I mean is it possible he's just eccentric?

On this forum? Impossible

Perikles' write-ups and chronicles of obscure and weird shmups are interesting. Dude went to great lengths with some of those games. There are still-visible photos of paper maps that he drew up to help learn stages. Cheating or no his commentary is fantastic on some games that barely anyone is willing to play, much less to completion. Regardless of his leaderboard scores his analysis has value.

[BIL]

The Perikles fiasco was a remarkable failure of quality control. The credible allegations re: Same3 were couched in such casual imageboard slop, it became impossible to extricate them. You can see me trying my damndest to, in the thread, before the case collapsed under the weight of its own accumulated scum.

In the end, the most damning evidence by far was his lack of a definitive response and subsequent leaving. I can't even give those the credit I normally might, it was such a blunderingly conjecture-driven shitshow from beginning to end.

Didn't he ask to have all of his score submissions removed? That combined with not even denying the accusations is more or less a tacit admission of guilt. I mean is it possible he's just eccentric? Yeah but a pretty big reach.

FWIW, I've PMs from several years prior where he confided his frustrations with faceless internet funners. As a battle-hardened wanker, I half-jokingly told him not to worry about things people won't say ~2 HE FAEC~

In hindsight, I wish I'd told him in no uncertain terms that the wider internet is raw garbage, to disable likes/comments, and to post more in HS, ST, and frankly OT. He specifically mentioned being creeped out by discussions of his personal life he'd seen. These are de rigeur in the imageboard sewers, but particularly apropos here, with chum and Gus's reports of the same around then.

I'm not certain eccentric is even the word here. Most normies would find it pretty disturbing for a total stranger to go from discussing Gradius to *REEEE* Telling you what a piece of shit you are, always hiding behind your friends, well now I've got you alone, and it's time to put you in your place once and for all.

If anything his weird convoluted response wss more embarrassing than simply saying guys all my runs are legit. Take it or leave it.

Yeah, I'm forced to remain neutral here. I can't fault anyone for thinking he cheated. When someone asks me if I'm cheating I want to ram my dick in their mouth. Then I say "lol lmao no."

He was never apt at defending himself, even when randoms would pop into a thread to tell him his posts were shit. As happened in the thread itself. For closure, I look forward to Tatsujin Meiou, or whatever M2 calls it. I'll make a summer of it and Same3.

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

In the end, the most damning evidence by far was his lack of a definitive response and subsequent leaving. I can't even give those the credit I normally might, it was such a blundering shitshow from beginning to end.

Personally I see his response as perfectly justified. People will say that it sounded stereotypical but if I was quitting a community, would I care? No. And I certainly wouldn't have put up any effort after seeing that thread.

You get what you ask for, I guess. No, I'm not talking about cheating. I'm fairly sure the real intent was just to eliminate Perikles anyway.