Careercow Narcissa Wright / Cosmo Wright - Former speedrunner tumbling down

Suicide when?

  • When he runs out of money.

    Votes: 2,399 58.4%
  • Never.

    Votes: 825 20.1%
  • >2 years

    Votes: 883 21.5%

  • Total voters
    4,106
It's pretty common now to have a camera showing the player... playing the game. Or show me the inputs or something. All I see is video being played back. How do I know this wasn't recorded? How do I know this wasn't spliced?

I'm pretty sure these aren't requirements for runs being accepted, it's just that it's common to have a facecam and onscreen controller inputs because most of the best speedrunners stream for many hours a day. The judges, allegedly, meticulously watch the submitted speedruns for cheating such as splices. Sometimes cheaters are discovered and the runs refused, sometimes runs are accepted and it's discovered much later that it's spliced or illegitimate some other way. With the new 3rd controller input they might add a rule to show your controller inputs.


Here's a random accepted run I found. There is no facecam or onscreen controller input. While he is commentating and has an onscreen split timer, it wouldn't be that hard to commentate over pre-recorded TAS video and hit splits at the appropriate time.
 
I'm pretty sure these aren't requirements for runs being accepted, it's just that it's common to have a facecam and onscreen controller inputs because most of the best speedrunners stream for many hours a day. The judges, allegedly, meticulously watch the submitted speedruns for cheating such as splices. Sometimes cheaters are discovered and the runs refused, sometimes runs are accepted and it's discovered much later that it's spliced or illegitimate some other way. With the new 3rd controller input they might add a rule to show your controller inputs.


Here's a random accepted run I found. There is no facecam or onscreen controller input. While he is commentating and has an onscreen split timer, it wouldn't be that hard to commentate over pre-recorded TAS video and hit splits at the appropriate time.
That's good information, thanks.

I wouldn't have accepted the run in your example either. It's not 1998 or even 2008 anymore. I would expect some higher standards, otherwise they're just Twin Galaxies by any other name.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Scribbler
The old ocarina any% route was a sort of perfect storm to get as big as it was, even if cosmo manages to actually follow the rules long enough to get a run submitted as wr, it's not going to bring him the same popularity and fame as the old days.
The old route happened just as speedrunning was first getting big, in 2012, right when the internet exploded from just a fun novelty to the part of everyday life it is today, and was a lot of people's first time seeing an any% run, so there was still novelty to it. In addition, they were fortunate enough, even though this is obviously a faster route, that it didn't just skip to credits and you instead have to fight Ganon with just a stick, which really ramped up viewer engagement.
 
Even if we go by Narci's rules, their record just got beat:

The runner also explains the strategy him and Cosmo used, which is why it's so debatable:
1581279222124.png

Daniel's not especially well known but seeing how he held WRs in OoT in the same time period when Cosmo was downing Soylent and crying on stream, he's probably more familiar with OoT than Cosmo is. He also posted a photo of his Controller 3 setup:
1581279477644.png

Here's an archive of the /r/speedruns thread where it has 300+ upvotes right now..

tl;dr Narcissa/Cosmo's WR got beat in the same debated category even. To add to this, the same runner showed it's possible to shave off a few more seconds.
 
I consider myself a bit of an autist on gaming "records" (not so much speed runs but high scores more generally). I find that using ANY controller mods such as notching & banding and NOT using actual prepriotory hardware is fucking pure cancer.

I've heard that cosmo used a fucking IQue in the past and do not find that run to be legit by ANY means. Although I cant argue that ACE manipulation might be ok for speedrunning, but not when modding or using emulator devices.
 
I consider myself a bit of an autist on gaming "records" (not so much speed runs but high scores more generally). I find that using ANY controller mods such as notching & banding and NOT using actual prepriotory hardware is fucking pure cancer.

I've heard that cosmo used a fucking IQue in the past and do not find that run to be legit by ANY means. Although I cant argue that ACE manipulation might be ok for speedrunning, but not when modding or using emulator devices.
I've got no issue with the iQue for the same reason I've got no issue with runners using the jap cartridge, or the VC. It's an official release that just happens to play faster. Maybe it should be in a different category, but it's not completely illegitimate.

But on the controller modding issue, isn't it illegal in pretty much every game? Super Mario Bros., for example, has a TAS only movement strat that requires both left and right on the dpad to be pressed in one frame. That would be a fairly simple thing to mod a controller to do, but it's not legal outside of TAS because it's not possible on a stock controller.

I'd say notching falls into that category, because you're achieving precise and repeated inputs no real person using a stock controller could, but banding is in a funny gray area. There would be no problem (as far as I can see) with a second player doing nothing but holding the stick and buttons in the right position, and there's no functional difference between that second player and a rubber band. But there's also no functional difference between that rubber band and, say, swapping the stick out for a resistor package to report the right position to the console, or swapping the controller out for an arduino doing the same thing. That's a slippery slope into TASville.
 
Even if we go by Narci's rules, their record just got beat:

The runner also explains the strategy him and Cosmo used, which is why it's so debatable:
View attachment 1137522

Daniel's not especially well known but seeing how he held WRs in OoT in the same time period when Cosmo was downing Soylent and crying on stream, he's probably more familiar with OoT than Cosmo is. He also posted a photo of his Controller 3 setup:
View attachment 1137533

Here's an archive of the /r/speedruns thread where it has 300+ upvotes right now..

tl;dr Narcissa/Cosmo's WR got beat in the same debated category even. To add to this, the same runner showed it's possible to shave off a few more seconds.
So another nobody just beat him? Christ that's gotta sting.

Sorry, I forgot we can't just enjoy things, we have to be bitter over everything and pick it apart like the literal speds we are. Am I cool yet? Am I fitting in with the zeitgeist?
You sound like a bitch who's taking this personally.
 
@TenMilesWide I personally think that all WR's of any kind should be based on all aspects of using verified stock hardware and peripherals. If someone plays a mean game of 120 star SM64 I think the controller/console should be verified as stock (regions are a grey area for me, but its in the fun of the run, Jap game on Jap console makes sense).

As they do when verifying arcade boards with company specified dips without intrusion of modded chips or solder bridges. The IQue situation and VC I dont think are legit runs as they are technically emulations of varying speeds. But all your other points are perfectly justified.
 
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Cosmo has been doing the same shit for years. Being depressed, crying in stream, drowning in Soylent (please sponsor me I love your product), and this is the closest we will ever get to the fabled “redemption” arc. I don’t speedrun games, but the pungent and palpable levels of autism that the speedrun community exhumes enraptures me. I love the drama.

Like CWC, the best content comes from when he achieves super-high highs so that we can behold the catastrophic and often hilarious lows. This is the best thing to have happened in Cosmo’s life in years. I want him to succeed just so I can witness the downfall. These times are getting tighter and tighter. No more -15 second shaves here. Given the super autistic nature of the community, all of these records are under major scrutiny. Cosmo, like many others have stated, doesn’t provide comply to the standards that these other autistic do; input mapping on screen, extreme closeup of cracked skin on hands, dried smegma, and chipped nail polish haphazardly applied 2 months ago.

I’m very giddy for the next coming weeks.
 
@TenMilesWide I personally think that all WR's of any kind should be based on all aspects of using verified stock hardware and peripherals. If someone plays a mean game of 120 star SM64 I think the controller/console should be verified as stock (regions are a grey area for me, but its in the fun of the run, Jap game on Jap console makes sense).

As they do when verifying arcade boards with company specified dips without intrusion of modded chips or solder bridges. The IQue situation and VC I dont think are legit runs as they are technically emulations of varying speeds. But all your other points are perfectly justified.
iQue's not exactly an emulator, it runs an SoC with the same cpu and graphics processors as the original all running at the same speed and with the same memory, just smaller.

That aside though, I don't see why something like VC is automatically illegitimate just because it's emulation. Even the arcade highscores community has segregated mame categories, the issue here isn't just "it's not verified original so it doesn't count," it's that different versions of the game (afaik even 1.0/1.1/1.2 OoT, real cartridges running on original hardware) will be more or less stable in certain areas, allowing for different glitches that save different amounts of time. The problem is that among these disparate versions one or the other may be predisposed to speed, so comparing them isn't fair for competition. Allowing all of them and putting them in their own separate categories solves the issue as simple as that, with no need to go out and verify every single runner's console and cartridges. The real speedgamers who are just out to beat their game, in any incarnation, as fast as possible, will move to whatever category has the most timesaves at the time leaving the original hardware categories relatively unmolested by invalid or fake runs.
 
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Got beat at nintendo worlds, trooned out.

Lost his OoT record/crashed and burned as a streamer, intentional twitch ban.

Lost his OoT record again after like 2 days of being on top, deletes twitter.

This is why this motherfucker failed. If he had just been a chill streamer he could have pivoted into a mainstream twitch streamer when the OoT fad faded. He was right there as the popular Nintendo guy.

But he can't handle minor hurdles in his life.
 
Man this is sad. He’s gonna take these WR losses to heart and sink even deeper into his depression, if him deactivating his Twitter is any sign. I personally think basing your self-worth on video game speedruns is really stupid to begin with, so I wasn’t really excited at all for his WR... it was never gonna last.

Really hope someone in his life gives him a reality check. :(
 
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