Median XL Speedrunning

Leaderboards

Any %

1st: suchbalance - 1:09:06 Video

2nd: suchbalance - 1:10:39 Video

3rd: 01001010 - 1:13:07 Video

4th: gg2 - 1:17:37 - Video

5th: Segolia - 1:19:48 - Video

6th: Unseen Gnosis - 2:13:24 - Video

7th: Segolia - 2:26:49 - Video

Introduction

This is something that I've had dangling in my head for quite awhile now. I've watched plenty of streamers speedrun various games, Diablo included. I've only tried D2 speedrunning for a brief bit, and have my name in a rather small leaderboard... http://www.speedrun.com/d2lod (I'm KakabelNar)

But now after being bored from a lot of the game I play I now feel like speedrunning any of the games I play, and I want to start off here, and encourage you guys to give it a shot too! I will have this post up for discussing the formats, as well as hosting leaderboards if you wish to participate.

I am streaming right now on my attempt to find a good route for each class, you can watch me here: http://www.twitch.tv/kakabelnar/

Formats

Any%: Complete normal (Hatred) difficulty. Simple enough.

Any of the below are available for you to do if it interests you. Although it doesn't seem to catch anyone's interest.

► Show Spoiler

Rules

All runners must post either a video or a livestream vod link of their run. You must include a timer while recording your video. I used LiveSplit, but feel free to use something else like WSplit or any other timer program you want.

Timer starts when you enter the Act1 town and before you start controlling your character. An act is completed once the boss is dead and you enter the next town. The run is finished when Baal is dead. Pausing is allowed, but you must not control your character / manage inventory / navigate menus etc while paused.

NO Maphack, NO PlugY, NO Multires. Use a vanilla copy of median ultimative with no other enhancements (font change is ok). NO twinking allowed. This is a single player race, therefore no partying or interaction with other players is allowed during the run. NO bugs or glitches. As stated previously, all character classes are allowed.

Software

Time tracking would be in real time, since afaik Diablo II does not track how long you have played a character. This means you would track your time through a 3rd party stopwatch. A list of them can be found in this link: http://www.speedrunslive.com/tools/

I would recommend LiveSplit, as you can specifically track your performance on segments of your choice for you to analyze if you are doing better or worse in a certain area. Installing is basic, setting up is simple as well. Right click the timer when you launch the program and it will give you a various list of options, such as setting up 'splits', of which you can save, and hotkeys for starting, pausing, and stopping the timer.

Recording software can be anything of your choice. There is the outdated registered FRAPs, Open Broadcast Software (requires a bit of digging around to set up), and NVIDIA Shadow, which I highly recommend above all else if you have a NVIDIA GPU. It records in high quality with no FPS impact at all.

Upload site... youtube of course. Or dailymotion or vimeo if that is your cup of tea. Or Twitch if you streamed on there and are able to highlight it.

Strategies

The link below details map layouts, which is very useful in navigating through the game very quickly.

http://nightfallx2.wix.com/d2speedruns# ... youts/cmoz

Like I said yesterday, I think it's a cool idea and I'll probably participate sometime soon.

One thing that I disagree with you on is regarding the categories. I believe we should really push Any% as THE category.

This is because all the others you have suggested already cover "regular" median gameplay. On the other hand speed rushing to kill Baal on normal, from scratch, is not something that has been explored within the game as of yet and is a cool concept (kind of like path of exile racing). Also it's a category that makes sense outside of the mod (unlike uber% or lc%), which would attract more competitors/viewers. 100% complete is too long, it becomes boring.

Nice

Was watching yesterday shortly the run with the dragon pal

My attempt that I finally finished a Paladin today. Finished at about 2 hours 30 minutes. Very sloppy, and some unfortunate RNG, but its finally a starting point I managed to scavenge up.

http://www.twitch.tv/kakabelnar/v/12602484

I'll be doing another one right now. I'll describe how I did the run after this one is done in ~ 2 hours.

Nice
Was watching yesterday shortly the run with the dragon pal

Thanks!

One thing that I disagree with you on is regarding the categories. I believe we should really push Any% as THE category.

Understandable. The main reason I posted the other categories was that they were done before and I feel like its fine if I have them hosted on a leaderboard too if people have an interest for them. In the end its up to who picks what the most.

Edit: LEL I had vital waypoints not work for me twice in a row when I needed them to work and they just killed me runs that was on PB pace... great.

speedrunning? count me in ...... :twisted:

whenever I go back to playing

I'd partcipate but I dont think anyone else would come close to my time =(

i certainly wouldn't come close to your time lol... I'd be way ahead

didn't people do H in like 1 hour or something when you announced the race to 121? but I guess that was probably in a party.

I am done... You couldn't see me, cause I am that fast.

Here's my entry for the leaderboard. Since people like seeing "new" XV builds being showcased, I figured I would do a mana sorc run. It turned out pretty good although there is room for improvement:

Now that we have a decent baseline, I'm interested to see what the community can do! So let's have a small:

Contest:

The first three players which post a better time than my run (sub 1:24:21) will receive prizes.

First place - 200TG + Contest Badge
Second place - 100TG
Third place - 50TG + consolation cookie

Rules

The contest will run until we have three entries which are faster than my time. The fastest of the three will receive the first place prize and the slowest the third. You can use ANY class.

All entrants must post either a video or a livestream vod link of their run. You must include a timer while recording your video. I used LiveSplit, but feel free to use something else like WSplit or any other timer program you want.

Timer starts when you enter the Act1 town and before you start controlling your character. An act is completed once the boss is dead and you enter the next town. The run is finished when Baal is dead. Pausing is allowed, but you must not control your character / manage inventory / navigate menus etc while paused.

NO Maphack, NO PlugY, NO Multires. Use a vanilla copy of median ultimative with no other enhancements (font change is ok). NO twinking allowed. This is a single player race, therefore no partying or interaction with other players is allowed during the run. NO bugs or glitches. As stated previously, all character classes are allowed.

Concluded on the 18th September. Won by Mr. Binary, gg2 in second place and Segolia in third!