Messages

[rabbit hole]

I won't go into the rabbit hole of continuing this discussion with you. We do not get along, and I do not enjoy spending my time with you.

To be honest, from my point of view neither of you tries to get along with the other. "Are we back in 2003?" and "Where is the flamewar?" are both escalating remarks, guaranteed to rile up the other. You seem to have a beef that goes way back. Reminds me of when I meet middle-school mates and we all fall in the same patterns we use to follow as teens.

Escalating situations are a thing in life, but not a necessity. As an alternative you could take to your favourite DMs or chat and attempt to understand how, from best intentions, you ended up offending each other. Language? Expectations? Perceived actions? It could be well meaning communication without an additional public that could bring pride into the mix, never a good ingredient.

You are both Stunts giants, you can do this 👍

To clarify, it was not my intention to insinuate that the tension between the two of us is all his fault.

I just think that it is for the best if he and I stop communicating for a while. There is nothing good coming out of it when we do. We can do what you suggest when the dust has settled -- likely when I have been in the Stunts Valhalla for a while.

Argammon would like to swap his slot for a later date if possible -- let us know if you can help!

I can switch if it's a more favorable month for @Argammon

Thanks, I will gladly switch with you!

[sent]

Are we back in 2003 @alanrotoi? A time where chatlogs were posted and words were twisted by pipsqueaks trying to "win" a flamewar on the forum?

(...)
(20:13:33)Duplode Hehehe Watching Rotoi's version of The Trick -- wonderful stuff!
(20:14:15)(Arg) It is funny we discovered it independently. Or was the Corvette time a hint?
(20:14:39)Duplode And now Argammon goes and does it on the right side, for the sake of completeness
(20:14:45)MiDiaN Arg, yes and I had a better replay cooking but I didn't have enough time to finish it unfortunately.
(20:15:37)dreadnaut Let's see... Alan brought it up 18 November, initially with the Indy
(20:16:45)(Arg) Ok, that was before I sent in the Corvette replay.

If you read carefully, I wrote that you found the trick before I sent my Corvette replay. And I agree with @dreadnaut that it is not important who found it first. We aren't two small boys in a sandbox, or are we?

Where is the flamewar? Please don't change the topic playing the victim because it won't work. Maybe I'm not good at English but the message was quiet clear. You say "it's unclear" and I show you it's not. You could say when you find it and it's all done but you don't. Does it offend you that I'm showing a public chat? Don't make it as it were a big deal but also don't try to change what happened.

I won't go into the rabbit hole of continuing this discussion with you. We do not get along, and I do not enjoy spending my time with you.

This is a pity because you contributed so much good to the community (cars, videos, interviews, live races, great replays, etc.) -- much more than I did.

But the two of us, we do not get along. From now on I will avoid you as much as I can, that includes not replying to any of your forum messages or posts.

[sent]

Are we back in 2003 @alanrotoi? A time where chatlogs were posted and words were twisted by pipsqueaks trying to "win" a flamewar on the forum?

(...)
(20:13:33)Duplode Hehehe Watching Rotoi's version of The Trick -- wonderful stuff!
(20:14:15)(Arg) It is funny we discovered it independently. Or was the Corvette time a hint?
(20:14:39)Duplode And now Argammon goes and does it on the right side, for the sake of completeness
(20:14:45)MiDiaN Arg, yes and I had a better replay cooking but I didn't have enough time to finish it unfortunately.
(20:15:37)dreadnaut Let's see... Alan brought it up 18 November, initially with the Indy
(20:16:45)(Arg) Ok, that was before I sent in the Corvette replay.

If you read carefully, I wrote that you found the trick before I sent my Corvette replay. And I agree with @dreadnaut that it is not important who found it first. We aren't two small boys in a sandbox, or are we?

I would have preferred a later slot, but I take ZCT296 since it is the only one that is free.

Let me know if anybody wants to trade their slot.

Also quite chuffed at my pipe slide-jump, I've never managed a properly aligned landing like in this track, with no loss of speed

Yes, that pipe trick is masterclass!

Thanks for the quick reply! Then please register me for ZCT305.

I will vacate the spot if No Rails scores badly and somebody else would like to have a spot.

OMG!  That deserves a Wiki article!

I used it first in competition in my Corvette replay. It is unclear who found it first.

In any case, it is amazing that we discovered the trick independently of one another. When I found it, I was pretty sure I could cost to victory without too much effort. Fortunately, I at least did a nice pipe trick that went under the radar. 

[Off topic but not worth its own thread:]

@dreadnaut, When are you going to reveal the track ratings from the 2025 season?

I was thinking I would only submit a track to the 26 competition if "NO Rails" got an average rating of at least 3.5. If below, I will spare the community one more month of argammonish pain. 

Off topic but not worth its own thread:

The 2025 season's standings still contains a column full of zeroes for LTB. It would be great if you could add the actual PTB scores for completeness sake. Thanks! 

I think it would be great if ZCT295 would be a retro track from the "golden generation" of stunts.

My prediction is that the former winning time would be improved by a couple of seconds in that case.   

@MiDiaN is the only pipsqueak in the historical top 10 who is not a Zakstunts champion. The next one is @KyLiE on rank 12, see the details below. As you know, I think that these rankings are meaningful and @MiDiaN's high position is not a fluke. I expect him to win his first Zakstunts title in 2026.

I have a question regarding the "dual-way switching is not allowed on this track" rule. When you power gear through the section with the many tunnels and the many crossroads it is hard to see whether you do a dual-way switch or not.

I propose the following procedure to double check whether a given replay is ok:

1) Load the replay with Bliss
2) Remove some roads from the way you did not take, or even remove the other way entirely.
3) Save it under a different name.
4) Load the replay with the modified track in Stunts. When it finishes without penalty time the original replay is valid.

Do you agree with this approach @dreadnaut and @Duplode?



PS: I  am not sure a PG replay is competitive. Indeed, it may be several seconds too slow just like it wase last race. I just do power-gear laps for entertainment purpures. 

Currently my level is 1:08.xx in drunk state, online Default.trk racing - so, not a big deal, can be beaten easily by 5-10 pipsqueaks in an instant...

However, if I can find some motivation, podium is almost sure.

Quite a dilemma... shall I come back for "only one race"? I am pretty sure that if DOSBox will be available again, I will hunt (most of) you down, month to month...

But I don't want to. It was a sick life, with goals without real value...

The end of the season is usually the best time to win a race without too much effort. Most of us are taking it easy right now. However, if you were to race at the beginning of next season I think you would struggle to beat MiDiaN, but who knows. 

He is faster than you "on the road" and you are doing more tricks. Since there are not many tricks on this track he wins. It's actually pretty simple.

Yes, this was the zct243 but not always was like this. The point of the video is to show no matter the effort I did or the crazy tricks I tryied, he beated me with a simplier but perfect drive that was the best choice.

Can we stop this silly discussion?

It was never a discussion from me. So no hard feelings from my part. This is an exchange of point of view and opinions. There is no tier list of opinions . CTG said a valid point in my list about akoss' performance. I see good will in the comments of this thread so we can keep doing and sharing lists!

Sorry for not being clear. What I tried suggesting was that we stop our discussion about whether I belong in tier A or S. Whereas I put more weight on (somewhat) object measures such as the Folyami rating (Me->Tier S), direct clashes (Ayrton, Gutix -> tier S), the medal table (Duplode ->Tier S, MidiAN ->one tier down), or a combination of those (Renato->Tier S), you look at replays and subjectively decide which ones you like best. We are not going to reach an agreement here, but -as mentioned- it is fine to agree to disagree. You are of course free to continue discussing the tiers with other pipsqueaks as long as you please. 

Regarding the replay you posted, there is little doubt that Duplode is one of the best OWOOT pipsqueaks in history. But even the top pipsqueaks have different strengths and weaknesses. It is not like Duplode is better than you on every possible type of track.
 
Finally, I would like to point out that even the "track" issue is subtle. As an example, consider someone saying "pipsqueak X is best at power-gear". What does this really mean? Even here, we have to distinguish between

• Tracks where doing a power-gear lap is easy and the race is about finding the last milliseconds. https://zak.stunts.hu/tracks/ZCT287 is a good example for this.
• Tracks where doing a power-gear lap is extremely difficult. Here the most important issue is to complete a power-gear lap where others fail, see https://zak.stunts.hu/tracks/ZCT284 for example
• Tracks where doing a power-gear lap is easy but that hide incredible but difficult shortcuts that upon completion give a pipsqueak the upper edge, https://zak.stunts.hu/tracks/ZCT260 is a prime example for this. (How you cannot admire this trick is beyond me. If Ayrton did it, it would be the most magical trick in stunts history.)

Of course, you could add more categories and thereby make the list even more fine grained. My point is that it is not the same pipsqueak who is the best in all possible categories. The same is true for the many different types of NON-PG tracks.

This will be my last post on this topic for a while as I will be away travelling. So see you at the end of ZCT292.

What I can promise is that I am not going to submit a maxed out replay, meaning that I will only be able to win if I find tricks or shortcuts that the competitors do not. But tricks and shortcuts are what I love about Zakstunts. Spending half an hour to max out a corner is what I find extremely boring.

All I will say is that your "measurements" are highly subjective.

Of course, that's the meaning. This doesn't make it any less important. To show and to know our personal subjectivety in a tier format. It's important to know how we think and how we see each other. There won't be a wrong tier list and also there can be more than one tier list from every of us since we can have many subjectiveties or points of view according to the many virtues a pipsqueak's performance can be catalogued.

Every opinion,always is made from facts and from subjectivety. We should fear an IA if it developes subjectivety... or not. But how it works my opinion here? I know I can beat you at any time as I also know you can beat me at any time. I can't say the same with Duplode. This video is the best way to explain my point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ8JXL2gFTo

He is faster than you "on the road" and you are doing more tricks. Since there are not many tricks on this track he wins. It's actually pretty simple. Can we stop this silly discussion?