The Steven Zwartjes Saga Continues - Possible Aztec Strat Vid Coming Soon?!?

[Saltkillzsnails]

@falzy

That was by far the biggest load of trash I have read on here. When in the hell did Goose blackmail anyone???
The “40 year old man” volunteered to prove his strategy no one forced him. If he was so ungodly busy and had nothing to do with video games he wouldnt even care what was said. This social justice warrior culture is just sickening these days. A guy lies for 15 plus years and he’s a victim? Did nothing wrong? Think of how much time he potentially wasted so many others over to years trying to get this make believe strategy to work. You say its just a game then go on to admit you waited years for Dam 52... why would you even care if its so irrelevant?

There are millions of over 40 gamers with families when did having a family mean you cant have ahobby? I have a 4 year old daughter and still have plenty of free time for myself. I guess to someone without a family the stereotype that your entire life is over after having kids seems true lol

Facts are Steven had plenty of time to make videos, use a gameshark, work on a new strategy but not replicate the strat he specifically came back for. All of his excuses are generic check box outs. Simple as that

[Happens]

Why is this thread still open?

[stefankok]

Just to make things clear, i asked Steven to try his new strat first which he thought of almost immediately when he first played Aztec again, since he believed that it was faster than the wr strat and a lot more consistent. The intention was that he would first get a good run with the new strat(obviously not necessary since it is significantly slower and already known) and then later do the one guard strat.

I'd be willing to put a small bounty for the one guard strategy if anybody(including Steven himself) can prove that he got it on console, with no invisibility or any other cheat/hack. Not that i expect anyone to really go for it now or something.
10 bucks for anybody that can get it to work with the backup
25 bucks for anybody that can get it to work without the backup (the strat which Steven used for his alleged 1:31)

[DaisyFan]

Why is this thread still open?

Some people want Ryan goose to expose Steven, The other side don't give a crap and want people to moving on from it.
 

[RWG]

Why is this thread still open?

Locking threads is legitimately the most foolish, redundant, pointless thing you can possibly do in the history of the internet.  What purpose does locking a thread serve?  If it has offending content in it, that gets deleted.  Locking threads causes people who want to continue the discussion at hand, to simply make more threads and continue to flood the boards.  Locking threads is an absolute net negative under every circumstance.  Locking threads is just the corrupt moderators going "nyah nyah, now you can be teased and enticed by this thread's existence but you can't post in it! Losers!"  It's completely antagonizing and villainous.

[Retrix]

I've enjoyed all the flame wars the-elite allows. Shit gets intense, people whom nobody even knows join to trash talk and are never heard again, some actual serious discussion gets done, and the thread dies a natural death when it's outlived its usefulness. It's beautiful.

[stefankok]

Money for bounty is raised.
It is now:
110 for with backup
125 for without it

If anybody likes to add more, feel free to message me on the forums or on discord.

BTW this is in euros, so 110 euros would be about 128 dollars for example.

[AEB]

Good to know I'll have a bunch of people defending me if I'm caught lying for 10+ years!

EDIT: To be very clear, I'm only talking about Aztec strat + 1:31 claim and I'd be happy (like most people) to be proven wrong.

[flukey lukey]

It's somewhat comforting yes

[Alka Maass]

Money for bounty is raised.
It is now:
110 for with backup
125 for without it

If anybody likes to add more, feel free to message me on the forums or on discord.

BTW this is in euros, so 110 euros would be about 128 dollars for example.

BRB secretly turning on invisible for the euros 

[METEORA]

Hello all.
I think its been 15 years since my last post
I see alot has changed during all these years.
A lot of new talent, new worldchampions and most importantly a big social group of people who are willing to combine forces to get these games to an insanely high level.

I must admit after seeing a post about me after 15 years of inactivety I was kinda flattered.
After google-ing Todd Rogers I am not sure I should be .
It actually kinda hurts after 100s of hours of time I put into many games to read people always had doubts about my achievements.
Reason enough for me to dust up the old cartridges. The post triggered me to do at least something which is a positive thing I guess.

For me alot has changed over the years though.
Im a happy 39 years old married man now with 2 kids, a nice job and a good social life.
Gaming is not really on my priority list anymore but after playing a bit of Goldeneye last week I still feel I have a gaming heart.
I remember back in the days Patrick Wessels and I were late, running like hell to get the train just in time.
We decided to keep a left strafe all the way so we should de faster...yes bin there...

Alrhough i have other priorities now l still like to complete some proof  on tape, camera or capture card. I might not finish this today or tomorrow but it will happen eventually.
I hope to finish this all with a suprise video, but also still working on that

In the meantime I will finish the interview with the nice questions Stefan Kok asked me and I will try to put some detail in some of the questions.
Also thank you for all the help so far Stefan

Im out now.
Will be back soon.

That's awesome!!!  Maybe you should try and get some proofs up for your 40th b-day!!!  Nice to see you still have a heart for the game!

[Jonesy]

FWIW, I think some people perceive this as "blackmailing" or an attempt at character assassination because of Goose's suggestion of lumping Steven in with Todd Rogers.  As Goose said himself in the kart forum topic "Steven Zwartjes... the Todd Rogers of N64?":

A story I want to work on next is that of the "legend" Steven Zwartjes, and his similarities to Todd Rogers.

Todd Rogers and Billy Mitchell are hot topics these days and make excellent clickbait and bring in that sweet, sweet ad revenue. Goose is being careful to parse his words by posing "questions" and looking at "similarities" but honestly the mere mention of  Zwartjes and Rogers in the same breath is enough for some people, who don't know any better, to instantly form that connection in their mind that Zwartjes must be just as bad as Rogers (regardless of how carefully Goose chooses to parse his words).

The biggest difference I see between Rogers/Mitchell and Zwartjes is that there is hard, objective, empirical evidence that Rogers and Mitchell falsified times (Roger's impossible Dragster time, among others, and Mitchell's video that shows conclusive proof of emulation). As far as I'm aware, there is no hard evidence that Zwartjes ever cheated. Sure, there are aspects of his times that seem suspicious and unlikely (and I'm fully supportive of the times being backrolled), but there is a distinct and important difference between having suspicious times/exhibiting suspicious behavior and having hard evidence of actual cheating. The other important difference between Zwartjes and Rogers is that Rogers has literally hundreds/thousands of falsified scores where Zwartjes has what, 2?

If you want to retcon your rankings based on suspicion, I honestly have no issue with that (though others might), but I think the standards of proof must be higher if you want to start publicly equating Zwartjes to Todd Rogers (even if it's only a suggestive equivalence).

It seems like a lot of people have already made up their minds about this and have exhibited less than mature behavior in this thread. I think the word "toxic" has been used once or twice and that seems to be an apt description. Also, FWIW, I feel like Shadow is completely on point.

To be clear, I'm not defending Zwartjes (I agree that he hasn't done himself any favors lately - though maybe he would have been more inclined to if he had a warmer reception) and I'm not against making a video about him, but if a video is made I think it needs to be done in a way that doesn't sling his name through the mud in a blatant attempt to cash in on it.

[Smit]

FWIW, I think some people perceive this as "blackmailing" or an attempt at character assassination because of Goose's suggestion of lumping Steven in with Todd Rogers.  As Goose said himself in the kart forum topic "Steven Zwartjes... the Todd Rogers of N64?":

A story I want to work on next is that of the "legend" Steven Zwartjes, and his similarities to Todd Rogers.

Todd Rogers and Billy Mitchell are hot topics these days and make excellent clickbait and bring in that sweet, sweet ad revenue. Goose is being careful to parse his words by posing "questions" and looking at "similarities" but honestly the mere mention of  Zwartjes and Rogers in the same breath is enough for some people, who don't know any better, to instantly form that connection in their mind that Zwartjes must be just as bad as Rogers (regardless of how carefully Goose chooses to parse his words).

The biggest difference I see between Rogers/Mitchell and Zwartjes is that there is hard, objective, empirical evidence that Rogers and Mitchell falsified times (Roger's impossible Dragster time, among others, and Mitchell's video that shows conclusive proof of emulation). As far as I'm aware, there is no hard evidence that Zwartjes ever cheated. Sure, there are aspects of his times that seem suspicious and unlikely (and I'm fully supportive of the times being backrolled), but there is a distinct and important difference between having suspicious times/exhibiting suspicious behavior and having hard evidence of actual cheating. The other important difference between Zwartjes and Rogers is that Rogers has literally hundreds/thousands of falsified scores where Zwartjes has what, 2?

If you want to retcon your rankings based on suspicion, I honestly have no issue with that (though others might), but I think the standards of proof must be higher if you want to start publicly equating Zwartjes to Todd Rogers (even if it's only a suggestive equivalence).

It seems like a lot of people have already made up their minds about this and have exhibited less than mature behavior in this thread. I think the word "toxic" has been used once or twice and that seems to be an apt description. Also, FWIW, I feel like Shadow is completely on point.

To be clear, I'm not defending Zwartjes (I agree that he hasn't done himself any favors lately - though maybe he would have been more inclined to if he had a warmer reception) and I'm not against making a video about him, but if a video is made I think it needs to be done in a way that doesn't sling his name through the mud in a blatant attempt to cash in on it.

Finally a voice of reason.

[Grav]

almost none of this thread has been arguing about how similar SZ is to todd/billy. that whole argument and what goose will or will not do with how he covers SZ has no relation to the individual rankings based considerations the-elite council has made regarding SZ.

SZ's most unlikely claimed times have been in question long before those other two people were caught cheating.

[Blue Khakis]

The hyperbole in this thread is ridiculous. SZ is being BLACKMAILED and DEFAMED and WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN. The dude literally has to play the game for a DAY to prove every single doubter wrong (something he has had fiteen years to do).

Fwiw, I actually think the comparison to Todd Rogers is perfectly apt:

1) Complete lack of evidence
2) Positive evidence of strat's implausibility from people with deep technical knowledge of the game
3) Proclamation that demonstration will be produced shortly
4) Continued failure to produce even a credible explanation of strat's viability over a period of over a decade naturally and justifiably invites some people to ridicule the claim
5) Backs out on grounds of "being the bigger man" or some similar moralising claptrap.

Seems pretty nailed on to me, but I guess according to some people Lance Armstrong and Ben Johnson shouldn't have been called out either because they have families and anyway 'it's just a game'.

[Jonesy]

almost none of this thread has been arguing about how similar SZ is to todd/billy.

This really is a shame, as I think that's the crucial thing at stake here.

that whole argument and what goose will or will not do with how he covers SZ has no relation to the individual rankings based considerations the-elite council has made regarding SZ.

It sounds like SZ doesn't care about staying up on the rankings, so that sort of seems like a bit of a non-issue now (other than maybe the procedural point of not allowing players to ragequit and remove themselves - but I'm no expert on your proof policy so I'll defer to someone who is). Perhaps I missed it, other than a handful of posts by Axel a few pages back regarding the WR history, but is anyone still arguing to keep Steven on the ranks? I'm not sure I understand what this has to do with any of the most recent posts in this thread. Seems like a bit of a non-sequitur.

SZ's most unlikely claimed times have been in question long before those other two people were caught cheating.

I'm not sure I understand what point you're trying to make here other than just stating the completely obvious. The only reason this entire thread exists is because of Goose's stated intention to create a video titled: "Steven Zwartjes... The Todd Rogers of N64?". It seems like the natural outcome of that stated intention would be a discussion involving those people.

[Grav]

The Todd Rodgers angle is literally clickbait, it was not intended to be used as an argument in itself for any actions on our own rankings. Goose knows very well the power of compelling story and tying a player he wants to talk about to such a notorious narrative is very useful in getting exposure and views. The Todd Rodgers stuff was a catalyst in the SZ issue being revisited, but SZ's own antics are what ended up being the tipping point.

[RWG]

After investigating this situation for over 3 months now, I've decided long ago on a few things;

- not using Zwartjes name in the title of the video
- not using Todd Rogers name in the title of the video
- not using a picture of Zwartjes in the thumbnail
- not mentioning any personal information that could affect SZ in any way (mentioning only his name, his country of origin, and the events he apparently attended in the 1990s)

Some title ideas that have been thrown around are things like;

- "SZ: The Most Infamous Liar in N64 History"
- "Biggest Conman in N64 History Finally Exposed after 15+ Years!"
- "The Most Unproven Speedrunner Ever - 100+ WRs Removed!"

I absolutely WILL compare SZ to Todd Rogers & Billy Mitchell in the content of the video.  I absolutely WILL use pictures of Billy Mitchell & Todd Rogers in the thumbnail of the video.  I absolutely do plan on making this video and promoting it in such a way that I hope it gets over 100,000 views.

I think you are vastly exaggerating the "damage" of comparing SZ to Todd Rogers directly.  As Ace pointed out, Todd & SZ have more in common than otherwise.  There are plenty of worse people to be compared to, and I wouldn't make the comparison if I didn't feel it was accurate.  It's not like I'm titling the video "SZ: THE LITERAL WORST HUMAN BEING WHO EVER LIVED ON THE ENTIRE PLANET!" or "SZ: THE MOST DEGENERATE MAN LIES ABOUT 100+ N64 RECORDS - THEN ROASTS ME!"  I would only make a title that I feel is appropriate and fair based on all the facts in question.

I hope this clears up much of the "concern".

[falzy211]

My sincere suggestion is that you leave the man alone and not make the video defaming him. That’s what he wants
He quite possibly claimed a time he didn’t have. Almost all of you on this sub have done that, especially you goose. He was in his 20s. He’s now moved on and in his 40s and suddenly being harangued by a bunch of guys  he no longer wants anything to do with

The blackmail has nothing to do with what the video will look like. It’s the fact you forced him to answer by threatening to damage his name by making a one sided hit piece on him. His employees can see that video goose. It should t even have his real name quite frankly

Rather than chase the money. Maybe do the right thing this time. Also don’t set your fans on me either

[falzy211]

Now. If he had raped somebody or seriously broken the law or sexually abused a child. The situation would be different. But he has done nothing that any old speed runner hasn’t done, back in the days this was truly just a hobby

It’s not elite level sport either. He gained no money from this time.
All these toxic posts could be solved by 5 words

Not enough proof. Time removed

That’s all you have to do. There’s no debate ever needed. Set your standards and remove any time that doesn’t meet them.

[Wuldntuliktono]

Am I missing something because no where in any of goose posts do I see anything that I would consider blackmail. Gooses videos are very fair like in the attack ship 206 video he broke down the ending to a science, stated the facts, and left it up to the viewer to make their own mind up. How can you get more fair then that?

[falzy211]

First post paragraph 6 after the “so what?”. Forcing the issue with a threat to release a video comparing him to todd

If it’s a joke or meant to be funny, it isn’t

Exposes are for people who break the law or scandals. SZ hasn’t broken any law. Nor gained any money or fame from his likely faked time. Completely different to Todd Rogers in every important way

Perspective is needed, and people are going hysterical on here as though he has done something seriously wrong. Just remove the damn time and leave it at that.

The harassment of this guy who had moved on was not justifiable and it’s disappointing to see

[falzy211]

For further reference

http://www.mariokart64.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1526616780/0

This is the topic goose opened in mk forums I assume this is how SZ found out. The second paragraph of the op is very clear in its intent.

[Thiradell]

so how's it gone

"Fascinating. I have no proof but Zwartjes was always one of the few that I felt entirely trustworthy back in the day, and who genuinely had insane skill. I'd be curious to see what turns up but it's been quite a long while." Shadow's first post

"I'm impressed he's shown even this much effort so far, tbh." another Shadow post

so this amazing guy with incredible skill who's completely unproven gets a round of applause for doing essentially nothing (unlocking Aztec)

"It actually kinda hurts after 100s of hours of time I put into many games to read people always had doubts about my achievements." SZ's first post

I (me, Thiradell) have doubts about literally everything. A guy with no vids online is certainly on the doubted list, and if you're hurt by that, whatevs.

Somebody posts a vid which seems likely to have been Sharked and the response is "whoa guys, stop jumping to conclusions"

At this point SZ makes his second post. He's very upset and disappointed with the negative atmosphere. This comes three weeks after "A lot of new talent, new worldchampions and most importantly a big social group of people who are willing to combine forces to get these games to an insanely high level." Right, and that big social group of people also doesn't let shit fly past, because a lot of people have tried.

After clear evidence that he Sharked he comes in with some serious negativity of his own, calls the GE community by far the worst, most diseased community he's ever seen. I'm not saying retaliation is the way to go but at this point, crying about people witchhunting SZ is silly.

Pretty lousy behavior in general; Jim calls it out nicely in #114. Everyone who continues to want to give SZ a pass needs to understand that there are plenty of people who see plenty of reasons not to, and if you don't like that, agree to disagree.

re: him faking 2 times vs. Rogers faking thousands, does it really matter? If he's been carrying on with a lie for almost 20 years, what does it matter how many records he's faked (which is a matter of speculation anyway, as you pointed out). He's on the Internet, people can talk about what he's done and frankly it's super sketch.

[RWG]

Falzy - do you not think my intentions could have changed over the past 3 months of investigating this situation?

Should I not have mentioned Henning Blom in the Frigate SpeedLore episode?  Or Trent's strange Control video in that SpeedLore episode?

At what point are we supposed to just "forget" about history, so that we don't upset anyone?  Should we just sanitize our past and pretend much of these things never happened?

Should I just stop making YouTube videos about speedrunning history altogether?

[flukey lukey]

If at the end of all this the world is blessed with an entertaining story about the many shortcomings of the human condition it might almost make a fair trade off... after decades of lies and deceit.

[OHMSS]

After investigating this situation for over 3 months now, I've decided long ago on a few things;

- not using Zwartjes name in the title of the video
- not using Todd Rogers name in the title of the video
- not using a picture of Zwartjes in the thumbnail
- not mentioning any personal information that could affect SZ in any way (mentioning only his name, his country of origin, and the events he apparently attended in the 1990s)

Good call, this is very important I think. People do google possible employees and dates. People like my mom even google their neighbors and all kinds of acquaintances, take every piece of information literally and spread the word in a very unreflected way. Because of that I would absolutely hate the idea of a YouTube video with my full (and unique) real name in the title being online and detailing how I cheated in a game. One should not forget that it was the old days of the internet where nobody thought much about anonymity. But getting shamed in that community is perfectly adequate (if it stays in that community; by measures as the ones you listed). For Todd Rogers and Billy Mitchell it's really different because they strived to be public figures and can be treated as such.

Btw, hats off to your recent YouTube content mate! Really well made with a perfect balance between accessibility and conciseness and I hope you make it even bigger.

[falzy211]

Ohmss puts my view in a very succinct and effective way

I don’t think you realise how much damage you can do to someone by putting their name in a negative piece. A lot of people will just see his name next to Todd’s name or picture and go no further

If his employers saw that. He legitimately might be reprimanded or lose employment prospects. I can’t believe.

Anyone here thinks that’s a proportionate reaction to what most of us did as kids.

His situation is far closer to when you faked times than Todd

-he gained no notable money or fame. Certainly no Guinness record
- he did it at a time when this was commonplace, as you can attest.
- you have only circumstantial evidence on only 2 videos maybe. Rather than cast iron proof on hundreds
- him having little proof of his videos is very common from the time he obtained them, and is no proof of any wrongdoing
- his single guard strat is deemed by you guys to be impossible, but you cannot disapprove it. You do not know every inner working of the game. The emulator you guys use to test is notable
For being inaccurate to the lag of the game, and lag is a common reason why clips work. Not saying that it probably works, but it may be possible.
-any chance of him showing it was lost when you were rude to him. It’s suspicious yes but if I was a 40 year old suddenly getting angry forum posts , I’d leave too.

For these reasons you’ve no real reason to compare him to Todd other than to click bait

If you DID make a reasonable, two sided video that protected his privacy, that is of course fine. But it’s clear you don’t have an intention to do that, you’ve pegged this guy as the Todd Rogers of n64 after all.

You really have to consider these points. It’s whatnall the great YouTube documenters do.

I hope you’ll at least consider my points

[RWG]

No dude, I do realize how much damage can be done.  Go to Youtube right now and search for "Steven Zwartjes."  Do you find any of my videos there?  No?  I have proven that I understand how much damage can be done and I always find ways to avoid this exact scenario from happening.

[falzy211]

Then you have become both belligerent and irresponsible. Attempting to hurt someone over a faked video game time is, as you say, truly degenerate.

You should be old enough to know better

Ive made as much a point as I can so I’ll leave the thread as it is.

[RWG]

His situation is far closer to that of Todd Rogers than myself for the following reasons:

- SZ and Todd both used social proof and an army of defenders to get by without having to prove his claims for 15-30 years
- SZ and Todd were both extremely vague in describing exactly how they achieved their most notorious claims, often contracting their previous explanations over the years
- SZ and Todd both gave explanations which the people who understand the game best unanimously agree to not be possible
-- on this point specifically, how can you disprove Dragster 5.51?  Can you?  If so, how?  And if so, how is this any different than the way we've disproven SZ's "one guard glass open" strategy?
- SZ and Todd both came forward, offering to prove their notorious claims, years later, only after interest was piqued in these cases by speedrunning & gaming historians
- SZ and Todd both planted seeds at the time they offered to prove their notorious claims, by suggesting they "weren't as good at the game anymore," "the game didn't mean much to them anymore as they had families and have moved on" and other standard things that serial liars tell as an "out".  Note that "not being as good at the game anymore" is not a legitimate excuse, as virtually every player who has come back to these sorts of gamers after years of absence, actually quickly improve past their previous ability (Karl, Randy, Shawn Johnson, etc)
- SZ and Todd both recanted on their offer to "prove" their notorious claims after people began realizing they weren't possible, and both SZ and Todd claimed this was due to "the community being mean"

For these reasons I have every reason to legitimately compare SZ to Todd Rogers in an honest journalistic manner.  In fact, it would be journalistically dishonest if I did not compare him to Todd Rogers.

[Wuldntuliktono]

What are the odds SZ applies for a job with such a high level of background checking to be simular to say the cia, nsa, or something along those lines and gets turned down because durring the background cjeck a hit comes back and its a youtube video by rwhitegoose on is SZ the todd rogers of n64 times? Id say about the odds of getting 1 guard to open the glass on aztec...

[Retrix]

-he gained no notable money or fame. Certainly no Guinness record

Actually, https://www.twingalaxies.com/scores.php?player=11447
Steven does has a twin galaxies account and may have had a Guinness World Record or 4 at one point. Referee method, outdated. Also they're his MK64 times.

[Rützou]

His situation is far closer to that of Todd Rogers than myself for the following reasons:

- SZ and Todd both used social proof and an army of defenders to get by without having to prove his claims for 15-30 years
- SZ and Todd were both extremely vague in describing exactly how they achieved their most notorious claims, often contracting their previous explanations over the years
- SZ and Todd both gave explanations which the people who understand the game best unanimously agree to not be possible
-- on this point specifically, how can you disprove Dragster 5.51?  Can you?  If so, how?  And if so, how is this any different than the way we've disproven SZ's "one guard glass open" strategy?
- SZ and Todd both came forward, offering to prove their notorious claims, years later, only after interest was piqued in these cases by speedrunning & gaming historians
- SZ and Todd both planted seeds at the time they offered to prove their notorious claims, by suggesting they "weren't as good at the game anymore," "the game didn't mean much to them anymore as they had families and have moved on" and other standard things that serial liars tell as an "out".  Note that "not being as good at the game anymore" is not a legitimate excuse, as virtually every player who has come back to these sorts of gamers after years of absence, actually quickly improve past their previous ability (Karl, Randy, Shawn Johnson, etc)
- SZ and Todd both recanted on their offer to "prove" their notorious claims after people began realizing they weren't possible, and both SZ and Todd claimed this was due to "the community being mean"

For these reasons I have every reason to legitimately compare SZ to Todd Rogers in an honest journalistic manner.  In fact, it would be journalistically dishonest if I did not compare him to Todd Rogers.

Very well said.

[stefankok]

Those mk64 times were put there by Kevin Booth, him being the ref. SZ's LR 3lap was only put there after MJ already beat it, so he never held a twin galaxies/Guinness WR, not that those rankings are really relevant.

[KVD]

Why is this thread still open?

Locking threads is legitimately the most foolish, redundant, pointless thing you can possibly do in the history of the internet.  What purpose does locking a thread serve?  If it has offending content in it, that gets deleted.  Locking threads causes people who want to continue the discussion at hand, to simply make more threads and continue to flood the boards.  Locking threads is an absolute net negative under every circumstance.  Locking threads is just the corrupt moderators going "nyah nyah, now you can be teased and enticed by this thread's existence but you can't post in it! Losers!"  It's completely antagonizing and villainous.

Not gonna comment on the SZ situation much any more, as I have not much else to add to it at this point. Gotta say though, that post above by Goose is absolutely on point.

I'd also like to thank Shadow for being the voice of reason in this topic, just by thinking straight and never resorting to insults. He repeatedly got pushed into a box, but deserves credit for maintaining sage-like wisdom throughout. I'd like to thank Jonesy also for that brilliant post earlier.

Also, I lol'ed at the 4D chess reply. In hindsight that tangent I proposed seemed a bit out there indeed. The thing is there is a huge discrepancy between how SZ comes across in real-life and how his internet persona 'acts', which led me to believe this was a real possibility. I just couldn't reconcile his intelligent gamer genius persona (Ive witnessed it live numerous times, so I still insist that this part of his legacy is at least accurate) with some of his statements on these forums. I realize now that may be the result of a language barrier moreso than actually playing 4D chess though. I happily concede that point.

As for the comparison vs Todd Rogers, there are easily just as many differences as there are similarities. It just depends on which angle you're fishing for. You could claim he is similar to Hitler as well and state a list of 10 things they have in common. The point is you have to do some serious cherry picking to defend the comparison. Like Jones said earlier, some of Todd's scores are physically impossible with the way the game is coded. Like the Dragster time isn't even possible under any circumstance. With GE Aztec the impossibility of it all is at least a little bit more nuanced. Also, SZ DID prove some of his WRs (see MK64 LR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq6x4hhXdCQ and a bunch of other stuff on tape like Lylat Wars). This also makes this case quite different from the Todd one. Another difference is that SZ didnt build up a public persona / legacy with his claims. I can go on, but the point is clear I believe.

Basically, I 100% concur with what Jones wrote about it (reply 266). There is a world of difference between being backrolled on a ranking and being slandered by a popular YouTuber.

[Saltkillzsnails]

Just to comment maybe his Employees should know that a 40 year old man is still a liar to this day. You can say a 20 year old made a mistake and thats perfectly understandable but when the 40 year old family/business man still sticks to his lie then that maybe shows his character perhaps?

Goose make the video how you want to do it.

[KVD]

^The evidence is not solid enough for that and neither is the putative offense in any way proportionate to the possible consequences.

Ultimately the question Goose has to answer for himself here is whether the Todd Rogers comparison is made:
-for storytelling benefits / honest journalism
-to benefit the community
-to benefit himself

Not mutually exclusive perse, just something to think about. From reading Goose's posts he has already made up his mind on the matter, but I don't see how the comparison benefits anyone except himself. In fact, it could (and already has when reading some of the replies) put the community in a negative light (e.g. mob mentality).

Having said that, the Goose videos Ive watched have all been in good taste (they are quite often biased to 1 pov, but not trashy in any way), so Im kind of ok to reserve judgement on the final product anyhow. SZ has had ample opportunity to change the outcome of this himself and his actions have absolutely contributed to the current situation being as it is. 

[Jonesy]

- SZ and Todd both gave explanations which the people who understand the game best unanimously agree to not be possible
-- on this point specifically, how can you disprove Dragster 5.51?  Can you?  If so, how?  And if so, how is this any different than the way we've disproven SZ's "one guard glass open" strategy?

I think these are pretty important questions to be asking and properly understand the answers to.

I'm not an expert in either game, but I have probably a better-than-average understanding of both simply by being interested in and following the developments in both cases. From my understanding (which is admittedly based on the work of others), the key difference between the two is that the Dragster code is so simple that the possibility space can be exhaustively explored from a rigorous, mathematical standpoint to essentially prove that a 5.51 is not possible given any possible sequence of inputs (see this video by Omnigamer).

On the other hand, the source code for GoldenEye is several orders of magnitude more complex than a game like Dragster (which is why you have kooky shit like lookdown, strafing, warps, clips, etc.). This is definitely reaching the limits of my ability to speak knowledgeably, so I'll defer to someone like Henrik who can probably do a much better job. But, I'd be pretty surprised if anyone claimed that the possibility space of Aztec is as rigorously explored and understood as that of Dragster.

[Whiteted]

His situation is far closer to that of Todd Rogers than myself for the following reasons:
-- on this point specifically, how can you disprove Dragster 5.51?  Can you?  If so, how?  And if so, how is this any different than the way we've disproven SZ's "one guard glass open" strategy?

They're Chalk and Cheese. You can very literally prove things about programs, and it's a very well studied subject, especially nowadays with nearly everything having multiple cores / types of processors running concurrently. Even at a very granular level, Atari 2600s have a single CPU so the program runs sequentially, while N64 has the 2-ish graphics processors in addition to the CPU.. and even the CPU runs multiple threads. Saying that anything is impossible is pretty tricky, but not itself impossible 
Also google tells me that Dragster is 2 kB, which I actually can't believe because it's so small, but maybe that's just the code. Apparently the code should be within 4KB.  Whereas GE is like 10MB, and even more if you decompress everything out of it.
The Dragster 5.51 analysis is essentially a proof, while "one guard glass" analysis is just we can't explain it (we probably including SZ). A video of it would belong in Obscure happenings with the other stuff that isn't understood.

In fact, it would be journalistically dishonest if I did not compare him to Todd Rogers.

Bit strong I think. Your videos (beyond the thumbnail / title) are generally quite balanced though, with the odd one based on some dodgy maths

[Wyst3r]

I'm not an expert in either game, but I have probably a better-than-average understanding of both simply by being interested in and following the developments in both cases. From my understanding (which is admittedly based on the work of others), the key difference between the two is that the Dragster code is so simple that the possibility space can be exhaustively explored from a rigorous, mathematical standpoint to essentially prove that a 5.51 is not possible given any possible sequence of inputs (see this video by Omnigamer).

On the other hand, the source code for GoldenEye is several orders of magnitude more complex than a game like Dragster (which is why you have kooky shit like lookdown, strafing, warps, clips, etc.). This is definitely reaching the limits of my ability to speak knowledgeably, so I'll defer to someone like Henrik who can probably do a much better job. But, I'd be pretty surprised if anyone claimed that the possibility space of Aztec is as rigorously explored and understood as that of Dragster.

I haven't looked at the Dragster case myself, but yeah, it should be possible to actually prove stuff through assembly code analysis if it's simple enough. In the case of Goldeneye you're correct, it's far too complex. Not necessarily impossible if you can e.g. isolate the code that triggers the door opening and find where it's called from etc... but it could easily end up being a deep rabbit hole as well.

So as I've mentioned before, I think the Aztec case has to come down to statistics. Steven claims to have successfully replicated the strat multiple times, and within a reasonable amount of time ("10 hours"). This puts some very solid constraints on how unlikely the strat can be. The fact that no one else has ever seen it in 16 years is already pretty convincing evidence, and over time that will only get better.

[stefankok]

From my understanding it initially took Steven a 10 hour session of experimenting with different methods to finally get it to work(which is where the 10 hour figure comes from).  Then shortly after claimed to have gotten a 2:03 00 Agent time in about an hour with the backup(this is an assumption, all instances of the strat that were posted in early 2002 included the backup, thus i'd figure it could be done with it. I could be wrong however). He then claimed to have set a 1:33 on Agent sometime later after finding some new tricks to do it faster, which would be improved to a 1:31 further down the road. Those Agent times are quite certainly not done with the backup. On the MK boards he suggests that without backup the odds of getting a glass opening are about 0.1% after playing 2 sessions of 5 hours, and that with backup about 1% it seems while reading his old posts on this forum. In other words, Steven basically claimed to have gotten a minimum of 4 glass openings in a time of 21+ hours fwiw.
I don't know what method the people used to attempt to get it to work, did people mostly try it without the backup?

As for the Dragster 5.51, i'm not an expert, but i recall that Omnigamer made a spreadsheet based off the source code/assembly code(which could literally be fit on one sheet of paper iirc, at least only the portion that affects the gameplay) and concluded that 5.57 is the fastest possible time. An Atari 2600 ROM expert named Thomas Jentzsch basically did the same and also came to the same conclusion, along with several other experts. Ben Heck would later then test if there's any inconsistencies with how running it on the actual console compared with the spreadsheets/emulator, no differences were found and arrived at the same conclusion as all the others.

[poonjahbee]

So Ill finally give my two cents on this whole thing. I actually spoke with Steven many many years ago when boss came out and revealed his aztec start to us. I basically asked him if how he did his much faster glass was to lure the one guard behind the mainframe and he said yes he had just that one guard open the glass for him. Knowing what we know now I have no doubt that he was telling us the truth when he said he got that one guard to open the glass. The one thing he is not telling us however is he had invisibility on and thats how he got the one guard to open the glass. I think it should be fairly obvious to all that he either A: lied about the whole thing or B: (and what I believe) is he used cheats to accomplish this and has kept that to him self ever since. So going back to my past conversation with him and how I felt about that aztec time at the time would be that I never felt it was legitimate. And now with our vast knowledge of the game we can safely assume he did cheat to achieve the one guard strat. Its as obvious as Henning saying there was some freak occurrence and thats why there was a phantom being put away in the cinema. Believe his crazy lie if you want, but I think we all know better than to just trust what people tell you. So yes I do believe the supposed one guard strat is illegitimate as all hell and anyone trying to replicate it legitimately is wasting your precious time.  End rant.

[Saltkillzsnails]

Well said Punjabe. Posted way earlier in the thread with a similar assumption. That he had a cheat on and pulled off the one guard lure. Over the last 16 years thats been the only route where one guard can pull off that specific trick.

He gets the strat to work with the cheat and then lowers the time some more to 1:31 but doesnt post it himself and said hes holding it until someone else does it with the thinking that there probably will be a method to get the glass open like his and his record would be accepted and everyone would believe him. But unfortunately for him no one can get a one guard strat to work and hes left with just his short, vague, and ever changing description of the strategy with zero proof.

[Wyst3r]

I don't know what method the people used to attempt to get it to work, did people mostly try it without the backup?

I would imagine the vast majority of attempts wouldn't come from actually trying to do the one guard strat, but rather attempts to do the 2 guard strat that failed and only lured 1 guard. So that would be without the backup. Specific attempts to do the 1 guard strat would likely have been with the backup (at least in my own case).

[Scrambler Fanny]

Note that "not being as good at the game anymore" is not a legitimate excuse, as virtually every player who has come back to these sorts of gamers after years of absence, actually quickly improve past their previous ability (Karl, Randy, Shawn Johnson, etc)

I never thought in a million years that "MY" name/gaming history would be relevant within this composition on the examination into SZ. Slick, Goose, as always.

Fretting over the "harm," "defamation," and future employment status effected by any compilation vid done by Goose (or anyone) seems like a waste of concern. If your whistle is squeaky clean, you've nothing to worry about. If not, real life dictates that we face the music and man up to our actions. Boils down to responsibility in my view.

As a 36 old fella complete with wife, four children, job, military, supervisor of 50 personnel, active member within local church, having put thousands of hours into GE myself, blah, blah, blah, I feel as if I can *possibly* speak from the ballpark of where SZ is in life. I'm putting myself in his shoes right now. I WOULD NOT CARE IF ANYONE STUMBLED ACROSS A YOUTUBE VID OF ME "CHEATING" ON A VIDEO GAME BACK IN 199x. I think people here within this discussion are 1000 times more concerned than SZ is. Has he posted anywhere where he specifically asks Goose (or anyone) not to follow through with mentioned vid with gathered information?

Comprehensive analysis over.

[AEB]

Yeah, many posts here are ridiculous. Let him defend himself instead, which he would if this was that important to him. I would if my wife, children and job were at stake, like quite a few here seem to think it is for him.

[Wuldntuliktono]

If your wife leaves you and takes the kids because of a video on youtube about you possibly faking some times on a video game your relationship probably wasnt working out to begin with...

[Wyst3r]

So I went back and looked at the guard data again, because I had a suspicion that there might be some value in there somewhere representing a position behind the glass door when you get an opening. That would explain why the glass actually opens, because the guard is literally trying to reach a position behind it, which is what our intuition and current understanding of it was telling us.
And indeed I found such a value.

The videos below shows how this value behaves. The yellow line is where the guard is supposed to go, i.e. Bond's last known position or a node on the navigation graph. The green and blue lines represent two other values I found, and they seem to point toward the edges/corners of obstacles. The red line is where the guard is actually going. The red line will generally be slightly outside of of either the green and blue line, which makes sense since the guard is trying to avoid the obstacle. I made videos of invisibility, mainframe and 1-guard strat for comparison:

Invisibility:

Unsurpisingly, the green/blue lines point toward the edges of Bond, who acts as an obstacle, and the glass opens when the red line leads to behind the glass.

Mainframe:

Very similar, except the 2nd guard acts as the obstacle.

1-Guard:

There is no obstacle this time so the green/blue lines point to the previous obstacle or in the middle of nowhere, most likely unused. The red line always points directly at Bond's previous location, which due to Bond's 30 unit radius, is 15 units away from the glass.

All of this seems to confirm what we already knew, that an obstacle is required and that the target position for the guard must be behind the glass in order for it to open. It's worth mentioning that random animations do not produce a red line at all. Given all this I really don't see any way that the 1-guard strat could ever work, backup or non-backup.

[Retrix]

Damn that's some sweet research. Ok I'm done. Will the real Aztec WR holder please stand up? Please stand up.

Done. I've been proven wrong thrice in a week due to my own unwillingness to trust the fucking experts.

Prove me otherwise, Kent, Zwartjes, REDACTED.