Editing 3148: 100% All Achievements

{{comic
| number    = 3148
| date      = September 29, 2025
| title     = 100% All Achievements
| image     = 100_all_achievements_2x.png
| imagesize = 271x475px
| noexpand  = true
| titletext = I'm trying to share my footage of the full run to prove it's not tool-assisted, but the uploader has problems with video lengths of more than a decade.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created BY AN ANY% RUNNER. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
100% All Achievements is a category of {{w|Speedrunning|video game speedruns}} where the goal is to do everything possible in the game, as fast as possible. Many games have a progress bar to track completion of the game, making the "100%" criterion officially defined. "Achievements," also known as "trophies" for games on Sony-branded consoles, are another way to track accomplishments, either tracked within the game itself or through the storefront used to purchase the game such as the Microsoft Store. In some cases (particularly if external achievements are also tracked within the game itself) a 100% speedrun requires the player to collect every achievement. Sometimes, however, achievements are tracked separately from in-game completion, and thus are irrelevant to a 100% run. Some games include external achievements for spending a given amount of time playing the game (eg. An achievement for playing the game for 100 hours) which, if required, would defeat the point of trying to complete the game quickly. The phrasing here implies that Cueball’s university is not one such example, and that any external achievements must be completed for Cueball to consider his run complete.

[[Cueball]] is attempting a 100% All Achievements run for his university, which is a ridiculous pursuit for several reasons. Even though 100% runs for video games can take very long (up to [https://www.speedrun.com/baten_kaitos_eternal_wings_and_the_lost_ocean?h=100&x=mke7v926 two weeks]), they don't even come close to the amount of time needed to complete a single university major, let alone every class. This would be prohibitively expensive for most people due to the high cost of university attendance. Moreover, "All Achievements" is vaguely defined in this scenario, and the "achievements" possible at a university will change as courses, academic tracks, and degrees offered change. In contrast, even if the possible achievements in a video game change as updates and downloadable content are released, it is possible to specify a particular version of the game used for the speedrun. In addition, the university seems upset with this choice of action, and are demanding he stop it and graduate. This may be because they doubt his ability to retain this information, perhaps because they simply cannot get as much tuition from one man, or possibly because they feel he is making a mockery of the institution.

“All achievements” could simply refer to completing all courses and degree programs, achievements in video games often involve optional paths or accomplishments unrelated to the main game progress. The equivalent for a university speedrun may mean Cueball also must participate in extracurricular activities such as clubs and other university-associated events, even if they do not directly contribute to his eventual graduation requirements. Depending on how involved the university is, this may add significant challenge and time to the speedrun. If the speedrun requires Cueball to participate in, say, several university sporting leagues at once, the time and effort spent over the course of training, practice, recovery, and event matches (possibly requiring significant travel) may even outweigh his already Herculean academic efforts.

While this might sound ludicrous, "{{w|perpetual students}}" are people who spend long periods at a university. {{w|Michael Nicholson (academic)|Michael Nicholson}}, the world record holder, completed 30 majors between before 1964 and 2016.

Gen-ed, which Cueball says he had completed all of in 2010, refers to {{w|Curriculum#Core_curriculum|general education courses}}. This usually means either:
(1) a set of classes, or at least categories of classes (such as literature, history, science, foreign language, etc.), that must be taken by all students, regardless of major; or
(2) classes that have few prerequisites, intended to be taken by students in other disciplines or by people not in university programs at all, to broaden their education (for example, a course in general science for arts students). It is common for a university program to require a student to take several courses that are somewhat related to their nominal preferred specialty in their first year, to provide a foundation for later studies and to permit some flexibility if the student's interests change. In some countries, some gen-ed courses are also included in programs of study so that students get at least a bit of exposure to unrelated disciplines. Many students aim to get these courses out of the way within their first one or two years, though some universities have more specific or long-term requirements (eg: requiring all students to take at least one lower-division and at least one upper-division humanities course) to ensure breadth through a student's undergrad career.

Classes at a university typically receive a code that combines the name of the field/discipline being taught with a two- or three-digit number (e.g., a course in anthropology might be ANTH 209). The leading digit typically provides information about how advanced a class is: lower division work might receive a 0 or 1, while upper division and graduate courses will receive higher numbers. Although there is no standardization across universities for which specific numbers equate to which course levels, the generally accepted baseline education given in any specific subject is usually associated with the number {{w|101 (number)#In_education|101}}, while classes in the 400s are usually taken in the 4th year of undergrad at most universities, and may provide credit towards graduate-level degrees.

In traditional speedrunning, a {{w|tool-assisted speedrun}} (mentioned in the title text) is one done with software such as a {{w|video game console emulator|video game emulator}} to record and then play back incredibly precise movements. These are typically used to show the theoretical upper limit of how quickly a game can be completed, even if the required techniques are beyond human capabilities (i.e. performing a long chain of optimal actions, flawlessly, without the need to replay or restart any stage). Particularly exceptional speedruns may rouse suspicion that they weren’t truly performed by a human, which is what Cueball is trying to quell. It is unclear how such tools might be applied to the pursuit of education, but Cueball may have meant using artificial intelligence or similar "cheats" to illegitimately complete his work. Unassisted speedruns are typically reviewed in full by a moderator of the speedrunning community for that game to ensure there truly were no tools involved. There is no known community for university speedrunning,{{Citation needed}} so no moderators will be able to review the years of footage to determine whether the speedrun was legitimate.

Most video-sharing services limit the length of uploaded videos, either by size or length, for a variety of reasons. A decade-long video file is almost certainly too big for any service: an hour of 720p-resolution video is about one gigabyte [[https://www.overcasthq.com/blog/how-big-are-video-files/ Overcast]], so a decade would be about 100 terabytes. The longest video ever to be hosted on YouTube is just under 25 days [[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12095652/trivia/ IMDB]], under 1% of what Cueball wants. Such a video would require significant infrastructure support by the service for it to be allowed, not to mention presenting challenges to recording and storing it in the first place. Also, the moderators would spend much of their time watching the video. Assuming they watch 8 hours every day and there are 10 moderators splitting the video, we can calculate the days needed assuming it is about a decade. (10*365*24)/8/10 =87,600/8/10 = 1095. So, they need 1095 days, or about 3 years.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball, arms outstretched, is talking to White Hat.]
:Cueball: I finished all the gen-ed back in 2010, and I'm up to the 400-level courses in most departments.
:Cueball: But now one of my advisors is saying I "can't have more than 20 majors" and "need to graduate next year."
:Cueball: It's outrageous!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:My university is making it really hard to finish a 100% all achievements speedrun.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Video games]]