Regarding length of run: If a dummy movie file is going to be present anyway, we could make it from all blank inputs that was as many frames long as needed to show the appropriate time frame.
For something "beyond input" like #4947: dwangoAC, Ilari & p4plus2's SGB Pokémon: Red/Green/Blue/Yellow Version "Pokemon Plays Twitch" in 08:11.42, the closest real-life analogy is avant-garde or experimental films. The best example that I know of is Mothlight (1963), which is a short film that was created without using a camera. If a film can be made outside of standard methods, then a TAS can be as well. Publish it as an entirely separate class from other movies, and hold it to a high standard of artistic and technical merits for publication. I don't think we need 1000+ word arguments about breaking rules or whatever. If the sentiment favors including more experimental art, then create a new experimental class (not playground) and publish. Bada bing bada boom.
1. Should we allow "maximum score" as a standard branch universally? Currently, we allow it as a form of full completion, but this does not catch 100% of cases, which is a bit ironic for full completion, really. The proposed change to the rule here would just be to allow "maximum score" as a branch independently of full completion. We would likely lessen the rules on methodology in this case, maybe only disallowing unassisted infinite loops and ACE. This change would also apply to timed games where the only objective method of competitive play is score. This could mean allowing timed sports games as well, but the mere thought of having that conversation again is giving me PTSD. We'll see.
2. For infinite games, how do we define "maximum score"? Max score for timed games like Sharp Shot is easy to define, but what about games like this where play can be infinite? Some of the prior discussion in this thread has revolved around the nature of this game's score counter, and defining maximum score in relation to that counter is an important distinction for us to make, especially if we're going to broaden how we treat the category itself. In this case, the distinction is between the displayed score and the internal score counter. The display score is indeed maxed out and overflowed, but the game continues to internally keep track of score beyond that. Should we demand that a maximum score run max out the internal counter, or should we just stick to display score? My personal stances here are "yes, allow max score universally" and "stick to display score", but I'd like to see other opinions. That, or a bunch of people agreeing with me. That also feels nice.
How we branching it is the question? Do we follow the RTA community naming "N. Tropy" as "defeat N. Tropy" when translated to the site, or does "N. Trance" get a branch instead?
The movie must be complete
- If there's no clear ending, end after all unique content (enemies, level layouts, game mechanics, etc.) is exhausted.
- Alternately, after completing all unique content, you may end when the in-game difficulty (enemy speed, AI, etc.) stops increasing.
[1926] NES Contra (Japan) "pacifist" by Soig & zyr2288 in 09:29.08 After noticing that previous pacifist runs had only one player, I was thinking that we should let this one be part of its own branch. It's probably different enough from the main 2 player pacifist runs.
It can be made to sync with a very simple modification, simply remove the first 5 inputs with a hex editor (bytes 0x100 - 0x127). That along with setting the needed settings (no memcard, no dual core, no idle skipping, dsp lle) will have the movie sync fully.
Here is the .bk2 file in case anyone wants a look for themselves. (You can use it as long as you have the rom for this game, titled "contra.zip") drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=19HSrFeUIqGV33511VOqzGGvsfdLJuH3b
Well, wasn't there even a proposal for Playground about allowing runs done on otherwise unacceptable emulators? It definitely does feel like a major purpose of Playground is to host movies that break the usual rules, especially the ones more on the technical side.
I will unfortunately point out to you memeboi470 that the biggest issue for your TAS is that it's using a Beta ROM, v1.1/Rev A is an unreleased ROM by Midway. Only v1.0 is the official release.
CRC32: 33F19AB6
MD5: E0BB4D00EA95B75AAC52851FB4D8EE47
SHA-1: 2C4A0618CC93EF7BE8329A82CA6D2D16F49B23E0{{
rom|
MD|
sha1=2c4a0618cc93ef7be8329a82ca6d2d16f49b23e0|
md5=e0bb4d00ea95b75aac52851fb4d8ee47|
crc32=33f19ab6|
size=2MB|
date=1993-09|
source=Cartridge|
comments=v01|
quality=good|
prototype=
}}CRC32: 1AA3A207
MD5: A1DD8A3E4B8C98DEE49D5E90D6B87903
SHA-1: C098BF38DDD755AB7CAA4612D025BE2039009EB2I thought the point of Playground is to keep movies that break the rules from Moons, and that they can break the rules by (a) not being entertaining, or (b) using cheat codes, or (c) breaking some other rule.
A question for the judges: would an "X, Ultimate Armor (any%)" TAS be acceptable on TASVideos? I see that the rules are changed and in-game codes can be accepted. It would be very different than normal X runs, and faster than a Zero TAS.
The phrasing "blanket ban the whole thing" sounds weird here. There is no banning on the rom hacking side; it's just that it's not available yet. This is like saying we are blanket banning movies of games on 9th gen consoles when there isn't a way of making one. :P
For reasons brought up earlier, I do prefer to see movies involving RAM hacking stay in Playground for the foreseeable future when that is still a place to showcase the movies in some way on the site.
To me it sounds like the otherwise unavailable feature is just a skin. If that's the case, allowing external cheat codes for this is almost on par with allowing purely cosmetic hacks even if we do try to treat ram hacking and rom hacking in a similar way.
That seems more like a collection of guides on how to hack the rom/ram, not a library/database of "end products".
Databases of rom hacks are functionally similar to a list of officially licensed games that they set up a canon of game versions to choose from. Having a list of external cheat codes where arbitrary combinations can be created from is exactly why "there are too many possibilities and it is up to the players what codes and how many to use". This makes the situations surrounding rom hacking and ram hacking too different imo.