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Joined: 5/3/2004
Posts: 1203
Ouzo wrote:
I wouldn't call JXQ's attempt half-assed, since he did gain 47 frames in the Green Hill Zones compared to your v2 (which I had thought to be perfect).
Actually, he has gained only 13 frames on my v3 run (I assume you meant v3 and not v2.) He gained 1 frame in GH1, 1 frame in GH2, and 11 frames in GH3. That's not exactly what I consider to be a stunning improvement considering 7 of those frames were gleaned by making already known improvements that were disregarded because I consider them to be poor stylistic choices. (Missing a ring in the loop in GH1, not collecting the invulnerability at the start in GH3.) So, yeah, I am gonna come down a little hard when all I see is someone pulling a Phil. Sloppifying a run, adding in egregious wobbles or wobble-like effects, and then not being willing to take the time to optimize the first level for which he doesn't have an existing run to copy virtually frame for frame? Yeah, that's lame.
Active player (411)
Joined: 3/16/2004
Posts: 2623
Location: America, Québec
Stop being frustrated xebra. He made improvements where you weren't able to. +I don't like your attitude of calling Phil a movie with small improvements here and there made by some lame guy. Do you know that those small improvements are harder to find? It is by far not lame. Imo, YOU ARE LAME.
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (978)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3109
Location: Sweden
xebra... you're being an ass again. Stop it. JXQ has produced a good movie so far, and there's no reason to be acting like this. If you're convinced there is some better way which he is missing, why not just make a movie of it?
JXQ
Experienced player (761)
Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132
Xebra I understand that you have an ideal way stylistically for this run to be done, but I don't think you understand that I may have my own opinion about this, and that as far as style is concerned, it is up to the author. I was glad that you are giving me lots of ideas for futher optimization because you do have a very extensive knowledge of this game, and your WIPs have helped immensely...so I don't understand why you are taking offense. The reason my Green Hill levels were so similar to yours is because you optimized it so damn well. What could I have possibly done for those levels to not make you mad? If I had done exactly what you did stylistically, then why wouldn't I have just continued from your existing WIP? I'm sure you would think that is lame as well, as would I. I wanted to learn this game myself and I was doing so by studying your WIPs because they are very good. By the same token, if I think Marble 1 is optimized enough, then it is my right to move on. Of course, you can voice your opinion too (as you are), but I'm not going to be bullied into doing exactly what you want this run to be. I don't think your attitude is fair, and stuff like this makes me wonder if I would be better off doing the run without posting WIPs and updates.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Joined: 5/3/2004
Posts: 1203
JXQ wrote:
What could I have possibly done for those levels to not make you mad? If I had done exactly what you did stylistically, then why wouldn't I have just continued from your existing WIP? I'm sure you would think that is lame as well, as would I.
I gave Ouzo free reign to use my runs, and did not ask for credit, why not you?
xebra wrote:
You didn't collect all the coins in the loop, either ;) . If you doubt you will be able to improve any of the Green Hill Zones (as I do), I don't care if you just use mine. SY1 and 2 and L1 probably aren't worth redoing, either, unless you really want to.
----
Truncated wrote:
xebra... you're being an ass again. Stop it. JXQ has produced a good movie so far, and there's no reason to be acting like this. If you're convinced there is some better way which he is missing, why not just make a movie of it?
I believe I already have made a GH1-3 movie that I consider superior.
Joined: 7/28/2004
Posts: 57
When his movie is faster than yours, his movie is superior. None of your 'style' is impressive enough (or even more than barely noticable) to warrant sacrificing speed in favor of it. And someone who quit the run really doesn't have any ground to stand on calling someone else 'undedicated'. If you have a problem with the way he is doing things, as the old saying goes, do it yourself.
Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
I like your updates JXQ, but I think there might be alot of merit to not positing them either, maybe especially so in this case. I'm sure you'd produce an equally good movie with or without the help of xebra, and I'm guessing you won't be too disheartened by the 1 no-vote you'll recieve after submitting this, since you'll have lots of time to prepare for it :) Edit: Oh and xebra, just because I'm curious: Do you consider all the coins SprintGod misses the same way in his Sonic 3 movie to be mistakes as well? Did you consider voting no to his movie being published because of this? (If you did vote no, I apologize and you can ignore the second part of my question).
Zoey Ridin' High <Fabian_> I prett much never drunk
Former player
Joined: 7/29/2005
Posts: 459
Location: Brazil
omg, stop it.. i.i since xebra's run is cancelled, there's no need to compete.. work together for a best run.. i.i xebra, if JXQ chooses for a fastest time, dont need to tell us you were more entertaining.. maybe for some ppl your way is better, but not to the vision of the maker, so dont need to argue about it
<small>My big signature was cleared by admin; i should read <a href="http://tasvideos.org/ForumRules.html">forum rules</a>. But... who does?</small>
Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1310)
Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687
I know everyone's past thinking about this by know, but I still think there must be some way to abuse that crumbling block glitch in 1-2. I tried not-very-optimized to see the best time I could get without picking up the running shoes, and it was 0:22, could probably get a bit better but it's not enough to compete with 0:17. But I did notice that the glitch does some weird stuff with corrupting game's memory a bit and allowing sonic to walk around on top of basically random stuff outside of the level (when he either shoots off to the left of it or goes high enough into the air). Going left, I was able to get the camera to scroll past that spiky area to within about 1 screen away of the goal, so maybe with enough random fiddling it's possible to find something useful for it. (When sonic is offscreen, he can still jump around and do stuff, and what he does there has some effect on what happens.) Also, I don't know if this would affect a TAS or if you all know this already, but I found you can safely stand in-between individual spikes in those groups of spikes that are all over the place, if you press opposite your direction of movement in the air above them. At least, it worked on that first spike patch in 1-2, allowing (easily) getting on top of the crumbling blocks by the shoe without bouncing off of that enemy.
Joined: 5/3/2004
Posts: 1203
Phil wrote:
Do you know that those small improvements are harder to find?
Yes, small optimizations in games are so hard to find, that's why it was so incredibly difficult for me to nitpick a lot of Quietust's Sonic 2 run to death. I'm sure Quietust would agree his contribution of actually playing the whole game was trivial, and pales in comparison to the monumentally difficult task I had of furnishing him with minor improvements on some of the levels.
JXQ
Experienced player (761)
Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132
Nitsuja - I worked with that glitch a bit myself back on that level, although I wasn't able to make the screen scroll as far as you have. From what I could tell, the reason that it doesn't work with Sonic (as opposed to working on Ouzo's S1&K run) is that Sonic is too low to the ground. In the middle of the level, the bottom point changes and the screen scrolls up. Sonic dies whenever he touches the bottom of the screen, whether or not it's actually the bottom of the level. Knuckles is able to perform this trick at a higher elevation, turning the bottom of the screen into a non-issue.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Active player (411)
Joined: 3/16/2004
Posts: 2623
Location: America, Québec
xebra wrote:
Phil wrote:
Do you know that those small improvements are harder to find?
Yes, small optimizations in games are so hard to find, that's why it was so incredibly difficult for me to nitpick a lot of Quietust's Sonic 2 run to death. I'm sure Quietust would agree his contribution of actually playing the whole game was trivial, and pales in comparison to the monumentally difficult task I had of furnishing him with minor improvements on some of the levels.
So, is it lame or not? When reading this post you disagree with yourself.
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (978)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3109
Location: Sweden
>I believe I already have made a GH1-3 movie that I consider superior. Uh-huh. And was this way faster than what JXQ is doing presently? (I think style is up to the author to a very large degree.) If it was I too hope that he will incorporate it. Otherwise, I think this argument is unneccesary and just brings a bad mood and hostility in this thread.
Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1310)
Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687
JXQ wrote:
In the middle of the level, the bottom point changes and the screen scrolls up. Sonic dies whenever he touches the bottom of the screen, whether or not it's actually the bottom of the level. Knuckles is able to perform this trick at a higher elevation, turning the bottom of the screen into a non-issue.
In that case, I must have made Sonic jump on something while he was offscreen that put him high enough up to not get killed by that initial scrolling, but later fell down too low or into a pit. The landscape of the terrain offscreen seems to change depending on how many blocks (or maybe pixels) the screen is scrolled horizontally at the start of pressing a direction to do the glitch. (I think this is why sometimes it doesn't work at all - if the ground level offscreen directly by the spikes is above you, then you won't even get offscreen.) (The only thing to go by was the sound, so it was kind of hard to tell exactly what I was doing besides jumping at sort-of-random intervals.)
Joined: 5/3/2004
Posts: 1203
Phil wrote:
So, is it lame or not? When reading this post you disagree with yourself.
If your grasp of the English is so poor that you can't understand sarcasm, go somewhere else and argue in a language you actually understand. The main point here is simple. JXQ said he was interested in continuing my run. But it turns out he was not interested in this at all. He was only interested in copying my run in a manner he knew I would find unsatisfactory, and then giving half an effort in the levels he couldn't copy virtually frame for frame. I don't care that he's using my strategies. I made them public so that people could enjoy them. But I do care that he is using my strategies in a shitty run. I subjected GH1-3 to such thorough and meticulous optimization that the best JXQ could do was shave 4 frames across three levels. Compare this to the fact that I shaved 5 frames off of a single jump in his Marble 1 about 2 seconds into the level. If he is not willing to hold his run to the same standards as my GH1-3/SY1-2/L1, then I don't want him using my work! I stopped my run because I couldn't stomach the thought of producing shit, whether or not anyone else was capable of recognizing it. I don't want my work continued by anyone without that same ethic, attention to detail, and demand for excellence. Point 2: "His" run has a wbble-like effect and it looks like utter shit.
JXQ
Experienced player (761)
Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132
What Xebra Doesn't Realize:
  • He doesn't own exclusive rights to making a TAS of this game, or the strategies used in his WIPs.
  • His opinion on style is just an opinion - not fact - and opinions can vary from person to person.
  • A five frame improvement that causes a two second delay is, in fact, not an improvement at all. In a related point, I am not his Bisqbot bitch.
  • Answering only one part of a post with a witty comeback and leaving the rest unanswered does not make you look smart, or funny, or even aware of what is going on.
  • My Green Hill Zone is 48 frames faster, not 4.
  • Standing on the screen for half a second after the end of Green Hill 2 is a shitty, unneeded delay, especially when going for fastest time. (Hey, I can cuss in bold too!)
  • Taking invincibility later in Green Hill 3 in order to save six frames is part of optimizing, and is an improvement.
Hopefully the following ideas will help you cope: What Xebra Can Do if He Doesn't Like My Run A Handy Checklist to Follow by JXQ! (recommended options in boldface type)
  • Shut the fuck up.
  • Do his own run.
  • Stop posting immature, closed-minded, negative, arrogant, argumentative comments in these forums.
The next time you'll see me discussing this run will be in its submission.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Joined: 9/26/2004
Posts: 18
Location: Australia
JXQ wrote:
What Xebra Doesn't Realize:
  • He doesn't own exclusive rights to making a TAS of this game, or the strategies used in his WIPs.
  • His opinion on style is just an opinion - not fact - and opinions can vary from person to person.
  • A five frame improvement that causes a two second delay is, in fact, not an improvement at all. In a related point, I am not his Bisqbot bitch.
  • Answering only one part of a post with a witty comeback and leaving the rest unanswered does not make you look smart, or funny, or even aware of what is going on.
  • My Green Hill Zone is 48 frames faster, not 4.
  • Standing on the screen for half a second after the end of Green Hill 2 is a shitty, unneeded delay, especially when going for fastest time. (Hey, I can cuss in bold too!)
  • Taking invincibility later in Green Hill 3 in order to save six frames is part of optimizing, and is an improvement.
Hopefully the following ideas will help you cope: What Xebra Can Do if He Doesn't Like My Run A Handy Checklist to Follow by JXQ! (recommended options in boldface type)
  • Shut the fuck up.
  • Do his own run.
  • Stop posting immature, closed-minded, negative, arrogant, argumentative comments in these forums.
The next time you'll see me discussing this run will be in its submission.
i couldn've said this better myself spoken like a true TAS player
Joined: 8/7/2004
Posts: 51
Was that ...a burn? ...which was burned? err... This is freakin' immature. Xebra, not everyone has the same knowledge you have, so if JXQ is bad, it's good to learn him some help. Got that JXQ? Got that Xebra? These forums are something Bisqwit made, and pays bandwidth for, so you can help each other out, not cuss. In bold. Cool off. Xebra, if you really hate this run so much, I think it's fair for you to ask for your name not to be associated with it. Before you say someone needs permision to use your strategies, did you get permission from Sonic Team to use this game to begin with? It is a bit concieted (imho) to get posessive of your own use of someone else's intellectual property. Um, not to drag this argument on. I should apologize if I sound pretentious. You shouldn't get personal about video game movies, of all things.
mew.
Joined: 5/3/2004
Posts: 1203
JXQ wrote:
Standing on the screen for half a second after the end of Green Hill 2 is a shitty, unneeded delay, especially when going for fastest time. (Hey, I can cuss in bold too!)
If you are truly concerned with "fastest time" then why don't you cross the finish line in GH1 5.05 seconds later? Surely that unbelievably obvious optimization didn't elude someone of your acumen. Oh ... wait, I forgot, you aren't concerned with total time at all, you just sometimes pretend that you are in order to intentionally mislead, so that no one notices the flaws in your arguments. Bravo, Rowling, your red herring almost got me this time!
Spriteless wrote:
Before you say someone needs permision to use your strategies, did you get permission from Sonic Team to use this game to begin with?
In fact I did, when I bought the game 14 years ago.
Spriteless wrote:
It is a bit concieted (imho) to get posessive of your own use of someone else's intellectual property.
It's no more conceited than Perlman not allowing free use of his performances of currently copyrighted music that he didn't write. He and I are both rightfully possessive of things we create that others steal and then bastardize.
Emulator Coder
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 453
Location: Norway
JXQ, I fully support your goal. xebra has a different goal than you, and until he realizes that, please just take his technical tips into consideration, and ignore the rest. In games like these, with such incredibly accurate ingame clock, doing a speedrun against the CLOCK, and not TOTAL FRAMECOUNT is a very good goal. I believe this is what Quietust aimed for in his Sonic 2 run. So carry on JXQ. And xebra, please realize that JXQ has a different opinion what should be measured as the best run compared to what you have.
Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1310)
Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687
TNSe wrote:
In games like these, with such incredibly accurate ingame clock, doing a speedrun against the CLOCK, and not TOTAL FRAMECOUNT is a very good goal. I believe this is what Quietust aimed for in his Sonic 2 run.
Note that this is not the point of contention at all; this is also what Xebra was aiming for (if I'm not hugely mistaken).
Joined: 5/3/2004
Posts: 1203
nitsuja wrote:
TNSe wrote:
In games like these, with such incredibly accurate ingame clock, doing a speedrun against the CLOCK, and not TOTAL FRAMECOUNT is a very good goal. I believe this is what Quietust aimed for in his Sonic 2 run.
Note that this is not the point of contention at all; this is also what Xebra was aiming for (if I'm not hugely mistaken).
It does seem to be a point of contention, though. JXQ is optimizing aggregate time, apparently, otherwise he would not pretend the 34 frames he "gains" in GH2 due to my antics after the ingame clock stops are significant. In which case he should minimize time bonuses where it is profitable to do so.
JXQ
Experienced player (761)
Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132
I am striving for both the fastest time in individual levels and the fastest overall time, with priority on individual levels. I thought this was obvious from the way I was playing, but I guess I need to specifically state it. To me, ten frames gained is ten frames gained whether or not it affects the in-game clock. It is my right as an author to prioritize things this way. So with these goals, the 34 frames I "pretend" to gain are significant. I don't see slowing down at the end of a level to avoid a time bonus as something that would make this run better, so I'm not doing it. There's no logical corner to pin me in; I'm not doing it, end of story. You bringing this up is the only red herring I see here. So far in each level, I have taken the fastest time I have achieved after trying many different things. I'm not copying your run frame-for-frame; I'm trying all sorts of different strategies, and this is how I'm finding improvements in every level. I'm not saying I tried every possible thing in existence, because that would be beyond my patience and free time. If it's not beyond yours, then Xebra, feel free to take my advice, and do your own run. Make that run that is 48 frames slower in Green Hill, two seconds slower in Marble Zone, and whatever other shortcuts you'd sacrifice so that the run is up to your goofy standards, in order to obsolete mine. Even if you don't do that, please take my other advice, and just shut the fuck up. No amount of your insulting, whining and complaining will make me stop doing this run, or stop "stealing" your strategies, or make me work any more or less at it. All it does is make you look like a sad individual. You are the one who said I should run this game in the first place, but I guess that only meant if it was up to your standards. Now that it's not going exactly how you think it should go, you whine like a 12 year old girl, resorting to all sorts of underhanded comments in an effort to try and control how I do my run. It won't work. Since you like to reply to only two lines of other people's posts, why don't you pick this question to answer - what makes your opinion that my slow walking after GH1 is "shitty" more valid than my opinion that you wasted 34 frames after GH2? Because you're Xebra? For the thousandth time, GET OVER YOURSELF. I'd love it if you never made another post on these forums. You never have anything constructive to say. You just take random parts of people's posts, make some argumentative reply, put something in bold, and think you are the best thing to happen to this site since Bisqwit made it. Acting like you can copyright a strategy to a video game....get out of here with that goofy shit. You obviously have never understood what this site is all about, so just leave, not one person here wants to read your garbage.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1310)
Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687
Xebra: Oh. Well generally when the goal is to minimize the in-game clock time, there is implicitly also the goal to minimize the real-time but only when it does not result in a worse in-game time (making exceptions for that only when it looks exceedingly ugly such as the murder beam glitch). So waiting more than necessary after a level would probably be considered a mistake although minor compared with losing time inside the levels. Anyway, it was a mistake (and wrong) to call his run "shitty" like that; if something he did really bothers you then you could have made it clearer why you didn't like it or even just restated that you really thought it was a problem, without resorting to insulting the movie and author. Getting other people pissed at you doesn't help anything; if you think he might improve those parts of the run then it doesn't make it any more likely to happen, and if you've already accepted that the run is beyond all hope of meeting your standards then insulting him/the run still won't make things better. I mean, not even going into the ethics of why it's wrong, it just wasn't a logical or helpful thing to do.
Joined: 5/3/2004
Posts: 1203
JXQ: Honestly, you accuse me of being immature and negative, but I believe I have comported myself with much more grace and dignity than you, here. The worst I have done is to be flippant, say I think your run is shitty, which I do, and say that you are being lame for your unwillingness to fully optimize the first level you can't copy. I don't even see how you can argue with that; it's a fact: you aren't willing to fully optimize the first level you didn't copy. Your posted progress through Marble 1 looks sloppy, and at the time it certainly seemed like it wasn't the best that could be done, and you offered no proof otherwise. (And in fact, I know it now not to be the best that can be done, with certainty. Hopefully you figured this out, but I have a nagging feeling that you were not able to.) You, on the other hand, have accused me of insulting you, which I have not done, and on multiple occasions you have stooped to baseless and offensive insults, name calling, and telling me to shut the fuck up, among other things. Truly, if there is one thing that nobody wants to hear, it's more of that from you. No amount of violent and vicious exposition on your part is going to change the fact that you picked up a run from an author with demanding standards, and have proven unwilling to conform to those standards on levels that require you to come up with your own strategy. That's lame.
JXQ wrote:
Since you like to reply to only two lines of other people's posts, why don't you pick this question to answer - what makes your opinion that my slow walking after GH1 is "shitty" more valid than my opinion that you wasted 34 frames after GH2?
Waiting after the level is already completed and after the clock has already stopped is immaterial in general, and was not noticeable in that instance. Artificial wobble-like effects, on the other hand, are ugly wherever and whenever they are found, and are despised by most if not all people with taste, including the founder of this site.
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