wasted: serving no useful purpose; having no excuse for being
If it is spent doing something useful (creating entertainment), then it is not wasted.
You are making yourself into an example of how Tasvideos, as a whole, obsesses over the time.
My main desire for this site has always been to see it return to Tool-Assisted Superplay Movies, instead of Tool-Assisted Speedruns.
Return to? When has it been anything else than a site containing speedruns? Completing games as fast as possible has been the main goal of the site from day 1. I was there.
Speed can be a component of entertainment, but something can be entertaining without being ridiculously fast. I don't enjoy watching something that is blazingly fast but amazingly dull. A Boy and His Blob, anyone?
Having said that, I have a very keen eye for imperfections, and they lower my entertainment a bit. So, perhaps speed isn't necessarily the most entertaining, but perfection is.
For the 100th time:
warning: huge text belowSPEED DOES NOT EQUATE TO ENTERTAINMENTwarning: huge text above
If you don't want speedruns but machinima videos, then go to youtube. There's plenty of those there. This site has never been about machinima.
You have completely missed the point.
Speed does not equate to entertainment; that is, something faster is not always better (see A Boy and His Blob for a perfect example of this)
However, speed does usually help create it. The only point I'm trying to make, is that "faster is not always better" -- sometimes it is better to slow down and make something funny or interesting to watch without trying to be as fast as you possibly can.
Furthermore, yes, speed has always been a main goal of this site. I am aware of this. However, back then, it was not such a grind as it is now. Rather than having several imperfections (and being able to cover them up doing tricks or wasting time), they are sacrificed in favor of a lower time count. Hell, even Arkanoid, which could have, from my knowledge, had a glitchy title screen that wastes one frame and could've given something different, wasn't used.
I guess, to me, I equate these runs to diamonds. The imperfections are what makes them... well, what they are. Otherwise, they look too mechanical and too robotic, away from "this is superhuman" and into "lifeless; like watching a computer's brute-forced results"...
In response to Xkeeper:
Although I believe the whole reason behind the making of TASes is to entertain an audience, the fact that entertainment cannot be quantitatively measured necessarily rules it out as the primary basis for which TASes are judged. Instead, there needs to be a concrete "rule of thumb" that can be followed to crank out entertaining TASes one after another. As Phil points out, creating TASes that are speedy is a reasonable rule of thumb to achieve just that. If you believe there is a better rule of thumb to produce entertaining TASes, I challenge you to provide such a rule. What we can be sure of is that judging TASes on entertainment alone will not work because it would lead to a lack of concrete goals from the very outset of making a TAS. For example, imagine someone submitting a run of Super Mario 64 in which the author picks and chooses which stars to collect solely based on how entertaining he or she thought collecting each of those stars would be, not necessarily even completing the game. Clearly, this would be unacceptable.
I believe, "Did you like watching this movie?" is a sufficient question.
I think what we need to pay attention to, is judges who will not publish a movie based on the grounds of known improvement. If a very fast but not perfect video is published, the layperson won't know the difference (and will likely be very impressed one way or another, and possibly even more impressed in the future that a better video was made), and those who do know the difference understood what happened and that a better video is likely on the way.
EDIT: Did I seriously reply to this twice without noticing? Oh well. Both of my opinions stand.
In response to Xkeeper:
Although I believe the whole reason behind the making of TASes is to entertain an audience, the fact that entertainment cannot be quantitatively measured necessarily rules it out as the primary basis for which TASes are judged. Instead, there needs to be a concrete "rule of thumb" that can be followed to crank out entertaining TASes one after another. As Phil points out, creating TASes that are speedy is a reasonable rule of thumb to achieve just that. If you believe there is a better rule of thumb to produce entertaining TASes, I challenge you to provide such a rule. What we can be sure of is that judging TASes on entertainment alone will not work because it would lead to a lack of concrete goals from the very outset of making a TAS. For example, imagine someone submitting a run of Super Mario 64 in which the author picks and chooses which stars to collect solely based on how entertaining he or she thought collecting each of those stars would be, not necessarily even completing the game. Clearly, this would be unacceptable.
Of course you cannot objectively judge entertainment. But like I've been trying to convey lately, the focus is solely on speed. That is, it is the only thing that matters, especially for run obsoletion.
Of course there are exceptions, but they are very rare and I can basically count them on one hand.
I guess what I was trying to say is that there really isn't a problem with focusing solely on speed. Of course focusing on entertainment is fine so long as it doesn't affect speed (or any other goal). Just about every TAS on this site has its primary goal labeled as "- Aims for fastest time".
I guess this is my philosophy summed up: For any restrictions placed on a run (fastest time, 100%, etc), there is a theoretical perfect (unimprovable) version. Each improvement submitted to this site should asymptotically approach this theoretical perfect run. Although entertainment is the reason why anyone would watch these videos, it is merely a by-product. It's why we TAS, but it is a by-product nonetheless. It should be separate from the actual goals of the run (unless of course entertainment does not impede any of the goals).
In other words, if a magic supercomputer was invented that could brute-force perfect TASes in a reasonable amount of time, the way I see it, there would be little reason for humans to TAS anymore. The whole point of TASing is to approximate what that computer would produce if it did exist.
Maybe thinking this way will lead to less entertaining TASes overall, but in my opinion, that's our problem (humans in general), not the problem of the concept of a TAS.
Of course, maybe I am thinking about this whole issue too idealistically (which I tend to do about things).
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
honestly--
It seems to be reduced to one of two things--
tool assisted speedruns
and
tool assisted superplay
are not the same, do not strive for the same goals, and are generally incompatable. Faster movies not sometimes more boaring, slower movies are sometimes more entertaining. We haphazardly publish movies based on one or both of these criteria. Some people would rather this site be the former, some would rather it be the latter.
I feel like this issue is at an impass, because people dont agree what what the site should be and it is strictly a matter of opinion.
It seems to be reduced to one of two things--
tool assisted speedruns
and
tool assisted superplay
are not the same, do not strive for the same goals, and are generally incompatable. Faster movies not sometimes more boaring, slower movies are sometimes more entertaining. We haphazardly publish movies based on one or both of these criteria. Some people would rather this site be the former, some would rather it be the latter.
The funny thing is: The former is clearly defined, but I have never seen anyone giving a clear, unambiguous definition of the latter. A few people nitpick about the word "superplay" in the forum logo (as if that was the true goal of the site) but I don't remember any of them actually *defining* what "superplay" is.
My guess is that there's *no* simple, clear and unambiguous definition. They just want something different.
While more confusing in terms of what these videos really are about, that term would more explicitly state that we aim for pure speed. "Time-attack" is generally used for games of racing type and such, where the player tries to beat the previous record (ie. complete the track or whatever faster than the previous record holder). Thus the term you suggest would convey that we try to beat games as fast as possible, always trying to beat existing records.
Not that "tool-assisted speedrun" would drastically mean something different, but IMO it's more descriptive. We are not beating racing games here. (Well, not exclusively.)
My guess is that there's *no* simple, clear and unambiguous definition.
Let me try…
Superplay is an act or a result of [near-]flawless completion of a game or its segment, aimed at showcasing superior playing skills and knowledge of the game. Would that be good enough?
Perhaps, it would be wiser to have speedruns and scoreattacks as subsets of superplay (as in: speedrun — superplay that has completion time as its primary goal; scoreattack — ditto for score).
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Superplay is an act or a result of [near-]flawless completion of a game or its segment, aimed at showcasing superior playing skills and knowledge of the game. Would that be good enough?
Could a "flawless" run be longer than necessary (iow. have unnecessary delays)? If the answer is yes, then it all comes down to the definition of "flawless". I think it's difficult to define it so that you are not simply defining a (perfect) speedrun.
(For example, if you define "flawless" as "beats the game by taking no damage", then a 5-hour SMB run could be "flawless" by that definition, but certainly wouldn't comply with common sense.)
Could a "flawless" run be longer than necessary (iow. have unnecessary delays)? If the answer is yes, then it all comes down to the definition of "flawless". I think it's difficult to define it so that you are not simply defining a (perfect) speedrun.
Flawless means "the player doesn't do what he doesn't want to do", which implies lack of any deviations from the movie creator's plan. As long as the plan itself is defined, definition of flawlessness will come after it.
Warp wrote:
(For example, if you define "flawless" as "beats the game by taking no damage", then a 5-hour SMB run could be "flawless" by that definition, but certainly wouldn't comply with common sense.)
I don't think a 5-hour SMB run is something that can be made to showcase a superior playing skill.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Flawless means "the player doesn't do what he doesn't want to do", which implies lack of any deviations from the movie creator's plan. As long as the plan itself is defined, definition of flawlessness will come after it.
In the vast majority of games I have hard time thinking about a definition of "flawless" which would not include "don't waste any time". After all, if you are going to make the run slower than it could be, you will be wasting frames doing nothing on purpose. You could as well not waste those frames in order to make the run better, more flawless. (And if wasting the frames was not made on purpose then it would simply be sloppy play.)
Even in games where goal is not a pure "minimize the number of frames to complete the game" time is still not wasted for nothing. Even when implementing the goal no time is wasted. The goal is performed as fast as possible, without wasted frames, without sloppy play. Thus it can be defined as a speedrun (with a specific goal). Wasting frames for nothing would be a flaw.
In the vast majority of games I have hard time thinking about a definition of "flawless" which would not include "don't waste any time". After all, if you are going to make the run slower than it could be, you will be wasting frames doing nothing on purpose. You could as well not waste those frames in order to make the run better, more flawless. (And if wasting the frames was not made on purpose then it would simply be sloppy play.)
First of all, you're focusing on time again. Note that I'm talking about superplay — something you wanted somebody to define — which doesn't by default imply fastest completion.
Imagine a game with two routes to take, one is shorter, linear, and easier; second is longer, twisted and harder. Obviously a superplay would go with the second route because it allows more interesting stuff to showcase. Speedrun is confined to the first, since time is its primary objective. This generic distinction is exactly what makes the difference and exactly what makes Xkeeper so sad. Superplay purposefully chooses more interesting ways of doing stuff, whereas such a choice doesn't stand for a speedrun (which is actually a problem of speedruns).
However, if the site was absolutely truthful to this ideology, it wouldn't contain such restrictions as "play on hardest difficulty" or such a category as "no damage". Guess why? Because these restrictions are there to increase entertainment value, i.e. make it less of a "speedrun" and more of a "superplay", because it's obvious that easier difficulty will allow faster completion in vast majority of cases, much as taking damage (except games that offer no benefit from taking it).
This poses an inherent controversy in definition of the site's goals, since the FAQ pages claim that "entertainment" and "art" are primary objectives, which are, as seen from the above example, not always feasible if shortest input time is the primary goal of a player. Of course it's easy to deny all that and just go with "lowest frame count = absolute win, period", but seeing as many improvement runs have been rejected on grounds of being not entertaining enough, it's still true that such statement would be just wrong (and I'm very glad it is).
Warp wrote:
Even in games where goal is not a pure "minimize the number of frames to complete the game" time is still not wasted for nothing. Even when implementing the goal no time is wasted. The goal is performed as fast as possible, without wasted frames, without sloppy play. Thus it can be defined as a speedrun (with a specific goal). Wasting frames for nothing would be a flaw.
Define "nothing" now.
For example, as seen in my Super Metroid low% test run WIPs, I shoot many enemies. Shooting many enemies creates small (literally unnoticeable — around 3-5 frames per room) amount of realtime lag. It is a tradeoff between realtime frame count and entertainment, which can only be avoided by not shooting any enemies at all. I want this run to be different from others, so I purposeful spend these frames on something they don't do and would never do, something that is easily noticeable (unlike the handful of lag frames) and is arguably more entertaining than just running, which you have already seen in all the other runs. Does that constitute sloppy play yet? Keep in mind that I pay much attention to style and other entertainment factors, being truthful to the site's proposed goals.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
First of all, you're focusing on time again. Note that I'm talking about superplay — something you wanted somebody to define — which doesn't by default imply fastest completion.
I'm not *focusing* on speed. I'm saying that wasting time for no reason is a flaw. Thus a flawless run cannot do that.
Imagine a game with two routes to take, one is shorter, linear, and easier; second is longer, twisted and harder. Obviously a superplay would go with the second route because it allows more interesting stuff to showcase. Speedrun is confined to the first, since time is its primary objective.
That's simply not true. Speedruns can have different goals. Just go look at the myriad of QdQ speedruns. Would you not call the hard-mode QdQ a speedrun simply because it's not as fast as the easy-mode QdQ? Of course not. The former is also a speedrun because it tries to complete the game as fast as possible, with a specific goal (complete it using hard mode).
Or would you not call the 100% QdQ a speedrun because it's significantly slower than the any-% speedrun? Of course it's a speedrun. It just has a specific goal: Kill all monsters and find all secrets, and do that as fast as possible.
Speedrunning an alternative route is still speedrunning even if the other route is faster.
Why is it that every single time this issue comes up, someone will draw this "a speedrun has only one goal" card? It's just not true. Not in the regular speedrunning community nor here.
A speedrun is not less of a speedrun if you put some limitations to it (eg. "choose this route" or "collect all items").
Besides, why would a "superplay" automatically choose the other route? Would the shorter route not be a "superplay"?
This generic distinction is exactly what makes the difference and exactly what makes Xkeeper so sad. Superplay purposefully chooses more interesting ways of doing stuff, whereas such a choice doesn't stand for a speedrun (which is actually a problem of speedruns).
Perhaps *your* definition of "speedrun" is like that. However, it's not the definition of the speedrunning community. Just go to the QdQ site.
Insisting that it means that doesn't make it so. You can repeat "speedrun has only one goal" like a mantra if you want, but that doesn't make it true.
What? Coming from SDA and being part of the Quake community, I can tell you precisely that speed is indeed the only goal. Sure, there's different categories of speedrun (100% etc. etc.), but within that category, speed rules all. If you pick the non-fastest route... it's a bad speedrun.
First of all, you're focusing on time again. Note that I'm talking about superplay — something you wanted somebody to define — which doesn't by default imply fastest completion.
I'm not *focusing* on speed. I'm saying that wasting time for no reason is a flaw. Thus a flawless run cannot do that.
You're not focusing on speed. You're focusing on time. Reread your sentence and find the word "time". You're focusing on it. Reread my proposed definition and my post after it. Compare it with what you just said.
Warp wrote:
That's simply not true. Speedruns can have different goals. Just go look at the myriad of QdQ speedruns. Would you not call the hard-mode QdQ a speedrun simply because it's not as fast as the easy-mode QdQ? Of course not. The former is also a speedrun because it tries to complete the game as fast as possible, with a specific goal (complete it using hard mode).
What about ingame time as one of the goals then? Doesn't look particularly worse to me than perversions like Quake done Chopped. :P
Of course I acknowledge all these categories as valid for speedrunning; I'm a highly lenient person after all.
Warp wrote:
Speedrunning an alternative route is still speedrunning even if the other route is faster.
This is begging a question: how to define alternative routes, and what routes to take so that the speedrun wouldn't lose its value? What if there are alternative routes inside one room, maybe inside each room (often seen in puzzle games like Mighty Bomb Jack)? What constitutes sloppy play in this context?
Warp wrote:
Why is it that every single time this issue comes up, someone will draw this "a speedrun has only one goal" card? It's just not true. Not in the regular speedrunning community nor here.
Because it's the only "objectively measurable" result?
I don't really understand. To you, a run is undisputably faster if it uses less frames. What's the point of a longer run then? Why even bother publishing it?
Also, how many goals does a speedrun have, and how many can it have before it becomes a superplay by the above definition?
Example. Dragonfangs's first Metroid Fusion 0% TAS done for m2k2 community aimed for traversing each room in most impressive ways and taking no damage. Is this a speedrun? What would you say if such a run was submitted here?
Warp wrote:
Besides, why would a "superplay" automatically choose the other route? Would the shorter route not be a "superplay"?
Because there's nothing interesting in the shorter route. You can't get to showcase your skill in the linear, easier route — be it tool-assisted or otherwise. Otherwise it would be a bad superplay. But likely a good speedrun — assuming it "aims for fastest time". Otherwise it fails to accomplish that, doesn't it? Or are we talking about speed/entertainment tradeoffs here?
Warp wrote:
Perhaps *your* definition of "speedrun" is like that. However, it's not the definition of the speedrunning community. Just go to the QdQ site.
What is yours then; is it something other than "complete the game in shortest time possible"? If you extend it to "complete the game in shortest time possible with additional restrictions put on it", I'm afraid you'll have to elaborate on the restrictions and which of them are or aren't acceptable. So far I've elaborated on everything you asked me, so do the same.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
What? Coming from SDA and being part of the Quake community, I can tell you precisely that speed is indeed the only goal. Sure, there's different categories of speedrun (100% etc. etc.), but within that category, speed rules all.
You are saying exactly the same thing as I. The original claim was that a "speedrun" allows one and only one run of the game: The fastest possible. As you also noted, not true: a 100% run is not the fastest possible, yet still a speedrun.
