River City Ransom is a goofy game which deserves a goofy TAS.
Emulator used: FCEU 0.98.16
Does not aim for fastest time
Plays on Novice level
Uses time to save trashcan
We looked at previous submissions and demonstrations of this game and tried to include the most entertaining parts of what was available, and add in a few ideas of our own along the way. Hopefully you'll get a kick out of it.
Bonus: Watch this run with the option "Allow more than 8 sprites per scanline" checked to make it easier to see when there are many sprites on the screen at once. This option is located in the main menu under Config -> Video.
(Changing this option may require an emulator restart if the colors get messed up, but it will save this setting.)
Those who say that "[this movie] doesn't belong on this site" can go read WhyAndHow again.
A movie is entertaining when it is:
* Interesting (not slow, boring, or repetitive)
* Surprising (does the unexpected)
* Skillful (handles awkward situations efficiently and creatively)
and
our main goal is to create movies that are beautiful to watch.
In my opinion, this site needs more movies like this. This is the ideal.
However, such movies pose a judging problem. Movies that compete for speed
are easy to compare; just a scalar number against a scalar number.
But play-around movies like this; if you receive a couple of them, what should you
do? How can you judge them and decide which ones to keep and which ones to discard?
This is all politics, and that's where this submission is stuck at.
Does it honestly deserve the place it's aiming at?
Even the voting feedback does not make the decision all that clear.
We have to remember all the kind of bias that exists in the votes.
(Indeed, judging is not a democratic process;
the votes are there just to give an idea of audience reception.)
I am accepting this movie on the following grounds:
The votes have been positive for the most part.
The movie is consistent with the message of this site…
A pride movie is a tool-assisted speedrun created for ego or for "showing off" It inexcusably lacks fundamental qualities of a publication-worthy production.
The site is about showing tool-assistance and anyone playing in real time could do that. Its what there most likely to do on a first time playthrough, and its not exactly fun to watch someone playing a game on there first play through.
You DO know what a TAS is, right? It's all about showing off. It shows what is possible when human error/reflex is removed from the equation. How someone chooses to show that off is their business.
And if it wasn't fun to watch the messing around, what's with all the yes votes?
The fact that the type of run they created is difficult to obsolete does not mean they created that run purely because of it. It's enjoyable to watch (in my opinion), and that's what TASs should be. Who cares if it's difficult to obsolete?
1. Who cares if it's a pride movie or not, does it make any bit of difference.
2. People enjoyed the movie, do you want it unpublished so that people will forget about the movie and perhaps never enjoy it?
3. Why are you so adamant about labeling this as a pride movie?
4. I personally didn't care for the movie, but am still defending it.
5. I like strawberries
I'm sciencing as fast as I can !
______________________________________
<adelikat> once more balls enter the picture, everything gets a lot more entertraining
<adelikat> mmmmm yummy penises
Joined: 12/22/2006
Posts: 193
Location: Flowood, MS
It's alright if you didn't enjoy the movie. It's alright if you didn't consider the activities in the movie "superhuman". It's alright if you vote "no." No problem, whatsoever. However, you shouldn't continuously imply that the movie was created out of ego just so you have some half-assed potential guideline violation to make your opinion seem more official.
<adelikat> tony hawk is porn for me
<Comicalflop>my mom is hot
And if it wasn't fun to watch the messing around, what's with all the yes votes?
In fact, people have cast them only to make the authors more proud and feed their ego, no-one actualy cared about the movie. It was a secret I probably shouldn't have disclosed, but these harsh times demand harsh measures. :\
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 12/22/2006
Posts: 193
Location: Flowood, MS
god damn it, moozooh, you revealed tasvideos's secret plan to make adelikat and JXQ rulers of the universe! It was in its early stages, but it was going so well!
<adelikat> tony hawk is porn for me
<Comicalflop>my mom is hot
In fact, people have cast them only to make the authors more proud and feed their ego, no-one actualy cared about the movie. It was a secret I probably shouldn't have disclosed, but these harsh times demand harsh measures. :\
While said video has very entertaining parts, I'm not questioning that, it violates very specific rules, in very noticeable ways.
And no, this is NOT a pride movie. Obviously neither author particularly needed another publication, both are very good TASers in MANY other videos.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
it violates very specific rules, in very noticeable ways.
I thought moozooh had already debunked this claim?
No, he deflected by showing where it didn't break the rules.
The goals of the movie are subjective, not objective, which I've stated over and over.
Entertainment is NOT an objective measure.
Objective:ob·jec·tive adj. Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices. Based on observable phenomena; presented factually.
ADDITIONALLY,
Irregardless of speed, there are many moments in this run which time is wasted, and nothing 'super' is performed. It is generally accepted to waste time (like MKII) to show off bugs that are impossible or extremely difficult to execute in real-time. Hence, it is super-play, without being "OMG FASTEST EVER"
However, this video diverges. I could punch player 2 in real-time, chase a girl in real time, and other such frivolity. Both of these examples are time wasters, and are not demonstrating anything that a human could not do without extreme difficulty or completely impossible.
I appreciate the technical aspects, such as the bugs shown, the box/pit jumping, the planning required to perform the baseball game. All of those are 'super.' This isn't tool-assisted entertaining videos. This is tool-assisted Super Play movies.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
You realise the entire point of a TAS is to entertain, right? Just because this video doesn't show off as much superhuman things as others does not make it any less worthy of being on this site than those.
You realise the entire point of a TAS is to entertain, right? Just because this video doesn't show off as much superhuman things as others does not make it any less worthy of being on this site than those.
Uh, the point of the movie Transformers is also to entertain. Does that make the movie Transformers a TAS worthy of this site? (You are improperly using set theory BTW. TAS are in the set of things that entertain, does not mean things that entertain must be a TAS)
Also, it's not that it doesn't show off as many superhuman things, its that it tries to entertain by doing specifically NON-superhuman things. By your logic, any entertaining video game play-back movie should be accepted, even if they didn't use a single re-record.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3576)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
ShadowWraith wrote:
You realise the entire point of a TAS is to entertain, right? Just because this video doesn't show off as much superhuman things as others does not make it any less worthy of being on this site than those.
He was saying that it contains some "time wasters" that aren't superplay worthy (which is a correct assessment). This is quite a different argument than "doesn't show off as much superhuman things".
Also, I resent the assumption that it does not contain as much superhuman things. Most of the video is a series of superplay events.
Also, since our movie has no time objective, is it such a strech to take time to do some silly/entertaining/etc things that lengthen the movie? If we were trying to get to the end of the game quickly, I could understand objection to chasing girls, random fights,
Also, these things are done very much intentionally to set up the "mood" of the TAS. The first time we chasing girls, for instance, obliterates any concept that we may be in anyway aiming for time. This affects the expectations of the viewer for the rest of the run. So I think these moments are just as necessary as any other thing in the movie.
I'm a little late to the party, but I finally watched this. Forgive me for adding my two cents even though it doesn't add a whole lot to what's been discussed already.
Overall I found it entertaining. I can certainly see why some people wouldn't though, and (perhaps more importantly) why a movie with such subjective goals would cause such an uproar on being published.
The main question (which I do not necessarily expect the authors to answer) is how would this movie be obsoleted? If I decided I wanted to do an RCR playaround movie, and that I did want it to be published seeing as that is the main goal of submitting movies to this site, there's really no objective basis of comparison for how my movie could be "better" than this one. Thus, the chance that I would work on an RCR playaround is very low unless I didn't actually care at all if it were published or not.
This is ultimately a flaw in the publishing/judging/obsoletion system. But I think that rather than withhold publishing this run because it causes problems with the current system, it's better to publish the run (which has happened) and address those problems (which may or may not happen to everyone's satisfaction).
Anyhow, bravo on getting this published. For what it's worth, I liked the glitches.
You realise the entire point of a TAS is to entertain, right? Just because this video doesn't show off as much superhuman things as others does not make it any less worthy of being on this site than those.
He was saying that it contains some "time wasters" that aren't superplay worthy (which is a correct assessment). This is quite a different argument than "doesn't show off as much superhuman things".
Also, I resent the assumption that it does not contain as much superhuman things. Most of the video is a series of superplay events.
This is true. There are impressive moments in this TAS. Additionally, I am happy that it did not obsolete the speedrun.
adelikat wrote:
Also, since our movie has no time objective, is it such a strech to take time to do some silly/entertaining/etc things that lengthen the movie? If we were trying to get to the end of the game quickly, I could understand objection to chasing girls, random fights,
It is a stretch, since it doesn't fit in this site. If any of them were super, I would have no objection. You don't have to rush to the end of the game, but you should rush to the next TAS-worthy move.
adelikat wrote:
Also, these things are done very much intentionally to set up the "mood" of the TAS. The first time we chasing girls, for instance, obliterates any concept that we may be in anyway aiming for time. This affects the expectations of the viewer for the rest of the run. So I think these moments are just as necessary as any other thing in the movie.
Uh, especially given the nature of this publication (hint, it is right next to a faster movie) the mood is already set, additionally by the description and submission text. You are almost insulting the intelligence of the viewer by thinking they need to have it explained that the time is not a factor. Likewise, when not performing something super (combos, amazing bugs, amazing jumps, or etc), it still required in the rules to not waste time. That is where moozoh and I are disagreeing, and where this video deviates greatly from the well established and followed rules.
In fact, I was impressed right before you chased the girl by the switching in and out part. That was super, because it required expert timing, and was an obvious time waster, but it still fit with the video.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3576)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
plusminus wrote:
The main question (which I do not necessarily expect the authors to answer) is how would this movie be obsoleted? If I decided I wanted to do an RCR playaround movie, and that I did want it to be published seeing as that is the main goal of submitting movies to this site, there's really no objective basis of comparison for how my movie could be "better" than this one.
Well the "superplay" aspect of the run was to show off as much about the game as possible. Specifically, aspects of the game that are only "opened up" by the use of tools (ridiculous combos and manipulation of enemy AI) or just the deep physics of the game when it comes to fighting (deflecting projectiles with attacks, using people as weapons, deflecting people, stacking enemies & objects). Visiting the sauna just to show that it is in the game would be an example of something we were not aiming to show.
We certainly deviate from this to show off less TAS impressive things (like chasing girls) but this in more like "window" dresssing.
So the basis of comparison with a possible new playaround would be if it shows superior craft and/or creativity with the TAS possibilities of the game or show more depth. Or perhaps show new glitches & tricks while still preserving the aspects of this run and its entertainment value. This is certainly more subjective in nature. But this only makes it more difficult to judge, not impossible.
And there is precedent for such obsoletions. Such as my gradius playaround that obsoleted morimoto's. Or the published SNES mortal kombat movie that obsoleted the previous.
Also, obsoleteability/competition is not a prerequisite for publication.
And there is precedent for such obsoletions. Such as my gradius playaround that obsoleted morimoto's. Or the published SNES mortal kombat movie that obsoleted the previous.
Indeed, I've seen both those movies and the ones they obsoleted and in both cases found the new ones were clearly better, even if better is up for debate. At the same time, it's a lot harder to say whether either of these could be improved further, whereas with a speed-only movie it's a fairly simple question of "can I do it in less frames?"
For instance, if I made a Gradius movie that, during the course of the whole game, spelled out an act of Shakespeare using the trick you used to spell out words, while keeping a large number of near-collisions and other tricks in the current run, is this a better movie? Some people would probably love it, and others would probably hate it even if they liked the current one.
You're right that it's not impossible to judge, only more difficult. But trying to improve movies like this seems like more of a risk for the author than improving a speedrun, and so I don't see a lot of people trying to improve playaround runs like this. I guess my ultimate point is that I really like movies like this when they are done well, and I want to see an easier way of categorizing and judging them because I think that would encourage more people to try them.
adelikat wrote:
Also, obsoleteability/competition is not a prerequisite for publication.
True, it's a byproduct of the speed-oriented nature of most runs here, and the nature of this site. At the same time only a few games have 4 movies published for them and most people think that's too many. This run got enough heat as it is, imagine if a second RCR playaround were published alongside it... o_O
This isn't tool-assisted entertaining videos. This is tool-assisted Super Play movies.
That is what it is called but as you can plainly see here http://tasvideos.org/WhyAndHow.html
The goals are as these:
1. Our primary goals are to create art and provide entertainment.
2. Interesting (not slow, boring, or repetitive)
3. Surprising (does the unexpected)
4. Skillful (handles awkward situations efficiently and creatively)
Note: This does not refer to playing skill.
5. Although most of our movies intend to play games as fast as possible (tool-assisted speedruns, if you will), with respect to art, our main goal is to create movies that are beautiful to watch.
This movie follows the criteria and follows the goals of the site just fine. No more complaining.
I'm sciencing as fast as I can !
______________________________________
<adelikat> once more balls enter the picture, everything gets a lot more entertraining
<adelikat> mmmmm yummy penises
I realize that this may sound like a blanket defense, but the site Rules (and Guidelines) are not a work of God. They're not strict and not subject to a debate to the letter. They are an attempt to formulate what we (hopefully everyone, but especially I) feel like is best to guide players towards creating the best movies for this site, and to minimize the chances of conflicts between players.
If there are mutually conflicting statements on those pages, we do the best to fix those of course.
As for objectivity, the thing is that we aim for a subjective measure: entertainment. Entertainment is not a mathematical formula. It cannot be objectively measured; it needs a number of subjective components, the human audience.
Speed, etc. are just devices to create entertainment. Even though speed can be measured accurately, entertainment cannot. This is a fact, and we have to live with it. Our method of judging that is a variation of something called "consensus". Your mileage may vary.
A summary of this post: I stand behind my judging decision, and also think the accusations of "pride movie" are nonsense not even worth discussing.
I swear if you use this "word" again I will throw you off a balcony
DarkKobold wrote:
Uh, the point of the movie Transformers is also to entertain. Does that make the movie Transformers a TAS worthy of this site? (You are improperly using set theory BTW. TAS are in the set of things that entertain, does not mean things that entertain must be a TAS)
This is the dumbest thing I've heard in the last few months and I would respectfully request that you don't set up straw men in the future, thanks.
DarkKobold wrote:
Uh, especially given the nature of this publication (hint, it is right next to a faster movie) the mood is already set, additionally by the description and submission text. You are almost insulting the intelligence of the viewer by thinking they need to have it explained that the time is not a factor.
Nope, wrong. Setting the mood of a run is not the same as making the goals known. Doing the silly non-superhuman things like chasing girls establishes the silliness of the TAS. It's meant to be a goofy little thing that makes you crack a little grin and lightens you up a little bit for when the actual cool, superhuman stuff starts to happen. If you don't find the little silly things to be entertaining, then this TAS isn't for you, just like a speed run of a game you hate also isn't for you.
No, he deflected by showing where it didn't break the rules.
I showed that the guidelines (since this is what you quoted in the first place, not even rules) themself provide a very clearly noticeable exception for this very type of movies, and thus make it exempt from the speedrun-specific obligations. None of the rules are broken. Movies like this abide by the rules and goals of the site and have existed on it since its creation. How can you claim that it doesn't fit the site when the site's been hosting such playarounds for years?
That being said, I think guidelines should be rewritten to address the confusion.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
IMO publishing this movie clearly shows the need to split the movies in the site into distinct categories, as I have suggested in the past elsewhere. As a recapitulation, these categories I suggested were:
1) "World record" anything-goes type TASes, with the only affecting stat for publication being completion time in frames. (Ie. these moves are not voted for.)
2) TASes with alternative goals besides the anything-goes category (such as "uses no warp", "collects all items", etc).
3) Superplays, where the goal is to complete the game but not in the fastest possible time, either because it makes little sense (eg. because the game is an autoscroller like Gradius) or because it's more sensible to aim for goals other than fastest time due to the nature of the game (MK2 being a superb example).
4) Machinima videos: Basically everything else. The goal doesn't even have to be completing the game, it doesn't necessarily need to start from reset, and it doesn't necessarily need to preserve any continuity. They are a bit like music videos.
As for this version of the RCR video... it kind of confuses me. Its goal is not very clear, and it kind of defeats its own goals. It kind of belongs to category 3 above, but also a bit to category 4. Something in between, without really being either.
IMO it kind of fails to be a superplay because it shows only a few places which probably couldn't be played by a human, and quite a lot of places which could probably be relatively easy for a human to play. It also fails to be a superplay in that it has many seemingly needless delays for no obvious purpose, not even for entertainment, making the movie needlessly long.
It also kind of fails belonging to the 4th category above because of its length. By both trying to be a funny machinima video *and* completing the game, it fails to be one. Ok, it doesn't fail per se, but it fails to be a *good* machinima video IMO. Too long.
Anyways, I still have the strong opinion that the site should start using either the categories I suggested above or at least something along those lines.
I think either categories 2&3 or 3&4 should be merged, otherwise we'll spend eternity discussing what category a certain movie would belong to.
The other possible distinction would be:
1) speedruns with universally accepted completion goals (any%, low%, 100%) and scoreruns (for games that have competition in score) — these are judged by technical merits;
2) entertainment (everything that falls outside the scope of the category #1) — these are judged by entertainment merits.
However, I still think both should be voted upon. In case of technical movies, this is to help sorting out sloppy runs. Also, splitting the site in two very distinct categories would allow splitting the ratings evenly, with sole technical rating for tech runs and sole entertainment rating for entertainment runs, and to possibly substitute polls with respective ratings as well. How about that?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Being a casual TAS viewer, and having played a little bit of RCR, I must say that I really enjoyed watching this.
I decided to check the discussion topic to gain some understanding about some of the wackier parts of the run (ie, sprites exploding and/or disappearing), only to find strife. My personal opinion, that of a viewer, not a TASer, is that publishing this movie was the right choice to make. It's not too long, and very entertaining to anyone remotely familiar with the game.
I can see why there's people argueing over it, though. I hope that whatever the masterminds over here come up with for judging these kinds of TAS videos, it works out in favour of them. Thumbs up to the authors, too :)
I think a no-vote category where publishing is decided solely on number of frames could create interesting competition. There could even be some "top 5 fastest times" or whatever, with the fastest one being published, the rest mentioned.
It could be a library of "I don't care if it's fun to watch, I just want to know how fast can this game be theoretically completed".
(Naturally it might create some frustration in some cases, eg. when someone submits a record-breaking movie and then someone takes it, makes a slight modification which makes the movie 1 frame faster, and steals his first place the next day. OTOH, in such a situation people just have to live with the fact...)
