It's just unfortunate that the prevailing attitude is against using said arbitrary rules, which seems to discourage people from even attempting to make movies with unique goals.
Rules can be arbitrary... but they must still be well defined, and there must be a reason why these arbitrary rules are chosen.
I think that "well defined" speaks for itself. As for the reason, I think the recent OoT is a good example. The rules are quite arbitrary... but a new any% run will pretty much skip everything, and a 100% run will have lots and lots of extra boring stuff (probably).
In the case of the Zelda run you are referring to at the bottom of your post, I don't see even the slightest reason why such a run would 'add' anything. There are already two runs for that game, and what is suggested there would do the same dungeons as one of those runs. Collection of items that aren't needed, or even visiting rooms that don't have anything, or not taking damage boost doesn't make sense, and would only produce a same sort of movie that already exists, but more boring.
So I think, arbitrary rules are only an option if there aren't any non-arbitrary rules possible that would provide the same kind of entertainment.
I think we should just keep doing what we've been doing: players submit movies, and if they are liked, regardless of the arbitrary rules imposed, we vote on them and publish them, and if not, we throw them out.
That isn't exactly what we've been doing, though. Some games have one or two categories, while others have several just based on what can be done with the game, or how many entertaining arbitrary goals players have come up with.
... I think the recent OoT is a good example. The rules are quite arbitrary... but a new any% run will pretty much skip everything, and a 100% run will have lots and lots of extra boring stuff (probably).
And if I recall correctly, the author was hesitant to even consider submitting it. Had he not been so interested in just doing it, it might never have been considered.
And you can see I thought pretty much the same as you regarding the LoZ run -- it probably wouldn't add much -- but maybe it would be interesting... I guess it comes down to encouraging people to ignore criticism and make movies that they themselves like.
I guess it comes down to encouraging people to ignore criticism and make movies that they themselves like.
This is true for people who don't care about whether or not their movie will be published. If one does really care, it can be misleading to encourage him too much to work on a possibly very long project that's likely to be rejected. I don't think there is anything wrong with people giving their opinion about it.
You might be right that something "might turn out great"... but for this someone can always post wips... and someone who really thinks their idea is great (even though it's arbitrary) would definately be willing to make a wip. If the reaction to such a wip however is also negative, the only reason why one should continue working on it is really not caring about whether or not it's gonna be published.
This is true for people who don't care about whether or not their movie will be published. If one does really care, it can be misleading to encourage him too much to work on a possibly very long project that's likely to be rejected. I don't think there is anything wrong with people giving their opinion about it.
You might be right that something "might turn out great"... but for this someone can always post wips... and someone who really thinks their idea is great (even though it's arbitrary) would definately be willing to make a wip. If the reaction to such a wip however is also negative, the only reason why one should continue working on it is really not caring about whether or not it's gonna be published.
All true. I'm not even sure I'm disagreeing with you -- just trying to stress that I think people trying new things is desirable, and that curt knee-jerk comments like "This is stupid" don't really serve any purpose.
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
alden wrote:
just trying to stress that I think people trying new things is desirable
Yes, it is desirable.
HOWEVER, the main problem with people trying new things is that they make up shitty goals on their own, WITHOUT DISCUSSING IT BEFOREHAND. Then we get it submitted, and there's a 9 page discussion about how good the run is, and how much work the author put into it, but that the goals aren't good.
If you're going to do a new and unique run, either:
A) Discuss the goals before-hand, in the appropriate thread, and get feedback from anyone who cares to comment. (Bloobiebla rightly did this)
B) Make up your own unique goals, but be prepared to have it receive poor feedback due to arbitrary and poorly-defined goals (they are different).
I love to see new ideas presented well just as much as I hate to see runs on the workbench that have ill-defined goals. But unless you're sure that you have totally objective goals that won't get torn apart when the run hits the bench, discuss it before hand.
Look at it this way. Say you have a movie with the following rules:
- USES L+R
Should not be possible with the standard controller and thus basically no game takes it especially into account. Thus if it does have some speeding up effect, it was clearly not intended.
- USES the ladder glitch
Programming error/oversight: Not intended.
- Passes through enemies without taking damage due to crappy collision detection
Could be a matter of opinion. It's probable that the person who programmed the bounding box collision routines knew about the possibility of the playing character jumping through an enemy without activating the collision, but he considered it way too unlikely for a regular player playing in the console to be able to abuse it that he didn't bother making the routine any more complicated than necessary. Even if the player happens to jump through an enemy once in his lifetime, by pure chance, that's no big deal. Thus this is probably something left deliberately in the code because it was considered too unlikely to be a game breaker. Of course a TAS can exploit these "too unlikely for a human to perform" feats.
- DOES NOT use the save corruption glitch
Save corruption abuse is clearly an unintended way to play the game.
- USES damage boosts to sequence break
Not a glitch/programming error. At most an oversight in level design. (Of course one could argue that the "intended route" should be the one planned by the level designers, not the programmers.)
- USES savewarping
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that. If it's something you can do normally in a console without abusing any glitch...
- USES the select trick
Don't know what that is.
- DOES NOT use the murder beam glitch at the end
Programming error which beats the boss in an unintended way. Makes the movie look crappy too. Doesn't actually save any time at all.
If I had to guess, I'd say the "select trick" is the glitch in Metroid 2 where, by hammering on the select button, the terrain becomes messed up. Of course, it could also refer to any number of other things. In the specific case of Metroid 2, that's clearly unintended play.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Edit: referring to Boss's comments...
No argument from over here, as long as judges remain open to considering new goals (which I'm not worrying about)
And I'll repeat my comment about un-useful discourse (not directed at this thread for the most part), though there's really no way to control that beyond me haranguing people about it.
Joined: 4/30/2006
Posts: 480
Location: the secret cow level
Warp wrote:
CtrlAltDestroy wrote:
Look at it this way. Say you have a movie with the following rules:
- USES L+R
Should not be possible with the standard controller and thus basically no game takes it especially into account. Thus if it does have some speeding up effect, it was clearly not intended.
I always wondered how you were supposed to pull this off.
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
That's supposed to be an either/or thing.
I think what Warp was trying to get at is similar to how Metroid Prime speedrunners had a category called "natural path." I think CtrlAltDestroy might be able to shed some light on how that worked, seeing how he was involved in that community for a while and it does seem somewhat relevant (that, and I am kinda curious).
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
I always wondered how you were supposed to pull this off.
