Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
I honestly don't like some of the changes this forum have made during the past years. I don't feel like this is home (not entirely but not so much).
First of all, we changed our beloved initial name Timeattacks to TASvideos, and now, some of you use the term tool-assisted-superplay-videos and whatnot.. Some assholes at M2k2 and SDA complained about the vague title Timeattacks, some even went so far to associate timeattacks with rape.. We said its not our responsibility to learn the user how to read and search for information. I think we should have been tougher and sticked with Timeattacks and just turned our backs on the complaining people, for which, we have done so much just to satisfy them. What about us? What about our own right to chose any name we'd like to have? Why weren't we egoistic? (sometimes, this is necessary and not a bad thing).
Second of all, the new so called "voting system" really left a bad taste. Seriously, read this sentence: would you like to say "Great job -- high ranks from me" or "<insert encouraging sentence>, Yes vote" and then click on the yes button. I refuse to take part of the new voting system, I am sure its decent but for god sake, why change something that was so easy for us to use?
There are a few other minor things but I think its unnecessary to mention them.
So, I have created a poll to see if I am totally alone feeling this way. Please pick an option.
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Because people went on witch hunts whenever a random "No" vote appeared on a popular submission. Hasn't exactly eliminated the problem.
I abstain from using the new system because I personally feel it is unnecessarily complicated as well. 100 gradients? I'm believing less and less in quantifying subjective opinions, especially with that degree of precision. Perhaps a 0-5 rating would work better as it's more universally recognized. *shrug*
Either way, a post trumps all.
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.
Do we really need this "timeattack" discussion once again?
Well, here are the facts:
1) The term "timeattack" already existed before Morimoto made his infamous SMB3 movie. It meant (and still means) a race-against-the-clock mode in many racing games and similar. In other words, it's an *unassisted* speedrun of the game, as a game mode supported by the game itself. Using the term "timeattack" to refer to tool-assisted movies would not only be extremely confusing, but actually a lie: They are not timeattacks.
The *only* reason the term "timeattack" ever was associated with tool-assisted speedruns is *solely* because Morimoto used that term with his videos. There's no other reason. It was *not* an established term. (Well, it was an established term, but for a completely different thing, as I already wrote above).
Why should we use a confusing term just because Morimoto used that term with his videos?
2) The term "tool-assisted speedrun" already existed before Morimoto made his infamous SMB3 movie. It was used in the Doom speedrunning community, for the *exact* purpose as we use it today. It was an established term known in the speedrunning community (at least in the Doom one).
For some reason I cannot even begin to comprehend some people stuck with Morimoto's erroneous term rather than use the already established term for this exact thing, and didn't want to change it.
The term "timeattack" is completely detrimental. It's misleading, it's not descriptive, and it's already used for *unassisted* speedrunning. If Morimoto hadn't used the term, nobody would even talk about it.
Why didn't you participate in the thread (in the General group) when this exact subject was under discussion (unless I missed something; I can't see any of your posts there)? Nobody raised any big objections about the addition of a decimal to the ratings. I interpreted this to mean that people silently agreed that it's acceptable. (I don't know about Bisqwit, but I assume he thought like that too.)
It feels a bit useless to not to participate in the discussion about the feature, but then later complain that the feature sucks.
I think people are largely over looking the things that were not so good in the old days. This tends to be a strong factor in just about every aspect in life e.g. 50/60's were better compared to 80/90's. Normally this is what happens when diversity takes place over time.
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
This pretty much sums things up for me:
[19:14] <mmbossman> I'm not so much annoyed at the topic, but at the timing of it
[19:14] <mmbossman> instead of bringing up concerns when things are being implemented
[19:14] <mmbossman> he just bitches about them later
[19:14] <mmbossman> way to be proactive, angerfist
[19:15] <adelikat> yeah
[19:15] <adelikat> and then you should make a poll of how many people prefer the new way
[19:15] <adelikat> after the new way was implemented due to a vast majority of votes
I'd give the new forum a 6.9 for entertainment, and 8.7 for tech.
Also I blame all the damn newbies for making stupid uninformed useless ego posts (hangs head in shame)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
I would like to call out how uncool it is to place blame on said complainer, because honestly who is 100% present on the internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 30 days a month, 365 days a year? Even if they are, who's to say that they are automatically tuned in to EVERY POLITICAL DEBATE on the site? I regard myself as "attuned to the site more than most people" and I miss tons of stuff, because I'm not browsing through every single forum and every single post and every single "new idea" because guess what? not every single "new idea" is promoted with perfection. Do you see all 2,000 TASvideos members giving opinions on EVERY new change poll?
I've nothing against the new voting system, it's the focus on shaving frames instead of providing an entertaining movie that's been slowly killing my interest in TASes and this site. And what exactly was so "beloved" about the word timeattack?
I use the new system as I see fit. There's nothing stopping me from saying what I think about a run in a relevant discussion thread without having to state the rating marks. I can even add a "yes vote" there if I want.
[EDIT]
Damn, I second 100% of this post. :)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Mainly because I didn't want to rain on other people's parade. Another factor would be me being unable to competently dissent when everyone else is going, "Yay, yay!" so I just stay silent.
The second part is effectively putting words in my mouth. I never said the new system sucks or whatever. The closest thing I said to that was that it was susceptible to witch hunting like the old system; pointing out it has the same weakness is hardly saying it's not worth it. I said that I abstain from using it because I find it too complicated for how I operate. Other people here seem to enjoy it, so they can have at it. Ultimately, it doesn't affect me any because if I watch a movie, I am sure to post about it, and that process is exactly the same regardless of the voting/approval method, and doing so is also worth much more.
I suppose that last sentence also contributes to answering your first question: maybe I didn't speak up because I didn't think it mattered that much. Whatever everyone else wants, they can have; whatever happens, I can still post something.
So whatever system is in place, I'll use it if I like it and I won't if I don't, but I'll still tell you, "Good job, man!"
Edit:
I back up moozooh backing up Kyrsimys.
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.
The thread was there for almost a full week, not one hour. And the new voting system has been in effect for over a month. You don't think he should've spoken out sooner?
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
he already said he chose not to speak out earlier. I'll give you two more reasons:
-maybe someone couldn't? Not having access to internet periodically (or over long periods, like say a WEEK or a MONTH) is a common factor among people with real lives so I'm told.
-Didn't check because they didn't know due to not noticing or bad promotion? I only knew about the voting system changing because in IRC there was massive number of posts pertaining to that topic. But oh, gee, do all 2,000 members visit IRC? what's that? we only have an average of 90 or so people in IRC? and some do not even talk at all? hmmmmmm
Edit:
-I feel like shaving frames is ok in some cases, but for the most part not enough people are devoting enough time in making entertaining TAses of new games
-having joined in 2006, "old site" means little to me. timeattack is too confusing. moozooh's agreement with krysimys's opinion on that matter I agree with.
Honestly the only big thing I'm missing from a couple years back when I started watching the site is that it's pretty rare to get to watch a TAS of a game that a) I've played before, and b) hasn't been TASed yet (I think the most recent one for me that really qualified was the 2P Gunstar Super Heroes TAS).
I imagine this is true for most people. Given how much more entertaining TASes are when you've played the game in question, it's easy to see that as the commonly-played games have all gotten TASes, the general entertainment level of the site has tailed off a bit.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Let's hope and pray that DeSmuME evolves to rival NO$GBA and can be extended to allow tool assistance (or IDeaS, if Lino opens the source), and that the disc-based systems other than PS1 and Sega CD also get TAS-capable open-source emulators that run on Linux; the Saturn emulator Yabause looks like a promising new frontier, and oh yeah I almost forgot about the Virtual Boy, which can be emulated with the open-source Red Dragon on Windows, Linux, or PSP (not that there will be much interest in Virtual Boy TAS videos lol).
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Because we started with that word, it feels like that was our original identity, do you see my point now? Its like changing a profound thing, thats at least how I see it.
This wasnt intentional. When a lot of people write very long posts to discuss about the voting system, or even don't understand what some people are writing, sometimes you get discouraged to follow a debate. And also, what Comicalflop said about being present 24 hours a day.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
Yeah, someone bring xebra back!
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
I have no idea where you got this from or what you mean by this. So ok, he chose not to speak out earlier. Why? If he really wanted to stop the change, he should have spoken out when the stuff was happening, not after it had happened. Now it just seems like preventing the change was not as important to him as being able to bitch about it afterwards.
We're not talking about "someone" here, we're talking about AngerFist. If the forum mods don't know what's going on here, who does?
EDIT: And if there's one thing I don't miss about this site, it's xebra. I have never ever in my life met a more arrogant individual.
EDIT2: About the word "timeattack". I guess I see what you mean. I just didn't realize that it could be such a big deal to someone. I guess it's like the thing with Sweden and the Euro.
I thought we changed from nesvideos to tasvideos.
Either way, I don't see anything wrong with the term TAS. It stands exactly for what it is... and I think we all hate if people are mistaken these runs for something they are not (either played normally, or cheated).
I do like the new voting/rating system for submissions. Like the previous voting system, it gives an indication of what people think about it (which was/is its main goal), and it promotes people rating at the same time (and more ratings are generally better).
It is true that some people who were voting before aren't rating, (I myself haven't started rating in fact, although I do plan on doing it), since it requires a bit more thought, and it's sometimes hard to decide... there is however still posting, which is most important.
I do think that this system attracted a few new 'raters' who are giving out 10/10's too easy.
I somewhat agree. It's quite often that you don't know/remember the previous run well enough to spot the improvements. For myself, it's also a problem somehow. I'm currently working on TASes which are only relatively small improvements over previous runs, and while it takes a LOT of time to make, the results are only minor (although they might be a significant step towards perfection)... it still somehow feels less motivating than when you are making something that feels totally new.
Either way, I don't think there is anything bad about getting more perfect movies... but I do sometimes wonder if some frames were worth the time invested in them.
Joined: 11/11/2006
Posts: 1235
Location: United Kingdom
TASvideos is a very unique and accurate name for the site. Timeattacks is vague and common. Therefore, TASvideos is the better option.
The new voting system is way more informative. I've heard nothing but good things from a few of the judges, who believe it provides much more detail into the submitted run.
That said, I feel the actual community feels... different. People are complaining for the sake of complaining and raging about random things and it seems extremely counter-productive. Stop bitching about the past and work on the future.
<adelikat> I am annoyed at my irc statements ending up in forums & sigs
Is it cool to bitch about the future? Because I don't see this site getting any better if all we plan on doing is bitch and argue and argue about bitching. >:(