I say go for it [publication]. If the movie is sloppy, it gives the newcomers (or anyone else) another TAS they can try to beat! :)
I agree; in fact, to the untrained eye this movie does not look "sloppy". Of course, that argument has been made for several movies to no avail.
"Does not look sloppy" is not the same thing as "is not sloppy". We know that it has flaws, but we are relying on the fact that, if you don't know about them, it doesn't look like it has flaws?
I'm sorry, but I'm still seeing this as a publication being made for the sole reason that this is the first DS TAS ever, disregarding any quality standards and rules.
(Of course I'm not a judge and thus I don't get to make any decisions about publication.)
I'm sorry, but I'm still seeing this as a publication being made for the sole reason that this is the first DS TAS ever, disregarding any quality standards and rules.
I agree. If this were any other movie it would have been rejected by now.
On the point of sloppiness... every single movie on this site can be improved, and is therefore "sloppy". Granted, we don't always know HOW to improve them. But I don't see the harm in doing as Bisqwit suggests: publish an improvable movie and replace it when it is improved. We don't provide visitors to this site some sort of magical perfection, we provide them entertainment.
I find this situation stupid:
1) A movie is submitted.
2) Everyone finds it cool and publishable.
3) Someone points out a few seconds of improvements.
4) The movie, which everybody was ready to accept just a few minutes ago, is now somehow unpublishable, even though the movie itself hasn't changed and still looks just as cool and publishable.
Hasn't the number one goal of the movies on the site always been to be entertaining? How has this movie now become any less entertaining than it was before the improvements were pointed out? It hasn't. My point: if you were all for publishing this before the improvements were pointed out, I see no reason to change your stance.
And this being the first DS TAS shouldn't have anything to do with anything.
4) The movie, which everybody was ready to accept just a few minutes ago, is now somehow unpublishable, even though the movie itself hasn't changed and still looks just as cool and publishable.
That's completely correct.
If the goal of the TAS is to complete the game as fast as possible, and it clearly fails to do so, why does the movie have to be published? It would certainly not be the first time a submission has been rejected on these grounds, pending an improved version from the author.
The movie may not have changed, but our knowledge of the game has: We now know that the movie fails to achieve its stated goals, with clear concrete and significant improvement suggestions.
And this being the first DS TAS shouldn't have anything to do with anything.
More the reason to reject it. Tons of submissions have been rejected for the exact same reasons. Heck, submissions have been rejected for even less.
Why is it such a big deal? Why can't the author remake it, fixing the flaws?
That page about stupid reasons for publishing movies is half-humorous, but I am seeing many of the entries being given here as to why this submission should be published.
I'm sorry, but regardless of what you are saying, it still feels like this publication is being pushed for the sole reason that it's the first DS TAS ever.
I don't get what you're trying to say with that link to the "be quick" section. You don't think adelikat is quick in this movie? The guidelines don't say anything about being perfect, IIRC. And yeah, being quick is important, but as I said in my previous post, entertainment is the number one goal, right?
Voted no per the reasons above.
If there are known improvements, and several people say this is improvable, then this shouldn't be published.
Otherwise every first movie for any game would need to be accepted. By accepting a movie which is known to be suboptimal you would give ground for random newbies to post their sloppy attempts at every kind of game on Earth, because "sure, it can be improved later, and there is also that NSMB movie so I'm cool".
I don't think you can call this run sloppy by any means. The possible improvements in this run are not visible to the untrained eye, unlike in many newbie submissions where anyone can see that the run is suboptimal.
Voting No, mostly because of the saving, lack of flagpole trick, and sub-par emulation.
Some minor notes:
Shell Mario is slower on land, but faster in water. How much does this make up for his lack of speed on land?
5-Ghost House could be done faster by about 20 in-game "seconds", by using Mini Mario and wall-jumping up to the door.
By that reasoning, though, GB/SGB/GBC/GBA should be changed to NGB/NSGB/NGBC/NGBA... :p
No, no, no, don't get me wrong. "Nintendo" is the part of the console's name as much as in the case of "Nintendo Entertainment System", "Nintendo 64", and so on.
People will know what you're saying if you leave it at 'DS', however. But at least NDS makes sense, unlike GCN. -_-
Seriously, does anyone ever say 'Gamecube Nintendo'? Did someone think we would confuse 'NGC' with the Nevada Gaming Commission in the middle of a Melee discussion?
<-- is cranky in the morning when the same person calls the wrong number four times in one hour intervals starting at 6:30.
I don't get what you're trying to say with that link to the "be quick" section. You don't think adelikat is quick in this movie? The guidelines don't say anything about being perfect, IIRC. And yeah, being quick is important, but as I said in my previous post, entertainment is the number one goal, right?
Entertainment is the goal, but not any kind of entertainment.
The main goal of TASes is to show superhuman achievements, ie. things which a human cannot hope to achieve by normal play. In other words, removing human reflexes and skills from the equation. Even in the few cases where the goal of a TAS is not to complete the game as fast as possible (eg. MK2), the superhuman feats goal still holds.
Superhuman feats imply perfection. In a few cases something slightly "imperfect" is allowed if it adds significantly to the entertainment (ie. the "uses speed/entertainment tradeoffs" tag). However, is this such a case? Are the flaws in this submission there to add to the entertainment? Or would the movie be equally (if not even more) entertaining with the flaws fixed?
Your argument about "our goal is entertainment" is at a bit different categorical level. If our goal was only entertainment, then what do we need rules and guidelines for? A movie can be entertaining even if it uses rom-hacking, cheats, image manipulation and even fallacious footage created by something else than the emulator. Someone could draw a "TAS" by hand, as a cartoon, and that could be highly entertaining.
But that's not the goal of the site.
How many times will people try to push movies for publication with the excuse of "our primary goal is entertainment"?
That argument is just ridiculous. If you want just "entertainment", regardless of what it is, go to youtube. What are you doing in this site?
Joined: 9/2/2008
Posts: 289
Location: United Kingdom
Some minor notes:
Shell Mario is slower on land, but faster in water.
How much does this make up for his lack of speed on land?
From a few pages back, by the start of 1-1 to the pipe that leads to the star coin the difference is 2 seconds. The only way for Shell Mario to gain max speed is to perform constant triple jumping.
5-Ghost House could be done faster by about 20 in-game "seconds", by using Mini Mario and wall-jumping up to the door.
Luck manipulation of the Red ? Box would be required to get it (for TAS runs it shouldn't be a problem) and we will need to manipulate a Hammer Bro to get the shell back on 8-2 (the water switch level) and 8-3 (the Red Eels level)
I'm not arguing that suboptimal movies should be published regardless, but
"Our primary goals are to create art and provide entertainment."
And it did at least pass the speedrun times. But it does sound like in this case the errors are easily fixed- it's a pretty short run after all. So, No.
I didn't get enough sleep.
Entertainment is the goal, but not any kind of entertainment. [...] A movie can be entertaining even if it uses rom-hacking, cheats, image manipulation and even fallacious footage created by something else than the emulator.
I disagree on both counts.
Warp wrote:
The main goal of TASes is to show superhuman achievements, ie. things which a human cannot hope to achieve by normal play.
Yeah, because it's entertaining to watch.
Bottom line: We strive to create entertaining movies. This is usually achieved by completing games as fast as possible. This movie is (at least to me) fast and entertaining. Even if it was 10 seconds faster, it wouldn't increase the entertainment value, hence it's irrelevant.
I'm excited to see that the DS is now apparently TASable. It's kind of a bummer that this game is what it is. It seems wrong NOT to do a TAS of NSMB, but it's just not that exciting to watch... I find it hard to be amused by the run's predictability, yet it can't really help being predictable.
I guess there's also some technical limitations going on here. I'd still say to go ahead and publish, because it's a very good run and the technical improvements are minor. I'm aware that this would mean it fails at its original goal of "aims for fastest time" but I think that this is exactly the sort of situation where an exception made can be a good thing. I think getting caught up on the technicalities can sometimes do more harm than good, and that a good site does not necessarily need to unthinkingly adhere to the letter of the law in every instance.
Obviously that is an issue for the judges and not anyone else. I don't think there's too much need to get into intense debate here, unless those in charge will think it will help; things here seem to have a way of working themselves out, after all.
Bottom line: We strive to create entertaining movies. This is usually achieved by completing games as fast as possible. This movie is (at least to me) fast and entertaining. Even if it was 10 seconds faster, it wouldn't increase the entertainment value, hence it's irrelevant.
I disagree. Given that in both cases (ie. the current submission and a hypothetical fixed one) the entertainment value will probably be about the same, the more optimal one is better because that's precisely one of the main goals here. In this case aiming for an optimal run does not lower entertainment (in the same way as might be with some other games).
So it's certainly not irrelevant. If we claim that we are showing superhuman playing, then we should keep that promise. If from two movies the only relevant difference is 10 seconds, the faster one is definitely the better because it conforms better to the spirit of TASing.
It shows flawed playing (by superhuman standards).
Only because you're now aware of something that can possibly invalidate its flawlessness -- which you could not figure out by just watching.
We publish visual performance here. I don't think I can possibly formulate an answer that will satisfy you, Warp -- it's not the first time I catch you in an utterly pedantic debate and even though I know exactly what I mean, I just cannot get it across to you in such a mechanically precise technically correct form which you would understand and accept. You're like a lawyer that is completely ignorant to the spirit of the law, going by the letter of it. Now, Kyrsimys has tried his best -- I don't think I could do better.
And I still think he is right and you are not.
