Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3574)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
Warp wrote:
I think that the category is already subjective because, as said, basically all TASes "manipulate luck" in one way or another.
Games manipulate luck when they manipulate an RNG which not all games have. Examples: Circus charlie, Super Mario Bros 2 (U). As a publisher I always tried to decide for myself if a movie deserved that category. When in doubt, however, I did just take the author's word for it.
by being too liberal in granting , it has become basically nondescriptive
I guess I don't disagree with that.
That's what judges are for, aren't they? To make decisions even if some visitors disagree with those decisions. :)
Actually no. Judges don't decide movie categories. Publishers decide it at the time of publication. Then any number of admin/halfadmin/publishers/judges/movie editors have the ability to change them.
The major problem here is going through all the existing publications and removing the category from the ones which don't really deserve it. That's a big undertaking.
Once I am done changing these categories, it will require this big undertaking no matter what. I hope to recruit some help ^^
When you come here i think you assume the movies were luck manipulated though. More interesting would be extreme cases of luck manipulation (labeled properly, "manipulates luck" denotes the average movie), and those cases that do not have an rng you can label them as well I guess. Extreme manipulation makes me think of disassembling the rng, the whole movie being about its manipulation, many really hard manipulations, or perhaps overwriting the rng with the values you want.
Sorry about quoting with <> anbd not naming the user
<"Uses no passwords could easily be removed I believe">
I believe it's easier to point out when the pasword is used.
<"I'd change "Items: 100%" and "collects no items" to be more general, since for example Zero's techniques in the Megaman Zero games aren't really "items", but would still count for a "100% collection" run."Perhaps we should call them "Collects everything" and "minimalist"?">
Maybe the "100%" and low% should refer to the completion instead of items, if not applicable to items.
<"However, there should be a category for movies that use major glitches such as memory corruption, warping, and zipping.">
...something like"Abuses Major Glitches"?
<"[...] but if we're going to make "abuses programming errors" into "abuses programming errors heavily", then we'll actually need that "does not abuse programming errors" tag, since there's plenty of viewers who specifically want glitch-free runs, and making the "default" setting for a run be "abuses some programming errors" will make it hard for those viewers to find glitch-free movies.">
I don't really see a problem in a tag pointing out if the run didn't abused any glitch at all. Seeing that only one movie is marked by NOT using gliches, the defaut should be "abuse glitches moderately".
----------------------------------------
And now, my own sugestions =)
"Plays using a suboptimal character" - this is a strange category. SMB2J Luigi's run being suboptimal is undertandable, as SMB2U Peach's. But not the alternate Castlevania 3 paths, the "small only" Super Mario World (I mean, he's even the same character) neither... Castlevania Rondo of Blood Maria's run is slower due to a cutscene, not due to the caracter being suboptimal.
My suggestion about this:
1) Don't use the category anymore, just accept two different character's movies
2) Use this category only if the route is not forcefully changed (like both SMB2s, Castlevania Bloodlines)
Also about "demonstration", "playaround" and the "demos" special section.... aren't essencially the same thing?
Lastly, I'd suggest splitting the hacks from the demonstrations.
My first language is not English, so please excuse myself if I write something wrong. I'll do my best do write as cleary as I can, so cope with me here =)
(ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
OmegaWatcher wrote:
Lastly, I'd suggest splitting the hacks from the demonstrations.
I agree fully, technically the two are completely different things (Unless you are making a demonstration run of a hack which... would be really confusing).
My suggestion about this:
1) Don't use the category anymore, just accept two different character's movies
Oftentimes runs with alternative goals are accepted because they are entertaining even though they do not achieve the fastest possible game completion (but they do achieve the fastest completion with that goal). I think it's good to denote it when a run uses an alternative goal. "!00% completion" is one such alternative goal, and using a slower character is another. They both deserve being mentioned as categories.
(The custom has been, at least in some runs, to use "xyz version" where xyz is the name of the playable character, in the title of the run. However, I think giving it a category is also important because it helps in searching for such runs, create statistics, and other things.)
Oh look! It's this old thing again!
Truncated all the way back in 2006 wrote:
We (me and Warp) have been over the luck manipulation thing before (I don't feel like digging up the topic), I still think that it will be a huge amount of pointless debate about what movie deserves what category, if this movie doesn't manipulate more than than movie, what counts as significant luck manipulation, etc. Just look at how much debate there has been about which movies should have a star.
It's essentially the same for splitting it into major/minor categories. What do you judge it on? How hard it was to accomplish or how small the chance was? How much time you actually saved by manipulating luck? How impressive it looks? "Why doesn't my movie get the major tag, I manipulated luck a lot :( "
The easiest thing is to apply the category for every movie that manipulates luck (or uses glitches), no matter how minor, and leave the rest to the description. I think our viewers have no problem identifying Monopoly as a movie which manipulates luck more than the others, as it is now.
My suggestion about this:
1) Don't use the category anymore, just accept two different character's movies
Oftentimes runs with alternative goals are accepted because they are entertaining even though they do not achieve the fastest possible game completion (but they do achieve the fastest completion with that goal). I think it's good to denote it when a run uses an alternative goal. "!00% completion" is one such alternative goal, and using a slower character is another. They both deserve being mentioned as categories.
(The custom has been, at least in some runs, to use "xyz version" where xyz is the name of the playable character, in the title of the run. However, I think giving it a category is also important because it helps in searching for such runs, create statistics, and other things.)
The problem is not the use of a slower character, but the criteria of "suboptimal". In Castlevania 3 you'll have to use completely different routes to reach each character, so maybe it's the route that is suboptimal.
My first language is not English, so please excuse myself if I write something wrong. I'll do my best do write as cleary as I can, so cope with me here =)
(ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ
Joined: 11/30/2008
Posts: 650
Location: a little city in the middle of nowhere
Considering this topic got bumped a bit, I thought I might add my 2c.
Basically, in my opinion, movie categories should be just that. A way of distinguishing between different runs of the same game. Anything that could be considered a distinguishing factor should be kept, and anything that isn't should be left out
For example:
"manipulates luck"
Get rid of it. If you have one movie that does manipulate luck, and another which doesn't, they shouldn't be separate categories, and the one which doesn't would simply be sloppy TASing. Therefore it isn't significant enough to warrant a category. However, for movies such as Fractal's 4 CPU monopoly, keep it, because luck manipulation is a major part of the TAS.
"aims for fastest in game time"
Keep it. It distinguishes itself from other categories of the game, and generally, there is a good reason to aim for this.
"uses no warps"
Keep it. Although, generally, we don't want to hear what didn't happen, this may be the only restriction put on a run. Generally it means that there is a difference between this and a 100% run of the same game.
"uses warps"
Get rid of it. There's no restriction here. basically it says that you're aiming for the fastest time. It's redundant.
"Abuses programming errors in the game"
Get rid of it. Although this distinguishes itself form glitchless runs, there is again, no restriction here. Glitchless should be kept as a category because it restricts play, and can lead to a different, yet entertaining TAS. Unless the game majorly abuses glitches, such as the pokemon yellow run, I say it's not worth keeping.
"plays at hardest level"
Get rid of it. This should be done anyway, unless otherwise specified.
Basically it boils down to this. "any restriction" categories should be kept, regardless of frequency. However, "teddy survives", is really not common enough for inclusion. "aims for best ending" would be more fitting.
"any distinguishing characteristic" should be kept. Unless a specific technique is used that is a major part of the run, the category should not apply. I may as well have used "uses savestates and rerecords" as a category.
If a run does not have a certain distinguishing characteristic, but another run of the same game does, such as "warped", and "warpless" SMB, it may be useful to include the other category for the other run.
well that's just my 2c
"manipulates luck"
Get rid of it. If you have one movie that does manipulate luck, and another which doesn't, they shouldn't be separate categories, and the one which doesn't would simply be sloppy TASing. Therefore it isn't significant enough to warrant a category.
I don't think you understand. "Manipulates luck" is not used to distinguish between different movies of the same game. It's used (at least in theory) to tell people if some run heavily manipulates luck. Since not all games lend themselves to this, not all movies can get it.
Thus for example a TAS of Super Mario Bros does not get the tag because there's no heavy luck manipulation possible in the game, but a TAS of Simon's Quest does get the tag because there's heavy luck manipulation.
"aims for fastest in game time"
Keep it. It distinguishes itself from other categories of the game, and generally, there is a good reason to aim for this.
Such as? Personally I can't think of any good reason why there should be two movies of any game, one aiming for real-time and another for in-game time.
"Abuses programming errors in the game"
Get rid of it. Although this distinguishes itself form glitchless runs, there is again, no restriction here.
Don't get rid of it. Change its meaning to "heavy bug abuse". Again, it would depict a characteristic of the run, compared to other, more typical runs.
I don't think you understand. "Manipulates luck" is not used to distinguish between different movies of the same game. It's used (at least in theory) to tell people if some run heavily manipulates luck. Since not all games lend themselves to this, not all movies can get it.
Thus for example a TAS of Super Mario Bros does not get the tag because there's no heavy luck manipulation possible in the game, but a TAS of Simon's Quest does get the tag because there's heavy luck manipulation.
In fact, luck manipulation in Super Mario Bros is much more difficult to do than that in Simon's Quest.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
If you're referring to this thread:
http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=218474#218474
I saw many examples, but didn't see any sort of definition, or how you would differentiate "moderate" luck manipulation vs. "heavy". Basically, how would you describe heavy luck manip without bring entirely subjective?
I saw many examples, but didn't see any sort of definition, or how you would differentiate "moderate" luck manipulation vs. "heavy". Basically, how would you describe heavy luck manip without bring entirely subjective?
How do you define which submissions are publish-worthy and which aren't? How do you define which games are good choices for TASing and which aren't? How do you define when a submission is entertaining enough to be published? What were the principles used to differentiate between the glitched and non-glitched versions of Super Metroid or Pokemon?
Can you define those things without being entirely subjective?
That's what we have publishers, judges, or whoever is in charge of applying tags to publications, for. They decide, using their experience and expertise of the subject, which runs use sufficiently heavy luck manipulation to deserve the tag. There may be guidelines and rules of thumb for this, but ultimately it's the decision of a judge ("judge" in the sense of someone who judges whether a submission applies for a certain tag or not).
(And no, "it could cause controversy" is a moot argument. Rejection of submissions causes controversy all the time (and sometimes even accepting submissions for publication does.) That doesn't stop the system from working just fine.)
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
Good response. My underlying point is: Why have a special "lots'o'luck manipulation" tag if it will just provide something else for people to argue over? One simple tag of "Manipulates luck", without trying to classify the various levels of manipulation, works just fine.
Good response. My underlying point is: Why have a special "lots'o'luck manipulation" tag if it will just provide something else for people to argue over? One simple tag of "Manipulates luck", without trying to classify the various levels of manipulation, works just fine.
My original suggestion was to have one tag only: "Manipulates luck". Its meaning would be heavy luck manipulation and it wouldn't be granted to runs which have no or only light luck manipulation. This would make the tag actually useful.
I later added the idea of having two tags, "heavy luck manipulation" and "light luck manipulation" as another possibility (so as to possibly being able to distinguish runs with no luck manipulation at all (by some definition) from those which do manipulate luck, albeit not heavily).
I'm confused by these categories. They also seem like they should be the default and I don't understand why they're selectively mentioned in the cases that they are.
No save data corruption
Uses no passwords
No death
I'm just some random guy. Don't let my words get you riled - I have my opinions but they're only mine.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3574)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
Bezman wrote:
I'm confused by these categories. They also seem like they should be the default and I don't understand why they're selectively mentioned in the cases that they are.
No save data corruption
Uses no passwords
No death
No passwords I agree and should be removed.
I would think no save data corruption would be applied to a run that is longer than its counterpart that does take advantage of it.
No death is not the default. In general, if it is advantageous to die, a TASer will die. No death is specificallyf or a run that could save time with death but chooses not to (because they believe it to not be entertaining ((something I disagree with )) )
No death is not the default. In general, if it is advantageous to die, a TASer will die. No death is specificallyf or a run that could save time with death but chooses not to (because they believe it to not be entertaining ((something I disagree with )) )
Thanks for explaining.
I was confused by there being two categories - one for dying to save time, one for no death.
I was thinking that 'uses no warps' could maybe be reworded to 'forgoes warps' or something else that makes it clearer that the reverse is a real possibility in this instance - otherwise, as worded, it suggests it should be applied to nearly everything.
Maybe similarly, 'no death' could be reworded as 'forgoes time-saving death'.
Or ideally, maybe there could be some little explanations - maybe even simply presented as a single web page, with a question mark beside each category that links to the relevant anchor.
Or maybe the short explanation is at the top of its page, just above the list of submissions.
What you said cleared it up for me and for others who aren't as entrenched in the culture, clarifications would be lovely.
On a related note, could the submission categories listed beside a submission ever link to the page featuring all thusly tagged movies? Was this idea already rejected or is there some logistical hurdle?
I'm just some random guy. Don't let my words get you riled - I have my opinions but they're only mine.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3574)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
Bezman wrote:
'forgoes warps' ...
Maybe similarly, 'no death' could be reworded as 'forgoes time-saving death'.
Wow, yes, I very much agree with this. Good idea :)
Or ideally, maybe there could be some little explanations - maybe even simply presented as a single web page, with a question mark beside each category that links to the relevant anchor.
I intend to make a webpage explaining all of them (and the proper use of them) once I get the categories themselves hammered out.
On a related note, could the submission categories listed beside a submission ever link to the page featuring all thusly tagged movies? Was this idea already rejected or is there some logistical hurdle?
Submission? do you mean publication? Otherwise I'm not sure what you mean.
Wow, yes, I very much agree with this. Good idea :)
:-D And I look forward to the descriptions.
Submission? do you mean publication? Otherwise I'm not sure what you mean.
Yes, I did mean publication. My mistake
http://tasvideos.org/516M.html
So here, the words 'single level only' would be a link to
http://tasvideos.org/Movies-C4000Y.html
(and the word 'racing' would also be a link).
I guess when on a category page, the links would become redundant but even if that problem is unavoidablek I think it would be far outweighed by the advantage of easily-accessible links to similar movies. Someone could watch a movie linked to from the main page, realise how much they like a particular aspect of it, then instantly click to find similar movies without needing to learn that category pages are linked to within the movies tab...
I'm just some random guy. Don't let my words get you riled - I have my opinions but they're only mine.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3574)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
Yes, I did mean publication. My mistake
http://tasvideos.org/516M.html
So here, the words 'single level only' would be a link to
http://tasvideos.org/Movies-C4000Y.html
(and the word 'racing' would also be a link).
[/quote]
That's a pretty neat idea perhaps.
Btw, we do have a list of these already http://tasvideos.org/Movies.html
on the movies by category tab. Wouldn't be hard to also put these on the classes in the movie module.
Maybe the tags should be divided into two types: Descriptive tags and category tags.
For example, "uses death as shortcut" would be a purely descriptive tag. In other words, it tells that in this particular game dying can be used as a shortcut (and the run then obviously does so). It doesn't necessarily mean that this is a category and that a no-death run would be another. It simply describes a feature of this run which might be interesting.
Other examples of descriptive tags would be "takes no damage", "manipulates luck", "abuses programming errors in the game" and the different "genre" tags.
Category tags would include tags like "pacifist version", "kills: 100%", "items: 100%", etc.
