It is completely arbitrary to label a movie with any%, that is not the fastest movie of the game. There is only one logical definition for any% and that is beating the game as fast as possible. This being said, I totally agree with what most people wrote in here:
The fastest movie always has to get the label any% and all other movies published of the same game, need an extra label, that easily describes the difference between the 2 movies.
Why does the any% run of a game have to have a branch name at all? The point of a branch name is to say "this movie attempts to beat the video game as fast as possible, with additional constraints given by the branch name". If there are no additional constraints (any%, in other words), then why is a branch name required?
Notice also that there are some games for which we have other runs but not an any% run (100% runs like Banjo-Kazooie, Kirby and the Crystal Shards, or playarounds like International Soccer Star Deluxe and Super Scribblenauts, spring to mind). In this case of course, they should be labelled appropriately.
While we're at it, we may as well standardize the naming of 100% runs. Some call them "100%" but we also have everything from "Warpless" to "120 Stars" to "All Dungeons, Temples and Ganon Trials" to "102%" to "Gotta Catch 'em All" to "All Souls" to "100 CDs" to... well, you get the picture. To be honest I prefer the descriptive labels rather than just calling stuff "100%", since we already have a tag for "100% completion", and the branch name describes what 100% completion is.
Radiant wrote:
Of particular note here are the Metroid runs. In the Metroid speedrunning community, which predates the TasVideos site, the three standard runs are Any%, 100%, and Low%; where Any% allows the use of any glitches you can find. That means we should probably not call any Metroid runs "glitched" given that the Metroid community would call them "Any%".
I don't think we should make an exception for Metroid. The any% runs should not have a branch name just like any other any% run. For a start, we already time games differently to how the Metroid speedrunning community does, which has been controversial enough in the past. In any case, we shouldn't be comparing real-time and tool-assisted speedruns, so why label them as though they are Metroid real-time runs when they are not?
I don't think there's anything wrong in using a branch name in a purely descriptive manner. It informs the user that, for example, "this is the fastest completion for this game, and it does so by heavy use of glitches" (as opposed to the more normal case with most games that are glitch-free or have very few of them.)
If there is also a glitchless run, then it becomes much clearer and informative if both are labeled.
Of particular note here are the Metroid runs. In the Metroid speedrunning community, which predates the TasVideos site, the three standard runs are Any%, 100%, and Low%; where Any% allows the use of any glitches you can find. That means we should probably not call any Metroid runs "glitched" given that the Metroid community would call them "Any%".
I disagree with your facts here. I was watching Zoasty's stream last night (who holds the world record for many Super Metroid categories, and thus can be considered part of the Metroid community). He was running Super Metroid "any%", unqualified; and although that run allowed most glitches, it appeared to have a restriction that it wasn't allowed to go out of bounds with the X-Ray scope.
On the other hand, this appears to vary from Metroid game to Metroid game (Metroid Prime 1 goes out of bounds in its any% route, and the community generally considers that acceptable).
I think the best solution is for branch names to contain all the information needed to work out the restrictions under which it's played. As such, I think I'd label a Super Metroid any% (by the community's definition) as "in bounds", even though that's an unusual definition for that game; but I'd also label a glitched any% as "out of bounds glitch".
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Seems that these 2 last posts break the "concensus", isn't it? And I'm not mentioning IRC discussions.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
The point of a branch name is to say "this movie attempts to beat the video game as fast as possible, with additional constraints given by the branch name". If there are no additional constraints (any%, in other words), then why is a branch name required?
I really like this definition, and I think we should write it down on the wiki pages.
I don't think we should make an exception for Metroid.
Very well.
feos wrote:
Seems that these 2 last posts break the "concensus", isn't it? And I'm not mentioning IRC discussions.
Not particularly; they only state that we shouldn't consider the Metroid community in our decisions, which is a good point. Regardless, it does make sense for us to have a clear and unambiguous definition of "any%" and apply that consistently (and I believe we already do, for 99% of the runs on the site).
Right, here are some suggested names for those "less glitched" counterparts to the movies on Radiant's list. When I have been able to find a name for the specific glitch, I have used that; otherwise, I have gone for a generic name. A couple of these names are especially clunky, so help would be appreciated. In addition I am not familiar with all these movies, I often had to go by author's comments and the like for information, so if I have made a mistake about which glitches are and aren't used in the movies do correct me.
Aria of Souls; "Warpless" (already in title)
Contra 3: "2 players, in bounds"
Crash Bandicoot: "No memory corruption"
Earthbound: "No debug menu, no save corruption" (both are needed as both have been used to break the game in glitched runs)
Earthbound Zero: "No breadcrumbs glitch"
Final Fantasy Adventure: "Warpless"
Kirby's Adventure: "No stone glitch"
Metroid II: "No select glitch"
Pokemon Blue: "No save corruption, no ZZAZZ glitch, no transform glitch"
Super Mario Land 2: "No memory corruption"
Super Mario World: "No memory corruption"
Super Mario World 2: "No egg glitch"
Super Metroid: "No X-ray Scope glitch"
Zelda II: "No healer glitch, no zipping"
Zelda: Link's awakening: "Warpless"
Zelda: LTTP: "No pixelporting"
I have left Chrono Trigger off as currently the only other non-obsolete run is the 100%, which can just be called 100%, unless it turns out it is possible to 100% the game faster using save corruption techniques. IIRC there was an unsuccessful campaign to get the "less glitched" movie unobsoleted.
EDIT: on second thoughts, Turska's run (the 20-minute one) used save corruption to glitch objects, didn't it? It therefore seems likely it would be faster to use this glitch to get 100% completion, and hence I would call this movie, "100%, no save corruption".
I went ahead and removed the unnecessary "warp glitch" branch names from Aria of Sorrow, Final Fantasy Adventure, and Rygar, the "item glitch" branch name from Dragon Warrior 3, and fixed all of the "glitched" movies on the site (mainly using thatguy's suggestions) except for a few, which are listed below:
Chrono Trigger ("100%" or "100%, no save corruption"? I did remove the branch name of the save corruption movie though.)
Contra 3 (any%, 2 players, pacifist. I didn't know if I should add "in bounds" to both other movies so I didn't change anything.)
LoZ: A Link to the Past (any%, less glitched. "No wall clipping" maybe? Or "no wall clipping glitch"? I just didn't touch anything.)
Super Metroid (any%, less glitched. This is a tough one. One of the other ones is "glitchless low%", so it could be "glitchless any%", but there's also "any%, ingame". "No X-Ray Scope glitch" wouldn't seem to work with the current naming system and might upset the Metroid community if speedrunners typically don't use the X-Ray Scope glitch in any%. What should we name this one?)
Also, thatguy, I just called EarthBound "no save corruption" because both the save corruption glitch and the run are faster than the debug menu glitch and run and therefore both are obsolete. It's good that you're trying to cover all the bases though; that might be a useful skill when more cases like these come up!
Good work CoolKirby! I agree with your decisions to leave some of the movies unchanged for the minute and wait for other opinions.
CoolKirby wrote:
Also, thatguy, I just called EarthBound "no save corruption" because both the save corruption glitch and the run are faster than the debug menu glitch and run and therefore both are obsolete. It's good that you're trying to cover all the bases though; that might be a useful skill when more cases like these come up!
The reason for the Earthbound branch name I gave was that, in the opinion of this humble user with his miserable postcount, that all movies should attempt to complete the game as fast as possible under the restrictions laid out by the branch name, if any (with the exception of the branch name "playaround"). The current Earthbound "no save corruption" movie does not do this, since it can still be improved by accessing the debug menu, which is not ruled out by the branch name, even though the debug menu is of no consequence in the any% run either.
Still, I do not like the name "no save corruption, no debug menu" as a name, it does sound very arbitrary. "No memory corruption" sounds like a compromise, since as far as I am aware both save corruption and accessing the debug menu would qualify as memory corruption.
Cool, thanks! That looks much clearer and more consistent.
Looking over the movies you list separately, I think the Chrono Trigger run should simply be "100%" because as far as we know, it's not possible to achieve 100% with save corruption; so the extra qualifier is not needed until (if) an additional branch gets made and accepted for CT.
For Contra, suitable subtitles would be "any%", "no warp glitch" (since the distinguishing feature of that movie is that it doesn't use that glitch, not how many characters are controlled) and "pacifist, no warp glitch" (since the any% movie also doesn't kill a lot of enemies).
And for LOZ, "no wall clipping" works fine and is a clear and common term.
Super Metroid should have some more discussion from the people more intimately familiar with the game; although I should point out that the "any%" movie does in fact use some glitches, just different ones than the movie currently labeled "glitched".
And I'm confused by this run for Mega Man X, labeled "glitched password, walkathon". I don't think the term "walkathon" helps here; for the Super Mario Bros run, not running is actually a restriction that makes the run slower but entertaining; for MMX it's not a restriction, since the run is faster because it skips a speed-up item. So it should probably be "any%" whereas this run should be "no password glitch". $.02
Very good point, thatguy; I agree with you. I've changed it to "no memory corruption" to rule out any known heavy glitches. And please don't be hard on yourself. Your ideas and suggestions are just as valid as mine.
Thanks for your input, Radiant! We'll leave Chrono Trigger as it is for now. And you're right about MMX; reading over the submission text, it's clear the Dash Boots are not collected only to make the movie more impressive and increase entertainment. I've fixed it as well as the other two.
That leaves Super Metroid. What would be a good place to ask about the glitched category? Perhaps the game's forum topic?
That leaves Super Metroid. What would be a good place to ask about the glitched category? Perhaps the game's forum topic?
A better place would be in the discussion topic(s) of the relevant movie(s), since this is a matter of the movies and not really of the games themselves. A link to this page in those discussion topics may attract the attention and opinions of Super Metroid TASers, and others with a particular interest in the game, which is probably required given that this particular game has a rather special status in the world of speedrunning and therefore does not always follow regular rules.
Also don't forget Pokemon Blue! If there's any game that rivals Super Metroid for having an unreasonable number of categories then this is it (and it doesn't help that, since Red, Blue and Yellow are considered identical for TAS purposes, many of the movies do not show up in each other's submission histories and the sheer number of movies can go unnoticed). I have struggled so much to think of a better name for primorial#soup's movie than "less glitched" that I increasingly find myself questioning whether unobsoleting it was a mistake. Especially since it is a suboptimal movie (no Brock skip, which was discovered shortly afterwards), and also because it doesn't contain anything the 100% run doesn't.
Would "no buffer overflows" work for the less-glitched Pokémon Blue movie? All the faster-completion glitches I know of work by overflowing a buffer somewhere (including the save corruption glitches).
Would "no buffer overflows" work for the less-glitched Pokémon Blue movie? All the faster-completion glitches I know of work by overflowing a buffer somewhere (including the save corruption glitches).
That's not really a defining feature of the category, though. Remember that MrWint's first TAS obsoleted a TAS that used ZZAZZ, which is a huge buffer overflow.
That's not really a defining feature of the category, though. Remember that MrWint's first TAS obsoleted a TAS that used ZZAZZ, which is a huge buffer overflow.
How does that make it not a defining category? The "less glitched" movie does not use buffer overflow; every subsequent Blue movie, and all the save-corruption Yellow movies, use some kind of buffer overflow, which makes "no buffer overflow" a great category because it is saying "this is the fastest run we have of this game which doesn't use buffer overflow". I think "no buffer overflow" is a perfect name for the branch.
I think there may be a misunderstanding here because not a lot of people know about the recently unobsoleted [950] SGB Pokémon: Blue Version "trainer escape glitch" by primorial_soup in 1:18:58.78. That's the movie we're thinking of changing from "less glitched" to "no buffer overflow". I think it's perfect as well, so I'll go ahead and change it. If anyone thinks of something more fitting, it can always be changed again later.
I always thought they were classified as two different games, but I guess you're right. Well, since the Pokémon Yellow save corruption run is the true any%, we'll need to add branch names to both the Blue and Green runs.
Since both of these movies forego save corruption, should we call Green "no save corruption" and Blue "no save corruption, no Doko Kashira Door glitch"? Or if that's too long, "no save corruption, no door glitch"?
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Isn't "no memory corruption" ok? Can be applied to more "less glitched" runs than if we specify the way memory was corrupted each time.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
I've found a handful of other movies with labels similar to "glitched" that could be made clearer. As Adelikat said earlier in this thread, "The intent of the category is for specifying branches, not describing the movie." Thank you for your time!
I always thought they were classified as two different games, but I guess you're right. Well, since the Pokémon Yellow save corruption run is the true any%, we'll need to add branch names to both the Blue and Green runs.
Since both of these movies forego save corruption, should we call Green "no save corruption" and Blue "no save corruption, no Doko Kashira Door glitch"? Or if that's too long, "no save corruption, no door glitch"?
The Doko Kashira Door glitch isn't possible in Blue. Thus, it makes sense that Blue and Green would have different runs in the same category.
Should the Green run have a branch name relating to the fact that it uses the Doko Kashira Door glitch, like the Executes Arbitrary Code run does? Or are we leaving the branch name alone completely?
Patashu: The fast completion in MrWint's run is achieved by executing arbitrary code, which is a form of memory corruption.
Thanks for another useful list, Radiant! I'll start working on fixing those now (though it'll take longer than usual since I'm on my phone).
And thank you to everyone who's posted so far; opinions from the community are exactly what we needed to get this going. Please continue to post any ideas or concerns you might have!
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I like the general way this is going.
There's just one case that personally bugs me, which is Mega Man X. I personally disagree with marking the glitched password run as any%. I feel that the fact it uses a password (albeit in a non-usual manner) makes it only quasi-legitimate in my mind, and it's jarring to see it become the "main" category as it's very much unlike the other similar Mega Man (X) games' definition of any% (like X2 or X3), which don't involve skipping through two thirds of the game (in what I, again, consider only a quasi-legitimate method).
It just seems so odd to have the "traditional any%" run with that "no glitched password" label.
Just my personal opinion, though.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
As far as I'm concerned, using a glitched password is no different from using corrupted pre-initialized SRAM. Even if the game decides it doesn't want to attempt to load it, it's not something that can be done within the confines of the game itself.
