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Walkerboh: The more I think about it the more your analogy, just doesn't work. I think it more accuately reflects this situation: If person A is actually working on an improvement of a game and is posting his findings and then person B uses those findings to improve the game and submit a run before person A.
In the situation with Phil and Sleepz, it is more like the waiter saw the money on the table and decided to leave it there until tomorrow when he comes back for his next shift. If it is not there when he comes back he doesn't have as much right to complain. Yes the money is his and the guy still took it, but the waiter just left it sitting there. The same is true here. Sleepz had no intention on working on this game again so I think it is fair game for anyone else to do so.
Perhaps the situation would have been different if it took longer to obsolete sleepz run. If the movie had stood unchallenged for several years, I bet everyone would have been praising Phil. How incredible it was that he found a way to improve a movie that was thought to be perfect.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3576)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
No, But if he were actively working on it (or at least testing and planning) then yes
Saying he might have intentions of doing it doesn't mean he will actually get around to doing it. But even then he has more of an argument than he does in this situation
I just read all nine pages of this, and have watched the side-by-side video. What a mess this is...
On one hand, it's a half-second improvement on what was thought to be perfect... for a game that takes less than 10 minutes to complete, that's really something. It's obviously not just a copy/paste of Sleepz's run -- I could actually pick out the differences with the side-by-side. I wonder if I could do the same with the 3-or-fewer-frames-different SMB1 runs...
On the other hand, I find Sleepz's run to be more entertaining around bosses, especially versus Wart. Stand inside the bad guy? Awesome. The wobbling in Phil's movie bugs me, even though it's rarely done. I already know it's a movie created in an emulator, I don't need anything other than the intro of the AVI to tell me such.
But you know what? I haven't said anything that anyone else hasn't at this point. I wonder why I even bothered to type this. Boredom, I guess.
Voting "meh" because I just don't care anymore...
This was probably said already (I'm too lazy to read through all those pages), but the main problem seems to be that the person listed as the author of the current movie doesn't always correspond to the person who made the most discoveries in the game, and I think the reasoning of some people who think that Phil's movie shouldn't be published might be because he only made maybe 5% or less of the discoveries in this game. Maybe we should think of this more as working together to make a movie, and when someone makes a new movie it's like adding something to the existing movie. I've never liked it when people refer to a TAS maker as something like "the TAS world record holder". What's so special about that 1 person who happened to be the last one to make a discovery in a game? How about this crazy idea: List them all as authors (Phil, Sleepz, Genisto, Bisqwit). Or maybe this idea is even better: List all people who made discoveries as "screenwriters" and list the one person who did the recording for the current version as the "actor".
Edit: Btw, I just voted meh. Before Bisqwit yells at me for not downloading the fcm, I did watch the side by side version that DeHackEd made.
I think Michael has a decent idea, but the fact is that most of the movies can be considered a collaborative effort by more than just the people who have had their names on published runs. What about the people who submitted imperfect runs that weren't accepted, but were improved upon by others? And everyone who discovered new tricks and posted them in the forums? "Game X by Player Y" doesn't mean that Player Y came up with everything he played in the context of this site, and I think most people know that. Player Y is simply the person who recorded the most recent improvement, and the improvement itself could have been his own discovery, or it could have come from someone here, or someone on another website, or anywhere! I'm not saying that a "by Player A, B, C, et al" isn't a good idea. What I'm mostly hoping is that the attitude of "this robs me of my hard work" will change. I'm grateful to everyone who submitted a run, published or not, and I don't think we forget the hard work that went into previous runs when a new run is published.
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
using a system like that would very much reduce secrecy, backstabbing, and ugly competition that has been brought to attention. There would still be competition, but it will be against ourselves, which is how it all started. I will support such a system.
Joined: 8/1/2004
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At some point, though, the histories will read:
version N: playerA finds a lot of new tricks and glitches to shave off minutes of time compared to version N-1
version N+1: playerB takes said tricks and shaves off a few seconds by controlling situations better
In turn, a lot of people will read that as "playerB played the game better than playerA, although they didnt really contribute a whole lot".
A history of the hosted movies would be fine, but defining how and why they were obsoleted is a bad idea. Using Bisqwit's example, simply listing movies with their past times and authors is ok. Anything more is asking for trouble.
Doesnt 36 frames translate into just over a second of improvement? I thought NES is 30 fps.
Anyway the one thing that really bugged me on sleepz run that looks better in phil's is that the last vegetable that came out of the tuba was caught optimally. Sleepz's had a noticable delay there that stuck out every time I watched it (at least 6 times).
This signature is much better than its previous version.
I have read all posts and haven't found my idea anywhere. Since this site aims for the fastest possible time while being entertaining, why isnt entertainement measured? The speed of the movie is measured in time, entertainement on the other hand isn't measured at all.
How would you suggest measuring something that doesn't a definite value? As you said, time has seconds. I would say the voting system roughly tries to put things into a "yes" or "no" entertainment-wise, and the stars classify movies as "very yes" entertainment-wise.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Good question. How someone came up with a definite value of time is they made up a standard system that everyone follows. And thats what gives time a definite value. We could do the same thing for entertainement. Since entertainment is an opinion of the mass majority, my suggestion would be to have a poll that says 'is this video entertaining' or 'was this more entertaining than the last' and have a 'Yes' or 'No'. That would give you a percentage.
Roughly, but not exact. I would say the voting system is more of a 'does this movie need more work?'. The star system is for after the movie has been released and the main discussion of this thread is before release.
I personally found some of the older movies more elegant. For example, using Luigi in level 1-2 to jump the birds, and then throwing the ninjutsus to jump the distance, instead of having Toad use the carpet seemed more fun to watch. Also, I don't understand why you have to enter the hidden world. Luigi throwing the key at the bird seemed faster than tossing that one bead throw times (though THAT is elegant, nevertheless) too. Anyway, I guess it's speed that matters.