Not really on topic, but I'm still of the opinion that the reputation of the Vault and Moon tiers ought to be reversed (with name changes to reflect it.)
Getting to Vault ought to be a hard-earned privilege. After all, a run can get there only in a very narrow set of circumstances: It has to be an any% or 100% game completion, and it must break all existing records. In other words, it has to be the best of the best. And only two runs at maximum (any% and 100%) can reach this privileged top position.
The Moon tier should be the "dump for everything else". If a run does not qualify for the privileged position in the Vault, it might nevertheless be published by being relegated to Moons, where everything else is dumped as well. Getting to Moons is not a privilege; it's the dump where the run is thrown when it doesn't qualify for being the best of the best.
Just my opinion.
I agree with what Warp said, except for the use of "privileged." (I know that was just used to make a point) The Vault should be all 100% or any% runs that aim for pure speed. They are to be judged solely on whether or not anyone can find any way to improve them. If improvements are known, they are not eligible. The moon tier should be any runs that fall outside of that, pure entertainment runs, alternate goals, glitch avoidance, stuff like that. Those runs should be judged on entertainment value. Different focuses. Different goals. Ending up in the Vault should not be seen as a punishment, though.
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Yeah, and what is so good in that? And what problems does it solve exactly?
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.
Makes it something to strive for. That's the part of my proposal I'm least supportive of.
If all movies that aimed for fastest time and got through the selection process ended up in the vault, we wouldn't need this discussion about movies erroneously being placed in the wrong category.
I suppose that my point was, which has been discussed in another thread in the past, and as arkiandruski seems to be pointing out, that the Vault ought to contain all any% and 100% TASes, and the Moon ought to contain everything else.
It should not be a question of everything going to the Vault by default, with a few select ones being elevated into Moons (as seems to be the case in this very thread). Perhaps they should be completely distinct categories altogether. And getting to Vault ought to be much harder than to Moon, where the standards of qualification are significantly less strict.
But yeah, I'm just repeating that past discussion.
This is exactly why I think we should not use moon/vault tiering (I prefer categories of speed and entertainment primary goal). A TAS that aims for fastest time is not worse than one that aims for entertainment. They are in fact equal, but in different ways. Hiding the vault by default makes the speed categories look like they were put in the trash bin. Of course, the proposals for change belong in the vault tier discussion thread.
Then remove the 80% threshold from the guidelines if it isn't being followed (my signature is appropriate). Actually, having one poll question doesn't work. It needs to be split into two questions, one for whether it should be published (optimized enough, etc.) and the other to ask about entertainment. That way a judge can read the entertainment better.
As for movie rating, we really need to improve the system (flow and make the rating values make sense, especially technical) to get people to rate movies. Right now there aren't really enough people movie voting (myself included) for the reasons above) for the values to make complete sense. I find it annoying that people will rate the popular games, but can't be bothered to rate other movies on the site.
Also with the movie rating and the entertainment poll question, I believe there is voting bias from if one likes or dislikes a game. Entertainment should be based on how the TAS plays the game, not the game itself.
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Rating system even remotedly close to perfect is plain impossible:
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.
Joined: 8/14/2009
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The guideline in question states votes are only one of multiple factors to take into account when judging tiers. It does not say "80% = instant moons". It gives it a decent case, of course, but it is not conclusive or guaranteed.
The idea of the voting question (as it is currently) is to ask about entertainment. Optimization or publishability are determined by the judge and not by votes. The problem is that, regardless of what you ask of the viewers, they will vote their own things which will on occasion not align with the actual question being asked. That is something that cannot be changed (we tried, and basically failed). People still vote "yes for Vault" nearly three years after tiers have been introduced and the voting question changed accordingly.
This also goes for movie ratings - no matter how exactly we want to define 'technical' rating etc., people will invent their own qualifiers and vote according to their own ideas. Even for entertainment rating, which everyone can get at least a decent idea of, their metrics can still be all over the place. Anyhow, there is another topic about this.
Of course popular games will get more ratings. That is how popularity works.
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.
Q2: Did you find this movie entertaining? Choose intended tier:
*Moon
*Vault
*This game is crap
In this case everyone will be able to clearly express their opinion by answering these two questions.
I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Current projects: NES: Tetris "fastest 999999" (improvement, with r57shell)
Genesis: Adventures of Batman & Robin (with Truncated); Pocahontas; Comix Zone (improvement); Mickey Mania (improvement); RoboCop versus The Terminator (improvement); Gargoyles (with feos)
Warp: No, no, no.
The point in the Vault/Moon distinction is to resolve the fundamental conflict between two very different aims of tasvideos: to entertain its viewers, and to be an archive of tool-assisted speedruns that catalogues the fastest possible completion times for every game. Hence the Moon tier is set up to house movies that get to exist on the site because they are entertaining (and who cares what crazy goal choice those movies might have, as long as they're entertaining?), and all other movies go to the Vault.
But the other crucial thing about the Vault is that Vault movies are hidden away, out of sight of newcomers. This is designed to prevent newcomers being warded off the site by early exposure to boring TASes. If we had all any%/100% movies in the same tier then Where In Time Is Carmen Sandiego (for example) would be mixed in with some very entertaining movies, and, in some sense, would be more "respectable" than BLJ-less Mario 64, for example. Does anyone really want that?
Archanfel: the thing is that, in 98% of cases, whether a movie is publishable is objective and fairly obvious, and in the other 2% of cases there's a strong argument that such a judgement is best left to the judge (hence the name). In any case, the judge would not be swayed by a poll answer but rather submission thread comments which have had time and thought put into them. Note that, while the site did use to have the "should this movie be published?" question, that was only in the pre-Vault era when a movie had to be entertaining to be published.
That's what featured movies and newcomer recommendations are for: so that new people to the site get to see the better movies first. There's no reason that any movie we're willing to accept to the site should be hidden away in a dark corner with a sign warning people to turn back.
If the stars and newcomer movies are not enough, people browsing are more likely to first view runs form games they know and love, and are thus more likely to be entertained by them.
I fully agree that TASVideos should be inclusive in that every game deserves a TAS (unless there's a very good reason not to accept one). However, I do not like the fact that there's a "dump" category where all "boring" runs are put, semi-hidden away. "Vault" has almost become a synonym for "garbage dump", which is not right IMO.
Setting the world record completion of a game, and thus getting to the Vault, should be a rewarding achievement, not a punishment for choosing the wrong game.
I kind of agree with this and am coming around to Warp's idea. There are close to 90 starred runs now that'd probably take around 30 hours if you sat down and tried to watch them all, and 14 "recommended for newcomers" best of the best that are around 5-6 hours within that. It seems a little silly to say that it needs to be subdivided even further beyond that to not scare off the casual viewer.
And as always, I am all for rewriting the answers to the poll question to make it actually useful and reflect people's opinions again.
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I suddenly start agreeing that we do quite some things for promotion already that would not get lost even if the tier system is changed. And the unpromotion (hiding) feels better if left for the user to set borderlines. However, there will be exactly the same borderline cases when making judgment, since if some run's entertainment level isn't quite enough, it's either weakly accepted, or rejected. But those aren't the reasons why we want the changes anymore, are they?
Oh, and as I said back then, with such system we won't need 2 polls or entertainment poll. People can understand absurd goals, people can understand sloppiness. If they vote yes on an any%, they consider it optimal. If they vote yes on a side goal, they consider it entertaining. But I have no proof for that yet, other than it's how it used to work for years.
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.
Joined: 8/14/2014
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The problem i've had since before I registered with the site is the wording on the Vault info page. Specifically the wording "this is the lowest publication tier". I understand that there are some movies that will be more popular than others, but I think this wording can be taken very poorly by some people, especially newcomers. I do think that if the Vault's parameters were based around a goal (which is less subjective) in a sense of "this run was made and accepted for the Vault due to the author's intentional goal choices" it would look better overall. A run being published to the Vault should not be treated like a failure on the author's part to entertain if the movie is optimal. That's what I feel is most discouraging to see - to see a run you or someone else worked hard on treated with the overall notion of "meh, it's optimal. Shove it in the Vault".
And why exactly do we need a section devoted to "collecting WR TASes". With that logic why are there restrictions on collecting? If this was a Baseball card collection that would be like saying "I collect Baseball cards, except third basemen; they're trivial". It's always felt odd, almost needlessly hierarchical, to me.
Joined: 11/13/2006
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This sure is a thread about discussing Vault runs that are good enough to become Moons.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on Bluesky
Moon tier is for TASes that met some minimum entertainment standard, while also completing their goal in-game.
Vault tier is for the fastest available any% and 100% TASes.
Therefore, a movie that is both entertaining and fastest in its category should be considered to be both in Moons and the Vault. If a faster movie shows up that's less entertaining, it might be obsoleted as a Vault run but remain published in Moons in a non-vault category (e.g. No game end glitch).
Trying 127.0.0.1...
telnet: connect to address 127.0.0.1: Connection refused
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host
Y'know, after looking through the list of highly-rated Vault movies, I have to wonder if the decline of the amount of ratings people give to movies is making it harder to reliably infer a general consensus on what tiers movies should actually go in. For example, [2702] Genesis Zero Tolerance by Dimon12321 in 19:52.65 has 61% yes votes in its discussion thread, 13 out of 21, so it was published to vault. But so far, its publication has only been handed 3.5 votes, and it's sitting comfortably at an average of 6.6. I guess there's not a huge overlap between people who vote/people who rate, no? I think submission votings should definitely factor into whether a movie should make the change.
As for Vault runs that should be moons? Hm. I kinda like Superman by Highness, and the entertainment rating isn't too bad (6/10), but it's from 2004 and appears to have a lot of sloppy moments, so idk. Maybe it should wait until an improved version by whoever.
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To nudge back on-topic, this one has been published for over 2 1/2 years and has an average entertainment rating of 6.8 (with 5 votes).
[2319] GBA Mega Man Battle Network 2 by mtvf1 in 1:38:35.28
It's a longer one, but perhaps it's time to bump it up to Moons?
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
Fine. Can we split off the tangent. I think this needs to be discussed. (feos, are you able to do that?)
Barring that, what is this forum's view on necroing threads?
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Necroing is preferred over starting new threads. There's a thread for general Vault discussion where further conversation should probably be happening.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on Bluesky
This is one of the reasons why I love this forum. It annoys me to no end in other forums when someone would want to post something in the context of a previous (old) discussion, he will be berated for "necroposting" (which is a completely silly thing to complain about IMO.)
Joined: 11/13/2006
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Speaking of posting something in the context of a discussion, do you have any Vaulted movies you want to see moved to Moons?
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on Bluesky
Well, as I wrote earlier, I don't think any Vault movies should be moved to Moons. I think that the current Mooned any% and 100% movies should be elevated to Vault status. IMO.