Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1310)
Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
Wouldn't it make more sense to have it out of 127 or 128? Or at least 100? I don't see the big deal about a couple of extra digits in the display.
Well it's not a big deal either way, especially not the difference between 99 and 100, so I just went with the way that showed less digits (without making the max 7F).
Joined: 2/16/2005
Posts: 462
I would definitely show the hex or hex equivalent... you never know when you encounter a glitch that needs an exact value of the input. For instance in running quake 3 there is certain framerate you can limit your machine to that will cause all of the floating point vector operations in a jump to round up, making you go pretty fast.
This signature is much better than its previous version.
Joined: 12/1/2005
Posts: 107
Hi, I am a fan of SM64 and I've set many of the times on Curtis' site: http://www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cbright/sm64/startimescomp.html so I know how to play fast. I expressed the wish too see a tool assisted 120-stars run on the GameFaqs. These are my comments of the 16 stars-run: The new things I learned and IMO his most impressive tricks (in brackets the time of the video): 1. (2:15) The way he gets up to the platform with long-jump and back flip.I think everybody used the tree until now. 2. (3:10) The way he gets up to the top of the tower. 3. (4:25) The shoot out of the cannon for "Blast away the wall".He slightly gets up to the moving platform without waiting. I didn't know this was possible. 4. (4:50) His jump-tricks after wall kicking for the "Shoot into the wild blue". 5. (6:00) The long jump to the lower platform. I used to normally jump and then kick before I land. 6. (6:45) The 8 red coins in the stage of the 1st Bowser. Maybe the best part of the run. Especially the last 2 red coins. 7. (10:40) The triple jump up to the "A-maze-ing emergency exit". This doesn't seem to be faster than the other method though, but it is quite impressive. 8. (12:35) He uses the "Mario camera" for this star and gets to the sub from the side of the star. 9. (13:15) The last part of the 2nd Bowser 10. (15:00) Long jump and wall-kick to the platform. I don't know how exactly he did this. 11. (15:25) Long jump and triple jump on the edges? Insane! I don't want to insult anyone, but I was dissapointed reading all the comments for the 120 stars-run. I think this is a task for a hardcore Mario-player and not for someone who doesn't know what exactly happens when you collect the star on the vanish cap course, or that you can finish the entire game without even using the metal cap, or that you get 5 extra coins by jumping on a whomp, or or or... And there are so many tricks that are known for this game, that many experienced players on the SM64-board can pull off easily. But starting an absolute run for the game, without even knowing the star names, or how to get each star, doesn't seem to get the best result... What do you think?
Joined: 3/31/2005
Posts: 148
Location: Colorado
You're welcome to share your knowledge with us. I'm not sure knowing the names of every star is important though. I don't doubt that foda would appreciate you gaving your input on his WIPS, as he releases them, so you can tell him about all the tricks you know.
Do not try to bend the spoon, that's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth. What Truth? There is nospoon. Then you will see it is not the spoon that changes, it is only yourself
Emulator Coder
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 453
Location: Norway
Most of your kind does not like us that much, and more or less all of them wont even touch anything with slowdown or frameadvance or rerecord. Not our fault. As spoonie said, if you are willing to help, yay! Otherwise, you got no reason to complain when you are sitting on awesome tricks that didnt get used because you didnt help :P Not to sound mean or anything just stating facts.
Skilled player (1410)
Joined: 5/31/2004
Posts: 1821
FILIM0NAS wrote:
I think this is a task for a hardcore Mario-player and not for someone who doesn't know what exactly happens when you collect the star on the vanish cap course, or that you can finish the entire game without even using the metal cap, or that you get 5 extra coins by jumping on a whomp, or or or... And there are so many tricks that are known for this game, that many experienced players on the SM64-board can pull off easily. But starting an absolute run for the game, without even knowing the star names, or how to get each star, doesn't seem to get the best result... What do you think?
I have great respect for regular speedrunning, and the speedrunners... don't get me wrong.... but I have to totally disagree with you. TASing is something totally different than normal speedrunning. I think someone with lots of basic knowledge will spend about the same time TASing the same game as someone who know not too much about the game. When doing a TAS of a game, you aquire knowledge of a game, you would never get by normally playing the game. You'll know stuff like at what frame to jump, how many frames a jump takes, etc etc. Glitches are easier discovered on an emulator, since you have rerecords, and slowdown, and searching for them has something to do with general knowledge on how games are programmed. You complemented Spezzafer on his run, but if I'm not mistakes Spezzafer hasn't played Mario64 that much himself, so he doesn't have that much more knowledge than Foda. Foda is an excellent TAS player, and up to now, he has been spending lots of time on this movie, and I actually have the feeling it will get completed (something I didn't thought when I heared about a 120 star TAS. You also might find it interesting that one of the best movies available (in my opinion) on the site, the NES legend of zelda movie, was played by someone who didn't know that much about zelda at all when he started the movie.
Former player
Joined: 3/31/2005
Posts: 192
Location: Argentina
It's true that the Metal Cap is not necessary to get all stars. "Through the jet stream" can be obtained just by diving at the right angle toward it. As for the underwater switch in Hazy Maze Cave, it can be pushed by butt-stomping on it. The problem is getting the 8-red-coin star in the Metal Cap area. It's possible, yes, but definitely much slower without the Metal Cap, because of the water current.
Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Yeah, the nice thing about a tas-assisted tas-attack is that you can do a little at a time, so you don't necessarily have to know everything at once.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 804
Location: Canada
If there is any doubt that FODA knows how to do this stuff, check his current 120 star WIP. It's a little over 2 hours, contains very few errors, and shows off just about everything you can possibly do. Now he's optimizing it and has taken off almost a minute after only 8 stars. When completed, there is no question in my mind that it will break all the records. If any experts out there want to give advice, I'm sure it will be graciously accepted. Nevertheless, this guy is a professional TAS-maker and the run is going to rock no matter what.
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
Former player
Joined: 7/14/2005
Posts: 103
i would kind of have to agree with what he's saying, though. i know that with frame advance, there's really no excuse for error, but this is more on the micro level. when it comes to huge games such mario 64, i believe that well seasoned and knowledgeable players may have that macro-edge for some things that a taser won't see. of course, there's really no point in even mentioning that, but i think it's certainly a good thing for veteran players of a game to point out things and contribute to the tas.
Joined: 11/11/2004
Posts: 400
Location: ::1
nico wrote:
i would kind of have to agree with what he's saying, though. i know that with frame advance, there's really no excuse for error, but this is more on the micro level. when it comes to huge games such mario 64, i believe that well seasoned and knowledgeable players may have that macro-edge for some things that a taser won't see. of course, there's really no point in even mentioning that, but i think it's certainly a good thing for veteran players of a game to point out things and contribute to the tas.
Seasoned players who want to point out things and contribute are more than welcome. It's just seasoned (?) players who only complain about the young whippersnappers thinking they know something about the game when in fact they are the only ones who do that aren't. =)
nesrocks
He/Him
Player (246)
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
Filimonas is welcome to bring anyone to make a TAS for this game, 120 stars. But if he does that, i'll stop releasing WIPS because it's competition mode i don't want them to use my ideas. I guess he should have seen the test run before saying anything. I pressed the metal cap switch but i didn't use the metal cap anywhere in the game. That's what the test run was for. It's OBVIOUS now that i shouldn't use the metal cap. I now know that stepping on thwomps gives a max of 5 extra coins, i also learned you can grab a koopa shell underwater and that makes you swim faster for about 10 seconds (looks like its gonna be useless in this run). I also now know what happens when i get the star in the vanish cap course. I didn't have to play the game for years memorizing star names. I've also been able to replicate every usefull glitch that i've seen, or even make them more efficiently. Wouter Jansen has sent me over 400 mb of videos from Curtis bright, Dom dunc, Brandon Sanford, Dabid Gibbons, Myles Bukrim, Stefan Van Djike and others. I've now watched the current best 16, 70 and 120 stars speedruns, and i even discovered it was possible to use the backwards longjump trick on upwards moving plataform before even hearing anything about it. Also, did you know i got to set 12'3 for princess slide? All in what? 1 week? i guess i'm learning fast enough. TAS isn't about gaming skill, its about brains and patience. I think i don't lack much of either. And the thread is open for people to discuss about the movies i release. If you see i did something wrong you can help pointing it out, or you can do it yourself, or you can even not say anything. If you choose the first or the second, welcome. ///////////// Now about the run itself: people seem to be ok with the route i picked for the JRB stars, so i'll play it once more for optimization. Also the last star in JRB was very imperfect, but i was playing with max 63% range. I don't know if having 100% will help, but i'll stick to that from now on.
Joined: 2/16/2005
Posts: 462
I don't think Fil meant what he said in the way it came out but I disagree with FODA needing to know everything about the game to begin with. Most TASs that grow up on these boards are very much collaborative efforts. Since a TAS is made in small incremental steps the community can help out a lot with feedback and planning meaning the player doesnt need to know everything starting out. Because of rerecords, a TAS player is always guaranteed of being able to match or beat the current record. The only skills the player needs is dedication, creative thinking, strong logical reasoning and technical skills like managing rerecords and properly assessing progress towards the current goal. But yes if you feel you have knowledge to share on the planning / WIP by all means do!
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Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
So Metal Mario isn't faster at grabbing the eight red coins in the Metal Cap stage?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
nesrocks
He/Him
Player (246)
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
So Metal Mario isn't faster at grabbing the eight red coins in the Metal Cap stage?
We'll know when i get there :) pushing the switch or not is independent from the rest of the game. I'll try to do something to not need to push the switch, but if there's no way around it...
Joined: 11/24/2005
Posts: 87
I partially agree, and partially don't with Filimonas. While the full test run was fantastic, there were doubtlessly many strategies employed that were suboptimal. The reason I partially disagree is because FODA said that that test run wasn't done with slow motion and only with savestates and was made primarily to test castle routes. So because of this, I am banking on him spending a lot of time testing routes within courses as he optimizes his test run, using slow motion and a lot of creativity. So basically, I am assuming that he will figure all of these optimal strategies out, while also discovering some nice new strategies such as the elevator longjumping in BBB.
Joined: 4/29/2005
Posts: 1212
Speaking of your WIPs, FODA, when will your next one be linked anyway? I like the improvements you made on the previous WIP. At that rate, you will probably shave at least ten minutes off of your final time from the Test Run.
Joined: 5/24/2004
Posts: 262
I'm no mario expert or anything, but I'm guessing a much more substantial time savings on the final version based on what I saw in the test run. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that the final time will be closer to 100 min. than to 120. Pure speculation, of course ;) Good luck FODA!
Joined: 1/23/2005
Posts: 73
Location: Pekin IL
FODA wrote:
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
So Metal Mario isn't faster at grabbing the eight red coins in the Metal Cap stage?
We'll know when i get there :) pushing the switch or not is independent from the rest of the game. I'll try to do something to not need to push the switch, but if there's no way around it...
a thought... What is the difference between say a 100% run, and a 120 star run in Mario 64? By hitting the switch, i believe you complete everything there is to do in mario 64. Correct me if i'm wrong. You can still label it a 120 star run, but hit the switch. my two cents
Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Then again, wouldn't opening a door count as a "thing to do", since the game saves whether you've done that? So when Foda uses a movement trick to skip a door, is that not getting 100%?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 804
Location: Canada
I'm a perfectionist, so when I first bought this game, I immediately set out to achieve "100%" and didn't stop playing until I felt I had achieved it. One of my criteria was to get every coin on every course. Someone else's definition of 100% may vary.
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
I tried to do that once, but I was really bad at it and figured it was impossible in some levels.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Former player
Joined: 4/16/2004
Posts: 1276
Location: Uppsala, Sweden
In my opinion the metal hat-switch should be pressed, even if you don't use it anywhere.
/Walker Boh
Joined: 4/23/2004
Posts: 150
There are two things I would like to say to FODA. I have a little bit of difficulty accepting the fact that you don't want others to use your strategies, when the ambition is to create the fastest possible run. Judging by what you said, it sounds like it's more important that you make the fastest run, as opposed to creating something faster by sharing along the way, so others can implement it along the way. I'd understand if you'd want credit for a certain strategy, etc. but you would still get that. I know you know all this, so I'm wondering why you would mind that others used your approaches. I think hiding would foster bad-spirited competition, which is as far as I understand, something you don't want. One other thing that you mention in the thread in an attempt to counter-argue the need for game expertise is the amount of videos Wouter has sent you. But these videos are from the seasoned players Filimonas is referring to, so that doesn't really prove expertise isn't part of it. Sure, it may not be required, but it made you learn faster/become more efficient, didn't it? Which is more of less what was argued in the first place. Andreas
Joined: 12/12/2004
Posts: 158
To me it's a bit cooler to go without pressing it, but I think that just whatever's faster should be done, since it doesn't matter overly much, and different people will prefer different things.