I can live with using "Posts since last visit" instead of having the icons, but I can't seem to find any way to actually clear that view along the lines of what "Mark All Read" used to do... Which means I have to try to memorize which page I was at when I last visited the site.
Log out and then log in seems to be the workaround for now.
The problem with arbitrary code execution is that unless it's used to jump directly to the end of the game (I'm not going to the question of whether that's a "legit" completion of the game of not), it essentially just wastes time. Not really a speedrun.
TASVideos isn't just all about speedruns. Lots of videos makes entertainment tradeoffs, and there are playarounds too. So in a sense, not all videos are speedruns because they don't complete the game as fast as possible.
But perhaps these kinds of videos might be better suited as things like glitch showcases.
I would say that if these kinds of "hacking" allows for some good entertainment value, then why not? They obviously can't compete with other runs, or obsolete other runs, because as you open up these things, the sky is the limit and that really makes impossible to compete fairly.
But TASVideos has historically allowed runs for pure entertainment if I'm not wrong, not just purely aiming for best time. So in that sense, why not? I find it siimlar to Arbitrary Code Execution, that while possibly through normal controller inputs, once activated, the sky is the limit.
Those are my thought anyway.
It's apparently about some guys who cracked open a controller and physically pressed the chip on the circuit board to achieve interesting effects in Goldeneye. In the end, the community unanimously agreed that the "glitch" should be banned.
Oh, and all videos related to the "glitch" were purged from the internet, or so they said.
I mean, none is better than some, so if I could choose, I would select none. It's also less arbitrary than choosing a select few because you'd have to somehow come up with a justification for including or excluding it.
So I guess my opinion is, I don't like ANY dark sections.
4 minutes run... 10 minutes extremely boring setup times. No thanks. I'll just watch these after the marathon is ended by grabbing the videos off twitch and using the magic of fast forwarding.
Currently, I ban encoding this. I think TASes should be evaluated by their imput files. And this is re-recorded on a deprecated emulator.
That's a little harsh, considering that it would require potential people who are interested to download the emulator, illegally download the game and then playing it back on the emulator. Not everyone is interested in the inputs contained in the input file. Some people, myself included, are interested in the result of your work, not the work itself. But without an encode, it's a hassle to see the product of the work.
Now I hold making a to-be-submitted TAS. One thing is the rulesets are not defined. Other is sub 1-hour seems impossible, so I'm not motivated. Other is my real life is a little complicated.
Well, I mean, you can still release your work as-is. There is no requirement to submit it. I'm sure many would appreciate your work even if it's not optimal.
Wow, this game is far glitchier than I thought. I could see why "100%" definition would be rather tricky, given how a number of things can be seemingly magically glitched. I have no idea what to make of duping rupees but not heart containers other than it would be "interesting", but good luck.
It seems clear to me. 100% is COLLECTING all the things in the game meant to be attained by game developers, not magically attaining them. If you duplicate something, clearly the original is still there, so it doesn't count for 100%.
As for rupees, there are an infinite amount of them, so they can't be classified as "collectibles." Actually, it's the same for heart containers. You can duplicate an infinite amount of them if you wish, but you must still collect all the heart containers in the game.
We have to consider that they have a huge catalog of things to select among and time is highly valuable, so while all submissions may have been good, there might just have been better things to pick from in their eyes. Not that I would agree with them, though.
If GDQ TASes were to become more traditional instead of playaround, exploits with chat, etc, then I don't see why they wouldn't accept such TASes onto the site? It may be tailored to GDQ, but the fact still remains that they complete the games as fast as possible while still playing around, that is, no different from existing movies.
Unfortunately, real speed runners also have to compete for a time in the marathon, and that means practicing their games. But just because they practice the games doesn't mean they make it into the marathon. To think that just because this is TASVideos, we should just be able to get an exception to that rule, I think, is unfair.
To some extent, producing a TAS is a lot different from practicing a run, so there must be a fine line somewhere. But in general, I still find that it is less entertaining and much less fair to everyone else if TASVideos don't put effort into trying to bring their own, customized, TASes to GDQ. I think we should also keep in mind that GDQ runs are different from normal runs. They're much safer than normal strategies and runners specifically practice to do these runs for GDQ, as opposed to just normal speedruns which sacrifice safety for speed.
@andy: Nothing is preventing people from creating regular TASes that can be published on TASVideos. Why would making a TAS meant for viewing on GDQ be such a bad thing? It is only one TAS among all others, and it has been done on every event before this with ACE, etc.
I always find SM64 to be entertaining and Super Metroid, especially the Reverse Boss Order one, although it may be a bit long.
Still, I find that it just feels wrong to take an off-the-shelf run and play it back at GDQ. What's different from doing it at GDQ than simply watching the run at youtube? Each runner carefully practices their runs before the event and has to pull it off realtime. But a TAS has none of that at least not premade. So it feels wrong to pick an off-the-shelf one. It feels more "right" to make a TAS explicitly made for GDQ.
The point of TASes, I think, is not just completing the game as fast as possible, but to pull off stunts to gives off "awesomeness" to the public, especially under a GDQ setting. Anyway, those are my thoughts.
The argument is that just protecting the login page won't be much safer and much better. It won't really do much to aid security at all unless the entire site runs on https (at least where login information and hence the session cookie is used).
That would be undesirable, of course, but if I understand correctly, simply hijacking your session doesn't allow the attacker to change your password (I haven't actually tried to change my password on tasvideos.org, but I'm assuming you need to enter your old one to be able to do it).
In an ideal world, they should not be able to change anything sensitive, such as passwords. But it all depends on how well the server handles security, because the hacker is not "someone else", the hacker is YOU, the hacker has identified themselves as YOU, not some stranger. There are usually these back doors. What if, say, the hacker tries to PM an admin and say they've lost their password and email (arguing, for example, that they have auto-login ticked on their computer)? In the ideal scenario, that won't work. But as we've seen before (e.g. Apple), sometimes security routines fail.
Warp wrote:
Your account could be used to post spam etc. this way, which is bad, but logging out and in again ought to quickly fix that. If I'm mistaken, please correct me.
Sure, until the hacker steals your next session ID. If they've stolen one, I don't see why they wouldn't steal the next.
Perhaps for that reason the https protocol could be restricted to the login page. Would be better (much better) than nothing.
It's just as easy to steal your session cookie id as it is to steal your password. Unless the entire site is protected by https, your cookie id is vulnerable, hence making the site no more secure than before from the site's point of view.
I think it's just better to stop "1-upping" ourselves, because let's face it, it's not going to keep happening. At some point in time, we're just not going to be able to keep doing it. How long do you intend to wait to find something new? A year? Two? Three? At some point we have to face the fact that we're just not going to be able to do it. dwangoAC & Co has admitted as much. So let's just break the ice and stop doing it. I honestly think we're beyond the point where we can keep doing it. Takeovers just aren't as cool as they once were. So let's get it out of the way and just keep delivering fun content, regardless of whether we "1-up" ourselves or not. Skipping a GDQ would probably make a large majority unhappy anyway.
I honestly think it's because we're trying to do too much in each marathon. If we're going to do new hacks, modifications, etc every time, then sure, it's going to take time. But what if we didn't do everything from "scratch" all the time? Some people have already suggested showing off traditional runs in the blocks, not just take-overs and stuff. I mean, like, that a Mario 64 run and show it off if we have N64 console verification. That should leave much more time for some other stuff for AGDQ. Don't miss out on SGDQ!
We don't need to stress so much. Let's do something plain and simple for once so that so much time and creeping deadlines don't hurt so much.
I kind of ask myself the question of why do people watch GDQ? My presumable answer is that they get a kick out of seeing runners completely break games by showing total control over it and making difficult usually seem like easy things. Of course, there's excitement because it's being pulled off live too. But that leads me to the question of why can't we show off a TAS that does the same thing?
Pulling off a takeover was cool the first time. But if you're just going to do it over and over, it's going to lose its magic. We can't just do a takeover for the sake of it. We have to make it actually lead to something. And maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't make it so obvious. Mixed content is the key, I think. Do something people really do not expect. Several 5-10 minute runs just screams "take me over" to me.
Well, regardless, I think it is amazing stuff that you people pull off, so keep that up. Even if the feedback is a little negative, it does not mean the work you did was any less amazing. Hopefully SGDQ will be a little better.