Not sure if this belongs here or in the Site Suggestions, if inappropriate, a moderator can move.
This already happened in the past but now with DarkKobold's 8-hours movie we have a blatant example, of people voting without watching the movie. Unless they had access to earlier WIPs, the three people who already voted on this after only 2 hours didn't have the chance to watch it. Ok, maybe two people since DarkKobold himself is allowed to vote on his own movie. However this was just an example as it happened several other times in the past, especially with hours-long submissions.
I wonder how hard it would be to integrate a forum feature that keeps polls locked for a certain amount of time, which should be at least the duration of the movie, or even a sophisticated tracing system which logs the first time an user entered that submission topic, preventing him from voting until an appropriate time passed.
And yes I know, "judges don't look at the poll, they read comments", etc. But it would still be a good idea to take some move to prevent bad behaviours as a principle.
I wonder how hard it would be to integrate a forum feature that keeps polls locked for a certain amount of time, which should be at least the duration of the movie, or even a sophisticated tracing system which logs the first time an user entered that submission topic, preventing him from voting until an appropriate time passed.
That still wouldn't mean the person watched the movie...
In this case, it'll probably be published regardless of the votes (it's a Final Fantasy title), unless someone finds an improvement in the next three days.
I'm not sure people who had voted no had any intentions to watch the movie in full. It's an RPG, the gameplay stays pretty much the same the whole way through, give or take a few glitches, so if you've seen the first two hours and they have failed to be impressive, not wasting any further time would probably be a good suggestion. (And even if there are gamebreaking glitches involved, they are still bound to get old at some point in a movie of this length, so if you aren't a fan, it's not going to change the grand picture.)
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
In this particular case, I am not a fan of RPGs, and therefore I am not going to watch this movie (not even 2 hours of it) because I know I wouldn't appreciate it. But being honest and respectful towards the author's work and dedication, I am not going to vote no using only my bias against RPGs as motivation, it doesn't sound right. If I vote no it usually means "ok I thought this movie could be interesting, I watched it all, and I didn't like it, I am disappointed", because I am in the position to take such an opinion, this is a motivated no. But "no because I don't like 8-hours long RPGs" is just so wrong.
edit just like it's wrong to go all "omg it's Final Fantasy it must be good by default let's vote yes without watching the movie!!11!"
One should have the conscience to abstain or watch the whole movie.
I'm not a fan of RPGs either, yet I've watched quite a few TASes thereof. I have been surprised many times by runs I didn't think I'd like. Generally, "not a fan of genre X" and "I don't think I'll like run Y" are hardly a good reason not to watch something.
There are people that watch anything that goes their way, they have a full right to express their honest opinion. There are people who watch RPG runs but didn't like this one. There are people who had another reason to vote no, but forgot to, or decided not to express it. There are people who misclick things and aren't even aware of it.
The stigma surrounding "no" votes is disturbing, I suggest caring less.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I think that voting no without detailing (commenting) it won't affect other's (and mostly the judges') opinion that much. Don't forget that the question is "Should this movie be published?" and not "This movie is as good as the SMB runs?" or anything else. Everyones' taste is different. From my self experiences I used to deal these things with multiple rating polls. Just like combining with the movie rating:
What do you think about this submission?
Entertainment 0 ~ 10
Tech Quality 0 ~ 10
Game choice 0 ~ 10
But I'm 100% fine with the simple yes/no poll.
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
I think that voting no without detailing (commenting) it won't affect other's (and mostly the judges') opinion that much. Don't forget that the question is "Should this movie be published?" and not "This movie is as good as the SMB runs?" or anything else. Everyones' taste is different. From my self experiences I used to deal these things with multiple rating polls. Just like combining with the movie rating:
What do you think about this submission?
Entertainment 0 ~ 10
Tech Quality 0 ~ 10
Game choice 0 ~ 10
But I'm 100% fine with the simple yes/no poll.
Its been done - and failed miserably.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
What do you think about this submission?
Entertainment 0 ~ 10
Tech Quality 0 ~ 10
Game choice 0 ~ 10
Its been done - and failed miserably.
To clarify, while the concept of viewers responsibly rating submissions as they come is well-intentioned, the flaw lies in the "responsibly" part of it, and does it ever. It only takes one thread (a long and lively debate on social behavior in submission threads and voting), not to mention all the stuff that has occurred over and over with submissions, to see that viewer irresponsibility has existed, exists, and will continue to exist. It may seem awfully cynical, but that's the truth.
The less importance we place on the submission poll, the better.
Edit:mmbossman's post in the linked thread pretty much sums it up similarly.
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Noob Irdoh wrote:
Not sure if this belongs here or in the Site Suggestions, if inappropriate, a moderator can move.
This already happened in the past but now with DarkKobold's 8-hours movie we have a blatant example, of people voting without watching the movie. Unless they had access to earlier WIPs, the three people who already voted on this after only 2 hours didn't have the chance to watch it. Ok, maybe two people since DarkKobold himself is allowed to vote on his own movie. However this was just an example as it happened several other times in the past, especially with hours-long submissions.
There's nothing new in this suggestion, it has been discussed ad nausem throughout the years. The problem is that in a system that already finds every excuse in the book to discourage no votes this skews the situation even more. Only people who watch a movie all the way through get to vote? Who watches the entire movie? people who liked it, those who didn't probably didn't bother to finish.
Also it is pretty easy to gauge the entertainment value of a movie before watching the entire thing. Though in general you shouldn't judge a movie by its first few levels. Since level 1 is usually the least interesting one.
Edit:mmbossman's post in the linked thread pretty much sums it up similarly.
The good thing about the three-grade voting system (yes/no/meh) is that it effectively stops people from misusing/abusing the system to bolster or shun a submission for biased reasons (such as "I like this game a lot and want the run published, hence I'll vote 10 on all categories", or "I don't like improvements on existing publications, hence I'll vote 0 on all categories"). With the yes/no/meh system they can't add bias to the voting results. Their opinion weighs as much as anybody else's.
Of course the downside of this is that people cannot issue the "weak yes" and "weak no" votes they often would want to. (Although one could argue that's a good thing because it gives them motivation to write about it rather than just leaving it as a vote and nothing else.)
As for someone voting "no" just because they don't like JRPGs, I think that's rather egregious. I don't find SMB-style platformers very entertaining in terms of gameplay, but that doesn't mean I would vote "no" on all SMB and similar runs. I vote on them based on their own merit, especially technical quality, not based on whether I would like to play the game in question myself.
If someone doesn't want to watch an 8-hour run, then please abstain from voting.
If someone doesn't want to watch an 8-hour run, then please abstain from voting.
This is exactly what I was trying to say, so I have to agree with you. Sorry if I made things harder since English isn't my first language.
Note that I am not against "no" votes by their own, even "yes" votes can be bad if you didn't see a movie and vote "yes" because "it's Final Fantasy / it's Super Mario / it's Mega Man / the author is my friend".
If someone doesn't want to watch an 8-hour run, then please abstain from voting.
I would like to clarify this statement of mine a bit, since it can be misinterpreted when taken out of context.
What I meant with it was that if someone would want to vote "no" on a submission for the sole reason that it's several-hours-long and doesn't feel like watching that much, rather than for legitimate reasons (such as it having clear flaws), it's better to not to vote at all rather than voting "no" with the meaning of "I think TASes that are too long should not be published", especially if this person doesn't even want to watch the submission.
As for literally sitting there, watching every single second of the 8-hour movie uncut, that's not what my statement was meant to be about. In submissions this long speeding up or even outright skipping irrelevant parts such as cutscenes (especially if one had already seen them eg. because of having played the game) is ok, if it doesn't deter one from judging the run in its entirety.
Again: This is just my opinion. If someone wants to vote "no" regardless, be my guest. I'm just expressing how I view the practice.
Once again I agree with you about speeding up the playback for long movies. I always find myself watching the 100% Pokémon Red/Blue runs at least at a 5x speed. Yet I voted yes on most of them (if I could), or I will vote yes again once the new "catch them'all" run is complete.
Just like I didn't feel like sitting through the 300000 points bonus at the end of Sonic 1 (Game Gear) GHZ1, but I voted yes to that movie as well.
Unless they had access to earlier WIPs, the three people who already voted on this after only 2 hours didn't have the chance to watch it.
Funny you should ask since he posted video of the first two discs almost a week before the submitting the whole thing. After that there's less than 3 hours of the run left so it's entirely possible that those three people watched the entire run.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Noob Irdoh wrote:
This already happened in the past but now with DarkKobold's 8-hours movie we have a blatant example, of people voting without watching the movie. Unless they had access to earlier WIPs, the three people who already voted on this after only 2 hours didn't have the chance to watch it. Ok, maybe two people since DarkKobold himself is allowed to vote on his own movie. However this was just an example as it happened several other times in the past, especially with hours-long submissions.
I would like to counter this seeming *fact*.
An 8 hour run would seem like it needs 8 hours to watch, but in fact this doesn't hold true. If someone sets his emulator (or video player) to double speed, he can watch an 8 hour run in 4 hours. Before you think that is absurd, for slower paced games, I'm surprised there are people who aren't considering doing that. For any game where the action is slow, I generally increase the frame rate a bit to watch the run faster if the emulator supports doing so. For the MKVs/MP4s we produce, MPlayer and other video players support increasing the frame rate.
For those watching a movie, and already know the game, quite often, they'll skip cut scenes too. I can't remember the last time I downloaded an MKV/MP4 of a Mega Man game where I didn't fast forward past the "you got weapon" scenes.
Now I'm not saying that's what happened in this case (8 hours -> 2 hours), but it's something to consider, especially for an RPG filled with cut scenes.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Noob Irdoh wrote:
This already happened in the past but now with DarkKobold's 8-hours movie we have a blatant example, of people voting without watching the movie. Unless they had access to earlier WIPs, the three people who already voted on this after only 2 hours didn't have the chance to watch it.
We did, as has been pointed out already. DarkKobold was constantly releasing new WIPs on Youtube so that everybody could see them without even having the ISO. All I really needed to see was the disc 4 events.
I personally don't think that people voting before watching a movie is a very big issue. It's not a matter of simply voting; publishers have to take the arguments people make into account as well. If someone were to post that there's actually a rather big and easy improvement to make, the run probably won't be published no matter how many people vote yes. Similarly, people may vote yes without having actually seen the movie but that doesn't mean people can't post valid criticism of the run or have it ignored.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Dada wrote:
publishers have to take the arguments people make into account as well.
Judges, not publishers. And we do, it's not a big issue. The fact is, comments mean a whole lot more than just votes.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
