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Hell yeah! Baby Moses framewars!


This TAS improves on Aqfaq's movie by 40 frames or 0.66 seconds due to general optimization and a new trick in level 4.
  • Used Gens 11a
  • Abuses a glitch
  • Completes a piece of crap
Enjoy!
Screenshot:

DarkKobold: OMG let my TASes go! Judging.



Lex
Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Derakon wrote:
As for Smash Bros., we've had several varieties of speed-oriented runs submitted here, which were all rejected for not being entertaining enough.
Yes, and those submissions are significantly slower (and duller) than ReneBalow's runs. I realize this may not be pertinent, but you provoked my response and I must reply.
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Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
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Wak017 wrote:
Bad game choice: ... solitaire...
:( Regarding the game, I found it very meh. By far not the most boring run I've ever watched, but a little too simplistic for me to really be entertained.
Living Well Is The Best Revenge My Personal Page
Joined: 8/23/2008
Posts: 417
Lex wrote:
Yes, and those submissions are significantly slower (and duller) than ReneBalow's runs. I realize this may not be pertinent, but you provoked my response and I must reply.
That is your opinion. There are many opinions on this subject. Let's just leave it at that for the sake of this thread.
I will not use self-reference in my signature.
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Holy flamewar, Batman. I can't believe this submission exploded like this.
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.
sgrunt
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Joined: 10/28/2007
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Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
moozooh wrote:
While I admire sgrunt's arguing skills, there's a hole in this argument here.
sgrunt wrote:
It's not the TAS itself that would be considered shameful. As [wiki WelcomeToTASVideos]noted elsewhere[/wiki] (emphasis mine),
Site mission statement wrote:
TASvideos.org is committed to providing the best in tool-assisted speedruns and superhuman play. Our runs are held to high standards, and only high quality runs will be published on the site.
The run itself is high quality: it's indeed tightly optimized. The play is superhuman: there is absolute precision even though the controls are awful, there's complete disregard for danger, glitch abuse, and all that. It's the game that's bad, but the snippet you've quoted says nothing about that. Thus, there is nothing in this submission that openly contradicts the mission statement, you're just filling in the blanks using your interpretation of it.
This is a sticky issue: what constitutes a "high quality" run? If you go by the site's normal rating criteria, good run quality stems from two components: entertainment value and technical quality. Conveniently enough, we have [wiki VotingGuidelines]a wiki page indicating what each of these is supposed to mean[/wiki]. Let's have a look at each of these in turn:
The wiki, on entertainment value (emphasis in original) wrote:
While the entertainment level of a TAS is somewhat subjective, there are a few principles that most of our players and viewers have agreed upon that make for runs with high entertainment. An entertaining run should:
  • Be fast-paced. If it takes five minutes for anything to happen, nobody will want to watch your run. Games with fast characters are well-suited for this.
  • Be varied. Watching a character do little more than run to the right and jump occasionally is not entertaining. Generally, the more possibilities for what your character can do at any given time, and the more of them that are used, the better
  • Do the unexpected. Abuse of glitches and otherwise causing the game to perform in unexpected ways makes for far more interesting gameplay.
I've [post 275290]already debunked the possibility of this run being fast-paced[/post]. Gameplay here consists of, well, running to the right and jumping occasionally, which explicitly fails the "be varied" criterion, and as [post 275232]I've previously noted[/post], the one glitch here does not alter gameplay substantially from normal. Thus, I don't really see how the run fits any of our commonly-defined criteria for entertainment.
The wiki, on technical merit (emphasis in original) wrote:
The technical rating of a TAS should reflect a number of technical qualities about the run itself and how it has been made. It's important to understand that there is no one single feature which determines the technical quality, but that it's the sum of many different aspects. A common misconception is to think that "technical quality" is a synonym for "frame perfection" (in other words, how optimal the run is). This is not so. Frame perfection is part of what constitutes the technical quality of a run, but only a part. These are things which should be considered when rating a TAS for its technical quality (note that this list is not comprehensive, and every TAS should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis):
  • Frame perfection: How frame-perfect is it? Are there known improvements or obvious flaws?
  • Technique: What kind of TASing techniques does the author use in his run? For example, does he manipulate luck heavily, abuse bugs or level design flaws in the game for shortcuts, use close approach collision abuse, maneuvers that reduce lag, etc?
  • Tools: What kind of tools did the author use? Did he use eg. Lua scripting for something useful? Memory watching? Decompiling the game ROM? Did he perhaps even write his own tools, such as bots?
  • Amount of work: How much work was necessary to make the TAS? For example, was a considerable amount of background research (such as route planning or extensive RNG reverse engineering) necessary before even starting the run?
Note that not all games are suitable for a TAS with perfect technical rating, similarly to how not all games are suitable for a perfect entertainment rating. Some games simply don't lend themselves for extensive technical achievements (eg. if they are too simple or straightforward, with no route planning, exploitable bugs, etc.)
I will grant that the run is probably well-optimised, but as beautifully pointed out above, that's far from the be-all and end-all of technical quality of a given run. This run was thrown together in less than two days in response to [submission 3171]an earlier submission[/submission], so I can't really see that any special tool work would have been done for this run, or that a significant amount of effort was put into its creation. Further, technique here basically consists of "determine which frame to press jump on", unless I am very much mistaken about how this game is supposed to work. In addition, as warned against at the very end, this is a game which is exceedingly straightforward, requires no route planning, and showcases a grand total of one glitch which does not influence gameplay significantly. In other words, what we have here is a game that fails almost every possible criterion set out by the site for being entertaining or technically interesting. How this can translate into being called "high quality" is beyond me.
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Let's leave the flame war behind, let the frame war begin.
Taming Dolphin, one frame at a time
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sgrunt wrote:
I've [post 275290]already debunked the possibility of this run being fast-paced[/post].
So you've debunked a subjective notion? :) Or did you debunk this run being fast-paced as per the criteria made up by a single forum member who isn't used to arguing or, indeed, using English? Too early to claim a victory here, try somebody of your own league.
sgrunt wrote:
Gameplay here consists of, well, running to the right and jumping occasionally, which explicitly fails the "be varied" criterion, and as [post 275232]I've previously noted[/post], the one glitch here does not alter gameplay substantially from normal. Thus, I don't really see how the run fits any of our commonly-defined criteria for entertainment.
More weasel words and appealing to subjective notions. 8-bit platformers in general require little more than holding right and jumping occasionally, simply by their nature. Even the revered Mega Man games consist of exactly that to at least 80% of their length (that isn't consumed by get weapon cutscenes, boss appearances and so on), which is why not everyone likes them despite the glitching. Yet we publish runs of 8-bit platformers at least once a month without failure, and somehow the argument doesn't crop up too often. Why is that? Did they suddenly become complex? Before you pull the "past mistakes don't justify the present" card, are you going to use it the next time somebody TASes another exceedingly simple platformer for MSX, SMS, GB, or NES?
sgrunt wrote:
I will grant that the run is probably well-optimised, but as beautifully pointed out above, that's far from the be-all and end-all of technical quality of a given run. This run was thrown together in less than two days in response to [submission 3171]an earlier submission[/submission], so I can't really see that any special tool work would have been done for this run, or that a significant amount of effort was put into its creation.
No, that's a bad, bad argument. Referring to Wak's statement here is grasping for a straw that wouldn't even matter had this submission not been controversial. While his words supposedly come from a personal (and likely supported by hard data) insight, they are very very general and hold little weight, so using it to back up your own argument is naive. "Look, that guy says this run is very improvable, so it must be true!" See? That's how your argument looks. Until Wak has presented his improvement, it effectively doesn't exist, and this submission should be judged on its own merits. And saying that a run is improvable is like saying nothing, because any run is improvable and it's not a secret to anybody. As for the time required to make a run, it's a very bad criterion as well because you have no way to appraise that, and, moreover, shouldn't. People like AngerFist, Nitsuja, JXQ, and other TASers have been known for working extremely quick while maintaining solid quality, and so far you haven't proved it to be otherwise. And keep in mind that it's a 2-minute long platformer. How complex can that possibly be to take more than a couple days of decent work?
sgrunt wrote:
Further, technique here basically consists of "determine which frame to press jump on", unless I am very much mistaken about how this game is supposed to work. In addition, as warned against at the very end, this is a game which is exceedingly straightforward, requires no route planning, and showcases a grand total of one glitch which does not influence gameplay significantly.
You have not only described most of the simple platformers, but also the process of TASing in general. Indeed, it basically consists of determining which frame to press a button on, which in case with platformers is mostly jump and occasionally attack, which, mind you, is used here as well (to pick up baby Moses, for one). That's like saying that your words aren't significant because you type them up with two fingers and not ten.
sgrunt wrote:
In other words, what we have here is a game that fails almost every possible criterion set out by the site for being entertaining or technically interesting. How this can translate into being called "high quality" is beyond me.
Ok, here's some more challenge for you. Do you bring up this argument in submissions that are improvements of already published runs that fail the same criteria as well? Do you also say they aren't high quality and vote No on them, or is this only specific to submissions of new games?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
sgrunt
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Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
moozooh wrote:
sgrunt wrote:
I've [post 275290]already debunked the possibility of this run being fast-paced[/post].
So you've debunked a subjective notion? :) Or did you debunk this run being fast-paced as per the criteria made up by a single forum member who isn't used to arguing or, indeed, using English? Too early to claim a victory here, try somebody of your own league.
Let me turn the initial point that prompted that line of discussion upon you, then: What do you consider to be a fast-paced run? I presented a definition earlier which hasn't seriously been challenged, and if there are flaws in it I encourage you to point them out. [post 275232]For reference, it was[/post]:
sgrunt wrote:
[...d]escribes runs which require quick reaction times on the part of the player and, arguably, a continual feeling of imminent danger - that one little mistake can cause everything to go horribly wrong.
moozooh wrote:
sgrunt wrote:
Gameplay here consists of, well, running to the right and jumping occasionally, which explicitly fails the "be varied" criterion, and as [post 275232]I've previously noted[/post], the one glitch here does not alter gameplay substantially from normal. Thus, I don't really see how the run fits any of our commonly-defined criteria for entertainment.
More weasel words and appealing to subjective notions. 8-bit platformers in general require little more than holding right and jumping occasionally, simply by their nature. Even the revered Mega Man games consist of exactly that to at least 80% of their length (that isn't consumed by get weapon cutscenes, boss appearances and so on), which is why not everyone likes them despite the glitching. Yet we publish runs of 8-bit platformers at least once a month without failure, and somehow the argument doesn't crop up too often. Why is that? Did they suddenly become complex? Before you pull the "past mistakes don't justify the present" card, are you going to use it the next time somebody TASes another exceedingly simple platformer for MSX, SMS, GB, or NES?
If you look back at my past track record on submissions of this nature (where I've bothered to comment, at least), I've generally been opposed to their publication for exactly the reasons I'm citing here - that there's little room for technical innovation or entertainment. Games such as Mega Man are a different story, in that there are additional factors at work such as route planning (for the initial stages), weapon selection, and (in may cases) substantial abuse of glitches (a look at the most recently published Mega Man 1 submission being a wonderful illustration of the latter). The stock entertainment value of those games may not be very high on their own, but the possibility technical complexity present therein greatly aids the viewing experience of those runs.
moozooh wrote:
sgrunt wrote:
I will grant that the run is probably well-optimised, but as beautifully pointed out above, that's far from the be-all and end-all of technical quality of a given run. This run was thrown together in less than two days in response to [submission 3171]an earlier submission[/submission], so I can't really see that any special tool work would have been done for this run, or that a significant amount of effort was put into its creation.
No, that's a bad, bad argument. Referring to Wak's statement here is grasping for a straw that wouldn't even matter had this submission not been controversial. While his words supposedly come from a personal (and likely supported by hard data) insight, they are very very general and hold little weight, so using it to back up your own argument is naive. "Look, that guy says this run is very improvable, so it must be true!" See? That's how your argument looks. Until Wak has presented his improvement, it effectively doesn't exist, and this submission should be judged on its own merits. And saying that a run is improvable is like saying nothing because any run is improvable and it's not a secret to anybody.
I'm not referring to anyone else's argument here, and I'm not sure where that notion came from. I did not mention anything about the run possibly being improvable in this line of argument. Regardless of the possibility of an improvement or not, the level of possible technical merit of this run is low by nature of the game.
moozooh wrote:
As for the time required to make a run, it's a very bad criterion as well because you have no way to appraise that, and, moreover, shouldn't. People like AngerFist, Nitsuja, JXQ, and other TASers have been known for working extremely quick while maintaining solid quality, and so far you haven't proved it to be otherwise.
If it is a bad criterion, perhaps the page in question needs to be updated. I'm merely citing a suggestion that has been presented there, which, by its presence, nobody has challenged there up until now.
moozooh wrote:
And keep in mind that it's a 2-minute long platformer. How complex can that possibly be to take more than a couple days of decent work?
To turn this on its head: if you don't expect that a game is complex enough to warrant more than a modicum of effort to produce a tightly optimised run, how can it provide for a slightly technically interesting run?
moozooh wrote:
sgrunt wrote:
Further, technique here basically consists of "determine which frame to press jump on", unless I am very much mistaken about how this game is supposed to work. In addition, as warned against at the very end, this is a game which is exceedingly straightforward, requires no route planning, and showcases a grand total of one glitch which does not influence gameplay significantly.
You have not only described most of the simple platformers, but also the process of TASing in general. Indeed, it basically consists of determining which frame to press a button on, which in case with platformers is mostly jump and occasionally attack, which, mind you, is used here as well (to pick up baby Moses, for one). That's like saying that your words aren't significant because you type them up with two fingers and not ten.
In many cases, TASes require more than figuring out when to best press one or two buttons, and require more than a glance to get the best sense of timing of when to press one of those buttons. Games where there are more variables (say, additional buttons) to consider require more thought to be put into optimising them and thus allow for a greater degree of technical accomplishment. To carry on with your keyboard analogy, suppose I give you two passages of text to type - one requires two fingers to type, and another that (using normal keyboard positioning) uses all ten. Between these two, which requires more technical skill to carry out?
moozooh wrote:
sgrunt wrote:
In other words, what we have here is a game that fails almost every possible criterion set out by the site for being entertaining or technically interesting. How this can translate into being called "high quality" is beyond me.
Ok, here's some more challenge for you. Do you bring up this argument in submissions that are improvements of already published runs that fail the same criteria as well? Do you also say they aren't high quality and vote No on them, or is this only specific to submissions of new games.
As a rule, yes, with the caveat that there being a run published already is generally an indicator that the technical/entertainment quality of a run is sufficient to warrant publication (there are exceptions to this, such as Combatribes, as I've brought up previously). If I see a sharp drop in technical or entertainment quality, I will argue against a run being accepted (the current Mario 64 0-star makes for a good example on the entertainment front).
ALAKTORN
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moozoh must be the best troll ever
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Ah, arguing with you is truly a pleasure.
sgrunt wrote:
Let me turn the initial point that prompted that line of discussion upon you, then: What do you consider to be a fast-paced run? I presented a definition earlier which hasn't seriously been challenged, and if there are flaws in it I encourage you to point them out.
There are no flaws per se, because being fast-paced means different things to different people. It may be dependent on anything including but not limited to: rate of actions carried out per second, speed of screen scrolling, character movement speed, enemies AI or rate of attack, required rate of decision-making, and so on. Moreover, in tool-assisted and unassisted conditions these things tend to change, as is often the case with games like Bomberman. What I consider fast-paced is in this sense irrelevant, and I won't even try to come up with an universal definition because I know it won't even work for myself. Instead I rely on a feeling of speed, and that's, while largely indescribable, works well for me. In regard to this run in particular, I wasn't bored by it, so it's good enough. (I won't rate it highly either, nor be depressed if it's ultimately rejected.) If it were considerably longer, I could see myself being bored, but it's not the case here, so we shouldn't even consider that.
sgrunt wrote:
If you look back at my past track record on submissions of this nature (where I've bothered to comment, at least), I've generally been opposed to their publication for exactly the reasons I'm citing here - that there's little room for technical innovation or entertainment. Games such as Mega Man are a different story, in that there are additional factors at work such as route planning (for the initial stages), weapon selection, and (in may cases) substantial abuse of glitches (a look at the most recently published Mega Man 1 submission being a wonderful illustration of the latter).
But since Mega Man games are at the upper spectrum of entertainment for a relatively simple platformer (mainly due to glitches involved), a valid question would be: should we still publish runs of games that don't allow as much as Mega Man does? Historically the answer to this has been "yes", but what is your opinion and where do you draw the line?
sgrunt wrote:
I'm not referring to anyone else's argument here, and I'm not sure where that notion came from.
From here:
sgrunt wrote:
but as beautifully pointed out above, that's far from the be-all and end-all of technical quality of a given run.
So... whom it was pointed out by, if not Wak or yourself referred to in third person? I should note that OmegaWatcher's request to quote your references would be indeed warranted here.
sgrunt wrote:
If it is a bad criterion, perhaps the page in question needs to be updated. I'm merely citing a suggestion that has been presented there, which, by its presence, nobody has challenged there up until now.
The criterion on the page in question reads "amount of work", not "amount of time", and I hope you agree that the relation there is not quite direct. I also don't see it even suggested anywhere on the page to speculate on the amount of work in the absence of hard data by the submitter. As you know, speculations make for lousy arguments.
sgrunt wrote:
To turn this on its head: if you don't expect that a game is complex enough to warrant more than a modicum of effort to produce a tightly optimised run, how can it provide for a slightly technically interesting run?
Why necessarily a modicum? The amount of work here is relative to the game length, which I hope is understandable. If the game was longer, say 10 minutes, I would expect it to take more than a few days to TAS (but, again, historically it didn't always require so even with more complex games, so I wouldn't use it as a criterion for anything).
sgrunt wrote:
To carry on with your keyboard analogy, suppose I give you two passages of text to type - one requires two fingers to type, and another that (using normal keyboard positioning) uses all ten. Between these two, which requires more technical skill to carry out?
I'm using the entirety of a keyboard, even if not optimally, but the result is the same. If I have no hard time limits that would make typing either using two fingers physically impossible, you would never even tell how many fingers did I use. To follow up the point that brought out this analogy, what really matters is the result. The method is of use for a reference or academic interest, but is largely irrelevant otherwise.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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Posts: 1354
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ALAKTORN wrote:
moozoh must be the best troll ever
Dont even start.
sgrunt
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Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
moozooh wrote:
Ah, arguing with you is truly a pleasure.
Noting that where there's a certain amount of respect for logic and your opponents' position could theoretically be better called a debate than an argument would, sadly, be out of the scope of this discussion.
moozooh wrote:
sgrunt wrote:
Let me turn the initial point that prompted that line of discussion upon you, then: What do you consider to be a fast-paced run? I presented a definition earlier which hasn't seriously been challenged, and if there are flaws in it I encourage you to point them out.
There are no flaws per se, because being fast-paced means different things to different people. It may be dependent on anything including but not limited to: rate of actions carried out per second, speed of screen scrolling, character movement speed, enemies AI or rate of attack, required rate of decision-making, and so on. Moreover, in tool-assisted and unassisted conditions these things tend to change, as is often the case with games like Bomberman. What I consider fast-paced is in this sense irrelevant, and I won't even try to come up with an universal definition because I know it won't even work for myself. Instead I rely on a feeling of speed, and that's, while largely indescribable, works well for me. In regard to this run in particular, I wasn't bored by it, so it's good enough. (I won't rate it highly either, nor be depressed if it's ultimately rejected.) If it were considerably longer, I could see myself being bored, but it's not the case here, so we shouldn't even consider that.
I will agree that there's a certain amount of subjectivity involved here, hence my attempt to lay out a baseline for the purpose of discussion. I'll further note that not being bored by watching a run isn't exactly the same as a run being entertaining - though an argument could be made that the two lie in opposite directions, there's an extensive middle ground there where things are considerably less clear. I would prefer that runs do more to hold viewers' interest rather than doing the bare minimum possible to avoid being boring. (I'll also take the opportunity to note here my shorter-than-average - for site purposes - attention span, so I probably set the bar considerably higher than most for what constitutes "sufficiently entertaining".)
moozooh wrote:
sgrunt wrote:
If you look back at my past track record on submissions of this nature (where I've bothered to comment, at least), I've generally been opposed to their publication for exactly the reasons I'm citing here - that there's little room for technical innovation or entertainment. Games such as Mega Man are a different story, in that there are additional factors at work such as route planning (for the initial stages), weapon selection, and (in may cases) substantial abuse of glitches (a look at the most recently published Mega Man 1 submission being a wonderful illustration of the latter).
But since Mega Man games are at the upper spectrum of entertainment for a relatively simple platformer (mainly due to glitches involved), a valid question would be: should we still publish runs of games that don't allow as much as Mega Man does? Historically the answer to this has been "yes", but what is your opinion and where do you draw the line?
This, again, is a sticky subject. If I, or anyone, had an absolute answer to this, our discussions over submissions like this would be considerably shorter. I'll take the opportunity to point out, however, that the relative level of complexity of a game, in some cases, can really only come to light under TAS conditions. The best example of this I can think of would be Super Mario Bros, where (in my view) the primary entertainment factor (barring the apparent value that people derive from having played the game themselves and/or recognising it as a very popular game) comes from the large number of glitches that have arisen as the run has progressively been improved over the years. Beyond that, I'm not sure I can comment further on the matter except on a case-by-case basis.
moozooh wrote:
sgrunt wrote:
I'm not referring to anyone else's argument here, and I'm not sure where that notion came from.
From here:
sgrunt wrote:
but as beautifully pointed out above, that's far from the be-all and end-all of technical quality of a given run.
So... whom it was pointed out by, if not Wak or yourself referred to in third person? I should note that OmegaWatcher's request to quote your references would be indeed warranted here.
Sorry - this is a slight miscommunication on my part. I was referring to the opening passage of the technical section of the voting guidelines wiki page, in particular,
Technical rating guidelines wrote:
A common misconception is to think that "technical quality" is a synonym for "frame perfection" (in other words, how optimal the run is). This is not so. Frame perfection is part of what constitutes the technical quality of a run, but only a part.
moozooh wrote:
sgrunt wrote:
If it is a bad criterion, perhaps the page in question needs to be updated. I'm merely citing a suggestion that has been presented there, which, by its presence, nobody has challenged there up until now.
The criterion on the page in question reads "amount of work", not "amount of time", and I hope you agree that the relation there is not quite direct. I also don't see it even suggested anywhere on the page to speculate on the amount of work in the absence of hard data by the submitter. As you know, speculations make for lousy arguments.
sgrunt wrote:
To turn this on its head: if you don't expect that a game is complex enough to warrant more than a modicum of effort to produce a tightly optimised run, how can it provide for a slightly technically interesting run?
Why necessarily a modicum? The amount of work here is relative to the game length, which I hope is understandable. If the game was longer, say 10 minutes, I would expect it to take more than a few days to TAS (but, again, historically it didn't always require so even with more complex games, so I wouldn't use it as a criterion for anything).
Perhaps the thing to do in this case is to consult the author, then, as to how much effort went into the preparation of the run. I'm merely pointing out that there is a hard upper limit to how much work could have gone into it, and using this to place an upper limit on the possible complexity of the game and/or the resulting TAS, which falls short of what I consider to be an adequate standard.
moozooh wrote:
sgrunt wrote:
To carry on with your keyboard analogy, suppose I give you two passages of text to type - one requires two fingers to type, and another that (using normal keyboard positioning) uses all ten. Between these two, which requires more technical skill to carry out?
I'm using the entirety of a keyboard, even if not optimally, but the result is the same.
In that case, I reject your typing for failing to beat known records. :)
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I applaud to the both of you for stirring up an interesting debate like true gentlemen. However, dont you guys think youre being a little too serious over a joke submission. The only reason Aqfaq submitted this was to cause a little laughs. Then thisentire debate about the philosophy for the site breaks out. Honestly.
Joined: 8/23/2008
Posts: 417
moozooh wrote:
sgrunt wrote:
If you look back at my past track record on submissions of this nature (where I've bothered to comment, at least), I've generally been opposed to their publication for exactly the reasons I'm citing here - that there's little room for technical innovation or entertainment. Games such as Mega Man are a different story, in that there are additional factors at work such as route planning (for the initial stages), weapon selection, and (in may cases) substantial abuse of glitches (a look at the most recently published Mega Man 1 submission being a wonderful illustration of the latter).
But since Mega Man games are at the upper spectrum of entertainment for a relatively simple platformer (mainly due to glitches involved), a valid question would be: should we still publish runs of games that don't allow as much as Mega Man does? Historically the answer to this has been "yes", but what is your opinion and where do you draw the line?
I think this is really the key question. There is no clear precedent for where to draw this line, because we are told "past publications don't justify current decisions." So it becomes this relativistic argument and we get pages and pages of these threads, because in lieu of any clear rule we are left feeling that our arguments might make the difference. I'm personally okay with this practice but I can't help but wonder if there isn't a better option to please everyone.
I will not use self-reference in my signature.
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Acheron86 wrote:
I'm personally okay with this practice but I can't help but wonder if there isn't a better option to please everyone.
The problem is - this isn't possible. I'd say you can divide the voters/members of the site into 4 categories. 1) People who only want the Best movies published. As an aside, this is actually how the site started out. Many users balked at this, and thus, about two years ago, the site fundamentally reduced the required caliber of a TAS to be published. I, for one, am happy with this change. 2) People who want only good TASes published. This is actually how the site is currently run, and I believe this group is the majority of the audience, and pleases the most people. Movies have to reach at least some baseline of technical and/or entertaining merit before being accepted. Obviously, "What is sufficient to be considered good" contains the most gray area, and therefore leads to the most debates, such as the one over this submission. 3) People who want pure audience voting (Do away with judging). The problem with this category, is that nearly every submission to TASVideos.org gets greater than 50% yes votes. I'd think that the quality of the videos on the site would greatly diminish, and you'd get a lot more abuse of the voting system. As it stands, I believe most judges look very carefully at both the poll and the posts, before making a decision, and thus, while not directly correlated with the poll/posts, the decisions do follow the opinions. 4) People who want this to be a records site. This would turn it from a public workbench into a private one - videos would just appear like SDA has, and everything would be streamlined. I think this would be the worst for the site, as everyone likes to participate, and removing that part would destroy a major part of this community. And, as always, this isn't a records site, nor should it be.
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.
Joined: 7/22/2009
Posts: 128
Location: Gatineau, Quebec, Canada
Bah. This is improvable. I've been able to save 6 frames on the second stage. I'm not sure I could rack up enough frames to get under 2 mins, but this is definitely improvable. I give up for now, as I'm uncomfortable with the emulator, I don't know how to get back on track after closing a work...
Taming Dolphin, one frame at a time
sgrunt
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Emulator Coder, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Wak017 wrote:
Bah. This is improvable. I've been able to save 6 frames on the second stage. I'm not sure I could rack up enough frames to get under 2 mins, but this is definitely improvable.
Do you have a movie file for this? Even an incomplete run showing improvements might contribute to the discussion here.
Joined: 7/22/2009
Posts: 128
Location: Gatineau, Quebec, Canada
Basically there are frames of improvement over taking baby moses on second stage. Thanks to AJPanton who gave me some physics class over the internet for other games, I just moved differently on the platforms to get moses in a way I have more directional influence to the right in the process. Where can I upload that file?
Taming Dolphin, one frame at a time
sgrunt
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Emulator Coder, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Joined: 7/22/2009
Posts: 128
Location: Gatineau, Quebec, Canada
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/845660278/Bible%20Adventures%20waks2.gmv here it is. Next is to tell me how to keep on working with the same file using that emulator (same as publisher) Also, make that sit able to upload .dtm files... gamecube dolphin
Taming Dolphin, one frame at a time
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Wak017 wrote:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/845660278/Bible%20Adventures%20waks2.gmv here it is. Next is to tell me how to keep on working with the same file using that emulator (same as publisher)
Start playback of run; go to the point from where you want to continue; Tools -> Movie -> Resume Record from Now. I would wait for a decision on this run first, though, depending on whether this is considered to be an adequate game choice.
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Posts: 7698
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DarkKobold wrote:
Holy flamewar, Batman. I can't believe this submission exploded like this.
Honestly, I don't see any "flamewar" going on here (well, at least not up to the point of your post). Not all lengthy discussions where people present differing opinions are "flamewars". I think calling civil rational discussions "flamewars" is denigrating and disrespectful. People are entitled to differing opinions, and as long as they remain civil (and refrain from eg. name-calling and personal insults) discussion is a good thing.
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Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy
Warp wrote:
DarkKobold wrote:
Holy flamewar, Batman. I can't believe this submission exploded like this.
Honestly, I don't see any "flamewar" going on here (well, at least not up to the point of your post). Not all lengthy discussions where people present differing opinions are "flamewars". I think calling civil rational discussions "flamewars" is denigrating and disrespectful. People are entitled to differing opinions, and as long as they remain civil (and refrain from eg. name-calling and personal insults) discussion is a good thing.
Wow. Yeah, my post wasn't meant as inflammatory, at all. You read far too much into the word flamewar. "Holy discussion batman" just didn't have the same ring to it. I figured the batman part would have made it more tongue in cheek, at least. Relax, please.
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.
Banned User
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
DarkKobold wrote:
Wow. Yeah, my post wasn't meant as inflammatory, at all. You read far too much into the word flamewar.
With "at least not up to the point of your post" I didn't mean to imply that your post was inflammatory (although reading my post again I understand how it could be interpreted in such a way). I just meant that some of the posts in this thread made after your comment seem to go slightly too far. To everybody: Please keep the discussion civil. Discussions are good, flamewars aren't.
Joined: 7/22/2009
Posts: 128
Location: Gatineau, Quebec, Canada
sgrunt wrote:
I would wait for a decision on this run first, though, depending on whether this is considered to be an adequate game choice.
I can safely say that this game is worth it. Even with the 3 frame rule (you won't see your input till the input is a multiple of 3). Had other things to say, but I'm drunk.
Taming Dolphin, one frame at a time