Super Metroid 100% Map Completion (Code Name: Shinespark Amusement Park)
This TAS aims to color in any and every map square that can be colored in. It visits places on Zebes that are normally never visited in other categories. In doing so, the primary goal of this game are met and beats the game in a non-glitched run.
Emulator used: BizHawk 1.7.0
To turn every map square to pink that can be colored pink
Accomplishes this coloring with "Never Before Seen" Shinesparks.
I am adding an extra comment that I failed to add previously !!!
My appologies for not giving credit for the 5 to 10% of code created by Cpadolf. Please don't think that I purposefully missed this. You can confirm from my previous two submissions that I give credit to CP for his optimized work. Again, this was missed by accident.
This TAS uses a variety of techniques to accomplish the goal of completing the entire map by coloring in all blue areas...pink. The route for this TAS was dramatically different from that of the human RTA WR. This change reduces the amount of "Revisits" to already colored areas. Shinesparks are primarily used to color in hard to get to places and quickly allows movement through rooms where repetitive jumping is needed. Many non-human tricks contribute to goals where frame perfect, pixel perfect, and speed perfect allowed best efforts to move quickly through areas.
This is the first known calaboration between a TASer and community. The primary contributor to my TAS was the amazing EternisedDragon, who has a deep understanding of the physics of the Super Metroid engine. Other contributors to this project include:
Straevaras, Sweetnumb, Redslash, Grommie122, Foosda, RodrigoAndrade7, Nintoaster_81, Mawcdrums, nutella4eva, Starzonmyarmz, Jronaggaz, Tewtal, Kojakt, EODTex, Anoraz_Xarona, UFabianx, JoshButro, Stigzilla, Hetfield90, Edu207, DasBlurr, OldSchoolTribe, Mishrak109, Sickents, Matrick2298, Benlake412, lxx4xNx6xxl, Lioran, BlackStarKupo, Hubert0987, Moe_187, Overfiendvip, WildAnaconda69, MartyMoinklers, RetrophileTV, Omnissam, AxlSR, sniqwc3, Nighty93, Mechashiva76, Full_Halfie, Torment99.
Shinesparks of this game:
Post Crocomire Shinespark
Watergate Shinespark (NYMX/EternisedDragon)
Post-Grapple Shinespark
Alpha Spark
Post X-Ray Shinespark
Red Tower Shinespark (NYMX)
Mote Shinespark (NYMX)
Partial Ocean Shinespark
Bowling Shinespark
Dragon Shinespark (EternisedDragon)
Maridia Shinespark I
Maridia Shinespark II (Post Spring ball)
Maridia Shinespark III
Maridia Mountain Shinespark I
Maridia Mountain Shinespark II (Common Any%)
Botwoon Swagspark
Roly Poly Skip Shinespark
Post Roly Poly Shinespark
Draygon Attack Shinespark I
Draygon Attack Shinespark II
Draygon Attack Shinespark III (Blue Suit)
Reverse Fullhalfie Shinespark
Wave Substitute Shinespark
Fast Pillars Shinespark
Pinata Shinespark, Ninja Pirates
Post Ridley Shinespark
Maridia Shinespark IV (NYMX Original)
Crateria Coloring Shinespark I
Platform Shinespark
Guanlet Shinespark
Dechora Shinespark
Charge Spark
Blue Brinstar Shinespark
Pit Shinespark
Old Tourian Shinespark
Mother Brain Death Spark (NYMX Original)
Escape Shinespark I (NYMX Original)
Escape Shinespark II
Crateria Coloring Spark II
There are many things that need to be corrected and should remove about 1 minutes and 30 seconds worth of time. These problems range in all kinds of techniques and routing problems. A follow up version will be worked on.
Final Stats:
In Game Time: 00:44
Percentage of Items Colected: 33%
TAS Time: 74:58.93
RTA Converted Time (Human comparison): 72:41.516
Beats the human record by 10:22, currently held by SweetNumb at 1:23:03.00
Noxxa: First of all, I'd like to commend NYMX and the Deer Tier community members involved with making this TAS. It is a good attempt, and it is clear that a lot of work has been put into the run. Unfortunately though, I will reject this run for publication on this site.
One thing I find problematic is the lack of description put into the submission topic, resulting in questions which are left unanswered. When it became clear that over three minutes of cpadolf's 100% run input was copied, I would really have liked to know exactly how much input and which parts were copied, and read it in the submission comments - but instead, all we got was a cryptic "5 to 10%" input by cpadolf. The important specifics are left unanswered. Requests by many people for coauthoring cpadolf for copying a significant amount of input were also ignored. We also never got any specifics in the submission text about the 90 seconds of known improvements, the routing, or 'new tricks' which were talked about. Information about these was also asked by various people including myself but again never addressed. There is a nearly four-hour commentary video on twitch.tv, so I find it weird that so little information could be given about the run in the submission text itself.
However, that is not even the major issue - the actual reason I am rejecting this run is because, quite simply, viewer feedback to the category was poor. Many people in the submission discussion disagreed with the category choice not going for 100% items, making a large part of the run look like entering through rooms and 'oddly' leaving without picking up any visible items, or otherwise entering rooms without any purpose. Obviously it's a part of this category, but it still appears odd. We understand that this is a recognised category on Deer Tier, but here on TASVideos we can only publish the categories that we deem interesting and entertaining enough, and Super Metroid is already overflowing with categories on this site as is. Deer Tier is a community dedicated to Super Metroid and we are not, so we have different standards here. If Deer Tier wishes to host this TAS on their own site, then more power to them; but the category just doesn't click with the TASVideos audience here.
The lack of optimality, particularly compared to current Super Metroid publications on this site, and compounded with the relatively large 90 seconds of known improvements, didn't help viewer response either - but I don't believe that an optimized improvement would be enough to save the category.
As such, rejecting for poor viewer feedback and bad goal choice.
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nymx wrote:
I think its too late now.
Don't count yourself out just yet - your run is being judged by Mothrayas and while he's asked you do do a few things (which you've already made progress on) I think you'll find that he is a fair judge. I say this in the context that I've had a couple of runs judged by Mothrayas and some of them have even been rejected but he's always been a fair judge. I would say more than anything that this submission suffered from a series of miscommunications at the beginning but let some cooler heads prevail.
I have not yet completed watching the run but I'll try to provide feedback once I find time to do that. Keep your chin up, and know that we aren't a *bad* community, just... different. :)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
Nintoaster_81 wrote:
<--- 2nd post lurker right here. Hi TAS guys, I'm from the Super Metroid (human) speedrunning community of the likes of deertier.com. I've been watching this debate unfold over the last 24 hours or so.
While I understand that new submissions are subject to scrutiny, particularly with a game that's been dissected as much as Super Metroid, I'm a little dismayed at the attitudes expressed on this forum. While I wasn't expecting high-fives and champagne, I certainly wasn't expecting this kind of negativity and smugness towards nymx.
That's not at all what's been happening. From my perspective, we've been asking legitimate questions and have gotten no good answers in return. You guys' entire argument seems to be "Super Metroid is the greatest game ever, and that's why you're all wrong!"
All of our concerns have either been evaded or ignored entirely in favor of the things that don't really matter. Our criticism over the category was twisted into us "hating" the game. If you're going to participate in this debate, can you at least try to see this run from our perspective, instead of barging into this community and pretending you know how we operate? Christ, and you call us smug.
On the issue of the script copying from Ceres to Brinstar from cpadolf - nymx has alluded to this multiple times during his live streams and is not trying to plagiarize the work of someone else. He has admitted that this was an oversight in the submission text and apologized multiple times now, and yet everyone is still hung up on it. Credit will be given where credit is due. Let's move on.
It better be given where it's due. The entire beginning of the run is 100% Cpadolf's input. He deserves co-authorship credit. There's no reason not to do it, there's no harm in doing it. Again, this shouldn't be an issue. We're not the ones making it an issue, NYMX is the one focusing on it.
I don't see how the goal is arbitrary. Either the map is filled completely, or it's not. True, there is no in-game (post-game) quantifiable measurement for map completion other than watching the squares fill in on the mini map. This is a downfall to this particular category, but I'm pretty sure he didn't spend 6 1/2 months TAS-ing a route that left reason to doubt whether or not all map squares were filled in.
Except that's not how we define an arbitrary goal. If the run didn't achieve its goal, it would be rejected for not achieving its goal. The matter at hand is whether or not the goal is worth publishing. I don't think so. It's arbitrary in the context of the site. I'm sure it achieves the incredible, thrilling goal of completing every square of the map, but that doesn't change the fact that no one outside the community would care about that.
Is it entertaining to watch? Well, that's subjective. But to say that it mirrors a 100% run whilst ignoring item collection is ignorant. The route itself is different, therefore many new room strategies had to be implemented. So for those asking what it brings to the table, there should be enough new/original room strats to answer that. And for the record, the descriptive commentary of individual room strats is about 3 hours and 15 minutes long, not 5. If people would rather read than watch, then maybe nymx can provide a written play-by-play, but that's up to him.
It may not mirror the 100% run, but what does it have over the 100% run aside from a bunch of extra rooms that serve no purpose to a logical route? Oh, sure, there may be new strategies specific to this route, but that's exactly what they are: Strategies specific to a route that only appeals to your community.
Lastly, to admit there's 90 seconds of improvement to be made should act as motivation, not a detriment to submission, imo. It's not to say, "well, I know I could've done better, but I was too lazy to go back and make the changes." Admittedly, I don't know much about TAS-ing, but I do know that one does not simply go back in the script and tweak things (I'd attach a Boromir meme if I could). If you make changes to early script, you have to rewrite everything that follows, so it's no small feat. Maybe nymx's run doesn't fit your criteria of "high quality," but maybe it will entice other TAS-ers to improve on his, who knows. Regardless, I don't think his intent was to make it perfect the first time around. Rather, I think it was a means to open up a fresh category and create some buzz around it, and to try something that hasn't really been attempted before.
Except if you spend 6 and a half months on a run that you know you can improve and you know you're going to improve, then you can spend a few more months pushing it to its absolute limit before submitting it to a site that asks for nothing short of perfection.
The run could have just as easily been put on the site's Userfiles or any other storage medium and shared with our community. It didn't have to be submitted. But since it was submitted, it's subject to our high standards of publication. We won't just publish anything that's optimized. Even the most entertaining game in the world would have rejected runs if they're of arbitrary categories: Otherwise, we'd have runs like Donkey Kong Country "collect the letters K and N in 5 stages", or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night "all items except for the Shield Rod and all bosses except for Olrox and Succubus", or Super Metroid "defeat Spore Spawn" cluttering everything up.
Case in point: We're judging the TAS based on the TAS, not on the game. We see the category as arbitrary and not entertaining enough to publish. We generally don't hate the game, so you can all drop the persecution complexes.
I need to sleep.
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 BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11492
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Having not watched the run, I only looked through posts briefly, and I'd like to say 2 4.5 things:
1. Personal opinions of some members should not be confused for general policy or attitude. Still, while some of them were expressed in a questionable manner, it doesn't mean our policies are the opposite to what those people were trying to say.
2.1. This run seems to come directly out of real time play efforts, and I'm well aware of what people doing so are about, and also of how a fresh idea asks to be distributed. But in this case, when SM is one of the most popular retro games ever, there's also an extremely high level of competition in it too, especially in an area, where literally nothing limits your competition desire - in being pixel precise and subpixel precise, in hacking together impossible conditions with only controller input.
2.2. Because of the above, people here have become somewhat used to how high the competition level is, and when there's some amount of people thinking the same, it's not hard to go further and attack something that looks sloppy to all of them. They start thinking that it's a matter of someone's ignorance and their faith or loyalty. Again, even if it is, it's only one side of the coin.
3. About the branch itself, it does not seem to offer unique content over what we already have published for SM. Still, if one removes the "non-glitched" requirement, and finds a clear way to verify map completion percentage, using insane glitches has good chances to boost the (TAS) entertainment value. And even if it wouldn't be enough to get published, there's also GruefoodDelight, still a place where outstanding (but not published) runs can be seen.
4. Thanks for your efforts, I really wish that you don't quit TASing attempts after this. And if you're unsure about acceptance chances of your next work, I'm fairly certain if you posted a video in the SM thread itself, no one would act badly, quite the opposite. Cheers.
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.
Don't count yourself out just yet - your run is being judged by Mothrayas and while he's asked you do do a few things (which you've already made progress on) I think you'll find that he is a fair judge. I say this in the context that I've had a couple of runs judged by Mothrayas and some of them have even been rejected but he's always been a fair judge. I would say more than anything that this submission suffered from a series of miscommunications at the beginning but let some cooler heads prevail.
I have not yet completed watching the run but I'll try to provide feedback once I find time to do that. Keep your chin up, and know that we aren't a *bad* community, just... different. :)
Some people here are though... not all of us, just some from my experience. (and admins know who I'm talking about...)
TASVideos is not the sole authority for publishing TASes. Hell, there's tons of Nicovideo TASes that gain plenty of popularity and that nobody ever thinks about submitting here because they don't care about us. And there's the Worms Armageddon folks, the Doom community has basically been producing TASes since before this site even existed, people have been making Smash Bros. TASes using ingame slowdown features on YouTube for years, etc.
TASVideos is a site promoting TASes for general audiences. This is why we get into such huge fights about what is and isn't worth publishing. We aren't a community dedicated to a specific game; odds are good we aren't going to be interested in the super-specific kinds of runs that such communities tend to produce as they mine their game(s) of choice for ever-more-outré ways to play it.
We rejected a "coinless capless cannonless" run of Super Mario 64 (a moderately well-established "conduct" in the SM64 community), and nobody can say that SM64 doesn't produce entertaining runs. It's still popular on YouTube. There's all kinds of gimmick runs like low-map% for Symphony of the Night which similarly did not get published here (though I don't recall if specifically low-map% was even submitted).
Even though the communities for those games love these kinds of stunts, the TASing world at large is generally less interested. That doesn't make your run valueless. It just means that it's a bit too targeted at your community's tastes. You still have the run; nothing's going to take it from you. Put it up on YouTube, enjoy it with your friends, share it around, et cetera. Don't rely on TASVideos to in some way "validate" your actions.
dwangoAC wrote:
Don't count yourself out just yet - your run is being judged by Mothrayas and while he's asked you do do a few things (which you've already made progress on) I think you'll find that he is a fair judge. I say this in the context that I've had a couple of runs judged by Mothrayas and some of them have even been rejected but he's always been a fair judge. I would say more than anything that this submission suffered from a series of miscommunications at the beginning but let some cooler heads prevail.
I have not yet completed watching the run but I'll try to provide feedback once I find time to do that. Keep your chin up, and know that we aren't a *bad* community, just... different. :)
Much more reasonable responses than:
supersonicjc wrote:
lets not go and give him more ideas on what we don't need for a tas, as for the run itself at times I felt more like I was watching the 100% run with some minor cuts to attempt to show off every part of the map, it could honestly make another sub category but for now I want to see if any more information can be gathered on what tricks were used and which glitches (if any) were omitted.
for a game that ive seen torn apart and rebuilt from the ground up this was a very lack luster run, and have to give honest laughs for all the lurkers who signed up just for this run which stands a snowball's chance in hell right now.
solid no here and if your wanting a meh from me then show me the 1:30 time cut off of this but go back and at least if your not going to collect all the items show me that you know they are there.
with that in mind im sure you could even shave more then that minute plus if you used the right missiles on the doors when you have them and aren't using them
and...
grassini wrote:
RE
JECT.
i hate more categories for the same games we have perfectly reasonable runs already
To quote a couple. Even "different" communities have the ability to be respectful, regardless of their rules or opinions.
I have watched the encode at this point, and unfortunately I cannot vote yes to this run.
As I stated before, the glitchless requirement causes this to essentially mimic the 100% run both in form and in spirit. In addition, I now find myself asking "Why go for 100% map completion and not go for 100% item collection?" - surely not having to worry about ammo conservation in the later parts of the game would be enticement enough to consider such.
I'm also curious to know how the known 90 seconds of improvement were discovered and when.
I also invite you to share future attempts, but not necessarily as formal submissions. We do have a dedicated thread for... most games, actually, from games as well known and loved as Super Metroid to obscure games such as Nail 'n Scale to even a few homebrew games that didn't exactly measure up to our expectations. We also have a microstorage service for sharing in the threads without going through the formal submission process.
(And I'm going to hold onto that last paragraph for the next wave of Beginner WIPs posted to the Workbench)
Joined: 4/18/2006
Posts: 179
Location: East Petersburg, PA
I like it! I feel like it is if Any% and 100% had a baby. Since 100% doesn't include map completion, it makes sense to have a speedrun of that goal. I don't feel the goal is any different than goals like 'All Bosses' or 'All Sidequests'. So, I'm putting Yes because I feel the community should not be discouraged to make runs like this. :-)
"I think we can put our differences behind us... for science, you monster."
I like it! I feel like it is if Any% and 100% had a baby. Since 100% doesn't include map completion, it makes sense to have a speedrun of that goal. I don't feel the goal is any different than goals like 'All Bosses' or 'All Sidequests'. So, I'm putting Yes because I feel the community should not be discouraged to make runs like this. :-)
I don't mind the category as long as it's distinguishable, entertaining and optimal. From what I read, there's some unoptimized portions in it, and since this is Super Metroid we're talking about, it's questionable.
(the category confuses me so much pls hlp me...)
I enjoyed the run (I'm a sucker for anything Super Metroid...), but I echo the feeling that this is not really different enough than the other published runs for casual viewers.
I wish this could be combined with a 100% run which would be a treat with the item/door transition skip LUA script.
Gruefood Delight, maybe?
PS: I know you (Nymx et al.) put a lot of work on this and it hurts to be criticized on something you are proud of, but try to understand that people here have seen a lot of speed runs, many have a lot of experience doing them and you should respect their opinion, no matter how harsh they may sound. This is a technical forum on the Internet, you cannot expect everyone to be "politically correct" when they voice their thoughts.
Without reading too much of the previous comments, I can say that I actually enjoyed this movie. I suppose getting 100% map completion versus vanilla 100% is more of a technicality, but I feel my time was pretty well spent on this movie.
I voted no. I've seen all the published runs and didn't feel that this submission offered anything new. The current publications all accomplish interesting goals for unfamiliar audiences (any% and 100% of course, reverse boss order is a really fun watch). And because Super Metroid has such a dedicated TASing community, the site also has TWO low% runs.
As someone who isn't as avid a player of Super Metroid, I really can't appreciate the difference between the two routes (both of which probably showcase areas of the map that the 100% visits). I think a general audience that still tries to appreciate a TAS wouldn't find entertainment past 4 playthroughs (any%, low%, 100%, and reverse boss order). The inclusion of a sixth category that does hardly more than the 100% run is really unnecessary; a general audience would have no interest in such a run.
Some people are too stuck up on the “optimization” issue, I feel. Where was all that during the original Tenchu submission?
Also 90 seconds for an over an hour run really isn’t that much.
so I went with a clear mind and read every single post, at least you gave me some minor even if it wasn't a good answer as to why what was done with the missiles vs super missiles, I have watched it all the way through and I seen where you could of used the super vs the 5 normal and you never used the super later on, if the RNG wasn't working for you then maybe a reattempt to get a better RNG this is a tas after all.
if concerns over not having enough missiles then how bout you grab another tank to give you more.
don't confuse what I said as total hate towards the run, what I would really like to know and is still been not addressed is how you have well over 90 seconds of improvements and I seen where it could even be more.
as for what I had said earlier as for the not giving ideas it was a bit biased only due to what I have seen in the past and there have been some people who do tases and keep on doing just what you are starting to pattern only to get banned, don't feel discouraged by comments on this im sure with some time and effort you can make a WOW tas in the near future, try posting in the WIP for comments instead of just submitting a run and getting what you don't want to hear.
now for the lurker I don't care what you think as im sure you wont be around much past this submission, but you took what I said completely out of context and I have given both good and bad advice to other runs in the past, what I had said is what I felt and if you don't like it well too bad, I have given lots of advice granted it might be a hard pill to swallow I could of said more then what I had already said.
so my rant is this try again maybe instead of doing a mediocre human vs tas run how bout you try to do like I suggested a 100% map with 100% item collection or something like that, so far this run is like watching a mega man 1 buster only run which didn't go over so well but at least we had a full breakdown as to what was going on and more info then what your still not giving us, at least you gave minor credit to the author you used some (way more then 5% or so) in inputs,
have you read all the issues other members have comments on, other then the lurkers who want this to pass even tho I still think this doesn't come even to par with a vault run and some of those runs IMHO aren't as par either but the key thing here to remember is its each individual members opinions and if your taking it too hard idk what to tell you.
can you show us even in the WIP the 90 second improvements and get some positive comments instead of getting lurkers to defend on something that I don't think will make it
That's not at all what's been happening. From my perspective, we've been asking legitimate questions and have gotten no good answers in return. You guys' entire argument seems to be "Super Metroid is the greatest game ever, and that's why you're all wrong!"
There's a fine line between asking questions and interrogating. This teeters on the latter. No one here has said, "Super Metroid is the greatest game ever, and that's why you're all wrong!" You're putting words in our mouths. If anything, we're defending the category, not the game itself. I can't personally answer any of the specific TAS-related questions for obvious reasons.
Samsara wrote:
All of our concerns have either been evaded or ignored entirely in favor of the things that don't really matter. Our criticism over the category was twisted into us "hating" the game. If you're going to participate in this debate, can you at least try to see this run from our perspective, instead of barging into this community and pretending you know how we operate? Christ, and you call us smug.
I don't need to pretend to know how you operate. That's stated clearly in the mission statement, submission instructions and movie rules, which I've read through. From my understanding, once a video is submitted a forum thread is automatically generated where members can scrutinize offer feedback and constructive criticism on the TAS, and also vote on its entertainment value. From that point the fate of the TAS is left in the hands of a judge, who will then determine whether the video is worthy of publishing or not. If there's anything I'm leaving out, please let me know. I'm not saying this to sound like a douche; I legitimately want to know for the sake of myself and others here who are having a hard time understanding the process.
For the sake of argument, I'm putting myself into your shoes. My only basis for comparison is our speedrunning community, so let's say for the sake of argument that you decided to start speed running Super Metroid. You complete your first any% RTA and decide to submit it to deertier.com. To your delight, your time appears uncontested on the web site. In fact, you can submit times without even linking to a video, however times that are close to world record would likely be investigated. Now, if we're truly comparing apples to apples within the context of this discussion, a better example would be you submitting a category that's not currently listed on deertier.com. From that perspective, yes, I can see your point, and such a submission would likely need to be legitimized before a branch is created on the web site. However, 100% map has, and will continue to be a legitimate branch for Super Metroid on deertier.com. I think the disconnect happens when the speedrunning community assumes that a particular category is fit for the TAS community. We see a TAS and stack it up comparatively against the best human players, and figure out the limitations of what can be realistically applied in a run. You guys take the human element out completely, and deal with the limitations of the game itself. Both have entertainment value, but it's clear that the standards are much higher here. There's nothing wrong with that, but I guess we're not used to it.
Samsara wrote:
It better be given where it's due. The entire beginning of the run is 100% Cpadolf's input. He deserves co-authorship credit. There's no reason not to do it, there's no harm in doing it. Again, this shouldn't be an issue. We're not the ones making it an issue, NYMX is the one focusing on it
I agree with the first part, however to say that you're not the ones making it an issue is incorrect. He was called out on it at least 4 times, even after he responded to the initial concerns on the first page of this thread. Like you, I fully expect nymx to give cpadolf full credit for his portion either as co-author or contributor, whichever is decided on.
Samsara wrote:
Except that's not how we define an arbitrary goal. If the run didn't achieve its goal, it would be rejected for not achieving its goal. The matter at hand is whether or not the goal is worth publishing. I don't think so. It's arbitrary in the context of the site.
I think I was confusing "arbitrary" with "ambiguous." It's not an arbitrary goal within the context of deertier.com, but as I discussed above, the goals don't necessarily line up between the two sites, and that's fine.
Samsara wrote:
I'm sure it achieves the incredible, thrilling goal of completing every square of the map, but that doesn't change the fact that no one outside the community would care about that.
Sarcastic, assumptive, and already dis-proven by some of your own members:
DemonStrate wrote:
I like it! I feel like it is if Any% and 100% had a baby. Since 100% doesn't include map completion, it makes sense to have a speedrun of that goal. I don't feel the goal is any different than goals like 'All Bosses' or 'All Sidequests'. So, I'm putting Yes because I feel the community should not be discouraged to make runs like this. :-)
Ford wrote:
Without reading too much of the previous comments, I can say that I actually enjoyed this movie. I suppose getting 100% map completion versus vanilla 100% is more of a technicality, but I feel my time was pretty well spent on this movie.
Samsara wrote:
It may not mirror the 100% run, but what does it have over the 100% run aside from a bunch of extra rooms that serve no purpose to a logical route? Oh, sure, there may be new strategies specific to this route, but that's exactly what they are: Strategies specific to a route that only appeals to your community.
See above quotes. I don't really understand what you're trying to say here. Those "bunch of extra rooms that serve no purpose" are purposeful in filling out map squares. This is not simply an extension of a 100% item run. The goals between the two categories are completely different, therefore logic and planning were required in routing this run to optimize time.
Samsara wrote:
Except if you spend 6 and a half months on a run that you know you can improve and you know you're going to improve, then you can spend a few more months pushing it to its absolute limit before submitting it to a site that asks for nothing short of perfection.
The run could have just as easily been put on the site's Userfiles or any other storage medium and shared with our community. It didn't have to be submitted. But since it was submitted, it's subject to our high standards of publication. We won't just publish anything that's optimized. Even the most entertaining game in the world would have rejected runs if they're of arbitrary categories: Otherwise, we'd have runs like Donkey Kong Country "collect the letters K and N in 5 stages", or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night "all items except for the Shield Rod and all bosses except for Olrox and Succubus", or Super Metroid "defeat Spore Spawn" cluttering everything up.
Case in point: We're judging the TAS based on the TAS, not on the game. We see the category as arbitrary and not entertaining enough to publish. We generally don't hate the game, so you can all drop the persecution complexes.
I understand this, and don't really disagree with anything stated here. Admittedly, I think some of the "persecution complexes" were based on knee-jerk reactions, likely due to the harsh criticism nymx's submission received right out of the gate. I can understand and appreciate the high standards you guys hold these submissions to, but I also think there are better ways of offering feedback, especially to someone who is still relatively new to TAS-ing. This thought is loosely echoed by one of your own members (on dwangoAC's comment about the TASvideos community not being bad, just "different"):
Kurabupengin wrote:
Some people here are though... not all of us, just some from my experience. (and admins know who I'm talking about...)
My dismay wasn't necessarily directed towards the possibility of this submission being rejected. That is, of course, your perogative, and respectfully so. This TAS will continue to exist and likely appear elsewhere, regardless of the outcome here, and is a great contribution. My dismay was primarily directed towards the attitudes of some of the forum members who decided to comment. You may consider it just criticism, and I'm sure that flies perfectly well within your community, but it's not attractive to newcomers. I've seen this time and time again in discussion forums, back when I used to participate in them regularly (on topics completely unrelated). Many members developed cliques, and subsequently complexes that largely alienated newcomers. People that weren't opposed to taking a little bloody lip were fine, but the rest likely never signed into their accounts again. I got tired of the incessant bickering and ego trips and largely disappeared. I'm not saying this is what's happening in this forum, but what I have seen is an eerie reminder of what turned me off of discussion forums in the past.
Anyways, I also need sleep...
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
Nintoaster_81 wrote:
There's a fine line between asking questions and interrogating. This teeters on the latter. No one here has said, "Super Metroid is the greatest game ever, and that's why you're all wrong!" You're putting words in our mouths. If anything, we're defending the category, not the game itself. I can't personally answer any of the specific TAS-related questions for obvious reasons.
1. We have every right to ask questions. If they were being answered, this wouldn't be an issue. The only reason we're so insistent with our questioning is because not a single one of our questions has been addressed.
2. Didn't you guys accuse us of hating Super Metroid?
3. That's why we were asking Nymx about it, and instead of answering our questions he just posted that cryptic and ominous "I think its too late now" response. Also, you're here defending the run and category or whatever, why don't you know anything about it?
I don't need to pretend to know how you operate. That's stated clearly in the mission statement, submission instructions and movie rules, which I've read through. From my understanding, once a video is submitted a forum thread is automatically generated where members can scrutinize offer feedback and constructive criticism on the TAS, and also vote on its entertainment value. From that point the fate of the TAS is left in the hands of a judge, who will then determine whether the video is worthy of publishing or not. If there's anything I'm leaving out, please let me know. I'm not saying this to sound like a douche; I legitimately want to know for the sake of myself and others here who are having a hard time understanding the process.
The scrutiny is part of the process. We don't accept anything short of perfection, and there's far more to the submission process than just those three pages. We don't operate like your community or SpeedDemosArchive or any other console-based speedrunning site. There are strict rules about what we allow and don't allow.
This run is on the borderline of acceptable to us, its possible future on the site comes down to how entertaining we feel it is. If the community deems it not entertaining, we can't publish it due to how our system works: Runs that don't fall under "any%" or "100%" have to be entertaining enough to be featured on the site.
For the sake of argument, I'm putting myself into your shoes. My only basis for comparison is our speedrunning community, so let's say for the sake of argument that you decided to start speed running Super Metroid. You complete your first any% RTA and decide to submit it to deertier.com. To your delight, your time appears uncontested on the web site. In fact, you can submit times without even linking to a video, however times that are close to world record would likely be investigated. Now, if we're truly comparing apples to apples within the context of this discussion, a better example would be you submitting a category that's not currently listed on deertier.com. From that perspective, yes, I can see your point, and such a submission would likely need to be legitimized before a branch is created on the web site. However, 100% map has, and will continue to be a legitimate branch for Super Metroid on deertier.com. I think the disconnect happens when the speedrunning community assumes that a particular category is fit for the TAS community. We see a TAS and stack it up comparatively against the best human players, and figure out the limitations of what can be realistically applied in a run. You guys take the human element out completely, and deal with the limitations of the game itself. Both have entertainment value, but it's clear that the standards are much higher here. There's nothing wrong with that, but I guess we're not used to it.
A legitimate branch to you guys doesn't necessarily mean a legitimate branch to us. Keep in mind that Super Metroid has the most published categories out of any game on this site. That's what we're concerned about. There are tons of legitimate speedrunning categories out there for other communities that we wouldn't allow on the site.
As far as I'm concerned, it's already ridiculous that we have a published "in-game time" TAS for this game that exists alongside the real time run, solely because it's a category your community accepts and appreciates.
I agree with the first part, however to say that you're not the ones making it an issue is incorrect. He was called out on it at least 4 times, even after he responded to the initial concerns on the first page of this thread. Like you, I fully expect nymx to give cpadolf full credit for his portion either as co-author or contributor, whichever is decided on.
He's being called out on it because it hasn't been addressed in accordance to the rules of the site. Once Cpadolf is credited as a co-author, and specifically as a co-author, we'll stop pressing. As it stands right now, Cpadolf's input was essentially stolen. Not literally stolen, he's getting credited in the description now and that's a great start, but the fact remains that a portion of his exact input is in this run.
There's a bit of iffiness on co-authorship at times, and people have different opinions on what deserves co-authorship... But I still think the co-authorship credit should've happened as soon as it was brought up the first time. The site specifically asks you to co-author someone when you use their input. The edge case with "frame wars" almost always leads to every participant getting co-authorship credit on the final run.
I think I was confusing "arbitrary" with "ambiguous." It's not an arbitrary goal within the context of deertier.com, but as I discussed above, the goals don't necessarily line up between the two sites, and that's fine.
I'm glad you understand that... Except for the fact that you're still defending the category.
Sarcastic, assumptive, and already dis-proven by some of your own members:
Oops, I accidentally assumed that the majority of the community thought the run wasn't entertaining. Oh wait, the majority of the community thought the run wasn't entertaining. Yes, obviously some people are going to enjoy it, but from what it seems the majority of our community isn't exactly thrilled by this run.
See above quotes. I don't really understand what you're trying to say here. Those "bunch of extra rooms that serve no purpose" are purposeful in filling out map squares. This is not simply an extension of a 100% item run. The goals between the two categories are completely different, therefore logic and planning were required in routing this run to optimize time.
So what you're saying is these extra rooms serve no purpose outside of a logical route. Thanks for proving my point.
Let me be blunt, here: This is a niche category made up by your community because no one wants to run the categories that people actually care about. This isn't a contested category like any% or 100%. It's impressive that so many new strategies were found specific to this category, I'll admit that! It's that kind of thinking outside the box that leads to huge new discoveries and I'm glad the run exists if only for that. But what purpose does it serve outside of your community? Who's going to wake up one day and think "Wow, I really want to watch someone fill in all the map squares on Super Metroid!"?
If people want to watch it, it's still going to be around. As has been stated before, your goal has been accomplished for your community. Having it published here isn't honestly going to change anything significant in the long run aside from maybe a couple thousand more people watching it and most likely thinking it's not for them.
I understand this, and don't really disagree with anything stated here. Admittedly, I think some of the "persecution complexes" were based on knee-jerk reactions, likely due to the harsh criticism nymx's submission received right out of the gate. I can understand and appreciate the high standards you guys hold these submissions to, but I also think there are better ways of offering feedback, especially to someone who is still relatively new to TAS-ing. This thought is loosely echoed by one of your own members (on dwangoAC's comment about the TASvideos community not being bad, just "different"):
Kurabupengin wrote:
Some people here are though... not all of us, just some from my experience. (and admins know who I'm talking about...)
My dismay wasn't necessarily directed towards the possibility of this submission being rejected. That is, of course, your perogative, and respectfully so. This TAS will continue to exist and likely appear elsewhere, regardless of the outcome here, and is a great contribution. My dismay was primarily directed towards the attitudes of some of the forum members who decided to comment. You may consider it just criticism, and I'm sure that flies perfectly well within your community, but it's not attractive to newcomers. I've seen this time and time again in discussion forums, back when I used to participate in them regularly (on topics completely unrelated). Many members developed cliques, and subsequently complexes that largely alienated newcomers. People that weren't opposed to taking a little bloody lip were fine, but the rest likely never signed into their accounts again. I got tired of the incessant bickering and ego trips and largely disappeared. I'm not saying this is what's happening in this forum, but what I have seen is an eerie reminder of what turned me off of discussion forums in the past.
Well said. No, really, I agree with a lot of that, but...
Harsh criticism does not mean it's invalid criticism. If you focus on the tone, you'll miss the actual point of the message. Two or three people with harsher comments than everyone else don't speak for an entire community. Honestly? I like the fact that we're not afraid to hold back, that we're a bit more judgmental and critical of newcomers' work than other communities would be. That's how criticism should be: Harsh enough to get a message across, but not enough to discourage the newcomer.
If you look at submissions in the Gruefood forum, you'll start to notice that a lot of our comments can be both critical and encouraging. Not all of them: It's unreasonable to expect everyone to be 100% perfect, let alone the community as a whole, but for the most part we're about as welcome we can be without showering praise onto new TASers.
What we really want is for people to join our community and share their work with us before submitting it! The broad TASing community is already split up into cliques as it is. There are people who TAS exclusively on Youtube or Nicovideo, there are French communities out there, people who TAS on Twitch, there are sub-communities for specific games... And that's fine, but once a submission makes it to this site from one of those communities, then things start to change.
It's always worrying (to me at least) when a submission from another community appears out of nowhere without any input from us. As I've said, we wouldn't judge a WIP nearly as harshly as we would a submission. We're far more accepting of people who actively take the time to consult us or collaborate with us, and we're more than happy to offer advice and constructive criticism if we're asked.
Am I defending the harsher-than-usual comments made in this thread? No, but I'm defending the fact that they made valid points that seemed to be ignored due to the content of the rest of the message. Focusing on the presentation means you're not focusing on the content, and the content is what needs to get through. You can ignore the presentation without any consequences.
For example, if someone says "It looks like you could've taken a different route through Maridia. Also, you're fat and ugly", you can safely ignore the second sentence while gleaning information from the first. You wouldn't just assume that the first sentence is untrue because this theoretical jackass pulled out a personal attack.
There's a psychological reason behind harsher criticism as it is: Optimistic and positive criticism don't necessarily get a message across as well as something a bit more scathing. Sure, you have people on the site who are always encouraging and positive, and I really like that those people are around, but from my experiences newcomers generally don't learn from that.
There needs to be a strict balance: Something that bluntly tells someone what they're doing wrong, but assures them that if they put in the time and effort, it can be fixed. Not everyone can do that. I know I have problems with being harsh, myself, as I'm sure my entire posting history can easily tell you. But in the grand scheme of things, I'm just one person. Everyone is just one person. You may have a horrible first experience, but if you stick around you'll see that not everyone acts the same way.
I admit I've been pretty harsh in this thread, including this post, and I apologize for that. I have to give you and the rest of the SM community props for actually having this be a proper debate and not a gigantic shitstorm like certain incidents in the past. I appreciate the time and effort that went into this run, and like I said I'm glad it exists even if it just turns out to be a reference point for future SM TASing... I'd just like to actually see that time and effort taking place as it happens instead of seeing the results appear out of nowhere.
This goes out to all the contributors and Nymx especially: If you're interested in TASing, even if it's just for Super Metroid, I urge you to stick around our community. You'll learn a lot about how we operate, the TASing process, and you might even learn some new things about Super Metroid. We're not nearly as harsh to people who take the time to get to know us.
Either way, keep doing what you're doing.
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 BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Nintoaster_81, you seem at least receptive to feedback, so I am going to respond to your post, on a point-by-point basis, in the hopes that you have a better understanding of my (and possibly others') standpoint. (I started writing this before Samsara posted her response, so some of this information might be duplicated.)
Nintoaster_81 wrote:
Samsara wrote:
That's not at all what's been happening. From my perspective, we've been asking legitimate questions and have gotten no good answers in return. You guys' entire argument seems to be "Super Metroid is the greatest game ever, and that's why you're all wrong!"
There's a fine line between asking questions and interrogating. This teeters on the latter. No one here has said, "Super Metroid is the greatest game ever, and that's why you're all wrong!" You're putting words in our mouths. If anything, we're defending the category, not the game itself. I can't personally answer any of the specific TAS-related questions for obvious reasons.
All of our concerns have either been evaded or ignored entirely in favor of the things that don't really matter. Our criticism over the category was twisted into us "hating" the game. If you're going to participate in this debate, can you at least try to see this run from our perspective, instead of barging into this community and pretending you know how we operate? Christ, and you call us smug.
I don't need to pretend to know how you operate. That's stated clearly in the mission statement, submission instructions and movie rules, which I've read through. From my understanding, once a video is submitted a forum thread is automatically generated where members can scrutinize offer feedback and constructive criticism on the TAS, and also vote on its entertainment value. From that point the fate of the TAS is left in the hands of a judge, who will then determine whether the video is worthy of publishing or not. If there's anything I'm leaving out, please let me know. I'm not saying this to sound like a douche; I legitimately want to know for the sake of myself and others here who are having a hard time understanding the process.
When you read the submission instructions, did you miss this part:
Submission Instructions wrote:
The top line
We only want movies that are interesting to watch.
Failure to comply will result your movie being rejected.
Please ensure your movie is good. Do not waste the judges' time with movies that have obvious mistakes ― read the guidelines!
The underlined section is what I want to draw your attention to. The submission clearly states that about 90 seconds of errors are present. In the first fifteen minutes of the livestream, NYMX's floating head mentions two places which could be improved, one during the Ceres escape, which is right at the beginning of the game! Regardless of it taking over five months to complete this run, knowing that something in the first five minutes is wrong and then ignoring it is simply sloppy.
Under the movie rules, which is the first link off of Submission Instructions,
Movie Rules wrote:
The movie must be properly attributed
...
Crediting other users' contribution
There are no exact rules that estimate the significance of each contribution, but it's generally accepted that if you simply copy large chunks of gameplay from an earlier movie as they are, that effectively makes a new submission coauthored. Authorship isn't enforced, but the audience might become unhappy if you don't give credit where it's due. If unsure, consult with a judge.
Yes, that has been fixed now, but it does not change the fact that proper attribution was not given at the outset, and people are allowed to be upset about that.
Nintoaster_81 wrote:
For the sake of argument, I'm putting myself into your shoes. My only basis for comparison is our speedrunning community, so let's say for the sake of argument that you decided to start speed running Super Metroid.
That is not how that works. If you are going to put yourself into the shoes of a TASVideos regular, you have to do it from the perspective of a TASVideos regular. In the case of such a person, you have witnessed an any% run, and the slew of obsoletions in that category (scroll down); an any% run that cares about in-game time and not total framecount, and its obsoletions; the reverse boss order run, a new branch that spawned a discussion about allowing more branches of Super Metroid, and the judge's decision to legitimize the branch; twodifferent low% (14%) runs, likely both of which will be obsoleted once a single 13% run is found because they will better meet the goal of low% than either 14% run; cpadolf's 100% item run -- the basis for NYMX's run -- and the runs it obsoletes, including one that uses the multitap to great effect; a run including the recently (by SM standards) discovered debug code and an arbitrary code execution run obsoleting a slower such run. You also have access to 257206 pages of Super Metroid theorycrafting, route planning, and discussion.
Then, someone comes along and submits something to a category that a different community cares about. Twice. And is both times generally politely told that the category he is proposing does not meet the site's standards or stated goals. Finally, he submits something that meets the site's goal (beats the game), but chooses a restriction that is not present on the site to do it, and openly states that it could be better optimized. There's going to be some resistance to adding another category to the game, particularly when the viewership seems to believe that there is nothing really new offered to the TAS community in the movie. The movie demonstrates several tricks that are not possible in realtime, but none that are new. The movie promises "never before seen shinesparks" and goes so far as to name the ones used in the run (claiming several as NYMX Original -- what is that even supposed to mean? Can I call it an Invariel Original if I shinespark one pixel to the left, or do I need to attribute it?), but shinesparks are already used consistently in the existing runs. The movie demonstrates a series of rooms that are not present in any TAS, and that is a valid comment. However, it also willingly makes speed tradeoffs so that it can visit one pixel of a square to fill it in on the map, or goes into dead end rooms that serve no purpose to a "regular" speedrun and exist to confuse or frustrate or reward (in the case of monster spawner rooms) a normal player.
But, I digress. Your example.
Nintoaster_81 wrote:
You complete your first any% RTA and decide to submit it to deertier.com. To your delight, your time appears uncontested on the web site. In fact, you can submit times without even linking to a video, however times that are close to world record would likely be investigated. Now, if we're truly comparing apples to apples within the context of this discussion, a better example would be you submitting a category that's not currently listed on deertier.com. From that perspective, yes, I can see your point, and such a submission would likely need to be legitimized before a branch is created on the web site.
So, wait, you mean I have to get your site's approval before submitting my "any%, stopped for burritos, one sock" run? That's a shame. It would fit so well.
Nintoaster_81 wrote:
However, 100% map has, and will continue to be a legitimate branch for Super Metroid on deertier.com.
Yes, but you're putting yourself into the shoes of a TASVideos regular, where 100% map is not a legitimate branch yet.
Nintoaster_81 wrote:
I think the disconnect happens when the speedrunning community assumes that a particular category is fit for the TAS community. We see a TAS and stack it up comparatively against the best human players, and figure out the limitations of what can be realistically applied in a run. You guys take the human element out completely,
That's a bit mean. The people who work on TASes here are human, prone to error and emotion. The tools we use remove human error during replay from the equation, but they do not remove human error during route planning or execution. That would be like saying that computer programming removes the human element from logical mathematics.
Nintoaster_81 wrote:
and deal with the limitations of the game itself. Both have entertainment value, but it's clear that the standards are much higher here. There's nothing wrong with that, but I guess we're not used to it.
Nintoaster_81 wrote:
Samsara wrote:
It better be given where it's due. The entire beginning of the run is 100% Cpadolf's input. He deserves co-authorship credit. There's no reason not to do it, there's no harm in doing it. Again, this shouldn't be an issue. We're not the ones making it an issue, NYMX is the one focusing on it
I agree with the first part, however to say that you're not the ones making it an issue is incorrect. He was called out on it at least 4 times, even after he responded to the initial concerns on the first page of this thread. Like you, I fully expect nymx to give cpadolf full credit for his portion either as co-author or contributor, whichever is decided on.
Even though he responded to the initial criticisms on page one of this thread, he was likely called out by people who hadn't noticed that the submission text had changed, since he made no mention of it in this thread. He has changed the submission text to reflect cpadolf's contribution, but by the site's rules (above), he should be listed as a co-author.
Nintoaster_81 wrote:
Samsara wrote:
Except that's not how we define an arbitrary goal. If the run didn't achieve its goal, it would be rejected for not achieving its goal. The matter at hand is whether or not the goal is worth publishing. I don't think so. It's arbitrary in the context of the site.
I think I was confusing "arbitrary" with "ambiguous." It's not an arbitrary goal within the context of deertier.com, but as I discussed above, the goals don't necessarily line up between the two sites, and that's fine.
Samsara wrote:
I'm sure it achieves the incredible, thrilling goal of completing every square of the map, but that doesn't change the fact that no one outside the community would care about that.
Sarcastic, assumptive, and already dis-proven by some of your own members:
DemonStrate wrote:
I like it! I feel like it is if Any% and 100% had a baby. Since 100% doesn't include map completion, it makes sense to have a speedrun of that goal. I don't feel the goal is any different than goals like 'All Bosses' or 'All Sidequests'. So, I'm putting Yes because I feel the community should not be discouraged to make runs like this. :-)
Ford wrote:
Without reading too much of the previous comments, I can say that I actually enjoyed this movie. I suppose getting 100% map completion versus vanilla 100% is more of a technicality, but I feel my time was pretty well spent on this movie.
And while Samsara was wrong to use an absolute, the fact that the current poll reads 13 14 No, 7 Yes, 3 Meh demonstrates that of the people that have voted, the majority do not find this run entertaining.
Nintoaster_81 wrote:
Samsara wrote:
It may not mirror the 100% run, but what does it have over the 100% run aside from a bunch of extra rooms that serve no purpose to a logical route? Oh, sure, there may be new strategies specific to this route, but that's exactly what they are: Strategies specific to a route that only appeals to your community.
See above quotes. I don't really understand what you're trying to say here. Those "bunch of extra rooms that serve no purpose" are purposeful in filling out map squares. This is not simply an extension of a 100% item run. The goals between the two categories are completely different, therefore logic and planning were required in routing this run to optimize time.
Except if you spend 6 and a half months on a run that you know you can improve and you know you're going to improve, then you can spend a few more months pushing it to its absolute limit before submitting it to a site that asks for nothing short of perfection.
The run could have just as easily been put on the site's Userfiles or any other storage medium and shared with our community. It didn't have to be submitted. But since it was submitted, it's subject to our high standards of publication. We won't just publish anything that's optimized. Even the most entertaining game in the world would have rejected runs if they're of arbitrary categories: Otherwise, we'd have runs like Donkey Kong Country "collect the letters K and N in 5 stages", or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night "all items except for the Shield Rod and all bosses except for Olrox and Succubus", or Super Metroid "defeat Spore Spawn" cluttering everything up.
Case in point: We're judging the TAS based on the TAS, not on the game. We see the category as arbitrary and not entertaining enough to publish. We generally don't hate the game, so you can all drop the persecution complexes.
I understand this, and don't really disagree with anything stated here. Admittedly, I think some of the "persecution complexes" were based on knee-jerk reactions, likely due to the harsh criticism nymx's submission received right out of the gate. I can understand and appreciate the high standards you guys hold these submissions to, but I also think there are better ways of offering feedback, especially to someone who is still relatively new to TAS-ing. This thought is loosely echoed by one of your own members (on dwangoAC's comment about the TASvideos community not being bad, just "different"):
Samsara also covered this very well; people tend to respond more to criticism and feedback than just feedback, and any insults should be discarded as noise amongst the signal.
Nintoaster_81 wrote:
Kurabupengin wrote:
Some people here are though... not all of us, just some from my experience. (and admins know who I'm talking about...)
My dismay wasn't necessarily directed towards the possibility of this submission being rejected. That is, of course, your perogative, and respectfully so. This TAS will continue to exist and likely appear elsewhere, regardless of the outcome here, and is a great contribution. My dismay was primarily directed towards the attitudes of some of the forum members who decided to comment. You may consider it just criticism, and I'm sure that flies perfectly well within your community, but it's not attractive to newcomers. I've seen this time and time again in discussion forums, back when I used to participate in them regularly (on topics completely unrelated). Many members developed cliques, and subsequently complexes that largely alienated newcomers. People that weren't opposed to taking a little bloody lip were fine, but the rest likely never signed into their accounts again. I got tired of the incessant bickering and ego trips and largely disappeared. I'm not saying this is what's happening in this forum, but what I have seen is an eerie reminder of what turned me off of discussion forums in the past.
I'm sure that every forum has its group of people that fall more negative than neutral, and it's obvious that there are negative people here as well. All of that said, nymx's forum account is over six months old - he is not "new" here, and he has two previous submissions. He could have chosen to spend some of those six months (seven months, nearly eight) interacting with this community (of TASers) about his six months-in-the-making TAS, but he decided not to, striking it out on his own and returning with ... well, we all know what happened. As has been stated by others in this thread, there are ways of letting the community know that you are working on something, and asking for feedback and input well before things get out of hand. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but if I was considering submitting something to deertier.com, I would first investigate the community, then look at something that exists there as a goal and decide whether or not I could beat it. I would posit suggestions as to how to improve it, and see if anyone agreed with my assessment of the situation. Then, once I felt like there was justification for attempting to beat a world record, I would start working on it, with an understanding of how the community works. How do I know that I would do these things? Because I am in the process of a TAS myself, and have done all of the previous steps in the relevant forum.
Nintoaster_81 wrote:
Anyways, I also need sleep...
So do I.
I am still the wizard that did it.
"On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata
<scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is
evilchen you really don't want to know.
Samsara, I feel bad that you repeatedly have to explain to nintoaster over and over again on any and everything that you say and repeatedly say but I do have to say I can agree with a lot that you have to say about this run and the over dramatic bs that has followed in its wake.
Invariel, basically a rinse and repeat to what I said to samsara can nintoaster not understand anything that is being said on this run?? or will there be a 2 page argument tomorrow from him saying that this should be a run even tho at the time of my post its 14 no 7 yes and 3 meh.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
supersonicjc wrote:
Samsara, I feel bad that you repeatedly have to explain to nintoaster over and over again on any and everything that you say and repeatedly say but I do have to say I can agree with a lot that you have to say about this run and the over dramatic bs that has followed in its wake.
Statements like this aren't going to get us anywhere good. Nintoaster is by far the most receptive and rational person I've ever debated with on these forums. They deserve a lot more credit than that. They took the time to familiarize themselves with the rules, admitted they didn't understand some of the more complex ones, agreed with a lot of what we had to say while still offering up some valid points here and there... Meanwhile, there's still that Diddy Kong Racing submission, where members of the community flooded the forums and essentially called us brainless My Little Pony fans because we were asking about a clear site rule violation.
The only "dramatic bs" has really been Nymx acting strangely and even that's far more low key than some other recent events we've gone through. I'm actually pleasantly surprised at how tame the discussion's been, aside from a couple bad eggs.
EDIT:
Invariel wrote:
And while Samsara was wrong to use an absolute,
Yeah, my fault on that. I have a nasty habit of accidentally using absolutes without realizing it.
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 BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Joined: 8/15/2005
Posts: 1943
Location: Mullsjö, Sweden
I'm part of both TASVideos' community, as well as the speedrunning communities. While I highly enjoy to watch practically all categories, for both TASes and real time, of Super Metroid, having them all to be published on TASVideos is a bit unneccesary.
Take Ocarina of Time as an example. I have been following its progress the past 11 years and is one of my favorite game to watch runs of. It has LOOOOOADS of categories. See a list here which includes most of them: http://bombch.us/BDfW
They are interesting to have and enjoyable to watch. But many of them are just "for fun" categories and some aren't really taken serious by the community either. Some are just very arbitary, but a portion of the community enjoys running it and want it to be kept, even though new discoveries made them obsolete.
TASVideos want to track the "more serious" categories, with rules that make sense. Clugging it up with the 22 "beat-the-game" categories of OoT will just be confusing and weird. Even though each and every one of them could be an interesting watch. I see 100% Map as a "for fun" category, just like "Spore Spawn%". As none of these will practically never be in a run otherwise. But that isn't enough of a reason to publish it.
or will there be a 2 page argument tomorrow from him saying that this should be a run even tho at the time of my post its 14 no 7 yes and 3 meh.
Remove the kneejerk reactionary No votes that happened simply due to prior submissions by the same author, the lack of initial accrediting and I'm sure at least 1 person that voted no just to follow the crowd and you have a pretty evenly split vote... All things considered, saying around 40% to 50% of the people that have taken the time to actually vote are in favor of or at least don't care enough to vote for/against said run isn't really that bad.
A run shouldn't require 100% of the site to stand up and applaud at the end of it, it should entertain when it can not complete the any% or 100% objectives and I, for one, am entertained by runs of this nature. Speaking from the perspective of a person not invested in the Metroid community in the slightest, and frankly from the perspective of a person that actually dislikes Super Metroid as a game in general; this run pleases me.
I've seen every single run this site has pertaining to Super Metroid and lots of RTAs and in each run of this game I've seen new things and just knowing that a run is a TAS makes them enjoyable to me. I like knowing that what I have just watched, no matter how trivial it may seem to others, was just not possible for almost 100% of the population... if at all.
Do I expect a run of this nature to be heralded as the greatest Super Metroid run to grace this, or any, site? No. However a lot of us as kids saw completing the in game map of a game as just another extension of 100%, to claim that his run should also collect 100% of the items also begs the question "why doesn't the 100% run do this?" to me (yes, I understand how 100% is defined by this site and by the Super Metroid community). From my perspective the 100% run is incomplete, so this run is no less valid of a category even though it appeals to a far smaller crowd.
Lastly the voting system should not be taken as only a means to say haha we have more people that dislike it so bugger off your run isn't getting published, it should be taken as an indicator that a run might fit in better in the vaults or at the very least gruefood delight. Even if this run is not accepted, and I fully believe that will be the case as I'm not new to this site in the least bit, it still showed me a way to play this game I had not seen before and in doing so I was entertained. Yes vote.
<i>A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day.</i>
The only thing that the voting system on this site asks you is "did you find this movie entertaining?".
Not "should it be published?" or "is this a valid category?", it just asks if you were entertained.
Current project: Gex 3 any%
Paused: Gex 64 any%
There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.
Now that I've watched the run, I can give my completely biased opinion.
To paraphrase what someone once said on a board elsewhere: "When you can't beat an existing record category, make a new one". This category to me feels completely arbitrary, and brings nothing new to the table.
No vote.
Some people are too stuck up on the “optimization” issue, I feel. Where was all that during the original Tenchu submission?
Also 90 seconds for an over an hour run really isn’t that much.
Like Resident Evil, there's a ridiculous amount of dead time due to door transitions and item collection. The in-game time provides a decent rough estimate to that dead time in Super Metroid's case, where you can see it's to the tune of half an hour. And those are only the improvements that he's aware of. There are very likely more if he's not doing somewhat basic things like resource management well.
Just as a reminder, and to clarify things if they aren't clear (from a kind of more "legal" point of view):
When someone submits a TAS to this site, there's this piece of text alongside the submission button: "By pressing "Save/Edit" you agree to publish this content under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license."
Said license establishes the following permissions:
Creative Commons CC BY 2.0 wrote:
You are free to:
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
So in order to avoid any kind of misunderstandings: Yes, anybody can take any TAS published at tasvideos.org and use it as he or she sees fit, for any purpose whatsoever. The author of the TAS cannot retroactively revoke these freedoms from anybody, no matter how much he or she "owns" the TAS. (By submitting, the author agreed to this license. If the author doesn't agree with it, then he or she shouldn't have submitted in the first place. After submission it's too late to take it back. Again: These freedoms cannot be revoked even by the original author.)
That being said, the same license imposes some restrictions on this usage, namely:
Creative Commons CC BY 2.0 wrote:
Under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
While it was a mistake to not give credit in the publication text, this has been fixed, so it ought to be ok.
On a more subjective and practical side, the site tries to put a reasonable limit to the amount of different TAS categories for one single game. We don't want one single game having two dozen different categories because it's not very reasonable nor practical.
What is or isn't a good enough new category is highly subjective, of course. Unfortunately the more categories are accepted for a given game, the more difficult it becomes for new categories to be accepted. This might be a bit unfair for future category ideas (because they will be facing a much higher admittance hurdle than the first alternative categories that were submitted for the game), but that's just how it is.
