Joined: 4/17/2010
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feos wrote:
Individual characters don't necessarily lead to new branches being publishable. Only those characters that inherently introduce 50% or more unique gameplay (levels, bosses, etc). Then they count as separate game modes and can be published separately. But that's for vaultable stuff. In Moons you just need to be entertaining and have sensible goals.
If each character introduces enough unique gameplay to count as mode, each can have a branch.
Forgot to add, this is only true if a character (or a mode) is available from a fresh game start.
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.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
I don't know about any improvements to GBA only available in dev builds. Why not stable?
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.
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4090
Location: The Netherlands
MUGG wrote:
Is it ok to use a dev buil of Bizhawk for a GBA TAS?
The movie rules on emulator versions state that movies must sync on official builds. If your movie does not sync on any official BizHawk release, it will be rejected.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
from what I can understand, back when the site didn’t have set rules about movies starting from sram, all that was required was for sram to be in the movie file itself, so for Symphony of the Night, the sram data would be part of the movie itself.
Since any SotN movie uses sram data that is already approved, would it be allowed if I just extract that data from those movies and use that without having to provide a verification movie, or do you still want to set the standard of only allowing sram movies if a verification movie is provided?
Edit: I should also explain that the reason why I’m asking is because the point of a verification movie is to have sram data that can be approved, if the data used in the publications are already approved then theoretically I could just use those and not have to worry about having a verification movie.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
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Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
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If those publications don't have verification movies, I don't know what is "approved" in them.
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.
Well they did technically have verification movies, but it was never posted.
It’s implied that submissions like this http://tasvideos.org/3024S.html used the very first movie of this game to generate the sram date, the problem however is that playing the movie itself doesn’t generate the sram data, in order for that to happen the movie has to save the game at least once before it’s beaten.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
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.
So I just discovered that there are 2 other "official" BIOS files for Saturn, both of them were in japan only. you can see what they look like here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv5uBN76zls
they are called "Hi-Saturn" and "V-Saturn". I am not sure if they actually do anything to change a game's rng as the only game I tested it with was SotN (which seems to have the same RNG regardless of what BIOS is used).
could this be considered when making Saturn TASes if they actually affect gameplay?
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
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.
Nice. I’m still unsure if they actually do anything to affect RNG in games, or even loading, we probably just need to find the right game for it.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
So i’m trying to do an “all bosses, maria mode” tas and somthing was brought up to me.
There is an extra boss that isn’t intended by the developers but it can still be accessed through a glitch. But since it’s not a boss that you’re supposed to fight as maria it seems like it overexceeds the goal of doing “all bosses”.
There is some sort of precedent regarding this involving Julius mode all bosses for AoS, where Julius Vs Julius can happen.
But the question is if there’s a way to access bosses that weren’t intended to play, would it be required or is it optional?
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Joined: 4/17/2010
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Is it locked out just for Maria or in general?
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.
It's a boss that should only be played in normal mode (alucard), and it should be locked out for both Richter and Maria.
and I think the same is true for Julius in AoS, where that boss is locked out for any other mode for the game except for the normal mode.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Joined: 4/17/2010
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If that boss was not available to Maria even with a glitch, it would feel weird to call a movie without it "all bosses". But if it's indeed, literally, all bosses (thanks to a glitch), at least the branch would be accurately labeled. I don't see a problem with glitch usage in order to fight it.
EZGames69 wrote:
But the question is if there’s a way to access bosses that weren’t intended to play, would it be required or is it optional?
I think it would be required for anything labeled "all bosses".
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.
ok so I found a way to enter the boss, but there's a few issues I have with it.
to briefly explain the clock room, statues will move every minute, so one minute it will be open, but the next minute it will be closed.
so to clip into the boss's room, you have to let the door close on you and you can get into the hitbox of the statue: https://i.imgur.com/r6QNtFq.png (Maria is behind her health bar)
then once you're in there, you wait another minute for the door to open back up, and that will clip you out of bounds so you can fall into the area.
so already this takes at least a minute of waiting around.
another issue is when you enter the fight, the room will look glitchy if you enter it: https://i.imgur.com/IvfYSVt.png
you can remove this glitch however if you pause the game, load and unload the map, then unpause, but doing this will take about 5 seconds because pausing the game is extremely slow in this version.
the last issue is the cutscene between Maria and Alucard still plays, and it's unskippable unless you start from dirty sram (and iirc saturn sram isnt the best, but that's irrelevant to the point).
here's a video of the actual cutscene being played after the pause trick was used to eliminate the glitchy screen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvrFNH3rYAY
the cutscene lasts for 30 seconds.
is it still worth it to do this boss? at this point I really dont see a benefit to fighting Maria other than to halt the run and show a glitch for 2 minutes.
Edit: here's an encode of the actual process of clipping into the Maria fight looks like:
Link to video
Edit2: my concern for including this boss is that it will lessen the entertainment value for the run. if there was a smoother way to enter the boss then I wouldnt be against including it. I think if unintended bosses are possible to fight in movies then it should be up to the author if they're included in the run, I do not think it should be a requirement unless the publication already includes such a fight without it hindering the entertainment value of the run, such as the Julius Vs Julius fight in Aria of Sorrow.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Edit2: my concern for including this boss is that it will lessen the entertainment value for the run. if there was a smoother way to enter the boss then I wouldnt be against including it. I think if unintended bosses are possible to fight in movies then it should be up to the author if they're included in the run, I do not think it should be a requirement unless the publication already includes such a fight without it hindering the entertainment value of the run, such as the Julius Vs Julius fight in Aria of Sorrow.
I understand your reason for being concerned about this. Indeed, since including this glitched boss could be detrimental for the entertaining value of the branch, it could lead to a rejection for not being applicable for Moons.
I also think that an "all bosses" goal should include every possible boss, may some be intentionally accessible or glitched, as we will never be able to know the developers' original intentions for sure. I see that in this case it's a pretty obvious unintended boss, but my point is that we can't go with a case-by-case basis when defining a branch goal. We need to apply the same yardstick for all situations, in order to avoid the creation of any kind of bias or double standard.
However, from what I understood, this hypothetical "Maria mode, all bosses" branch goal could count as full-completion for the Maria mode. If that is the case, then it could be allowed to avoid fighting against the glitched boss, if the community considers this to be unintended for the specific game mode. We allow a certain degree of freedom for determining full-completion definitions, if that meets all of ours rule requirements. What I'm saying now could seem to be contradicting with what I said earlier, but I have to note that full-completion definitions often need a certain degree of flexibility, as they are often much more complex than Moons-only goals. Quoting from the Movie Rules page (bold mine):
Full completion rules wrote:
A clear consensus is required on what constitutes full-completion.
Some games reward the player for something internally defined as maximum completion goal.
Sometime full completion requirements are explicitly mentioned in the game instructions.
Full completion can only consist of optional one-time, irreversible, or otherwise strictly limited accomplishments that can be objectively measured and maximized.
[*]Conditions that are imposed unofficially by players are only eligible if they originate from fundamental game-play features.
[*]Community agreement is required when defining newly invented full completion goals, or if existing definitions need to be revised.
Please note that I'm not saying that the glitched boss should or shouldn't be included in the goal. I'm just saying that both cases have their chances to be accepted and to be rejected. I think that the only way to be sure would be to have an actual submission to judge.
Could the All Bosses branch be standardized to mean 'All accessible Bosses'?
If a game has different bosses (or boss sequences) for different player characters, a run of this branch would be defined as all bosses accessible by that character.
If it's not possible to access a boss that is only available to a different character, it would not be required for an 'All Boss' run based on the character chosen. Perhaps in these such cases the branch should actually be "All Bosses - <Character>".
If a glitched method of accessing a particular boss (who is not normally available to the player's character) is found for a game, that boss then becomes a required component for an 'All Boss' run by the character in question; and a longer run that includes the boss would obsolete a shorter run where the boss is not fought.
I’ll throw in my two cents:
1. While the process of getting to the Maria vs Maria fight is indeed not visually entertaining, its novelty itself adds to the entertainment value of the run.
2. Fighting bosses as Richter/Maria offers absolutely nothing other than an HP Max Up after each fight and the game itself does not have a definition of “all” bosses whatsoever (unlike in [3126] GBA Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance "Maxim, all bosses" by gstick in 05:47.68). In other words, the very idea of “all bosses” is subjective to a certain extent and the least subjective way to define the goal is to fight as many bosses as one can by setting their defeat flags.
Fighting bosses as Richter/Maria offers absolutely nothing other than an HP Max Up after each fight and the game itself does not have a definition of “all” bosses whatsoever (unlike in [3126] GBA Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance "Maxim, all bosses" by gstick in 05:47.68). In other words, the very idea of “all bosses” is subjective to a certain extent and the least subjective way to define the goal is to fight as many bosses as one can by setting their defeat flags.
If bosses are supposed to drop HP Max Ups after being defeated, but the Maria fight doesn’t drop one, then is she really considered a boss?
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
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.
There’s an unsubmitted Richter all bosses tas by ForgoneMoose that’s 24:16: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S20NJKzNOM8
Even though Maria is slightly slower than Richter (either from actual movements or from extra saturn loading), my guess is it’s somewhere around the same time as Richter.
Also keep in mind Saturn has an extra boss fight that isn’t in the PSX version.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
1. While the process of getting to the Maria vs Maria fight is indeed not visually entertaining, its novelty itself adds to the entertainment value of the run.
Uhm. Indeed, there may be some people that may find that to be the actually more entertaining choice. You know, for situations like this, I think that the best idea is to make and submit both TASes at the same time, in order to see what the community finds more entertaining. Also, community agreement may affect full-completion definitions (if that is applicable for this goal).
