Old question: Did you like watching this movie?
After read now 2 threads, I think I must start a topic about this. I think the question is wrong and maybe should be changed.
Reason 1 is this thread:
#1003: Diman's NES Gradius in 13:25
More people voted yes. But in the message they write it sound like that they only like to watch the movie, but don't think its publishable. Not sure, if they mean it this way, but it sound a bit like it. Maybe I just understand it wrong.
Reason 2 is this thread:
#993: fuzi2's SNES Star Ocean in 1:53:13
Here more people voted no. They don't like to watch the movie and I understand the reasons. The movie is more a message skipping and show near no action and the language is japanese and when you don't know this game its hard to follow or understand whats going on. But I think its publishable at all, because it show how fast you can beat this RPG and this is great.
So I think the question should be different. More like this:
Do you think this movie is publishable?
or maybe mix it with the old question
Do you like the movie and think its good enough to get published?
Then maybe the votes are different by some movies.
Sure its too great, when the movie is entertainment and fun to watch. But some movies are just great, because they are classic games and everybody know them. It can be, that in some movies its impossible to make them entertainment and great to watch. But when its good played and most like the game, why not publish it anyway.
I think in the past it has work good with this question. But meet the requirements for this site get harder and harder as I see in the last month. In the past a movie was good, when it looks good for many people. But more people want the best possible result and a near Frame perfected movie.
This is only what I think and some things are just my opinion. I will noone attack for his opinion. I only want to know what other people think about this. It sound in some messages that more users think the question is wrong so why not ask here in a topic and write the own opinion.
Edit: Sorry when I post it in the wrong forum. Maybe should moved to the Sites forum. Forget this forum as I post this topic.
(PS: my english is not perfect, so the grammar is maybe a bit wrong. I hope someone understand what I try to say with this topic)
Last TAS finished: Final Fantasy Adventure (4.0 Warp Glitch Run)
WIP in the moment: Tail Gator (GB)
Matty
For the Fuzi2's Star Ocean, to me I'd vote No on it because it was mostly talking in this run, all japanese writing that I do not understand (zero fun value) and so much run back and forth (another zero fun value).
I wanted to express that but I didn't bother to say it because I haven't played that game before and it was already published.
By the way, what about JXQ's Smash TV? It was SUPERPLAY, should be published.
as a general rule, if i havent played the game and am not entertained by the movie, i dont vote. i may not understand what the actual audience of the game sees that makes it so great and worthy of publishing, so i withhold.
however, if im entertained but still have questions, ill ask.
sorry, just felt the need to vent that. i knew this would come up since i saw it in the latest Gradius thread.
I agree that the past question ("Should this movie be published?") was better.
I think the reason Bisqwit changed the question was because of the issue of voting No for own movie. The issue wasn't worth bringing up anyway.
Still, I don't think the wording really matters to people who were here in the past.
I suggest 'How do you rate this movie?' and the use of a 1–5 rating system instead of yes/no/meh.
5 - publish immediately
4 - publish eventually
3 - has minor flaws that need to be corrected before publishing
2 - needs to be entirely redone
1 - atrocious; do not attempt to make a new version
I believe the question was "Should this movie be published?", but sometime recently it was changed to "Did you like watching this movie?" I don't know which is better but neither seems complete...
EDIT: Started posting before those last 2 posts were there. I agree with Arc that a 1-5 scale rating could be more helpful than yes/meh/no, although I don't know if those particular descriptions of what each rating means are the best ones to use.
The voting system has flaws, that's true.
The problems that arose at those two threads are because not all goals of a movie were achieved. Gradius is entertaining (to some), but has not reached perfection yet. Star Ocean is well played, but not entertaining to many, possibly being a poor game choice. The current Holy Diver submission is well played (to my knowledge), but doesn't surprise the viewer. Then there might be a submission that excels in all of the Guidelines, but is still inferior to a previously published run (or a different run soon to be published).
No single question can answer all these different facets, and Arc's splitting into a 1-5 rating system won't help much either.
Now you could think of casting different votes on different aspects of the movie, like
Did the movie entertain you? (Yes/No/Meh)
Do you think it's as fast as possible? (Yes/No/Meh)
Did the movie surprise you? (Yes/No/Meh)
Do you think it's better than the currently published movie? (Yes/No/Meh)
...
but as far as I know phpBB doesn't even support that.
Then again, does it really help to make the voting more complex?
When you vote, please also write a message that explains your opinion.
This helps the author of the movie and the judges who decide whether to publish it.
Anything you wish to add that exceeds a simple "yes, no objections whatsoever" or "no, trash it completely" can be added to a post.
Ultimately it's the judges that decide what to publish, and they consider more than just voting ratio.
Despite the no-votes Star Ocean was published, and despite the yes-votes Gradius was not, the system still works.
If you think of votes more as a rough guideline than as the final judging, the problems with voting seem to disappear. And a different wording of the question certainly won't influence any publication to come.
I am disappointed by the new question. It is possible for someone to enjoy watching a movie and still not want it to be published(for instance, in the case of a flawed but entertaining movie). It is also possible to find the opposite outcome: in the case of a one frame improvment of SMB, would I enjoy watching it? No. However, such an improvement deserves to be published.
The problem is, the new question addresses only the feelings of the voters at the time they watched the run without including their objective appraisal of the run's value.
I like Arc's idea too, but it still fails to address the most basic question:
Why do these movies exist?
I assume the answer is "for entertainment;" people can wander to this site from google or whatever, and download some movies of their favorite old-school games being beaten with more skill than anyone could possibly possess.
If the question is to be changed, I think the new question should somehow address the fact that even though most people think a game is boring and derivative, we should remember that to someone else, it's something much more than that.
Maybe... "Does this movie adequately represent it's game?"
Or something like that?
I suggest 'How do you rate this movie?' and the use of a 1–5 rating system instead of yes/no/meh.
5 - publish immediately
4 - publish eventually
3 - has minor flaws that need to be corrected before publishing
2 - needs to be entirely redone
1 - atrocious; do not attempt to make a new version
5 - highly entertaining / amazing
4 - kept interest but nothing special
3 - nothing really notable or neat
2 - flawed, obvious mistakes
1 - looks like it was played in real time with a half-broken controller
[cough]
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
I think it would make sense to have some sort of links in the submission or workbench area for movies that aim to obsolete a published movie. It's usually mentioned in the submission text but it would make it easier if this was displayed automatically. For new movies, perhaps there should be separate ratings for the movie and for the game.
Also, I keep thinking of that Abraham Lincoln story where he took a vote among his cabinet. They all disagreed with him, but as the story goes he said "The ayes have it." Bisqwit has done a great job building up this site, so whatever he decides is fine with me.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
I think that we should keep in mind that a discussion about a run is much more important than a poll. We could make the poll more elaborate, but at the end of the day, it's always going to be more abstract and less clear to the intentions of the voters than their actual responses in the topic.
If you really like a movie, but wouldn't like to see it published for some reason (or, most likely, the other way around), you can say so in a post, and in that case you'll be able to much more concisely say what you mean and for what reasons.
I don't really think that it's necessary to introduce a new poll question.
as a general rule, if i havent played the game and am not entertained by the movie, i dont vote. i may not understand what the actual audience of the game sees that makes it so great and worthy of publishing, so i withhold.
Yeah, I do this too. I've watched a lot of the movies without voting. I think it would be pretty disrespectful to badmouth something I don't understand.
One concern I have with Arc's 5-point poll is that the well-known fact that a game can be played perfectly but simply not be entertaining, or a game could be so loved that it attracts votes despite some imperfections (and some people would still rate it 5, probably). Xkeeper's idea might be more suitable.
I recall someone saying once that it would be cool if you could rate different aspects of the TAS. One could rate different aspects like: "game quality", "game TAS suitability", "improvability", "interest level", "ease of understanding"... but that would get really, really complicated.
Although perhaps the voting system isn't perfect I don't think it matters that much, since it's entirely the judges' call.
I know the judges will figure it out either way, but it's unsettling to the people who watch the movie and want to vote on it when they realize they must answer a different question than the poll asks to avoid conflicting with the purpose of having the voting system.
Part of the problem is that, for movies that would obsolete an existing run, the question should really be "Did you like watching the movie more than you liked watching the other one?" Probably the only way of implementing that is to have the submitter indicate a movie number to obsolete in a separate field. Even if the voting question isn't changed, that extra submission information would still help with the processing of submissions.
The problem is, the new question addresses only the feelings of the voters at the time they watched the run without including their objective appraisal of the run's value.
No, the problem is that there is no such thing as objective appraisal. The reason is, to do an appraisal, you must invent a criterion, which may be counted as objectiveonly if everyone who can vote share the same opinion on it. As you can see, even speed can't be such a criterion, let alone "entertainment". Let's think of a person who likes eating crap, I assume this is what entertains him, right? Does that entertain you? No? :D
But it still entertains that person! And that's the precise reason not to call eating crap objectively unentertaining. Now replace eating crap with everything else.
What next, artistical impression? Oh, forget it. That's even worse to judge than eating crap. ;)
See, more or less, every single person involved in voting acts subjectively, simple as that. So, if there will be no universal criteria which will be adopted by everyone on this board as a TOS at the very least, you won't get any objectivised judging. Everything will just go as it does now.
nitsuja wrote:
"Did you like watching the movie more than you liked watching the other one?"
Again, you will get situations like "but I like both of them" or "I like what he did in that movie, but that part was much better in previous one", etc. No exact criteria = no exact answer. Nothing really better than the already present system, as it doesn't solve the main problem.
Xkeeper wrote:
5 - highly entertaining / amazing
4 - kept interest but nothing special
3 - nothing really notable or neat
2 - flawed, obvious mistakes
1 - looks like it was played in real time with a half-broken controller
Based on this scheme, it would be wiser to differentiate ranks even further. Like this:
4 — Ninja/Star material (the runner invents something entirely novel, previously unimaginable to do in this game, and it shows the TAS-approach in its supreme form, indeed pushing the game to its limits);
3 — The run was executed flawlessly, but it doesn't show anything really unimaginable for the given game);
2 — The run was executed good, but may be improved due a different strategy/route planning or frame-by-frame analysis);
1 — The run is flawed, it has obvious mistakes and must be redone;
and, the most important part,
0 — I'm not familiar with this game at all, and thus cannot judge the run.
I think something like that may actually get the job done, but it will require anyone who wants to give at least "1" to get acquainted with the game at least on a basic level. Of course it won't get much more than 10—15 positive (I mean, "1" to "4") votes per run, but each one of that votes will be more precise, and at the same time, it will require voter to explain himself.
As for now, I can't think of a more effective voting system.
edit: wording.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I think a "I haven't watched the movie but I am interested in watching it when it will get published" for those that doesn't have ROMs and emulators or because the movie is long and don't want to watch it in one shot should be there as well.
And we must not forget that most people watch movies in AVI.
The voting system breaks down into percentages anyway, so why not vote using a slider instead of multiple choice?
0=no, 50=meh, and 100=yes (or "I think this deserves a star.") But all values inbetween would still be possible, in case "meh and a half" feels more appropriate.
moozoh: You are missing an effective "meh" option -- that, and an understanding of a game is not nessacarily needed to judge entertainment qualifications -- see my Pinball Quest run, for example (no one can understand that game, ever)
Refined voting schema:
5 - Extremely impressive, flawless execution, highly entertaining, meets and exceeds goals
4 - Well done, no obvious flaws, meets goals
3 - Indecisive; nothing's really wrong but nothing's really good either
2 - Obvious mistakes / uninteresing/bad game
1 - Looks like it was played in real time with a broken controller
* - Unable to watch (no ROM, bad movie, other technical faults)
! - Pending response from author (questions about movie or techniques used)
Obviously, * and ! would not be taken into account in the voting assessment...
Although what would be nice is the ability to revoke your vote and change it -- so you could go from, say, * or ! to 1-5, * to ! or vice-versa, or changing it if you discover some obvious time waster.
...another feature would be to add a small icon denoting what the user voted in each post by the sidebar or something to make it easier, and also noting how many voted and didn't post.
(Edit: I'm really sorry, IRC guys, but... I keep coming up with new things, and I reserve "Minor edit" for things like typo corrections)
! - Pending response from author (questions about movie or techniques used)
Hmm, why do you need another vote option for that when you can just wait and not vote? :)
Xkeeper wrote:
...another feature would be to add a small icon denoting what the user voted in each post by the sidebar or something to make it easier, and also noting how many voted and didn't post.
AFAIK, that is not possible in phpBB. Something like IPB is required, I think.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
What I ultimately care about as a judge are the posts. The votes only serve to give some overview and possibly which submissions are popular enough to warrant a closer look.
A more detailed voting system for submissions wouldn't help that much. Perhaps even make things more complicated than they need to be.
I don't think the question needs changing, but if it does, I think "Did you enjoy watching this movie and think it should be published?" It's a two-part question where the answer to the first may be different from the second, but I think people are smart enough to write two lines and explain what they think when that happens.
I would, however, very much like to see a graded voting system for published movies.
