I have to agree on that one too. Either that, or allow more playaround stuff. I wouldn't mind seeing some videos that are just glitchfests, where a normal TAS wouldn't be able to include the glitches because it takes more time to do.
Joined: 8/26/2006
Posts: 1139
Location: United Kingdom
I think this problem has been greatly over exaggerated. Firstly, yes it is true that a new TASer will look to more popular games to TAS and yes it is true that most of them have been beaten to perfection. Although, to be realistic, most new users would surely expect that with no experience of TASing it is unlikely that they will immeadiately set a new SMB3 record. It is much the same as new users on SDA don't have any realistic expectation to improve the Quake records any time soon. There is a learning curve to every new activity and surely the average non-idiotic new user expects this (this goes doubly for TASvideos, a site which most people are unlikely to stumble upon completely by accident and will usually go through a hyperlink trail of speedrun related material to get here and so they will usually generally know what to expect).
Also, the general content of the site is nowhere near as close to perfection as some of you seem to think. We have over 500 games published here, less than 20 (probably) are anywhere near theoretical perfection, less than 10% (probably) are improvable by less than 5 - 10 seconds and the remainder is improvable by anything from 10 seconds up until potentially a minute or two (and then some). Remember that although popular games attract competition, the same can be said of improvable runs (even if the reason is as cheap as to get your name on the front page for a respectable improvement). Also, people who take an interest in TASing love video games, their knowledge and interest will go beyond far Mario, Zelda, Megaman, Metroid. We all have games that have accumulated over the years that it seems no one knows about that you would hope to see TASed (for nostalgic or sentimental value if anything).
The main problem here lies with the percieved learning curve and the actual learning curve. Many newcomers may think that in depth knowledge of disassembly and external tools are required to get a run published. I like the idea of a tutorial page to help dispel some of these ideas, perhaps by putting such advanced techniques where they belong, in an advanced section. This way new TASers would see a clear distinction between what is needed to make a good run and what is luxury. The actual learning curve I don't believe has changed as much as some of you claim it has. Sure, the ceiling is higher than it was before but the bar isn't (or at least not by much). Judges still accept and reject runs for the same reasons as they did 2 years ago. A run of a not-bad game that is at least nominally entertaining and has seen a reasonable amount of effort will still be published. Personally, I'd like to see less runs rejected on a 'bad game' basis as some good ones have been eaten by a grue and some have potential to have more made of them when published (then again, some runs will never be published, no matter how many dinosaurs you colour).
The 'pool of games' problem I feel is only even close to being a real issue with the NES (even then there quite a few great games no one has picked up on yet). The floodgates should still be open for the the SNES and N64. Also, I believe that 90% of great GBA games haven't even been considered yet, definitely the most wasted potential at the moment. This will only become less of a problem when PSX and such come along. Also, use your imaginations! Just because a game has a run doesn't mean that you can't expand on it. More playarounds have been suggested, but only a few games are well-suited (and I think that for the sake of consistency part-game glitch demonstrations is a bad idea (that's why we have youtube)) and some would be very cool, but I hope I'm not the only person that is excited by the potential of more 100% runs, glitchless runs, in-game time runs and entertaining 'X-less' runs. New TASers can also use this to TAS popular games even if the any% is too well optimised or subject to other project-mitigating factors (Bloobiebla's OoT All-Quests and Cpadolf's In-Game SM are good recent examples) The game-pool is far from dry in my opinion. I don't expect to see a shortage of runs on the workbench forum any time soon, from TASers new or veteran.
There's probably quite a lot more than two cents worth of opinion in there.
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
I suppose I'll put this here.
Back in 2006, frame advancing was the norm, and memory watching was quickly becoming the big thing. In that same year, my brother submitted one of my GI Joe runs. A run that I didn't want submitted; a run that didn't use tools outside of savestates and 12% speed; a run I knew was obsolete because I had already started another version that was 12 seconds ahead into the third mission before I became too frustrated with it.
It still got accepted. Granted it was beaten better than what I would have pulled off, but it was still accepted.
Sure, that was 2006, so maybe things have changed. To that end, I put forth Drill Dozer, which almost got accepted until Comicalflop and Pekopon came along and pointed out why it was subpar.
jimsfriend wrote:
[N]obody but Alden cares about Backwater Game #7...
"I care." -Luke Skywalker
Indeed, I've tried TASing several of these "backwater" titles, but apparently my will is weak as I gave up on many of them. -_-
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
Mukki wrote:
The actual learning curve I don't believe has changed as much as some of you claim it has. Sure, the ceiling is higher than it was before but the bar isn't (or at least not by much). Judges still accept and reject runs for the same reasons as they did 2 years ago. A run of a not-bad game that is at least nominally entertaining and has seen a reasonable amount of effort will still be published.
Joined: 11/30/2008
Posts: 650
Location: a little city in the middle of nowhere
PSX TASing is up!
For those who suggested that a new platform would increase that TAS flow: well here it is!
Castlevania - Symphony of the night has been TASed. For those who have internet bandwidth capable of getting ISO's of PSX games, now is the chance to get an easy TAS done. N00bs can now run their favorite game from PSX!
Absolutely amazing. If there are no significan desynch issues, I think I'll get my hands on some PSX ISO's.
Also, I have a question for anyone who knows. Since I have limited internet resources, It's quite hard for me to get a PSX ISO. I live in a PAL region, so If I get a PSX game, would it be possible/within site rules to provide a PPF to patch my PAL ISO to an NTSC one on site? If it's possible this might help noobs on their feet, and it would be easier for many to acquire ISOs. (This being that the PAL and NTSC ISOs are fundamentally different in such a way that a force NTSC for a PAL game would not prevent desynch)
I think anyone who's worried about running out of games to TAS is very misinformed. If you took the set of good games that would make good TAS's for supported systems, the number of those that aren't on the site absolutely crushes the number of those that are. The only system with decent coverage is NES, and the only reason for that is NES was once the only system, plus the fact that the initial community had a much different outlook on depth vs breadth. If the site was started with today's mentality, it would be the same as any other system.
In short, if there is anything to worry about, it would be about tons of great games never getting any attention. This also relates to the topic because it's where the greatest source of new TAS's lies (although I would argue, *not* for newbies unlike what some suggest), and because an improvement on an existing game goes nearly sideways in terms of increasing site content.
I agree with moozooh that the emphasis on frame shaving (depth) is due to the "audience," but I would clarify that to mean audience of the site community (I would say "elite") that actually posts and follows runs and development and would watch new publications of games they've never played. The majority of the total audience out there, the ones that don't post, just find the site and then go look for games they have played and watch the TAS's of those. They don't care about frame shaving on other games, and even for games they care about, they don't care about frame improvements that they won't even appreciate or notice (why the first SMB3, first Mario 64, etc are still the best known).
I do have the opinion that the site would be better off if it focused more on breadth (with better game coverage, more types of runs ie tool-assisted superplays instead of speedruns, etc) rather than depth. TAS'ing is a strict increase in event space over unassisted running, so why clamp down on this space by focusing on speedruns (and even more with optimized speedruns!) over the wider superplay? Some might see the shift away from breadth as due to improvement in tools (although I would say that the community itself changes due to tools, because that affects who becomes interested or loses interest), but I do think there is a fundamental mentality change. When Phil obsoleted Sleepz's SMB2 by a couple frames, the outroar from some people (even if unwarranted) that happened then would never occur today. I have to admit I do miss Josh the FunkDOC, Walker Boh, Bob Whoops, Deviance, Michael Fried, etc.
The underlying problem I think is the emphasis on publication. People should be creating TAS's for themselves, for fun and creativity, but instead their goal many times is just to get published or get "respect." And it's much easier to get a TAS published and people to say "great job" if you cut time off an existing one than start out on a new game. Also someone said it before, but sadly the current competitive aspect of the forums goes hand in hand with the competitive aspect of "beating" people's TAS's, and they just fuel each other.
I would say more (I have a lot of site improvement ideas instead of just gripes like this post, lol) but I've already rambled too much. I should ask for a user page so I can dump them there and not clog threads with this poorly written crap.
