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Well submitting a joke submission isn't for nothing even if the site goes down. We'll all get a laugh out of Color a Dinosaur 2.0, even if the site won't last much longer.
If we do announce the shutdown soonish, we can request people to still submit their joke submissions to give everyone a laugh alongside the bad news, since we'll be needing some funny things amidst the anguish.
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Joined: 3/9/2004
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So, it seems we are more or less agreed on the matter of shutting the site down. Truncated is probably right we should close the submission queue ASAP.
However if we announce this now, right before April 1, people are going to think it's some kind of joke and won't take us seriously. Maybe we should wait to announce till the end of the week?
Further, since many people probably save submissions for this time of year, we'll probably be less hated if we go out with a smile, and not lock the submission queue until after everyone submits their joke submissions. It won't be so bad to put things off for a few days if people still have nearly two months to backup.
On the other hand, maybe we should announce the shutdown now so people can start to back up, even if they won't take us seriously right away?
Thoughts?
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sgrunt wrote:
Does the exact timing matter as long as the same code runs predictably and consistently with the console from frame to frame? The only impact that I can see from this is that the times posted on the site will become meaningless, which is why we are talking about doing away with the speed category.
In most games which are programmed well, it only affects the timing, so things are longer, or not consistent, and a video frame count isn't accurate.
But some games actually poll when VBlank is, an since some of the game is synced to the video frequency, and some to an internal clock, and they are timed differently, parts of the game get out of sync, and you effectively have randomness.
Like I said before, a couple of games which do this aren't programmed entirely right, and given enough time running, the skew between the two timing intervals starts to create invalid states in the game and the game eventually crashes.
It's not something consistent, can't be predicted, and introduces randomness, and we can't emulate this properly (and even if we were to, then we wouldn't be deterministic).
Hence, the whole idea we're operating on doesn't really work.
sgrunt wrote:
As for accurate emulation, the trick, as I have been saying, is to figure out exactly how closely the games parallel what we are seeing on the console. By the sounds of what Nach has been saying, we can expect to see huge variability between what is possible between the two platforms, and we'll need to summarily reject anything that doesn't match up adequately; this could be done on a game-by-game, glitch-by-glitch basis and we can't accept a new run for a game until this has been done.
Reread what I said a few times.
For at least these dozen games that we know have issues (and probably many others), it'd be impossible to match the system, as not even the system matches the system one play-through to the next. And we can't accurately say whether a given state is a state the game would necessarily get into or not.
sgrunt wrote:
That sounds like an awful lot of work for the minimal audience and duplicate functionality that the site would have at the end of it all.
I think there we are in agreement.
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While working on SNES emulators, we came across at least a dozen different games that don't take any steps to protect themselves against variable timing.
These games if left running long enough (a few hours) would reach an "impossible state" and crash the game. I don't remember the exact games off hand though.
The point is based on this variance in timing, sometimes a game would poll input on the 6th video frame, sometimes the 7th, maybe occasionally the 5th, because the timing crystal beats erratically, essentially some milliseconds are longer, some shorter, regardless of the initial state of the system.
Think of how pseudo-randomness works, and why some chips have thermal based randomness. If you could externally measure the beats of the crystals in the SNES (and similar systems), you'd have a true source of randomness.
Because of this, every game on these systems are inherently random throughout. Some to the extent where the game could crash, others just that you have an extra frame or one less frame of video between events.
Our emulators on the other hand are based on computer systems with more precise timing, and a more precise construct running the game, making frames last a consistent amount of time, based on an average of how long a frame lasts on a real system. But this means that how long it lasts is also different from a real system, no matter how you look at it.
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Well, we registered for it last June, for a year, with a discount. Part of the agreement to get that discount is that you can't cancel before a year. Which means till the end of May.
Besides, if we could get it earlier, which I guess is end of April, maybe we should give our users time to backup whatever they like before we shut down the site?
If we decide to go through with this, we can immediately put up a message on the site that we're shutting down (with sufficient apologies and rational of course). And we'll leave people with a little over 2 months to backup whatever they want to backup.
Sure even one month should be enough for people to backup, but we already paid for the two months thanks to kind donations, so let's give people the extra time, and then we can just let things take their course, instead of fighting with our hosting company over that last month.
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Well, we do have the server paid through till the end of May right? So we basically have two months that we're locked into and is already a sunk cost, before we have to make a decision on what we're doing.
The question is, do we renew for another year or not?
If all we're going to be doing is entertaining runs, people can upload them to YouTube, and do HD too as adelikat points out.
Further, whoever encodes a game can put the original MKV up on Archive.org, and link to that from the YouTube video.
It is getting harder and harder to see how we're going to be relevant at all. Although, I wouldn't say there won't be anything worthwhile to see, I'd subscribe to a Tool Assisted Superplay channel on YouTube.
Speaking of Tool Assisted, is it really "Tool Assisted", with these realizations, it's more like we're assisting the tools to make the movies, not the other way around, as making these movies are built up on emulators and can't be separated from it.
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Joined: 3/9/2004
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You bring up good points. If we were to shift to entertainment only, which may be our only option, how are we any different than YouTube?
Sure we have organized forums, but then we're just an over-glorified discussion website. Once our members realize this, they'll probably slowly drift away.
Edit:
Basically, with these realizations, we really don't have much of an idea to rally around anymore.
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If you do it, I have to be the final boss, and nearly impossible, and I mysteriously vanish when you win, and some remark about how you only think you've won, but it's really part of my master plan.
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I just wanted to add a few thoughts on this.
I've frequently had private discussion with people that just joined the site, were considering leaving, or left, and with people that were angry over various staff decisions.
A large percentage of people seemed to convey they joined this site because of the speed, and more importantly the precision in these movies. And some of them left because they felt we were too lenient in accepting flawed improvements, or rejecting movies for only single frame improvements.
I feel if we quash speed as a pillar, we may lose a large percentage of the community. But if they were to read this thread, they may also just leave on their own.
We need to think about how we can salvage our community once all this is realized, and perhaps consider if it is even worth salvaging.
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So then what is our aim then, entertainment?
We've had so many movies where there was entertaining boss fights, that were replaced with a movie which kills the boss almost immediately, sacrificing all that entertainment.
The rational used to be, well speed is the priority, and speed in itself is entertaining. Both those ideas are now proven false.
What are we to do, have older obsoleted movies now be revived and obsolete the newer ones?
Unreject movies which were rejected because parts of the game were sloppy speedwise, but were rather entertaining overall?
Entertaining is also highly subjective. Is SRAM exploitation of Super Metroid entertaining?
At the very least, seems like we'll have to rewrite many of our rules and guidelines.
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So in light of all this, what are we to be doing with the future of the site?
Obviously we'll have to change some of our information to identify with a new purpose of TAS Videos if we are to have one.
But what do we aim for, speed? As mentioned before, speed is really objective based on various factors which we can't even prove are valid. If we are to say that going with speed is still a pillar of TASVideos, knowing that the whole idea is emulator only, then we must allow exploitation of emulator bugs.
Yet I don't really think that's an ideal. Emulator bugs is just stupid, speed would be so subjective with every emulator that comes out. I want to have the fastest SMB finish time ever, so I'll go take an existing emulator, make a couple of changes so that it magically removes SMB frame rules, and makes Mario move faster, and then beat the game in 2 minutes. Doing this would be even more cheating, yet would mesh with the idea of going for speed based on an emulator.
Does anyone see how we can still go for speed?
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Yeah, way to go Mr. Exaggeration. You had too much coffee today.
We can still make TASs. We can't just say anymore that it's possible to do these on consoles, and we will have to admit that in some way, we are in fact cheating.
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In light of all this perhaps we should reexamine our position.
Perhaps we are in a sense cheating?
But so is anyone who tries speed running in an emulator.
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sgrunt: You reading anything I write? This is more than just the initial state, this includes the entire run, the game in itself is variable, not just from initial start up state.
Edit:
mmbossman: Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at, thanks for putting it into words.
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<AnotherGamer> The hell is that thread about anyway
<TASVideoAgent> Post edited by Nach (URGENT: Admins & Judges needed): http://tasvideos.org/forum/p/230164#230164 [a:1]
<Dacicus> AG: an urgent need for more admins and judges?
<AnotherGamer> How can you sign up to be one if it's a private topic
<Dacicus> AG: Probably ask adelikat or Nach
<AnotherGamer> Either of them
<Dacicus> actually, the link doesn't work
<AnotherGamer> So what's up with that thread doc
<DrNach> It's a private thread
<AnotherGamer> Because of what
<DrNach> Is that your buisiness?
<DrNach> you don't look like an admin or judge to me
<AnotherGamer> Naturally it is
<DrNach> If we wanted you to know what we were discussing, we'd make the thread public, really, use some common sense man
<AnotherGamer> What could possibly be so secret that you won't make it public
<DrNach> you act like this is the first time we had a private thread
<AnotherGamer> Well it's the first one I've seen
<AnotherGamer> Blame dacicus for drawing my attention to it
* DrNach blames Dacicus
<_4matsy> Silly AG. If he told you, it wouldn't be a SECRET anymore :p
<AnotherGamer> Not enough
<Dacicus> It's the first one I've seen, too.
<Dacicus> You're blaming me for being curious?
<AnotherGamer> But I want to know all sekrits there is to know
<AnotherGamer> I won't know if they're worth knowing until I know what they are silly
<DrNach> well, like all our private threads, when we reach a decision, we'll put it on our wiki
<AnotherGamer> What wiki where
<DrNach> you sound like this is the first time you've been to TASVideos
<AnotherGamer> Well the site doesn't look particulary like a wiki to me
<DrNach> AnotherGamer: maybe you should read this: http://tasvideos.org/SiteTechnology.html and become educated
<AnotherGamer> I don't want any education
<AnotherGamer> I just want movies
I don't know why, but there seems to be more interest in this private thread than our other ones. Almost like they can sense the impending doom if we don't resolve this.
In order to lift people's spirits, if anyone else continues to ask perhaps just tell them:
We created a robot which is able to play all the simple NES games well, and is currently breaking every record for SMB, SMB3, MM3-6, and so on, and we're contemplating allowing it or not.
Well whatever, that sounds stupid, but the ramifications of this thread are making me cranky.
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I don't see any alternative.
But even if we were to find an initial memory state that exists on the console, using the same initial state each time isn't true to the console.
Even if we were to ignore that point, we don't have any variance in the timing as the game runs. And if we were to add that variance, we would no longer be able to say this set of input works, as it'll constantly desync.
If we were to allow for somehow tying those timing variables to the movie file to allow for syncable playback, we no longer have a guarantee the input file was made purely out of key input. Basically, authors are going to be defining their own initial states, and tweak their own timing variances for the input, and craft movie files that may be a valid input sequence, but it may not be one that the original console would ever generate. We really have no way to verify it. Movie making will become a free for all.
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What he says is obvious, and is only part of it.
Most older games don't initialize RAM before they use it.
Further, the timing crystals in older consoles such as those found in the NES and SNES aren't very accurate, and depending on how the game is programmed, can cause events to vary by a couple of frames.
I would say that most games in fact for older consoles are non deterministic.
Our emulators work by being more precise in timing than the original consoles and are (almost) completely deterministic. TASing is really just an emulator sport, unless we're talking newer consoles, for games that are programmed well.
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Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
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Support for Broadcatching on the main feed is now done. See the news for more info.
I'll try to get in some other RSS feed improvements this week as well.
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I updated, fixed, and upgraded our RSS feed.
This should provide greater compatibility with more news readers.
I also added support to our feed for Broadcatching. This allows BitTorrent clients that support RSS feeds to retrieving newly published torrents automatically.
This is supported by μTorrent, qBittorrent, Deluge, and many other clients.
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Warp wrote:
we didn't have recording support for resetting for years, and the runs were just fine. It's not like it's an essential feature to have.)
Years? More like just a bit over 1. I had it as part of my initial design to update ZSNES for rerecording. I deemed it essential.
Here's when I official commited my idea for doing things in middle of a movie:
Thu Mar 31 10:31:40 +0000 2005
Here's when I added on the reset command:
Sat Apr 02 22:54:28 +0000 2005
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Bisqwit wrote:
Aktan wrote:
HQ Stream coming soon.
Are you kidding?
If it's one thing I know about Aktan, he doesn't kid about quality.
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Yes, correct. I also agree this method of bug abuse can be a bit unsettling.
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Warp wrote:
Nach wrote:
Warp wrote:
If corrupting the game by resetting is allowed, why shouldn't corrupting the game by shutting down the console be allowed? What's the difference?
I don't think there is too much of a difference there.
But regardless, I'd allow both.
Btw, I'm honestly interested in knowing your (plural) opinion about the question I posted above: Why is using cheat codes supported by the game itself forbidden, but corrupting the game's save data via a reset allowed, even though they both could ostensibly give similar results? If you think about it, there's little practical difference between the two, IMO.
I remember us having some published movies which used a couple of cheat codes.
But the point with TASing is that we try to show playing the games as being as awesome as possible.
Think of the following motto: "We don't need no stinkin` cheat codes". We try to show our playthoughs as better than the average person. Cheat codes detracts from that.
Part of us destroying the game is exploiting flaws to proceed through the game faster, as well as just exploiting it for the sake of it to show how amazing we are.
For example, in SMB2, in 4-1, we throw that cloud guy near the end literally into the wall, not because it saves time, but because we can, and it shouldn't be allowed.
Warp wrote:
Just as a practical example: If a game had a cheat code which gives you 99 items, it would probably be forbidden to use it. But if you could get the same 99 items via save data corruption, it would be allowed. But why?
Because the former anyone can do. The latter can only be done by TASing.
However we reject TASs that are boring. If you have cheat code to skip to the last boss or a save corruption to skip straight to the last boss, and it's just a bore, neither of them would be published.
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Warp wrote:
If corrupting the game by resetting is allowed, why shouldn't corrupting the game by shutting down the console be allowed? What's the difference?
I don't think there is too much of a difference there.
But regardless, I'd allow both.
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