Posts for CtrlAltDestroy

I brought this up in an IRC channel, and here are the responses I got. These aren't really suggestions for the list, but you can read them for a laugh if you want. The Matrix Principle: The main character can both save the world and kill hundreds, maybe thousands, of bad guys. Singlehandedly. Hostile Strategizing Law: Enemy AI is superhuman. Neutral AI is infuriating. And don't get me started on Friendly AI. Friend-or-Foe Ordnance: Your mines do not discriminate between you and your opponents. Your enemies' mines, naturally, do. The Infighting Prohibition: Enemies of the same type usually cannot damage each other with their weapons, even if enemies of different types can. Isaac Newton's Second Law of Gravitation: Items can float. No, really, they can!!! Law of Chivalrous Demise: Self-destructs always have countdowns. Why? To give you a chance to escape, of course! Enemies have honor too! Alcatraz Overhaul Project: No prison is inescapable. Sometimes all it takes is five minutes and an item left conveniently lying around. Law of the Spiderman: If it can scale walls, ceilings or other normally inacessable surfaces it's melee only. Guilty Confessionals: Enemies bigwigs often have journals or archives which reveal either a tortured conscience seeking redemption or indelible evil lurking in their hearts. Law of the Livejournal: Dead people stayed with their notes till death, regardless of any chances of escape. Virology 101: If a game is based on a contagion which converts people into mindless beasts or zombies it will not infect you, regardless of how much you are exposed to - although, in theory, you should be not only a viable target but a prime one. The Guy Machine: There is a high probability that a boss battle will involve infinitely spawning enemies. Law of firearm regulation: You will never, EVER be dispatched anywhere with much more than a pistol, no matter how big your agency/army/government's budget is, or how highly trained you are. Counterstrike Compensator: If you kill ten people in Halo, you're pretty good. If you kill ten people in Doom, nice going! If you kill ten people in Quake, totally awesome! If you kill ten people in Counterstrike, [kicked by console].

Posted: 2/14/2007 2:08 PM

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CtrlAltDestroy

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Remember that these are clichés so they don't have to be true all the time, just "too much" of the time.

Corollary: The delayed inverse stormtrooper effect

Corollary: If a game has a boss monster, and is for the PC, it is inevitable that somebody will make a mod putting upwards of 10 of them in one room. :P Being a little more serious: Law of Efficacious Armor: If a game has an armor item, it doesn't matter where on your body you supposedly wear this armor, it will always protect all parts of your body at once. Similarly, getting hit anywhere on your body (for example, areas of exposed skin) will cause this armor to become damaged. Appearance Corollary: When you wear armor, it will not alter your physical appearance in any way, especially in a multiplayer game where it will allow you to have an extra element of surprise. Monster Corollary: Unlike a player, specific parts of a monster's body will be covered in armor which you must aim around in order to damage it effectively.

Posted: 2/14/2007 12:10 AM

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CtrlAltDestroy

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I Forgot To Laugh Law: When a thread about the Laws of Forum Psychology is started on a board, people will inevitably start posting laws (and very lame ones at that) making fun of the thread itself. Seriously, it's happened every single time now.

Posted: 2/13/2007 7:00 PM

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CtrlAltDestroy

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Law of Mapping Intricacy (Or the Law of Secrets): There are always switches or invisible tripcords on the floor in nonsensical locations that inexplicably activate things like pillars, statues, staircases, and hidden/camouflaged doors in the walls- all which would have absolutely no reason to be there in the first place if you're supposed to take the map design seriously. Corollary- The Law of Traps: If an item is sitting on a pedestal (or sitting in an otherwise symmetrical manner to the room's walls) in an otherwise empty room, picking it up or stepping on the pedestal it stands on will activate a trap, usually inexplicably opening closets in the walls with enemies or causing enemies to appear in an adjacent room. Clone Principle: No matter how long a game is, or how many different environments it spans, The different types of enemies you face will all be perfect clones of each other. "My Hands are Full" Law: Your main character can never, ever, ever unhand his gun, even if he could catch himself on the edge of a bottomless pit or take a shortcut and climb a platform in front of him. The only way available for the character to traverse said obstacles is jumping, and the only things he can climb are ladders. Even when climbing a ladder, he will not unhand his gun and will climb only with his feet. Standalone law (Or "Protect The F*****g Queen" Law): A boss room, usually the innermost heart of the enemy's stronghold, is likely to be completely empty except for the boss, a couple pathetic bodyguards (if any), and any underlings that are summoned during the battle. Compensation Law: Boss rooms are always ridiculously big. Rock Steady Law (Named after the SSBM Bonus): No matter how much you get pummled, blasted by rockets, knocked off ledges, or dropped from great heights, you will always land on your feet and your body will always stay perfectly vertical- you will never fall down. The only exception, of course, is death. That's all I could think of a the moment.

Posted: 2/12/2007 5:00 PM

Post subject: Re: And now, my sad, pathetic attempt at humor. <__<

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CtrlAltDestroy

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Anon wrote:

2) The longer an admin is inactive on a forum, the greater chance that a moderator will attempt to usurp power and become the new (unofficial) administrator of the forum. —> First corollary: If said moderator does manage to rise to power, then any and all attempts to oppose or question their actions will either result in a swift warning or banning.

Hmm... I'm thinking "Bloody Tyrant Law" or "Power Vacuum" or something. Then again, I haven't seen this enough to be able to confirm it. As for #1, it hasn't worked like that in my experience, even though it may automatically seem at first thought that it does. It is true that well-liked users can get away with more, but that's because the public response to it is different. When you see a well-known member breaking a rule, you will think "I know this guy, he's not stupid. He probably has a good reason to do this, I wonder what it is" as opposed to "Oh my god, you broke a rule, BAN!" like you'd think if a newcomer was doing it. You have, however, inspired a new one: "Because It's Mine" Law: It is inevitable that the head master of a forum will, at one point in time, break the rules of his or her own board.

Posted: 2/12/2007 1:21 PM

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CtrlAltDestroy

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nitsuja wrote:

No, I simply feel entitled to ignore communities like this when my free time is on the low side.

Well, you're obviously emotionally detached enough to be able to ignore it when you want to. Some people can't do that.

Posted: 2/12/2007 4:45 AM

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CtrlAltDestroy

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Alright, time to raid another forum's YouTube topic and my favorites list... God Playing There is a place where the word "impossible" does not exist. (Yeah, and you happen to be standing in it.) Stop-motion drums Just because you don't know how to play the piano or drums doesn't mean you can't make music. Don't Download This Song By Weird Al Yankovic, also from Straight Outta Lynwood Series of Techno Tubes Ted Stevens remix. Old, but awesome. Knights of the Round Table You all know this one, from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I'm just glad someone finally made it available. College Saga - Episode 1 The entire thing is 40 minutes long, and totally worth it. The only people that might not like it are those with super-short attention spans and those who've never seen an RPG. Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series Episode 1, it all starts here. [URL=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJzU3NjDikY]Tony vs. Paul[/URL] A stop-motion battle between two people. Hilarious "animation" and good music. Won a $10,000 award somewhere. [URL=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELNh23yRiJc]Superman Theme Song[/URL] Some guy puts lyrics to the Superman theme (also has others that I'm not linking; check his profile out). Stunt Video Gone Wrong The least violent Grand Theft Auto video that is still worth watching. [URL=http://youtube.com/watch?v=8xV9A4v6G3E]Charlie the Unicorn[/URL] The search for Candy Mountain! - A famous flash animation from Newgrounds recorded into video. I Was Lookin' For Some Action It was night. Late at night. (Very arcane music video starring robotic Japanese) Will it Blend? - iPod Mwahahahaha. Final Fantasy Victory Fanfares The progression of a classic tune. Super Glitch Bros. This is what happens when you scribble on a Rom's tiles that aren't actually graphics. Corrupting NES Metroid Metroid + ROM corrupter = hilarity. We Are The Strange! This is a movie trailer for an actual movie developed by one person. No words can describe this. Watch it for yourself. [URL=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxSdKF5Fd38]Top Ten Video Game Weapons[/URL] GT counts down the top ten video game weapons of all time. [URL=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3cHnPugxt8]Koopa Force[/URL] A hypothetical movie trailer for an animatied Super Mario Brothers movie; really nice animation and voice-acting, with music supplied by Mustin of OneUp Studios. I think that about covers everything. Enjoy, or something.

Posted: 2/11/2007 4:25 PM

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CtrlAltDestroy

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moozooh wrote:

The only thing which I think lacks reasoning, though, is "Name Change Cascade". Care to elaborate the conclusion?

Actually, I forgot to update that one. It should say "If a user gets one name change, they will probably want another sometime in the future. Exception: If their new name is their real name." Today, I've come up with a new one: "Thanks for Nothing" Effect - If the first post in a thread ends with the sentence "Thanks in advance!" it is exponentially less likely that it will be replied to.

Posted: 2/11/2007 7:04 AM
(Edited: 2/12/2007 5:11 PM)

Post subject: Forum Psychology Laws

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CtrlAltDestroy

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Over the past few months, I've started a topic on a couple forums I go to about "The Laws of Forum Psychology and Phenomena", asking people to share their own observations. I compiled most of them into a poorly-constructed HTML page, and the result is this semi-lengthly list which really reminds me of that one "grand list of RPG cliches" except this time it's with forum behavior. A lot were written by me, a lot were not... http://www.rphaven.org/laws.html Many people should get a laugh out of this. Keep in mind that most of these laws are not supposed to be true, proven, or even serious, but an effort was made to keep them believable. I hope you enjoy, and feel free to add your own.

Posted: 2/8/2007 7:06 PM

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CtrlAltDestroy

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If you're into glitches, like me, these will leave you in stitches. http://youtube.com/watch?v=mPlkqXLXwDk http://youtube.com/watch?v=gN0sY0rX8rI http://youtube.com/watch?v=B9_6vN49V5M

Posted: 2/8/2007 4:43 AM

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CtrlAltDestroy

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This is an interesting idea. Many turn-based strategy games involve a lot of luck, so the warbot could also be programmed to take the enemy's turn by means of manipulation. For example, moving one of your units might make the AI do something totally different if done one frame later, causing the entire branch to be "incorrect".

Posted: 2/7/2007 7:58 PM

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CtrlAltDestroy

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I'm not familiar with the inner workings of this game's engine, so I can't judge its perfection... but I see that a lot has improved since the last 16 star run I watched. I really enjoyed it. I really liked the dramatic camera angle you had for a while in the 2nd bowser stage.

Posted: 2/7/2007 7:40 PM

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CtrlAltDestroy

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I've just started watching this... I found it unexpected that you take the time to select Continue and Don't Save after every star.

Posted: 2/6/2007 10:20 PM

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CtrlAltDestroy

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As someone who's never played this game, it doesn't look like anything special. It appears to have unoptimized parts all around, doesn't abuse visible glitches, and consists of not much more than just running and jumping. But looking closer at it, it looks good. The game itself appears quite difficult and it probably took a lot of planning to figure out how to dodge the obstacles like that. The unoptimized-looking parts were okay due to the weird physics of the game. Also, many of the shortcuts you took, especially the ones that required taking damage, were entertaining to watch. What the heck, I'll say yes.

Posted: 2/6/2007 10:09 PM

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CtrlAltDestroy

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Both. The two biggest improvements are the faster jump-over-water sequence break in the 3rd stage which saved 155 frames, and the glitched sprite trick in the 2nd stage which saved 93 frames. All the rest came from minor optimizations. 7 rooms were improved 10-25 frames, and 11 rooms were improved less than 10 frames.

Posted: 2/6/2007 4:49 AM

Post subject: Re: Please vote!

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CtrlAltDestroy

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Chamale wrote:

I'm feeling really insignificant here. There has only been one vote for this movie, and my other has had no votes. I'm making speedruns at a frenzied rate, but no one even bothers to vote. Some people have given insightful comments, but then they just don't vote. So please, people, watch my movies and vote for them. I have a feeling that I could speedrun Super Mario Bros. in 4:55, and no one would even bother to watch. If no one even pays attention to me, I'll just stop making these TASes.

I'm pretty sure that the game choice is at fault here, it's not a well-known game so not very many people are eager to watch it. Heck, I'll go ahead and watch this later this week, I guess.

Posted: 2/5/2007 10:03 PM

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CtrlAltDestroy

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Lots and lots of statistics. For example, if this were a Mario game, record not only the time completed but also things like score total from the level, amount of coins collected, whether you picked up all the big coins, how high you hit the flagpole at the end... those kinds of things. This would allow for much TAS replayability. Have special unlockable levels to test your knowledge of the engine (like AIR) Absolutely no complicated pseudo-randomness. Luck should be easy to manipulate from any point.

Posted: 2/5/2007 8:23 PM

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CtrlAltDestroy

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I used FCEU's Cheat Search feature to find those.

Posted: 2/5/2007 4:14 PM

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CtrlAltDestroy

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I've been looking for the location and identity of the secret object, but I'm having no luck. Searching for the location of the object brings up some really crazy results, leading me to believe that I need to search for a X and Y location instead of a position index. Searching for the identity brings up even worse things. All I know right now is that the identity of the object is determined when you enter a room, just like the position. Edit: I'm also starting to think that they could be encoded in nibbles, making them extra hard to find.

Posted: 2/5/2007 2:49 PM

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CtrlAltDestroy

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Wow, that really made my day.

Posted: 2/3/2007 3:37 PM

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CtrlAltDestroy

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I don't believe it, but this game actually gets even weirder. I think a third run is in order here shortly.

Posted: 2/2/2007 8:35 PM

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CtrlAltDestroy

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I, for one, am much better with the console's control pad. I just wish I could find a joypad for the PC which emulated diagonals correctly.

Posted: 2/2/2007 5:26 PM

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CtrlAltDestroy

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Here's Boulder dash quest 1, unassisted. Contains 3 deaths. http://www.rphaven.org/cad/TAS/boulderdash_unassisted.fcm I'll have to watch those Mega Man and SMB2 runs.