Posts for Halamantariel

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Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
Joined: 1/30/2005
Posts: 562
Location: Québec, Canada
flagitious wrote:
Is hard possible without juggling?
It was, in an older version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfjY8kNqe6M Don't know if it still is possible, but there is no video evidence on youtube.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
Joined: 1/30/2005
Posts: 562
Location: Québec, Canada
I found an interesting video of a solution to the Survivor challenge, featuring Snap towers as the main weapon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNqNYWhMOw4 Cool strategy + cool music = cool video.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
Joined: 1/30/2005
Posts: 562
Location: Québec, Canada
Gunty wrote:
Halamantariel wrote:
I don't want to ruin anything for you guys, but the ancient cave requires an INSANE amount of luck manipulation...
Don't worry, I know. I actually have thought of a relatively easy way to make this TAS. Since the outcome of the Ancient Cave floor generating routine is determined by the current state of the RNG, why not modify the emulator in a way it runs the subroutine for every possible RNG state? That's what I did and I had it run for over 12 hours now, simulating 200000 different floors. Since generating a floor typically takes about 2000 random numbers, 200000 simulations should be plenty for 98 floors. Every simulation logs the following things:
  • RNG state before the subroutine
  • Iris treasures
  • Providence
  • Distance from starting location to stairs
  • Distance from starting location to stairs via the first treasure chest (which always contains Iris treasures or Providence if they're generated)
  • RNG state after the subroutine
This information should lower the difficulty of making this TAS somewhat.
This would probably be a better thing to do in a separate program rather than in the emulator itself. Creating a program that takes as an input the current RNG state (all of its values), then simulates one RNG use, output the floor generated from that RNG state, revert back to the original RNG state, simulate 2 RNG uses, output the floor ... etc ... I have done this before. Not for the Ancient Cave, but for battle manipulation. Nitrodon and I used that tool that I created to know what would happen in a battle for every possible outcome, and also allowed to predict a whole battle in advance, including what the enemy would do. That tool is far from being complete. I had to modify it for every battle we came across that needed strong manipulation, but it did what it was supposed to do (if you knew its limitations). What I'm saying is, it's fairly easy to create a program that simulates RNG uses, simulates what the game does with that RNG, and create a visual output of the result. All it would need is the RNG state at the beginning. I would gladly create that program myself (if nobody wants to do it), but I'd have to work with Nitrodon on this (as always). Also, I won't be able to do any programming / TASing for the next 5 days because the power supply of my main computer died. I ordered a new one, but I don't expect it to arrive in less than 5 days. For short: I could program this thing that would simulate Ancient Cave floors. It will take some time before I can start working on it, and it will take a long time to complete it (because of the huge amount of stuff to consider in the generation of a floor).
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
Joined: 1/30/2005
Posts: 562
Location: Québec, Canada
I don't want to ruin anything for you guys, but the ancient cave requires an INSANE amount of luck manipulation. I know Nitrodon looked into the game code to know what the game does to generate floors and everything in them. I don't remember the specifics, but I do remember that it's an insanely huge amount of things to consider. I do agree that it would make a cool TAS to watch, though. Pre-yes vote from me too.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
Joined: 1/30/2005
Posts: 562
Location: Québec, Canada
Chamale wrote:
Some say Easy in Desktop TD is far too simple. Well, they're right: [picture proof] The only leaks were all the Darks, unsurpisingly, and 2 bosses (The flier and 1 of the group bosses)
You can easily beat Desktop TD on easy level using only 1 tower. No leak. Just put 1 of those quick firing towers in the middle of the way, and upgrade it between waves.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
Joined: 1/30/2005
Posts: 562
Location: Québec, Canada
Gunty wrote:
While not the most impressive trick, this one should save 226 frames (using snes9x 1.51): http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1746397075/lufia2-introskip.smv
Does it also work in older versions of Snes9x? (1.43v9, for example)
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
Joined: 1/30/2005
Posts: 562
Location: Québec, Canada
Tub wrote:
[...] taking the time to blueify all buildings [...]
That trick doesn't work anymore. The guy(s) fixed it. It seems like this game is being in constant development (their forums are pretty active).
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
Joined: 1/30/2005
Posts: 562
Location: Québec, Canada
(Desktop TD) I reached wave 82 in Fun 10K Gold. Either I'm really bad at this game, or it's really really hard to win. Screenie I went for a design that makes a really long maze, with Pellet towers everywhere, Bash towers at the ends of each straight (optimal position to hit the longest), and some Swarm towers in the center for a better anti-air defense. Still... didn't manage to get further than wave 82. EDIT: Oh, and the towers are all blue because I abused a bug that allows to boost the strength of your towers. In the design phase, place Boost towers near your other towers, upgrade those Boost towers to the maximum, and then sell them. It didn't cost you squat, but the affected towers now do 50% more damage.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
Joined: 1/30/2005
Posts: 562
Location: Québec, Canada
bkDJ wrote:
lsdfhsklfhlkjhs I was typoing a storm is what I was doing. I meant the shortcut in the OTHER valley, peaceful rest, not saturn, sorry (I know the game pretty well and I watched the tas a few months ago, so I know the saturn valley one is useless).
In that case, you really didn't read my post completely. I clearly said that the Peaceful Rest Valley shortcut saves about 35 seconds.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
Joined: 1/30/2005
Posts: 562
Location: Québec, Canada
bkDJ wrote:
the lilliput steps would save about half a minute of walking or so, but how many minutes would the saturn valley one save?
The Lilliput Steps one saves about 15 seconds (I estimated by measuring while watching the TAS). As for the Saturn Valley one, I will assume that you were joking. I hope you were. In case you weren't, this one is totally useless.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
Joined: 1/30/2005
Posts: 562
Location: Québec, Canada
Bob A wrote:
saying that its "free software" strongly implies that its free software, not just gratis software.
"Free software" doesn't always mean "Free software distributed under the GNU General Public License".
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
Joined: 1/30/2005
Posts: 562
Location: Québec, Canada
Gunty wrote:
I'm not sure if this is related, but a few torrents are reporting a negative amount peers on the site. My bittorent client is also showing these (assuming there aren't actually 65493, but -42 peers), so I suppose this is a problem on the tracker's site.
For those of you not lucky enough to have seen this 65xxx peers problem, I took a screenshot of my torrent window. Just look at the peers column on the highlighted line. Link: http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa63/Halamantariel/65469.jpg Don't worry .. the blurred stuff is all legal. And no, it's not pr0n.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
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Posts: 562
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Let's revive another dead thread! This revival is about 1 year. But trust me, I have a good reason. Recently, on Starmen.Net, some people discussed a "go through walls" bug that they had found. Naturally, it got my interest, and I proceeded in recreating this bug, and finding a new place to use it. Here are 3 short videos showing the glitch in action: Peaceful Rest Valley (Perfectly TASed) Lilliput Steps (Played in realtime, using rerecords) Saturn Valley (Perfectly TASed, but totally useless) The Peaceful Rest Valley and Saturn Valley glitches were already discovered by other people, I just replicated it, TAS-style. The one in Lilliput Steps, though, I found myself. However, I was not able to do it TAS-style. I could do it, but I wasn't patient enough. These 3 glitches are the only ones I could find when doing a quick sweep of the game. I watched the TAS, and when I thought I saw a glitchable wall, I tried to glitch through it. I only found these 3. There might be more, though. So there you go. New glitch, new time savers. Hint: the Peaceful Rest Valley one saves about 35 seconds. EDIT: I edited the submission text to take into account this new glitch. I added it in the "tips and tricks" section, as well as in the "possible improvements" section. This way, all the improvements are at the same place, and not scattered all over the Internet.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
Joined: 1/30/2005
Posts: 562
Location: Québec, Canada
Morrison wrote:
for the adaptive pitch thing: .75 was exceptional, and then as the Hz number got bigger, I guess I did worse. next interval was very good. then normal. then low-normal. then possible deficit
Sounds like you mis-interpreted the results. You just recited the score scale. You score was above this scale, in a red sentence that reads: "At 500 Hz, you can reliably differenciate two tones XXX Hz apart.", where XXX is your result.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
Joined: 1/30/2005
Posts: 562
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After redoing the test and really concentrating on this, I got an adaptive pitch of 0.675 Hz. It's really hard though... but I guess that when I really concentrate, I can differenciate tones. Note that I used the Replay button a LOT.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
Joined: 1/30/2005
Posts: 562
Location: Québec, Canada
Adaptive pitch: 1.05 Hz Rythm: 84.0% Tonedeaf: 83.3%
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
Joined: 1/30/2005
Posts: 562
Location: Québec, Canada
Let me guess... you have Windows Vista, right? AVI recording in Vista doesn't work. Why? Because Vista is a synonym of "Shit". (I could have said it in more technical terms, but I figured this approach was better)
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
Joined: 1/30/2005
Posts: 562
Location: Québec, Canada
Sadly, I'm with AKA on this one. The run seemed unoptimized (even though it was pretty damned good), for the same reasons AKA said. Overall, the run is good, but not perfect. I get a feeling that it wouldn't be too hard to improve this run after it's published. I'm not against the publishing of this TAS. I just didn't enjoy watching it because there were too many places where I was like "Whaaa.. why didn't you do this?" or "Why in the world would you do it like this?". Good work, but it could have been better.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
Joined: 1/30/2005
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Location: Québec, Canada
Here I am, at the Réseau des SADC 2007 Provincial Convention (a convention organized by the last place I worked at). I programmed the online registration module for the event. The people behind (and beside) me are coworkers. http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa63/Halamantariel/halamantariel.jpg I personally hate to see myself in pictures. But hey, I've been in this comunity (TASvideos) for quite a while now, so I'll get over the fact that I don't like myself in pictures­.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
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Chamale wrote:
Halamantariel wrote:
Here's the best 5-second movie ever created: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHjFxJVeCQs
No
That, my friend, was a 6-second movie. Not the same category.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
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Here's the best 5-second movie ever created: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHjFxJVeCQs Youtube? Yes. Crappy? Maybe.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
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Location: Québec, Canada
The new GB Smurfs submission reminded me of a movie I watched a while ago: Donnie Darko. In this movie, there's a scene where he and his friends discuss the smurfs way of life. It does talk about sexuality, so if you don't want to hear it, then don't watch it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3CKa4UoS3o
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
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FILIM0NAS wrote:
Because it is something you can only see in a TAS!
So yeah, it's the only time of my life I'll be able to watch someone do PSS while watching the floor. Sorry, but that doesn't make it any more fun. Even though it only can be done in a TAS, doesn't mean it's cool. Anyway ... I guess that's the kind of thing that gets mixed reactions (50-50), much like the (J) vs (U) and speed vs entertainment debates. Just thought I'd let you know that I think it's boring as hell and totally not entertaining.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
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What's wrong with you people? How can you like watching a FLOOR for 20 seconds?
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (104)
Joined: 1/30/2005
Posts: 562
Location: Québec, Canada
Why is PSS still on a stand-still camera? Watching the floor for 20 seconds sucks! Other than that, great stuff.
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