Users are strictly prohibited from posting references to copyrighted material (such as ROM or BIOS images) or asking for such.
I'm tired of people failing at basic online etiquette.
Sorry you had to censor it! It's the least unethical kind of piracy at least. Easy to forget such rules may exist.
DrD2k9 wrote:
I'm guessing each disk image you have is a separate file. You may be able to use BizHawk's multi-disc bundler tool to allow disk swapping during emulation.
Tools > Multi-Disk Bundler
I've not had much experience with this tool though, so I don't know that I can help much beyond that suggestion.
Another thing to consider trying is swapping PAL vs NTSC sync settings. Some games will only work in one region or the other. (Though you'll still likely need to use the multi-disk tool.)
Here's the result after using the Multi-Disk Bundler as you suggested: it seems to like Disk 1 when I swap to it, however, it loads the wrong data and freezes. That's on the PAL setting. On the NTSC the same but it just freezes. Anyone got other suggestions? Or should I try a C64-themed forum instead?
I d/l'd Project Firestart. BizHawk can see it and get it started. I get to the point where you see the blue EA screen as in this video at this timestamp. In the video, it soon turns black but for me it never does. Instead these blue disconnected bars keep running down the sides ad infinitum. I believe that means it can't see the right disk. Trouble is I have no idea how to aid this. The "C64" tab has "disks" grayed out. So are the ROMs and disks not the same thing? It says something about disks 1 through 4 in one of the screens shown before, and also disk sides 1 and 2.
See this for some screenshots. There's some info about the disks that I don't really understand. What do I need to do to get it to a state where it plays well, preferably without having to swap disks at all if possible?
I have in the Sync Settings selected 1541II for the disk drive type but I first tried 1541.
Forum admin note: Please do not link to commercial ROM images, as it violates the site rules. ~ fsvgm777
The dominant criterion here is entertainment value to the users. This will be assessed via votes, comments, and views.
Well it certainly got good votes.
Precisely. This shows that people are entertained.
Are you seriously thinking there can't be any amount of nostalgy factor or knowing-the-game factor in the voting? That could easily make the voting unfair for less known games. Monty Mole was of course famous in its time. If it's a game you were familiar with, your personal entertainment value goes up regardless of which tier it's in, which is precisely why I don't think it makes sense to vote based on that. I don't think entertainment is THAT subjective.
I get the impression that you're judging a 1985 game by 1999 (or 2019) standards. And, well, that would be a double standard :)
While it's not a rule, I think some 1985 games absolutely have SOME type of visible tricks to them, or at least you can execute everything at a superhuman speed. Just look at Super Mario Bros and tell me the amount of interesting stuff going on doesn't far outweigh what's present here. Also, if you first get to define whether or not the age of the game should be thought of as an inherent part of the entertainment calculation (which I don't immediately agree that it should), then yes, doing so selectively becomes a double standard.
Now, again, I don't hang around here enough, so if the platform in question is supposed to be factored into the entertainment (sounds weird and unnecessarily complicated to me...) and/or into the stars and moons candidating, then fine, it's just not what I would perceive as the logical approach to it. You're pretending like games haven't gotten significantly more varied and complex, and thus ripe for more and more complex and unexpected/entertaining manipulation, over the course of time.
Of course there are even counter-examples to this: total execution takeover videos and anything else that's enabled by shoddy programming that you wouldn't run into today. So does that mean if it's from 1985 AND it has that type of method used, it should go into the megastar tier? Compared to if someone makes a game in 2019 that can be done something similar with, which then doesn't belong in the same tier? You're all pretending like this is somehow an open and shut, super-clear-cut case...
I won't post on this topic again since I don't hang around here enough, but if everyone thinks this is good enough (entertainment-wise) for the middle tier, then I'll recalibrate my own expectations. Still, I don't see how you can justify it based on the description given of what the tier shuold be about...
I edited the previous post.
Well, that's just it: if only people vote who did play the game (i.e. if playing the game is required to appreciate the TAS), it becomes a useless distinction to make.
This is EXACTLY the same situation when that recent GTA TAS came out: it had one significant trick (which is one more trick than I noticed here) and tons and tons of luck manipulation. I mean... at best this is double standards*. It's pretty clear that these threads attract those who played or at least know lots about the game in question, and they'll have information the average viewer doesn't, and also all that nostalgy. This skews the votes based on a personal slant that's simply not useful for the other viewers... well, at least you can expect a lot of them also to be familiar with the game then I guess, but on the other hand those people would probably watch it regardless of tiers.
And thus I really don't see the point of this voting if it does not reflect on qualities of the TAS that are more immediately apparent than luck manipulation (of course luck manipulation can also be immediately apparent, but that would definitely not be the case here). This is why a separate "technical score" exists.
Is hoping for good counter-arguments naive?
* I noticed that the GTA TAS actually got given Moons. Again, it had one impressive/unexpected trick which this one, AFAICS, did not. In what sense does this TAS fill the entertainment criteria given in the moons tier description?
The dominant criterion here is entertainment value to the users. This will be assessed via votes, comments, and views.
Well it certainly got good votes.
These movies must be impressive, attempt to entertain the audience even when it does not save time.
There is nothing like this in this TAS but maybe this is ignored if it doesn't seem like the game allows for much schenanigans? "Impressive" here is surely to be understood as visually impressive, not from a technical point of view since that's a separate criterion.
Speed/entertainment trade-offs are acceptable.
Again, where is any of this then? This TAS SCREAMS vault tier to me: it's a basic fastest-possible type of playthrough. I really think the judges have to attempt to treat TASes impartially.
Hmm... totally disagree on the moons tier here: I mean the game has nice music but the run has absolutely minimal tricks AFAICS. Even the luck manipulation is far from flashy stuff.
Well, it's a pretty absurd game and has that kind of "bad charm" for some time but it gets repetitive so can't in all honestly give this more than a meh for entertainment. I doubt anyone expected it either.
What I'm saying is I'd personally wait for someone else to challenge the definition used here (which is based on what's tracked and irreversible) and see if their arguments make sense.
Similarly, if you leave it up to the TASers to check each others' work (making sure they actually meet the criteria) at risk of the TAS being removed if it doesn't; this tends to result in self-moderation. On SDA, I don't think I remember even a single case of the run not meeting the category definitions after those had already been agreed upon, mainly because the runners will use existing runs as a basis for theirs, but you seem to think some kind of checklist is in necessary. I guess it could be useful.
I think some of the collectibles don't affect the game outside of gameplay. Perhaps you'll make a short algorithm/list for what is picked up when that includes everything, matslo?
The rules page has this on "full completion" runs:
"Full completion can only consist of optional one-time, irreversible, or otherwise strictly limited accomplishments that can be objectively measured and maximized."
The power-ups are not irreversible since they "reverse" themselves after time runs out, but they could be described as "strictly limited" I suppose. Even so it doesn't say it HAS TO include all such things.
I still don't see it as some kind of must. TASes are the runs where entertainment is supposed to (?) be important. Do you think another TASer is going to come along in a few years and challenge the definition used for this run as it stands, because it didn't get those overloads? Is that REALLY going to happen in this case? I agree that such things should be agreed upon in general, a bit of an outsider though I am.
On SDA, whenever there is a situation where a slightly better category definition is found after the fact, we at least let the old run stay until a new one has been submitted that adheres to the new definition. I'm sure at least this run can be accepted for now regardless?
Re. "vague analogies". For the record, there actually IS a Super Mario Bros run on this site that gets all the power-ups, though there's also another one that gets all coins, but those were left out of the 100% definition because "you can't get all of them" (I think that means there's no upper limit unless you do it on one life like the coins run does). I didn't expect such runs to exist, but there you have it. To be honest, it's definitely more entertaining to get the power-ups in SMB than this game specifically because you don't really end up going out of your way so much and the action doesn't stop for as long. I doubt this wasn't a factor in anyone wanting to do such a run in the first place.
Might I suggest copying the relevant parts of the previous run's notes into this run, and also highlighting the major differences? Especially when you submitted two TASes for the same category essentially back-to-back, but also because 44 seconds sounds like a lot for this game.
Well, I'm sticking with that "yes" vote again.
28:10 - This fight is still glorious.
It wasn't explicitly discussed before (unless I missed it) but I'm assuming getting maxed-out skills would have required a huge amount of farming, if it's even possible.
So this surely inherits my "yes" from before with all the loud bangs and occasional whistles. That easter egg is still weird...
I'm probably influenced by RTA-runs where they're never considered at all.
Why are they not considered though?
For the record, the primary reason is NOT because it tends to lead into dull gameplay unlike what matslo said. The two primary reasons are:
1) Less arbitrary
2) Easier to verify
These tend to go hand in hand. If the game keeps track of something (e.g. by permanently changing something in the UI), it serves both needs. Non-permanent power-ups are not tracked by anything and so it takes a lot of game knowledge to know (or have to patience for) checking if someone has actually gotten all of them.
Dull gameplay is a tertiary reason whenever there is room for interpretation otherwise. E.g. most 100% definitions don't require a full inventory, which tends to be somewhere half-way between very easy and very difficult to verify.
Aside from valuing entertainment in a far more overt way, TASes also differ from RTA runs if you think about quantity: there's only going to be one TAS per every dozens and dozens of RTA runs... and so verification isn't such a hassle in the end.
Well it's not really "by messing around" as much as "by cheating the system" or "by cashing in on one loophole to dodge all the legwork". It's not clear to me if this was ever anyone's "dream" though. Why are you playing the game then? I guess in real life someone could be dreaming of something like that?
"He also fulfills every upstart gangsta's daydream, cashing in on one loophole to dodge all the legwork." Except this is repeating the first sentence in that paragraph. It currently says "abusing glitches", but isn't it more like "abusing a glitch"? Don't make stuff up just to make things sound better. That's one of the rules I follow.
Basically I don't see the point in the sentence you're referring to. Are you still seeing something in this run that no-one else can?
Editing stuff in/out without having the discussion first != professionalism, guys.
Nano overloads: Are there really lots of TASes that collect these kinds of ephemeral power-ups, even if they have fixed locations? Are we all on the same page here? It's like collecting every invulnerability sphere, invisibility, light goggles and berserk in Doom... or every star power-up in Mario Bros.
I'm probably influenced by RTA-runs where they're never considered at all.
Probably the last thing I'm bothering with over here:
KennyMan, I don't think you get SDA. You're not different from the rest in that respect. Maybe it's poor communication on our part, but it's certainly also much simpler than that: you clearly never wanted SDA. You wanted speedrun.com. That's fine. But SDA is not a poor man's speedrun.com.
What SDA should be in 2019 is not what someone was envisioning in 2010 that it should become. It can and does still currently work perfectly well as a curated feed of runs with a viewer-friendly attitude. The quality check that you were talking about... are you seriously unaware that it always meant both A/V AND run quality? We KNOW A/V quality hasn't been a common issue for a long time. We're not stupid.
"with the sheer amount of runs and PBs and WRs and everything that gets made every day now..." Who exactly has time to watch all of them? I don't WANT to see ALL OF THE RECORDS. I'll watch SOME of the records, if I know it's worth watching and if it comes with commentary so I can get what's happening.
???
My comment had nothing to do about cheating, but that all runs aren't kept at archive.org, which was also what I quoted so it should have been obvious =).
Missed this reply earlier: that's what it seemed you meant but this was such a tiny pedantic nitpick (you're talking about one run in thousands Tompa) that I thought that can't possibly be why you brought it up. Unless you're saying there's further implications to the cheated runs being removed?
Sometimes people get a bit TOO officious, their noses stuck deep in rule books because they don't have the imagination to see where all rules came from.
Can you please stop polluting this thread with that shit? Go on the SDA thread and read for yourself you moron. Another thing I'm tired of is people failing at basic online etiquette.
So...how's SDA nowadays? Is there anyone attempting to change the site layout, or implement some requests such as "show past X # of runs, even if it's only hosted on archive.org? Or is it impossible due to incoherent site code? (Not saying coding is easy; I'd imagine it look something like fixing this)
Every time someone has said they'd do some volunteering in this area (or most others), it is my best knowledge that they've never tended to stick around very long – at this point it's going to be a hassle to convince Uranium Anchor to even let someone have the access they'll need if they've not put in some work on something. The density of programmers amongst real-time runners is probably a good deal lower than amongst TASers to begin with.
So it's very limited what the more active "layman" staff members can do. Personally, I've got a long-term commitment to import all the rest of the runs into the automated backend so they can at least all be processed at the same time. I'm still not one to buy into this "it WOULD be great if only bla bla" rhetoric. It's the only site of its kind, it's the only site of its kind we need. It's the philosophy that matters. Good shit takes effort.
I like the fact that speedrun.com is actually a full list of entries for a game, rather than just the best entry and nothing else. You can see where everybody stands (especially when it comes to a very popular game), and you can watch their runs if you want.
It wouldn't be the first time that I check the rankings on a particular game at speedrun.com and notice that "oh, this guy I have been watching at twitch has made a new PB. I have to see this." This even when said person is on 3rd place or whatever.
Again, these are not mutually exclusive. Besides, you don't do that for every game do you? Nobody has time for that. What about some game you played long ago that you're not that interested in but you'll still watch one or two runs? Wouldn't you like to know before you start watching that the runs are worth seeing?
For smaller games on SRC, There's almost certainly cheating going on as a result of mods verifying their own or their buddies runs. However, for the more popular games there's more scrutiny, and you're much less likely to get away with cheating compared to SDA. As others have pointed out the core problem SDA has is it's slow verification process. I was able to verify and accept a run on SRC within 24 hours, whereas the same run would have taken 2 months to appear on SDA.
EDIT: About timing methods on SRC, yes timing is done by the runner, but it can be edited by a mod should the timing methods be wrong or inaccurate. Should it be necessary, I'd just download the run and do a frame count in VDub.
For the more popular games, won't an SDA submission also get more scrutiny? Isn't it likely somebody will know something about about the game amongst the viewers? And if anything, doesn't the cheater have more of an incentive to try to get a run through on the big popular site than SDA?
Seriously, you just don't have a clue. Most of the time, we'll check whether there's a leaderboard on SRC for the game in question. Most of the time we'll see that the same run has been posted there. Thus the level of overall scrutiny is HIGHER for that run if it's passed both the SRC check AND SDA verification.
Yes, there's a necessary delay when publishing on SDA. This does not invalidate SDA in the slightest. You just don't get what the site is for. It's a curated feed of speedruns, and its audience is not those people who will go out of their way to follow the game in question, watching every new PB as they're uploaded. It's a different audience altogether.
Timing on SRC: I don't know why you've even brought this up.
