The previous TAS chose to take no damage on purpose: I take as much as possible on purpose for damage boosting.
Could you explain this? All damage throws you back, rather than forwards. It seems to be wasting time.
Also minus points for not having the earthquake at the church at the end... :P
No, Warp. You don't get to define this conversation.
I'm just saying, I have seen first-hand what it has done to other communities. It has teared them apart, resulting in really, really ugly in-fighting (all the way up to real-life doxing and harassment, from both sides of the argument.) It has happened both to online and real-life communities.
Please don't let it happen to this community. I am trying to stop it when I see the warning signs. And it's because I care about this community and I don't want to see it ripped apart by ideologues.
Let's just discuss this subject in a normal reasonable way, shall we? Please.
The point I was trying to make was not whether it's on- or off-topic, but about the website as a whole.
Of course we have lots of discussions about things that are completely unrelated to TASing, such as mathematics, physics, YouTube videos, TV shows, and so on. The difference is, none of those are deeply personal topics.
I wouldn't have written my post if had been made by the person in question. It just resonated badly when we are talking about some person somewhere, who I think is not even present and participating.
This may sound a bit insensitive, but I really can't understand the relevance of this topic at a website like this one.
It's like I were to go to a forum about... I don't know... chess, and declare there "hey, did you know that I'm a man?" Seems a bit superfluous. The expected answer would be that of puzzlement, and "yeah, so?"
If someone comes to a forum about making runs of computer games and says "did you know that such and such person is trans?", I'm like, well, "yeah, so?" I don't really care what somebody is, especially not in a forum that's rather unrelated to such issues. Isn't this like a personal thing? You are what you are; I am what I am. So?
In fact, I find it even more bothering when it's "did you know person X is Y", rather than "I am Y". It's a bit like gossiping.
I do understand that some people struggle with their identities and it's important to them, but there's the right place for everything.
I suppose that my problem is that I still don't understand "potential energy". I still can't grasp the concept that it's not just an abstract mathematical tool invented to make calculations easier, but it's actually a real, physical thing, with actual mass (according to GR).
It's also hard to grasp the concept that the total mass of a system can be more (or sometimes even less) than the sum of the masses of its individual particles.
TIER4: the most entertaining runs from all of the above
I'd say the most representative runs for all the above.
I am still of the strong opinion that the Star category ought to be a (relatively small) representative sample of what TASing is all about, not just a blind list of "runs with an entertainment rating of X or higher".
A run might be very appreciated for its entertainment value, but if there are already three runs starred that are very similar to that one, that spot ought to go to something that showcases a different aspect of TASing, even if that something is slightly "less entertaining".
What I don't like about these Discord episodes is that in his first appearances he was a god of chaos who is thousands of years old, and thus has the knowledge and wisdom that accompanies such a long life. He was very smart, intelligent and scheming. This was so in his debut appearance, and in the episode where he's made to make his heel-face turn.
In subsequent episodes, however, he's childish, petty, outright stupid, and lacking in even the most basic of knowledge.
If we don't introduce sensible barriers to Demo entry (as you used to request too), we'll end up with an unmanageable flood of worthless movies.
There is only a limited amount of games for any given system. For example according to Wikipedia there exist 713 licensed NES games. (If a TAS of a game is by default accepted at the very least to the demo category, likewise by default there ought to be only one TAS of it, unless there's a good reason to accept more.)
But yes, there could be some (subjective) requirement for notability.
This is really oldclassic, and even possibly already posted in this thread, but it doesn't matter. There may be members of the younger generation that haven't seen it, and I desire to bestow this onto them.
Link to video
Btw, since we want to (and should) be inclusive, if we end up creating a demo category where "everything else" goes, I think that a TAS of a game with no previous TASes should be accepted by default there (if it doesn't fit in any of the other categories) unless there's a good reason not to.
In other words, same principle as with current Vault: An any%/100% TAS of a new game is accepted there by default regardless of feedback, for the simple reason that every game (that's any%/100%-TASable) deserves a TAS, unless there's a good reason why it shouldn't.
This way if you eg. make a TAS of a board game which doesn't fit anywhere else, you can be pretty certain that it will get published, if there's even a modicum of logic in the stated goal of the TAS.
(Of course obsoletion of existing Demo category TASes becomes a more complex question, but that's its own problem.)
I think you mean O(2^n). If you try n inputs on a frame, and then n inputs on each of the resulting frames and so on, the amount of combinations grows exponentially.
The newest What If? states that if 1052 electrons (ie. about 9.2*1021 kg of them) would be put into a sphere of the size of the Moon, they would collapse into a black hole. And not only into just any black hole, but one with the mass of the entire observable universe. Because potential energy and stuff.
I don't get it.
That could indeed work. We could have a "official world record for game X" for different categories, such as "no game breaking glitches" (which includes savedata corruption and ACE both of which, I think, can be quite unambiguously defined) and "wild" (ie. anything goes).
We basically do that already. Vault tier is "anything goes", and moon tier tends to avoid glitches that cuts too much out of the game.
If we did it already, this thread wouldn't exist.
And no, you can't unambiguously define "game breaking glitch". We had long debates on that and it doesn't reach any kind of consensus.
I said "both of which can be quite unambiguously defined". Referring to "savedata corruption" and "arbitrary code execution".
The solution is to recognize that there are multiple any% (game end glitch is separate from normal any%) and recognize each one.
That could indeed work. We could have a "official world record for game X" for different categories, such as "no game breaking glitches" (which includes savedata corruption and ACE both of which, I think, can be quite unambiguously defined) and "wild" (ie. anything goes).
I'm not expecting to see this any time soon, though. But it's an interesting idea.
The reason for this is innovation. Hardly anybody is interested in seeing runs just being played back. Ikaruga back in SGDQ was a neat run to watch, but Twitch chat* was flooded with ResidentSleepers half the time because there's nothing extraordinary about watching a video file which you can also just do on YouTube at any time you wish.
I'm not saying that all the entries should be regular TASes. I'm just saying that it would be nice if at least one of them was.
And I think the major problem with the Ikaruga TAS was that it was not played by the cute little robot on a real console in real time. I think that's what people expect and want to see.
IIRC Moons were originally invented as some kind of "outstanding TAS, albeit not star-worthy" tag. In other words, a "notice this TAS, you might like it". Something in between the regular runs and the starred ones.
This was perhaps a working system when we had something like 400 published runs. However, now that we have over 1600, it's getting a bit out of hand. The Moons tier is too large to really serve its original purpose. And, as have been commented by many people many times, it has had the unfortunate side-effect of making it look like non-Moon TASes are somehow inferior, and relegated to some kind of heap of mediocrity.
At some point an actual tier system was introduced, with the Vault being the new "lowest" tier. Intended or not, this only helped consolidate the notion that Vault runs are somehow "inferior", as anything that was not "good enough" for Moons would be relegated to Vault (and possibly not even there, if it didn't meet the goal qualifications).
As TehBerral pointed out above, perhaps we don't need this kind of two-tiered system of "better" and "more boring" runs. After all, it is rather superfluous given that we have the rating system.
I also must agree somewhat with dunnius above. Thinking about all this, do we really need a tiered system at all? What purpose do they serve?
Although as a somewhat of a perfectionist who loves to categorize things, I still think it would be nice to have a (stricter) categorization system for TASes, like the one being proposed in this thread. Just don't call them "tiers", but instead eg. "categories".
I would also love to see (as I have mentioned in the past) a kind of "official" list of "world record tool-assisted completions". Something that somebody could easily check to see what the current record is. This would be pretty much the proposed new "Vault" category.
(It's too bad that this idea is made very difficult by the fact that it's hard to unambiguously define for some games which one of the completions should be the "official WR completion", given all the savedata corruption, arbitrary code execution, and so on. Clear rules would need to be delineated, but I get the feeling that I personally wouldn't agree with the majority consensus. Thus perhaps for my own sanity and peace of mind it's probably best that this idea was abandoned. A pity, but perhaps it's for the best.)
I think it's a bit disappointing that, once again, it seems we won't be getting an actual good old (tool-assisted) speedrun of a game, running on a real console, and instead everything will again be some kind of gimmick or non-speedrun demonstration.
This is a bit funny, given that 99% of TASes are any% game completions as fast as possible.
Note that runs of games with no clear ending are already allowed in vault tier
Are they? Most infamously board games (and some sports games) are not vaultable. If they aren't accepted for Moons, they won't get a publication at all (which I think is a huge shame.)
and I think runs of a completeable game which don't complete it shouldn't be published.
I don't think that should be a hard rule. Of course the standards of quality should be quite high, as we don't want to publish any random thing that anybody happens to submit. However, I don't think we should close the doors to that option either, if there is some really remarkable that could showcase TASing without necessarily completing a game.
There are quite many games which do not have a clear progression and ending, by their very nature. Board games, quiz games, games made to emulate a TV contest... things like that. These types of games are in that odd place where they might or might not get a publication if they are deemed good enough for Moons (using a very arbitrary and fuzzy voting and judging system).
Why not have a tier for those (and everything else that doesn't fit into the other tiers)?
TIER1: all any% and 100%
TIER2: all entertaining side goals
TIER3: impressive examples of the rest
TIER4: the most entertaining runs from all of the above
First, I'm not seeing any difference between tier 2 and tier 3 in your list, and for that matter the 4th tier you describe is hardly distinct from either of them either.
Unless I'm mistaken, I think he's referring to:
1: Any% and 100% best game completions.
2: Non-any% non-100% game completions (of sufficient merit to warrant publication).
3: Demos (which don't complete games, or runs of games with no clear goal or ending.)
4: A small selection of all of the above that showcase TASing (ie. stars).
