Posts for gia

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
Hmm I didn't mean speedrun or full completion (although used the s of tas sorry), just an achievement that is to be obtained through tool use, dont compare jump on x goombas in a row to a published tas, I mean you could go all out, but random guy that can barely load an emulator has to learn a lot. I think the easy ones could serve as entry point for those that dont do tases that can be interested. Im not sure who you mean should use youtube for satisfaction, regardless, in the case of the author the best course of action would be doing so with a description of how to obtain the achievement -for those that tried and failed so they can try again, AND the movie file -for quitters that are completionist or plain cheaters so that they don't have to spam for it. But of course I have the view that these achievements in general should have a worth of zero, honor code doesn't make it zero, it raises the value, easy cheating makes it zero straight from the start In the case of "users", normally they wouldn't, I think, except those that do let's play, but those would do videos of the skill achievements.
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
I was thinking, this is a tas community, what if there aren't only achievements for play skill but also tas achievements. That means the objectives are quite difficult to execute realtime and a such are meant to require a movie file to accomplish them. To emphasize that you are meant to obtain them through the use of tools these achievements would be properly labeled and separated and only awarded by playing back a movie file on the emulator. That way the emulator wouldn't have to be striped of its tas capabilities. It would be extremely easy to cheat but the achievements are to hold no value but a personal value and I believe that idea is reinforced if it is put like this. By having tas achievements the comunnity itself could promote tasing games that are not tased or that are usual cause of drama (I bet the popular games would get those first but later it would diversify and it would include fighters, racers, autoscrollers and whatnot!), people attracted initially by the normal achievements could get into tasing later. Having the rerecording/playback code at the same time as the achievements code on the same emulator could allow the achievement animation to play during tasvideos movies and if done well add to the entertainment. Maybe it could open a way to allowing some kind of arbitrary goals on tasvideos movies, maybe not. What do you guys think, I personally do not care if there are cheaters, if they want to cheat let them do so.
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
I enjoyed it specially the music and the random events and the low fps birds. It gains 10 secs over the record which I guess its good. Maybe should use the truck since I bet people don't like the game to be accepting one run per car, despite it should be possible.
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
Its funny how whether you aim for entertainment or speed fighters still get so many red flags for the reason of having chosen entertainment or speed. I'd say such division lowers the value of no votes. SDR, raise your self steem a bit and let the topic run its course next time so you can get more feedback, you cancel too quick. I enjoyed it, but I didn't like Dee Jay's turn for once, and too many computer fights, those parts where the fighters were dancing capoeira were fun (er, face to face, attacking but not connecting). Its true there are many buttons on the keyboard that can't be held but there are some, ESDF plus numpad for instance, then use your gamepad for the other player.
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
But rankings aint bad are they? I'd sure love speedrunning rankings with a runner's personal records. Instead of that the guy seemed a bit close minded, which may be helped by other circumstances, lets say not speaking english, not being proficient with computers, not being an "online" person, any of those can make him discard the sites we know and get him much closer to guiness and such. So the approach was not appropiate to change his mind, but Foda, you weren't blocked because of your tas inclinations, if someone unkwnown flipped me off (end of convo) I'd block them too.
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
Catastrophe wrote:
(EDIT: Figured it out. Hit his head. Duh. Which means that both he and Eligor basically can't be comboed.)
lol, well you can hit steady while flying
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
Lag I already started, that doesn't have to stop you though :P I'm making my specs draft public as someone has to modify an emulator, I'm off the lua loop and I rather not learn.
Warp wrote:
I don't think disabling the cheats in the emulator and obfuscating the data sent to the server requires that much work. (Eg. the obfuscation part should only take a few lines of code.)
So to my tl;dr, do I add each emulator developer has to propose an encryption method and request the server mantainers to store their binary crc and associate it with this method. At b. (login) the emulator also sends its crc so that the server knows what decryption method to use later during and only during e. Or do you think all comunications should be encrypted. Remember that on the easiest path to hacking you just discover one encryption method for any emulator (if there is more than one available, or only one with different versions) then proceed to simulate a connection as if coming from that emu. This is because I am not considering to send movie files but the script's desired values which are constant between versions. On that note, another reason not to like verification by replaying of the movie file is that that means the server has every single rom, and that would be hell with (my) hosting.
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
But I dont have a current gen console :( While this is ontopic the starting topic was just about listing achievement suggestions, maybe this could be split. On the topic of the server side, any suggestion? Server: Server can be a web server or a console application. Personally I prefer web server. Second, it can work with ansi or utf-8, I rather go utf-8 but its easier on web servers, i recall its not that simple on c++. Going utf-8 allows the server to send text messages in other languages if that was ever necessary. Communication with Server - Services: For all the services, each transaction blocks the emulator program and waits 60? seconds, the emulator shows a window so the player can choose to start offline mode at any time. If the initial 60 seconds are up the transaction is cancelled and a new one begins for 61 seconds (and so on add 1 second until it passes or the user goes offline). a. Registration. Done through the website, your average registration... The user chooses a login and password, these can be anything allowed (ansi/utf8?) and will be used only for login purposes. They also choose a username, which will be used for anything displayed, the username is limited to at least one alphabet letter and followed by numbers [a-zA-Z]+[0-9]*(this cool?). b. Login. Required: login, password, controller. The login and password can be anything allowed (ansi/utf8?), user's fault if they go with weird characters and at some point they arent understood correctly. The server validates, tempbans the IP for incremental time starting with a day after about 10? failed attempts during the same hour?. Tempban severity reduces with time as well so as not to destroy unlucky dynamic ip users. Answer:
  • F# where # is the number of failed attempts remaining, if it reaches 0 the user was supposedly banned. The emulator should let the user know about this number.
  • T if the user is/was tempbanned, the time will not be sent. Repeated attempts to login after this should increase the length of the tempban ala Diablo 2. The emulator should remind the user about this: a messagebox, load the browser pointing to an official page explaining the case and/or just block the submit button.
  • B if the user is/was banned and as such their request was not heard. Block the submit button since this is useless.
  • S the login was successful. Following the first char there will be extra values, ini style (unless you wanna go JSON) with whatever else should be sent at login. The first value is the player's name, followed by the session id, and time required between pings in seconds, for example other value could be a message with the number of failed attempts on the account since last login.
c. Ping. Requires: session id. The emulator sends a ping, and the server verifies it. If it was sent too late the session will be over already, if it was sent (way) too early the server will raise a flag. you are supposed to send the ping early but not way too much (1.5 minutes before?) Answer:
  • S if its fine.
  • F#, it works like the login, so there can be a couple mis-pings due to changing windows clock. The server sends this in case the ping was sent early. The emulator has to catch this and in case this keeps decreasing let the user know.
  • O if the ping failed but didnt make the server angry (session over), the emulator has to forcibly pause and ask to login again before resuming or going offline (or retry automatically or whatever), if it just pauses this counts against the player if the lua scripts are taking this into account, the emu coders could blacken the screen and not do an ingame pause though.
c. Game loaded. Requires: game identifier, sessionid. Answer:
  • F if the game doesnt exist on the database.
  • S followed by the achievement ids and CRC of their scripts followed by achievement values comma separated (integer list)
d. Obtain achievements script. Just download it from the web server. The script contains the achievement name, description image urls etc. e. Send game data to server. The client sends data to the server by request of the achievements script, the server accepts it and executes its own verification script to validate and decide whether to unlock or not the achievement. its up to the achievements coder to keep this complex enough so that it can't be cheated so easily (do not send 0 or 1 and have the server unlock if it is 1...), send memory addresses and have the server calculate the stuff on its own if possible otherwise send some addresses to check consistency. The server updates achievement value and sends its results. Answer: list of achievements changed and a return value for each (technically you just return an integer, that's what gets stored on the database, but returning something else opens for whatever else, do i keep it simple?). Ideas, this can be done with this spec as is:
  • Off to On achievement. Technically it can go the other way too but this should be avoided unless its something creative as it encourages stealing passwords :D
  • Bronze Silver Gold state for achievement, as you progress the achievement improves.
  • Leaderboard achievement, (ie. top ten at X) as I'm not ruling out the verification script could access databases. Returning the leaderboard table would not be possible just by returning an integer though. Also remember leaderboards brings cheaters.
  • Personal Record type achievement, like leaderboard but you compete against yourself, it can be done with an integer but you'll probably want more?
  • The progress of one achievement changing another for whatever reason? (that another's script may or not modify its own value).
  • Different looks/animations for achievements, the script decides what to do after all.
Basically its free for all, but of course the ones that get added to an official release get moderated before so its all cool. Emulator side: Achievements window: Among whatever else allows login (login, password, controller), shows achievements for current game (standard size images), allows to reset an achievement, allows to select offline mode (which allows to use custom scripts), allows to check "automatic sign in", and remember me, and stuff like that. Reset achievement. This is not serverside, the client can reset an achievement to its initial value (lasts during their session) so that they dont have to create a new account just to get the achievement animation again. The emulator and script know however so it shouldn't send data to the server until its time to actually update the value, be good coders and dont have the verification script reset the achievement if you miss this, and also save some bandwidth. This doesn't reset the server (at least not directly), or people could steal passwords just for this. Actually..., only allow this while playing offline, yeah that would work. My personal take on Offline mode vs online, there are two ways to define offline mode, to me offline mode doesn't count for server achievements, offline means not logged in. It uses values stored on your pc or whatever that's up to the script and emulator. That eases my reset suggestion too. Then again the script/emu can always save the values that triggered the achievement and send when it gets online. So offline mode could be that, a user logged playing a script with no client side validation that allows to play offline after(or without) logging in. Vulnerabilities: If the player researches or the coder leaves the values required easy to see they can simulate a connection and submit the correct values, the only possible block against that is the verification script which can remain hidden, but against correct values it shouldn't be able to figure it out. Leaderboard type achievements would be subject to this. This is big enough that I don't think modifying the emulator or what not would be warranted for the cheater. At least, a cheater cant crack all achievements on the system at once, they have to crack them one by one. Counter Measures:
  • Avoid programming leaderboards. Do Personal Records instead.
  • Do not allow offline mode? that way you can hide the values you want (since your script won't do validation client side).
  • Make sure your code handles gracefully the case where an achievement value degrades instead of improves (due to coding error, hacking, etc), technically it should be ignored, unless you are 100% sure you want it happening...
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
Sure I could host it, but not the nazi version that plays movie files, that's gonna eat the server :D. Valve microsoft etc servers don't do that much, they just receive "achievement unlocked" and move on, that's the other side of the coin I guess.
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
Any local based solution is on the honor system. But achievements are meant to be shown off I think, I'd be willing to make a site and offer the "services" for the programs to consume, but not to modify emulators or make lua scripts. The important and hardest part here is the lua scripts, cheat protection can be added one by one later. I doubt cheating can be prevented tho, so it would be better to advertise it on the honor system as well, the one thing that should be protected is the desicion of awarding the achievement, basically the client can't do it. The client can send memory values and the server have the validation parameters. I doubt possible cheaters would find useful having to do a bunch of research just to cheat on a single achievement, they'd rather code their own achievements.
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
Zombies Ate My Neighbors: Scavenger Hunt: Obtain the flamethrower. Kings of the Tongue: Beat the game from level 1 (2 players). 56 levels later: Beat the game after 56 levels. The Human That Wouldn't Die: Beat the game without deaths. Deadly Pal: Kill the other player as a zombie. Fear of Clowns: Destroy an inflatable clown. Sole survivor: Be the only one that beats the game on a 2 player game. Scape from the Tongue: Beat level 48 without defeating Dr. Tongue. Dancing with Zombies: Rescue all victims in level 28. Zombiethon: Kill over 2000?? zombies. Love for the dead: Beat the game without killing zombies. The Gate Tresspasser: Open 100 doors without using keys. The Curse of the Scavenger: Open every single cabinet, thrash can, etc. The Curse of the Scavenger II: Pick up every single item on the game. Nine Dead: Beat the game with only one victim. Splat Attack:Get rid of the blob's attack before it hurts you. Child's Play: Beat level 16 unharmed, with the d-pad only. Condemned to Life: Save all (possible) neighbors. Let me In: Enter all bonus levels. Frostbitten: Kill a blob. The Eradicator: Kill all snakeoids.
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
eternaljwh wrote:
Zombies Ate My Neighbors Super Soaker: Defeat enemies with no weapons other than your squirt guns. (Not sure if this is possible, it would be rather difficult anyway.)
So it counts until you beat every enemy type just with it? With the addition of fire extinguisher or clowns only the giant spider remains(really) hard. without it Tonguestein, Dracula and the spider would be the hard ones (as in they deal a lot of damage).
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
About Comicalflop remark In my case, about Madoo Granzort in 09:18.15 I watched it on youtube, the runner said he already has a faster version so there's no point to apply for it here. But if I go by memory, I saw Madou Monogatari as an example and it really struck me because of the yes/no ratio, I didn't watch it though, somebody that did raise their hand? I mean isn't the author himself interested? Ah, I'll vote in favor of Saturn's movie too if it isn't impossible for the judges to have a spot/category for it. But I'd like to say that Pokemon Yellow and Green while similar are very different, if you want to group them by their looks good for you. Yellow is to (non japanese) Red/Blue as Emerald is to Ruby Sapphire, from my point of view non comparable, and Red/Blue themselves could count as half a generation after Red/Green, codebase-wise.
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
thank you very much! I'll try to find the data, but if I am correct they stored the data grouped by variables instead of by pokemon, which means it will be very annoying to extract, so far I found the area that has the pokemon nicknames and the messages the trainers say during battle. They also seem to store the data in their own structure and build the stats on the fly (or to store it with a bit offset) because I couldn't find the string for the move's PP of a rental pokemon. That or they compressed the data, hope not. yes, you are correct I came to the same conclusion after doing the first two gym leader castles unassisted (it was... tiring :D). BUT. Those videos are the ones that get the most views out of the videos I have on youtube, which leads me to believe that regardless of what would the tas/speedrun represent they have an audience waiting patiently. (although my videos only have 4 battles on each, which means they work as "episodic" and wouldn't be as boring as to watch it all in one go...). Also remember the taser could manipulate critical hits too.
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
I need help from researchers, I extracted all the trainer data from Pokemon Stadium because it was damn easy, but hit a wall with pokemon stadium 2. Is there any resource out there that explains the -> data structure <- and hex values for common things on the gsc era? (items, moves, pokemon, etc). I tried to use my rby knowledge but I couldn't find any area with pokemon data (rentals or trainers) on the rom, im so not scanning the 64MB manually. With the data out maybe people will try a tas or speedrun.
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
you need a number 24 in there for it to be jack bauer, and chuck norris probably belongs to a game with roundhouse kicks
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
adelikat wrote:
I said (in irc) I wasnt' going to publish it, because I think it sucks. Notice how I haven't rejected it nor did I say I planned to. I haven't even looked at the percentages yet. If someone else accepts it and publishes it, so be it. I feel like this is turning into a witch hunt. You people need to chill out.
That's a weird way to work, so that's one of the sources of delays in publication people complain about, judges will refuse to judge if they don't like the game, that's dumb, the only real reason should be lack of time devoted to tasvideos altogether, regardless of runs you like or not. Following on that judges shouldn't vote on movies... that means their judgements are not impartial, perhaps they shouldn't even watch the movie they are judging until making their decision (i assume based on voting in this case), once the decision is made they watch the movie in case there's a broken rule that outright bans it regardless of voting, but if not then the decision should be kept, these important rules wouldn't be ones of personal appreciation (ie. i didn't like the movie). That's my personal take on that of course, the job description you agreed to must be different. It must be annoying to be a judge and have people complaining about you for one thing or the other or the other but I don't feel you guys have done everything possible to prevent them from doing that. Since rules have room interpretation (and also for ignoring it seems) the final call's on you, and as such it's expected that the complaints are on you ;o
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
bullshit bisqwit, I find it cool that an unoptimized run was accepted and dont mind a change of policies towards that, but if that's only gonna be for your friends then... (you trying to rationalize why this can be given preferential treatment but others can't due to not being first anymore) why dont you accept this while you are at it, theres no other supply for it either: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7964
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
27, guessed all , i dont play mm games
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
thanks, done
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
merged m64 saving by bkdj in svn, "upgraded" to vs2k8 used this not sure if it is latest version, seems to work though, tried a short tas. new version would be this I'm limited to svn write though, maximus make a new "release"? so that it stays on sourceforge download.
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
<3 The IL is better: http://speeddemosarchive.com/MetalWarriors.html#IL keep in mind nitro's "normal" velocity (mech speed holding "b") is non optimal when going through halls and the like, if its your first tas you shouldnt be forced to keep it optimal, but you should give a try to keep it as high as possible (dont hit obstacles, release the gas for some frames, thats's what i got from soulrivers wip topic) trick 1: reverse rocket, hit with a rocket as you fire it, so you must hit with your back, see my 7-1 I reverse rocket a havok, at 6-2 i hit the boss with a reverse rocket once. It does a lot more damage. the boss at 6-2 would be faster if you tas every rocket hit to be a reverse rocket trick 2: backwards walking. Press left + right and you can move facing backwards so you can shoot behind you. I think it will help vs the final boss and can help with "entertainment". trick 3: invulnerability. Leave your suit (select) and enter it again. if you do it right you cant be damaged. Although you cant move either. trick 4: mine boost. Be inside a mine when it explodes so that it launches you. Its hard to be in control of the trick realtime, but tasing you could manipulate it. Mines you can boost from at 1, 3, 5, 8, 9-1, there are also at other levels but I dont recall being boosted favorably from those. trick 5: mega boost. This I got on a fluke. Didn't record it. Somehow get inside an enemy while they use a pushing attack and boost in that direction (I was falling and fell into a havok that was meleeing and then I jumped), if the timing is right you'll be launched at incredible speed. trick 6: get locked in the final boss. The first two or three forms of the boss have a hole in the lower part of the suit where your mech can fit. If you get in there you get locked and can hit non stop speeding those forms. But maybe isn't faster depending on how it plays. trick 7: 7-1 improvement. I leave my suit on the lower floor. You can leave the suit on the elevator. But it usually falls from it. Sometimes it stays onthe elavator. I dont know whats the rule, but I assume you have to exit the suit when you have 0 vertical speed.
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
alden wrote:
For the record I don't think we should have more movies "to provide a database of how fast each and every game ever can be beaten", but because I think some of the movies that get rejected are in fact entertaining movies that should be provided. Front Line entertains me, so sue me.
I think you should have that database, but showcasing entertaining runs as well. The entertaining runs could be the ones with the "stars" and the top X among those be the ones with special glowing multiple stars on the special stars page. If the pure speed run was considered entertaining due to whatever reason (ie game popularity) it could get the star too. That's site direction however. My pokemon run is boring to watch, at least after the shock if you are a fan of the game, if I watch it I start head bobbing. Well thats true for any of the pokemon runs, game's too slow paced. The comments are more interesting I think, so to me tasvideos does accept pure-speed runs, but only if the game is popular, that sucks.
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
Workbench has 18 submissions, i dont think the processing of a submission is that bad, if the queue had 50 or so... Rejecting games because people didn't play/appreciate them however, that's bad in my book, so lower the bar you jerks, at least on the consoles that get less runs, n64 should be full of games submitted already... although now that I recall the n64 emulators always had graphical problems right? -I don't know since I dont emulate n64. Anyway, now with psx and ngc you should allow the runs to come and let others obsolete them if there's interest on optimization :) More runs, more people come, more people could get interested in what you do.
gia
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (109)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
Tetris is one of the easiest. Metal Warriors (SNES) is easy and isnt on tasvideos. This has all tricks I know: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=1033A03D2F53C7B4 Only trick missing is that you can shoot while moving backwards if you press Left+Right at the same time.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9