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Actually, before the front page was redesigned, the logo in the top left corner said "Tool Assisted Speedruns", while the logo for the forums said (and still does) "Tool Assisted Superplays". I guess the accepted definition has now grown to include play-arounds and such. However, from everything I've heard, the site was 100% focused on speed at the beginning. I forget whether that was the intention of Bisqwit or not, although I'm sure he's said it before.
To the OP:
Speed does tend to be what most runs here aim for, because it creates a good objective means to base future attempts on (i.e. faster is better [Xkeeper will disagree]). However, entertainment trade-offs are common, but they are usually small, and do not detract a lot from the speed of the run. If you start mixing in too many slow parts to add entertainment, you really have very vague goals, and the movie will likely be rejected because of it. A few interesting glitches here and there are great, but if there's a fastest way to kill an enemy, it is somewhat expected that it will be overused. Yes, it will probably detract from the entertainment value some, but if there are some other easter eggs that you throw in that don't take up a large amount of time, you'll be fine.
But above all else, be sure to clarify what you did and the choices you made regarding speed vs. entertainment in the submission text, so that people (especially judges) don't have to guess at what you meant to do.
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DarkKobold wrote:
Uh, I'm pretty sure Gens maxes out a core as well for me. I don't think emulation has a choice.
?? My core2duo 2Ghz only uses about 15% of the CPU using Gens, and that's with firefox open. Maybe Upthorn could shed some light on the reason for the vast difference in resources.
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If Lord Tom had done two metroid games (100%, hint hint), instead of two rygar games, I'd have voted for him in a heart beat. However, I think adelikat deserves my vote for a very wide range of projects, along with taking care of some of the 2004 movies that no one else wanted to touch.
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It was a toss-up between Metroid II and Pokemon, but Metroid II managed to keep my attention throughout the whole run, despite it being glitched beyond recognition. Pokemon was short and sweet, but MII packed a longer punch.
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I'm going to be the asshole who votes for his own run. Super Mario 64 was more of the same, OoT was fun, but it was a struggle to sit through because of the length, and Mischief Makers was pretty good. But yeah, I still enjoy watching my Turok run.
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I got a desync after about 39k frames with FCEUX 2.0.4 interim. Up until that point, it was a good run of a pretty meh game. I'll take a look at it with an older version of FCEU to see if I can get it to sync properly a little later.
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Thoughts on this run:
* Game choice is good, and length isn't too bad for an RPG.
* Stylistic choice to avoid damage really hurts this run, unfortunately. I think it could probably be a lot faster to take damage, especially if damage boosting is present. And I have a sneaking feeling that I saw you take damage at one point from some arrows or spikes about 1/3 of the way through the movie, but I couldn't find it on a second time through (using fast forward).
* Technically, it's a good first attempt. There are a ton of small optimizations that look to be possible, but overall it's pretty competently well done. The only exception I can see is during the bosses (as previously mentioned), when you wait to exploit the doorway trick. I'd be very surprised if you couldn't take care of them faster by walking towards them and attacking, especially if you took damage.
I'm leaning towards acceptance, but I'll leave this thread open for a little while longer to hopefully garner some more opinions.
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Yeah, I addressed that below the table, but I can see how you missed it:
"This rubric also tends to correlate to how I rate movies. However, it will likely not correlate to the scores present in each submission thread, as many people have shown that they have no use for the numbers below 9.5. "
The ratings in the submission do help me get a good idea of what type of run it is before I watch it. All high scores, all low scores, and a lot of spread out scores each gives me an indication of what I should look for in the movie, but I certainly don't use the ratings to make a final decision.
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LagDotCom wrote:
but the criteria for categorisation into Low/Medium/High is suspiciously absent.
You're right. I've tried to define both entertainment and technical qualities on the first tab, but I'll work on adding specific criteria to each box. Thanks for the suggestion Lag.
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Recently, there has been discussion regarding the entertainment and technical merit of submissions, and whether each requirement should be relaxed in order to increase game diversity and to encourage newbie retention (respectively). In an attempt to better myself as a judge, and to provide some clarification on the thought process that I use when judging, I have created a rubric to help better define my opinions. It is located at my homepage
http://tasvideos.org/Mmbossman.html
under "Judging Rubric". I would like to hear opinions on the ideas located within.
Also, please don't turn this thread into one which argues the validity of the rating system (including whether or not you can measure technical achievement). I've already voiced my opinions on those topics elsewhere, and I may be prompted to expand on them further if needed, but I'd rather stick to current content for now.
So, what do people think?
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Warp wrote:
LagDotCom wrote:
Uh. I was arguing in favour of non-entertaining runs being published. Just marked differently. Sorry, I guess I was laying it on a little thick.
Personally I also agree with this opinion.
IMO submission voting should be there to catch submissions which are *flawed* and/or have too low quality (iow. they could be much better), and not to reject submissions simply because "watching the game is not "entertaining" enough".
All games are entertaining to someone. Who are we to say that some game is less entertaining than another? The voting and judging process should be about the quality of the run rather than about the game itself.
However, when you couple this opinion with several of the opinions from this thread (i.e. we shouldn't be too harsh on quality for fear of scaring people away), we basically turn this site into one which accepts anything. Not entertaining? Sure, accept it, because someone, somewhere may find it fun to watch. Not well done? Sure, accept it, because the person who made it may be scared away if we don't.
And thus, tasvideos.org turns into youtube.
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mz wrote:
arukAdo wrote:
I hope he accepts (at least until the new version of pSX is released) because there are a lot of games that need emulation hacks to run properly on PCSX.
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LagDotCom wrote:
you could have a reasonable Technical score and an Entertainment of 0 and a judge could still publish it because god knows entertainment score is fairly useless on a multicultural multibackground multiopinion site like this
Have you not been paying attention for the past 6 months or something? I can think of several movies that I have rejected because of poor entertainment value, and several people started bitching about how every game was a special snow flake and deserved a run.
As for the rerating, I think it's a good idea, but very fewpeople will take the time to do it. I agree that the rating system is somewhat flawed for submissions, but I still think it was the best solution to come from here, given that the old system was axed by BoltR/Bisqwit.
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mz wrote:
This is one of the reasons why old members make this site pretty much suck.
"Old members" are the ones that have built this site, along with a lot of the content contained within it. If you have a complaint, feel free to voice it, but show some respect.
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Mukki wrote:
The actual learning curve I don't believe has changed as much as some of you claim it has. Sure, the ceiling is higher than it was before but the bar isn't (or at least not by much). Judges still accept and reject runs for the same reasons as they did 2 years ago. A run of a not-bad game that is at least nominally entertaining and has seen a reasonable amount of effort will still be published.
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Cardboard wrote:
Yeah well. I didn't mean "Get to the credits, then decide which game pwns the others", I meant more like "Play the games and then find out which one gives the most cravings". Sorry for the confusion.
If this is the basis for rating it, of all the games I've played, OoT takes the #1 prize in my book for 'most hours invested/enjoyed'. It's a fun game.
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"Rookie is a term for a person who is in their first year of play of their sport and has little or no professional experience. The term also has the more general meaning of anyone new to a profession" - The all-knowing Wikipedia
I see no problem with the award, or the wording it uses.
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You're right Derakon, I believe everyone is pretty busy right now. I personally am finishing up with doctoral school and a couple of big projects that are due in roughly a week. I'll try to clean up the queue (or at least do some judging) by the beginning of February, but I know that Shinydoofy just started college, so the accepted runs may take a while to actually get published.
