TASVideos

Posted: 12/12/2006 8:01 PM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

Nach, you being such a noble man doesn't help the [seemingly] poor coordination between the "acceptance —> publishing" process, accepted runs cluttering the queue and a couple of weeks (and even months) old movies being published later than the ones made a day ago. However, you are not the only encoder, and not the only publisher on the site, but if you like to think and respond to such threads as if that it's only your activity that is in the issue, then maybe you should similarly think for everybody and come up with a solution that would please the dissatisfied? ;) On the encoding issue, I am willing to learn the mencoder basics and encode the movies for the site if anyone would publish them. Finding the required games isn't an issue for me.

Posted: 12/12/2006 6:45 AM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

JXQ wrote:

I'd like to thank nitsuja for pointing out an improvement in Green Hill Zone 2 that I was able to include and hex-edit the rest of the run together, saving around 2 seconds using a level-wrap glitch.

WHAT THE HELL. o_0

Posted: 12/11/2006 12:15 AM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

Even though it isn't a permitted hack, I give the first (and obvious) yes for an awesome run. The hack itself is flawless and should be accepted if there would be such a possibility.

Posted: 12/11/2006 12:01 AM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

Excellent work, and an excellent improvement to the previous run as well. Total domination.

Posted: 12/10/2006 5:19 PM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

Could anyone please explain me, why or how can a score be the main entertainment factor in this game, and in fighting games in general? Because in fightings, the entertainment is strongly prevalent over everything else (be it time, score, you name it). And since the fightings are generally the most repetitive game genre out there, the key to the entertainment is variety — a thing that was thrown out of the window in this particular run due to an arbitrary goal. So we have a run, where author puts getting a high score over everything else, using lame attacks that get old after 2-3 times, and achieves a score of 2554881 points. Does that number entertain anyone? Does it break a long-ago developed milestone? Feel free to correct me, but I think not. And I also may put it in this way: if there was a OHKO move in a game such as MKT or KI, would you be entertained to see it abused in every battle 20 times in a row? I sure wouldn't. And SSB, despite being one of the best fighting games ever, is not an exception. If so many people wanted to see this game TASed so badly, maybe they should have decided a more entertaining category of a run to begin with? I'd vote on something not even remotely related to a certain score or "score per time unit" goal (which I personally think is retarded for a fighting game TAS). A piece of discussion from IRC (irrelevant lines edited out): <DeHackEd> moozooh: you don't want someone to drag the game out indefinitely and max out the score, do you? <moozooh> DeHackEd: no, but i don't want it to be 10/14 stages filled with the identical OHKOs, either, especially since the goal is arbitrary. <Raiscan> how about a run with the most different ways of killing the enemy while still maintaining fastest speed possible/highest score? <moozooh> Raiscan: i thought about that, but i don't know how it would look. <moozooh> may be good. <Raiscan> well it would certainly be more entertaining <Raiscan> I think speed and entertainment is the safest bet for SSB <Raiscan> if you go for max score it could be long winded and boring <moozooh> Raiscan: yes, but speed should always be a secondary goal in a fighting game. <Raiscan> yet if you go for the points per frame it becomes a bit repetitive to watch because the fastest/highest scoring moves are the ones that would be used most <Raiscan> so entertainment highest goal and then speed second? <moozooh> yes, every single fighting game run on the site follows this guideline.

Posted: 12/10/2006 2:29 PM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

Thanks, guys. :D JXQ, you should actually be proud of yourself since my motivation to do this run was partly your fault. ;) Anyways, I've redone the kago and regained 8 frames (now 52 frames ahead on the elevator) but I know it's still not good enough so I guess I should try to do it better.

Posted: 12/10/2006 11:12 AM

Post subject: Re: #1382: hero of the day's SNES Contra 3: The Alien Wars in 13:03

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

hero of the day wrote:

You may notice that both the players will occasionally merge together to form a grey looking player

No, no, no. The explanation is wrong! In truth, the players yell secret words, and merge together to form a super hero with the power of killing bosses quickly. :D I'm very impressed at the improvements. Although I didn't appreciate all the stylistic choices compared to Ph&G's or AW's versions, the movie is still one of my favorites from the site.

Posted: 12/10/2006 4:27 AM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

Man, a minute after I was seeing Roadkill scrapping Turner's crotch, I thought there wouldn't be anything better in this run. Oh how I was mistaken. A scene of Turner emceehammering on the second screen of Himalayas alone is selling this run. Awesome work.

Posted: 12/10/2006 12:45 AM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

Vidar wrote:

But, for the sake of argument, let's say the next run will have variety. How much variety? A game like SSB has KOs through knocking them out of the "arena" rather than depleting a finite life bar (similar to MK or KI). So while a variety of moves can be done in MK to demonstrate how cool it looks (whilst not going for time), it continues to stay entertaining because the enemy dies in several hits because their life bar is limited AND they don't have monster health. To do that in SSB is significantly harder because you can rack up to 999% (a regular attack from Kirby is anywhere from 1-5% damage) and continue to damage them without actually killing them or knocking them out of the arena.

Bingo, that's why I'm saying this game isn't suited for TASing. :)

Posted: 12/10/2006 12:41 AM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

The prime example of a game so bad that it's good. While not perfect illustration of TAS, this movie was highly entertaining for me, up to the point of hysterical laughter at the breakdancing dude and the "psycho bitch who chases the paperboy with a knife in her hand" (© Morrison). Yes vote!

Posted: 12/9/2006 11:57 PM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

Mukki wrote:

I respect the reasons of those who voted NO and MEH, I even considered them and appreciated them. Please accept my own.

I don't dispute your opinion nor your vote, I dispute your arguments on repetitiveness, fanbase and such. Also, I didn't like the CT run at all (though I once spent more than 15 hours on the game consecutively — that much I enjoyed playing it), and I fastforwarded through most of the FF6 run, especially after getting Setzer with his slot machine. Also, I consider the OoT run incredibly boring. I tend not to transfer the positive emotions from my playing experience to the speedruns too much, since there's a Grand canyon worth of difference. That being said, I may be spoiled by the fun value this game bears when played live, but even all I said above doesn't make its runs (well, at least this one) less repetitive. Bottom line.

Posted: 12/9/2006 10:22 PM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

Mukki wrote:

I'd hate to think that this game is unsuited to TASing. It has such a large fanbase and so it has the potential to have many movies made of it.

o_0 Since when does a large fanbase mean higher potential for making movies, etc.? Example: Sonic 1 all-emeralds run was rejected because it didn't offer anything new other than boring bonus stages, and it was rejected, despite being optimized. Does the game have a large fan base? Obviously. Was that enough for justifying a redundant movie? No. The opposite is untrue as well: a small fanbase doesn't mean less entertaining or variable movies (see Umihara Kawase and Gimmick! for examples).

VANDAL wrote:

About this game, it's a fighting game and as I've stated before most fighting games should be given leniency […] But in your run, your main goal is highest score so I definately understand why it's so repetetive (time bonus and classified bonus points after each round).

Yes, you may be right about leniency, but "let's pick this category for a run even if it is boring and repetitive and have someoone make an optimized TAS for it" doesn't justify the means because the end result is still boring and repetitive. In that case, the objective of the run should have been to show the variety, not the opposite.

Posted: 12/9/2006 9:54 PM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

comicalflop wrote:

But as a run, the lack of variety is needed because swallow, cutter, and down+a acheieve the goals of fast time and high score the best. I tried to make it more varied than the first SSB submission, which exclusively used Fox's reflector for the same purpose. I do think it's more varied- I also use smash attack, back kick A, and in general tried to kill opponents in different ways- but you're right, it's not 100% varied. It's as close as I could get it to varied while it still being optimized.

Maybe that just shows how unsuited the game is for TASing? You have glitched fatalities and Shang Tsung morphing into other fighters in MK series, you have awesome long combos and turbo mode in Killer Instinct. What does this game offer? Kirby OHKO'ing his enemies. It would have looked better as an unassisted run, though.

Posted: 12/9/2006 9:38 PM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

Air Battery? Launch Zone? So many new levels we witnessed today! :D

Posted: 12/9/2006 9:07 PM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

Umm… yeah, I see some extreme variety in this run: approximately two different attacks throughout all the battles except the last one, where you use the third one exclusively. The movie is well optimized, but I don't see anything interesting or surprising in it; it isn't even remotely as interesting as simply playing this game or watching some SSBM flicks by SuperDoodleMan. So I vote meh.

Posted: 12/9/2006 8:29 PM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

Very entertaining if tabbing through the bonus stages. Lava Reef totally made my day.

Posted: 12/9/2006 3:55 PM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

HAHAHAHA NICE ONE ANGREFIST !! !!

Posted: 12/9/2006 2:36 AM

Post subject: new wip (now in brand new .avi flavor!)

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

So as I already told Saturn, I found another, more elegant solution to shooting just as I finished typing that post: I just release L one frame later if there's a need. Well, as I promised, here's a new WIP which finishes the Crateria part and goes up to Brinstar. I was 82 (!) frames ahead of Saturn before the kago refill sequence, but ended up being only 44 frames faster at the elevator, so I'm considering redoing it (I just didn't want you all, especially Saturn and Drewseph, to wait for so long). I'm planning to be at least a full second faster at this point in the improved version. Also, I've already reached Saturn's rerecord count here. :) Also, by a request, here's the WIP in the AVI form: — Ceres segment (5 MB); — Crateria segment (16 MB). Main points of interest for those who care: • frame 4000 — shooting the door without stopping; • frames 6500—6600 — killing the pirate and getting the refill without slowdown (technically, it's as fast as Saturn's version; I just fiddled around with not getting full acceleration and got this. Sadly, it can't be done any faster); • frame 6750 — getting a perfect boost to avoid jumping on a ledge (ended up only 3 frames faster, though); • frame 7500 — a boost Saturn somehow forgot to do (gave me ~20 frames); • frames 9000—9150 — the horrible abomination of the segment: refilling on a kago. >_< Any comments are welcome.

Posted: 12/9/2006 1:12 AM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

Posted: 12/8/2006 5:52 PM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

Syreeta wrote:

So you're saying that with emulation, a game's odds COULD be put in a player's favour (ie. something like changing the enemies' AI or causing basic enemies from not appearing at all), but it's something that people who make TASes here don't do as it's against the rules of this site or not possible?

"Changing" enemies' AI and other parts of the read-only code is impossible. However, if (by the game's design) all that is required to abuse their behaviour algorithms is player's input, it is strongly encouraged to do so.

Posted: 12/8/2006 5:22 PM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

I'd also estimate at least 95% of the programming errors to be found and/or later reproduced to a certain extent on the console versions of the games. Some of the glitches require just too much precision to be reproduced on a console, but they're usually well explained by looking at the memory content of the game or by disassembling it. However, I can name at least one game, whose console glitches don't work [correctly] on the less accurate emulators, but that example is kinda the opposite of what Syreeta is saying. :)

Posted: 12/7/2006 10:04 PM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

Tombad wrote:

All in all, good work.

And also nice!

Posted: 12/6/2006 7:28 PM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

I thought about it when planning my possible upcoming 14% run, and no, it definitely wasn't faster to go with Speed Booster instead of Ice Beam. Not only some bosses (especially Ridley and Mother Brain) would be about 1.5x slower, but killing metroids without Ice Beam will definitely be a torture to the viewer. However, I also tried skipping the Gravity Suit (the least mandatory item in the low% set), and was only a single bit out of success. Inability to skip it was 100% confirmed with both math and empirical tests, but I was really close to skipping it. So the low% route stays pretty much the same.

Posted: 12/6/2006 3:23 PM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

comicalflop wrote:

Now I have to get the AVI of this to replace the 15:48... The things that were mentioned in the 15:48, namely the point of the subtitle at the beginning telling viewers to skip ahead which I thought was unnescessary, as well as not using the patch to solidify the magna beams... was that changed?

Since you have to get the AVI anyway, and see the answer yourself, could you please cut the amount of redundancy in your posts? I should say, they are very redundant. Probably to the Warp's level of redundancy, with the only exception that Warp doesn't post as much as you do. Have I said you're often being redundant? Oh, it seems I have. Now I'm going to get myself a glass of cola… By the way, to answer your question, the subtitles don't say anything about skips, and the magnet beam was solidified. But as you had to get the AVI and see it yourself, my answer was automatically rendered redundant. Oh my, what a pity.

Posted: 12/6/2006 4:02 AM

moozooh

Experienced Forum User, Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Away

Nice run, yes vote. :)

Posts for moozooh