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FionordeQuester wrote:
Wasn't the previous run rejected for being too boring using this trick? If so, what's gonna keep the run with this new cursor trick from being rejected?
Go and read the rejection reason again; it states that that was only part of the story as the improvement to Fog of War was known at the time and that a run containing said improvement would be more likely to be accepted.
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I finally got around to watching this.
I see effectively zero entertainment value here.
Given the discussion, that in itself doesn't seem to warrant rejecting the run, so I'm going to dissect Nach's lengthy comments in the submission text and respond to them.
Nach wrote:
This run is a bit shocking. I sat down to watch it thinking 15 minutes is going to be a snooze. Much to my surprise and delight, this run is a lot more exciting than I expected.
As the above comments suggest, I disagree completely; I don't see the entertainment value.
Nach wrote:
Mario dances figure eights around enemies as if they weren't even there. Reminds me of Gradius.
In my view, earlier runs of the game also demonstrate this - admittedly, to a lesser extent, but since when have enemies ever been a barrier in our superplays? It's not exactly a new concept.
Nach wrote:
The first level was very boring, but 4-1 is a lot more exciting with the Spinys raining down. 8-1 is a pure delight. 8-2 and 8-3 are in a league of their own. Playing with the Hammer Bros. is one of the most exciting things I've seen in a TAS. Dancing to the music was appreciated too. Overall, I think this run provides a lot more entertainment than a standard 5 minute TAS of this game.
See previous comments about not seeing the entertainment in this.
Nach wrote:
In terms of meeting its defined goals it also does it well. For the goals in question, speed-wise, this movie will also be hard to beat.
Let's examine the stated goal in a little more detail in light of the guidelines.
Guidelines wrote:
Choose goals that will make the run entertaining. For most games, a “fastest at any cost” mentality is best[...]
Guidelines wrote:
Make it so that the speed loss is not obvious to the viewer.
Guidelines wrote:
Please note that we do not accept an indefinite number of variants for any given game. Any more than 3 for a game is very uncommon.
My view is that a run which sacrifices as much time as it does for the sake of avoiding a handful of points (which are in themselves a very minor aspect of this game) is, in general, incompatible with the objectives of the site. It is a goal which leads to singularly uninteresting video - imagine running other games with an objective of lowest possible score, and ask yourself if you would want to watch this on a regular basis.
Nach wrote:
Now the question is, does this deserve publication or not? There is a lot of time seemingly "wasted", and the beginning is lackluster. On the other hand, so are playarounds of other games filled with auto-scrolling.
This isn't an autoscroller.
Nach wrote:
The Judge Guidelines state: "A run for a proposed new branch for a game should offer compelling differences relative to previously published runs of that game.". I think that is undeniable fact in this case.
Different? Yes. Compelling? No. (See previous comments."
Nach wrote:
Further: "don't publish an arbitrarily rule-restricted movie just because there are too few movies for that game; doing so may lead to impossible-to-solve 'why A but not B' debates later.".
Guidelines wrote:
Please note that we do not accept an indefinite number of variants for any given game. Any more than 3 for a game is very uncommon.
We have four runs for this game already - which can hardly be called too few! I think those four runs collectively define the essence of gameplay of this game.
Nach wrote:
A role of "lowest possible score" is less arbitrary than a lot of other goals we've seen people submit. Accepting this certainly wouldn't be solely because there are too few runs for this game.
This reads, basically, as "accept because it's a less arbitrary goal than some of the other arbitrary goals that have been submitted to this site". The goal needs to be compelling on its own. In this case it isn't.
Nach wrote:
Then there's the player guidelines which state: "Please note that we do not accept an indefinite number of variants for any given game. Any more than 3 for a game is very uncommon.". It's not a hard limit, so I can see us bending the rules if a run really deserves it. But does it? This run only has a 40% approval rating.
Does that suggest that the run deserves it?
Nach wrote:
If we cut out the "perfect" parts of the run such as 1-2, 4-2, and 8-4, we're left with levels which need to "waste time" and provide a lot of entertainment. If we can put 1-1, and the slow parts of 4-1 in one movie, and the rest of it in another movie, I think we'd have a consensus to reject the former and accept the latter as a playaround. As it stands, I can't see this movie being anything more than a concept movie.
Meaningless argument - the run can't be divided in this. It's all or nothing.
Nach wrote:
So should I reject it based on the former, or accept it as a concept run based on the latter? I'll reserve judgment for a few more days in hope that others will refute pros or cons I listed here. Please comment on these points.
In light of the above, there is absolutely no reason to accept this run.
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
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Encoder wars.
Ask two sufficiently experienced encoders for their opinion on something and you'll get three different answers.
I maintain that where there's debate, do whatever works best for you while annoying viewers the least.
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
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I mentioned this to Aktan previously, but I'll mention it again here: I think the above results are unacceptably blurry (for me, not necessarily from a site perspective) for not much benefit. Considering the additional processing time I don't think it is worthwhile.
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Game: Advance Wars
System: GBA
Category: glitched
Authors: criticaluser (originally), ALAKTORN (new Fog of War strategy), sgrunt (splicing)
Progress: Undergoing optimisation (suggestions from criticaluser and klmz; further input welcome)
Discussion: starting from Post #252343Link to video
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
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Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Joseph Collins wrote:
One thing that always pissed me off about these classic-styled Sonic the Hedgehog game runs is the fact that the faster you get through a level, the longer you have to hang out behind the goal because the faster you beat a level, the higher the Time Bonus total is.
For this taken to its logical extreme, check the [submission 2493]Sonic 1 8-bit run[/submission].
Yes, it's a shameless plug. Deal with it.
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
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If I might say so, it might be prudent to make a higher resolution logo for your HD encodes (something sufficiently large in a 4:3 aspect ratio - say, 2048x1536 or so - would probably be sufficient).
You could also try just using the .wav directly for audio, if you don't mind the extra disk space the encode would take up.
Emulator Coder, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
For those not tracking the Advance Wars thread, the new Fog of War strategy [post 252214]saves 1515 frames (25.25 seconds)[/post].
I think this should be at least added into this run. (Splicing doesn't seem to work due to different things happening in Naval Forces, but if we get past that I'm wondering if we'll be able to splice the stage-skipping onto the end.)
