Xkeeper / Opinions
This is a small page dedicated to how I feel about the recent events and direction ofTable of contents [expand all] [collapse all]
The meaning of "TAS"
Years ago (Has it really been that long?)... this site was called "Nesvideos". It was used as a generic name (NES + videos), featuring "tool-assisted superplay movies". The emphasis, even by the title, was to create inhuman, entertaining, impossible-for-a-real-human movies.
Over time, the site changed to "TASvideos". With it, the subheading also changed; "tool-assisted speedruns". Lately, the focus has not been creating entertainment, as creating fastest movies. A few frames of delay to show off an interesting trick is often sacrificed to lower the overall frame count, and often the only motivation for making movies is to make them faster.
Speed is not entertainment
There is a common misconception that I have noticed; often, runs that are faster are automatically judged as "more entertaining" or "better", while the actual entertainment or interestingness drops. Sure, beating the game 5 frames faster is interesting in numbers, but cutting out a trick or slicing more "life" out of a game is not always entertaining.
Moving at inhuman (but still visible!) speeds can help create entertainment, because the character is obviously moving much faster than could be expected, and it is easily shown. The majority of the TASVideos audience probably does not care about minor optimizations that save only a few frames; only at how interesting the movie is to watch.
The basic point is that speed is not directly equatable to entertainment. Speed helps create entertainment.
Differing opinions are not welcomed
There are many instances where a differing opinion was treated wrongly, such as being outright questioned without good reason, or a self-made belief that "I liked movie X, therefore everyone should like movie X". One recent example comes to mind:
If that is his movement rate with the speed ring on... I dunno. This game looks laughably mediocre in every aspect, the action is repetitive the speed is slow, the graphics aren't interesting, and there's a bunch of pausing to switch items in an already slow game. My vote is "No".[1]
It wasn't awful, so how can you say no? LinkThis is only a mild example of what I mean. It demonstrates that, even after providing a perfectly reasonable reason for voting no, they are still questioned further about why. Anything against the norm is usually treated harshly, moreso if the differing opinion is about a popular game or TAS.
Decisions must also weigh the difficulty of creating the TAS
what's happened here is a gradual reduction of the lowest amount of stars that is possible to beat the game (from 70 to 16 to now 1, and hopefully now 0), which has taken years of experimenting, testing, and theorizing to finally become a reality, which many people have been wanting to see for ages. LinkEven though Moozooh's list of most popular excuses for publishing a TAS specifically lists this exact reason, there are still people who believe that TAS difficulty matters. TASes that are novel for reasons other than being entertaining, such as accomplishing some unknown feat, are looked at as being amazing and publish-worthy, regardless of how it is done. A major breakthrough that beats the game in only 1/10th the time may not be as interesting to watch as the old version.
Valid opinions will be attacked
Rather than discuss the movie at hand and the points one makes, sometimes people will just resort to attacking you.Link's Awakening GB is an entertaining game-skip;Fixed for truth. Linkthe game bugs out severely and sprites are flying everywhere and the screen corruptsI played the game when I was younger.
Bias is unspokenly favored in movie voting
Please view the above quote again.
At some times, it is said that voting on movies for games you are not familiar with is discouraged. Yet this post claims, at the same time...
Those who play the game for any reasonable amount of time probably enjoyed it (or else, why play?). Those who enjoy the game are more likely to vote positively on a submission. Logically, if you only allow those who know the game to vote, this would lead to a lack of differing opinions.
The basic question is often misunderstood
This question is "Did you enjoy watching this movie?". Often, it will be represented as "Is this movie publish-worthy?". These are not often the same, and I believe it creates many problems. For example, again, the recent Super Mario 64 1-star TAS, I did not enjoy the movie, but I believe it is publishable, as it is a big feat in the Super Mario 64 TASing field.
(Something in this section is lacking, but I do not know what...)
Debates don't work
Personal attacks are used
Inspired by a response to a very long post on how voting ª121¥shouldª122¥ work:
AND WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH PEOPLE MISSPELLING LOSE AND LOOSE AM I RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Why bother refuting an opinion or debating the merits, or even discussing the downfalls of the voting system or even the errors in the debate? Just use a personal attack. This has occurred more often than this, and to many other users, but right now I am just throwing this out there because it is a prime example of my points.
Final notes
More examples of these will be added soon. If you have any other examples you know of, please let me know. The more examples I can gather, the easier it will be to show how bad of a problem these are.
Misc.
Comments
Any editor is free to discuss the ideas and concerns raised here. Any non-editor is welcome to send a private message to me on the forum.
Footnotes
[1] Quote edited slightly for readability.
Xkeeper/Opinions last edited by FractalFusion on 2009-04-06 01:58:19
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