Posted: 6/12/2009 1:02 AM
Post subject: Time Release unlocks
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errror1
Active player (294)
Joined: 12/16/2008
Posts: 458
Location: Houston
In arcade games when they have secret features it's common to unlock them with time release. For example, one of the first games to use time release unlock is tekken 3. To play as mokujin (the ideal character for a tas) the game needs to be on for 84 days, to unlock everything the game needs to be on for 129 days. Arcade tekken 3 is not tasable yet but other games like street fighter alpha 3 have a useful time release unlock and it would be good to have a standard way to use it. The way I see it We can just make the movie 84 days and 10 mins long with only the last 10 min having anything useful in it. Start a video from a save state and reset on the first frame ( I think the time caries through from a reset but I could be wrong, haven't left my computer on for a moth to test it ) Record a video like normal and put a note in the comments that you need the dramatic battle cheat enabled. anyway, thoughts on how this should be handled?
Posted: 6/12/2009 1:11 AM
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Nicos
Joined: 6/4/2009
Posts: 893
in tekken 3 you can obtain mokujin by Beating the arcade mode four times, usualy times based objectives are a "second way" to obtain a character like if the character chalenge is too hard, by waiting X hour you can still unlock him... the problem would be still "should we record the 4 first times ?" a corect solution would be to do a "non published but accepted 100% unlock tas demo" first and base all the next submissions on this save (as the julius/maxim mode)
Posted: 6/12/2009 1:19 AM
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errror1
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Nicos wrote:
in tekken 3 you can obtain mokujin by Beating the arcade mode four times,
no you can't, for one thing there is no arcade mode in the arcade version.
Nicos wrote:
a corect solution would be to do a "non published but accepted 100% unlock tas demo" first and base all the next submissions on this save (as the julius/maxim mode)
right that's how it would normally be done but most arcade games don't use saves and even for games that do save highscores and stuff fba doesn't emulate that
Posted: 6/12/2009 1:40 AM
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Dromiceius
Joined: 10/3/2005
Posts: 1332
error1 wrote:
right that's how it would normally be done but most arcade games don't use saves and even for games that do save highscores and stuff fba doesn't emulate that
Frick. Sorry. I think I disabled SRAM in FBA as the simplest possible way to ensure that it wouldn't pollute the game state when recording from power-on. Didn't know it was actually useful for anything TAS-related. You could ask mz to put it back in, or wait an indeterminate number of months for the redesigned version of FBA I'm working on.
Posted: 6/12/2009 1:48 AM
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Nicos
Joined: 6/4/2009
Posts: 893
errror1 wrote:
right that's how it would normally be done but most arcade games don't use saves and even for games that do save highscores and stuff fba doesn't emulate that
then if it's possible, a console version should be used usualy the console ports are the same as the arcade (in the tekken3 case, the psx port is even better IMO and it would solve the problem since psx memory cards are usable) but we can't allow to record just a part of a tas because nobody know what the taser can do before the recording (input a cheat code or something else) also if i remember corectly the game must have a "clean sram" before recording....
Posted: 6/12/2009 2:21 AM
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errror1
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I just used tekken 3 as an example because the times for the unlocks are well known. This kind of info for arcade games is not usually published. In any case pcsx has some problems emulating tekken 3. SFA 3 might be a better example, dramatic battle would make an neat tas and it's not as good in the psx version. Dromiceius: I wouldn't bother, it wouldn't work in all cases anyway
Posted: 6/12/2009 3:19 AM
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mmbossman
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GBx TAS of 2008
A situation like this would probably be handled in the same way the Chrono Trigger newgame+ submissions have been: Allow a prior SRAM to start a new game/movie, as long as the results are able to be verified.
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Posted: 6/12/2009 3:21 AM
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errror1
Active player (294)
Joined: 12/16/2008
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right, but sram won't work for arcade games
Posted: 6/12/2009 3:24 AM
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Derakon
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
What we do for console games that require a savefile is for the submitter to include a movie that generates the savefile along with the movie that uses that savefile. It seems like we should be able to do something similar for these time-release unlocks: include a movie that spends the necessary time to get the unlock, and then make the TAS start from a savestate made at the last frame of the verifying movie. The biggest problem I see with that approach is that the times being bandied about could make for absolutely massive movie files when uncompressed (and possibly even when compressed, depending on the format for the file).
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Posted: 6/12/2009 3:27 AM
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errror1
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how could you verify that a move file starts on the last frame of another movie file? Run one of them, make a savestate at the end, then play it from that state? Sounds like it pointlessly hard to verify
Posted: 6/12/2009 3:28 AM
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Dromiceius
Joined: 10/3/2005
Posts: 1332
Derakon wrote:
The biggest problem I see with that approach is that the times being bandied about could make for absolutely massive movie files when uncompressed (and possibly even when compressed, depending on the format for the file).
Blip used compression (huffman encoding, IIRC) in the movie recording code. I don't think the file would be very large.
Posted: 6/12/2009 3:35 AM
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Dammit
Experienced player (591)
Joined: 1/11/2007
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Non-dipswitch configuration data and gameplay usage data are stored in NVRAM (.nv files in ./config/games/). There is no need to use start-from-savestate movies if fbm can be given an option to start with "dirty" NVRAM. And because the possibility of using NVRAM to cheat or give unfair advantage is nil, there is no need for verification movies either. (We're not talking about new-game+ characters with maxed out stats here.)
Posted: 6/12/2009 7:59 AM
Post subject: Re: Time Release unlocks
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Bag_of_Magic_Food
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errror1 wrote:
To play as mokujin (the ideal character for a tas) the game needs to be on for 84 days, to unlock everything the game needs to be on for 129 days.
What, continuously? Or is it cumulative? Like does the timer start all over if you switch the machines off every night?
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Posted: 6/12/2009 9:14 AM
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Nicos
Joined: 6/4/2009
Posts: 893
is there a dip switch that can unlock all the characters / mode ?
Posted: 6/12/2009 12:19 PM
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LagDotCom
Joined: 3/7/2006
Posts: 720
Location: UK
Almost certainly. A lot of arcade cabs do this. You could also set it to "best to 1" to make it shorter, if you wanted.
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Posted: 6/12/2009 12:33 PM
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Nicos
Joined: 6/4/2009
Posts: 893
LagDotCom wrote:
Almost certainly. A lot of arcade cabs do this. You could also set it to "best to 1" to make it shorter, if you wanted.
then it should be better to encourage 1 round/match for the next arcade fighting games incoming so the speed / entertainement trad off would be reduced to a minimum...
Posted: 6/12/2009 5:58 PM
Post subject: Re: Time Release unlocks
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errror1
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Joined: 12/16/2008
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Location: Houston
is there a dip switch that can unlock all the characters / mode ?
no, but some games like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure or Marvel vs. Capcom 2 have codes that can be entered from the test menu that will unlock everything.