Post by Cpadolf

Posted: 7/15/2009 9:21 PM

Post subject: Movies that you think shouldn't have been obsoleted

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BigBoct

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Posts: 1692
Location: Tiffin/Republic, OH

I can think of a few offhand that I don't think should have been obsoleted. First: Terimakasih's Super Metroid 14% run, which was obsoleted by Cpadolf and hero of the day's 6% run. Admittedly, this has been beaten to death in the submission topic for Saturn's updated 14% run, so I'll keep it brief; the 14% beats the game legitimately, using a few glitches. The 6% glitches through almost the entire game via X-Ray Scope climbing out of bounds, and some RAM manipulation via dying to skip Mother Brain. The two really aren't comparable. Second: SprintGod's first Sonic 3 and Knuckles run, which was obsoleted by his second run. I think these two, again, aren't really comparable, for the reason that the second run uses the "scroll the screen and walk through stuff" trick, and the first one does not. I also don't believe that Nitsuja's first S3&K run should have obsoleted SprintGod's second one, for a few reasons. 1. Nitsuja's run used both Sonic and Tails, which gives a lot more options than Sonic alone. 2. Nitsuja's run (both of them, plus the current one Upthorn hexed improvements into) extensively used the "zip through level structure" glitch, in addition to the "scroll the screen and walk through stuff" glitch; SprintGod's second run did not use zipping. Third: hero of the day's Chrono Trigger run, which was obsoleted by inichi's glitched any% run. This is the same basic situation as the one I outlined for Super Metroid; hero of the day's run beat the game legitimately; inichi's glitched past almost all of it. The community has basically spoken on the Super Metroid 14% and Chrono Trigger runs, but I've heard nothing on the S3&K run, and so I wanted to propose that SprintGod's first S3&K run be removed from the obsoletion chain (essentially republishing it) and relabeled as a "low-glitch" run. Even when you compare it to the current S3&K movie, it still looks good. What do you think? And what are some movies you think should still be around? (Shout-Out™: Thanks to alden for his Golden Oldies page, which is how I found out about SprintGod's first S3&K run.)

Previous Name: boct1584

Posted: 7/15/2009 10:27 PM

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Mitjitsu

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As you already mentioned Alden has this topic well covered. The problem is that the runs you mentioned are less optimal in comparable sections.

Posted: 7/15/2009 10:37 PM

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alden

Player (120)

Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522

Not that well covered, I'm afraid. I would be interested to hear more suggestions.

I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs

Posted: 7/15/2009 11:25 PM

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arukAdo

Experienced player (954)

Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep

From what i remember on the chrono trigger topic, the run obsoleted was somewhat improvable, iirc adelikat did sayd a "no-sram-corruption-run" will have its own category and that the obsoletion was just to push forward this happening As for super metroid, ill keep it brief too; lol

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Posted: 7/16/2009 5:56 AM

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nitsuja

Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1301)

Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687

You're almost arguing that TASes that use new glitches to go faster shouldn't obsolete the old ones... This kind of goes against what movie obsoletion has always been about here. TASes here are almost always about pushing the game to its limits so we can see (and have fun seeing) what those limits are. These runs you give examples of were no-holds-barred from the start and followed a natural progression of becoming both glitchier and more precise over time as new tricks and TASing techniques were discovered. Now that we have a better idea of what the game's limits are, maybe we should make a version that intentionally goes easy on the game. Someone could try making a glitchless version of S3&K, where that's the goal from the start of making the movie. I'd like to see it (or make it if I had the time), although there's always been something unsettlingly arbitrary about "holding back" in a TAS, like, maybe it would be better to add goals that force showing off more of the game instead of adding restrictions. But I don't think it makes sense to repurpose SprintGod's first S3&K run like that. Mostly because, at least to me it looks quite bad compared to his second run even on the straightforward parts... it's just hard to forgive how low the precision is after seeing the later runs.

Posted: 7/16/2009 8:48 AM

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LagDotCom

Joined: 3/7/2006
Posts: 720
Location: UK

nitsuja wrote:

maybe it would be better to add goals that force showing off more of the game instead of adding restrictions.

Well, yes. There's a discussion going on about playaround runs right now. In fact, a LP/TAS/Playaround of S3&K has some videos linked in that topic. :)

Voted NO for NO reason

Posted: 7/16/2009 1:57 PM

Post subject: Re: Movies that you think shouldn't have been obsoleted

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Warp

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

Solon wrote:

First: Terimakasih's Super Metroid 14% run, which was obsoleted by Cpadolf and hero of the day's 6% run.

I disagree that Terimakashi's run should not have been obsoleted. It was created well before all the currently-known techniques were known, making it quite sub-optimal, and you can really see that. If you first watch the highly optimized runs (the non-glitched ones) and then Terimakashi's, you can really see the sub-optimalities. At least in my case it really bothered the viewing experience. However, whether Terimakashi's run should have been obsoleted by another 14% run or the 6% one is a different issue. (Personally I wouldn't mind watching an optimized 14% run.)

Posted: 7/16/2009 2:29 PM

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Acheron86

Joined: 8/23/2008
Posts: 417

I don't see how "the TAS obsoleted was sub-optimal" is applicable here. The discussion isn't whether or not the newer runs should have obsoleted the old ones; it's a question of "should these have ever been the same category at all?" The 14% SM or any% glitched CT runs are both great examples. The argument for the obsoletion of the 14% was that it no longer fits the low % category. This is obviously true. But the 6% run only works using OoB glitching and serious abuse of game programming, doing things the programmers never even knew were possible and almost undoubtedly would have fixed if they had known; moreover, it never fights a boss. This is different from the 14% run, which is able to maintain its low % by skipping both optional items (e-tanks, missiles, some beams) and by skipping items intended for pickup by the developers (speed booster, grapple beam, etc.). It doesn't have to do a completely game-breaking glitch: it only takes advantages of quirks in the game's physics. Mockball, short charge, etc. are all oddities or glitches which are both useful and harmless when performed. The 14% run also follows every major objective: kill four main bosses and enter Tourian, then kill MB and escape. I feel like the decision to obsolete the 14% was made for two main reasons (and correct me if you think I'm wrong): the abundance of categories for SM already in place, and the (controversial) interpretation of the glitches used. The former argument really has never held any water for anyone besides letter-of-the-law members who want everything to fit in a structured set of rules, and it just seems silly to be that systematic just for the sake of doing it. I am not saying the structure we have here is a letdown or problematic in general; it's good and necessary. But sometimes, believe it or not, it is okay to bend the rules. Sometimes it's okay to really bend the rules! These things are simply judgment calls and people should not be afraid to make them from time to time apart from "we have to have rules about these things." If things actually somehow did get out of hand down the road, then you could say "maybe we shouldn't do that." But you can't reasonably say "that road could potentially maybe be bad, so let's stay away." The second argument also came up with the any% CT run. "A glitch is a glitch and both runs use glitches, therefore we can't have it be an low%, glitched (for SM 6%) or an any%, glitched (CT run) category. We have to obsolete the current low%/any% category." But there is an obvious and indisputable difference between the tricks in the obsoleted runs and the major gamebreakers in the current ones! Both runs effectively no longer play the game. The original runs did, using all sorts of cool glitches that skipped little things here and there but kept the plot and the majority of the game intact. They were entertaining to watch in a way that the new ones cannot reproduce. By obsoleting those runs, an entire way of playing through a game that we do not see in any other published runs of the game was pushed aside, for the sake of categorical niceties. I've written a miniature essay here, which wasn't my intent. The point really should speak for itself anyway, but some people have trouble digesting that. As always, I respect the decisions of the guys in charge, and I don't think TASVideos is doomed if it doesn't re-publish these runs. But I really don't see how anyone can watch the obsoleted runs and not agree (whether you like the game/run or not) that something is missing now.

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Posted: 7/16/2009 2:47 PM

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arukAdo

Experienced player (954)

Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep

From CT topic...

adelikat: Accepting for publication as a "glitched any%" category. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- adelikat: Some good points in the discussion in the forum topic has caused me to change my mind. This will obsolete the current movie. Mainly this keeps our options open the most. The published movie is very outdated. This gives the option of re-deciding if we want a non-glitch any%, or a 100%, or a "all aspects" run, or whatever category might be most appropriate.

So clearly it WASNT to top up sram corruption over regular runs, but to give a chance to get a better quality full run... I agree with that judgement, if the full run isnt "high" quality, it give a chance now to get a new one I see nowhere the mention "you cant make a full run, you need to corrupt sram or you cant get published" Now again about SM, LoL, obviously the debate will never end so i rather not even talk about it

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Posted: 7/16/2009 5:59 PM

Post subject: Re: Movies that you think shouldn't have been obsoleted

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DarkKobold

Skilled player (1637)

Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy

Solon wrote:

Admittedly, this has been beaten to death in the submission topic for Saturn's updated 14% run, so I'll keep it brief; the 14% beats the game legitimately, using a few glitches.

Oh god, its like Freddy Kruger or Jason Voorhees. No matter how many times this discussion gets killed, it keeps coming back from the dead. Seriously, how many iterations till we get the totally absurd Jason in Space sequel? I'm not going to bother arguing points for or against this. Everything that can be said about this has been said 8 billion times. Instead, I'll use a favorite gif.

Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.

Posted: 7/16/2009 6:23 PM

Post subject: Re: Movies that you think shouldn't have been obsoleted

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BigBoct

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Editor, Former player

Joined: 8/9/2007
Posts: 1692
Location: Tiffin/Republic, OH

nitsuja wrote:

You're almost arguing that TASes that use new glitches to go faster shouldn't obsolete the old ones... This kind of goes against what movie obsoletion has always been about here.

That isn't quite what I was trying to argue. In my opinion, the use of the "walk through walls" glitch in SprintGod's second S3&K run, and then the zipping glitches you and Upthorn have since used, puts it/them into a different category from the first one, which was a glitchless run.

TASes here are almost always about pushing the game to its limits so we can see (and have fun seeing) what those limits are. These runs you give examples of were no-holds-barred from the start and followed a natural progression of becoming both glitchier and more precise over time as new tricks and TASing techniques were discovered.

Very good point; I hadn't considered it in that light.

Now that we have a better idea of what the game's limits are, maybe we should make a version that intentionally goes easy on the game. Someone could try making a glitchless version of S3&K, where that's the goal from the start of making the movie. I'd like to see it (or make it if I had the time), although there's always been something unsettlingly arbitrary about "holding back" in a TAS, like, maybe it would be better to add goals that force showing off more of the game instead of adding restrictions.

I don't think that not using glitches is a bad restriction; it makes sense if you want to see the game played extraordinarily instead of broken and glitched through extraordinarily.

But I don't think it makes sense to repurpose SprintGod's first S3&K run like that. Mostly because, at least to me it looks quite bad compared to his second run even on the straightforward parts... it's just hard to forgive how low the precision is after seeing the later runs.

I haven't watched any of the recent S3&K runs recently, so I'll admit that you may be right on that. Considering the TASing skill you've demonstrated, it wouldn't surprise me to find that you're right. Even so, to a casual viewer, SprintGod's first run would probably still look pretty good compared to the later ones.

Warp wrote:

However, whether Terimakashi's run should have been obsoleted by another 14% run or the 6% one is a different issue. (Personally I wouldn't mind watching an optimized 14% run.)

Have you seen the updated 14% run Saturn submitted? I voted for that one to be published both times it was in the queue.

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Posted: 7/16/2009 6:33 PM

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adelikat

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arukAdo wrote:

From what i remember on the chrono trigger topic, the run obsoleted was somewhat improvable, iirc adelikat did sayd a "no-sram-corruption-run" will have its own category and that the obsoletion was just to push forward this happening

I bolded the inaccurate word here. My intend was to give the opportunity for such a category. But that it would have to be "rejudged" as suitable with the current knowledge of the game.

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Posted: 7/16/2009 6:43 PM

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moozooh

Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5770
Location: Away

There have been both a discussion and attempts to do an updated non-glitched S3&K run, but nothing came out of it. It has the potential to become a top-10 movie easily, though, so it's even surprising there's no competition anymore. I guess players are somewhat afraid of not holding up to Nitsuja's and Upthorn's standards?..

Warp wrote:

Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.

Posted: 7/16/2009 6:58 PM

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mmbossman

Experienced player (822)

Joined: 11/18/2006
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The 14% movie was obsoleted because it was old and very unoptimized by todays standards. After the 6% run was published, the category became obsolete, similar to the 16 star Super Mario 64 run. And that's all I'll say about that. I personally would love to see a "non-glitched" sonic 3 run. I personaly would not like to see another 4 hour, non-glitched Crono Trigger run. A run I wish was still around is JXQs Super Metroid 100%. The input animation made it far more entertaining than any other SM run before or since.

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Posted: 7/16/2009 9:19 PM

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Derakon

Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960

MMBossMan: JXQ's 100% run is still available on archive.org even if the torrent is removed. It's not really easily-discoverable by new viewers, but it's not nearly so bad as the old runs that people would like to watch but are only available as input files for obsolete emulators.

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Posted: 7/16/2009 10:46 PM

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mmbossman

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Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
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Derakon wrote:

MMBossMan: JXQ's 100% run is still available on archive.org even if the torrent is removed. It's not really easily-discoverable by new viewers, but it's not nearly so bad as the old runs that people would like to watch but are only available as input files for obsolete emulators.

I know. I wish it was still published, is what I'm saying (I rarely watch encodes when an input file is handy anyway). Also, my name doesn't have any capital letters.

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Posted: 7/16/2009 10:53 PM

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arukAdo

Experienced player (954)

Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep

adelikat wrote:

.....But that it would have to be "rejudged"....

Yeah of course, i just meant you was open mind to have 2 category apparently (thats assuming a futur run get accepted... if its enough good)

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Posted: 7/17/2009 2:50 AM

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Acheron86

Joined: 8/23/2008
Posts: 417

The "beating an old horse" trend doesn't really help the discussion. If you know this is old hat and don't want to go down this road again, I don't know why you'd need to step in and let us all know that. Your silence would say that just fine, without the condescending negativity. :|

mmbossman wrote:

The 14% movie was obsoleted because it was old and very unoptimized by todays standards. After the 6% run was published, the category became obsolete, similar to the 16 star Super Mario 64 run.

This argument always makes me sad, because the comparison makes sense, but it always overlooks an important detail that makes the two cases totally different: the 16-star run doesn't do anything the 70-star run wouldn't also do, except for a few things that the 0-star run also does. There's only maybe a minute's worth of uniqueness in that run that you won't see on another published run. The 14% run of SM, by contrast, plays through the game in a way that neither the 6%, any%, nor the 100% runs do. You miss out on at around a half hour of uniqueness in a sub-hour run. Again, it's a good rule on paper, but it loses something in practice. To clarify, I would think the best thing to do is divide the low% into two categories. They're radically different runs; why not have an OoB/no OoB split? OoB is an obvious, undebatable, and fairly unarbitrary type of glitch, so I think it'd be a good fit. The CT run is a little harder to make a rule for, but I think something like "follows plotline" works well for any RPG or adventure game. I know it's been said before, but I've yet to see a really reasonable rebuttal beyond strict categorical reasoning. Kant never did sit well with me.

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Posted: 7/17/2009 3:38 PM

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Kuwaga

Joined: 10/20/2006
Posts: 1248

mmbossman wrote:

The 14% movie was obsoleted because it was old and very unoptimized by todays standards. After the 6% run was published, the category became obsolete, similar to the 16 star Super Mario 64 run. And that's all I'll say about that.

A Super Metroid 14% run has a much higher amount of exclusive content compared to a 16 star SM64 run (those 16 stars would ideally use the 120 star run strategies). Just felt the need to point that out. Edit: Oh, seems like somebody else already did. >_>

Posted: 7/18/2009 6:22 AM

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DarkKobold

Skilled player (1637)

Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy

Acheron86 wrote:

The "beating an old (sic) horse" trend doesn't really help the discussion....

Uh, I wasn't trying to 'help' the discussion of the 14%. Its a discussion whose time passed a while ago, yet keeps getting coughed up repeatedly. It was stuck in the submission queue permanently, screwing up the submission page formatting, with the most ridiculous half rejection message ever. It was absolute absurdity, as absurd as lesbian campers in SPACE. I was stating that, in a humorous manner. Negativity? Did you see the guy beating the dead horse? Hilarity!

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Posted: 7/18/2009 4:46 PM

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Acheron86

Joined: 8/23/2008
Posts: 417

DarkKobold wrote:

Uh, I wasn't trying to 'help' the discussion of the 14%. Its a discussion whose time passed a while ago, yet keeps getting coughed up repeatedly. I was stating that, in a humorous manner. Negativity? Did you see the guy beating the dead horse? Hilarity!

I'd think the fact that the discussion keeps coming back is evidence enough that there's still reason to talk about it. I don't mind if some people disagree; I'm saying that that disagreement doesn't contribute to an actual conversation unless there's more argument provided than "we already talked about this, so let's move on." If no one wants to talk about it, let the discussion die, and that'll be that. However, I am not debating the humorous-ness of animated .gifs.

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Posted: 7/18/2009 5:06 PM

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Derakon

Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960

I think the "Super Metroid 14%" discussion has reached the levels of politics, religion, and text editors as far as this forum is concerned. That is to say, people are willing to yell at each other until they're blue in the face over it, but nobody's going to change their minds anytime soon.

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Posted: 7/18/2009 5:18 PM

Post subject: Re: Movies that you think shouldn't have been obsoleted

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ccfreak2k

Joined: 11/1/2007
Posts: 100

Solon wrote:

1. Nitsuja's run used both Sonic and Tails, which gives a lot more options than Sonic alone.

Controlling two characters is also usually more entertaining (and faster, depending on the game). This a good reason why the old run SHOULD have been obsoleted.

Posted: 7/18/2009 10:46 PM

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Zurreco

Former player

Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA

We should un-obsolete everything from Walker-Boh because he's a pretty cute hunk and he paved the way for a lot of the hunks we have on this site today.

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