finally, and official place for this. I feel so helpless reposting this bounty all the time on the poor solar jetman thread....
1: SOLAR JETMAN, NES (any version)
2: Run type: 100% (all worlds and at least one of every item collected [and preferably used also])
3: Must be moderately optimized and not boring
4: anticipating a LONG run :D
This is not an argument regarding the concept of bounties, but I like your run idea. There is a 98 % chance I would watch this run as soon as an encode becomes available.
Naturally, it may be possible that condition #2 undermines condition #3, but I'd put priority on condition #2 regardless.
I'm honestly surprised nobody has yet offered a bounty for Ocarina of Time any%, which must be one of the most anticipated runs of all time (and reaching levels of vaporware comparable to Duke Nukem Forever).
As for moozooh's points, I don't see the motivational factor becoming an issue unless the bounties become very big. Most of the bounties thus far have been $10, and even for a short TAS, that's not much of a monetary return on a time investment.
Yeah, see, that's the other side of my point, which I briefly grazed in my opening paragraph as well as the discussion of monetary prizes in annual award ceremonies. A low bounty (say, below $30-40 in total) means next to nothing in real world because the resources invested in producing a quality TAS (worthy of opening a bounty in the first place) are orders of magnitude more expensive. Like Mitjitsu said above, "you would have just as much success just flat out requesting someone to do a run", which is what we've already been doing for years anyway. I don't really see a reason for bringing money, even in such laughable amounts as $10, into the equation because it doesn't really fulfill the expected purpose of motivating a player. Viewer feedback and respect in a community are worth a lot more already, and especially so when they aren't fueled by something as unfun and prone to mistreatment as as financial relationships. At least a point system is free from materialist incentives and obligations.
Anyway, I'm not that adamant about my position in regards to monetary bounties, but I will state it as much as needed that it's not something to be treated lightly, and others have already outlined the possible disadvatanges that may directly or indirectly stem from this idea otherwise. Having a monetary incentive may, and, especially in cases with large rewards, most likely will alter the player's behavior in a way that will prioritize getting the reward, often disregarding various aspects of TASVideos activities that may compromise that goal. Just keep this in mind and don't be surprised if it turns out that way.
[EDIT]
To illustrate my point about insufficiency of small rewards, just briefly think how much would it require to make you take on a project to the caliber of OoT any% if you didn't already want to do it in the first place. If it's less than $150-200 I'll be surprised.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
into the equation because it doesn't really fulfill the expected purpose of motivating a player.
Im sorry but you are not a player, dont speak for them, i am a player, the 10$ bounty is very motivating (at least it was for awards), and im gratefull for it.
As you saw, i did refunded them to the site, this even more motivate me to tas, because, i cant realy make a donation by myself, giving out my bounties is a good alternate way to still contribute to the site treasury.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Warp wrote:
vaporware comparable to Duke Nukem Forever.
Hey, DNF isn't vaporware.
Apogee sets aside a percentage of all profits to employees who worked on a game while they're still employed at Apogee.
Knowing that DNF will be the most profitable game of all time, any intelligent company would fire the entire staff a bit prior to completion, and then wait a period before releasing, so this isn't obvious and they don't get sued for unlawful termination of employment.
Now that they fired the entire development staff, we know DNF release is right around the corner.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
into the equation because it doesn't really fulfill the expected purpose of motivating a player.
Im sorry but you are not a player, dont speak for them, i am a player, the 10$ bounty is very motivating (at least it was for awards), and im gratefull for it.
As you saw, i did refunded them to the site, this even more motivate me to tas, because, i cant realy make a donation by myself, giving out my bounties is a good alternate way to still contribute to the site treasury.
That's at least the third time you open your argument with "you're not a player, I am".
Previously I would have asked if obsoleting one of your runs would suffice for making my argument seem more plausible, but at this point I'm through with penis measurements. Now I just respond with Wikipedia articles. Behold: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignoratio_elenchi.
I wouldn't have said that $10 is too low if it wasn't too low for myself, for instance. It won't motivate me to do a TAS. Not because I'm "not a player". I've worked and helped others with their TASes long before you joined the site, so it's not that I don't know how to do it. I just won't go out of my way to do it for $10 if I don't have my own interest in it that is completely irrelevant to that sum.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 11/9/2008
Posts: 108
Location: New Orleans, LA U.S.A.
Bisqwit wrote:
This is not an argument regarding the concept of bounties, but I like your run idea. There is a 98 % chance I would watch this run as soon as an encode becomes available.
Im sorry but you are not a player, dont speak for them, i am a player, the 10$ bounty is very motivating (at least it was for awards), and im gratefull for it.
Personally, I think anything is better than nothing, but $10 isn't a big motivator for me. There's no way I can do a quality TAS in less than an hour, and a minimum-wage job would pay me quite a bit more than that. If I'm going to invest that much time into it, I'm really just losing money.
Would people be able to pool money into a sort of bounty fund? If 20 people all really want to see a Zelda OoT TAS and contribute $2 each, that's four times what we've been discussing so far.
Those who feel embarrassed about the published one, I guess.
Bounties surely work better for first-generation runs of obscure titles or unconventional goals, anyway.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
It not so much about the quantity of money, its not because you donate *only* 10$ to the site that its not apreciable, every step goes forward a bigger contribution, the same goes for tasing to me, kinda.
Most obviously, none of us do that like a job, this is not realy comparable, this is more like a hobby.
Now, when i sayd it was "very motivating", yeah ok maybe i did exagerate it, but its a factor in any case, we are all different tought, so we dont have all same motivations ect...
into the equation because it doesn't really fulfill the expected purpose of motivating a player.
Im sorry but you are not a player, dont speak for them, i am a player, the 10$ bounty is very motivating (at least it was for awards), and im gratefull for it.
As a player, I find moozooh's comment to be rather true. $10 (or even a higher figure, eg. $100) would be rather unlikely make me do anything if I wasn't planning on doing it already. TASing is something I (and presumably most other people) do as a hobby of sorts, so bringing money into it makes it seem a little more like a job.
Re: moozooh's comment on OoT, I don't think I'd even consider it for a stupidly high amount of money, simply because of the various things that would need to be read up apon, learned how to do on a frame precise level, and the fact you're using mupen which requires an external program to even watch memory values.
One thing we should be aware of is that when money is involved, it sometimes tends to bring forth the worst in people. The larger the sums we are talking about, the nastier the ensuing chaos can become.
I witnessed first-hand this sad phenomenon in the POV-Ray community in 2004. Several companies, including AMD and Zazzle, sponsored the POV-Ray team for a rendering competition. The first price was a top-of-the-line Dual AMD Opteron worth $10000 (the second and third prices not being far behind, at $2500 and $1000 worth).
The POV-Ray community is usually very friendly and peaceful, but that competition brought out the worst of many people. People started complaining about everything. Admins were too strict with rules, or too lenient with the rules (not to talk about people trying to find loopholes), judges' decisions and arguments were seriously denigrated and bashed, and of course complained about, and whatnot. It was a really ugly sight to witness.
There had been and has since been other smaller competitions, but with no or very small prices, and it had never got even close to such nastiness. Usually people in the community congratulate instead of complain.
However, seemingly when big money is at play, people change.
Good point. For example, I wonder what would happen if a team of say 3 TASers was working on a certain run, and then I'd put a bounty of 100$ on it... Doesn't the concept of bounties discourage team TASing as a whole? If there was a bounty for the first one to go sub-something on a certain game, wouldn't it harm the community? People would then keep new tricks secret and totally hide their progress, I guess.
Maybe you should only be allowed to put bounties on unpopular games or when proposing unconventional run concepts?
Based mostly on the debate that has taken place in this thread, I remove my intentions of creating a formalized monetary bounty list. I'll try to outline what caused this decision.
Baxter wrote:
It is hard to estimate a time for an optimized TAS.
I agree that clear time is not a good measurement.
Mukki wrote:
Must be accepted [...] and worthy of at least an 8.5 technical rating from me.
Heisanevilgenius wrote:
I could drive myself crazy doing a Metal Gear TAS and submit it and then you could say "Ehhhh, Technical rating: 8.4" and now I've done it for nothing.
I also agree that perceived, subjective technical quality is not a good measurement. While I'm sure Mukki has a pretty solid system for awarding a rating to a movie, the user will not know exactly what this means. The only thing that would be a good gauge is if it gets published or not.
Baxter wrote:
If people are making a TAS to claim a bounty, it is even dangerous to fully optimize it, as others might claim the bounty before you with an unoptimized verison. I don't think bounties will lead to better quality TASes.
I agree that if someone placed $100 on a run that there is a fair chance it would not be done to the best of the user's ability.
Kuwaga wrote:
Who would pay for a run, like OoT, that's going to be done [...] anyway? (when they could rather put their bounty on another one)
This is a good point.
Kuwaga wrote:
Doesn't the concept of bounties discourage team TASing as a whole? If there was a bounty for the first one to go sub-something on a certain game, wouldn't it harm the community? People would then keep new tricks secret and totally hide their progress, I guess.
We don't want the whole site to turn into the Super Metroid thread. =p This would probably be a rare case though.
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As stated, encouragement is probably the best (and most rewarding) way to motivate a good TASer. I think bounties (for some) would ultimately detract from the main intention of TASing as a hobby for others to enjoy, (though only mildly).
It just seems that this idea as a whole will only create unnecessary tension amongst site members at worst, and will only produce a few new, wanted runs at best.
adelikat wrote:
Having said all this, if people want to work out monetary bounties between each other, then that is a freedom people have, so by all means.
I think I will leave this discussion at adelikat's statement.
Maybe you should only be allowed to put bounties on unpopular games or when proposing unconventional run concepts?
This. I've had "redo aborted Solar Jetman 100%" on my TODO list for no less than three years. The money itself is trifling, but it's encouraging to know that someone cares about a run enough to go to the hassle of paying money for it.
The notion of an OoT bounty is another interesting point. Putting money on the TAS might be a waste, but how about putting it on TASing features for Mupen? Unless I'm misremembering something, the OoT run was delayed for months because of software issues, not because of TASer motivation.
Joined: 11/9/2008
Posts: 108
Location: New Orleans, LA U.S.A.
yea, I have to agree wholeheartedly with kirkq's last post, however
still wanna see a 100% jetman run so bad i would pay twenty bucks to see it.
how about this for a modified bounty idea...
people could put up bounties on games, however instead of paying people individually, all of the money could go directly to the site. This may seem absurd at first read, but I feel like this could actually be successful and it could address nearly every issue that has been raised:
Mukki wrote:
Must be accepted [...] and worthy of at least an 8.5 technical rating from me.
Heisanevilgenius wrote:
I could drive myself crazy doing a Metal Gear TAS and submit it and then you could say "Ehhhh, Technical rating: 8.4" and now I've done it for nothing.
This would be a moot point, because if the run did happen to get an 8.4 then nobody's feelings would be hurt, and just because the TASvideos didn't happen to get a donation for this particular run, there is still a brand new bad ass 8.4 tech rating run for everyone to enjoy.
Baxter wrote:
If people are making a TAS to claim a bounty, it is even dangerous to fully optimize it, as others might claim the bounty before you with an unoptimized verison. I don't think bounties will lead to better quality TASes.
I agree that if someone placed $100 on a run that there is a fair chance it would not be done to the best of the user's ability.
again, if somebody were to rush a run just to get the bounty, it would make a lot less sense if they weren't getting any money personally. Also, I doubt that we would see bounties for more than twenty bucks, because the person putting the bounty up knows that the player won't be getting anything different if its 20 dollars or a hundred dollars. The only thing we might have to worry about is judges becoming more lenient due to approving bountied movies for the purposes of getting a site donation... but i find the probability of that happening extremely unlikely due to the overwhelming character content of our judges :)
Kuwaga wrote:
Who would pay for a run, like OoT, that's going to be done [...] anyway? (when they could rather put their bounty on another one)
In this case, people could put the bounty up to encourage these people to work faster. It may not even be enough to motivate someone to work on a TAS, but maybe if we implemented something like the trophy policy for bounties, where people get a star or something if they completed a bounty that made the site some money, it may be just enough to kick some players into gear on a few difficult yet in demand games. I am not a huge OoT fan, but if there was another game in its shoes that I was a fan of, I would probably throw five on it. In this way, I think there is a healthy balance of pressure to finish a game run and brotherhood concerning the running process.
Kuwaga wrote:
Doesn't the concept of bounties discourage team TASing as a whole? If there was a bounty for the first one to go sub-something on a certain game, wouldn't it harm the community? People would then keep new tricks secret and totally hide their progress, I guess.
see last paragraph, I believe it applies perfectly to this concern as well.
kirkq wrote:
As stated, encouragement is probably the best (and most rewarding) way to motivate a good TASer. I think bounties (for some) would ultimately detract from the main intention of TASing as a hobby for others to enjoy, (though only mildly).
I firmly believe that changing it to donation bounties will keep TASing as a non-profit hobby based on passion and not on greed. I believe the encouragement could only become more prominent, because now not only do people simply want to see the run completed, but most people here would enjoy seeing the site get some much needed revenue. And I don't think the competition for a star bounty trophy would be heated enough to be cause for secret holding or discouragement.
adelikat wrote:
Having said all this, if people want to work out monetary bounties between each other, then that is a freedom people have, so by all means.
this can certainly still apply as well, however i do agree it should be discussed privately, so as not to offend or hurt anyone or make anyone feel overly competitive.
and one more thing:
Dromiceius wrote:
This. I've had "redo aborted Solar Jetman 100%" on my TODO list for no less than three years. The money itself is trifling, but it's encouraging to know that someone cares about a run enough to go to the hassle of paying money for it.
this is my whole motivation for even putting 20 of my own hard earned dollars up for this run, i want people to know how badly i want to see this run done. I am ready to kick it up to 30 bucks even though I am far from rich at this point in my life, just because I want to see a Solar Jetman run so bad. My hope is that people will see the bounty and think "man people really really wanna see this run, I am not working on anything right now (ha!) so I should do the run, then djchilxxn is happy, bisqwit is happy, and tasvideos.org gets 30+ dollars to boot. sounds like a win win win situation to me!
people could put up bounties on games, however instead of paying people individually, all of the money could go directly to the site. This may seem absurd at first read, but I feel like this could actually be successful and it could address nearly every issue that has been raised:
This is exactly what I was going to suggest. It sounds a bit like Communism (Poor Alexey Pajitnov!) but given the way the TAS community actually works there's some sense to it. So far none of the amounts talked about have acceded what one could make from a shift at a minimum wage job; for an individual that's next to nothing, but for the site, it might do some good. Furthermore, I think there are specific benefits to this approach.
1) It might help more to publicize high demand runs by giving some objective criteria for how in-demand they are based on how many people are willing to contribute and by how much.
2) The fact that people are willing to pay money, no matter how little, might encourage a TASer by giving some sense for how much their run would be appreciated.
3) Having the money donated to the site makes it less "about" the money (ie., less like work) than it does about honor (ie. contributing to the community). Obviously submitting high-quality runs is what's really going to make people admire you, but the fact of its generating income for the site certainly reflects favorably on them.
4) It would give fans a more tangible sense of their own contribution, letting them think they're "greasing the wheels," regardless of whether or not its true.
5) It might help build anticipation for projects already in the works.
6) I don't see anyone fighting over donation money.
7) It might generate more interest in donations; anyone who's ever had to take psychology or marketing knows that how you frame a transaction goes a long way towards generating interest in it. I'm sure that a lot of people visit the site only ever seeing 1-10% of the total content; most of them probably wouldn't be that interested in donating because they'd end up asking themselves why they'd give money to something they only use a very small fraction of. Now, paying to directly "sponsor" a run of their favorite game, that's probably something a lot more people can get behind. I know there are a lot of runs I'd be happy to contribute to.
The main flaw I see in such a scheme is that would help to advertise which games have a following. It might seem discouraging for a person to do a run with no money on it when there are runs worth some 100$. Then again, its always been true that some runs are more popular than others, this would only help to make that sense of interest more transparent.[/quote]
That seems like a cool idea. It could be done by donators naming the run they want to sponsor in the comments and a bar appearing on the front page of runs with bounties attached.
It wouldn't work unless folk paid first since otherwise, payment wouldn't be guaranteed.
One issue might be people that want to sponsor runs that never actually get completed.
I'm just some random guy. Don't let my words get you riled - I have my opinions but they're only mine.
As for the concept of someone doing the bare minimum just to collect a bounty, maybe there should be a rule that to collect a bounty someone's run needs to stay published for a period of time (say a month) without getting obsoleted.
Then if someone rushes a TAS just to get the bounty and someone else beats it two weeks later, the first person loses that bounty and it goes to the second person. Even if each person just barely beats out the last person's time eventually someone would end up on top with an optimized version.
Joined: 11/9/2008
Posts: 108
Location: New Orleans, LA U.S.A.
Glad to see some interest in the idea!
My whole motivation in this endeavor is simply to make public that there are runs I want to see so bad that I would pay to see them. We discussed paying the person making the run but I believe the arguments against that method are strong enough to dissuade that from being public practice. However, since it seems unlikely we'll see much protest regarding users making unsolicited donations to the site, I think the only things keeping the world from knowing that I would pay twenty bucks for a solar jetman 100% run are a) an appropriate home for the bounties to be posted and b) ironing out of specifics (which could certainly continue after the bounties have been published).
I guess the main debate is whether the moderators should go through the trouble creating a page on the server for public viewing. The converse of this being having an official thread for bounty posting. Personally I would love to see a real page (maybe even a tab!??) so that more people will learn about the bounty system. For example, I have been a member almost 2 years, visited the site for longer, but i didn't start posting on the forums til like a few months ago or something. If there had been a place on the site, non discussion board (like a tab ;) I could have bountied 100% solar jetman i would have done it over a year ago. I guess the main problem is that I am in no position to do any work to create a site on the server.
I guess one matter of motivation to consider is the probability of more people becoming interested and more donations being submitted to the site.
However if that is the case:
Bezman wrote:
It wouldn't work unless folk paid first since otherwise, payment wouldn't be guaranteed.
that would be true.
If the bounties were forum bound, then there's a good chance many of the regular posters wouldn't risk losing their place in the community to skip out on a ten dollar donation to a site they frequent all of the time. If a bunch of lurkers start posting fifty dollar star fox 64 bounties all over the place then the character of the system would start to break down.
However, we might not be able to call them bounties if people just pay ten dollars to say they want a game TASd (which would be the situation exactly if people had to pay first - the very idea of a bounty implies payment upon capture, whether that be humans or frames :D:D:D
so, page or post, basically
If ever I should become an eccentric billionaire overnight I'd easily put a good 20k on seeing the Secret of Mana run finally being completed. *Sigh* Wouldn't having money be grand?
If ever I should become an eccentric billionaire overnight I'd easily put a good 20k on seeing the Secret of Mana run finally being completed. *Sigh* Wouldn't having money be grand?
If that's the sort of decisions you'd make, I don't think you'd be a billionaire for long.
