Joined: 3/9/2004
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Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
henke37 wrote:
Yes, but that would be equivalent as to using a cheating device. And that is against the rules.
Are you referring to the first or the second?
The speed mode is built right into the game intending to be used. It's in the instructions too.
The second is part of the environment. The question is to what extent of manipulating DOS would we allow?
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.
The second naturally.
And I think that editing the game files is equivalent of applying a hack. It should not be considered as a run of the original game, but as a run of this new hacked variant. And a hack that is just the last level of the game is not suitable for TASing.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Using the DOS "copy" command is not editing files. It's replacing/adding files with existing files.
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.
So "copy con level.bin" is ok then? Or maybe "copy bytes\42.bin+bytes\32.bin level.bin"? Or even better yet "copy wininstantly.exe game.exe"!
In the end, you are messing with the game in a way that obviously shouldn't be allowed. Who cares what rule there is against it, it's just not something that is ok.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
henke37 wrote:
So "copy con level.bin" is ok then? Or maybe "copy bytes\42.bin+bytes\32.bin level.bin"? Or even better yet "copy wininstantly.exe game.exe"!
In the end, you are messing with the game in a way that obviously shouldn't be allowed. Who cares what rule there is against it, it's just not something that is ok.
I'm referring to copying only what is provided with the game itself, not files you dug up elsewhere, or 'copying' from the keyboard.
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.
My point is just that the all the files the game is made up of is a part of the game. The level data is as much a part of the game rules as the game engine. We do not allow changing the rules just because it would save time. And when we do allow it, we don't pretend that it's the original rules either.
If we let people open game roms with editors to edit them, we allow people to change the rules. If the game shows how it is made up is not relevant.
We are only allowed to follow the rules the game made for us. Copying level files is just as legal as "borrowing" money from the bank when playing Monopoly.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
henke37 wrote:
My point is just that the all the files the game is made up of is a part of the game. The level data is as much a part of the game rules as the game engine.
Yes. I'm not suggesting you edit any of that whatsoever.
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.
So if a normal console game provided access to its level data from within the game (via special code in the game intended for this purpose), then would it be a legit part of the run to use that access to shuffle the game data around? I'd argue not. That sounds like a "debug mode" thing, which falls under the same category as button combinations -- invalid in the vast majority of possible uses.
Now, if there were a dummied-out level that was complete but just not part of the game, then using DOS's commands to access that level might be okay.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Joined: 3/9/2004
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Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Derakon wrote:
So if a normal console game provided access to its level data from within the game (via special code in the game intended for this purpose), then would it be a legit part of the run to use that access to shuffle the game data around? I'd argue not. That sounds like a "debug mode" thing, which falls under the same category as button combinations -- invalid in the vast majority of possible uses.
But we're fine with buffer overflowing or lack of memory zeroing some segment of data onto another to skip huge sections? (see Super Metroid)
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.
Oh, so if I photocopy "expensive road" in Monopoly and cross out "expensive" and write "cheapass" with crayons instead, I am suddenly allowed to charge people who hit that street with a much higher rent?
The game rules says "you have to play level 1, 2 and 3 in order to play level 4" they also say "level 1 could be beaten by holding the right button, level 2 has lots of jumps and level 3 is batshit insane".
So you are saying that we would be allowed to just change the rules to say "level 1 could be beaten by holding the right button, level 2 could be beaten by holding the right button and level 3 could be beaten by holding the right button" it would be ok?
Or maybe we could replace the starting character in an rpg with the super powered character that happens to be killed by the villain well before the end of the game? See, no editing! Only copying!
Nach wrote:
But we're fine with buffer overflowing or lack of memory zeroing some segment of data onto another to skip huge sections? (see Super Metroid)
Yup, we are hypocrites. Or are we?
Those are clearly bugs, aka faults in the rules. They probably shouldn't be there. But they are a part of the rules. Randomly changing the rules as we see fit is not part of the rules.
Exploiting the rules: ok (but should be marked). Changing the rules as we see fit: not ok
Joined: 3/9/2004
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Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
henke37 wrote:
Oh, so if I photocopy "expensive road" in Monopoly and cross out "expensive" and write "cheapass" with crayons instead, I am suddenly allowed to charge people who hit that street with a much higher rent?
You're comparing apples and sheep.
henke37 wrote:
cross out "expensive" and write "cheapass" with crayons instead
You keep saying things like that, I'm not.
henke37 wrote:
The game rules says "you have to play level 1, 2 and 3 in order to play level 4" they also say "level 1 could be beaten by holding the right button, level 2 has lots of jumps and level 3 is batshit insane".
Not at all. The game rules say file begins play from file on the file system accessed via name so and so, and then that file determines what to do after that.
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.
Not at all. The game rules say file begins play from file on the file system accessed via name so and so, and then that file determines what to do after that.
Oh, so it's ok to edit files as long it's not the main executable?
What if the levels was hardcoded in the executable? Would be still be allowed to swap them around at will? Of course not.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
henke37 wrote:
Nach wrote:
Not at all. The game rules say file begins play from file on the file system accessed via name so and so, and then that file determines what to do after that.
Oh, so it's ok to edit files as long it's not the main executable?
Why do you keep using the idea of 'edit files'? I never suggested that.
henke37 wrote:
What if the levels was hardcoded in the executable? Would be still be allowed to swap them around at will? Of course not.
Well, we'd then have to consider exploiting bugs in the memory map, won't we.
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.
Now the question is: why is it different for our (site) rules how the data is stored?
So what makes it different if I where to replace 1-1 in smb with 6-4? That I had used a tool that did understand the data container format?
But it is the exact same thing here! Just that the container format happens to be named "FAT".
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
henke37 wrote:
Now the question is: why is it different for our (site) rules how the data is stored?
So what makes it different if I where to replace 1-1 in smb with 6-4? That I had used a tool that did understand the data container format?
But it is the exact same thing here! Just that the container format happens to be named "FAT".
In this case part of the game is the DOS environment. The DOS environment provides certain tools.
This would be akin to a console game which had a BIOS loaded at the start which you could somehow within it before loading the game tweak in order to provide a better TASing condition.
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.
Nach is trying to do that thing, albeit poorly, where he brings up some controversial topic, and then gets people to argue with him incesently. Its a wannabe socratic method.
The only dos commands allowed should be the one required to start the game. Additionally, skipping the first three bosses in a 3 boss mega man game doesn't make for a very interesting tas.
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.
The only dos commands allowed should be the one required to start the game. Additionally, skipping the first three bosses in a 3 boss mega man game doesn't make for a very interesting tas.
I think there some special case, where game require some DOS command before running the executable. Maybe we should add a special category "Use DOS command". This is just like using the reset button on other platform, since this a console feature.
Since this discussion is probably more meritorious than my original snarky post stated, I split the thread so the discussion can be more generalized.
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.
If DOS shell commands are permitted, any game can be beaten trivially; simply edit the game's code until it sends you to a winning position fast.
There might be some entertaining uses to editing a game's structure before starting it, however - such exclusions would be arbitrary, but sometimes entertainment triumphs over all.
Nach is trying to do that thing, albeit poorly, where he brings up some controversial topic, and then gets people to argue with him incesently. Its a wannabe socratic method.
Not at all. The game rules say file begins play from file on the file system accessed via name so and so, and then that file determines what to do after that.
Oh, so it's ok to edit files as long it's not the main executable?
Why do you keep using the idea of 'edit files'? I never suggested that.
As matter of fact, overwriting the contents of one file with the contents of another is editing the file, even if it accomplished simply by using the DOS copy command, and even if the other file is included with the game.
Nach wrote:
In this case part of the game is the DOS environment. The DOS environment provides certain tools.
This is sort of like saying that the desert is part of a cactus, or that the ocean is part of a fisherman
Sure, the cactus and the fisherman can only thrive in desert and ocean environments, respectively, but if you used the teeth of a prairie dog to cut a hole in the cactus, you couldn't say that you hadn't used anything outside the cactus in the process, nor could you make the claim that no force outside the fisherman is involved when the fisherman has his leg bitten off by a shark.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
