This website is for entertainment purposes, and the fastest run should be the main published one

These two statements are contradictory. Is the primary purpose entertainment, or is the primary purpose speed?

I choose yes (as a gamer representing the people)!

I didn't vote for you.

This website is for entertainment purposes, and the fastest run should be the main published one, obsoleting any older ones. This is for the entertainment of not only fellow gamers, but for casual gamers and even non-gamers alike.

Except that it has already been said, and I agree, that this run is actually less entertaining because of the ability to do the flagpole glitch at will instead of having to set up the perfect circumstance with the use of enemies. I think that the minuscule amount of time saved on a rom that has been described as a clunky (or was it cludgy?) European hack, is vastly outweighed entertainment wise by the necessity of using unique planning in order to perform the same glitch which wouldn't be as easily possible if PAL versions of games didn't use a 50 mhz clock. I am all for linking this run to the U version already published.

Meanwhile, I'm chilling back here uploading 40 megabyte files to YouTube. Enjoy your High Definition upload.

This should be accepted and should obsolete the NTSC version. The preference for NTSC is a matter of speed. In most cases, the PAL version of a game is unmodified from NTSC, and therefore runs 1/6th slower (though with slightly less lag). When PAL versions are modified by the developers to compensate for the speed difference, they become comparable to the NTSC versions, unless significantly altered in some other way. In this particular case, Mario runs at a very similar rate in pixels per second to the NTSC version, and there are no other significant gameplay differences, so the PAL version should be directly comparable to the NTSC version. The speed alteration allows for a few additional tricks to be used, allowing faster completion than the NTSC version. However, in all other respects the game is exactly the same, and should therefore be considered to compete directly with the NTSC version. I do not see any reason to reject this obsoletion, and there is certainly not enough difference between this and the US version to justify simultaneous publication, so I reiterate: Accept and obsolete.

Wow, maybe someday we'll discover the original reason for the "Use the American version" rule!

This should NOT replace anything. I believe that if PAL versions are significantly different, they should be separate. Like Rygar should have separate (E) and (U) runs. Of course, this is just my opinion. As for multi-region games which auto-detect speed and change mechanics accordingly, run them in whichever mode is faster.

Voting no. As the author has said, this is not an optimised movie. However, I think that if an optimised movie is submitted, that it should obsolete the NTSC run on the grounds of being faster.

I vote Yes for a different category. Pokémon Green (J) was a faster run than Pokémon Blue (U) due to different glitches and the two are published alongside. I believe there's no reason to reject this as it features different glitches than NTSC, completing the game in a different way and adding more to the site's content. If the run featured tricks that could be used to improve the (U) version, I'd vote for obsoletion. Since its faster time is based solely on version differences, I think both must be published.

Voting no. As the author has said, this is not an optimized movie. However, I think that if an optimized movie is submitted, that it should obsolete the NTSC run on the grounds of being faster.

This pretty much sums up my thoughts exactly. Not using the (E) version is a sizable speed/entertainment tradeoff, and the SMB1 runs have always been cutthroat enough that any gained entertainment at the cost of speed has always been avoided (to the best of my knowledge). If the PAL version isn't allowed, TASVideos will never again have the fastest SMB1 video in existence. I don't like that idea very much. I personally don't think that setting up a perfect flagpole glitch really adds enough entertainment to justify intentionally ignoring a simple, sizable improvement to the run. The other argument seems to claim that the (E) version is inherently inferior to the (JU) version. I don't buy this argument. It is an official Nintendo product; it isn't some fan hack. Playing the game normally, you can barely tell the difference between the two regions. Unless someone can explain how the physics of the PAL version is objectively inferior to the NTSC version instead of merely different, I don't see why this can be considered a legitimate excuse for prohibiting the PAL release. At this juncture, I personally think that perhaps the best course of action would be to have the PAL version be the version used for the actual speedruns (excluding the -3 run for obvious reasons), but also have a NTSC "Playaround" run in addition to the currently existing run. There are tons of glitches in SMB1 that can't be abused for saving time, and I think a run containing as many of them as possible would be entertaining enough to deserve a new category. The fastest PAL run and the fastest NTSC run are too visibly similar to justify making this run its own category, though.

This website is for entertainment purposes, and the fastest run should be the main published one

These two statements are contradictory. Is the primary purpose entertainment, or is the primary purpose speed?

They are not contradictory in this case because this specific video is a TAS. The entertainment in this case stems from the very fact that it a speedrun aiming for fastest time at any and all costs. However, if there IS a highly enforced rule in which we must use American versions only, as "Bag of Magic Food" mentioned, then I agree with you in rejection of the movie, or at most published alongside the current one.

I choose yes (as a gamer representing the people)!

I didn't vote for you.

Well fortunately, you are a gamer, not of the "people". So your vote wouldn't count anyways.

Voted 'No'. Regardless of the debate over whether different ROM versions can obsolete older runs, it's not well optimized. That said, if an optimized version were submitted, I would vote for its publication under a different category.

Yes vote, for publication as a separate category. The TAS is amazing, it would be wrong to reject this. And it would be wrong to obsolete the other TAS, they're not comparable. They both deserve to exist.

I'm inclined to keep it as our SMB run. It doesn't radically change the route of the game and it does run it faster because of the new glitch. We've changed rom versions before for different games, why does SMB have to be such a sacred cow?

You know what? To the average layperson who has no idea what the difference between [PAL] and [U] and [J] is, they wouldn't understand why the fastest run doesn't get the prize.

I think the average layperson would wonder why the music sounds so off-key. It's way too noticeable to be ignored, and I am fairly certain that most people who would watch this run would know what the SMB music is supposed to sound like. So even if somebody has no clue about different ROM versions, I am sure that they would realize something is different (and some YouTubers may even claim that the TASer is cheating because the game sounds sped up). I voted no, by the way. The only major difference in gameplay is that the flagpole glitch can be done without assistance from enemies, but the flagpole glitch itself is nothing new. It's interesting enough to be a trivia fact (or gruefood delight), but not interesting enough to warrant a full publication in my opinion. If nothing else, it definitely should not replace the U run for all the reasons stated before.

Let me draw attention to another recently rejected run, submitted under similar circumstances where there's no substantial difference in game play between the NTSC runs (and there are several there as well) and the PAL run. Does that submission warrant revival for publication as a separate branch?

But that submission was slower than the (U) run. Why would it be comparable to this run which is faster than the (U) run? Anyway, I vote yes to publish this run along side the (U) run, not to obsoleting it. The music is noticeably faster in the (E) run, and the game runs choppier. So even though the timing trick makes the run faster, the (U) run is much more enjoyable to watch. Keep them as 2 separate categories for completeness sake.

Yes Vote. And i'd be nice to see this run in a different category or something like that, and the same for Super Metroid (E). Although the Super Metroid (E) run is slower, it shows new tricks and routes and as most of people is voting yes to this movie but not to obsolet the published run, maybe they can be published in a different category and won't obsolet each other. Sorry if there's any mistake in my post.

So, Tub's Idea™, anyone? (Holy hell, it's been almost four years!)

To those saying that the run is unoptimized: I can always make a more optimized version and take my time with it if this run actually manages to get accepted.

So, Tub's Idea™, anyone? (Holy hell, it's been almost four years!)

I like this idea very much. It allows a plurality of categories without letting one or two games (Super Metroid, SMW) from taking up half the Movies-<system> pages. It recognises TASes which are awesome but of a nonstandard category by tucking them away in a dark corner of the site where they won't bother anyone who doesn't care about that game. My only worry is Bisqwit's reply:

Your idea is intriguing, but I'm afraid there might be too much maintenance in it...

Bisqwit and Tub have actually made some headway on it, I don't remember what the particular problem that made them stop was, though. I bring it up about twice a year because the problems it's been designed to solve haven't really been solved yet in any other way. I've yet to see a more elegant solution for increasing the amount of per-game content, either. We've already determined over the years that confining any game to no more than three categories is a restriction so artificial and unwarranted by anything other than page clutter (which only exists because of a lack of a better movie page layout) it obviously does more harm than good. Maybe runs like this will finally convince people to implement it so we wouldn't have to set stupid precedents that only serve to worsen the bureaucracy.

I'd like to see more PAL runs accepted, especially if they do demonstrate new things (Yes, this will include Saturn's recent rejected Super Metroid run, as was brought up earlier), under Tub's idea as well. I argue that it might give a new series of TASers encouragement to compete for the PAL records, since the NTSC records of popular games (Mario, Sonic, Megaman, etc) are often too fierce. There may also be new challenges that PAL versions provide that NTSC versions may not, but they have virtually not been explored yet. Of course, in many cases there is no real difference between PAL and NTSC other than the time.

My thoughts:

• The flagpole glitch, by itself, is not enough for a new branch.
• Mario's speed has been changed to match NTSC, so this should be directly compared to it.
• The flagpole glitch's entertainment value is a ridiculous excuse. I feel that if it were possible in NTSC without any setup, the improvement would be accepted despite any "entertainment loss."
• This run is suboptimal. I think there's something in the rules about suboptimal runs not obsoleting older ones. I'd vote yes if it weren't for that.

So I'm going to have to vote "no" on this. ...or I would, but I'm not sure whether the poll is still for this specific run or is now for PAL runs in general.

Compared to other runs that have been accepted in the past... this really isn't sub-optimal.

Hmm...pretend I said "improvable" then. Not sure that the word I use makes much difference though.