I present to you, the first ever Cheetahmen II TAS that plays the original (not bugfixed) version AND shows the final boss!
History
Cheetahmen II was never released. Copies of this rare cart were discovered in a warehouse after the Action 52 company went out of business. It was a prototype for a sequel for the "hit" game Cheetahmen on the Action 52 cart. Not releasing this was a good decision, not only is it a terrible game, it had numerous bugs that made the game unplayable. The most significant was a bug that prevented the game from progressing after you beat the level 4 boss. While the game had 6 levels, for a long time people did not know this, due to not being able to get past level 4.
However, it was discovered that sometimes the game would start on a random level, and it was discovered that one of these was level 5! Now people could finally see the rest of the game (unfortunately for them).
The reason for this glitch is due to the fact that the board registers start off in an unpredictable state. This is a known issue in hardware, and most any board is built to clear out registers before attempting to use them. Good NES carts like MMC3 would do this for instance. Also, good games are programmed to loop and clear out ram, and set registers BEFORE attempting to use them. However, Cheetahmen II uses a custom board built by the Action 52 company and not surprisingly, this board is bad. It has no logic for clearing out these registers. Cheetahmen II is a badly programmed game, so it actually reads from mapper registers before setting them. Furthermore, in this perfect storm of crappiness, the game is built on a multi-cart board design. So it happens that each level is built on a separate PRG bank. Normally if the PRG register was set badly in a game, it would likely crash (as any program would if you started it halfway in).
Determinate indeterminacy
In TASing emulators, random register states and ram are bad things, they will cause indeterminacy and it is impossible to have a movie sync reliably. So emulators tend to program ram values to 0's, and all mapper registers as well. However, this is just one of many valid and possible start up scenarios! I suggest that a TAS can and should be able to exploit the initial state of hardware! If the all powerful superhuman that TASes represent can predict future RNG values, why can't he have full control over when to turn on the hardware to get the values of his choosing? With this in mind, I modded Bizhawk so that you can set the initial register values inside a movie file. This way we don't violate determinacy issues, while still giving full power to the TASer to control this situation. In this case of this submission, my movie file starts the game on PRG bank 11 (which is the start of level 5) with a prg mode of 1 (not terribly important detail, but needed for the game to run properly from bank 11).
Ending
After you kill the level 6 boss (or level 4 boss), the end of the level does not trigger. The "Fixed" from fixes this bug. But since an ending was never programmed into the game, it simply triggers a game over screen.
Also, wait, didn't the guy actually beat the last boss on this video?
He did (edit: and used original version), and the comments also mentions it's possible to start the level 6 (glitched too) with resetting, not sure it was mentioned already.
I asked about that earlier, and got the response that it can't be done on our current emulators without a greater level of precision (subframe advance). With the limitations of our current tools, we're forced to keep this as an improvement only a future run could make.
An owner of the game was kind enough to make a more thorough video demonstrating this glitch, here is video proof. This video shows it can (easily) be recreated by ONLY pushing the power button.
Here's a brief summary of the proof I'm offering:
1) As shown, this glitch can occur from simply powering-on the game. The only possible explanation of that behavior is some sort of variable being in an unknown state and used
1) messing with the initial RAM pattern (0000FFFF) has NO effect on this game. I tried, via scripting enough random combinations using this technique (all 0's, all 1's etc, then pure random patterns). I left a script running for some days and never once did the game do anything but start normally. This eliminates the NES's ram as the culplrit.
2) Debugging shows that the game runs a for loop to clear out the NES WRAM space, so it is expected that random ram initializations would not affect the game
3) The only other variables in play would be on the cart itself (these are mapper registers). This game have prg registers to control which part of the program to execute from. Messing with these values give you consistent results with the videos showing this glitch, including starting from level 5
4) There are 32 possible PRG register combinations, only one of which starts you at level 5 and in a playable state.
5) This movie uses that one combination and produces results IDENTICAL to video evidence
6) Videos evidence shows that this can be done from reset OR power, and that this is consistent with the theory that it is a random register issue
7) "How do we know this EXACT register state is possible?" It is KNOWN among EE people that registers can be in a random state. In this case is 6 bits, nobody has said anything other than it is likely and reasonable to assume all are possible states. Furthermore, the results produced are identical to video evidence, AND there is only 1 combination that yields this evidence. And if there wasn't more than one, who cares? If I put in 13 instead of 11 and they both produce this, the end video is identical.
I personally think that I've given more than enough evidence to suggest that this is the explanation of how this glitch is occurring and that the emulator is faithfully emulating this behavior. Can we move on from me defending the TAS itself? The implications of accepting this movie's premise (exploiting the initial hardware state) is a good debate and worth having, and I hope we will focus on that now, going forward. (Note: this post intentionally avoids this subject, but I do have a lot to say on the matter)
I find this compelling evidence, and feel the run should be accepted.
That's the point I was trying to convey since the first page of the topic: let's realize that this movie essentially starts from a savestate,
No, it clearly doesn't.
A savestate is a permutation of several kilobytes of console RAM, that is achieved by playing the game via the intent of the developers, and that is absolutely impossible to attain by powercycling, due to how the hardware works.
This run uses a permutation of six bits of cartridge registers that works by oversight of the developers and that has been proven to be achievable by powercycling. That is something utterly different from a savestate.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
I started thinking of claiming this movie in order to accept it. The reasoning seems interesting, but pretty clear to me. Anyone still thinks it must be rejected?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
That's the point I was trying to convey since the first page of the topic: let's realize that this movie essentially starts from a savestate
And now we are on page 6 and I'm no closer to agreeing with this.
Is it because you intentionally refer to a very specific definition of savestate, like "a file or a data blob storing the state of entire emulated platform"? Well, of course then your case doesn't match the definition. But it matches the broader meaning of savestate, which includes all those TASes starting from dirty SRAM, etc.
I wonder how would you characterize your case then. "A movie starting from an alternative initial state"? But this assumes the state is as valid as all those states where you start from title screen. You've proved it's physically possible, now prove it's legitimate in the context of playing games. Or do you want to simply accept Nach's idea that TASing has nothing to do with games, and is just software testing? I suppose you don't.
If the proverbial superhuman were to start his playthrough from level 5, the audience would ask him to reset the console up to the regular state, or else the playthrough won't be accepted as a world record for default category.
If the game were so glitchy that level 5 would be launched from every 2nd try, the playthrough would be accepted as a different category (so the run would be named "a world record for playing the game starting from level 5"), but in no way would it be considered to beat the existing "world record for playing the game starting from level 1".
adelikat wrote:
The implications of accepting this movie's premise (exploiting the initial hardware state) is a good debate and worth having, and I hope we will focus on that now, going forward. (Note: this post intentionally avoids this subject, but I do have a lot to say on the matter)
Uh, so, when are you going to you say what you have on the matter?
Also, in case you want to bring the old argument that previous TASes rely on the arbitrary initial state stored inside emulator. No they don't. Instead, their synchronization depends on various constants in the emulator code, like CPU timings or initial values in registers. When the emulator changes some constants (or when console behaves differently from emulator), some movies may desync, so they have to be resynced, which means changing the form without changing the content.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_and_content
For the concept of your movie to even exist, it requires a specific state. While regular TASes only require determinism, and they don't care if emulator implements determinism by making the initial state to be constant (instead of rand()) or by auto-adjusting the final Input of the movie every time when replaying (or by re-rolling the initial state until sync, or by any other method of making TASes possible).
That's why your work is state-anchored while other TASes are not.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Wait, is it supposed to be the any% category? Or glitched (which it seems to be due to relying on messing with memory)?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
This argument was pretty fun to read at first, but then Adelikat came back with better proof than could possibly have been expected and then it still went on for two pages :/
In a no-doubt vain attempt to end it, I will offer a perspective on the save-state issue that has not yet been explicitly proposed (though Radiant's argument is in a similar, if less theoretical vein).
A savestate is a state that can be brought about deterministically by the same player we imagine to be performing the TAS at hand.
This is something else entirely.
The idea of a NESBot script that powercycles until it reaches the right state muddies the issue, but doesn't change anything - such a loop is not, in fact, guaranteed to terminate, and definitely does not bring the state about in a deterministic amount of time, or with a deterministic number of instructions.
So, what are we doing when we choose a register state? We are definitely not TASing the game. I am here to argue that what we are doing can best be thought of as selecting the game.
TASes have no room for true randomness. Without an environment in which the state is always the same after the same inputs, no run would ever sync. Therefore, hardware randomness like this can never be part of the TASVideos definition of a "game". Therefore, I propose that what we have in Cheetahmen II is a 64-game cartridge - 63 of them happen to be identical, and one of them is the game TASed by this submission.
Perhaps this idea will be more palatable if we call them "versions" instead, and treat them the same way we treat [U] and [J] versions of a game, or 1.0 and 1.1 releases - this is functionally equivalent (ie, we still have to make a choice beforehand of which ROM we will be TASing) but it gives us a more comfortable framework for managing them.
The movie acceptance rules say:
Keep in mind that time gained solely through basic ROM differences will be discounted for the purpose of comparison. This includes:
- time gained through shorter cutscene text and speech boxes due to Japanese writing being more compact;
- differences in title screen, cutscenes, and menus (unless menus are the game's main control interface).
Only actual gameplay improvements will be considered.
Given all of this, I propose that this run be accepted, with the register state listed as the version, and that it obsolete any run which uses a different version, for the reason that it contains actual gameplay improvements over them (skipping the first four levels).
A warb degombs the brangy. Your gitch zanks and leils the warb.
I don't really stick to calling the movie "savestate-anchored", I'm perfectly fine with calling it "a different version of the game" or any other distinctive label.
Although I don't quite understand how a movie for the 2levels-version can obsolete the movie for the 6levels-version. It's not like player could not skip the first 4 levels after selecting the shorter version - so I don't get where's the gameplay improvement, the time was gained solely trough versions difference.
I believe the periods of movies in which version improvements don't count that the rule is trying to define are times when:
- the player does not have control (inputs have no effect on RAM? or something, I'm sure there are cases where that's not quite right)
- the game is in the same (up to translation) state before and after
e.g. I believe that it is uncontroversial that a movie that skips a cutscene entirely DOES count as faster than one which does not; the rule is intended only to ignore situations in which the semantically "same" cutscene is faster for cosmetic reasons.
For most of what's skipped, the player DOES have control, so the improvement should be obvious; I assume there are level transitions or something in which the player does not, but those should also count as improvement, since this movie never enters their entry states at all.
It's not like player could not skip the first 4 levels after selecting the shorter version
I don't think this argument is relevant - imagine a v1.1 of SMB1 in which you start one block further to the right, and there is one fewer column on the left edge of the level. It's not as though a run on the v1.1 ROM could NOT gain those few frames, but it would still uncontroversially be accepted as the shorter movie, no?
A warb degombs the brangy. Your gitch zanks and leils the warb.
At this point, it seem that no-no people would think that register are still part of the states, but since it seem we can't simply provide a verification movie this get a bit awkward. Yet it seem weird to me, that we aren't talking about the fact the the game use a patch(why this isn't in the description???) to bypass the game over screen since the submited movie doesn't "complete" the game without it.
Meanwhile, yes-yes people use the bad board arguments, since the register are just random anyway. So this make this submission kinda creative in his own way, even if there's no special TAS trick related. I see nothing wrong with that, but I'm not sure if this is the way to go if the site want to promote entertainement.
Now, the judge are probably going to accept it, since there is some reasonable/legitimate arguments(the game use a non standard cartridge), but I'll say this should directly fallback into the hack category, since a patch is required in order to complete the game.
If you guys want to obselete the game, there should be a special therm somewhere that specify that any improvements over the patchless game with a standard state would have no reason to not be accepted for publication.
edit: fixed some text
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
I think it was proven that this run is valid in all terms, and must be judges as a real run. But it has a goal most people don't notice. It freaking skips half of the game!
Can someone list the runs that skip half of the game at once and are still any%? I only can remember any%'s that skip some levels from the middle to the next level start. And glitched runs either skip from the middle of the game to its end, or break the gameplay hard enough to deserve a glitched category.
So if this movie is glitched, it can't be vaulted (nor the feedback it got now is enough for Moons). And if it is not, it breaks its own goal in my eyes, since it skips half of the game.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Can someone list the runs that skip half of the game at once and are still any%? I only can remember any%'s that skip some levels from the middle to the next level start. And glitched runs either skip from the middle of the game to its end, or break the gameplay hard enough to deserve a glitched category.
There are several "glitched" runs in the vault, such as Chrono Trigger, Legendary Stafy, Earthbound Zero, and Wizardry III; all of these bypass most or all of the game, e.g. the last one does so by glitching the final quest item into a shop, then simply buying it. The Chrono Trigger run was also ruled to obsolete this non-glitched run, since both are "any%" and therefore the same branch.
I'm not sure why "glitched" would be considered a separate goal. I would consider goals to be things like "any%", "100%", "pacifist", or "playaround", and each of these could be glitched or non-glitched. In addition to the Chrono Trigger run, it is generally the case that a run with the "heavy glitch abuse" tag will obsolete a run without the tag, instead of forming a separate branch; examples include Shining Soul and Spongebob.
So if this movie is glitched, it can't be vaulted (nor the feedback it got now is enough for Moons).
For what it's worth, it is likely that some or most of the negative feedback is either due to misunderstandings earlier in this thread, or predates Adelikat's post of evidence. After all, people are likely to vote when they first post in a thread, and cannot change it later.
imagine a v1.1 of SMB1 in which you start one block further to the right, and there is one fewer column on the left edge of the level. It's not as though a run on the v1.1 ROM could NOT gain those few frames, but it would still uncontroversially be accepted as the shorter movie, no?
I think, the answer is obvious.
BadPotato wrote:
At this point, it seem that no-no people would think that register are still part of the states
What, anyone still thinks they are not? How else would I be able to make this movie?
Well, ask an expert (like zeromus) - mapper registers are part of console game state, so they are part of any savestate. This submission muddles the matter because it uses differently named tag to write the data from the movie file into registers. But I thought at this point of discussion the initial confusion cleared a bit.
BadPotato wrote:
I see nothing wrong with that, but I'm not sure if this is the way to go if the site want to promote entertainement.
The site promotes either entertainment or legitimate tool-assisted world records. But this submission is none of these two.
feos wrote:
I think it was proven that this run is valid in all terms, and must be judges as a real run.
The movie is only valid in one term: the initial state it uses is possible to have on a real console. But, you know, KONAMI Code is also possible to have on a real console. Doesn't make it an acceptable speedrun yet.
Radiant wrote:
For what it's worth, it is likely that some or most of the negative feedback is either due to misunderstandings earlier in this thread
For what it's worth, the positive feedback is simply an incorrect interpretation of the question about entertainment, as usual.
First pages of the thread focus on hardware question, so it may seem that this is the only questionable aspect of the movie. But no, this movie has many questionable aspects.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Radiant wrote:
feos wrote:
Can someone list the runs that skip half of the game at once and are still any%? I only can remember any%'s that skip some levels from the middle to the next level start. And glitched runs either skip from the middle of the game to its end, or break the gameplay hard enough to deserve a glitched category.
There are several "glitched" runs in the vault, such as Chrono Trigger, Legendary Stafy, Earthbound Zero, and Wizardry III; all of these bypass most or all of the game, e.g. the last one does so by glitching the final quest item into a shop, then simply buying it. The Chrono Trigger run was also ruled to obsolete this non-glitched run, since both are "any%" and therefore the same branch.
Thanks. Actually, these runs being in vault is an oversight, since the Wiki: Vault page states that only 2 basic goals can be accepted to vault: any% and 100%. Recently there was an addition for runs that beat independent levelsets available from the beginning (such as chapters in DOS games). So these runs need to be moved to Moons, which was done to most of the auto-vaulted runs that appeared to have unvaultable goals.
Radiant wrote:
I'm not sure why "glitched" would be considered a separate goal. I would consider goals to be things like "any%", "100%", "pacifist", or "playaround", and each of these could be glitched or non-glitched. In addition to the Chrono Trigger run, it is generally the case that a run with the "heavy glitch abuse" tag will obsolete a run without the tag, instead of forming a separate branch; examples include Shining Soul and Spongebob.
So if this movie is glitched, it can't be vaulted (nor the feedback it got now is enough for Moons).
For what it's worth, it is likely that some or most of the negative feedback is either due to misunderstandings earlier in this thread, or predates Adelikat's post of evidence. After all, people are likely to vote when they first post in a thread, and cannot change it later.
People are asked whether or not they were entertained by the content of the run. Cheetahmen is just not the typeof the gameto enjoy. And when judging a movie on the matter of acceptability, when it appears to have an unvaultable branch, we can't "imagine" when the audience could think, or if it was honest or not. We need to rely on votes and forum posts. I don't see too much enjoyment in forum feedback about this movie either. Finally, if No and Yes votes tie, it means it's not a Moons content.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
That's an interesting distinction; it does make sense but it would require some cleaning up, because as near as I can tell the category tag "heavy glitch abuse" and the label "glitched" in a run's title are used interchangeably, and for both of these.
In the meantime, this Cheetahmen run clearly falls in the former category; it doesn't corrupt memory the way these other movies (or the famous Pokemon Pi Dance) do.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Radiant wrote:
That's an interesting distinction; it does make sense but it would require some cleaning up, because as near as I can tell the category tag "heavy glitch abuse" and the label "glitched" in a run's title are used interchangeably, and for both of these.
As I said, no one really cares. It is mostly decided case by case.
Radiant wrote:
In the meantime, this Cheetahmen run clearly falls in the former category; it doesn't corrupt memory the way these other movies (or the famous Pokemon Pi Dance) do.
It does skip more than half of the game at once. It in no way near the any% concept either. The game itself is just fucked up, so you don't even need to corrupt memory to break it to death and abuse.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3571)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
Wow, so many things to have to respond to! I'll try to get them all in one post:
1)
BadPotato wrote:
that we aren't talking about the fact the the game use a patch(why this isn't in the description???) to bypass the game over screen since the submited movie doesn't "complete" the game without it.
You are mistaken. This submission uses the ORIGINAL cart. All previous submissions use a fixed version that has said patch. As such this version does not "complete" the game in the way that the patched one does. It delivers the final blow to the boss (which should send him to 0 health but a glitch prevents it) then promptly dies.
2) Some people have already basically made this point but here's my take on the difference between a savestate and the conditions of hardware on power-on:
If you think about it in terms of a timeline. Power-on is point 0 of the timeline. A savestate is some point after 0. A savestate could theoretically be a state identical to a valid point 0. But power-on MUST be a state valid for point 0. The savestate tag should be used when the movie starts from a point that is not not possible to be a valid point 0.
And we have some precedence for this. DS movies specify RTC. In real world terms, that means that a DS must be powered up at EXACT a particular point in time for the TAS to sync. To DSbot my NSMB tas for example, you would also need a time machine (or set your internal clock to the correct time, but that's a less fun example). These TASes are considered valid, because this is a valid state for a DS to be in on power-on. Yet, this is information that could also be attained at a point in the timeline beyond 0, therefore a movie could start from a savestate and achieve the same results.
3) cart register states are indeed part of savestates. Both the console hardware state AND cart hardware states must be saved into savestates to have determinism.
4) Questions about mapper 228 accuracy and starting from level 6.
Starting from level 6 isn't possible from power-on, there is no register state that can cause this. It is also inconsistent with all the evidence I've seen regarding UNMODIFIED carts. The guy who made the proof video for us has never seen that happen either (while reproducing level 5 is very easy).
I could see maybe it happening from resets, but I don't suspect it happening from an IMMEDIATE reset after a power-on. it is possible that upon reset the game doesn't clear out all of the ram space, and that some of these values in combination with an assumed register state could cause this? I'm not sure, nor have I seen good evidence from an unmodified cart.
And as for 228 accuracy, I'm skeptical that there is something missing here. It is a pretty straightforward board, and nothing fancy happens upon a reset signal compared to any other board. I don't think that is a sufficient answer as to why doing this via reset is impossible. I think more probably that there is 1) more going on that we realize with reset based glitching 2) It doesn't happen from reset, and that videos that suggest it are just being imprecise as to which button they are pressing (people are lazy about the distinction between soft and hard resetting).
I'll post again regarding my thoughts on categorization of this movie (and other movies).
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3571)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
Categorization issues:
1) Feos, you seem flat out wrong about something, or I am misunderstanding your posts. Vault rules say the categories are any% and 100%. The definition of any% in this case is THE FASTEST POSSIBLE COMPLETION TIME. Unfortunately, I have allowed the site to blur that simple definition of any% by having a "glitched" category that is faster than a "any%" category in some cases. I completely disagree with this categorization though. any% should be the fastest movie, then we should have a better naming of movies that forgo major skips/glitches.
The vault absolutely prefers the faster movie, not a (more ambiguous) movie that fails to do a time saving glitch.
By that same regard 100% should be completely unabmiguous too. If the definition of 100% is disputed for a game, then we should prefer NOT to publish such a movie to the vault. The key is to make the vault as unambiguous as possible. The more subjective the situation is, the more we want it to be based on some level of entertainment value and feedback from the audience.
2) This movie is vault material, there's no way this or any movie of cheetahmen II is worthy of any tier requiring entertainment value (imo). I personally vote no for entertainment.
3) This and the currently published movie (that uses the fixed) version are vault compatible I think. This movie serves as the fastest possible completion (any%), while the other movie shows all levels (100%)
4) This movie doesn't "complete" the game, that's a fair point. However, the difference between this one and a movie that uses the fixed version to complete the game are actually extremely similar (visually and conceptually)
a) The game has no ending, it was not programmed in the game. The fixed version simply transitions to a game over screen as if you died. I achieve that same "ending" by....dying.
b) The game has a bug that makes it impossible for the last blow to the boss to kill him. You can get him down to 1 health (actually it is -126, weird game), and do a blow that has the "ouch" sound effect due to hitting him. However, due to programming bug, the health isn't reduced to 0 (-127). I perform this final blow though, it is only a glitch that prevents his death.
c) Even if the bug in b) were fixed, the game still will fail to end the level due to yet another glitch. This one also affects level 4, and is why you can't do an all levels run of the game without a modified ROM.
d) Based on these facts, I do complete the game as much as I possibly can. You see the final level, you see the final boss, and I damage him sufficiently to kill him (even though it doesn't). SO basically, I did as much as I could, and the difference is negligible. Also, I chose to die while performing the final blow, to achieve some kind of "ending". If anyone has other ideas or preferences to how I deal with the ending, I'm open to them.
e) Nobody has asked this surprisingly, but this movie does NOT improve any of the levels as compared to the published movie. I did gain a frame in level 6 but some circumstances caused me to lose it. The currently published movie is tightly optimized :)
5) This movie should certainly get some kind of special tag or mention about the situation. I don't know what exactly (but I do know it should not be tagged as a savestate movie!) and I think some serious discussion and thought should be had as to how we handle these types of movies from a site perspective. I'm also open to the idea that we don't allow these kinds of movies as a site policy. However, I personally am in favor of it.
In summary:
I believe this movie finishes the game sufficiently, and serves as a fastest completion category, and therefore is publishable under vault rules. These are my opinions as a viewer, not an admin/judge ruling.
My admin/judge ruling is that we should discuss and vote as a community as to whether unitialized ram/register exploitation should be allowed. This should probably be a separate thread and maybe a poll.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
adelikat wrote:
Feos, you seem flat out wrong about something, or I am misunderstanding your posts. Vault rules say the categories are any% and 100%. The definition of any% in this case is THE FASTEST POSSIBLE COMPLETION TIME. Unfortunately, I have allowed the site to blur that simple definition of any% by having a "glitched" category that is faster than a "any%" category in some cases. I completely disagree with this categorization though. any% should be the fastest movie, then we should have a better naming of movies that forgo major skips/glitches.
The vault absolutely prefers the faster movie, not a (more ambiguous) movie that fails to do a time saving glitch.
For now it's your own opinion. I have no problems with calling "glitched" runs "any%" and the current "any%" ones that have the faster glitched versions something else, as long as the low-glitch versions are preserved if their entertainment value deserves separate publication. But currently it is just not the case. So I'm speaking in consistency with the current categorization.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
It does skip more than half of the game at once. It in no way near the any% concept either. The game itself is just fucked up, so you don't even need to corrupt memory to break it to death and abuse.
This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. By this logic, the mario64 0-star run isn't an any% run. There are plenty of Vault examples too; that rpg that wins on the first frame comes to mind.
The entire point of any% is to complete the game as fast as possible. If we can skip 99% of the game, we absolutely should. Trying to separate it from memory corruption is one thing (that I personally don't agree with, and which certainly doesn't apply here), but trying to define a percentage of the intended game that must be completed is just crazy.
A warb degombs the brangy. Your gitch zanks and leils the warb.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3571)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
feos wrote:
But currently it is just not the case. So I'm speaking in consistency with the current categorization.
That's fine, except that you must understand that the vault wording isn't based on that. Whether that is an error is up for debate, but the meaning of "any%" means fastest completion time at all costs.
