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Banned User, Former player
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
Masterjun wrote:
'We simply changed the whole concept of control we've been using for days so that it now turned into a slow Let's Play'.
Yes, because lying about it is the honest thing to do. (Yes, you would be lying, because you make it sound like the old mode was completely replaced by the new mode for the rest of the project.) The optional democracy mode is much better than hacking the game to remove the difficult parts: It gives the participants the option to use one mode or the other. If the majority think that an extra-difficult part should be done in democracy mode, then why not? What do you prefer? Spending a week grinding the one and same part, with no progress, no new events, no new memes, decreasing popular interest and viewership... or spend 10 minutes in a "boring" mode to get past that short segment, and then go on as before? I, for one, prefer the latter.
Masterjun
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Warp wrote:
Yes, because lying about it is the honest thing to do. (Yes, you would be lying, because you make it sound like the old mode was completely replaced by the new mode for the rest of the project.)
It was, indeed, replaced completely at the start (that's why there was the start9 protest).
Warp wrote:
The optional democracy mode is much better than hacking the game to remove the difficult parts: It gives the participants the option to use one mode or the other. If the majority think that an extra-difficult part should be done in democracy mode, then why not?
Because it also gives the people the option to use the other mode on a tricky-but-not-extra-difficult part. (See the ledge, after several hours they manage to create a strategy to come across. Would that have been the case with the possibility of another, easier mode?)
Warp wrote:
What do you prefer? Spending a week grinding the one and same part, with no progress, no new events, no new memes, decreasing popular interest and viewership... or spend 10 minutes in a "boring" mode to get past that short segment, and then go on as before? I, for one, prefer the latter.
I, too, prefer the latter, but only in case these two options are the only ones that exist. But these are by far not the only ones. Let me give two other options. Hacking the game to remove/modify the parts that seem to be impossible (in this case the difficulty is not removed completly with the step limit, you can still waste all the 30 Safari Balls or dig out). Letting the social experiment fail with anarchy.
Warning: Might glitch to credits I will finish this ACE soon as possible (or will I?)
Banned User, Former player
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
Masterjun wrote:
Letting the social experiment fail with anarchy.
No thanks. It turned out much better this way.
ALAKTORN
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Player (99)
Joined: 10/19/2009
Posts: 2527
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Masterjun wrote:
Letting the social experiment fail with anarchy.
I would’ve liked to see this to be honest the experiment has failed already, it’s just that it didn’t fail in a dramatic way because it keeps going having discarded its original purpose
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
So you'd rather there be nothing than something?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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Joined: 8/5/2007
Posts: 865
I think it's funny how so many people cite "the run's original purpose" as if it were meant to be a particular way. The guy running Twitch Plays Pokemon can do whatever the hell he wants. He may have even had the democracy/anarchy system in mind when he started. The system may not match your idealized view of the experiment, but your view is not special in any way.
Patashu
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Bobo the King wrote:
I think it's funny how so many people cite "the run's original purpose" as if it were meant to be a particular way. The guy running Twitch Plays Pokemon can do whatever the hell he wants. He may have even had the democracy/anarchy system in mind when he started. The system may not match your idealized view of the experiment, but your view is not special in any way.
I'd like to add to this post that the creator expected viewership to peak at the 100s or 1000s, not explode. It might not have even been a grand idea for him, he might have just made it to practice his coding skills and have a bit of fun. There's no ideal it is striving for, it just is what we make of it.
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
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I'd say the experiment has succeeded no matter whether the run's finished or not. There's loads of stuff for researchers to analyze about how people behave with all these democracy and anarchy arguments, behavior and reactions to particular events and whatnot.
"An artist who can’t take constructive critique on their work is only hurting themselves and their potential. Conversely, and artist that can’t communicate a critique in a constructive way isn’t helping anybody."
Banned User, Former player
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
ALAKTORN wrote:
having discarded its original purpose
People keep mentioning the "original purpose" of the stream. (It's not a term used only here, but constantly on the stream chat, the irc channels and other chats.) What exactly was this mystical "original purpose" that people keep mentioning, but which doesn't seem to be specified anywhere? I have hard time believing that this "original purpose" was for the stream to die at the Safari Zone.
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Warp wrote:
I have hard time believing that this "original purpose" was for the stream to die at the Safari Zone.
The streamer did not expect the viewer count to blow up larger than 100-1000. You can clear the Safari Zone in anarchy with such a small viewer count (see the various spinoff streams with smaller view counts that beat it fine in anarchy). Since he did not expect larger viewer counts, he went through various phases of ideas for making it easier for the game to be completed (removing select, the 'start button jamming' stuff, considering allowing sub-only mode to be turned on (which he never ended up doing), modifying the safari zone to not cost money or not have a step counter (never did this either), swapping it entirely into democracy mode, the various anarchy/democracy compromise that resulted from it - and if it still wasn't enough, he might have gone even further). He clearly wanted it to be beatable despite the 'setback' of its explosive popularity.
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
ALAKTORN
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Joined: 10/19/2009
Posts: 2527
Location: Italy
Derakon wrote:
So you'd rather there be nothing than something?
who are you to say that there would’ve been nothing? you can see into alternate universes? I still wonder whether a stream left to itself in complete anarchy mode could’ve beaten the game
Banned User, Former player
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
ALAKTORN wrote:
I still wonder whether a stream left to itself in complete anarchy mode could’ve beaten the game
With one participant, sure. With two participants, if they cooperate or make a deal that only one of them inputs moves, sure. With 50 thousand participants? Theoretically possible, but I'd rather have something more interesting happen in anarchy mode than the stream spending weeks at one place and the viewership dropping to single-digits, after which nobody else is interested anymore.
ALAKTORN
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can you teach me how to watch over alternate universes so I can see how boring it would really be for myself?
Guga
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C'mon, that is just hypothetical, you don't have to be like that. Also, based on how many players were in the stream, beating it through Anarchy will be likely to impossible.
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ALAKTORN wrote:
I still wonder whether a stream left to itself in complete anarchy mode could’ve beaten the game
Well.... http://www.twitch.tv/rngplayspokemon This managed to beat Jhoto E4, so I'm sure complete anarchy would eventually be able to beat the game as well, just that it might take a while...
Pokota
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RNGPlaysPokemon doesn't have rival streams trying to sabotage it. Then again, RNGPlaysPokemon isn't nearly as entertaining to watch live, either, as there's no interactivity. Plus the streamer does have to occasionally shove that one in the right direction. That's where TPP was (and honestly? STILL IS) the more attractive stream. Although I would like to run an RNG-played game of Revelations: The Demon Slayer. That one I'm pretty sure you can brute-force your way through.
Adventures in Lua When did I get a vest?
Banned User, Former player
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
I don't understand how purely random input can become even near completion of the game in less time than the estimated age of the universe, no matter how fast you emulate. There's an equal chance of going backwards than going forwards, and than going off-rails. Just getting out of the starting town should be near impossible (and even if it gets out of it, there's an about 50% chance that it will go right back, destroying any progress.) It just sounds like trying to solve the game via brute force, except worse, because it tries things at random rather than meticulously going through all possibilities. If the rng has made any significant progress, I suspect foul play (unless someone can explain to me how it can be possible.) But it got me thinking about a more interesting project: A bot that uses some heuristics to try to beat the game. Something like pre-programmed intermediate goals that the bot should try to achieve (ie. like "reach this point", "do this", and so on), and then it uses semi-random movements that prefer movements that go in the particular direction of the next goal. (Just purely going to that direction isn't going to work unless it has a full path-finding algorithm and other logic that would be quite complicated.) This would, in fact, kind of simulate TPP.
Pokota
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It can't, that's why there's bias in the input.
RNG is running with a 5% bias on start, a 15% bias on A, and a 10% bias on B. The movement bias will be set for ~2% toward the current goal in the event it's needed, and if RNG is on to make it current.
Adventures in Lua When did I get a vest?
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Joined: 3/2/2014
Posts: 34
Location: Canada
Warp wrote:
With one participant, sure. With two participants, if they cooperate or make a deal that only one of them inputs moves, sure. With 50 thousand participants? Theoretically possible, but I'd rather have something more interesting happen in anarchy mode than the stream spending weeks at one place and the viewership dropping to single-digits, after which nobody else is interested anymore.
There's something paradoxical about your logic. If the stream gets too boring, people will start to leave, but then due to decreased viewer count, people will actually cooperate better and the stream will get popular again. I can't comment much on the stream anymore since my computer can't handle the lag anymore, but the democracy/anarchy argument isn't really needed. The creator of the stream added it because he thought it would be better, and when he realized it wasn't as good, he slowly made it so democracy mode wouldn't be used as much, and it went to the point where democracy mode is rarely used now since it is only activated once every hour and if the majority of people don't want it on, they can just vote "anarchy" and the stream changes back to anarchy (if anarchy is the highest voted option).
Warp wrote:
But it got me thinking about a more interesting project: A bot that uses some heuristics to try to beat the game. Something like pre-programmed intermediate goals that the bot should try to achieve (ie. like "reach this point", "do this", and so on), and then it uses semi-random movements that prefer movements that go in the particular direction of the next goal. (Just purely going to that direction isn't going to work unless it has a full path-finding algorithm and other logic that would be quite complicated.) This would, in fact, kind of simulate TPP.
It would resemble a very slow Let's Play more because the bot ignores real world factors (stream delay, lag, messages being eaten etc.)
jlun2 wrote:
Well.... http://www.twitch.tv/rngplayspokemon This managed to beat Johto E4, so I'm sure complete anarchy would eventually be able to beat the game as well, just that it might take a while...
But that stream was played at 3500% speed, so it would take an extreme amount of time to complete, assuming you use only anarchy.
Meerkov wrote:
The human element of the run is far more entertaining than the game itself. If it wasn't for someone lying about their record 40 years ago, I don't think we'd take a second look at this run/game. Meh vote.
Pokota
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Anarchy at least realigns itself towards its current goal. The RNG has to be tweaked as time goes on to keep progressing.
Adventures in Lua When did I get a vest?
Editor, Skilled player (1939)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
(Pokemon Crystal) Currently fighting the Elite Four. The AI won't go easy on them like in Gen 1. However, they seem to have leveled up for a while, so maybe they can beat the Elite Four/Champion now?
Patashu
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FractalFusion wrote:
(Pokemon Crystal) Currently fighting the Elite Four. The AI won't go easy on them like in Gen 1. However, they seem to have leveled up for a while, so maybe they can beat the Elite Four/Champion now?
Last I saw the main problem was that the team blowed outside of Feraligatr - compare to Gen 1, where God-Tier Zapdos could carry the team through everything except like Bruno and maybe Lance on his own.
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
Editor, Skilled player (1939)
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Posts: 3247
The mob used Democracy to use a Rare Candy to evolve Onix to Steelix between fights in the E4. It took around half an hour, because of the way Democracy works and such. Probably one of the weirder things going on. Now back to fighting E4. Edit: The ROM is hacked so all Pokemon are available (those that require trades to evolve in the original now evolve at set levels). Edit 2: They finally beat the E4. Now on to Kanto. (The streamer had to step in when they selected a new game.)
Spikestuff
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FractalFusion wrote:
(The streamer had to step in when they selected a new game.)
Just like Pokemon Red... only they soft reset the game.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. Something better for yourself and also others.
Editor, Skilled player (1939)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
They are fighting Red now. Furthermore, Red's Pokemon are hacked to be the same as TPP Red's Pokemon (the Pokemon that they ended with at the end of TPP Red), except with higher levels. I suppose this Red has much better decision-making skills.
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