In the IRC after SMB3 Total Control was published, an interesting discussion arose from the fact that we currently don't have any Newcomer'd ACE TASes. Initially the thought was to go to SMB3, but after further debate it was decided that a poll should be created to decide it.
Remember, this is different from selecting a Star run, as this run that will be newcomer'd is already agreed upon to be entertaining and high caliber. Instead, vote for the one that presents the idea of ACE to a newcomer as easily as possible.
Also, having none of them being newcomer'd is a perfectly acceptable response, so yeah.
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter
- some loser
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Who decided that a poll should decide it, you?
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.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Well, if it makes you happy.
If I were to give your poll any weight, you should also better explain the issues with each one.
This has to be most easily accessible to a newcomer as not being some kind of hacked game.
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.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3598)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4738
Location: Tennessee
My concern with SMB3 is that a newcomer might get a misconception of what we are doing. The things they are seeing could be mistaken for rom-hacking or using cheats. Since they would have a primitive understanding of what TASing is, a movie like this might give them the wrong impression.
On the other hand, the SMW TAS that turns the game into Pong and Snake is a lot more accessible. Cheats don't turn games into other games, nor is this a logical rom-hack thing to do. It presents the idea in a more accessible way.
I voted for the SMW TAS for this reason. I think none is also a viable option. Maybe ACE isn't a thing better appreciated with a mature understanding of what TASing is.
It looks like everyone is really focused on the part that happens after the runs get total control.
Edit: I'm talking about the attention span of newcomers, etc...
Warning: Might glitch to creditsI will finish this ACE soon as possible
(or will I?)
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
adelikat wrote:
On the other hand, the SMW TAS that turns the game into Pong and Snake is a lot more accessible. Cheats don't turn games into other games, nor is this a logical rom-hack thing to do.
...so, Color-A-Dinosaur never happened?
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.
I agree with adelikat and SMB3. Basically this can be mistaken with a romhack, and the final message from the princess doesn't help either.
On the other hand, despite SMW being more accesible... THERES 2 OTHER STARRED RUNS OF THE GAME. Personally, having 3 starred SMW TASes is a bit too much and it's very unlikely we're going to remove a star from the warps and 120 exits runs due to how excellent they are.
As for Pokemon, I don't know. It's the first run to do something like this but it's not as impressive as back then, even more with the new discoveries with the Gen 1 games.
In my personal opinion, none of the ACE runs should have a newcomers icon, it's simply not a good idea, at least for me.
Personally I don't think that either of these runs is documented in a newcomer friendly way. "Newcomer' doesn't necessarily mean 'stupid' , and some newcomers might be pretty technically knowledgeable, but my opinion would be that any ACE TAS recommended for newcomers should have author's notes written with this in mind. (The SMB3 run for example has 'as seen in the previous run' references which are not newcomer friendly.)
So I think an ACE TAS could be a good newcomer candidate, since as GDQ's show they are extremely popular, I think some more careful documentation is needed first.
Newcomer Rec was designed to keep runs that blew people's minds, regardless of when it happened. It showcases how super popular games can be abused to maximum.
However, Megaman 1 isn't there, because it's hard to follow, and Megaman 2 is there, because while maximum glitchy, it's kinda easier to follow.
So SMB3 total control absolutely blew people's minds, as did Pokemon Plays Twitch. What about SMW Pong? Did it really blow people's minds?
Then, there's a technical achievement criterion. Each of the runs showcase maximum what can currently be done, and they become more and more impressive during tme, Pi is cute, but rather simple, Pong is 2 years old and kinda faded now, as we saw SMW Mario Maker. SMB3 is super fresh and super neat.
The recent AGDQ event was super successful for tasbot, so if we explain things well in the movie text, it is the run people are likely to want to see when we first arrive, and it's best to be easily accessible.
So while MM1 and MM2 are of the same level of impressiveness, but of different level of comprehensibility, SMB3 total control is by all means the most impressive of the 3, both technically and visually. Bonus points for having a human actually play it before thousands of people (human playing pong is not anymore that impressive really). So if we put Pong there, we're lowering the standard for Newcomer Rec with hopes to be comprehensible, which we probably shouldn't do. It didn't even have a star, just because the payload was not that entertaining. If not the 2 day deadline, Masterjun would have time to do more, but it's what we have.
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.
So SMB3 total control absolutely blew people's minds, as did Pokemon Plays Twitch. What about SMW Pong? Did it really blow people's minds?
It did, especially because it was the first ACE-as-playaround to be shown at a GDQ. The vast majority of the speedrunning audience had no idea that something like that was possible when they saw it (and even most of the people who thought they knew what was coming thought it would just be a jump-to-credits glitch).
I'm on the side of not newcomer rec'ing ACE movies. Yes, the payloads are impressive, but the payload itself is really the only thing that differentiates ACE from a more generic "game end glitch" movie.
You won't see half of the impressive stuff that actually happens if you don't look closely at an ACE run's mechanics, just the setup (which for ACEs of the same game should be relatively identical) and the payload. And in many cases, understanding what goes on during an ACE run requires a lot of in-depth knowledge (at the very least about the game) that newcomers would probably be scared away from further investigating it.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3598)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4738
Location: Tennessee
That is a current rule yes, it seemed logical at the time of making the tag. But I don't think it has to be a set in stone rule and we could change it if we have good reason.
Movies ideal for newcomers isn't necessarily a subset of movies that are ideal for the Star tier.
Joined: 12/28/2013
Posts: 396
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
The only run out of these 3 that I believe that should be a Newcomer Recommendation is the SMW one. I personally liked SMB3 much more, but it has in-house jokes and stuff that look like 'hack', as Adelikat said. It's a pity if we can't Newcomer the SMW run just because it's not stared.
I don't think that it is 'unfair' that it has a moon, I just think moon runs should also be eligible for Newcomer Recommendations. The requisites for a run being stared and newcomer'd are different, and there're many moon runs that are awesome for newcomers.
Movies ideal for newcomers isn't necessarily a subset of movies that are ideal for the Star tier.
What is the meaning of the Star tier?
For very long it has (perhaps only de facto) had the meaning of "a small selection of runs that demonstrate particularly well what TASing is all about", or in other words, "if you are looking for cool TASes, check these first". In other words, cool TASes for newcomers.
If it does not mean that, then what does it mean?
Yes. Newcomer is essentially the fourth tier, one step higher than Star.
(that might not have been intended, but that is in practice what it turned out to be, anyway)
The recent AGDQ event was super successful for tasbot, so if we explain things well in the movie text, it is the run people are likely to want to see when we first arrive, and it's best to be easily accessible.
Uh...don't people usually just skim it through? Hell there's a 5 second intro on every encode saying that it's a TAS, and to this day there's still people who go and claim "this can't be human".
Back on topic, the ending to the SM3 video, while I know the message about it fake is a joke, chances are someone will go and say "see this is a hack!"
Joined: 4/15/2013
Posts: 331
Location: In the attic
My two cents:
Pokémon Yellow
The 'Pi Day' TAS, in my opinion, is more of a 'demo tier' thing. Considering that it is far from representative of what we can do with ACE nowadays, I do not believe that it belongs in RfN at all.
Super Mario World
It may, to the layperson, seem like a novel idea to 'program' Pong and Snake into an SNES game, but this particular movie has recently been superseded by the Mario Maker All-Stars TAS, rendering it (in a way, not de facto) obsolete.
Super Mario Bros 3
This TAS best represents what is truly possible with Arbitrary Code Execution. However, the fact that it looks particularly 'hacky', for want of a better term, makes it liable to mislead the first-time viewer. As has been suggested by others here, there is sure to be at least that one person who will take Princess Toadstool's parting words at face value.
If anything, if we are going to have an RfN ACE TAS (if you'll pardon the excessive use of abbreviations), then we, as a community, should create something entirely new that a) shows off SMB3 Total Control levels of exploitation, but also b) makes it expressly clear that no actual ROM hacking is involved (perhaps doing what ais523 suggested above)
In conclusion, I have decided that none of the above publications are fit for the Recommended for Newcomers section. As such, my vote is for "None".
Yes. Newcomer is essentially the fourth tier, one step higher than Star.
(that might not have been intended, but that is in practice what it turned out to be, anyway)
I found this comment pretty interesting, are we actually trying to present these TASes to newcomers or just being pedantic? After all I was a 'newcomer' only a little over a year ago and never noticed 'newcomer' TASes until one of the random star movies on the front page happened to be one with a question block, and only realized that block meant 'recommended for new comers' after clicking on it since I didn't know why it was there.
the most visually explicit is the SMW one,
all the 3 tases are impressives but two of them requiere knowledge ( like what is color a dinausaur or what is PI day )
everybody know what snake is, so it should make the run "more accessible"
Back on topic, the ending to the SM3 video, while I know the message about it fake is a joke, chances are someone will go and say "see this is a hack!"
From youtube:
SHIGERU KNEW?!!!!!
Dislike only for a message in 8:33 Is fake :/
+Lord Tom How developers knew that someday TAS exists? and emulators also? Super Mario Bros 3 was born in 1988
Crei que era un Super Mario Bros 3 normal :( no uno modificado
Turns out some people do take things at face value. I'm sorry, but I'm voting for "None".
