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Posts: 1007
Gyre wrote:
dwango, as a heads up I wanted to let you know that we'll be using NES consoles at the event with the NESRGB mod to capture over s-video. I'm not aware of any timing differences since it uses the original CPU and leaves the PPU in place while bypassed. If you know of any problems getting sync with this mod installed, yell at us now.
I'm unaware of any problems. Perhaps in between a run I can do a quick 30 second test ahead of time to check for certain, however; I won't be arriving at SGDQ until the 6th so I can't do it ahead of time. My guess is it'll be just fine, however. Thanks for the heads up!
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4083
Location: The Netherlands
(Not directly related to dwangoAC's TAS Block/TASBot work and promotion, but still had to dump this somewhere as it does involve SGDQ promotion)
On Friday night just ahead of SGDQ 2016, MitchFlowerPower got to run SMB3 on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The video is up on YouTube now.
Link to video
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
So, when are we going to see that Mario 3 run submitted?
It might be a while. The problem is that although it works on console (as demonstrated), it doesn't actually work on emulator the way that TASvideos sees it; you can't produce that result by replaying an input file on any emulator we accept. We may have to wait for more accurate emulators before it becomes submittable.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
I suppose the Pokemon Plays Twitch run that was actually shown at AGDQ was the first time we had a console-verified file that couldn't be published here, though we got the heavily modified version as a submission in its place. This is the first time that we have a console-verified run that could actually be acceptable in its current form in the future.
The SMB3 run can only be run on an emulator with the help of a Lua script, which we cannot accept here. Once subframe/poll-based input is implemented in one of our accepted NES emulators, then a proper input file can be made and submitted.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
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.
Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6337
Location: The land down under.
I got bored... enjoy: http://pastebin.com/erFeHWJq (.srt format, for YouTube.)
Version 1. Basically got everything that was from that interview, there's probably a few thing wrong with it, so someone else might want to go over it
Edit: There is a mistake at line 32 (00:01:50,980).
I wrote "TASbot" not "TASBot".
That fix in place, since I didn't spot anything else:
http://pastebin.com/55kGu0HS
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account.Something better for yourself and also others.
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.
Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player
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Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1007
I am slowly recovering from the PR activities before and after SGDQ 2016 and ready to reflect on what went well and what still needs improvement:
In my personal opinion, PR around the event for TASVideos.org as the go-to site for TAS movies as well as TASBot as the general mascott for console verification was very good. One of the problems I've been struggling with is trying to figure out how to deal with the fact that TASBot is not the end-all-be-all of console verification and in reality is not even really featured very often on TASVideos itself. Heck, I wasn't even on board with using the name TASBot at the beginning, but it's undeniable how things have taken off on their own in the last 2 1/2 years over 5 events. I'm rambling a bit, but see below for some of the ways both were in the news in a positive light.
The unexpected This Week in Tech's The New Screensavers appearance in episode 60 was very fortunate timing, and a lot of fun. I was able to promote TASVideos.org as well as Games Done Quick, and the episode (purportedly) had a higher than normal viewer count, although there were probably other factors. There was a modest boost in traffic following the segment, but again, this could have also been SGDQ 2016 traffic starting up.
There was an unscheduled interview segment at SGDQ 2016 where link_7777 and I were able to explain a bit about what a TAS is, which was really useful for setting up the audience prior to the actual run (which happened less than an hour later). I don't have numbers for how this affected the site but I namedropped TASVideos.org and explained a bit about how TASVideos and TASBot are different but related things, so all good there. I'm happy with the segment.
The TAS block at SGDQ 2016 started out slow through no fault of our own due to some bizzare problem with the stream room PC's resolution that required changing resolutions a few times and took CoolMatty and the rest of the tech crew quite a while to resolve. Once that was done, everything generally went smoothly with SML2. VVVVVV was OK, although Mundungu seriously needed a glass of water. I'm glad we got VVVVVV out of the way, because I plan to reference it a lot when it comes time for pitching future GDQ events; it went on too long and even with commentary it led to folks in IRC saying things like "I'm underwhelmed by the TAS block this year". It was obviously a huge surprise to many that we were able to console verify Lost Levels and in general the SMB quad play went reasonably well, but MeGotsThis was a bit too obviously reading from a script that he didn't have memorized very well and I didn't have an opportunity to mention the controller visualization drift until near the end. The SMB3 any% run was, if anything, more entertaining because it didn't work the first time (I don't know *why* it didn't work, FWIW). The HotPocket% was more amusing than anything to be taken seriously, but the room was really into it even if a few viewers were very confused and didn't understand the meme stemming from MitchFlowerpower's Late Show with Stephen Colbert appearance. Overall, I'm happy with how the block turned out in part because we were able to avoid any major technical hurdles and my presentation was better than the last event, but I still need to do a better job introducing TAS'ing *during* the block rather than just in an interview section and I need to do a better job of thanking people, which is always way harder than one would think it should be.
The Ars Techncia coverage at http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/07/how-to-beat-super-mario-bros-3-in-less-than-a-second/ was a very welcome surprise. I didn't think there was going to be enough from SGDQ 2016 to be worth Kyle Orland doing another piece, but it turns out I was wrong. I feel like we have way more press coverage from them than we deserve but I'm quite thankful this happened.
Possibly fueled by the Ars coverage, the official GamesDoneQuick channel encode of the SGDQ 2016 TASBot block has reached nearly 200,000 views as of now, with some lively discussion.
In an effort to not double-count how much was raised during our block I'm now only looking at the difference between $867,967 at the beginning of the TASBot block and $910,267 at the end, which comes out to $42,300. The other way to look at it would be to total up the donationincentiveswe met which adds up to $40,522, but again, I don't want to double-count, so don't try adding those two numbers together. For AGDQ 2016 I went with the "raised during the block" math, and I'll be sticking with that for now unless there's a compelling reason not to.
The Yetee TASBot T-Shirt designed by @AngeAlbertini was a huge success. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to share exact figures, but I have it on good authority that it helped raise an additional $5k.
The upcoming DEF CON talk I'll be giving has also raised interest, even though I haven't even presented it yet. On a smaller scale, I'll be giving the same talk at SVLUG on the 3rd and again at NBLUG on the 9th of August, which will also be a nice bit of exposure.
Other press coverage included TechnoBuffalo and Geek, the latter of which had quite a heated discussion.
It's late and I need to stop looking up links, so this is a good place to stop and solicit feedback from others. What did you like? What should be changed? Speak up! Thanks for the support and feedback.
I think all was perfect this year! Fantastic news about presentations/interviews.
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.
I liked how in that The New Screensavers segment not only was the actual console prominently shown on screen, but you explained that it is an original unmodified console, and the only thing that TASBot is doing is feeding it normal controller input. (Minor perfectionist nitpick: It would have been good to also mention that the game itself was also the original unmodified game.)
I would have liked to see that at the SGDQ event as well. There are always new viewers who don't know what's going on, so it would be good to take a few seconds to explain briefly that no, there isn't any odd trickery going on, that it really is the actual original console running the actual original game, and that nothing more is done than feed controller input to it through the normal controller port. In the case of beating the four Mario games, it would have been a cool mention to say, and if possible show, that they are indeed running on four NES consoles.
But other than that, no complaints. It went great.
Joined: 1/15/2015
Posts: 79
Location: United Kingdom
One thing I think should be in future GDQs is a mention of the fact that different types of videos get shown at Awesome and Summer. It's been made quite clear on this site, but I saw several people complaining there wasn't anything like what they had seen at an AGDQ.
Well, to be honest with you, I think the TAS introduction this year was even more horrible than AGDQ. There's a lot of terms being flown around and you were very abstract.
The Mega Man game afterwards was a mess too. Lots of numbers of the screen, but you didn't really explain them. "Taking a memory tour" doesn't cut it. Most people aren't programmers or hardware enthusiasts. They won't know what it means.
The introduction should be handled in such a way that one would go on about a presentation. Pick a game. Show save states. Show frame advance. Show memory contents (speed, position, etc). You almost had it with the Mega Man at AGDQ (I think?).
But enough of the negative stuff. The TASbot block did show off some interesting stuff, though I don't think it was a particularly enjoyable selection (but that may just be me). So looking forward to the next time! I also know how much work goes into this, so let me just also add: thanks for an enjoyable show, and thanks for all your hard work, everyone involved! You are the ones who are making the TASbot block show up and for that you deserve praise!
I think the multi-run was the weakest part of the TAS block this time around. The commentary was poorly delivered and it takes a lot of practice and experience to make reading from a script entertaining, which this one wasn't. More then that, the fact that controller input wasn't synced up really took away from the whole point of using the same inputs to play each game. If the contoller lights aren't in sync, it is far from obvious that this is happening. I know with real world hardware this is tricky to do, but I think the point of the run was really lost.
I actually liked memory tour, it was obvious that things were changing when blocks were being hit, it was a cool demonstration.
I thought VVVVVVV was pretty boring. It's obvious that a TAS will complete the game perfectly, so there really just isn't much excitement in watching it happen. I think a lot of the entertainment in GDQ's in general is the human aspect of speed running, which a normal TAS simply can't re-create. I think this is part of what pushes the TAS block towards extreme glitches and hardware antics to begin with, since a normal TAS just doesn't have the life that a human runner can provide to a run.
Of course the 2 second SMB3 run was amazing 8D
I think the hot pocket race was a fun and much needed bit of humor, so that was good.
Overall though the block as a whole was really well organized and executed, even if the content was a bit lacking, your growing experience with these events is really showing Dwango, keep up the great work!
Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6337
Location: The land down under.
Alyosha wrote:
I think the multi-run was the weakest part of the TAS block this time around.
The interesting part is that people on reddit (r/speedrun) said that we stuffed up our ordering again and that the multi-run was the most interesting thing out of them all in the TASBlock (besides ~2 second completion). Because this isn't something that you'd normally see, so of course it was more boring to us compared to the viewers that have never seen it before.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account.Something better for yourself and also others.
I think the multi-run was perfect. The only issue was mentioning the time shift so late, vocal comments were greatly done, for all the people who were watching this for the first time, it would very well feel like the commentary is happening on the fly, like it was during this fantastic race of Ninja Gaiden.
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.
I'd say the bigger problem with VVVVVV is that the TAS playthrough merely looks like perfect human play. There aren't really any surprises to be had. The run does obviously plays things very close to death, but there's no risk of actually dying. There's no unexpected TAS-only strats. The game isn't really broken.
I mean, as someone who appreciates a good no-glitch TAS, it's still a great piece of work. But for a GDQ event, I think you need to be striving to showcase runs that really set TASing apart from normal speedruns. I'd say that means that TASes will have to have either at least some degree of game breakage, or they will have to use strategies that are blatantly and obviously inaccessible to humans.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I'd say the bigger problem with VVVVVV is that the TAS playthrough merely looks like perfect human play. There aren't really any surprises to be had. The run does obviously plays things very close to death, but there's no risk of actually dying. There's no unexpected TAS-only strats. The game isn't really broken.
I mean, as someone who appreciates a good no-glitch TAS, it's still a great piece of work. But for a GDQ event, I think you need to be striving to showcase runs that really set TASing apart from normal speedruns. I'd say that means that TASes will have to have either at least some degree of game breakage, or they will have to use strategies that are blatantly and obviously inaccessible to humans.
I think the idea was that we don't have to strive for glitchy mess exclusively at SGDQs. The event is softer, some pure replays are alright, as long as we can comment them well.
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.
