adelikat
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I think your reasoning on unflagging Gimmick is very sound, and I agree with that decision.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
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the super metroid movie premise is something the newcomers don't really know about(boss order),and it takes a while to get interesting(6 mins in haven't seen anything visible),i wouldn't recommend it i like zelda but i imagine it might apply also
TAS i'm interested: Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS? i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
Samsara
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feos wrote:
But while we're at it, I want to discuss one more thing. The Gimmick 100% run has been replicated RTA a while ago, so this run, while still being superb, doesn't stand out of skilled real-time speedruns anymore. It's arguably the run that's the least different from the paths that are possible RTA, out of all the recommended runs. Also, it was the run that I picked myself, while all the rest were spotted by the crowd as the runs that blew their minds. So I suggest that when we flag the MK64, we unflag Gimmick.
The current 100% RTA record is still over a minute slower, and that's including the 45-60 second advantage it has for using the new skips/clips, so the reasoning is a bit flawed in that regard. RTA also uses safer strats, so it's not exactly "replicating" the TAS. I'd vote for Gimmick to stay. We honestly don't need to throw it away in favor of more Mario. There's nothing wrong with having both co-exist, except for "rules" that hardly anyone agree on in the first place.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
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I mostly agree with Samsara. A big reason to even have such thing as newcomer recommendations is that the movies in question are really good at representing what a great TAS is but can be easily skipped over, because naturally newcomers will start with something that is most familiar to them. Gimmick is a game very few are familiar with, and it's a great game, and its TASes are excellent and short and well-received by both younger and older audiences. What is showcased in these runs is intuitively clear and doesn't require intimate knowledge of the game mechanics. It checks out on everything a newcomer recommendation should have. Literally the only advantage MK64 has over it is that more people have played it. Its lap skips aren't intuitively comprehensible, the odds of getting particular items are had to put into perspective without having played the game for a while, and precision involved doesn't immediately pop out due to the weird friction mechanics (that, again, require experience to put into perspective). A star is appropriate, a newcomer recommendation... less so. It's a movie mainly for Mario Kart fans, obviously they're going to check it out anyway, and having to educate oneself at length about the mechanics to fully enjoy the movie defeats the purpose of recommending it to newcomers. Hell, I've played this game and still wasn't very entertained. It's more fun to play than it is to watch.
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Alyosha
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Samsara wrote:
I'd vote for Gimmick to stay. We honestly don't need to throw it away in favor of more Mario. There's nothing wrong with having both co-exist, except for "rules" that hardly anyone agree on in the first place.
What are the rules exactly? Are they listed somewhere? (If they are I couldn't find them.) Personally I don't think Gimmick really stands out as being exceptionally good that it warrants a newcomer rec, but I would also say that about mega man 2, mario walkathon, Family Feud, and even Gradius as well. Maybe it's just me, but the newcomer rec list seems really dated. I think Ikaruga for example would serve better then Gradius in there, and one of the recent Mega Man X series runs would be better then mega man 2.
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Alyosha wrote:
Samsara wrote:
I'd vote for Gimmick to stay. We honestly don't need to throw it away in favor of more Mario. There's nothing wrong with having both co-exist, except for "rules" that hardly anyone agree on in the first place.
What are the rules exactly? Are they listed somewhere? (If they are I couldn't find them.) Personally I don't think Gimmick really stands out as being exceptionally good that it warrants a newcomer rec, but I would also say that about mega man 2, mario walkathon, Family Feud, and even Gradius as well. Maybe it's just me, but the newcomer rec list seems really dated. I think Ikaruga for example would serve better then Gradius in there, and one of the recent Mega Man X series runs would be better then mega man 2.
This was my reason for adding them: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13457 I'd like you to read that thread and tell what you think. Also, from the previous page:
feos wrote:
- runs that were several times mentioned in the "what blew your mind" thread - runs that do things that are farthest from intended - runs of popular games - runs with obvious tas-only strats - runs where it's still comprehensible what's being done to the game (being popular helps, as people have knowledge of how it's intended to be played)
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.
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feos wrote:
- runs of popular games
This shouldn't be criteria at all. If a newcomer comes to the site, they're already most likely going to watch runs of popular games. Why should we have to tell them to do that? Why not promote some lesser-known games with mind-blowing runs that show newcomers that it's possible to make some ridiculous stuff in games other than Mario and Metroid? [2641] Arcade Magician Lord by £e_Nécroyeur in 07:17.73 This comes to mind for me instantly when I think of a run I'd recommend to a newcomer. It's short, it's obvious that this isn't how the game's meant to be played, it's glitchy, it's fast as hell, it's hilarious and captivating to watch. And it's not well-known. It's the kind of surprise the site needs to promote. "What's this game?" "Why is the site recommending it to me?" "WHY IS THIS THE BEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN" That's what I want people to think. In short, don't remove anything for being an "unpopular game", and don't consider anything solely based on the game's popularity.
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warmCabin wrote:
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Alyosha
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@feos: Well having read that over, to me it looks more like a retrospective thread, and not so much a 'this is the best we've got' thread. Even at the time of it's creation (2012) it seems to be looking backwards. Now in 2016 when TASing has matured considerably and standards for runs have risen very high, the things that were eye catching before aren't so much anymore. I think it's really apparent with the amazing recent NES run of Legend of Zelda. Surely that run is of very high quality, but really it's now what we expect on average from a good NES run (currently it isn't even starred.) If Mega Man II were published today for example, would it even stand out at all? Personally I don't think so. I guess this is what I mean when I say the list is dated. TASing is just so much more developed and the list hasn't kept up well. Mario suddenly getting powerups from Super Metroid is simply on a different level then 25 minutes of Mario walking casually to the right. For your own reason for Gimmick:
I suddenly think Gimmick must be in that list. Though the game is not famous at all, it appears as a TAS gem and it's unique features get abused insanely well. It has a deep and complicated engine and really conduct the sense of TASing the gameplay way.
For NES maybe this is true enough, but it's not really that complicated when you have runs like F-Zero Jack Cup and Super Monkey Ball in stars for comparison. I would say a similar thing holds when comparing Ikaruga or even Pocky and rocky to Gradius, the level of play is just that much higher. I guess to sum up I would say that newcomer rec should keep up better with what the State of the Art in TASing is, because that frontier has gotten pushed very far forward recently and is still ongoing. EDIT: I should also say that some runs do hold up well over time, that Superstar Soccer run is just really funny.
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The thing with Ikaruga is that realtime superplays also exist for it (even an extremely skillful double-play). The run on the site doesn't really revolutionize the game since it was virtually perfected more than a decade ago. It's a decent choice, but the human superplays are crazy cool already. The thing with super popular games is that a good deal of the time recommending them is redundant. Most of the Mario and Zelda games (especially the N64 gen) attract quite enough attention on their own. So popularity itself should never be a criterion for a recommendation. It's by itself a recommendation. The thing with certain mindblowing runs is that they only appear positively mindblowing if you have some sort of understanding of their mechanics, otherwise being just an incomprehensible mess (e.g. all of those ACE runs—and those are arguably state-of-the-art). There's a fine line between "this is goddamn amazing, I want to see more of this" and "this is some bullshit, to hell with it", and a lot of "mindblowing" runs end up on the wrong side of that line unless you have intimate knowledge of the game and/or have read the submission novel. In my opinion, and I think I can back it up sufficiently, a newcomer rec should first and foremost be newcomer-friendly. Which means they should look and sound good, have intuitive mechanics and the run itself should demonstrate easily discernible level of precision and planning without boring nor alienating the viewer. What is friendly for a pro isn't necessarily friendly for a newcomer. We already have stars for the pros.
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Dropping the popularity factor introduces confusion: "What? You guys think the run of this obscure game is better than OoT, SM64 and Yoshi Island? Are you goosey?" Promoting less known games just feels weird to me, exactly because people know the popular ones and can comprehend the insanity TASing introduced to them better. So to me, this factor is directly related to the mind-blowingness, which is, in fact, one of the strongest emotions people here on the site still remember. Picking such runs is just justified. So yes, more comprehensive runs end up feeling boring, compared to intense, high quality game destruction we all love to see. And that destruction is more likely to impress the newcomers as well. But do note, that the runs don't have to meet all the criteria. They are more like guidelines, to help with final evaluation. Also, I disagree that blowing one's mind has to do with the age of the run. Sure, people keep finding new insane tricks in new games, and we can add deserving runs to the list, and drop the ones that are indeed outdated. For example, SMAS SMB3 playaround blew some minds. And it's really old. So that's an example of a run that will not be newcomered. SMB3 total control is an example of the opposite age-wise, yet we added it, because it does exactly that: it completely blows people's minds.
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.
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why isn't magician lord in the list actually?i could swear it were at some point a recommended movie. http://tasvideos.org/Movies-RatingY-Rec.html
TAS i'm interested: Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS? i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
Samsara
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feos wrote:
Dropping the popularity factor introduces confusion: "What? You guys think the run of this obscure game is better than OoT, SM64 and Yoshi Island? Are you goosey?"
You're forgetting that, yes, runs of these obscure games ARE better than "slide backwards for a while until you warp to a new location", "slide backwards for a while until you warp to a new location", and SMW2. If I had to choose between rewatching one of those runs and rewatching something like Magician Lord... well, I'll just say that I already rewatched Magician Lord yesterday after mentioning it in my post. And it's still a goddamn great run. Sure, the "We need to show off how we destroy games people know well" argument has a little bit of ground, but the popular games already have most of their tricks known. It's nothing new for the audience when Link rolls into an enemy and shoots off backwards at ridiculous speeds. Parallel universes in SM64 are an actual goddamn meme, and BLJs have been known for basically decades at this point. Moat Skip was announced, what, months in advance of the actual run? So people already knew it was possible long before the run was submitted. The level of SMW2 play from people like CarlSagan and triHex (which goes to show exactly how dated my knowledge is) is basically TAS-level at this point, so I could make the same argument for demoting that game as you did for Gimmick. I could also make the argument that people have achieved 0-star runs of SM64 and we shouldn't showcase it because of that. I could also make the argument that the Majora's Mask run we're currently showcasing has been actively beaten in RTA with the discovery of new tricks and we shouldn't showcase it because of that. I could say that zips are being replicated in Sonic 3 as well. But sure, let's go with Gimmick, which still has a level of TAS precision so insanely high that RTA still isn't coming close to matching it even with a full minute advantage due to new tricks. A game no one's ever heard of is going to be new and fresh and exciting for everyone regardless of what kind of game it is. It's going to tell people "You don't need to find a popular game to make an amazing TAS". We don't need to give these games any more praise and attention than they're already getting with their 6 awards, Stars, notable improvement flags, console verification flags, GDQ exposure, actual gaming media exposure... Like moozooh said, they're going to be seen no matter what. Someone familiar with speedrunning and finding the site for the first time, whether it be through GDQ or other means, is immediately going to look for the games they know regardless of what's being recommended to them. Things like SMW and SMB3 are going to get way more hits just based off GDQs alone, they don't exactly need to be recommended. And keep in mind that one of the most popular TASes on the site is Family Feud. People love that run to death, and who the hell has ever cared about the Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game cartridge of the classic television game show Family Feud? Part of what I love about the site and one of the defining factors of what I deem my favorite runs is how unexpected they are. Going from having never heard of a game to having it be one of my favorite TASes of all time is an experience I adore. I'm always so much more impressed by those runs. Putting them on the same level as a Mario or a Metroid just feels natural. Is anyone going to be driven away by looking at Newcomer Recs and seeing Magician Lord there next to Yoshi's Island? No. They're going to wonder why this weird Arcade game is being put on the same level as Yoshi's Island, and that's going to make them want to watch it more. I'm not exactly a good representation of the average viewer, but when I first found the site and started looking through all the runs, things like Gimmick stood out to me as being extremely entertaining runs of games I'd never heard of. Having had a passing interest in it for so long is what drove me to update the any% TAS, and it's what will drive me to update 100% in the future. I'm not saying we should ONLY showcase "unpopular" games or that we should actively demote "popular" games, but that the popularity of the game should not be a factor at all in regards to what we showcase. We shouldn't have to limit Stars or Newcomer Recs to just a select group of games that "deserve it" more than any other.
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warmCabin wrote:
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I can see Magician Lord (and/or some similar runs) getting newcomered, we just need a consensus here. But we can't keep expanding the list forever.
moozooh wrote:
In my opinion, and I think I can back it up sufficiently, a newcomer rec should first and foremost be newcomer-friendly. Which means they should look and sound good, have intuitive mechanics and the run itself should demonstrate easily discernible level of precision and planning without boring nor alienating the viewer. What is friendly for a pro isn't necessarily friendly for a newcomer. We already have stars for the pros.
Should we get back to discussing the current list again? When relying on the thread I linked, I made sure the runs I picked weren't questionable. I'm not sure we can guarantee that again if we just start changing the list based on the preferences of the people ITT: there's too few of us here.
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.
Alyosha
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moozooh wrote:
In my opinion, and I think I can back it up sufficiently, a newcomer rec should first and foremost be newcomer-friendly. Which means they should look and sound good, have intuitive mechanics and the run itself should demonstrate easily discernible level of precision and planning without boring nor alienating the viewer. What is friendly for a pro isn't necessarily friendly for a newcomer. We already have stars for the pros.
As a relative newcomer, my experience is that: -I wasn't even aware of the newcomer recs until several months after joining -Once I did see the list, I was underwhelmed. Maybe it would be worth it to ask the newer TASers about their experiences and see if the Newcomer recs are having the desired impact? Or are even being noticed? That might help guide decisions about what to put there and how to promote it. (Or maybe it's not relevent to newcomers at all and can be re-purposed.)
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Alyosha, are there any runs that blew your mind?
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.
Alyosha
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feos wrote:
Alyosha, are there any runs that blew your mind?
http://tasvideos.org/2513M.html Only the SMW ACE one from AGDQ. (It was also the first TAS I ever saw, I didn't know TAS existed before seeing it.) Also the SMB3 DMC glitch run. 8D
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Shouldn't the newcomer list be more easily accessible from the front page?
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Demon Lord wrote:
Shouldn't the newcomer list be more easily accessible from the front page?
the irony
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Its movies show up instead of stars for those logged out.
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.
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Demon Lord wrote:
Shouldn't the newcomer list be more easily accessible from the front page?
It's funny how well-hidden this is. A newcomer would first have to click on the tab controls on the front page, instead of the flashy picture content. Then he gets a screen with six sub-tabs, and will have to divine the difference between "tier", "list", "category", and "special category". Clearly the last of these has the newcomer list he's looking for, amidst a dozen other terms that don't make a lot of sense to newcomers :D That said, I agree that newcomer runs should be of well-known games, because these have the greatest appeal to people unfamiliar with TASing. Aside from that, it would help to have a greater diversity:
  • 5 out of 15 recommendations are Mario games, whereas no other franchise has more than one game.
  • 11 out of 15 recommendations are of the platform or Metroidvania genres. Genres like beat-em-up or RTS are absent entirely.
  • 8 out of 15 recommendations are NES and SNES. I can understand not having any A2600 or VirtualBoy games here, but the list should arguably include e.g. Arcade, DOS, Playstation, and Wii.
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Radiant wrote:
Aside from that, it would help to have a greater diversity:
  • 5 out of 15 recommendations are Mario games, whereas no other franchise has more than one game.
  • 11 out of 15 recommendations are of the platform or Metroidvania genres. Genres like beat-em-up or RTS are absent entirely.
  • 8 out of 15 recommendations are NES and SNES. I can understand not having any A2600 or VirtualBoy games here, but the list should arguably include e.g. Arcade, DOS, Playstation, and Wii.
Agree on all points.
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Samsara
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Newcomer Recs should all have some defining TAS-like aspect to them, something that anyone can see regardless of how much they know about the hobby. I'm all for diversity as well, as I think there are a lot of solid runs out there that show off TAS precision much better than Marios and Metroids. With that said, I may as well go through every recommended movie we have and offer a brief summary of my thoughts on them. KEEP: Aria of Sorrow "all souls": It is one of the only movies that continually blows my mind every time I watch it. It's just perfect. It defines luck manipulation and insane movement/glitch usage. Yoshi's Island "100%": This should be the sole Mario game we have recommended, because it manages to captivate you for 2 hours without ever getting boring. It shows off just how much control TASers have at any given time by using precise movement and lots of playaround antics. It's a show-offy run, and not only is that legitimate praise, but it's the best praise I can give it. Cave Story: Still a fantastic run, and one of the very few TASes we have where the watcher can actually go and play the game right afterward. It could potentially be one of the most eye-opening TASes we have if we also recommend that newcomers play the game afterward and see just how much more intense the TAS is. Family Feud: One of our defining and most popular runs, it's a perfect example of the playaround nature of TASing, where not every run has to be "FASTEST POSSIBLE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES". It's also funny as hell. International Superstar Soccer Deluxe: Honestly, same reasoning as Family Feud, but it does it in such a different way with a different game that no one would expect anything exciting out of. It's one of my go-to recommendations. Gimmick! "100%": I already sang this run's praises earlier in the discussion. Gimmick's super-polished, interesting, abusable mechanics make it a prime watch in my opinion. The run may be a bit outdated at the moment, but it won't stay that way for TOO much longer. Gradius: It may have fallen out of my personal favorites list, but that doesn't mean it's lost its charm or excitement. Proving that a horizontal space shooter can make an excellent playspace, it should be kept for genre variety. UNDECIDED: SMB3 "ACE": My only issue with this one is having too many Mario games. This is the most creative ACE run we have, and we absolutely need a solid ACE playaround recommended to newcomers, but if diversity's an angle we're going for then we might need to decide whether or not we should have two Mario runs in a short list of 15 games. Either that or we could just knock up the number of recs we have and it'll be fine. If it does end up getting replaced, I'd recommend Pokemon "pi" as a suitable replacement for a creative ACE run. Mega Man 2: A lot of the Mega Man runs are starting to feel the same to me right now. While this is a classic run, it doesn't do a WHOLE lot to make it stand out from the rest. I would honestly prefer to see the original game's TAS replace it for the DelayStageClear shenanigans and the Magnet Beam abuse, but it's not a glowing recommendation from me. Majora's Mask: With so many new discoveries since its publication, this time has been beaten RTA. It's not a timing thing either: Even when both runs use the same timing, RTA is still faster. If a new run utilizing all the new finds wasn't being actively worked on at the moment, I would recommend this be dropped, but instead I suppose we should keep it and have it replaced with the new run when the time comes. Sonic 3: It's become mostly zips, which are fun for a while, but when you think about it there are a lot of other zippy runs out there (look at AoS, for example), and a lot of these zips have been replicated RTA. It may be mind-blowing to newcomers, but it's one of those things that gets stale after most stages are skipped. I'd rather see Sonic Adventure here, personally. DROP: SM64 "0 star": This doesn't really show off what's possible in SM64. RTA runners have matched the 0 star route, and even though it'll be obsoleted by "1 key", the fact that SM64 parallel universes are an honest-to-god meme means that a good amount of people are going to come in and know everything that's going on from the get-go. If we have to replace it with another SM64 run, either of the others is fine. 120-star shows off the broken mechanics, and 70-star shows off that the game can still be beaten extremely quickly even when not abusing the most broken exploit. Otherwise, I'd recommend the Banjo-Kazooie improvement as a replacement. Super Metroid "RBO": Popular game, series, goal, sure. I still feel this is an arbitrary inclusion to the list. Everything Metroid does as a game and this run does as a TAS, Aria of Sorrow "all souls" does better, faster, and flashier. If we want a Metroid game, why not Prime Hunters? Same series, different console, different genre, arguably more fun to watch for me. Makes sense. SMB3 "warps": Yoshi's Island does everything better, in my opinion. The precision is tight, but YI has much more of it. The playarounds are fun, but YI has much more of them. Also, if we keep SMB3 "ACE", then we'd literally be recommending the same game twice. I'm not a fan of that. For a non-repeated run that masters tricky movement and playaround sections, how about I shamelessly self-promote Umihara Kawase "sightseeing"? SMB "walkathon": Honestly, there's only one level in the entire run that's worth watching. I love the history behind the run and the research required to make that one level possible, and the setup/payoff is amazing, but the rest of the run is just a site meme. We may as well recommend Color a Dinosaur. As for runs I want to see bumped up to Newcomer Recs, I'd have to have a good think about those and consider whether or not I just like them for personal reasons or if they're actually great recommendations for newcomers to TASing. I'll probably get around to doing that late next month.
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Samsara, I have to disagree with you about Mario Kart 64 being another Mario. I wouldn't count a spin-off series as part of the main series and use the number of existing runs of that main series as an argument against the spin-off title. Mario Kart 64 represents the racing genre and the funracer subgenre in particular. As of now, there are only 4 true racing games published in the star tier, including Mario Kart 64 (007 Nightfire also has the tag, but that's really just an FPS with a few vehicle stages). The newcomer tier has no racing games at all. I know I'm a bit biased here as someone who, in RTA, almost exclusively runs racing games, including Mario Kart 64. But I do think the racing genre is underrepresented on this site.
Current project: Gex 3 any% Paused: Gex 64 any% There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.
Samsara
She/They
Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2108)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2821
Location: Northern California
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family. Now infrequently posting on Bluesky
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Banned User
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
Just some ideas I have about the recommended TASes: - A few of them ought to be absolute glitchfests, to really show how badly a TAS can break a game. One of them should just destroy the game so badly that it becomes unrecognizable. Another should not exactly break the game, but should zip through the game at absolutely impossible speeds due to heavy glitching (Megaman comes to mind as an example.) - Some of them should be relatively (or even completely) glitch-free, but clearly show absolute superhuman "skill", that clearly no human should be capable of. In other words, showcase the very essence of tool-assistance. - Some of them should just be really flashy and showy, like a work of art. Bonus points if it does it so in a manner that's next to impossible in real-time playing. - If possible, at least one should showcase heavy luck manipulation, preferably, and if possible, in a manner that's clear even to somebody who has never played or even seen the game before. - A couple should be of immensely popular and well-known games, just because they are immensely popular and well-known. No other reason needed. There's nothing wrong with that. It attracts people.