Post subject: Kind-of-but-not-really FAQs about why I've been inactive
Joined: 5/13/2013
Posts: 180
Hah, it's been many a moon since I've visited my fellow tool assisted bretheren, hasn't it, Sir adelikat? I offer my deepest apologies. You all must understand, I am still very well within the process of learning and mastering the art of superplaying, and I've spent a vast majority of my time researching game mechanics and such as a result, also tying in with my research in game development in hopes of making my Shadow Of The Heart Game (now called Star [DISCIPLE]) Predicting that the better part of you folks will likely be flooding my inbox with questions like "where the hell have you been" and such. Here are the answers: Q: Yushiro, where the hell have you been?! We've been looking all over for you! A: Life has not been a kind maiden to me as of late. From the month of March onward, I was desperately searching for a job, and thank the powers that be, I found one! It's gotten a little troublesome to keep track of my work schedule though, so it hasn't been easy and I haven't had much time to do many things. Not only that, but the time before I had a job, we were stuck in a hotel room, and my whole family was up in arms over the stress of finding a house for us, and as a result my stepfather fiercely restricted usage of the only computer I could use to do my TAS projects, and even when I DID have time to be allowed to use it, I didn't get long enough to make any serious progress. Now that things are looking up and getting better for us, he's changed his ways and is being much more generous with my computer allowance, so expect results from your little apprentice TASer in the future (And believe me, I've learned from my perilous mistake of uploading an unfinished Kirby Super Star TAS :P) Q: Yushiro, have you been practicing? Do you have any WIP TASes in progress? A: The short answer: A good bit of "yes" and a small tad of "no". Yes, in that I am experimenting with different genres of games that can be TASed (including Garry's Mod's Source Engine's host_timescale command just for research purposes) to better learn basic techniques of TASing such as luck and RNG manipulation, glitching (I've only been able to achieve exploit glitches twice ever, one with Super Mario Bros 1 for NES on a serious TAS I did back in 2015 and another with a practice TAS of Mega Man 3 on Shadow Man's stage where I was somehow able to get Shadow Man to jump in one place) and ONE RARE! instance where I succeeded in memory corruption in Final Fantasy 3; I don't know how I did it and I may never know. Q: Yushiro, do you have anyone helping you with your projects who knows anything at all about TASing? A: Yes, and I realize that having a small army of helpers assisting you with your project is a big part of TASing and in some areas is actually required. While I don't possess the aforementioned small army necessary at the moment I do have a moderate number of folks coaching me, one of whom happens to me my sister Sophia, who is only 7 years old. Now get this about my sister: despite being such a young age, she almost drastically surpasses my own level of intelligence, displaying such great feats of puzzle solving, problem solving and even a few math skills! (I didn't even know she knew how to DO math!) Not only that but she's witnessed me working on a TAS of many different games before, and whenever I have the RAM search window open and she sees all the address values for the game I have up, somehow she's able to tell me what address value changes what thing, and she's almost always correct! And keep in mind, this is a child who is seven years old and spends a vast majority of her time playing outside; I've not yet taken an ample amount of time to teach her almost ANYTHING about constructing a TAS, and by some gracious miracle, she somehow knows what's in the game's programming and what it does. (There was one instance where I owned a Colecovision Flashback console and one of the games on its ROM was a poker game that she and I played together; I only made $200 virtual dollars, but she somehow walks away with a whopping $64,000. HOW?!) Q: Yushiro, why haven't you submitted anything previously in the few times you have been recently active? Don't you want to be recognized on TASvideos? A: While I am more than humbly grateful that the Great And Powerful adelikat has allowed me to settle in the vast kingdom of TASVideos and I have more than all the respect for its rules, policies and guidelines, as your guides stated, creating a TAS, depending on the game, takes a very long time and requires a lot of patience, and depending on the game in question, it can take weeks, months or even years. (I remember that TAS of Majora's Mask took three years to do according to its description). Taking that note well, when I was producing my practice TAS of Super Mario Bros 1 on my old Windows XP tower I received as a gift, it took me about four days just reach World 2-3, and that's including the use of exploit glitches such as moonwalking through blocks (sometimes Michael Jackson style), the fabled Block Jump glitch and I even made use of the first two steps of the -1 World Glitch to avert the mountain-high jump over to the Warp Zone in order to get to World 2-3. (I know I could have just went to the World 3 pipe but I was learning how to cut down the number of frames.) Not only that but add to that the amount of moving we had to do from hotel room to hotel room that was required for us to survive at the period in time and I didn't have a flexible schedule to do my work on. Nevertheless I am bound and determined to produce *some* form of at least an experimental or test TAS so I can show you all what I've learned. Q; Yushiro, when will you actually make another submission and have a finished TAS? A: It's a little hard to say, though I never said it would never be done. Like I said, I have all due respect for the rules and regulations that apply to TASvideos and one of the most prominent ones here that I have memorized is that 1. there cannot be more than one submission of one game at a time, unless the one newly submitted meets all criteria including its finishing time being faster than the previous movie, 2. the hardest difficulty must be set on the game so the TASer can display what they've learned (I think this is the reason, if I'm wrong correct me please) and 3. you HAVE to be constantly moving in the TAS and not stop for anything unless the game forces you to for a certain reason. I am still in the process of learning all these completely and mastering them and it's taking me quite a bit of time. I promise you all, my friends that somewhere in the future I will have a finished product! I hope this clears things up for you guys! Thanks and have a fanTAStic day!
A wise man once said "Damn, that's one hell of a steak."