Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
The problem with the criteria that you pointed out is that you don't want to use them consistently.
You mentioned stuff like:
Sales
Popularity
Audiovisual
Speed
The first three are clearly about the game. The fourth could be about the game, but you want to make it about the branch. I don't find that to be a consistent set of cohesive rules.
The criteria I want to see laid out are clear cut in what is the same, what is different, and how we define preference at a game level.
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 don't want to define preference at a game level, I don't think that's possible. The preference may change over time with new submissions. If an impressive new strategy or glitch is found that only works in some versions, it may change the preference towards that previously inferior version, without necessarily requiring a new branch.
Also, I retracted sales and popularity in a previous post, you were right that audience preference is the actual metric and sales and popularity are only proxies for it.
So the three factors so far are:
audience preference
audiovisual quality
speed (this too may be seen only as a proxy for audience preference, depending on how you want to look at it)
and only audiovisual quality is mostly inherent to the version, not the submission. Audience preference may be bound to the version as well, but individual submissions may sway people.
My main complaint is that I think in the current rules there are other factors that shouldn't be there, specifically factors that inherently prefer NTSC over PAL outside those three factors that would naturally prefer NTSC in cases where it makes sense (aka most cases).
I'm sorry to go on about this, but the SMB PAL submission is the best example I have of this right now. I have read the judge's notes and especially the decision tree again, and I think part of the problem is that it was a two-step process. You considered obsoletion first, brushed it aside as lunacy, and then considered opening up a new branch for it. The result was that it doesn't deserve one (which is understandable), and hence was rejected.
I'm looking at it in opposite order: you first decide that it is too similar to the NTSC version first so they compete with another and you need to pick a favourite out of the two. Then you need to justify which of the two it is, and this is where the criteria I'm trying to formalize come in. They are not sufficently mentioned in the notes (since considering things in the other order made it easy to skip over them), and you have successfully avoided my attempts to get them out of you so far by saying they were not comparable and just different games.
My initial suspicions when reading the judgment hence were that some of these factors played a role in it as well which I'd describe as questionable:
Prefer the currently published run (this is not totally unreasonable actually if the goal is to conserve publishing resources)
Prefer the run done in the original version (as mentioned e.g. here)
I'd be happy to hear that these weren't factors, and which factors were used instead, as an example of how rulings like these are made currently. The fact that the notes didn't spend any time discussing these led to some of the outcry and my bold claim (which I'm still sorry for) that maybe it wasn't actually considered well enough when the decision was made.
I totally admit that the factors I'm mentioning above not necessarily make for consistent rules (e.g. speed is hard to compare between versions, and relying on the audience preference too heavily may be problematic since people tend to like new things, so you may end up unreasonably obsoleting back and forth between versions on new submissions). These are just inherently tricky cases which are hard to judge. At this point I'm trying to understand how these difficult decisions are made right now, and I was hoping the SMB PAL submission would help with that.
My current best suggestion for cases where it's just too difficult to determine the preferred submission based on defensible criteria is to reconsider putting them into different branches. Given that these cases should be exceedingly rare, it shouldn't create too much bloat in the branches.
If I understand correctly (correct me if I'm wrong, etc), the dilemma is that both SMB versions are too similar and not the same game at the same time.
-they're too similar but can't obsolete each other
-they're not the same game but can't be published as separate games
So, if a PAL game has to be published, can it ever be as an any% if an NTSC version exists and has the same features (same levels, enemies, gameplay)? The only option is to have different content and aim for another category? (or being created in PAL first)
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
MrWint wrote:
I don't want to define preference at a game level, I don't think that's possible.
The rules currently as they stand in most cases define preferences at the game level.
I also find preferences at the game level the easiest to deal with. If you know how a game is handled, then you know how a game is handled. If you start doing it on a run by run basis, on all sorts of run-specific criteria, I think it becomes a lot more confusing on what might be accepted, and sometimes you might not even be able to know prior going into it.
MrWint wrote:
The preference may change over time with new submissions. If an impressive new strategy or glitch is found that only works in some versions, it may change the preference towards that previously inferior version, without necessarily requiring a new branch.
If it's really impressive enough, it will just become another branch. Look at our Super Metroid submissions as to how we have a whole bunch for all kinds of glitches or strategy criteria.
MrWint wrote:
So the three factors so far are:
audience preference
audiovisual quality
speed (this too may be seen only as a proxy for audience preference, depending on how you want to look at it)
and only audiovisual quality is mostly inherent to the version, not the submission. Audience preference may be bound to the version as well, but individual submissions may sway people.
For judging audience preferences for current stuff as is, I try to read their opinions in terms of the game itself, not the submission. The judging guidelines we currently have mention that we have to anticipate future runs for the game, and cannot just look at a single submission in isolation in terms of how to view dealing with new stuff.
Also a key point which I and a lot of others share (but seems not to be shared by various disgruntled players) is that speed changes due to version are meaningless. We don't care about so called improvements derived from a new version, there's no skill or mastery, or divine-like play in that. We love TASs because we enjoy seeing players do something crazy with what they're given and pushing it to its potential. Switching to B does not show how you pushed A to its potential. For version switches where there were significantly shorter cut scenes, and some players raved about their so called improvement, to me and others like me, I just yawned in response. When watching a TAS, I fast forward through the cut scenes as is, and we've even had some encoders step forward and make encodes for some runs with the cut scenes cut out. The viewer isn't even going to notice the so called improvement. Getting a new fast record in XYZ E does not mean you got a new record in XYZ J, it doesn't work that way.
MrWint wrote:
I'm sorry to go on about this, but the SMB PAL submission is the best example I have of this right now. I have read the judge's notes and especially the decision tree again, and I think part of the problem is that it was a two-step process. You considered obsoletion first, brushed it aside as lunacy, and then considered opening up a new branch for it. The result was that it doesn't deserve one (which is understandable), and hence was rejected.
I'm looking at it in opposite order: you first decide that it is too similar to the NTSC version first so they compete with another and you need to pick a favourite out of the two
The opposite order would go like this:
They're too similar, so it doesn't warrant a new branch.
Let's compare it then to the existing to see if it obsoletes, oh wait, that doesn't work well.
Now what? Precedent says whenever we cannot see how to publish, we reject.
Same result, just sounds a whole lot more confusing.
In terms of what actually happened, the idea I considered soonest and rejected outright was the obsoletion option, because that's what people were pushing for early in the thread, and the opposing opinion was playing more defense than offense.
MrWint wrote:
you have successfully avoided my attempts to get them out of you so far by saying they were not comparable and just different games
My official position on the matter is that they're not comparable. I don't know why you're trying to get anything else out of it. I would even go as far to suggest that trying to aim for something else here defies what TASing is all about in the first place.
MrWint wrote:
My initial suspicions when reading the judgment hence were that some of these factors played a role in it as well which I'd describe as questionable:
Prefer the currently published run (this is not totally unreasonable actually if the goal is to conserve publishing resources)
Prefer the run done in the original version (as mentioned e.g. here)
I did not even consider for a moment publishing resources. Nor do I typically care what is published unless what is published is considered a mistake, or if the new run does something questionable, and we have to ask whether it's any more questionable than the previous run. Since the existing was not a mistake, nor was the new one (or the existing) questionable, it's not a factor.
Regarding the original version, I did consider it for preference, in terms of should we switch all SMB runs from NTSC to PAL? Based on all the submissions I've seen, good players have TAS'd both NTSC and PAL versions, and seem to prefer NTSC, and further, most PAL submissions (discounting those that are junk submissions) were generally nowhere near as good as NTSC submissions. Further, in my study of both games and how they work a bit differently, it appeared that NTSC would seem more enjoyable for worlds 2 and 7 (differences in water potential and entertaining cheap cheap movement), while the other worlds were more or less equal between the two with various tradeoffs. Further, PAL fixed a few bugs that perhaps a clever TAS may want to exploit. Also, adelikat remarked to me that some of the changes for PAL make it an easier game, which is never a good thing. (I estimate the largest difficulty changes due to running/jumping are noticed in worlds 3, 4, 6, and 8.) In the end, I concluded that our players seem to prefer NTSC, especially the better more exacting ones, and my guess would be that NTSC would be more enjoyable for the audience as a whole. So I find that the original, being the more authentic version, is the preferred version, and arguable the better version as well. It also means I get to stick it to you British once again! Down with your tea and your stamp taxes! ;)
In terms of just switching that one branch to PAL, that is not a thought I ever entertained. Nor will I.
MrWint wrote:
I'd be happy to hear that these weren't factors, and which factors were used instead, as an example of how rulings like these are made currently. The fact that the notes didn't spend any time discussing these led to some of the outcry and my bold claim (which I'm still sorry for) that maybe it wasn't actually considered well enough when the decision was made.
I only mentioned in my notes that I know the games well and studied them. In terms of my opinion for this run, I find switching lunacy (both the thread and judges in conversation to me used the words "absurd" instead of "lunancy", with all our long-term judges strongly disliking obsoletion, although few explained to me their specific reasons for why). I did not elaborate further in my notes, because I don't find anything specific that requires elaboration. Any comparison is lunacy. I didn't write any lengthy remarks about the game tradeoffs throughout or submission history with players because I don't think that's relatable to the average viewer and more of a game-obsession-insight and TASVideos-judge-instinct than anything else. I only focused on a small summary that I know the game well, and a small list of the non-playable segments to highlight that even there there are differences, and comparisons cross-version are not as straight forward as the initial thread discussion would have you believe.
I hope this helps give you the insight you were looking for.
MrWint wrote:
My current best suggestion for cases where it's just too difficult to determine the preferred submission based on defensible criteria is to reconsider putting them into different branches. Given that these cases should be exceedingly rare, it shouldn't create too much bloat in the branches.
My personal opinion is to have it as a different publication. However my judgment was not based on my own preferences. I rejected a run that I really liked.
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.
For what it's worth I don't agree with the argument that we could have many more branches (e.g. because speedrun sites have those, or because we could rework the site design). This is a matter of quality vs quantity, and I find quality more important. Otherwise we'd get all kinds of odd branches like "fastest game crash" or "least amount of button presses" or "lowest score" and I don't see that as an improvement (this is not hypothetical btw, all of those are actual submissions).
So I completely agree with the judgment that NTSC and PAL should not be two separate branches. Either consider one version the default (because it is technically superior and/or more popular with TASvideos audience) or compare the times and take whichever one is fastest (discounting menus and custscenes).
My own view on this is that the fastest any% and 100% completions of any specific version of a game should be accepted at least to the Vault. (We may want to think about vaulting all but one of the runs, even if they're entertaining, if they're very similar.) That way, we'd at least have a baseline for knowing what the time would be on any specific version of a game, and a record for trying to beat. The purpose of the Vault is to serve as a record repository, after all; why should we stop tracking records just because similar runs exist?
Thanks Nach, that was a really insightful. I can see how making decisions on a submission level can make the rules harder to understand and predict.
I still somewhat disagree with combining branches when comparing games (e.g. imo World 2 and World 7 differences are irrelevant for a warped run), and it shouldn't make the rules any harder to understand, you typically know which branch your run will fall into when creating it and which game version typically is used for that. To be fair though, the flexibility you'd gain will rarely be used and may not outweigh the rule verbosity and complexity it adds.
I wasn't aware that by the current guidelines any branch is basically fixed in which game version it uses once the first run is accepted (not counting "compatible" games like in the Pokémon Gen I case). This of course makes all the discussions about comparing different games obsolete, and is a valid way to dodge all the muddiness that would come with it. And it also resolves most of the discussions we had so far, and why I couldn't get the non-existing criteria out of you.
Since we had most of the discussion over this simple misunderstanding, I'd suggest to call this fact out in the movie rules explicitly, because afaics it is not at the moment. Something like "You can only obsolete a movie using the same game version" (with some caveates for compatible games, maybe with an example), or "Submissions using a different version of the game than the currently published movies need to contain significant differences that warrant a separate category, they can not obsolete existing publications".
Nach wrote:
MrWint wrote:
My current best suggestion for cases where it's just too difficult to determine the preferred submission based on defensible criteria is to reconsider putting them into different branches. Given that these cases should be exceedingly rare, it shouldn't create too much bloat in the branches.
My persounal oupinion is tou have it as a different publication. Houwever my judgment was nout based oun my ouwn preferences. I rejected a run that I really liked.
You have mentioned multiple times now that your preferences and the site's rules diverge in some points. Is that because your opinion is in the minority among other people who have a say in this, or because your opinion as the Site Manager and your personal opinion diverge? Rules can have exceptions...
I'd argue that TASVideos is also seen by many as a place of record-keeping, and the existence of the Vault tier reflects that. While not meant for these kinds of runs, it fulfilles all the requirements to be published in the Vault tier, as long as you accept that it looks similar to a run in a different tier. Given the seminal importance of this game, you may be able to spare a branch.
Accepting it for all games, as ais523 suggests, may be too much given the current publishing process. On the other hand, you could have a lighter-weight publication process for these to compensate if you wanted to (or not publish them at all, and use the submissions as the records you keep, just making them more discoverable).
In the end it's a matter of where you want this site to be positioned for record-keeping for TASes. You can take the position that these don't belong here, and maybe another site will pick that up and provide that record-keeping service instead, but I'm not aware of any so far.
From my perspective, most of the confusion is cleared up now. In order for this to not feel like a complete waste of everyone's time, I propose some wording changes to the rules to add some clarity and hopefully avoid similar discussions based on wrong assumptions.
Adding a sentence stating that obsoletion requires the same game version as mentioned above.
Rephrasing the "PAL versions of ROMs are generally not allowed" part, even back to "PAL versions of ROMs are generally not preferred" would probably be good enough.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
MrWint wrote:
I wasn't aware that by the current guidelines any branch is basically fixed in which game version it uses once the first run is accepted (not counting "compatible" games like in the Pokémon Gen I case).
I wouldn't characterize it as "fixed". We do allow changes if it's generally the same game, and deemed an improvement once you factor out version differences. We also allow changes if the previous publication was deemed a mistake or poor for some reason, and in these cases, we even do massive cross platform obsoletions, and even obsoletions using different games in a series.
However, if there is a quality publication, then anything else which is viewed as being substantially different will need to be considered a completely different game or a completely different TAS objective in order to be published.
MrWint wrote:
I'd suggest to call this fact out in the movie rules explicitly, because afaics it is not at the moment. Something like "You can only obsolete a movie using the same game version" (with some caveates for compatible games, maybe with an example), or "Submissions using a different version of the game than the currently published movies need to contain significant differences that warrant a separate category, they can not obsolete existing publications".
I'm not really sure that obsoletions are a rules thing for players. Obsoletions vs. categories is a decision made by our judges.
MrWint wrote:
You have mentioned multiple times now that your preferences and the site's rules diverge in some points. Is that because your opinion is in the minority among other people who have a say in this, or because your opinion as the Site Manager and your personal opinion diverge?
I've mentioned on some previous occasions that if nearly all the site members want something, even though they're wrong, it's best to try to accommodate them. The site rules are based upon review of the opinions of our active members, with further discussions by the active staff, weighing them and asserting their practicality. With this process, I personally do not end up agreeing with every decision, but unless I find it to be utterly impractical, unmanageable, or without logical foundation, then I go along with it.
For some of these cases, indeed my personal opinion would seem to be in the minority of our active members. In other cases, we have rules that I generally agree with, but do have some gray areas. For these gray areas, I go with precedent and the spirit of the rule, even though in some cases I'm displeased with the outcome. So for the former, I would say that I am the minority, for the latter I would say that my actions as Site Manager and other capacities aim for what's good for the site, even though I'm personally uncomfortable about it.
MrWint wrote:
I'd argue that TASVideos is also seen by many as a place of record-keeping, and the existence of the Vault tier reflects that.
Personally, I am against the Vault tier, and dislike notions of video publications for record keeping. I watch our players' content for entertainment, not because it's some record. If I want to know about some record, then I'd prefer a table of data over a video. I think the Vault ends up containing a bunch of entertaining stuff that doesn't belong there. Also, Warp correctly argues that any speed record is a speed record, and then if Vault is supposed to represent speed records, why are entertaining speed records not in it? When you think about it, speed records should really be getting some kind of badge or trophy or something appearing on the movie publication (which I have no objection to). The tier system has a lot of weird rough edges to it.
MrWint wrote:
Adding a sentence stating that obsoletion requires the same game version as mentioned above.
Rephrasing the "PAL versions of ROMs are generally not allowed" part, even back to "PAL versions of ROMs are generally not preferred" would probably be good enough.
Refer to what I wrote earlier in this post regarding obsoletion.
For the PAL versions, I would accept any where there's a good chance the PAL is the original and other versions seem inferior.
Take Battletoads for instance, some argue the E version is the original, because the Stamper brothers lived in Britain when they created the game. Further, in Battletoads U, stage 11 doesn't support two players, which is the kind of thing you'd think you'd notice during development testing. However E has no bugs there. That lends some support to the idea that the game was only fully tested while creating E, and U made some changes and broke parts of it, because it was not fully tested like the original. Also people noticed vast differences in enemies for the intermediate levels between them, which if true, would probably make a full run of them seem very different than our existing publications. All in all, if someone made a great BT E 2 player run, I'd probably accept it as another branch.
For the phrasing itself, I prefer "not allowed" over "not preferred" because it makes things simpler. Don't bother with a PAL game unless you know it's the only or it's substantially different. A weaker wording like "not preferred" will just lead to a lot more submissions that will be rejected, and players will feel they had no warning.
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.
For the phrasing itself, I prefer "not allowed" over "not preferred" because it makes things simpler. Don't bother with a PAL game unless you know it's the only or it's substantially different. A weaker wording like "not preferred" will just lead to a lot more submissions that will be rejected, and players will feel they had no warning.
Then we're getting back to clarifying the criteria. They are only listed in this thread so far.
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.
Personally, I am against the Vault tier, and dislike notions of video publications for record keeping. I watch our players' content for entertainment, not because it's some record. If I want to know about some record, then I'd prefer a table of data over a video. I think the Vault ends up containing a bunch of entertaining stuff that doesn't belong there. Also, Warp correctly argues that any speed record is a speed record, and then if Vault is supposed to represent speed records, why are entertaining speed records not in it? When you think about it, speed records should really be getting some kind of badge or trophy or something appearing on the movie publication (which I have no objection to). The tier system has a lot of weird rough edges to it.
Interesting, this seems to contradict the explicit stated purpose of the Vault tier: "The Vault is a new category of movies we have added. Previously we only published movies people found entertaining, now we also publish movies in this category for record-keeping purposes." and "Its focus is exclusively on collecting tool-assisted speedrun records.". I presume your personal dislike is another instance of being in the minority then.
I agree with some of your complaints about using publications for record-keeping, it doesn't seem to be the right format for it the same way it is for other tiers. But it's a problem you could solve, I don't think people are necessarily looking for a publication for all these speed records, they're looking for a place to track them in some way. That table of data you describe doesn't exist (afaik), and people are looking for TASVideos as the place that provides it (see recent-ish topic in the same direction).
I think the root of the problem is that the Vault category is somewhat ill-defined, as "anything that didn't make it into the other Tiers but is still a speed record", which also creates the weird overlap with speed record which are entertaining and potentially eligible for higher tiers.
It's a design flaw in the Vault tier itself, a better system may be to consider speed records a separate dimension orthogonal to the entertainment-focused Moons and Stars rather than a lower tier that exists alongside them. That way published runs that also happen to be speed records can be both (recognized with some kind of badge or trophy if you like), and speed records that don't make it into the Moons tier can still be listed (with no or some light-weight publication).
I understand the reasoning for not accepting just all submissions which go for a speed record, you want to keep some quality standards and even the lightest resonable approval proccess will still need to spend a sizable amount of time verifying each submission even without publication (there would be ways to make it less moderated and more democratized though), but that doesn't explain why e.g. the SMB PAL run was ineligible (this too was not mentioned in the judge's notes), you already did all the work investigating it closely. Just because it's entertaining doesn't mean it can't be Vault (at least according to the current rules). It seems to fit well with the purpose of the Vault tier, even though I agree it's a shame to see it ending up there.
Nach wrote:
For the phrasing itself, I prefer "not allowed" over "not preferred" because it makes things simpler. Don't bother with a PAL game unless you know it's the only or it's substantially different. A weaker wording like "not preferred" will just lead to a lot more submissions that will be rejected, and players will feel they had no warning.
Suppose I submit a PAL TAS (any%) for a game which also has an NTSC version (released first, no prior submissions for either), and they are generally similar with only minor differences (both well made, etc.). I chose PAL because it had a minor neat trick I wanted to show off, I deemed it the more interesting version to TAS, or maybe it was simply faster (by some definition) than the NTSC version. Would you reject it just for being PAL and not substantially different from the NTSC version? I assume the answer is "maybe", depending on which is the "better" version (TASability, quality and such) and how the audience feels about it. I want the rules to reflect that, because currently they sound like a firm "yes, reject immediately" to me.
I get your point about clarity being important, but there has to be a balance between being clear and being overly restrictive.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
MrWint wrote:
I presume your personal dislike is another instance of being in the minority then.
Yes.
MrWint wrote:
a better system may be to consider speed records a separate dimension orthogonal to the entertainment-focused Moons and Stars rather than a lower tier that exists alongside them.
Agreed. Those who came up with the tier thing in my opinion do not properly understand hierarchical organization and orthogonal concepts.
MrWint wrote:
but that doesn't explain why e.g. the SMB PAL run was ineligible (this too was not mentioned in the judge's notes), you already did all the work investigating it closely. Just because it's entertaining doesn't mean it can't be Vault (at least according to the current rules). It seems to fit well with the purpose of the Vault tier, even though I agree it's a shame to see it ending up there.
I just added a summary to the notes to clarify a few points, since some people seem to have a hard time sorting through everything.
Vault itself is only used when a run is deemed acceptable but not entertaining. Then at that point, further checks are done to see if it qualifies for Vault, and if so, is published there. Before anyone jumps on me, yes, the checking for Vault qualification was left out of my decision tree.MrWint wrote:
Suppose I submit a PAL TAS (any%) for a game which also has an NTSC version (released first, no prior submissions for either), and they are generally similar with only minor differences (both well made, etc.). I chose PAL because it had a minor neat trick I wanted to show off, I deemed it the more interesting version to TAS, or maybe it was simply faster (by some definition) than the NTSC version. Would you reject it just for being PAL and not substantially different from the NTSC version? I assume the answer is "maybe", depending on which is the "better" version (TASability, quality and such) and how the audience feels about it. I want the rules to reflect that, because currently they sound like a firm "yes, reject immediately" to me.
It basically is reject immediately unless the submission itself or the audience defend its reasons for publication explaining how it's unique or better for whatever viable reason.
MrWint wrote:
I get your point about clarity being important, but there has to be a balance between being clear and being overly restrictive.
I just don't want someone to work on something which they may feel is wasted effort. If they want to know if their particular case does not fall into the near-blanket-ban, they can ask, and explain why they feel like their particular case may be different before embarking on a potentially lengthy creation process.
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 want the rules to reflect that, because currently they sound like a firm "yes, reject immediately" to me.
They sound like "yes, reject immediately, except maybe not, I dunno, maybe".
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.
By the way, a couple of questions I thought of, for your consideration:
1) If the site were redesigned to be more like speedrun.com, as I suggested earlier, with each game having its own page, with all the TASes of said game being neatly and clearly listed or tabulated there, would you agree that this would perhaps allow loosening the principle of keeping the number of branches/categories for a single game minimal (since perceived clutter wouldn't be a problem anymore)?
2) If you answered the previous in the positive, do you think it would be a silly idea to start the loosening of that principle now, even prior to such a potential site redesign? Should we just wait for the redesign to happen before we start accepting more categories for games?
I just don't want someone to work on something which they may feel is wasted effort. If they want to know if their particular case does not fall into the near-blanket-ban, they can ask, and explain why they feel like their particular case may be different before embarking on a potentially lengthy creation process.
Aside from anything else that might happen with PAL, I think there should be an official channel with a garaunteed response that allows this to be practical. The impression I have right now of the site is that throwing something on the workbench is the only way to get a real answer (and not just about this rule in particular.) If there is a way to get a real answer ahead of time, I think this should be mentioned in the rules as well as the process to go about it.
Aside from anything else that might happen with PAL, I think there should be an official channel with a garaunteed response that allows this to be practical. The impression I have right now of the site is that throwing something on the workbench is the only way to get a real answer (and not just about this rule in particular.) If there is a way to get a real answer ahead of time, I think this should be mentioned in the rules as well as the process to go about it.
Isn't that what these forums are for? Although I'd agree that the workbench gets way more coverage. I can think of at least one game where an author was told in those forums not to do X, and he did it anyway, and then his run got rejected for precisely that reason...
It basically is reject immediately unless the submission itself or the audience defend its reasons for publication explaining how it's unique or better for whatever viable reason.
Ok, so if it's better in some valid way it would be enough. How much better is enough will depend on the specific case, so I don't think there's much of a point discussing this without a more concrete example, and I don't intend to hunt for one to dig deeper in the near future.
Thanks for being patient with me, I learned a lot in this discussion about the site's rules and philosophy, and while I don't agree with some details (basically anything involving the Vault tier), they're still reasonable and I don't see a pressing reason to seek any change right now. I'll back out of this discussion, and look for a less controversial next project.
Isn't that what these forums are for? Although I'd agree that the workbench gets way more coverage. I can think of at least one game where an author was told in those forums not to do X, and he did it anyway, and then his run got rejected for precisely that reason...
I was going to respond to this ealier but then forgot, sorry!
I suppose the discussion could take place there, but I do think it's good to have a dedicated thread where formal decisions are made clear, concise, and documented. It would be great to have a clearly defined way to avoid such huge wastes of time in the future like SMB PAL was (in the event that it ultimately isn't published, which I hope isn't the case.)
The recent Prince of Persia submission brings up once again the question I posed earlier: Is it the "same" game as the ones for other platforms, or is it its own different game, deserving its own place in vault (assuming it doesn't go to moons)?
The recent Prince of Persia submission brings up once again the question I posed earlier: Is it the "same" game as the ones for other platforms, or is it its own different game, deserving its own place in vault (assuming it doesn't go to moons)?
Is the ''same'' game, but there's different gameplay mechanics and different glitches, respectively.
Some comparision about the NES, Genesis and SNES versions (by SprintGod): http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=31081#31081
More NES comparision: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1149#1149
Also, the Genesis PAL version of Prince of Persia has 4 extra levels. On SNES version, the gameplay mechanics is a bit improved, as well as the existence of some exclusive glitches (one of these glitches involves a possible ''wrong warp'', that I haven't verified much).
For the last, I TASed the SegaCD version because this is the more acurrate version of DOS game and because I'm not familiar with JPC-RR (Also, the DOS version has a copy protection screen between the first two levels). Some other ports has the same acurracy, but only SegaCD is acessible for me, at least.
My homepage
--Currently not much motived for TASing as before...--
But I'm still working.
Is the ''same'' game, but there's different gameplay mechanics and different glitches, respectively.
So, under current rules, would it be published in Vault alongside the other versions?
Well?
The PCECD version was published yesterday, on the moon tier. According by feos, manually changing gameplay speed is fine, judging by the existing precedents:
[2214] Coleco Jumpman Junior by adelikat in 04:48.58[2794] DOS CD-Man "2 players" by c-square in 00:03.72
The SNES port is more entertaining than the NES and Genesis port, on my opinion. Since the NES version sucks (and for lack of glitches), I couldn't approve this version. But since the published run is the oldest non-first 500 of this time, I''ll give a chance. So, my result is still vault.
On the Genesis port, the slower controls sucks and there's no music during the stages. But the european version has music and 4 extra stages. But I don't consider that the entertainment could be improved. So, my result is still vault.
My homepage
--Currently not much motived for TASing as before...--
But I'm still working.
Well, I don't know exactly if the recent Prince of Persia run could be accepted on Vault. I actually consider more interessing completing stages with these skips than beating normally.
My homepage
--Currently not much motived for TASing as before...--
But I'm still working.
Well, I don't know exactly if the recent Prince of Persia run could be accepted on Vault. I actually consider more interessing completing stages with these skips than beating normally.
I wasn't asking if it could be accepted to Vault. I was asking that if it would go to Vault, whether it would co-exist as a separate game with the other PoP games, as per the current rules.
