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Suppose a game has multiple sets of skippable levels. Some are unlocked from the start, whereas some are only unlocked when you 100% the rest of the game (which includes optional goals in the nonskippable levels). In a non-full-completion category, what would be preferred, completing only the minimum number of levels, or completing as many levels as possible while keeping to a fastest completion of each level that's actually done (thus skipping the initially locked levels)? The former seems less arbitrary, but the latter shows more content.
Memory
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ais523 wrote:
Suppose a game has multiple sets of skippable levels. Some are unlocked from the start, whereas some are only unlocked when you 100% the rest of the game (which includes optional goals in the nonskippable levels). In a non-full-completion category, what would be preferred, completing only the minimum number of levels, or completing as many levels as possible while keeping to a fastest completion of each level that's actually done (thus skipping the initially locked levels)? The former seems less arbitrary, but the latter shows more content.
The answer here is to do what is most entertaining.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
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If you want to make sure your movie is considered fastest completion by our rules (which means it can be vaulted if needed), play the least amount of levels that still lead to game completion, given you don't need anything questionably to skip the optional ones. Skip everything optional. If you just want the movie to show cool stuff (neither fastest nor full completion), do what Memory said. Just make sure the goal you end up choosing is sound and sensible. For example, if full completion isn't equal to playing all levels, you can submit the "all levels" branch. And yes, that'd have to be entertaining to be published.
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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I made a TAS of Astro Barrier in Club Penguin a while ago. Link to video I now plan to make a new and improved TAS using libTAS (because it should be at least 10x better than MacroGamer lol) and was wondering if there's any way it would be eligible for the site. I can go into more detail about the run if you want.
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What was this played on? Explain your current setup please, and the proposed libTAS setup.
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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That run was played on Club Penguin Rewritten which is a private server based on the original Club Penguin. (I could have played it on anything really since it's just an external macro.) I'm not entirely sure on the libTAS setup. It would probably be a standalone SWF of Astro Barrier run on sdl-gnash. I don't think running a whole Club Penguin client would be feasible.
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Running it inside gnash is definitely feasible as long as there's at least some way to extract the minigame and run it separately. However with all the extra apps libTAS can run the games in (using libTAS to TAS emulator programs that run games), this will definitely be supported at some point, but the site is not ready for full-on support. The rules haven't been defined, the tests haven't been done, the submission parser doesn't recognize such sub-platforms (it only knows libTAS movies as Linux, but not as DOS, Arcade, Flash, or anything else that you can emulate). slamo is the main person doing these tests now, and I want to announce that all these emulators will be supported in future once people test them well, so atm I'm waiting for slamo to start having time on TASing again, then this process could be started. What is guaranteed tho is that if you can comfortably TAS within this set up, please go ahead and make a test movie, this will help with the end goal, and maybe you even make a submittable movie before this support starts, so when it does, you just submit it.
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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I'm looking for answers and clarifications for some minimal questions (probably will post new ones instead of editing) after crawling through the pages of this thread and checking movie rules with my forbidden techs page: 1. Obsoleting published movie without improvement: 1.a - Resubmitting vault movies without improvement but different (entertainment based) input? From Wiki: Vault: Opportunities to entertain the audience where it does not affect time is not a requirement. However, it is encouraged and can be used as a tie-breaker for two equally fast movies. --> I think there should be more preconditions or something. I mean there's for example NES Trojan with constant bunnyhopping, so very little efforts can be done to make it more entertaining, so the resulting submitted movie would be near identical in it's whole. Just want to know more informations before attempting to spam reworked published movies for this goal of bad games. 1.b - What about "vault to moon" attempts? From Wiki: Vault: "It is possible for a faster movie to be published in this category while a slower but "more entertaining" movie is published in another tier." ---> So all I need to is find enough speed/entertainment tradeoffs and be entertaining enough for good comments/views/judge opinion, right? edit: 2. No adult only games allowed Wiki: MovieRules.html#AdultOnlyGamesAreNotAllowed - According to ESRB, there's 27 currently rated as AO, amongst them PC Manhunt 2, so I guess it's on the rejected list? - What about PS3 God Of War 3 (nudity + sex minigame) or other games with strong sexual contents? In this case, not all nudity can be skipped.
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MESHUGGAH wrote:
1. Obsoleting published movie without improvement: 1.a - Resubmitting vault movies without improvement but different (entertainment based) input? From Wiki: Vault: Opportunities to entertain the audience where it does not affect time is not a requirement. However, it is encouraged and can be used as a tie-breaker for two equally fast movies. --> I think there should be more preconditions or something. I mean there's for example NES Trojan with constant bunnyhopping, so very little efforts can be done to make it more entertaining, so the resulting submitted movie would be near identical in it's whole. Just want to know more informations before attempting to spam reworked published movies for this goal of bad games.
If there's no room for competing in entertainment, you just fail to impress the audience and get rejected.
MESHUGGAH wrote:
1.b - What about "vault to moon" attempts? From Wiki: Vault: "It is possible for a faster movie to be published in this category while a slower but "more entertaining" movie is published in another tier." ---> So all I need to is find enough speed/entertainment tradeoffs and be entertaining enough for good comments/views/judge opinion, right?
Only if your work deserves a separate branch.
MESHUGGAH wrote:
2. No adult only games allowed Wiki: MovieRules.html#AdultOnlyGamesAreNotAllowed - According to ESRB, there's 27 currently rated as AO, amongst them PC Manhunt 2, so I guess it's on the rejected list? - What about PS3 God Of War 3 (nudity + sex minigame) or other games with strong sexual contents? In this case, not all nudity can be skipped.
Everything is already explained there, read once more.
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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^ 1.a -> Masterjun had a good point on IRC, that this is about tie-breakers for submitted movies, not for obsoleting a published movie with a newly submitte movie with same time. I guess this case is not allowed, right? 1.b -> Oh, that extra requirement (Need to be a different branch) should be added to the rules in my opinion. 2 -> Still don't know because of contradictions. 1st sentence: [...] are not allowed in any circumstance. "No!" 2nd sentence: uncensored and censored versions [...], either version is allowed as long as no uncensored-only content is accessed or visible. "Okay." 3rd sentence: "For example, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is allowed as long as no Hot Coffee content is seen in it. Not allowed!
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Noxxa
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MESHUGGAH wrote:
2 -> Still don't know because of contradictions. 1st sentence: [...] are not allowed in any circumstance. "No!" 2nd sentence: uncensored and censored versions [...], either version is allowed as long as no uncensored-only content is accessed or visible. "Okay." 3rd sentence: "For example, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is allowed as long as no Hot Coffee content is seen in it. Not allowed!
If it's rated as AO, it's not allowed. If it's rated as something less than AO, it is allowed. If a game has different ratings based on specific content in the game, if the movie accesses content that's rated AO it's not allowed. If it does not access AO-rated content, it is allowed. I don't see any contradiction.
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.
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MESHUGGAH wrote:
1.a -> Masterjun had a good point on IRC, that this is about tie-breakers for submitted movies, not for obsoleting a published movie with a newly submitte movie with same time. I guess this case is not allowed, right?
For cases when you have 2 equally fast submissions in the queue, there's really no other way to decide who wins. Tho this should be moved to movie rules or judge guidelines. As for equally fast movies worth Moons, entertainment may help you obsolete an equally fast published movie, but you have to be reeeeealy creative. Finally, the point of that sentence is preserving slower but more entertaining movie in Moons, while publishing a new faster but boring submission to Vault, not the other way around.
MESHUGGAH wrote:
1.b -> Oh, that extra requirement (Need to be a different branch) should be added to the rules in my opinion.
It doesn't work outside of the branching framework anyway. I'll see if it can be rephrased.
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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Mothrayas wrote:
I don't see any contradiction.
Probably I misinterpreted / took literal these sentences, here: Video games rated adult-only, or unrated adult video games with strong sexual content and/or extreme violence to AO-rating standards, are not allowed in any circumstance. --> Thought it means that strong sexual content and/or extreme violence is not allowed in any circumstance. For games with uncensored adult-only versions and censored versions that are rated less than AO, a movie of either version is allowed as long as no uncensored-only content is accessed or visible. --> So it's allowed to use an uncensored adult-only version as long as there's no extra sexual or extreme violence content? What?
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Noxxa
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MESHUGGAH wrote:
Video games rated adult-only, or unrated adult video games with strong sexual content and/or extreme violence to AO-rating standards, are not allowed in any circumstance. --> Thought it means that strong sexual content and/or extreme violence is not allowed in any circumstance.
If a game is unrated (does not have an ESRB rating) but would be considered AO if it were, it is not allowed. Not every adult game is rated by the ESRB (due to not being released in the U.S., or being from a time before the ESRB was formed, etc.), so for these games we as site staff draw a line on what's considered adult-only or not (the intent being to be as consistent as possible with actual ESRB ratings for comparable games).
MESHUGGAH wrote:
For games with uncensored adult-only versions and censored versions that are rated less than AO, a movie of either version is allowed as long as no uncensored-only content is accessed or visible. --> So it's allowed to use an uncensored adult-only version as long as there's no extra sexual or extreme violence content? What?
I'm not sure what's unclear about it. You can, for example, run the original PS2 version of San Andreas, despite the fact that it's rated AO, as long as Hot Coffee content is not accessed in any way. The same principle goes for all other games that have censored M-rated game versions and uncensored AO-rated game versions. Any content that's exclusive to the AO version would not be allowed.
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.
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Regarding Wiki: MovieRules#CpuFrequencyRestrictions I have a few questions: 1. Why 1 GHz is the upper limit? 2. Why 20 MHz is the maximum otherwise? 3. What kind of proof considered to be enough? - This limit may be stretched if proof can be provided that the game was designed to run on faster systems than the 20MHz default. I spent a little time on gathering informations about this but still unsure about these particular numbers being picked. The wikipedia articles about these are a real mess, so I gatherd from other places. Regarding 2: As far as I see, for example 286 what referenced in the rule also had 25 MHz clock speed variant. The first IBM PC runs at 4.77 MHz. So... 20? Regarding 3: I checked a few manuals for DOS and the most common things are these: - Invalid informations (mostly by human mistakes) - Earlier only minimum requirements were being told - IBM PC without mentioning any models but emphasizing "100% compatible" (Duke Nukem games for example) one OR a list of possible variations with some pitfalls (Lemmings for example) Well then manuals are definitely out of question for providing as proofs, right?
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Hi.
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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I don't find the answers at your link feos. What I said is that there are multiple differently clocked "IBM PCs" at the time and the "default 20MHz" seems arbitrary to me, depending that the very first one was running at 4.77MHz and we are here with many GHz today where the 1 GHz upper limit seems arbitrary as well to me (pentium IV 1.7~3.8GHz) edit: well the answer is "In-game settings and environment parameters that have arbitrary nature and don't belong to point 1 should be left at default values", my question is still: why these numbers? what's based off?
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The answer is that this jpc-rr rule will be revised, and that all the current details are provided here: http://tasvideos.org/MovieRules.html#PcGameEnvironmentMustBeLegitimate That rule talks about intended environment rather than "default" or "contemporary".
MESHUGGAH wrote:
well the answer is "In-game settings and environment parameters that have arbitrary nature and don't belong to point 1 should be left at default values", my question is still: why these numbers? what's based off?
This is described in details in the post I linked there. Also this rule means in-game numbers, not numbers in emulators.
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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The last PSX BIOS revision that was put on actual PSone consoles was revision 4.6 - in the PS3's firmware, there is a PSX BIOS revision that is labelled 5.0. Is this BIOS revision allowed or forbidden?
Spikestuff
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Bios isn't a factor unless it's related to RNG. And it's doubled as not a factor if related to "cause it's faster at booting the bios". There are values that are comparable that has an In-Game/Stage time of sorts and there's also the manual method of comparing each stage directly. Use the recommended unless you know something with your game. The "5.0" Bios aka the PlayStation 3's version of that bios is known to not be the best when performed on an actual console sidebyside to a PS1 or PS2. I would personally stay clear from that and stick to the original hardware between 1994 and 2000. Also your reasoning cause it does gameplay faster (see discord) a fun fact is that the SCPH100x versions are technically the fastest at booting into games and running them. However, that's also the case on why it's not the recommended. I want to see a judge respond to this to, but I'm placing the opposite side for clarity.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. These colours are pretty neato, and also these.
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Shima33 wrote:
The last PSX BIOS revision that was put on actual PSone consoles was revision 4.6 - in the PS3's firmware, there is a PSX BIOS revision that is labelled 5.0. Is this BIOS revision allowed or forbidden?
Movie Rules wrote:
Any official PSX BIOS version is accepted, provided it matches the region of the game played.
If this BIOS if found in PS3 then it's not a PSX BIOS, it's a PS3 BIOS. It's a firmware specifically revised for retro-compatibility. Also, it can be inconsistent to the original console. However, I think this is the first time that the issue is brought up, so I'd like to hear what the higher-ups think about it, as it's not up to me to decide. In any case, I advice to stick with the PSX BIOSes recognized by BizHawk, if you want to be sure that your submissions won't be rejected for using a forbidden BIOS. For the rest, what Spikestuff said makes sense. Don't use a non-recommended BIOS unless you really know what you're doing.
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
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Mature emulators of GameBoy offer several modes corresponding to newer consoles whose hardware is capable of running GameBoy games. There are some differences and advantages, but those modes exist on the hardware level, and therefore we accept GB movies using those modes. If there is a way to fully emulate PS2 or PS3 hardware that is responsible for running PS1 games, we would allow BIOS that is used there. I don't think you can find a PS1 console with a PS3 BIOS in it. And I don't remember Mednafen supporting PS2 or PS3 modes. The environment must be authentic. If there is a way to fully emulate how PS3 runs PS1, PS3 BIOS is authentic to that. Now, if there is emulation involved, it becomes less clear. We accept VC bundles as Wii entries, and therefore you can abuse bugs in VC emulation, but you must run those in a Wii emulator. You can also extract a game from a VC bundle and play it on a console that this game was originally made for, but we accept that only if it's a valid image for that console. But PS3 emulates PS1 internally (since Q4 2007), so there are no game bundles including emulators. I think we should treat those cases as PS1 hardware modes and only accept them if they are accurate to how games work in PS3. And those would be PS1 movie entries.
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.
Post subject: uploading a first tas
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I read the movie rules and guidelines, and am still not sure if you can use "it's my first tas of this game" as an excuse. could I upload a relatively slow run of super mario bros. just because it's my first tas? or should I upload it to user files?
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WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. These colours are pretty neato, and also these.
Noxxa
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Take note of this movie rule in particular:
Movie Rules wrote:
The movie must be good In particular: A speed-oriented movie must beat all existing records If your movie is going to beat something, be sure it beats it. If your tool-assisted movie is not faster than the non-tool-assisted world record for the same game, aiming for the same goals, your movie will be rejected. Do your research to avoid this. Look for the existing unassisted speedrun records. Look for previous TAS movies in the submission queue or on the forums. Check places such as YouTube or NicoVideo for speedruns, tool-assisted or otherwise. Failure to beat existing movies will result in rejection.
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.