Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
Wiki: Playground
UPDATE: We seem to generally be in agreement, or at the very least "i'm okay with anything", about feos' "Playground" proposal, so I'm bringing it to the top of this post and adding a poll to see whether or not there actually is a majority agreement. Staff will be discussing implementation during this time in order to hopefully have something ready as soon as possible. Poll will be open either until there's a definitive conclusion, or enough time passes that I feel comfortable there's no further feedback.
4. "Playground"feos wrote:
Any user can make a submission and set it to a certain status (not just New or Canceled) that would mean the same as sending it to the Showcase class. After that it won't have to be judged, but would still have its own dedicated discussion thread (you can't even subscribe to userfile comments right now), properly working submission page with all the usual stats, etc.
In the relevant game related page like http://tasvideos.org/Game/nes-battletoads.html such submissions would show up in their own tab. I think it would be fitting to call this tab User Playground. Or just Playground. And different branches would need to be grouped together somehow.
Yeah I suggest calling this hole concept Playground, and make it fully managed by users.
Pros: Strikes a fine balance between the above three options, being a completely user-curated class that essentially runs itself and gains proper promotion.
Cons: We'd definitely need to figure out exactly how it would operate, but that really isn't going to be hard at all.
Alternate Thread Titles:
* Oh No, It's Time To Talk About Demo Tier
* Call Me Ahab, I'm Hunting The White Whale
* "Is Demo Tier A Libertarian" - the greatest thread in the history of forums, locked by a moderator after 12,239 pages of heated debate,
* This Week's Showcase Showdown
* (i open this thread and thousands of bees fly out)
* LOOK, I JUST WANNA ACCEPT POKEMON PLAYS TWITCH IF WE CAN'T FIND A WAY OF ACTUALLY PUBLISHING IT
The concept of a "demo tier" has been in an eternal idea phase for years, possibly even upwards of a full decade. It's pretty much a site meme at this point with how much it's been talked about and how little has actually been done to work out how to implement it. Granted, we have moved out of a "tier" system since the idea was originally pitched, and "demo" isn't quite a good name, so for the purposes of explanation, I'll be calling this theoretical section of the site "Showcase". This name is subject to change, though.
The idea behind it is simple: For anyone familiar with SRC, Showcase would serve the same sort of function as Category Extensions, but with a little more leniency as to what's allowed. The only hard requirement would be technical quality. A Showcase movie could theoretically break any other rule we have, as long as what it does is optimized. Playarounds and alternate speedrun goals that don't beat the game, demonstrations of game-crashing glitches, perhaps even movies that use Game Genie, all of that and more would be allowed. It could also serve as grounds for alternate branches that can't make it to Moons for certain reasons, such as alternate any% routes and "human theory" TASes.
Sounds great, right? Simple concept, clears up a lot of restrictions, opens the site up a lot more... It's something that TASvideos desperately needs, in my opinion... so what's the catch?
Well... There's a lot of logistical weirdness to it in regards to how the site could handle the implementation. For example, were we to implement Showcase as a new formal class like Standard or Moons, people might naturally expect publication for Showcase runs. Given the wide range of acceptable runs under Showcase, this could add an insane amount of work for the Judges and Publishers. We'd have to figure out a new way to handle how to "publish" Showcase runs.
Not only that, but there does still need to be some limits. These limits have to make sense and not feel arbitrary, which is another can of worms in and of itself. For example, if we allow TASes with Game Genie codes, should there be a limit on how many can be stacked in a single run? Do they need to specifically alter the game in a major, noticeable way? Are we going to allow multiple runs that have codes in common? Could these runs obsolete each other? Is obsoletion even going to be a system in Showcase to begin with?
What needs to happen for Showcase to exist is a lot of groundwork, a lot of feedback, and a lot of community approval, and that's why this thread exists.
To start off, there are a few ideas that have been floating around about how Showcase would be implemented on the site itself. This is not a complete list, nor is it the only options we would consider. Feel free to expand upon these with your own ideas, or add completely new ideas of your own. Anything will help, even "I support this and don't mind how it's done!"
1. Moons becomes Showcase, or Showcase becomes a new class
In the same way that we overhauled Vault into being a standard area for publication, we would overhaul Moons into being a pure technical showcase area that functions in the same way, but allows so much more. It would still be handled in the same way we currently handle Moons - Judgement and full publication status.
Pros: This is the easiest way of actually implementing Showcase onto the site itself. It could theoretically happen immediately upon reaching a consensus, without any code changes needing to be made to the site. As a bonus, it might fix some of the problems that Moons currently has, such as being misleading with its purpose (people still think it's for "good movies") and continuing to be arbitrary with what is and isn't allowed.
Cons: As mentioned above, it comes with a lot of logistical problems regarding the implementation. We'd have to re-fit the current standards of both judging and publishing to be able to accommodate doing it this way, since Showcase would be treated in the same way as other publications. We also run the risk of either making Moons seem completely arbitrary (if Showcase is separate) or further complicating Moons (if it expands to fit Showcase content). Given the sharp increase in allowable content, this would also add a huge amount of work and stress for the Judges and Publishers.
2. Showcase is an extension of Userfiles
The idea of "ascended Userfiles" has been thrown around in private by the staff, essentially creating a new section of Userfiles with better promotion on the site to account for Showcase content. "Judgement" and "Publication" in this case could theoretically be completely user-curated. Judgement, in theory, would just be anyone else being able to sync the input file on their system. Publication would just be a good encode that can be provided by anyone, not even necessarily being up to the usual site standards.
Pros: This option makes it clear that the process of submission and publication does not fully apply to these runs, they won't be as strictly judged as other submissions and won't be formally published on YouTube by our publishing team. The logistics here would be smoother than option 1, for sure. The section can almost run itself, meaning the staff can continue to focus on formal submissions while these can be handled by anyone with a bit of spare time.
Cons: Given what we intend for Showcase, we'd have to change Userfiles in some way to account for this new purpose, and I think that would sort of ruin the purpose of Userfiles. Userfiles is already meant as a way to upload movies with no restrictions, elevating it would mean we need to add some sort of restrictions. This would also require the rewrite to go live before it starts being implemented.
3. Showcase waits for a new site system of organization
One of our proposed changes to the site involves adopting SRC's method of organizing runs by game. Ideally, we have game pages that list every possible resource we have for that game: Published runs, obsoleted runs, submissions, Userfiles, resources such as glitch explanations and memory addresses, forum threads, links to outside resources such as Discord communities... Showcase would, in essence, work exactly like Category Extensions under this system, they'd just be a separate part of the game page. In theory, individual communities would be able to curate their own game pages, including these sorts of runs.
Pros: This is probably the sanest and safest way of implementing Showcase. It would be treated as its own thing and could conform to any system the site currently has in place, or even have a new system dedicated to it.
Cons: Basically, a LOT of work is needed for this. This, naturally, has the same con as above, which is that this is impossible on the current site and requires the rewrite to go live before we can even work on it. On top of that, it would also require a community consensus on whether or not we should even adopt the SRC game page model at all, and assuming we do, we'd need to have a community consensus on how it should be implemented.
We'd also need to figure out what should be accepted and how it all should be handled. Once again, this is not a complete list, and these are not the only things we would consider, so please feel free to expand upon it.
1. Playarounds and Freeruns
Showcase playarounds would not be required to beat the game. The idea behind this is that a game will often be massively entertaining in shorter doses, but our usual requirement of needing the game to be completed causes a game to drag on, depleting the runner's creativity over time and leading to a result that could be seen as disappointing overall. This would also account for individual level "freeruns", such as the ones popular in the Super Mario 64 community.
Something to consider is obsoletion: Would it be done purely on entertainment value? Content? Should we even have obsoletion at all? Could we have multiple playarounds for the same game if they're all sufficiently unique enough from each other?
2. Alternate Speed Goals
Things like fastest game over, fastest crash/softlock, fastest 69% completion, pretty much any goal that can be reached in a fastest time. We get a lot of these kinds of runs on April Fools Day, perhaps we should actually do something about it.
This feels pretty straightforward, though I suppose the biggest thing to consider is how far should this be taken. "Any goal that can be reached in a fastest time" could lead to things like "fastest game start", so we would need to find a way to limit truly arbitrary goals like that without ruining the point of accepting new speed goals in the first place.
3. Game Genie/Action Replay
Alternate playthroughs using GG/AR codes. This is actually something I've personally experimented with in the past, so I already have some investment into how this could work and what things we need to consider with it.
The main points here are both what codes we allow, and how many we allow per movie. Should we allow any code here, or should we only allow certain ones? Should we allow multiple codes in a single movie? Can movies with different codes obsolete each other, and if so, how should that be handled? If a combination of codes literally leads to the game ending on frame 1, should we allow that? I've only ever thought about this in terms of any% obsoletion, where I would personally prioritize lower times w/ more codes over less codes w/ more time, but having grown out of being a dumb idiot teenager and into an idiotic dumb adult, I realize now that could just lead to a massive slippery slope where you could get movies with hundreds of codes that end the game in a single frame.
The safest bet would be one code per movie, and only codes that significantly change gameplay in some way (even if it makes it easier), but I also feel like that's still a bit too limited. This definitely needs some balancing to get it right.
There are some things mentioned above that I feel need to be discussed more than most. If you want to help out, I highly recommend starting here and discussing the following topics:
1. Obsoletion
How is obsoletion going to be handled in a class that can theoretically handle anything? Runs that aim for the same goals are straightforward, but what about runs that have similar goals? Game Genie runs, playarounds, single level freeruns, there's a lot more factors that have to be considered were we to actually use an obsoletion system for Showcase.
2. Presentation
How much exposure should these movies get on the site? Should they be publications on the same level as any other, or should they be closer to Userfiles?
3. Limitations
What should the limitations be here? Do we want to curate these movies or leave them unchecked?
4. Processing
Will these movies be judged and published by the current site staff? Will they be held to the same standards as any other submission?
I apologize for how wordy and disorganized this thread is, but there really is a lot to discuss and figure out, and I really do want to help make this happen. I'll put together a separate post of how I personally want to see this be implemented, but of course we'd love to see other peoples' ideals, in hopes that we can build something universally liked.
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 BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
I agree that the site needs a proper way of showcasing these kind of movies. In fact, we already have something similar, it's Gruefood Delight. I think that it could fulfil the purpose just fine by getting improved and reworked, more or less deeply. As it is now, I think it mostly has just two issues: visibility and honor. Visibility because it's just an obscure wiki page, honor because these movies are officially considered as rejected.
I see that the most complicated issue to deal with is deciding how to showcase these movies. In my opinion, it will become clearer after deciding about how much visibility we want to give to these movies. And in order to decide that, it will necessary to first decide how many movies should be accepted. That is, where to draw the line regarding the acceptable quality. Do we want to let in just any kind of movie, without any sort of restriction?
My concern is not just about taking out visibility from the entertaining movies (which should still remain the main highlight of TASVideos). I'm more concerned about taking out the visibility of entertaining/interesting Showcase movies in favor of boring/uninteresting Showcase movies. Sure, we could build an appropriate interface that allows to not mix up these Showcase movies together, but that would end up making the Showcase more labyrinthine.
Just to make it clear, I'm not against anything nor imposing anything, I'm just pointing out that visibility and inclusiveness are inversely proportional: if you increase one, you have to decrease the other. But hey, I understand that I could be completely wrong! If I would be to be proven wrong it would be wonderful, as the biggest issue would be solved! (in my opinion.)
Here are my ramblings.
I hope I understand the current system right, which is as follows:
- Standard, for movies with standard completion goals, i.e. fastest and full completion.
- Alternate / Moons, for movies with alternate completion goals. Any goal that completes the game and is, in someway, logically part of the game is allowed. Usually this means there is a user-chosen limitation imposed: certain character only, reverse boss order, minimum coins/jumps/w/e, no major glitches.
(TASes that complete the game are considered inherently interesting enough for publication, as long as they are not trivial.)
The point of a Demonstration / Showcase category in my opinion would be for movies that do not fit in above, for two main reasons:
1) The movie goal is not to complete the game, but e.g. individual levels, or execute a specific glitch. (In a way, the need to start at power-on does not make sense as a requirement for the movie itself. It would be needed for syncing of course, but it would be similar to movies that need a verification movie to work)
2) How the game is played differs from normal play, e.g. with cheatcodes, with wacky input methods, or at the same time as another game. Another example would be that the game is played unoptimally to prove a point or demonstrate a technique, glitch or something else (again, my opinion).
I think the main basis on which to discuss the topics of obsoletion, presentation, limitation and processing should be why you want these movies to be published at all. My answer to that would be something like this: that as long as they are tool assisted superplays that show an interesting facet of the game, or play the game in an interesting manner, they are important to the site goal and thus the site should do something with them. (I take as the site goal the mission statement, which talks only of running and playing a game, not completing it.)
1) Obsoletion: if the goals of two movies are not the same, what does it mean to obsolete? Especially with goals that are not about minimizing or maximizing something, but to demonstrate something, it's a hard question. Why would you even want to obsolete a movie that just demonstrates something anyways? Also, obsoleting implies judgment and limitation, so it may be better to get a grip on that first.
2) Presentation: Again it implies limitation, but I think there are definitely movies that deserve recognition like published movies even if they do not fit into the Standard-Moon mold (and are currently fated to Gruefood Delight at best). Discriminating on entertainment seems intuitive, since having every movie be published almost indiscriminately is just a bad idea.
3) Limitation: To limit these sorts of movies is I think a good idea. Otherwise what's the point in having them on this site? They should show superplay-quality, of course. Other limitations I'm not so sure about. Not limiting them means not publishing them (impossible workload) means they are just userfiles.
4) Processing: I can definitely see that allowing these kinds of movies makes for a lot more work for judges and publishers. Gain and effort spend should be in balance. I can imagine that it's a good idea to have submissions also apply for a publishing tier, where if you want to full 8K treatment you have to show why your movie is that interesting, and get some people to agree with you. (It is common practice that to get a motion even to table requires multiple signatures as well.)
My leaning is towards an implementation that is a combination of Showcase as extension of Userfiles as a base (no judge/publisher workload), but with curation to give attention to what is most worth watching, and make it more available.
Here are a couple thoughts, some of which I've already brought up on discord but am adding here for the record.
Regarding Game Genie/Action Replay type codes: The number of codes allowed on runs could be either unlimited or limited to what was available on the originial hardware the code is intended for.
Examples: the NES Game Genie only allowed for 3 codes at any one time. Other Systems allowed for more than three. From what I can find, newer versions of some such ROM modifying systems may have been effectively unlimited themselves (or limited to some degree of memory, but no set numerical value). I wouldn't be able to make a justification for any number limit other than either original or unlimited, as I see any other numerical limitation as arbitrary.
Another consideration is the fact that, with enough codes, a game could potentially be rewritten completely into a wholly different game. Not that I forsee somebody wanting to go to that extreme; but I bring it up as an example of how extensively such codes can be used to impact a base game.
Regarding increased content & work load: As much potential interesting content that having a showcase/demo class may yield for the site, I have some concerns regarding an influx of new showcase/demo content.
1) If there isn't at least some method of curation or limitation of what's acceptable for this class of movies, the potential exists for the sheer mass of such content to potentially overwhelm the main site publications.
2) If curation/limitation does exist, who performs this? Given the potential freedom of goals within such a movie class, it's feasible that submission numbers could dramatically increase to a point that would majorly overtax the current site staff/judges if it becomes added to their current responsibilities.
3) Back to the idea of limiting what's acceptable. Even if this aspect of the site could be maintained discretely enough from the main site that the main site publications aren't overshadowed by what's presented in the showcase/demo class, I would still have concerns over total quantity of content.
If I understand things properly, the whole reason for wanting a showcase/demo tier is to be able to show runs that unfortunately don't adhere to the main site ruleset, yet are nonetheless interesting, highly entertaining, hold some historical significace, or provide an interesting TASing experience that is simply not publishable under current rules.
I don't want to see such a movie class be so overloaded with uninteresting content that the actually interesting/entertaining/historical runs get lost in the pile.
Unfortunately, I don't really have any good suggestions on how things should be implemented. I am rather curious to see how this plays out.
1. Moons becomes Showcase, or Showcase becomes a new class
I'm in favor of this option. If showcase is about movies that break rules but are entertaining, well, the old "Moon Tier" is also about movies that break rules but are entertaining. And yes, the place-formerly-known-as-Moon-Tier contains numerous playarounds and alternate speed goals, a few single-level movies, and at least one movie with a cheat code.
I don't see the point in hosting movies that break rules and are not entertaining. And it strikes me as reasonable to have some limits as to what rules can be broken (e.g. you must have accurate emulation).
Joined: 4/17/2010
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Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Haven't read the thread, only the OP. How about this:
Any user can make a submission and set it to a certain status (not just New or Canceled) that would mean the same as sending it to the Showcase class. After that it won't have to be judged, but would still have its own dedicated discussion thread (you can't even subscribe to userfile comments right now), properly working submission page with all the usual stats, etc.
In the relevant game related page like http://tasvideos.org/Game/nes-battletoads.html such submissions would show up in their own tab. I think it would be fitting to call this tab User Playground. Or just Playground. And different branches would need to be grouped together somehow.
Yeah I suggest calling this whole concept Playground, and make it fully managed by users.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
feos wrote:
Haven't read the thread, only the OP. How about this:
Any user can make a submission and set it to a certain status (not just New or Canceled) that would mean the same as sending it to the Showcase class. After that it won't have to be judged, but would still have its own dedicated discussion thread (you can't even subscribe to userfile comments right now), properly working submission page with all the usual stats, etc.
In the relevant game related page like http://tasvideos.org/Game/nes-battletoads.html such submissions would show up in their own tab. I think it would be fitting to call this tab User Playground. Or just Playground. And different branches would need to be grouped together somehow.
Yeah I suggest calling this hole concept Playground, and make it fully managed by users.
I've added this to the OP for a little more exposure. This feels very strong to me, with my only concerns being similarities to current Moons and the nature of user judgement as a whole, though those aren't huge concerns and they should be able to be rooted out fairly easily.
How does this sound to everyone else?
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 BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Haven't read the thread, only the OP. How about this:
Any user can make a submission and set it to a certain status (not just New or Canceled) that would mean the same as sending it to the Showcase class. After that it won't have to be judged, but would still have its own dedicated discussion thread (you can't even subscribe to userfile comments right now), properly working submission page with all the usual stats, etc.
In the relevant game related page like http://tasvideos.org/Game/nes-battletoads.html such submissions would show up in their own tab. I think it would be fitting to call this tab User Playground. Or just Playground. And different branches would need to be grouped together somehow.
Yeah I suggest calling this hole concept Playground, and make it fully managed by users.
I've added this to the OP for a little more exposure. This feels very strong to me, with my only concerns being similarities to current Moons and the nature of user judgement as a whole, though those aren't huge concerns and they should be able to be rooted out fairly easily.
How does this sound to everyone else?
I really like this proposal. It would allow to show stuff that would probably never get accepted as a regular submission, such as #7265: trapmix21's NES Tetris "Pause Manipulation Showcase" in 01:34.86, but it could also be extended to things like IL runs (which are common in several communities), proofs of concept, Human Theory TASes and others.
You'd probably have to introduce some specific guidelines for posting to Playground, more in lines of obeying site rules/CoC and proper attribution, but otherwise keep the process as free as possible. Ideally, encourage encodes to be submitted to make it easier for these posts to get attention.
The playground is a great idea. Being able to look up a game and see the things the community has put on there would be really cool. Having it maintained (mostly) by the game's community is just icing on the cake. At that point it reminds me of game pages on speedrun.com, in a good way.
Also what ikuyo mentioned about individual level TASes sounds awesome. Tons of communities care about IL's and TASVideos doesn't have a good way to cater to those people right now. For example, people have been TASing Super Smash Bros. Melee's Break the Targets, Home Run Contest, Multi-Man Melee, etc. for years and there isn't a good way to feature that here without those players putting in the time and effort to get it all in one input file. The way the game-specific pages work right now technically works but the playground sounds like a great way to expand on that. Think about the number of games with active TAS communities that only focus on single stages, because it's so much easier to start and finish a TAS that way.
2. Alternate Speed Goals
Things like fastest game over, fastest crash/softlock, fastest 69% completion, pretty much any goal that can be reached in a fastest time. We get a lot of these kinds of runs on April Fools Day, perhaps we should actually do something about it.
This feels pretty straightforward, though I suppose the biggest thing to consider is how far should this be taken. "Any goal that can be reached in a fastest time" could lead to things like "fastest game start", so we would need to find a way to limit truly arbitrary goals like that without ruining the point of accepting new speed goals in the first place.
Maybe make a new category for communities of that game to judge themselves? Most of the games have very little community, so this problem would be concentrated on a relatively small number of franchises.
If one game community wants to accept a flood of meme runs while another doesn't, probably just let them decide.
I'm not sure how would one solve visibility; most people don't even download the input file to watch it, and the encodes would likely be on some personal channel or twitch that only people really interested in said community would go look for.
FitterSpace wrote:
Also what ikuyo mentioned about individual level TASes sounds awesome. Tons of communities care about IL's and TASVideos doesn't have a good way to cater to those people right now. For example, people have been TASing Super Smash Bros. Melee's Break the Targets, Home Run Contest, Multi-Man Melee, etc. for years and there isn't a good way to feature that here without those players putting in the time and effort to get it all in one input file. The way the game-specific pages work right now technically works but the playground sounds like a great way to expand on that. Think about the number of games with active TAS communities that only focus on single stages, because it's so much easier to start and finish a TAS that way.
I agree, but at the same time I really hope this doesn't lead to some games basically with no full game TAS and only individual level ones (with perfect RNG that would otherwise not be possible if full run due to luck manip time loss).
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11486
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
jlun2 wrote:
Maybe make a new category for communities of that game to judge themselves? Most of the games have very little community, so this problem would be concentrated on a relatively small number of franchises.
If one game community wants to accept a flood of meme runs while another doesn't, probably just let them decide.
Agreed. If it's just a platform for community content, let that community handle 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.
I agree, but at the same time I really hope this doesn't lead to some games basically with no full game TAS and only individual level ones (with perfect RNG that would otherwise not be possible if full run due to luck manip time loss).
I don't think it'll be much of a problem because there are already a ton of popular games that don't have a full-game TAS, at least, not on TASVideos. The main reason is that it takes so much work to make a TAS that is up to a big community's standards. Individual levels are great because it lowers the barrier to entry on TASVideos, and they take much less time to finish. It's the type of small project that a single person without much experience can work on for pretty much any game. I'd love to see more of that on TASVideos.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11486
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
jlun2 wrote:
I agree, but at the same time I really hope this doesn't lead to some games basically with no full game TAS and only individual level ones (with perfect RNG that would otherwise not be possible if full run due to luck manip time loss).
I think having a lot of IL submissions makes a full run more probable, and better, compared to having ILs banned.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
I support this idea in general, and especially like the idea of a new showcase class. It allows for movies that break site rules but are still very entertaining, such as freeruns/glitch showcases, or also movies that start from a hacked, unverifiable save file or use game genie codes to create interesting or funny gameplay. An example from a game I make TASes of, Undertale, would be that it would allow for Early Punch Card TASes. The Punch Card is a very glitchy item that is normally only obtainable after 20 minutes of mostly glitchless gameplay, and Early Punch Card save files start the game with the Punch Card already in your inventory. Removing these sorts of restrictions makes such TASes vastly more entertaining, at the cost of not being possible from a clean state or requiring a modified game to work.
About the point of obsoletion, I feel that movies of this type would not automatically obsolete other movies. Perhaps if the TASers of the old and new movies agree that the old movie should be obsoleted that could work too, but I don't think this type of movie should be obsoletable by default.
About the game genie codes, I think a good system would be to allow one major code that changes gameplay and then to not limit how many minor codes are allowed. If the TASer makes a TAS with more major codes, he should be able to explain why he chose to do that. A major code could be defined as one that affects gameplay in some significant manner throughout the game. So a code that skips some boring intro story cutscene or modifies textures would count as a minor code, and one that adds new types of movement or affects the game's physics significantly would be a major code.
I also really like the idea of changing to SRC's model and using this as category extensions. This would allow for TASing communities of each game to essentially moderate themselves. This would basically solve one of my biggest annoyances with the current system on TASvideos, which is that you pretty much need random people who may have never played your game to find your TAS interesting. Imagine getting a huge world record in a game, but it gets rejected because you didn't go for swag strats or wasn't interesting to some random guy in the comments. It would also mean that TASes with hour-long setups like the SM64 A Button Challenge could be on TASvideos. Obviously watching Mario stand in place for 12 hours just building up speed is not entertaining to watch for your average Joe, but with a system like SRC such a TAS could be accepted anyways, because it's moderated by people who actually play/make TASes of the game.
Joined: 4/17/2010
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duuuuude5 wrote:
It allows for movies that break site rules but are still very entertaining, such as freeruns/glitch showcases, or also movies that start from a hacked, unverifiable save file or use game genie codes to create interesting or funny gameplay.
By unverifiable do you mean unreproducible? If you can't explain how you got that save and it just has to be preserved or the run would desync, that sounds like a bad thing to allow.
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 unverifiable do you mean unreproducible? If you can't explain how you got that save and it just has to be preserved or the run would desync, that sounds like a bad thing to allow.
Yes that's exactly what I mean, starting from save files that aren't possible to be reached via normal gameplay. For example one that starts the game from the beginning but with late-game items already equipped. A verification movie would not be able to get to those save files. So they would need to be provided alongside the main movie file, along with instructions on where to copy the save files to.
I don't see this as being all that much different from using game genie codes to modify the game, since both would end up putting the game in a state that cannot be reached via normal gameplay, but provides a lot of entertainment value. In the case of the early items example i mentioned, you could technically achieve the same result by using a code that automatically equips these items upon starting a new save file, but I feel that for many games just providing a pre-made save file alongside the TAS would be easier.
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It is. For convenience, a savestate can be provided. Otherwise, a movie file used to create that savestate can be provided, just like how movie file providing SRAM work.
Can this tier be "branch extentions"?
I think, the difference is, the encode starts at the middle instead of power on.
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If you randomly hack the save file and make the result mandatory for a movie sync, that sounds like simply submitting a video file with no explanation how to recreate it. Even if you can't get a certain save file directly from gameplay, there should be some description on how exactly to tweak it so it makes the movie sync. Game genie codes are just strings of text and can be preserved in a bunch of ways, for example directly put into submission description. Completely unrecreatable save files can't be pasted as text. And there's even little to verify whether it's worth accepting (by a team of game mods) because you don't even know what is there and what was changed.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
I'm with feos on this one. I'm not necessarily against the idea of someone hacking away at SRAM or a savestate to start their showcase run from, but we shouldn't be accepting anything that is completely unverified. I think at the very least, we need a written record of what was modified and a set of reproduction steps that anyone on their own can follow to be able to generate the same files (or at least something similar enough) that the author used.
Ideally, though, these kinds of things are accomplished with Game Genie/Action Replay, or even something like a Lua script that runs alongside the movie and pokes/freezes RAM at the right spots. Consider it futureproofing: If someone 10 years down the line wants to improve such a run, they're not going to be using the same emulator or the same tools. Providing just a savestate or just SRAM is going to be meaningless to them. Written records of repro steps, or more universal things like Game Genie and Lua, are going to stay useful essentially forever.
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 BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Ideally, though, these kinds of things are accomplished with Game Genie/Action Replay, or even something like a Lua script that runs alongside the movie and pokes/freezes RAM at the right spots. Consider it futureproofing: If someone 10 years down the line wants to improve such a run, they're not going to be using the same emulator or the same tools. Providing just a savestate or just SRAM is going to be meaningless to them. Written records of repro steps, or more universal things like Game Genie and Lua, are going to stay useful essentially forever.
I can verify that a savestate/sram alone is pointless. Runs I did in VBA/DesuMe testing various things years ago are completely unusable for me for BizHawk. More annoyingly it doesn't even sync right (especially for DeSmuME), so now I just have a youtube encode and a text file of input that doesn't work.
I'm with feos on this one. I'm not necessarily against the idea of someone hacking away at SRAM or a savestate to start their showcase run from, but we shouldn't be accepting anything that is completely unverified. I think at the very least, we need a written record of what was modified and a set of reproduction steps that anyone on their own can follow to be able to generate the same files (or at least something similar enough) that the author used.
Ideally, though, these kinds of things are accomplished with Game Genie/Action Replay, or even something like a Lua script that runs alongside the movie and pokes/freezes RAM at the right spots. Consider it futureproofing: If someone 10 years down the line wants to improve such a run, they're not going to be using the same emulator or the same tools. Providing just a savestate or just SRAM is going to be meaningless to them. Written records of repro steps, or more universal things like Game Genie and Lua, are going to stay useful essentially forever.
Ah yeah I understand what you mean, providing an emulator savestate to start the run doesn't make much sense and if i correctly understand how SRAM works then that doesn't necessarily make all that much sense either. I meant using hacked save files with the background of making Undertale TASes, where each version of the game creates save files that work on every other version of the game and regardless of emulator, and where starting a TAS from a save file is a simple as copying the save files to the saves folder that the game reads from. As far as I know game genie/action replay codes don't really work or even exist for PC games anyways.
I do think that at least providing steps on how to make the save file yourself is a good idea though.
This came back to my mind.
https://tasvideos.org/Forum/Topics/14293
If "demo tier" is added, maybe we can move Saturn's Chrono Trigger completionist movie there after a movie with a more clearly defined goal (all quests mentioned by Gaspar, for example) is published.
Regarding the idea of "demo tier" itself, I think it is better to have it as a separate class. One good way to draw the line between the Moon class and "demo tier" if that approach is taken is to make the Moon class still require completing the game as required in Standard. The same can be applied to other more "unconventional" factors, but starting with allowing the game to be not completed as conventionally defined is a good place to start.
Joined: 11/13/2006
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Location: Northern California
I forgot to mention this a week ago, but we will most likely not start going through with this until we've all settled into the new site, as the staff are primarily focusing on site changes. That, of course, doesn't mean you should all stop suggesting/discussing things! Now pardon me while I copy/paste this into other threads, changing the words slightly so it looks more like I'm not doing that.
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 BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
I posted some thoughts on Discord about levels on this new tier/class that can apply depending on the implementation of the tier/class :
If having ILs compared to full run doesn't change anything for the run i don't think it is useful to accept them as it will be redundant stuff. A solution for it would be, if standard/moons classes can obsolete the showcase class, to obsolete all levels that doesn't save time compared to one of the full run.
Another problem of levels that doesn't save time compared to full run is authorship... A new person arrive and "submit" (depending on the implementation) a level that is already in the Moons/standard TAS of the same game by another author, even if the inputs aren't the same, the author(s) of the old TAS already made the level optimally.
This thoughts aren't against level implementation of possible TASes on the site, just that this thought can be posted by someone else at any time. I really don't mind if all levels can be submitted even the ones that doesn't save time to full-run.
