Post subject: My apologies, this was a bad idea :S
Joined: 5/17/2006
Posts: 34
Hello. I know very little about TAS and about emulation in general. In the near future I plan to start my own emulated game video website. Literally, the theme I am planning is "videos that will not end up on TASvideos" because they do not fit the rules of TASvideos for whatever reason. I honestly don't know what those reasons would be; I don't know TASvideos' rules :S Anyway ... Can anybody give me any advice? I am planning to accept both TAS and emulated videos that are not tool-assisted. I am considering going with three categories: TAS, not tool-assisted, and "somewhere in between," for videos that use some slowdown/savestates but are not full-blown TAS. Does this sound feasible? Or should I rethink this? As far as I know I will need to accept the runners' word (and the opinions of my site's other users, provided there are other users) on whether tools were used. I plan to accept both speedruns and videos where speed is not the goal. (score, combos, etc) Umm ... does the term "TAS" still apply if speed is not the goal? Don't think that's TOO important, but still ... Any help is appreciated. The site may open up in a week or two.
Senior Moderator
Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away
Yeah, if you plan on doing something like this, you should concentrate on the entertainment in the first place, without much regard to speed. When Dragonfangs did his Metroid Fusion 0% TAS for the m2k2 community, one of his goals was, if I'm not mistaken, "passing through each room in the coolest way". That interferes with the general TAS rules but is perfectly applicable to the "movies that that don't end up on TASVideos". Hosting the Action Replay'd movies (check this thread for an example) and Doom TASes would be a good addition as well. Also, think of tool-assisted trickery sections, TAS music videos and other kinds of fool-arounds. Good luck with your project. BTW, for the TAS making guidelines and all that stuff, check the FAQ. You can find it right on the front page.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Former player
Joined: 6/4/2006
Posts: 267
Location: CO
I like the idea of having a place for the "cool but not fast" TASes to be seen. As far as your three categories, I would definately get rid of the "somewhere in between" category. If a run uses any slowdown or savestates whatsoever, it is considered tool-assisted, theres not really a gray area. The non-tool videos would also be nice, but for the sake of verification they would have to be played on console, not emulator. Also, make sure there is a clear distinction between the non-tool and tool-assisted areas and that the concept of a TAS is clearly explained. Good luck.
Post subject: Re: planning new emulation video site
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
Umm, I think Phil Côté had that same idea at some point. I don't know what happened to that idea... Well, good luck. Here's a few things to consider: * Resources! You need to think of a method how you distribute the movies and to make them accessible to your site's users. I don't think Rapidshare etc are suitable for that. Bittorrent works, but you need to set up a tracker. And maintain it. * Organization. From what I understood, your site will contain more movies than my site. It is vital that you devise a way to organize them so that users can actually find what they're looking for. You need a website engine that automatically generates different views to your movie listings so that you don't need to maintain each of them manually. * Information. You may not think it's necessary, but I hope that you will accurately, and informatively, present the movies as what they are. In the beginning of NESVideos (former name of TASVideos), my site had more text content than movies. The Why And How pages were born from the need to explain the difference of tool-assisted movies and regular speed runs. I still think it's important to make that distinction, and to provide information about that. The term "tool-assisted" isn't yet commonly enough known. * Quantity does not compensate for quality. For your site to be successful, it needs to have quality. ** But don't just rip TASvideos. Having two sites for the same goals does not benefit anyone either; it just makes information harder to find. I don't mean this to scare you off. If you can provide quality content without competing with this site, so much better, but do know that the original goal of my site was to provide entertaining tool-assisted movies without focus on speed. (And I haven't officially dismantled that goal, nor do I intend to.) It just has evolved the way it is; speed usually works best for entertainment. An example of a successful site that was "in between", was Arc's nes.greatstreamingvideo site. It had links to regular speedruns, tool-assisted speedruns and even to a live performance of cup stacking. Its key to success was a refined collection. Eventually though, movies from TASvideos began to eat a large share of his site's content, which may have contributed to its downfall. The site lost its definition.
Joined: 5/17/2006
Posts: 34
Wow, it honestly surprises me greatly that I'm recieving positive support for this idea, being that I am a TOTAL newbie. "In-Between category" - GONE. Right now my hope is that archive.org will be willing to host the videos. I am willing to donate money to them. Does anybody know if this might be possible? I plan to offer each video in two forms - download or watch on YouTube (under 10 minutes) or Google Video (over 10 minutes). I'll say this right now. My site's layout is going to be VERY SIMPLE. If this turns you off, then you probably should avoid my site. I will start with one long page listing all the videos. Hopefully I'll have to expand that a little bit eventually when I have more videos. I'm going to have to trust experienced video site patrons with a lot of things. I will not screen each video very much before I put them up. If a video should be removed, then I will have to count on the people that use my site to tell me so on the message board. I don't have that much in the way of resources. I will only be able to put up videos as quickly as I humanly can. Couple that with the fact that I'm trying to start three websites all at the same time (the same day the cable guy connects my broadband internet, which will be some day next week) ... Can you tell I'm over my head? Umm, anybody STILL interested, after I said all that? edit: I'm considering a rule: If it is on TASvideos, then it is not allowed on my site. If it is on my site and then it makes it onto TASvideos, and somebody tells me so, then it is to be removed from my site. I'm also considering letting forum users rate the videos in forum threads, and then me place the ratings they recieve next to their listings on the main site. edit 2: I am severely unqualified to explain what a TAS is and what an emulator is. Could somebody in charge of TASvideos tell me whether I have permission to link from my site to TASvideos' description of these things? If not, then I'll need somebody to write that explanation for me.
Joined: 10/24/2005
Posts: 1080
Location: San Jose
Ok, you being a total Newbie, I have to ask, do you know what TAS is? You should plan to make extremely clear on your site. Also, hosting videos on youtube is a source of trouble, often people will believe that TAS is real-time gameplay, and the confusion will cause some controversy. We aren't trying to pass off our runs as real-time runs and however how hard you try, I doubt that you'll be able to convery this message to the majority of Youtube.
<agill> banana banana banana terracotta pie! <Shinryuu> ho-la terracotta barba-ra anal-o~
Joined: 5/17/2006
Posts: 34
Hello, DK64_MASTER. I recognize you from SDA. Just to let you know, at the same time I start this I plan to start a similar site showing off "console videos that will never be on SDA." I do know most basically what a TAS is. A player using an emulator uses things like savestates and slowdown to achieve things in games that would be impossible for me to do without an emulator (lol, actually lots and lots of things are impossible for ME to do, I'm not that great a game player myself). My favorite is the Link's Awakening video where the player screen warps and doubles up the boss and does just crazy stuff to beat the game in under five minutes. The inaugural run that will make it onto my console game site will be my video of myself doing that on Game Boy Player. About YouTube, I think I understand the issue and I am very glad you gave me that advice! No, I do not think that beginning each video's description with "This is not a humanly-played video! This is a TAS! That means ..." would even be enough to make all watchers understand. Do you think it would be acceptable to place all the videos on Google Video with a disclaimer like that? Or should I consider dropping the youtube/google idea entirely? Just to let you know, I think I am very serious about seeing these sites of mine through. I have no job, and I am very interested in what I am trying to do, so I plan to spend lots of time on these sites. I desparately need experienced members of TASvideos and SDA to help me, for my sites to have a chance.
Post subject: Re: planning new emulation video site
Former player
Joined: 6/4/2006
Posts: 267
Location: CO
slo_bro wrote:
I am planning to accept both TAS and emulated videos that are not tool-assisted. I am considering going with three categories: TAS, not tool-assisted, and "somewhere in between," for videos that use some slowdown/savestates but are not full-blown TAS.
If you are going to have two totally different sites for tool-assisted videos and non-tool videos, why would you have any non-tool videos on the tool-assisted site? Also, I agree that you should not use YouTube since people there can never understand what a TAS is. I'm not too familiar with how google videos works, but I dont really see the point of putting videos there if you're going to have them on your site.
Joined: 5/17/2006
Posts: 34
I really plan to make it all one site. I want to put the TAS right next to the non-tool. I want to mark each one as one or the other. For example, there might be a 16-minute Metroid TAS marked as such, and the next video in the chart might be a 22-minute Metroid non-tool-assisted. Somewhere I would do my best to explain 1) that a slower non-tool is definitely not necessarily worse than the faster TAS, and 2) that I have no way to verify for sure whether the video actually used no tools, I only have the court of public opinion in the message board. If enough people at the message board think it's actually a TAS then I might mark it "TAS suspected" or something. Or I might not get THAT technical, we'll just see. edit: and 3) that the process of making a TAS and the process of making a non-tool-assisted video are TOTALLY different. If people don't think this will work, then I might have to switch it to an only-TAS website :( Lol, here's a sample of what the top of the page looks like right now: http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l239/slo_bro/siteimg.jpg another note: I will only accept videos from the person who claims to be their creator. I will only include a given video if the person who claims to be its creator gives me permission to do so. If you have a specific video in mind for the site and you're not its creator, then for my sake get in contact with the person who made the video :) edit: Yeah, in fact I am planning two different websites, well, technically three. One of them will be a katamari-series video website where about 30% of the videos are made by me, and where some of the videos are the exact videos on SDA. I'm making that site because I like the katamari series of games so much. I know for a fact that the katamari video site will be at least marginally successful, because I have the backing of an entire loyal katamari message board. As for the other two sites, I have no idea whether or not they will succeed. They may thrive, or I may never recieve a single video for either one. odd little note: Some day I think the katamari games will be great for individual-level TAS treatment. There would be just about endless possibilities. Another one is for games other than katamari, and no emulated runs of any kind will be allowed (like SDA). That site will have only one video made by me; I'll rely on others for the rest of the videos. Lots of things that SDA does not accept (mysterious teleportation, videos of only part of the game rather than the whole game, and runs where things other than speed are the goal) will be accepted there. Just like at the other two sites, even silly little videos where the player does something cool and doesn't complete any of the game's goals will be accepted. One odd rule will be that segmented runs will only be accepted if they are made of very few segments. Same with individual levels - I would rather have three or four really cool levels rather than all 30 of them, and that's because my time/resources are limited. For timed runs, I will DO MY BEST to time them the way SDA does, from the moment the player gains control to the moment the player loses control. Or I might possibly make a small change, and time them from the beginning of control to the exact moment the final objective is completed. I think there's a difference :S I will accept runs via computer file, DVD or VHS tape. If possible I will accept PAL VHS. Hopefully I will be capable of dealing with a large percentage of the runs that come my way. No run that is on SDA will be eligible. If a run already on my site makes it onto SDA, then I request that the runner tell me so, so I can remove the run from my site. The third one is the emulation video website, with TAS and non-tool. There won't be any videos made by me at this site. No run on TASvideos will be eligible for my site. Videos of only part of the game, videos where speed is not the goal, etc. will be accepted. Even videos using Game Genie-type codes will be accepted, provided the runner is honest about using them. Those videos will be marked with the fact a code was used. The requirements to get the video on the site will be approximately this: that the person that made the video thinks the video is cool, that the video was encoded well (not too much audio desync etc.), and that the video has no adult content. Then, each video will get one thread in the message board for discussion. Eventually, if and when the site has lots of videos and if the members of the message board agree it's a good idea, I will add polls to the videos' threads asking members to rate the videos from 1 to 10, and I will display each video's rating on the main site. That way videos that suck won't be deleted, but they will have only a 2 or 3 out of 10 next to them so sitegoers know not to download them. If there is something seriously wrong with the video, or if it really really really sucks, then a message board member can post about it in the Video Purgatory forum. If enough people agree (including refs, a special user group for trusted members) that the video should be removed, then I will remove it. That's a mouthful. edit: Roms and emulators will never be on my website. There will be a strict rule on the forums that nobody can tell anybody where to get roms. I will require emulated movies to be submitted in .avi form. I don't know for sure, but I am guessing that I should also require the movie file that can be played in the emulator?
Joined: 5/17/2006
Posts: 34
Holy crap! I just noticed that Bisqwit was one of the people who gave me advice! Thanks. I do have one question to ask you specifically, may I link directly to your site's page about what a TAS is, or will I have to have someone write up a new page for my site? Also, when I am ready, may I post the URL of my site here? I know that technically that would be advertising (and it would be one hell of an advertisement; posting one URL here would do more for my site than spending $1000 advertising it all over the web). If you let me post the URL I will really appreciate it.
SXL
Joined: 2/7/2005
Posts: 571
a site like this one ? there are several of them already, pretty hard to make them survive... good luck though !
I never sleep, 'cause sleep is the cousin of death - NAS
Banned User
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
Some thoughts: - Is it really necessary to have yet another site with tool-assisted speedruns? Of course if it's well made and doesn't disrupt the delicate image of the TAS phenomenon (ie. in plain English: if it doesn't confuse people and start another wave of "these are fake" ranting in forums) then there's nothing wrong with that. However, posting the same videos in two places is dubious, so the videos posted in the site perhaps should be completely unrelated to the videos posted here. But in that case runners would have to make a choice of where to submit their videos: To the largest TAS site in existence or to a new small unknown site. I bet the choice will be quite clear for most people. - If what you want is to post videos which were rejected here, then take into account that there's usually a good reason why they were rejected. A dumpster of rejected TAS videos might not receive too much popularity. - However, what you describe sounds more like what you want to do is to make a site with machinima videos. In that case you should definitely *not* use the term "TAS". TAS is not a synonym for "tool-assisted". If you want to publish machinima videos which have been made with emulators, use "tool-assisted machinima" or whatever, not "TAS". - Take into account that making interesting machinima videos is probably a *lot* harder than making TAS videos. Making a TAS is often quite easy, relatively speaking: Just study the routes, tricks and shortcuts in the game and then spend some hours/months making a frame-by-frame optimal run through it. Entertainment will usually take care of itself along the way. Not so with machinima videos: If you want a machinima to be interesting you actually need some artistical talent and inspiration. Machinimas are short movies, and making them interesting might be even more challenging than regular short movies because you have very limited technology. - Related to that, machinima videos need editing. Just watching someone play a game is *boring*, even if he tries to make something "funny" from time to time. As I said above, making a good and interesting machinima is very hard and requires talent and inspiration. - Not to discourage you, but take also into account that your idea is in no way novel: Several dozens such sites have been put up, only a few have survived after the years. Competition is very harsh.
Active player (256)
Joined: 4/24/2005
Posts: 476
I like the idea of having a place for the "cool but not fast" TASes to be seen. Doesn't that fit under "concept demos"?
[URL=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcuV2JdaBYY]Streets of Rage 3 (2 players)[/url]
Joined: 5/17/2006
Posts: 34
www.wewantkatamarivideos.com kind of shows the style of the website I want to make. (It's under construction.) But there will be major differences between my katamari site and my emulation site. Like the site won't be quite so "nice" and "friendly" with cute graphics, there will be none of that. I really appreciate the link to www.speedruns.net. One thing I really want to do is put links on my homepage to other TAS sites. I only want links to sites with no porn, no links to porn, no roms, no adware, etc. etc. Does anyone know any other sites I can link to from my homepage? (I will most definitely link to tasvideos). I really do not know if my site will be successful at all. To begin with I am going to accept a wide variety of videos; hopefully I'll find some niche eventually. But for my site to be at least somewhat successful, all it would take would be two or three excellent game players/TAS makers who support my site with good content. At least that's my hope. There's got to be some sort of content that tasvideos does not accept that could go on my site. For example, one thing I would really like to accept is videos of altered roms, like the videos I heard of some people making where they were designing Mario World stages and then speedrunning them. One weakness of my site would be that I would not give anyone any clues of where they could actually find the altered roms though. I would hope that videos I get that have been rejected here would be ones rejected not for quality but for other rules. I really don't know what machinima is. Hopefully by the time I get the site going I will know what it means. I just made a katamari video where I did something funny, and with virtualdub I had an easy time editing out some of the boring parts. Hopefully, if people want to submit stuff like that to my site, they will be good at editing. I definitely would accept an edited video, provided the person submitting it to me is not trying to pass it off as a speedrun. So how broad is the term TAS? Can I use it to refer to any things that are tool-assisted but are not speedruns? I really appreciate it if anyone is actually willing to read most of what I am posting here. I know I've been long-winded and disorganized. I really want to link from near the top of my homepage to the 'What's a TAS' page on TASvideos. Is that acceptable? Eventually I want to allow members to rank videos solely based on entertainment value, from 1 to 10. Then I want to write those rankings on my main site, right next to the videos available for download. Another thing about my site is that I plan to purchase some pretty darn long-term contracts for my website and for my domain, and I plan to hopefully put the videos on places like archive.org where they will not be deleted anytime soon (unless I mess up and break archive's rules or something). Even when I stop working on my site (which hopefully won't be soon) I plan to keep the videos and the site up for a long, long time, barring hacking and such. And obsoleted videos will never be removed from my site just because they're obsolete, they may be moved off the front page but they'll still be available. So, with any luck, if you get a video on my site and it's not removed for cheating/bad video quality/making it onto TASvideos/etc., then your video will be there for a long long time. edit: Please understand that I realize this completely: I realize that for any runner/TAS maker, it would be FAR preferable to get their work on TASvideos than on my site! I will never doubt that for a second. But there may be videos that TASvideos will not accept for whatever reason. One basic rule on my site will be that no video that's on TASvideos may also be on my site. The very best I could hope for would that my site could be a sort of minor league for TAS and other emulated videos, this site being the majors of course. So, what do people think are my chances of succeeding? 1 being lowest, 10 being highest. If anybody says over 5, I don't think I'll believe you. I would like to hear, is there anyone who might be willing to support my site with videos?
Former player
Joined: 4/16/2004
Posts: 1286
Location: Finland
I'm sorry but I'm gonna have to say 1 or 2 because:
    1) Your web design really puts me off (I hope it's not the final design) 2) You don't have a clear concept. Are you just gonna host ALL videos that are not on SDA or TASvideos? 3) I don't think you really understand the amount of work that Bisqwit has put into his site. Because you will accept videos with almost no requirements, you will have a crapload of videos on your site. This means, as Bisqwit said, that you absolutely NEED to have some sort of a dynamic database structure in your site. It can't be just separate pages linking to each other. I don't think this is as easy as it might sound. Maintaining the entire system takes a lot of time every day. 4) Who will encode the videos into .avi form? You? How about the console runs? AFAIK it takes a lot of time and effort to encode them. You need to have standards for avi quality. Encoding movies isn't a short & simple task. 5) Is anyone actually really interested in runs that aren't accepted here or at SDA? Why would anyone want to see them? If I think about the runs rejected here I honestly can't think of any single one worth watching.
I think the biggest problem is #5, followed by #3. How will you have time to manage many sites with any efficiency? Honestly I think you are going way over your head.
Joined: 5/17/2006
Posts: 34
I'm hoping people don't submit crap x__x I don't want to have to reject all kinds of stuff. I think my first submission rule is going to be "Don't submit crap." :D My plan was to require the runner to submit an .avi., or if they'd rather they can just put their video on Google Video I don't have a single emulator on my computer. If somebody submits to me a file that requires an emulator to run, I can't do a thing with it. If somebody submits to me a file in some form that virtualdub or something can turn into an .avi, then I am willing and able to do it. At this time I am assuming that runs will come to me at a slow trickle. But I know it, I might be wrong!!!! If I get swamped, I might just put up an announcement that "no more runs will be accepted until x day." :) my first vote was a 1 or 2 out of 10. I like your honesty!! Oh well. Just to let you know, if my site fails horribly it won't hurt my feelings badly or anything, it's just something fun that I really want to do if it turns out I have what it takes to do it. edit: I never want to have a BIG website. I want a FUN website for people willing to cope with my barbaric web design. edit 2: About having time, I don't know whether that will become a problem, maybe it will or maybe it won't. Like I said I have no job. I'll see whether or not I can handle it.
Joined: 5/17/2006
Posts: 34
You know what, I've been thinking about this, and I think my idea I have right now for a site is so stupid that I should stop wasting everybody's time talking about it. There are so many reasons my idea probably wouldn't work. I think I'm going to can the idea. But I still have the time and resources to possibly start a site. Does anybody know of any specific niche that is lacking a place to show off their videos? Who wouldn't mind a site with poor organization? Like for example, could there be a group interested in a site only for videos of altered roms? But chances are I'll stop wasting everybody's time on this. Sorry.
Joined: 5/30/2005
Posts: 98
Maybe you could make the focus of your site on TAS that start from a savestate or SRM. I am pretty sure movies like this will never be hosted here so it would be nice to have a site that would host them. This would be good for games without alot of unlockable content (where the unlockable content is good but the process of unlocking it is boring) or if you only felt like making a TAS of part of the game. Another idea is maybe you could have a section for movies where you speedruned them like normal but you are allowed to make a certain number (as opposed to an infinate number that this site allows) of savestates while making the run.
Joined: 5/17/2006
Posts: 34
Do others think a site might work focusing only on TAS that start from a savestate? Heh, I think I actually understand what that means :S Wouldn't the movies I recieve probably be in the format that plays in the emulator? Should I learn to convert them to something like .avis, or should I just put them up on the site in their original form? Or is there a chance that the movies I recieve would be in a format I can already handle? I am still willing to try to make a small site work. Last night when I was thinking about it though, I don't see how a small site with bad organization would be any better than just having the movies on Youtube or something. Anyone here think they might create movies for my site, if my site uses this new idea? Or any other ideas?
Former player
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
A site that focuses only on endgame content wouldn't be so bad. I would love to see some things, like Boss Rush modes and whatnot, that won't be seen here. All of your other questions can be answered via the all knowing FAQ of the main site.
hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine
Joined: 5/17/2006
Posts: 34
If I start any site I still want to be willing to accept no-savestate no-slowdown content along with TAS. If that's a bad idea then I won't. Stuff like the Omega battle in Final Fantasy V or Kefka in FFVI (and yes, I definitely would accept runs on Japanese roms). I think all these could be covered in the "from a savestate" theme, if you guys think that would be a good idea. Should I have a strict limit on video length, like under 30 minutes or something (to make it easier on me and my limited time/resources)? I really need to know, would it be feasible for me to expect all runners who contribute to convert their videos to something like an .avi that I can handle? If I did that, should I also require a copy of the original video? Forgive me if I totally have no idea what I'm talking about, I probably don't. I have no idea what percentage of runners actually convert their runs to video files that don't require an emulator to watch. Unless if somebody tells me not to, if I start a site I will definitely display a link to this site's "what's a TAS" page prominently on my homepage. And by the way, I have confirmation from archive.org that they will store any content I come up with. If anybody wants to start a game video site, or if anybody just wants to store their videos on the web, I highly recommend www.archive.org. I think that both this site and SDA use that site.
Former player
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
I highly doubt people will encode whatever they are submitting. While encoding to avi isn't hard, some people (including me) just aren't driven to learn how, as it is rarely necessitated. I could be wrong, though. Also, you would need to set a maximum and minimum quality on all avis, which would cause some problems.
hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine
Joined: 5/17/2006
Posts: 34
So for me to convert videos into .avis, wouldn't that require me to have both the emulators and the roms? I think that's a bigger commitment than I'm willing to make. Are there other possible solutions? Could I just offer on my site video files that require emulators to play? Or, hope beyond hope, is it possible that someone here would be interested in teaming up with me and converting all the files? I know that would be asking A LOT considering that mine would be a totally unproven website.
Former player
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
If by commitment you mean 'torrent the cache of goodx ROMs' or 'bookmark a ROM site', then yes, that is a commitment. If you seriously can't bring yourself to have both the emulators and ROMs for the movie, I suppose you could have people simply send you .avis for hosting, but... why would you do that? All you would be doing is paying for hosting/bandwidth for other peoples' movies.
hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine
JXQ
Experienced player (761)
Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132
Zurreco wrote:
While encoding to avi isn't hard
LIES!
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)