given the choice between a tas that optimizes things to make gameplay seem superhuman and finds new routes and one that uses glitches to attempt to do things as fast as the programming will allow i will opt for the former as the latter is typically boring
While I've got no personal arguments with your point here, I really don't know if we need to have this debate for the umpteenth time in this thread. I vote we just skip the "speed vs. entertainment" and keep on track.
Very much enjoyed this, yes vote.
I also enjoyed the detailed comments and hope you find time to finish them. I wish more runs had verbose commentary; it's very informative and greatly increases viewing pleasure.
I would guess the encoders don't want to spend time on this submission when a new one will probably show up soon and waste that effort. Sad, but hardly unreasonable.
There is a lot of really rude and uncivil posting here regarding the speed vs. entertainment argument.
It's not my place to tell anyone what to think, but please act like grown-ups when you post. Calling someone's personal opinions "crap" is just childish. Ultimately the decision is up to antd, and somehow I don't think you're going to win any points by being unnecessarily rude.
antd: as I've said before, in a run that's hours long, I think you shouldn't worry too much about best in-game time at the cost of viewing pleasure. Obviously that is a subjective viewpoint and it's not something that can be nailed down, but I have reasonable faith in the community here and in you as a human being--I believe people are capable of making coherent, intelligent decisions about what counts as "entertainment" and what sacrifices are worth making. I don't need to view everything here as pure, black-and-white objectives, because quite frankly that makes things less fun.
The pause glitch, to me, is significantly less fun to watch. I'll leave the verdict on that up to you, of course. I'm less opposed to the use of slots, but I'd really rather not see that, because the strategies you'll use will be more impressive if you don't just one-shot everything. That's my two cents... take it as you will.
If we ask the opinion of anybody submitting a run, that person will (almost) always say yes for their run to be published (with the exception being joke april fools submissions).
This is a given, but I can see where you thought I meant that. Specifically, I'd like his opinion on how the new or old run is preserved to have some weight--if, for example, he wanted the new run added to the description for the old run, or something along those lines.
The big problem (I have?) with this is simple, if we are to allow that then its open floodgate of hell for having _any_ game patched and rerun.
That's a reason I've read before, but we don't actually get a floodgate of submissions now anyway, and I don't think there's a long line of people sitting around waiting to TAS hacked versions of games. Besides all that, if it provides more entertaining runs, would it be so terrible to have to deal with a selection of bad submissions alongside it?
Just like SotN, the challenge of this game is severely undercut by its own mechanics, which hampers the technical impressiveness of a speed run. Unlike SotN, though, there's no "let me win that in less than 20 minutes" run to make impressive use of glitches in a reasonable timeframe. Instead, we watch a calculator murder everything in one turn for a few hours, which just isn't quite as fun.
I'm surprised there's any discussion about NOT obsoleting the old one, though I see where people are coming from.
I find this one more technically impressive. I didn't mind waiting longer between images. I can't really add much to that--it's going to be one of those "personal preference" debates. I don't know if it's better to put something like this to a vote or for judges to just agree on something and go from there, but in a case like this I hope the opinion of the person who submitted both runs holds serious weight in the decision.
The only other option, which I'm sure wouldn't be allowed, would be a TAS run of the 1.3 patch version of this game. For those who don't know, it completely changes the game and makes it near perfect balanced. It removes the JP scroll glitch, removes "broken" skills, makes enemies very well balanced (enemies with actual reaction abilities? gasp), and a whole bunch of other stuff. Basically, you couldn't cheese your way through it if you tried. But, it's a patch, and probably not well enough known by people to understand why its a GOOD patch, not just some random hack. Too bad, because IMO a patch run would be amazing since it actually makes the game hard (or at least, forces you to THINK instead of just cheezing your way through).
Personally, I'd say this is the way to go--it wouldn't be a TAS of the original game and would probably warrant a publication under the "hacks" section of the site, but fuck it. Having played 1.3, I can promise anyone who takes it on as a TAS that it's going to have significantly higher entertainment value and be far more challenging/impressive than calculator facerolling. Someone should do this.
Not to beat this horse dead, but it's always a bummer to see a good any% run that plays the game normally being obsoleted by any sort of memory abuse/save corruption play.
Now, those runs (major glitching) are usually my favorites, so I'm thrilled to see them, but I still don't care much for the justification of removal of the any% runs of Earthbound/CT/this, etc. Just because a run is outdated doesn't mean someone will put up a new any%, especially of longer games.
But, again, just my 2c... the poor horse is fine powder now, I know...
nfq: I suspected when I made my post that someone would point something like that out. Still, it seems you are okay with it, and a few seconds isn't the same as several chunks of a run. So for now I'll stand by my statement :-)
MrGrunz wrote:
my TAS is just going to be a more optimized version of something we've all seen many times already
fwiw, I've avoided watching most WIPs as well as abeshi's run for the sake of being pleasantly wow'd when your run comes out. As for those who chose to watch his run, well, it's really their loss, don't you think?
This blew up pretty quick.
Abeshi: you did nothing wrong, though it would have been nice if you had credited Grunz somewhere for his input and strategies. Still, since you aren't submitting, you shouldn't feel bad.
Synx: you keep saying "the best run should be published." I agree with that idea. However, in this case, the author of the TAS created a run using significant input from another author. It would be unfair for that run to be published without the permission of the author who produced the original input. In this case, Mr. Grunz should have the right to veto the publication of this run were it submitted, on account of the input he created. Otherwise, we would basically be approving of stolen input, which would mean nobody would ever share their input files during creation of a TAS, and this ultimately just makes our experience here less fun.
I'm also surprised this was ever a debate. This run would not ever get published without Grunz' permission. Show me where stolen input has ever been permitted in publication, ever.
Have a little faith in the site and the people on it, guys.
I really don't see a benefit to a long, drawn-out argument here, so I'll just point this one thing out and let you conclude whatever you wish:
If I was working on a project, and I read the comments you made, I would think, "Man, I can't believe this guy. He says he has no faith in me. He wants someone else to take over my work. Where does he get off?"
Maybe it's just me, but any way you intended it, it came off like you felt antd owed you something, which is just not cool.
As far as the good of my post, yeah, it's probably not worth much, but I wanted to make sure antd knew at least one person was patiently supporting him in his absence. I know I'd like people to have my back in the same sense. If you intended well, that's fine, but it didn't seem that way, so I felt a need to chime in.
That said, I'd just as soon move on--it's unfair of me to clutter the board with individual disputes and you've made it clear you didn't intend to come off the way you did. I'm just going to continue waiting patiently for more work on this project.
I agree with the above posters. I am entitled to a TAS that I put no work or contributions towards! How DARE someone have a personal life or real obligations that come before my selfish desires?!
Seriously, you guys sound like grade A jerks. I'm very happy with the progress and I can only hope the absolute rudeness displayed by our less mature forumgoers will not scare antd off from sharing future work with us.
The idea of "whipping a TAS out in a few weeks" is so insulting I'm just not sure how to take it seriously. If you have that kind of time, by all means, please make your own TAS and I will happily eat my words.
Even if everything were perfect, I'm not sure this category merits publishing, ever. Competition mode is just... tacky.
Ditto with respect to Mario Kart. Game is just tacky, folks.
I suppose I should have elaborated. Competition mode is an extra mode added to the game, and while the idea was nice, the mode lacks polish. One might even say it was, perhaps, tacked on as an afterthought.
At any rate, unlike a TAS of, say, Mario Kart, I really don't know how this can be made to be entertaining. YMMV, and I'm no judge, so who knows?
Of course, obsoleted movies aren't gone, especially with the move to continue to host encodes of them. We could just add a link to the less-glitched movie in the currently-published movie.
True enough, which is why it's not a huge problem. They're still available, so I'm happy.
Warp wrote:
If the reason for a run to "obsolete" another run in a completely different category is, indeed, because the old run is "outdated and doesn't use the more recently found techniques", then it feels like some kind of excuse for unpublication.
That was always the impression I got, as well, but I didn't delve too deep into the judges' reasoning. I generally give the guys who make publication decisions the benefit of the doubt, as they're the ones spending their free time making runs available for me. Beggars can't be choosers, right?
Just the same, it was odd. I suppose I should've asked when discussion was ripe; now I feel like I'm beating a dead horse. I'm sure it will come up again and we'll see what transpires.
Oh, the reason for the obsoletion is the same as this movie.
I disagreed with the choice for obsoletion with the old CT run too. ;)
If, as the submission thread states in the publishing notes, the reason was to "keep our options open" and because the old run was outdated, I understand the reasoning, but I don't agree with the conclusion.
If nothing else, a game should probably always have a full run around. It still seems strange to me, on a site where we have terrible games whose runs have been kept only because they were published long ago when standards were lax, that we would ever knock out runs of long-standing, popular games which were fun to watch.
Anyway, that's just my 2c. Take it or leave it. I'll survive... somehow.
One completes the game following the natural/intended route, the other abuses glitches to skip what should be "mandatory" events.
I still don't know why it was an obsoletion and not a new category, besides the fact that they both fell under the umbrella of "any% runs". I don't mind overly much, but it does seem strange not to have kept the full game run.
Was starting to wonder about this run, if it was still alive... obviously yes.
I am so wowed by the WIP. Words can't describe it. Eagerly awaiting the final product... it may well be the most entertaining TAS this site will ever see.
It's not "from a dead stop", because Samus is still moving towards the gate prior to releasing the missile. The mechanics behind this are the same as usual (the missile spawning point is being shifted forward by the horizontal velocity), the point of this video is to show how to make it easier unassisted.
And to further elaborate, because the mechanics are the same, the right-facing super-missile switch on gates are still out of range of super missiles. In other words, we still aren't yet able to hit the Maridia gate from the right (and I don't know how that will ever happen at this point).
So you're saying because the game is long something that makes it faster would make the run less "watchable" and less entertaining? I'm sorry but I simply cannot understand this logic. How is pausing more "watchable" and more entertaining than loading, and since when does subjective entrainment value take priority over speed in a speed run?
If we were talking about a 10 minute game, sure, okay, every second counts. In this case, we're talking about a game that's already hours long... the time potentially saved by a save/load is inconsequential. When I weigh that against the impact saving/loading would have, it's pretty hard for me to think it'd be worth the loss in entertainment.
The "staring at a load screen" experience is much more distracting to me than a pause. If you disagree, that's fine, but it's a difference of opinion, not a failure of logic. I suspect most people would disagree and you are in the minority in preferring save/load, but I'm not worried about it either way.
Spider-Waffle wrote:
I would really appreciate that the author took the time to calculate that the clever save load trick would actually save time and would enjoy the greater variety of tactics and creativeness used. I would be throughly disappointed if a clever time saving technique wasn't used because some people subjectively thought more repetitious and less clever techniques were more entertaining.
If you were "thoroughly disappointed" by a high-quality run like this one of a very long game over such minutiae, I think you should run it yourself. There are some on this site who believe the only good way to approach a TAS is to make it as fast as possible, and fuck entertainment; I don't have a problem with this approach, but it's definitely less fun for me as a viewer, and I think it's a little dogmatic to be so devoted to a singular concept.
Some games make for good speed runs... some make for good entertainment runs. 4+ hour games to me fall into the latter, but I guess there will always be those who think cutting 8 frames off a 7-hour run is important. *shrug*
