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There are probably some very talented writes here, feel free to post your work (if it's short, just put it in the post, if it's long, link to it as a file to download.) You can do poems, short works of writing, fiction, non-fiction, prose, essays, reports, whatever you feel like or have.
The goal of this topic is to have:
-Various users posting their work. Don't be shy!
-Readers commenting on what they liked and what they think can be improved (sound familiar? :-P)
-Authors updating with new chapters/segments (WIPs)
I'll start.
Some people in IRC remembered me asking a bunch of SciFi questions, pointing me to the movie Equilibrium for what my story idea most resembled. I have completed (and handed in to my creative writing class) the first two chapters. Chapter 1 is 11 pages (double spaced), chapter 2 is 3 pages long; this is because it was suggested my chapter 1 was too long and should be split. Chapter 2 feels incomplete, despite me ending with the depressing phrase that signifies a chapter end.
The Beauty Killers Chapter 1 and 2
My other idea for a sequel/anthology (which I have yet to start, I've only begun forming plotlines and creating characters) is to combine two Studio Ghibli movies, Castle in the Sky and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind that connects the two storylines.
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Oh, the Jesus jumping I knew from previous movies, but it always makes me smile.
Should a different plugin be used? jabo's 1.6 made me see through walls a ton (which was helpful when you were wall glitching, because I could see what you were doing easier) and I know the textures in this game were crap, but it couldn't have been as bad as what I saw an hour ago when I watched it....
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looked real good, and tight... and I finally got to see those wall glitches you were talking about. Although I still couldn't make sense and missed the walls you boosted out of. Oh well.
I like how this is fast, but not as fast as the Duke Nukem TAS where things really are too fast for the eye to follow. This is good stuff, keep it up!
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Not only that, but sometimes I have to do lots of stuff really fast in really short amounts of time. This causes lag.
Try not to think of lag being created in ways you expect like in SMB3. It usually wastes time for me to destroy an enemy, since I have to grab something. Mainly the reason I'll interact with enemies is if I have to or if I want to do a clancer boost.
Here's where I have experienced lag and why:
1-03: After I grab and shake the last white clanball, lag appears if I do a certain something. There are many ways to get onto the ground after I shake the clanball; some cause lag, some don't. I chose the method which gave me the lowest in-game time, since at the time that was my goal; this method also lagged it a little bit.
When I completed 1-05, I was freakin' fast (over 1.5 seconds faster than nitsuja I believe) I simply make the game go "wtf how can he done already" and the song sequence with all the tiles is massively lagged, simply because I beat the stage extra fast. A few other stages will have the last sequence be lagged because it's completed so fast, like snowstorm maze for example.
In 1-08 (a playaround stage) I go absolutely nuts in moving Marina around and throwing things. Once or twice, the sheer amount of moves I'm doing in a short amount of time causes lag.
Now, 3 of the stages I've encountered so far- 2-03, 2-08, and many of the day of events, like dash and hurdle- naturally run at 30 FPS, there's nothing I can do about it.
So, in the past I never cared about reducing lag since it didn't affect in-game time. Now, I probably still won't care about it much either (and hopefully that guy can make a plugin that removes that unnatural lag). I'm continuing the TAS (albeit hexing in some improvements to stages as I find them, rather than redoing whole stages all over again) as if the text trick wasn't discovered at all.
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Here is what it looks like, using full abuse on an easily "on the way" clancer. I made this optimal by using my memory watching to see what the farthest X pixel position I could have before the text box disappeared. As you can see, I still made it fast... but there's 2 more clancers I can do it with earlier in the stage, and I have to slow down in order to activate the texts off of them too. I'm in full agreement with Veysey... it's cheap and removes impressiveness (despite me being able to nail this particular clancer in an impressive way.) Lengthening the movie just to reduce the in-game time seems against what makes the Mischief makers TAS look so good.
The only problem with labeling the run as "aims for fastest real time " is thus:
-Many stages are quite laggy.
-In order to do some really impressive things (like showing off), sometimes I lag up the game unintentionally.
-Not only do I suck at lag reduction, but making a lag perfect run is just not going to happen for this game.
-Stages are split into 52 separate levels, and defined by the time I got on it. Aiming for the shortest amount of time (without using the text trick) for each of these stages makes sense, as that is what the game is about.
-In-game time based make the day of events faster (jump event.)
-All other reasons mentioned on the first page of this thread.
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Because a guard was blocking Link from entering the garden.
I thought Guano had stressed clearly enough of how tight it was to enter before that happened....
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well, it's still tricky (and I agree, at this point #2 becomes less appealing). #3 involves making a slight detour to reduce the time (and sometimes, a long detour.)... up until now, EVERY trick discovered has been a skill based thing, not a "stop-the-clock" type deal. Doing the trick, as fast as I pull it off still looks like a detour", and most of the awesomeness in this game is from going at break-neck speed and not stopping for anything.
So I'm still deciding between #1 and #3.
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You're thinking Exploration Glitch, not clipping. Clipping is when Link is moving downwards and brushes past an object, pushing him 1 pixel ahead. EG is walking through walls.
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For the very first bonus in the very first level, did you try landing in front of the coin then rolling, instead of just hovering all the way there? Sometimes it's tiny little things like this that you should be watching out for.
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Veysey wrote:
Im unsure if you'll be able to talk to them while sliding
My test involved doing such a thing. In fact, I have shitloads of freedom to do whatever with many of those clancers where you can walk freely as they're talking. As I said above, I can do it so that I'll barely lose any frames; I can even do a clancer boost on them as I'm doing the text trick, unfortunately this cancels the talking text and makes it disappear so I probably won't boost off clancers that I use the talk trick on.
mmbossman wrote:
EXACTLY why I like to aim for frame count, not ingame time, especially when there's no timer sitting right there in your face (at least I couldn't find one in any of Veysey's vids).
This game is very competitive and in-game oriented. The TAS is also in-game timed because of a few things:
-the day of events are faster in realtime if I aim for in-game time
-I don't have to worry about gold gems
-My efforts, and Nitsuja's efforts are all compared against one another and against the speedrunners easiest by having in-game times.
-the stages are arranged in 52 short(ish) individual stages.
You will have nothing to worry about. As I mentioned above, I have done a 100% successful text trick without losing any real time frames, and I shall be adhering to not spending lots of frames waiting in order to reduce the in-game timer further, because this is less entertaining to do so.
Edit: This trick is massively hard to do without losing time; it takes a lot of testing of different angles to approach, when to press R/L, and how to do it all at maximum speed. I have to be pretty close to the clancer to activate the text, and I also have to time it just right so that I don't slide through him, or else his text becomes cancelled. This trick is far, far harder than the clancer boosts. I spent all night on 1-02 alone, and made a tightly optimized run; even in the first half, with no text tricking I gained 2 frames from uber precision (the only thing to make it faster is to get a text trick off the other 2 talking clancers in the stage, but they are hiding behind walls and thus it wastes time to do it.) I got a time of 12.83"; my older version was 13.10". Wow.
Veysey: About the wall clippings... it seems that yes when Marina is moving at maximum speed, the affects of brushing past a corner are not as prevalent as if you were moving at a slower speed. This is easily tested by jumping up into the corner of a ceiling; if you are positioned right you'll get boosted up on the outside. Also, I have noticed many different corner boosting off sorts when I am moving at slower speeds; occassionally I will get some kind of boost through when moving at max speed, but it's rare (for instance I do this at the end in vertigo, and it will be used a lot in aster's maze.)
So, for everyone that closely watches my progress: I'm going to redo a few stages, and hex those in (to include the text trick.) A few stages I might redo for a frame or two left to be saved I suspect to exist (I saved 2 frames in 1-02). 3 stages need to be completely redone because they do not stay in synch. If all goes well, I should bounce back and be at Migen's Brawl even faster than before, since most of the stages are indeed perfect and I can just hex (I love you Halamantariel, just wanted to say that) and everything will work out. So this shouldn't be too major of a setback.
Edit Edit: While showering, I got to thinking... the text trick is like abusing lag to reduce the in-game time, and can be problematic. Do people wanna see:
-no use of it at all, because it usually adds to the number of frames and is kind of a cheap tactic to reduce the time, and seems "un-TAS like" (unfortunately, in theory my TAS times could then therefore be beaten.)
---pros: doesn't waste real time frames to reduce the in-game time; overlal movie length is not longer; no fuzzy goals
---cons: in-game times on some stages can be technically beatable
---What I'd have to do: retry minimal 2-3 stages, hex the rest, then quickly get back to Migen's Brawl where I left off.
-Use it occassionally, like I did to get 12.83" on 1-02 (problematic for the real frames vs. in-game time, aka fuzzy goals. I had one rejected run because of fuzzy goals, I don't want another one.)
---Pros: wastes few input frames, overall movie length isn't increased; the trick is "included" but not abused; entertaining without purposefully waiting for the text box to get bigger.
---Cons: fuzzy goals, "fuzzy" definition of how to use the trick (aka not abusing it to its fullest); some stages will still be slightly beatable by the in-game time; trick is massively difficult to do "on the fly"
--What I'd have to do: redo a few stages to incorporate the trick, hex the rest, then get back to Migen's where I left off after some time.
-abuse it to its fullest, by trying to find even slightly out of the way clancers to do the trick on, and waiting a few frames in order to make the text box bigger and therefore get more "time is not ticking" time to maneuver, thus reducing my times even further while degrading very slightly from the entertainment.
---pros: abuses trick to its fullest (aka no fuzziness), achieves far shorter in-game times, truer to 'fastest in-game time' goal
---cons: far more testing of how to optimally maximize waiting time to get the maximum abuse of the trick; overall movie length is greater
---what I'd have to do: redo a few stages to incorporate trick, do a lot of testing in those stages to get the absolute lowest in-game time, hex in the rest, then get back to MIgen's Brawl where I left off after a long amount of TASing.
Here's time comparisons of what I would get with each method:
1-02: 13.03(ish)" time by not abusing it at all
1-02: 12.83" by using it with now slowdown
1-02: 12.57" by abusing it with slowdown
I really, really want to know what everyone thinks. If it'd help, I can post 3 different movies all showing what each of the 3 choices looks like.
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Ok, I did some tests. It's going to look awesome all right.....
1-01 it doesn't work because when you first arrive at the clancer, he actually won't talk to you, he's busy looking around. After he's been on screen for a while, he'll finally start talking. Same for the first mini clancer in 1-02. This trick requires the clancer to be instantly talk-to-able when you reach them (there are 3 of them in 1-02, 1 of them is quite inaccessible.)
There is a speed trade off here. If I activate the text box, then wait, the text box will be become bigger. For every 1 frame I wait while it gets bigger, I'll save 2 in-game time units (since the bigger text screen takes longer to disappear). So, I am going to stick with real time what is speediest, by doing whatever slows me down the least as I pass by, otherwise I'd stop, and wait like 15 frames or so for the text to get really big, then proceed. So If I time things right, I shouldn't even get a 1 frame delay, and that will be my goal in performing this trick.
Rescue 1 in 4-04 I will try to abuse this trick more, since Teran moves slower.
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It'd look similar to this I'm assuming. I'm going to try and work out what it looks like as Marina. In-game time is my goal, so.... I really should be using it, even though I probably won't like how it looks. I'm praying that it looks cool.
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I. Hate. You. For the last two months *I* was the one making you, Reik, and TheCape redo to use the tricks I discovered. Blarg, now I know how nitsuja feels (although nor as bad for sure.)
1-04, 1-07, and 2-01 are not hex friendly at all, which means that's 3 stages that need redoing (thankfully I can hex in the rest) but I liked how each stage was, and 1-04 I'm going to have a tough time matching my time and wormin' up I had a very good ending play around sequence. And I had JUST found a good way to do Migen's Brawl, and was hoping to have him completed today.
I seriously was just going to show this drawing I made:
Ok, rage aside, can you be a little more descriptive on what it is that I need to do in 1-02? I actually can even maybe do it in 1-01, there's a clancer right next to me at the start that I can talk to.
Like, what do I need to be doing at max speed as I talk to them? a slide jump? a normal slide? dashing? or is it only limited to when running past? Can I talk to them more than once as I go by them?
Veysey wrote:
And we welcome a new technique into the "Instruction Manual" of Mischief Makers =)
Not quite. As you're very aware, there's other tricks that I've found way before this that will go into that manual.... which are not publicly known and will have to wait until submission :-p
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You'd need some pretty dedicated editors in order to keep it very up to date. I really like this idea, but there's also four problems with keeping a list of who's working on what:
-some TASers like to work on stuff in secret
-some TASers just put in their signature what they're working on
-some TASers are incredibly distractable, and the list may change on a daily basis due to whimsical runners who decide to drop a project and start a different one at the drop of a hat.
-what happens when someone has quit a run, but has no internet and cant relay it? Or simply can;t get on the site and give updates?
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Probably. All I know is the one rare time I played this stage in real time, I grabbed the pot and started inching towards them, at which point they began avoiding me. "Oh noes, he has the pot and wants to capture me!" was the mentality I believe.
Of course, I still can't see how a non-pot strategy can be faster. That deposit valley really is kinda far away, and that pot will save time at the end. Oh! I just had another fantastic idea to save time. *Goes to scribble down in notes.
Veysey, does the in-game time run at all during text? That's what zdude's most recent memory address suggests.
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Spider-Waffle wrote:
chuchos
This is the first image that popped into my mind when reading that typo.
Now, to answer some questions:
No, all of the bombs/superslides are not planned out yet. Only someone like mwl could do something like that, and I haven't seen him post here in a while. The Majora's Mask TAS I saw many very, very short superslides that made me cringe to how much time was wasted in setting them up, to only slide a short distance. BUT, in guano's last WIP it wasn't bad at all, so I don't know what you're going on about. swordless has good common sense, I'm sure he and I can find good spots to superslide and when not to (like maybe when to use a superbackflip instead (still gotta test how to sidehop past an enemy, then backflip off of it.)
Kokiri village really is kinda small; superslides would be wastes of explosives methinks, especially since you need to wait out the bomb explosion. I believe perfect cuckoo luck manip can easily replace the need for supersliding.
Yes to the bomchu question. I believe guano's most recent WIP of doing the spirit song, then getting killed off a leaver is the optimal way to do the death warp. I mean, there is a record reset mupen, but that was unofficially rejected. (frowns)
we don't know the best slingshot cuckoo manipulation method yet. when swordless gets there he'll probably sort it out. because he [sarcasm]loooooooooooooooves[/sarcasm] luck manipulating.
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I have not seen any amount of progress on the TAS, but just from watching the first video I can see that the whole run is probably going to need a redo to incorporate it. That's really weird bug... is it minish cap exclusive, or do you think maybe it can work in some other Zelda 2D games?
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it doesn't add frames to the movie. The general consesus is end input at a point where the credits will run on their own (some runs end input prematurely to take advantage of the game automatically going to the end credits later, but making the run itself shorter.)
In your case, since there's 100% stuff to do after the first credits, you might want to use a record resetting snes9x (or skip them if it's faster.) But if you only wanna do 97%, and the last 3% comes after the credits, simply end the input so that the first set of credits comes around, and you'll be right as rain.
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Massive precision, new tricks, funnier autoscroller, timed music hops at the final boss, a shyguy falling from the sky.... I really can't give this no, yes all the way.
See? laziness can be beaten.
"This has been a JXQ gang production." LOL
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Fabian wrote:
I think it's completely reasonable to ask a question about a specific run in the specific thread concerning that specific run wtf?
Yes, but it's immensely obvious if a gruefood movie is from this site, suggesting this movie was rejected when being submitted to this site and not from elsewhere.
You're also forgetting that Lorenzo was making a string of useless posts and topics on that day, thus negating whatever legitimacy/innocence his question may have had.
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Swordless and I studied various frames of lag that were being caused by the MQ run. Plus, he was just dying to try and prove my ladder zip glitch doesn't exist:-p.
And because I'm persuasive. And because he's cool, and agreed that a frame perfect OoT improvement should come before MQ.
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I've held onto this ROM for god knows how long, in the unlikelihood I will ever try it. I'm quite glad someone made a run of it. Timed shots to the music ftw!
Um, why did you stop jumping at the base of downhill slopes for that speed boost that you used to good affect in stage 1?
Ok, rage aside, can you be a little more descriptive on what it is that I need to do in 1-02? I actually can even maybe do it in 1-01, there's a clancer right next to me at the start that I can talk to.
Like, what do I need to be doing at max speed as I talk to them? a slide jump? a normal slide? dashing? or is it only limited to when running past? Can I talk to them more than once as I go by them?
This is the first image that popped into my mind when reading that typo.
Now, to answer some questions:
No, all of the bombs/superslides are not planned out yet. Only someone like mwl could do something like that, and I haven't seen him post here in a while. The Majora's Mask TAS I saw many very, very short superslides that made me cringe to how much time was wasted in setting them up, to only slide a short distance. BUT, in guano's last WIP it wasn't bad at all, so I don't know what you're going on about. swordless has good common sense, I'm sure he and I can find good spots to superslide and when not to (like maybe when to use a superbackflip instead (still gotta test how to sidehop past an enemy, then backflip off of it.)
Kokiri village really is kinda small; superslides would be wastes of explosives methinks, especially since you need to wait out the bomb explosion. I believe perfect cuckoo luck manip can easily replace the need for supersliding.
Yes to the bomchu question. I believe guano's most recent WIP of doing the spirit song, then getting killed off a leaver is the optimal way to do the death warp. I mean, there is a record reset mupen, but that was unofficially rejected. (frowns)
we don't know the best slingshot cuckoo manipulation method yet. when swordless gets there he'll probably sort it out. because he [sarcasm]loooooooooooooooves[/sarcasm] luck manipulating.