Long post time.
Beyond Yes vote. watched through all of it beforehand, and the shortcuts shown are beyond description. There is no reason this should be rejected.
Now, unfortunately, time for a massive opinionated post about how I feel about what this submission (and not the author himself) inadvertently does to my TAS:
It completely ruins almost everything about my run.
(IRC members can skip, I'm repeating a few things said there.)
When I started my run back in February, I did something which was sub-optimal for Luigi's Raceway. It was highly appreciated by the TASvideos.org site, but frowned upon by the mariokart64.com site. I took one month redoing, accepting the help of Michael Fried and Andrew Weatherton, who would become key members in my project. The course was taken from 46 seconds down to 37, in ways that weren't expected of even the professional karters.
It was frothere that my run became highly anticipated by both sites, because of the high amount of extreme optimization that went into the courses, and of course, because of the insane tricks and shortcuts that were being pulled off and conceived of that are nowhere near possible to be accomplished in real time (for the most part.)
I was majorly excited with the run. I had never worked on something that was so eagerly anticipated by two sites. I was on the road to make a run that was long deserving to be an addition on the site, and which, based on the expressed opinions of posters, would be widely enjoyed by all. Mario Kart 64 is one of the most popular N64 games of all time, and continues to be played competitively to this day.
So my motivation was off the chart as I started Moo Moo farm.
However, the ETA for the run is over a year. Luigi Raceway took 1 month to do, and currently it's been 40 days and Moo Moo Farm just completed it's 1st lap. so the progress on this was extremely slow. sometimes I get lazy, or I don;t have the energy to work on this. beyond that, the game is incredibly difficult to optimize, testing tricks takes days on tis own, and worst off Michael Fried had me redo segments on an almost daily basis.
So this run had become the biggest, most optimized, most anticipated run that I had ever worked on, and it pushed me through each day to work on it to finally show to both communities.
One of the biggest motivators for me to work on this was the secrecy. through the combined work of Weatherton, Fried and myself, we concocted ideas and came up with new shortcuts that were never before even thought possible. Each course was going to be incredibly new and exciting for audiences, as after a month each they would see one new of their favorite courses beaten in ways not thought possible.
when it comes to good runs on the site, it is my opinion that the best way to show progress is some at the beginning to create interest, a little in the middle to show the flavor of the run, and then stop about mid-way until submission to keep audiences eagerly waiting. (megaman quad-run is a perfect example of this process.) I wanted my run to do just that; to stop halfway and not reveal any progress in order to keep people peeing in their seats waiting for the eventual submission.
And this contributed to more than 50% of my own motivation. I was working on a run that was revolutionary, would be completely unexpected among audiences, and surprise them beyond imagination.
However, it seemed that once Luigi Raceway was shown, progress slowed, and many people got impatient. to the point where the beginning of my run slowly losing it's surprise factor would start to kick in.
Andrew Weatherton is one of the most incredible people I have worked with. He has turned his kart addiction into one to find every conceivable shortcut imaginable in this game. There is not a single course and idea that he has not explored, and has come up with the majority of shortcuts that would be used in my run. He was fully testing almost every single course ahead of time so that by the time I got there, all I needed to do was TAS it and worry about perfection.
However, due to maybe lack of communication or misunderstanding, a few courses/techniques were revealed by Weatherton. I had not made any statements, but I had wanted the project to not reveal anything until the course was complete, and any trick in the last two cups to not be shown until submission. this would create, in my opinion, the greatest amount of surprise to the audience.
but first a few minor vids were shown of techniques. then some fastest lap demonstrations. before I could fully control the situation, full test runs of *cups* were being posted, against my wishes. No longer could the new stuff discovered be kept secret until the course was posted, which is what I believed to be for the best for the run and its audience.
People's memories are very sharp. watching a TAS for the first time can never be undone, unless you have amnesia. the second time can never fully bring back that awe in watching the first time. and this submission, in a roundabout way, has utterly removed that from my run, for which I am very disappointed.
These vids show techniques that I was going to implement in my own run. I've watched over the flower cup test run and this submission, and most show 95% of what I'm going to do. (because that's what was intended, since they are test runs that ended up being very successful.)
Mushroom cup only has one course not know, KTB, because we haven't worked it out yet. Flower cup is fully revealed. Special cup is fully revealed. the only one safe is star cup, but most of those courses won't offer too much new and what's to stop weatherton from posting the test run of that cup? also I'd have to post wips of special cup, so I can't keep star cup a secret at all.
now, what does this run do to me emotionally?
It makes me feel very angry, but worst of all it makes me incredibly unmotivated.
The big question going through my head right now is: Why the fuck should I continue?
I can't find a good reason.
The surprise is totally gone.
all my run would is make what's shown be frame perfect. This game is incredibly difficult, and will take me very long to make, and I do not see myself enjoying doing so JUST to make a frame perfect run. I wanted a frame perfect run that SURPRISED people. I don't have that anymore.
why should I waste a year just to work on frame perfections? I have other runs that I could work on (although that would be very depressing to me, I LOOOOOOVVVED this run and wanted to eventually finish it SO bad). as I said earlier, my main motivation for this was the awesome secrecy and shortcuts. I have no energy to simply redo what is now shown publicly and make it frame perfect.
No, if you watch this run my run will not surprise you as much as if you had not watched it. people who join the site in a year will be surprised, but everyone reading now will watch my run and know what to expect, which is very depressing to me.
This has me very angry and hurt, and ok, yes my ego is deflated by a lot, but that's to be expected when my own favorite run that I love working on the most becomes ruined so.
"suck it up CF"
Guess what? I will not suck it up. This is a major blow to my emotions and my run. I REALLY wanted it to go a certain way, and now that is not happening.
"I will be surprised, I promise!"
I'm taking psychology
classes. I guarantee you can never be surprised twice unless you are medically forgetful.
"Just forget about it and work on your run"
This is not something easy to forget/forgive. This is my run, and what it means to *me* is important.
"You're stealing Weatherton's thunder"
No fucking way am I. He is my friend, my partner. He had every right to have submitted a run, especially since he started the topic, got me motivated in the first place, and made a promise of sorts to Martin that he would complete a run one day. I would have preferred that it be a different run, or something made after mine, but it's his .m64, that he made, in memory of his friend. It is very unfortunate to *me* that his run hurts mine so, I would have it not be the case any day.
"So quit you whiner"
I may. This is very depressing to me. I'm fully addicted to TASing, but if a run that was at the center of my heart has been spoiled so much, I don't know what to make of it.
"Don't quit!"
I do this all for you guys (another reason why I'm disappointed my run can't surprise you all.) I love this site, this community, my strong online friendships, and I'd be as disheartened as you too if I quit, I'd have nothing to do with my time and be very sad. But honestly, the main reason I was working on mario Kart 64 has been completely ruined, and I don't know what to do.
Edit: read through everything with open mind first. Picture yourself in my position and imagine what it must be like. Walk a mile in my shoes. I probably should have made that clear at the beginning.
[...] 'every level done this way?' you want every course to be the same? I prefer variety, but maybe I have entertainment inclinations closer to what this site wants than you do.
If only they didn't cancel StarCraft Ghost....Need I say more?
