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Bigbass wrote:
DigitalDuck wrote:
After completing Super Mario Bros. once, you have the option to choose a world, but not a stage within that world. The game state on starting a game this way is always the same regardless of how the game was completed (... mostly).
What isn't the same? Could any part leading up to starting a world have any affect on the actual run? e.g. RNG (idk if that's a thing in SMB, but it could be in other games.)
Setups that create things like ACE can change memory such that the state is different. For example, after finishing the recently submitted ACE TAS the game will always trigger ACE whenever a powerup appears, even though you've started a new game, which doesn't happen normally. At least, that's how I understand it.
Of course, in most circumstances that doesn't happen, so there is a "normal" state for worlds to start in, and that's what matters.
Bigbass wrote:
As for starting from reset or level-start, if we're using a verification movie, I don't think there's any need to start from reset. Alternative timing methods are something we're already working on implementing so this is less of a concern for IL discussions.
I agree; however, if there's a way to quickly choose a level from reset (e.g. via a level select code), it would prevent the need for a verification movie and I think that should be preferred.
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Some of this might be controversial.
After completing Super Mario Bros. once, you have the option to choose a world, but not a stage within that world. The game state on starting a game this way is always the same regardless of how the game was completed (... mostly). Should ILs for Super Mario Bros. be worlds selected from the title screen, so each movie can start from a savestate (full game run verified) + soft reset allowing for traditional TAS timing as well as RTA and IGT? I think most people would consider an "individual level" to be a stage within the world, but then time could be affected by whether you start as small Mario, big Mario, or fire flower Mario, and also (depending on the timing method) what score you have at the start, on top of not having a clean "time from power on" or "time from soft reset" TAS time.
After completing Sonic 3 & Knuckles once, you have the option to choose a zone, but not an act within that zone. However, the game state on starting a game this way is dependent on the number of lives, continues, and emeralds earned while beating the game. The game also has a level select cheat that does allow you to select individual acts, and the game state on starting a game this way is always the same (... again, mostly). Should ILs for Sonic 3 & Knuckles be acts selected from the level select menu, so each movie can start from a hard reset allowing for traditional TAS timing as well as RTA and IGT? Would each character and super form have its own subcategory within this (potentially 300 in total)?
Is making Mario per-world using its "legit" level select feature but Sonic per-act ignoring its "legit" level select feature in favour of its level select cheat inconsistent? In both cases it's the smallest unit with consistent game state on starting, but that's not how it's perceived by the player. Should Sonic's ILs be limited to zones, but still selected from the level select cheat? If not, Lava Reef 2 and Death Egg 2 are each split into two levels internally (and on the level select menu) - do they count as two separate levels for the IL leaderboard?
Alex Kidd in Miracle World is a linear set of levels, separated by a map screen. But there's no level select, and the way you play a level can vary wildly depending on what items and how much money you brought forward from the previous level. Does it even make sense to have ILs for Alex Kidd in Miracle World if there's no consistent state in which you can start a level, and a level could be improved by playing the previous levels differently?
Going through points in the original post:
Samsara wrote:
IL Submissions: Is it feasible to use the current submission system? Do we even want to do that? How would we need to change it to accommodate ILs?
IL submissions should probably be a separate queue at minimum - there's a big difference in terms of movie count and length. The UI for the submitter seems as though it would be fine - just add a dropdown for full game/individual level and a textbox for the name of the level (or maybe a second dropdown?).
Samsara wrote:
IL Publication: How would encodes be handled? Would IL submitters even want encodes? Would it be too much work to encode every run that comes in, when ILs have the possibility to update several times a day in active communities?
[...]
Encodes are not automatically provided to approved ILs, and are not required for approval as long as an input file is provided. Authors can opt in to having encodes made for them.
IL encodes made by us would go to a dedicated TASVideosChannel for ILs.
TASVideos may make backup encodes upon request, prioritizing author/community encodes as long as they are up.
Given that it's already usually at least a few weeks for a full game run between submission and encoding, if an IL is updated several times a day then it'll be the most recent one that gets an encode a few weeks after it settles. I don't see any reason why this would need to be any different.
I agree with a separate channel - again, there's a big difference in terms of movie count and length. Perhaps if a game has recently had a large number of new IL runs the main channel could show a "compilation" of the ILs of that game (and use it as an excuse to advertise the second channel).
Samsara wrote:
IL Moderation: Would managing ILs be too much extra work for us as staff? Could they be handled by community members? How do we determine eligibility for IL moderation?
[...]
Any staff member can "judge" and approve ILs.
There is no grace period for ILs, they can be approved as soon as they're submitted.
Community moderation is allowed for ILs: Each game can be assigned moderators, similar to SRC's moderation system, which would allow them to moderate ILs.
I don't really have any answers or suggestions for this myself, but I feel like all of these can apply equally to full game runs as well?
Samsara wrote:
IL User Experience: How should ILs be displayed? How do we showcase them fairly in comparison to fullgame runs? How do we account for games that can only have ILs? How do we account for games that can't have ILs at all? Should every game have IL support by default even if there might not be distinct levels? Should ILs get submission and publication pages like fullgame runs? If not, how do we account for submission notes?
[...]
Any game with some way of identifying levels would get an IL table.
I like the mockup. It could be in an "IL" tab on the game page alongside other options.
ILs should definitely get submission and publication pages too. Full game submission notes should have the option to "include" an IL's notes if a full game run uses the IL.
I disagree quite strongly with the last point - I don't think it's enough to merely be able to identify levels, I think there needs to be a well-defined and consistent state for starting the level where performance in previous levels cannot affect the completion time. In other words, not only must there be levels, but they must also be individual.
Samsara wrote:
IL Verification: Given the nature of ILs, can we justify changing the verification standards for them assuming they haven't already been changed universally before IL implementation? That is, could we accept them using savestates or provided save files without needing verification movies? Just for archival/historical purposes, could we go as far as not even requiring input files, assuming we'd still heavily prioritize the ones that have them?
[...]
ILs can be approved with only a video, but will be marked as Unverified on the list. Unverified runs are hidden by default.
ILs are not required to have verification movies.
ILs are allowed to start from savestates.
Lowering verification requirements for ILs is equivalent to saying "we don't care about ILs" and I don't think that's the right way to go. Userfiles have always supported ILs without verification, just as they've always supported full game runs or partial runs without verification. If ILs are going to be promoted to publication, they need to have the requirements to go along with it.
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I was only going for the simplicity prize - surprised to get an overall win too. I'm guessing the bot solution is some heavy RNG manipulation and then ending the movie after like four seconds...
EDIT: I guessed wrong...
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zapkt wrote:
arukAdo wrote:
The lie would have to be pretty elaborate to get trough the first pass of scrutiny, for each games the implications can be vastly different but for exemple, if it only unlock a game mode, I dont see an issue with just hexing the value responsible for it, provided theres sufficient technical info on how and why.
The question is how do you figure other values were hexed, but maybe it can be somehow automated ? I mean its just a byte compare in the end?
Granted this might get hairy on more modern systems but a save file on psx is ~ 10kb so maybe its possible to "parse" it?
A rule to guard against hidden modifications of savefiles could be to require submitter to provide:
- a simple movie file that just starts the game to create a regular save file
- a simple lua/python script that edits the exact bits to need to be edited and explains exactly what it's doing in its comments
That way, the process is easily verifiable.
I like this idea - if the save file can be reasonably documented, then each changed value can be scrutinised to prevent values that are impossible to achieve in normal gameplay. It also helps reduce any concerns over copyrighted contents of save files, by keeping shared data to a minimum.
I would suggest that for those who aren't familiar with Lua or Python (or any other scripting or programming language) that a set of instructions would also suffice, e.g. "set the bytes from 0x10 to 0x1F to the value 0xFF, this enables all level clear flags", as this would be easy enough to translate into such a script too.
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If "Horse Racing Only" feels too arbitrary then this would probably also qualify as "minimum bets" - I don't think any other game allows you to reach the goal with only three bets.
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If "shortest time starting from first input" (which is effectively what this run is) is accepted as Standard alongside "shortest time starting from power on" then you get a bunch of movies that are identical to those already existing, just without skipping through any opening splash screens/cutscenes/etc.
It makes sense to judge the goal based on how different the gameplay is, and that makes it Alternative for me. I don't think I agree with Playground - it's a well-defined goal, not particularly arbitrary, and does complete the game. If SMB "minimum presses" is Alternative, this should be eligible too.
I think it's definitely worthy of publication in any case - I found it more entertaining than the existing movie, as in the "relevant" portion there's a lot less waiting around, and a lot more of "okay, where am I now?"
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KusogeMan wrote:
Even better, can you make any examples of how this could be brought up in a way that isn't offensive? Is it only allowed in the original forum discussion for this subject?
I imagine anything that doesn't include the phrase 'so called "Da Rulez"' would probably be a start.
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NewSchoolBoxer wrote:
Tasvideos should have its own Twitch channel right. The YouTube channel looks official and links to the official tasvidoes.org Discord where the channel owners of some level told me they don't take the revenue. But then it's not linked on tasvidoes.org and no poof of what's done with the revenue. Which is rather sizable at 202K subs, 6.2K videos and almost 50 with over 100K views.
Every (or at least, nearly every) publication on this site has a "watch on YouTube" button which links to that YouTube channel. So it is linked, a few thousand times in fact.
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feos wrote:
CoolHandMike wrote:
Let's go with completing all the discs. But what does that actually entail here? I would like to tas from beginning to end, from the start of the first disc all the way to the end of the third disc. So as far as a stopping point when switching discs should it be the very next frame after I press fire to defeat the last enemy in the first disc? Should it be the very frame after the last save point? Or should it be after the credits? And yes, each of these discs has its own credits as though they are individual games.
1) Are each of these discs individual completable games?
2) If not and if these should all be considered one long contiguous game, then at what point should I switch discs from 1 to 2, and from 2 to 3?
What's the minimal required action in the previous disk that would properly continue in the next one? Is there any in-game prompt to swap a disk?
I think it makes sense to play them individually as separate goals, and then one continuous play as yet another goal since the game lets you carry over your stats.
Since each of them can be played from start to finish independently it makes sense to me to treat them as separate games, and then create a multigame like Mega Man 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 that allows for a run of all individual games with saves transferring between them.
It might be a good idea to formalise that more generally too. For example, we already have runs of Golden Sun GBA. As it stands, we could have a run of Lost Age without an existing save file and a run using a GS1 save with presumably max level characters and all items. But no combination of movies for the two games would be representative of how quickly it's possible to beat both games - even assuming the first game's route doesn't change at all, the second game would be faster than the no save run, but slower than the "max level" save run; and it's likely that doing some extra levelling or collecting some extra items in the first game would reduce the overall time taken (depending on goals etc.)
Wizardry (at least the Apple II versions) and Ratchet and Clank both have this kind of mechanic too, and that's before we even get into more modern series where this becomes more common.
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GJTASer2018 wrote:
Man, for a game called "Fast Food", it sure feels like you're plodding along most of the time...
Also, what happened at the end of the encode there? Is the second loop supposed to be the same levels as the first one turned upside down?
The second loop is levels 10-30 but with the screen flipped. It's not interesting from a TAS perspective - you just copy the inputs from those levels again. After you complete level 30 upside down it just takes you back to level 10 again.
Link to video
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GJTASer2018 wrote:
Although the run itself looks impressive, I've abstained from voting because of a possible technical concern I noticed in the encode. If you get items (birdseed or eggs) at a quick enough pace after the fourth one both the bonus counter and death timer will stop for a while until a large enough gap occurs between collecting items. This happens throughout the run, but is a little more obvious on the Mother Duck levels. Is the game supposed to work this way, or is there an emulation error here?
It's nothing to do with eggs, or pace. When you collect birdseed, the timer pauses. It's intended.