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Bisqwit wrote:
However, there is another factor that emerged at some point. TASVideos is also a one-of-a-kind library. It is the biggest and only website in the world that collects, nurtures and curates tool-assisted speedruns. (This is why I chose an .org domain, or earlier, .info, rather than a .com one.) This brings certain information-preservalist responsibilities. But being a library, and also an entertainment site, means that some of the conflicting responsibilities need clever compromises: We must collect all speedruns, or at least one of each game. We should also collect notable tool-assisted performances that are not speedruns. But we should also keep a high signal-to-noise ratio in terms of entertaining runs. We should also do the best to keep track of history, meaning knowledge of players, knowledge of history of each speedrun and speedrun category, knowledge of game versions that have been played, knowledge of the site itself, and so on. And we should document the findings and research that went into the making of each run, and knowledge that could go into making of future runs. And we should do all this in the highest and most lossless (or near lossless) quality possible. Yet, our files should be most accessible, so as to not exclude people who are behind slow and expensive Internet links or who use old performance-deficient computers: a library is public community service (despite being privately maintained), and it should provide equal access within reasonable limits. Equal access also benefits the entertainment aspect.
Although this may unfortunately open a can of worms...
If we are a library, what's the harm in including educational/board game/interactive fiction style runs? These types of titles wouldn't dilute the entertainment value of the site any more than the vault already has.
Just because some (or even most) people may find these titles to be unentertaining, doesn't mean everyone finds them unentertaining.
I understand the triviality argument, including when it's based on a TAS run being indiscernible from human play. But just because a game is trivial or indiscernible from human play doesn't mean it shouldn't be archived as the best known completion. Nor does it mean it's inherently unentertaining (Dragon's Lair is trivial, but some still find TAS runs of it entertaining).
To use an analogy based on libraries: most libraries I've been in have children's books like those written by Dr. Seuss available, even though those books would be considered trivial and simplistic to individuals who are there seeking the works of Dickens, Rand, or Dostoevsky. The libraries still carry all levels of reading knowing that their patrons are all at different levels.
The argument of triviality regarding video games, (to me) is an argument of entertainment. To reject edutainment/board games/interactive stories on this basis of triviality (or intent) suggests that triviality (or education) can't be entertaining to a patron. At some point in our site's history the vault was developed to house speedruns that weren't considered entertaining. Why does triviality matter if we're not concerned with the entertainment value of vault runs? If it's a title that can be speedrun and is TASable, we should consider hosting the result regardless of triviality. Yes, even if this means we have to unfortunately publish Desert Bus.
I'm not trying to be difficult, but I felt that Bisqwit's post described exactly why we should consider hosting these types of runs even though it wasn't the original intent of the site creator.
Bisqwit wrote:
Nonetheless, speedruns is not what TASVideos is. TASVideos is about entertaining videogame videos.
If entertainment is all the staff/community wants to be concerned with, then we must consider the proposition to eliminate the vault; though I'm sure this would anger a lot of the community. Many of us produce TASes knowing before we ever start working on them that they are doomed for a vault publication. It doesn't change the fact that we enjoy the process.
I anticipate rebuttal claiming that adding in trivial/edutainment/board games/interactive titles would create a greater amount of work for staff, encoders, and publishers. While I don't disagree with this statement; my simple response is this: no one claimed archival was easy.
IMO, a simple solution to publishing these style runs would be to add the following movie classes: Edutainment, Board Game, Interactive Fiction. Then simply have the option to filter--based on these classes--what publications show up when someone browses the site. We already filter browsing of NES runs based on Vault vs. Moon/Star by default. Similarly we could default the filter to not include these movie classes in the entertainment based sections of the site.
For what it's worth, I'm willing to help with whatever I'm able based on my knowledge, time, and my computer's capabilities.
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DoubleATam wrote:
Here's a slightly less embarassing second attempt, though I still don't think I'll win anyone over:
(I intend to give the codebase a look at some point to make up for it anyway. I don't like wasting your time)
I think this one looks like a stained glass window of the 'Holy Grail.'
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^Thanks for the clarification. The confusion was centered around the incorrect perspective that it was all for branch names.
To make sure I understand this correctly: We should never see 'major skip glitch' in a branch name. There we would either see 'warp glitch' or 'game-end glitch.'
Then 'major skip glitch' would be one of the movie classes listed in the publication.
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The other option is to eliminate using the word 'warp' in relation to glitches altogether.
Reserve 'warp' for developer intended game warps, and use 'skip glitch' or 'major skip glitch' in branch labels to indicate unintended skipping of game portions otherwise intended by the developers.
Then you'd end up with the following:
If 'warp' is in the branch, viewers know it wasn't a glitch.
If 'skip' is in the branch, viewers know it was a glitch.
This would allow for easy identification of warped/warpless runs as well as glitched ones.
If a TAS happens to use both intentional warps and unintentional glitched skips, the branch would/could contain both labels. Here's a hypothetical example of this:
For SMB3, someone could use the warp whistles to get to world 7 and perform the game end glitch. This would be a 'warped, game-end glitch' branch. OR someone could play through all the worlds up to world 7 then perform the glitch; this would be a 'warpless, game-end glitch' branch.
Another hypothetical (although insanely unlikely given the game) would be if someone discovered a way to skip from the beginning of each stage directly to the flagpole of that stage in SMB1. Again, both a 'warped' and 'warpless' version would be possible--and depending on the time save of the glitch, the 'warpless' might even be faster, as warped would actually require playing through some of the stages instead of directly skipping to the flagpole. Thus this hypothetical could also use 'warped, skip glitch' or 'warpless, skip glitch' as a branch. Both indicating the use/non-use of intended warps and the use/non-use of glitched skips.
Essentially, the ambiguity of 'warp glitch' would be eliminated.
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Wouldn't 'major skip glitch' depend on what was accomplished?
Those runs that jump to the end game would fall under 'game end glitch.' Those that only skip part of the game but don't skip to the end would fall under 'warp glitch.'
In essence, 'major skip glitch' is less descriptive than either of the other two.
The only benefit to 'major skip glitch' is that it helps to indicate that a large chunk was skipped whereas 'warp' glitch doesn't indicate how much was skipped.
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Makes sense. I was primarily emphasizing that I feel an any % run and a 100% run should both be vault eligible.
I don't mind if glitches are used to accomplish the 100% so long as all necessary completion criteria to meet a true 100% run are performed (glitch or not).
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ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Dwedit wrote:
So does this mean a glitchless run is not allowed in Vault?
Correct. Vault does not allow goals that consist in forgoing use of known glitches or tricks.
The Vault rule is very simple:
Vault wrote:
Goal choice is limited to fastest completion time (any%), or full-completion (such as 100% or best ending)
Wait...doesn't this mean that multiple goal choices are valid for vault runs? Why can't there be both a glitched and non-glitched run in vault?
EDIT: Unless you are claiming a glitched any% version is better than a non-glitched any%....that I agree with.
But I don't agree that a glitched any% should obsolete a non-glitched 100% or full completion run.
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warmCabin wrote:
You don't suppose doing the minigames could be considered a goal or category? "Contains speed/entertainment tradeoffs," maybe?
Don't get me wrong, I'd be thrilled to see this run published in any tier! I'm just curious when something stops being a category/goal and starts being trivial and stupid.
Speed/Entertainment trade-offs are typically intentional time losses to add entertainment value to a run. The mini-games of Pictionary are perfect examples. The big question is 'Are they entertaining enough?'
As this game isn't vault eligible anyway (because board games as a genre are considered trivial), the 'speed/entertainment trade-off' tag is moot. Entertainment must be the primary goal; speed becomes a secondary means of attaining the entertainment goal.
The only hope a run of this game has of being published is attaining a high enough entertainment response from the forum voting/comments. Whether or not this is even possible can only be determined by submitting and letting the whims of the community decide.
Doing anything with the mini-games may garner a more positive response than outright skipping them, but I doubt the choice between failing or completing them will make much difference in the overall opinion/voting.
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c-square wrote:
1) It looks like you slow down on the last letter of TWINS and LEFT, even though it's possible to pick a letter at full speed. You don't slow down on SWAN or COMEDY. Why the difference?
I'm guessing on this answer based on my own work on the game.
Due to the frame rule from the end of a puzzle to the next die roll; delaying a final letter's input allows for a 1st frame die roll of 6 without sacrificing total frames. So it can appear 'sloppy' but it has a purpose.
On an unrelated note. Spikestuff's April Fool's submission was rejected on the grounds of this game being a board game and thus not vault eligible. Even in the judgement the statement was made that the arcade sequences wouldn't change this perspective because they can be skipped.
I think any submission of this game is going to be fighting a major uphill battle to be considered for publication on the site.
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feos wrote:
When I first suggested the term "warp glitch" I used this logic:
- We're getting more and more runs that skip directly to the game end using some glitch. Let's call it "game end glitch".
- What about runs that use glitches to skip very far ahead, but not straight to the game end? Let's calls it "warp glitch".
I don't think it matters how you skip to there precisely. You arrive to a point you weren't supposed to visit that soon, and it's not a game end. Even if it happens consecutively instead of instantly, you still do skip to there. So you effectively warp. The key here is not whether physics engine is used or ignored, but the result of arriving to some completely unrelated area. Does it make sense?
Makes sense to me. Also removes the necessity of differentiating in the branch whether or not the physics engine is used to effect the warp. The submission text should be valid enough to differentiate.
Truly, using 'warps' vs 'warp glitch' in the branch should be enough to differentiate between whether or not the physics engine was used (as an intended warp isn't really a glitch).
'Game End Glitch' is a pretty straightforward description.
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What ROM version are you using?
EDIT: In the Japanese version I have, the UFO's Horizontal position has RAM values
0x072B and 0x072F for the left and right sides respectively.
I can't figure out how to identify individual aliens, but here are some RAM values regarding them.
0x0032 is enemies remaining
0x0033 and 0x005c have to do with their movement
0x0029 is lives remaining (if you care)
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feos wrote:
Most importantly, if I get hit by a truck, how do new staff members that need to handle this labeling know if it's moot or not? What do I say as I record my valediction to them (before I die on that road), teaching them how to resolve this problem?
Interesting choice of arbitrary way to disappear from the site....I'm a bit surprised you didn't come up with a more obscure method.
For what it's worth, I'm hoping you don't leave anytime soon.
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Yes vote for adventure games! I know i'm in the minority, but I think it's interesting to watch them being beaten as fast as possible.
I'm not super familiar with this particular game, but it looks to be a nice run. Too bad 30ish% of the run is waiting for loading screens.
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This is one of those games that looks like it would be a fun challenge to play through from a casual perspective. It's unfortunately also one of those games that's just not very fun to watch. 'Meh' vote for entertainment, but well done otherwise.
A 100% run of all levels and saving all the bombs would probably be quite a challenge even from a TAS perspective. While it would obviously be much longer, I think it would be more impressive than this run from a technical standpoint. I don't know if it would be any more or less likely to published though.
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Interesting.
Update for WIP using the 'CUP' sequence: I manipulated all the die rolls to be 6 on the first possible frame. I saved a whopping 3 frames total. Current run-time is 6099 frames.
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Thank you both for your perspectives.
And thank you Spikestuff for the more specific comparison to the previous run. The 15 second estimate was simply an estimate with which I was mentally including the resetting of the world X position to = 0 after the boss battles as well. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
I respect both of your perspectives regarding the value of the entertainment choices made in this TAS. I don't find this game very entertaining to watch myself. I personally doubt there's much of anything that can be done to bring this game up to moon level. But that's been my opinion since my last submission (one of my earliest) was rejected. That rejection actually helped me better understand how runs are perceived by the community.
EZGames69 was the one primarily interested in doing this game. He believed it may be able to be made entertaining enough, and approached me about helping with the run due to my previous work on the game. While I hadn't originally planned on revisiting this game, I agreed to help.
I personally don't anticipate many 'yes' votes for entertainment on this game. But I believe that this game is indeed vaultable due to the fact that there are significant optimization opportunities. A 4.5 minute difference over the human RTA record is significant, especially considering the pseudo-autoscroller (or 'glorified autoscroller') aspect of a large portion of the run.
I've never been one to shy away from vault runs. I believe they are important for archival/posterity sake (which shouldn't be a new concept to anyone who's read my opinions before).
DwangoAC: for what it's worth, I think if both this and the sequel game can be done with identical (or one set of) inputs; a side-by-side TAS would make a slightly more interesting viewing. I didn't know there was a sequel until about half way through this prjoect when EZGames69 pointed it out to me. I even mentioned to him at that time how incredibly similar they appeared. Other than the sprites, the sequel even has an identical end cutscene with the code for hard-mode.
EDIT: Not to be picky, but....regarding the rejection of the two previous submissions of this game:
The first was rejected for sub-optimal play. The judge in that case also incorrectly stated that the autoscroller portions couldn't be sped up or slowed down (they can).
The second (my original) was rejected more for goal choice (collecting all stars possible) than for having autoscroller components. It was even suggested by the rejection note that the game may still be vaultable if the time wasted collecting stars was saved.
EDIT 2: Ok, that might be a bit picky.
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I have a HUGE amount of respect for the work that went into this run...unfortunately this is simply a boring game to watch. Meh vote for entertainment.
Something else to factor in is the time required for die rolls.
I don't think this is going to have a big enough impact to make us choose another word sequence. In my fun run I think I had to wait like 20 frames for one roll, but otherwise, a 1 in 6 roll is extremely quick to manipulate. The way I see it, all possible runs are equally affected by die roll manipulation, and I doubt we'll be unlucky enough to see an outlier. But you never know...
In my WIP waiting just two frames before selecting the game mode changed the die rolls enough to save over 30 frames on the final TAS. I still enter the team name on the same frame to get the 'CUP' word sequence. 30 frames is a lot considering the die roll RNG changes every frame; and to me, half a second is a lot over a 1 minute 41 second run.
Please don't take my comments wrongly. I'm very impressed with your work on the scripts (partially because I recognize that I'm currently incapable of producing what you have). I just feel that there are too many factors to automate everything in determining the fastest potential. At some point it's going to take some 'brute force' testing of the handful of options that show the best potential.
EDIT: I have no idea why the font size changed in this post. Thanks Spikestuff.
Testing frame 529...
TWINS (124)
SWAN (108)
COMEDY (168)
LEFT (160)
LIP (112)
STOP (116)
26 characters
788 frames to type + 44 frames of waiting = 832
!!BEST SO FAR!!
My original sequence takes 1092 frames. Yours takes 1148 frames. None of these numbers account for the 128 frame rule. It also assumes you type each word by either holding left, or holding right; it can be optimal to stop and turn around, but my script doesn't account for that.
Great....but if your script doesn't account for changing directions, what's the point in calculating how many frames it takes with the shoes just going one direction? I wouldn't be surprised if that factor alone significantly changes the outcome.
To truly determine what run may be fastest, we must consider both the time waiting to get a later starting frame as well as any frames saved by changing direction. Not to mention the frame rule (which I, admittedly, need to look into more myself.)
My WIP using the 'CUP' word sequence starting at frame 481 has its final input on frame 6102.
I may TAS a few other word sequences that appear as though they may be close and see if there is a better one than 'CUP.'
EDIT Something you could consider doing is calculating how many spaces away in the alphabet one letter has to be from another to make changing directions more efficient than wrapping around the alphabet. (If you decide to do this, don't forget to calculate the blank spaces between Z and A.)
EDIT 2: Something else to factor in is the time required for die rolls. Sometimes the RNG manipulation to guarantee a 6 roll can take quite a few frames. This can be affected by changing when the 'Start' button press happens to select "Regular Game."
So when the game mode is selected , the die roll RNG is affected. When the team name is selected determines word sequence.
(I intend to give the codebase a look at some point to make up for it anyway. I don't like wasting your time)