Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player
(1941)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
Warp wrote:
FractalFusion wrote:
Nicovideo TAS Rankings for March and April, respectively (both account and free links):
Most of us still can't read Japanese, so those pages are lost on us. (I still have no idea what the idea is here.)
- Click the no-account link (starts with http://winback.web.fc2.com/nicovideo/?sm ). For example, http://winback.web.fc2.com/nicovideo/?sm14187628 .
- Click on the arrow in the center of the screen.
The movie will now play.
Unless there's a black screen, in which case, try again later.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player
(1941)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
No points for guessing the correct answer.
Nice little game. Almost all of it consists of quiz questions about things like Hong Kong geography, females, computer-related stuff, babies, and a Go board, but the one thing that makes it stand out is the Space Invaders clone. Not one person would have expected something like that. Too bad it's only 5 seconds long.
Interestingly enough, the game has some modes resembling card games, minigolf, track and field, and others. They all suck though.
Anyway, congrats to Aqfaq. He is the emperor of joke TASes. 萬歲! 萬歲! 萬萬歲!
On a more serious note, since this game is a quiz game that has very little TAS merit, I vote no.
P.S. And just as I post this, Aqfaq does it again.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player
(1941)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
CMiller wrote:
In Stage 5, you can scroll the screen back to make the walkers instantly disappear. I'm not exactly sure how it's done, but you can see it in a few of the speedrun videos on youtube. This saves you the trouble of killing them, and should definitely be included.
x2poet, do you have a reply for this comment? I'd like to know if it saves time, and how much time it saves.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player
(1941)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
Finished watching it yesterday. I like the graphics, music, and TAS. The plot, however, hardly makes any sense. I don't care whether it is justified; the fact that someone had to ask "why?" over a hundred times while watching is bad in itself.
I was hoping for boss battles that were a bit longer than how they mostly turned out. On the other hand, all the cool limit break animations made up for it, with enemies being destroyed by a series of sword slashes (Renzokuken), gunned down by a man on a rope (Desperado), blown up by a dog that causes explosions (???) (Angelo Cannon), and just plain sudden death (The End).
Anyway, DarkKobold knew what he was doing throughout the entire run, and it is well done and has merit. For that, I congratulate him with a yes vote.
I'll see if I can get some screenshots up later.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player
(1941)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
Currently watching this and finished Disc 1.
The gameplay and visuals all look good, with impressive graphical quality in cutscenes, and 3D is still rather new for the TAS scene. The sound and music is OK. That being said, I find (so far) that the plot is very weak. Compare with the plot of Breath of Fire III. That plot was much better.
So far, TAS quality is good as you would expect from DarkKobold. No complaints there. Also, the "The End" moment is awesome and funny at the same time. By the way, it's "Renzokuken", not "Renzouken".
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player
(1941)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
Interesting. All this talk about statistical probability and philosophy for a practical problem!
Anyway, here's the upshot. From a practical (TAS, I suppose) standpoint, concerning yourself with finding the exact probability of a rare drop, or debating about it, is useless because it doesn't tell you how to control the game to give you that rare drop. The only thing that tells you how is RNG analysis. Statistics won't help you here. Strangely enough, analyzing the RNG most likely tells you the exact probability!
Failing that, you could just run a script to go through millions of battles. But that is neither fast nor easy. It is not insightful in the least, and is only of use for those who want to construct online battle simulators.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player
(1941)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
DarkKobold wrote:
MESHUGGAH wrote:
What do you think about this submission?
Entertainment 0 ~ 10
Tech Quality 0 ~ 10
Game choice 0 ~ 10
Its been done - and failed miserably.
To clarify, while the concept of viewers responsibly rating submissions as they come is well-intentioned, the flaw lies in the "responsibly" part of it, and does it ever. It only takes one thread (a long and lively debate on social behavior in submission threads and voting), not to mention all the stuff that has occurred over and over with submissions, to see that viewer irresponsibility has existed, exists, and will continue to exist. It may seem awfully cynical, but that's the truth.
The less importance we place on the submission poll, the better.
Edit:mmbossman's post in the linked thread pretty much sums it up similarly.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player
(1941)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
diggidoyo wrote:
The rest are comments which mostly seem to have nothing to do with the TAS, but I blame the crappy google translator for that. Such as this one:
"厨とアンチのせいで人が減る" - With fewer people because of the anti-kitchen
I think it says "because of anti-noob system, there are fewer people". The latest Rikaichan version says "厨- ちゅう (n,abbr,sl) someone who makes childish posts (on a BBS, etc.)". I do not know the connotations.
By the way, rote memorization of kana, Japanese grammar study, and Rikaichan are your friend. Machine translators don't seem to evolve.
diggidoyo wrote:
"えええ" - yes yes yes
"おおお" - oh oh oh
えええ... means long "eh" and おおお... means long "oh". The meaning is best described by the general audience's reaction to whatever the TAS was doing prior to the comment.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player
(1941)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
janus wrote:
so what's easier : doing it on youtube or on the emulator? And either way, who should I send it to?
Only FCEUX supports emulator subtitles (though FatRatKnight has been making Lua scripts for subtitles). If you aren't using FCEUX, you won't be able to use that. Also, you don't "do" .srt subtitles on Youtube; you do the .srt first and then upload it to Youtube.
What I would do is have someone encode it so you have the AVI. Then use a subtitle editor (such as Aegisub). This allows you to place subtitles with any timing you wish. Once you have all the subtitles, save (export) as .srt and post it in the submission thread. Hopefully, the publisher will mux the .srt with the video/audio into MKV, and the Youtube uploader will upload the .srt as a caption file for the Youtube video (this can be done any time).
Notice that Aegisub supports .ssa/.ass. This is basically a super fancy version of .srt, but Youtube does not support it.
If you don't want to wait for the AVI, you can do it manually. You'll need to take the frame numbers, divide by fps, and add logo time (2 seconds).
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player
(1941)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
.srt is the one that we use the most. There are other extensive formats like .ssa and .ass, but .srt definitely works with Youtube. All formats can be embedded into MKV.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubRip
There are some programs to set subtitles. Personally, I use Aegisub.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subtitle_editor
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player
(1941)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
It takes at least 4 seconds to take a Rare Candy off Zigzagoon and use it; 7 seconds if done in isolation. I only use Rare Candies to reach a level where an important new move is learned, or evolution occurs, prior to an important battle. In the back half of the run, Rare Candies will not be used.
I manipulate a few Rare Candies, though. Although the probability of getting one is 1/100, I have Lua scripts and some flexibility on my side.
A second Zigzagoon is not needed.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player
(1941)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
Since there hasn't been a WIP yet, I'll post one. A lot of the beginning part of the run is too interesting to spoil, so I'll only post a WIP up to catching Taillow after Rustboro gym:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/798461076/wip.vbm
ROM name: 0907 - Pokemon - Ruby Version (U) (v1.0).gba
Notes: The rerecord count was made 0. Also, the "recording date" should really be called "GBA clock start" and had been fudged from the very beginning to suit my luck-manipulation needs.
Prior to starting the run, I used a program to simulate the RNG, and search for sequences which generate the rare events (Mudkip, first Rare Candy, Ralts event, second Rare Candy, and Taillow) , and have small delay. For events after catching Taillow, I use a bunch of Lua scripts and trial to search for the events.
Feedback and comments are welcome.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player
(1941)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
These are the two screenshots suggested by janus, on the frames as exactly given.
This might be another one that janus likes:
However, I don't agree with janus that any of these should be used. Personally, I prefer that battle screenshots are used in RPGs. I chose a number of super combo ones:
But here's my favorite:
Note: None of these screenshots are optimized.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player
(1941)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
When I submitted the latest Mega Man X2 any% (100%) run, the run was meh-voted and given a similar reply because of a trick that I only found out near the end of the run.
While I understand some viewers are disappointed because of "known tricks" (even theoretical) that didn't make it into the final run, one must remember that TAS projects made to this level of optimization require many, many hours (probably over a hundred, possibly hundreds) of hard work. It would be delusional to think that TASers owe the audience an improved version when inserting the improvement painlessly is all but impossible.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player
(1941)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
Sorry for the late reply.
p4wn3r and Mukki have been busy lately, so they don't have time to reply. But last time I checked, they were making good progress and appear to be close to done. Hopefully it will be in the workbench soon.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player
(1941)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
Movie with Yunshui as only author was obsoleted.
The two entries of xipo is an error though. I moved all the movies into one of the entries. However, there now remains a xipo entry with no movies.
Edit: I cleared the extra xipo entry of all information, so now it is empty.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player
(1941)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
janus, regarding luck manipulation, I noticed that sometimes the character slows down to a walk. I suppose this is to avoid random encounters, but sometimes you end up in a random encounter at the end anyway. I wonder if the walking was necessary.
I'll be judging this submission, but it will take me a long time, because I have to verify that it syncs, and no computer that I own is exactly fast. Though, if no one takes the requested screenshots, I'll do it when I play the movie back.
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Skilled player
(1941)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247
Interestingly enough, even at 60FPS, some media players drop frames, making some parts look bad.
Anyway, about the run.
I found it interesting that the player left enemies on the screen and dodged all their bullets. This is much better than the previous run, for sure.
On the flip side, I believe that this run is artistically lacking, which is a problem for a superplay of this genre.
- First of all, there is no rhyme or reason as to which enemies are killed and when. I almost feel that more enemies should be killed. Not just merely killed, but killed in a way that shows off weapons and such, as well as in an artistic manner.
- Second, downtimes are often filled with the same wobbling. While admittedly there isn't much to fill in the downtimes, wobbling isn't the solution to it, and it becomes old quickly.
- Third, I think that control of the ship could be made more entertaining. There doesn't seem to be enough "close calls" (as close to enemies or bullets as possible). The tendency of the ship to move around a lot when strictly unnecessary also hastens the novelty of the run, such that the last few levels seem unremarkable after watching the first few.
Also of note is the rather big amount of time lost after Stages 1 and 2 where the ship moves slowly to its set point before it says "Mission X Complete".
There are other things I think could make the run better as well:
- Don't necessarily aim for fastest time at all cost. But be fast, and entertaining at the same time.
- There's a 2-player option. I must recommend that the run be done using 2-player. 2-player is just so much better.
- There are other choices of ships at the beginning. Maybe another one is more entertaining, or maybe not.
With this in mind, I vote no.
If anyone has comments about this run, by all means post in this thread.
No points for guessing the correct answer.
Nice little game. Almost all of it consists of quiz questions about things like Hong Kong geography, females, computer-related stuff, babies, and a Go board, but the one thing that makes it stand out is the Space Invaders clone. Not one person would have expected something like that. Too bad it's only 5 seconds long.
Interestingly enough, the game has some modes resembling card games, minigolf, track and field, and others. They all suck though.
Anyway, congrats to Aqfaq. He is the emperor of joke TASes. 萬歲! 萬歲! 萬萬歲!
On a more serious note, since this game is a quiz game that has very little TAS merit, I vote no.
P.S. And just as I post this, Aqfaq does it again.
These are the two screenshots suggested by janus, on the frames as exactly given.
This might be another one that janus likes:
However, I don't agree with janus that any of these should be used. Personally, I prefer that battle screenshots are used in RPGs. I chose a number of super combo ones:
But here's my favorite:
Note: None of these screenshots are optimized.