Samsara and Invariel, thank you for taking the time to clarify things. I'm not going to go through and quote farm both of your responses, as I think that's unnecessary at this point now that we better understand each other. Or rather, I understand you guys much better, so I don't think much else needs to be said. This is not a cop-out; I read through both of your responses carefully, and you both make many valid points. I will address one thing, though:
Invariel wrote:
That's a bit mean. The people who work on TASes here are human, prone to error and emotion. The tools we use remove human error during replay from the equation, but they do not remove human error during route planning or execution. That would be like saying that computer programming removes the human element from logical mathematics.
What I meant by the "human element" was that there is no live human player producing inputs on a controller in an RTA setting. My apologies if this was misconstrued. I fully understand that there is still a human element to TAS-ing, and that comment was in no way meant to discount that fact.
On a side note to this, one of our members actually created a "human" TAS for the purpose of comparing the two any% routes and seeing what was theoretically possible with a "perfect" human RTA run. All the game play was performed and recorded by him, with some minor RNG manipulation, and then all of the best segments were pieced together. It was interesting to see both the level of optimization with the new route and its effect on time save in an RTA setting, as well as what times are possible with a "golden run" (which pretty well never happens for any of us).
Anyways, again, thanks for clarifying, and I wish your community well. I have a new appreciation for the quality of work that gets posted here, and hope to see more of it in the future.
That's not at all what's been happening. From my perspective, we've been asking legitimate questions and have gotten no good answers in return. You guys' entire argument seems to be "Super Metroid is the greatest game ever, and that's why you're all wrong!"
There's a fine line between asking questions and interrogating. This teeters on the latter. No one here has said, "Super Metroid is the greatest game ever, and that's why you're all wrong!" You're putting words in our mouths. If anything, we're defending the category, not the game itself. I can't personally answer any of the specific TAS-related questions for obvious reasons.
Samsara wrote:
All of our concerns have either been evaded or ignored entirely in favor of the things that don't really matter. Our criticism over the category was twisted into us "hating" the game. If you're going to participate in this debate, can you at least try to see this run from our perspective, instead of barging into this community and pretending you know how we operate? Christ, and you call us smug.
I don't need to pretend to know how you operate. That's stated clearly in the mission statement, submission instructions and movie rules, which I've read through. From my understanding, once a video is submitted a forum thread is automatically generated where members can scrutinize offer feedback and constructive criticism on the TAS, and also vote on its entertainment value. From that point the fate of the TAS is left in the hands of a judge, who will then determine whether the video is worthy of publishing or not. If there's anything I'm leaving out, please let me know. I'm not saying this to sound like a douche; I legitimately want to know for the sake of myself and others here who are having a hard time understanding the process.
For the sake of argument, I'm putting myself into your shoes. My only basis for comparison is our speedrunning community, so let's say for the sake of argument that you decided to start speed running Super Metroid. You complete your first any% RTA and decide to submit it to deertier.com. To your delight, your time appears uncontested on the web site. In fact, you can submit times without even linking to a video, however times that are close to world record would likely be investigated. Now, if we're truly comparing apples to apples within the context of this discussion, a better example would be you submitting a category that's not currently listed on deertier.com. From that perspective, yes, I can see your point, and such a submission would likely need to be legitimized before a branch is created on the web site. However, 100% map has, and will continue to be a legitimate branch for Super Metroid on deertier.com. I think the disconnect happens when the speedrunning community assumes that a particular category is fit for the TAS community. We see a TAS and stack it up comparatively against the best human players, and figure out the limitations of what can be realistically applied in a run. You guys take the human element out completely, and deal with the limitations of the game itself. Both have entertainment value, but it's clear that the standards are much higher here. There's nothing wrong with that, but I guess we're not used to it.
Samsara wrote:
It better be given where it's due. The entire beginning of the run is 100% Cpadolf's input. He deserves co-authorship credit. There's no reason not to do it, there's no harm in doing it. Again, this shouldn't be an issue. We're not the ones making it an issue, NYMX is the one focusing on it
I agree with the first part, however to say that you're not the ones making it an issue is incorrect. He was called out on it at least 4 times, even after he responded to the initial concerns on the first page of this thread. Like you, I fully expect nymx to give cpadolf full credit for his portion either as co-author or contributor, whichever is decided on.
Samsara wrote:
Except that's not how we define an arbitrary goal. If the run didn't achieve its goal, it would be rejected for not achieving its goal. The matter at hand is whether or not the goal is worth publishing. I don't think so. It's arbitrary in the context of the site.
I think I was confusing "arbitrary" with "ambiguous." It's not an arbitrary goal within the context of deertier.com, but as I discussed above, the goals don't necessarily line up between the two sites, and that's fine.
Samsara wrote:
I'm sure it achieves the incredible, thrilling goal of completing every square of the map, but that doesn't change the fact that no one outside the community would care about that.
Sarcastic, assumptive, and already dis-proven by some of your own members:
DemonStrate wrote:
I like it! I feel like it is if Any% and 100% had a baby. Since 100% doesn't include map completion, it makes sense to have a speedrun of that goal. I don't feel the goal is any different than goals like 'All Bosses' or 'All Sidequests'. So, I'm putting Yes because I feel the community should not be discouraged to make runs like this. :-)
Ford wrote:
Without reading too much of the previous comments, I can say that I actually enjoyed this movie. I suppose getting 100% map completion versus vanilla 100% is more of a technicality, but I feel my time was pretty well spent on this movie.
Samsara wrote:
It may not mirror the 100% run, but what does it have over the 100% run aside from a bunch of extra rooms that serve no purpose to a logical route? Oh, sure, there may be new strategies specific to this route, but that's exactly what they are: Strategies specific to a route that only appeals to your community.
See above quotes. I don't really understand what you're trying to say here. Those "bunch of extra rooms that serve no purpose" are purposeful in filling out map squares. This is not simply an extension of a 100% item run. The goals between the two categories are completely different, therefore logic and planning were required in routing this run to optimize time.
Samsara wrote:
Except if you spend 6 and a half months on a run that you know you can improve and you know you're going to improve, then you can spend a few more months pushing it to its absolute limit before submitting it to a site that asks for nothing short of perfection.
The run could have just as easily been put on the site's Userfiles or any other storage medium and shared with our community. It didn't have to be submitted. But since it was submitted, it's subject to our high standards of publication. We won't just publish anything that's optimized. Even the most entertaining game in the world would have rejected runs if they're of arbitrary categories: Otherwise, we'd have runs like Donkey Kong Country "collect the letters K and N in 5 stages", or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night "all items except for the Shield Rod and all bosses except for Olrox and Succubus", or Super Metroid "defeat Spore Spawn" cluttering everything up.
Case in point: We're judging the TAS based on the TAS, not on the game. We see the category as arbitrary and not entertaining enough to publish. We generally don't hate the game, so you can all drop the persecution complexes.
I understand this, and don't really disagree with anything stated here. Admittedly, I think some of the "persecution complexes" were based on knee-jerk reactions, likely due to the harsh criticism nymx's submission received right out of the gate. I can understand and appreciate the high standards you guys hold these submissions to, but I also think there are better ways of offering feedback, especially to someone who is still relatively new to TAS-ing. This thought is loosely echoed by one of your own members (on dwangoAC's comment about the TASvideos community not being bad, just "different"):
Kurabupengin wrote:
Some people here are though... not all of us, just some from my experience. (and admins know who I'm talking about...)
My dismay wasn't necessarily directed towards the possibility of this submission being rejected. That is, of course, your perogative, and respectfully so. This TAS will continue to exist and likely appear elsewhere, regardless of the outcome here, and is a great contribution. My dismay was primarily directed towards the attitudes of some of the forum members who decided to comment. You may consider it just criticism, and I'm sure that flies perfectly well within your community, but it's not attractive to newcomers. I've seen this time and time again in discussion forums, back when I used to participate in them regularly (on topics completely unrelated). Many members developed cliques, and subsequently complexes that largely alienated newcomers. People that weren't opposed to taking a little bloody lip were fine, but the rest likely never signed into their accounts again. I got tired of the incessant bickering and ego trips and largely disappeared. I'm not saying this is what's happening in this forum, but what I have seen is an eerie reminder of what turned me off of discussion forums in the past.
Anyways, I also need sleep...
TASVideos is not the sole authority for publishing TASes. Hell, there's tons of Nicovideo TASes that gain plenty of popularity and that nobody ever thinks about submitting here because they don't care about us. And there's the Worms Armageddon folks, the Doom community has basically been producing TASes since before this site even existed, people have been making Smash Bros. TASes using ingame slowdown features on YouTube for years, etc.
TASVideos is a site promoting TASes for general audiences. This is why we get into such huge fights about what is and isn't worth publishing. We aren't a community dedicated to a specific game; odds are good we aren't going to be interested in the super-specific kinds of runs that such communities tend to produce as they mine their game(s) of choice for ever-more-outré ways to play it.
We rejected a "coinless capless cannonless" run of Super Mario 64 (a moderately well-established "conduct" in the SM64 community), and nobody can say that SM64 doesn't produce entertaining runs. It's still popular on YouTube. There's all kinds of gimmick runs like low-map% for Symphony of the Night which similarly did not get published here (though I don't recall if specifically low-map% was even submitted).
Even though the communities for those games love these kinds of stunts, the TASing world at large is generally less interested. That doesn't make your run valueless. It just means that it's a bit too targeted at your community's tastes. You still have the run; nothing's going to take it from you. Put it up on YouTube, enjoy it with your friends, share it around, et cetera. Don't rely on TASVideos to in some way "validate" your actions.
dwangoAC wrote:
Don't count yourself out just yet - your run is being judged by Mothrayas and while he's asked you do do a few things (which you've already made progress on) I think you'll find that he is a fair judge. I say this in the context that I've had a couple of runs judged by Mothrayas and some of them have even been rejected but he's always been a fair judge. I would say more than anything that this submission suffered from a series of miscommunications at the beginning but let some cooler heads prevail.
I have not yet completed watching the run but I'll try to provide feedback once I find time to do that. Keep your chin up, and know that we aren't a *bad* community, just... different. :)
Much more reasonable responses than:
supersonicjc wrote:
lets not go and give him more ideas on what we don't need for a tas, as for the run itself at times I felt more like I was watching the 100% run with some minor cuts to attempt to show off every part of the map, it could honestly make another sub category but for now I want to see if any more information can be gathered on what tricks were used and which glitches (if any) were omitted.
for a game that ive seen torn apart and rebuilt from the ground up this was a very lack luster run, and have to give honest laughs for all the lurkers who signed up just for this run which stands a snowball's chance in hell right now.
solid no here and if your wanting a meh from me then show me the 1:30 time cut off of this but go back and at least if your not going to collect all the items show me that you know they are there.
with that in mind im sure you could even shave more then that minute plus if you used the right missiles on the doors when you have them and aren't using them
and...
grassini wrote:
RE
JECT.
i hate more categories for the same games we have perfectly reasonable runs already
To quote a couple. Even "different" communities have the ability to be respectful, regardless of their rules or opinions.
<--- 2nd post lurker right here. Hi TAS guys, I'm from the Super Metroid (human) speedrunning community of the likes of deertier.com. I've been watching this debate unfold over the last 24 hours or so.
While I understand that new submissions are subject to scrutiny, particularly with a game that's been dissected as much as Super Metroid, I'm a little dismayed at the attitudes expressed on this forum. While I wasn't expecting high-fives and champagne, I certainly wasn't expecting this kind of negativity and smugness towards nymx.
On the issue of the script copying from Ceres to Brinstar from cpadolf - nymx has alluded to this multiple times during his live streams and is not trying to plagiarize the work of someone else. He has admitted that this was an oversight in the submission text and apologized multiple times now, and yet everyone is still hung up on it. Credit will be given where credit is due. Let's move on.
I don't see how the goal is arbitrary. Either the map is filled completely, or it's not. True, there is no in-game (post-game) quantifiable measurement for map completion other than watching the squares fill in on the mini map. This is a downfall to this particular category, but I'm pretty sure he didn't spend 6 1/2 months TAS-ing a route that left reason to doubt whether or not all map squares were filled in.
Is it entertaining to watch? Well, that's subjective. But to say that it mirrors a 100% run whilst ignoring item collection is ignorant. The route itself is different, therefore many new room strategies had to be implemented. So for those asking what it brings to the table, there should be enough new/original room strats to answer that. And for the record, the descriptive commentary of individual room strats is about 3 hours and 15 minutes long, not 5. If people would rather read than watch, then maybe nymx can provide a written play-by-play, but that's up to him.
Lastly, to admit there's 90 seconds of improvement to be made should act as motivation, not a detriment to submission, imo. It's not to say, "well, I know I could've done better, but I was too lazy to go back and make the changes." Admittedly, I don't know much about TAS-ing, but I do know that one does not simply go back in the script and tweak things (I'd attach a Boromir meme if I could). If you make changes to early script, you have to rewrite everything that follows, so it's no small feat. Maybe nymx's run doesn't fit your criteria of "high quality," but maybe it will entice other TAS-ers to improve on his, who knows. Regardless, I don't think his intent was to make it perfect the first time around. Rather, I think it was a means to open up a fresh category and create some buzz around it, and to try something that hasn't really been attempted before.