The key word here is arbitrary -- that implies that you must be able to make the program do anything (that the computer is physically capable of doing of course).
Anything?
Is not being able to alter the stats of all the enemies, how many spawn, items, etc... not enough? You can arbitrarily change those things as long as it doesn't fail any constraints.
Wouldn't that be better called 'memory corruption' or 'memory editing'? ('data corruption' and 'data editing' if you prefer.) In pokemon RBY you can use the expanded inventory to meddle with things like the destination of the exit of the building, but that's not ACE unless you actually modify something that is later executed as code (or an equivalent effect like ROP/hijacking metaprogramming/self-rewriting code)
TASVideos staff are very adamant on 'the TAS has to be entertaining/good on its own merits, not due to a special encode'.
If you want to do ABC stuff, TAS individual stars, that could be cool to see.
Just so everyone's on the same page: ABC any% will be an over 22 hour long TAS because there is a mandatory 11 hour glitch that you have to do twice for two different stars. If you skip doing it then you incur extra A button presses and defeats the point of ABC any% to begin with.
If you TAS Microsoft Excel to write some macros and execute them, is this ACE?
If you TAS Visual Studio to write a program, compile it and execute it, is this ACE?
(I would say 'yes' for both of the above, by the way - and for Nach's question, I would also say yes if I can make Pong, Snake, jump to the ending, jump to the final boss, etc etc. If I can't do any of those things, then it's not REALLY ACE.)
Is there a help file for how this program works? I haven't been able to find one. I can sort of almost figure out how it works without a help file but I'm getting this error where it says that the game was not given permission to write to its own application path.
Have you tried moving it to a different directory and running it again? Games usually can't write to C:\, C:\Program Files (x86)\... and C:\Program Files\... for example.
well, if the disc read speeds can be made more accurate and can look at the code and get better results, I definitely think they should. The problem is that changing it for one game affects it for every game, so if any single little variable is wrong, it won't seem right for all titles.
That doesn't mean it's impossible, that just means you need to do lots of testing and data-gathering. Maybe with enough samples you could 'automatically solve for the variables'.
2. What exactly does "Retreat Glitch" do to warrent a different branch?
It's a wrong warp. It's the only major glitch relevant in a speedrun. Basically you can think of 'no retreat glitch' as 'no warp glitch' or 'low glitch' or whatever style of category.
I haven't watched the TAS, but it should be compared to tl_plexa's and werster's real time speedruns of golden sun, which are well routed and well optimized though for categories that allow for retreat glitch, so they're not 100% comparable.
The RNG in pokemon gen 1 uses how many CPU cycles have elapsed since the previous frame. This can be a higher or lower number if literally ANYTHING is changed, like:
-Pressing a button, when and what
-holding a button, when and what
-letting go of a button, when and what
-literally any piece of code running or not or running differently as a result of the input (TAS) so far being different
What MrWint does is define a particular result he wants and has a bot brute-force random combinations of button presses (there are lots of frames during which buttons can be pressed without slowing down the intended input of the run, so there's lots of opportunity to manipulate any RNG you want while waiting ideally 0 frames) until it gets the result he wants fast. That's why his pokemon TASes always have millions upon millions of rerecords - they're bot rerecords.
I hope we'll see a TAS of the "glitchless" RTA category.
Good call. As one of many who like to tune in to werster's and others' Red/Blue speedrun attempts, I can say it's a good and important category. I would love to see a TAS of it.
For those who are unaware, can you please elaborate what counts as "glitchless" in RTA runs?
http://wiki.pokemonspeedruns.com/index.php/Pok%C3%A9mon_Red/Blue/Any%25_Glitchless
In addition to it I would add:
Redbar is ok. Jingle skip is ok. (Also any other sound/music glitch, of which there are tons.)
1/256 miss is ok.
Items/moves that are buggily implemented (e.g. just using them in the intended way has a bug in it, like focus energy is bugged to not give you more critical hits and so on) is ok.
The 'bug' that some patches of grass don't give encounters in viridian forest (they forgot to assign one of the tiles as having encounters) is ok.
Oh, I think I understand now :) it's any%
NO save corruption
YES memory corruption
NO game end glitch
If it was NO/YES/YES then you would brock through walls then do cooltrainer or inventory underflow and bring the credits up.
How is
'This list is terminated by an 0xff byte, and the game will continue copying bytes until it is found. If there is no 0xff byte in time, it will overwrite other memory areas, specifically $cd3b. This address is used to define joypad inputs that can override the simulated ones during a cutscene. The feature is (to my knowledge) not used in the game, and causes the cutscene to pause while overriding inputs are pressed, while still preserving all other effects of the cutscene, specifically the ability to walk through any object. Using any warp (e.g. entering a building) cancels the cutscene and the associated effects.'
not memory corruption?
What if someone finds an improvement to the TAS but it's mostly p0rtal_0f_rain's work (due to using a lot of his input)? Would that be publishable y/n?
