Posts for Samsara


Samsara
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For the record, this IS a gameplay improvement over [1612] GBC Castlevania: The Adventure by arukAdo in 14:58.70. The mentioned "pause delay" glitch is used incredibly sparingly in the published run, but it is used far more often in this one, which removes a ton of lag and helps with rope jumping. The slower time is due to the normal GB version lagging a lot more in general (at least as far as I understood from the explanation, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). arukAdo is using the new improvements in this movie for a GBC version improvement, but I feel like this run can be acceptable in the meantime assuming the GBC improvement takes a while to be completed.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
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User movie #65172035436643228 Game or not, the TAS is still unoptimized.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
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That's really just the same sort of rule we have for ports of licensed games... Wherever that rule is. Is that even a listed rule, or just something we've enforced on principle?
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
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Agreed. The fact that there are two distinct sections related to the same topic is already confusing enough, but the wording needs to be updated as well. For example, do we even need extra rules for unlicensed/homebrew games if we've been accepting some of them to Vault? Especially with all the recent changes to what's allowed in Vault, it's feeling more and more like game choice doesn't matter nearly as much, so I don't really see why we need to specify that there's a difference there. I fully understand extra scrutiny for hacks (easier to make, much more prevalent, et cetera), but implying that everything else unofficial is subject to the same process doesn't feel quite right. And don't get me started on how I feel about "notability".
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
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"jeffc" is Arc, so that is the most likely result. I'm guessing it was downloaded in the very early days of the site. In any case, not worth archiving, but still an interesting little find.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
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There's a fundamental difference between "this run uses a massively game breaking glitch and this one doesn't" (OoT Any% VS No Wrong Warp) and "this run uses arbitrary code execution, and so does this one but it takes almost a half hour longer" (Save glitch VS CCG). A more accurate comparison would be a hypothetical situation where someone submits an OoT any% run that, say, wrong warps straight from Link's house to the tower collapse. Would you ask for the current run to remain published as well, despite the fact that this hypothetical run is a direct improvement using a much faster setup for the same payoff? I know there's ACE in OoT now, just bear with me here.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
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Unrejecting in light of a new rule change regarding feelings. Accepting judgement note to Stars.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
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Sanqui wrote:
Full disclosure though that I was the one to invent the Coin Case ACE exploit and make the first RTA run, so I'm very much biased towards this category. Just putting forth my view though! :)
With all due respect, that should disqualify your opinion due to potential bias. I just finished watching CCG and glitchless Silver side-by-side up to where CCG ends, and here's a brief comparison: 0. Basically, the comparison in the submission text for this run is 100% accurate, but I'll go into more detail. 1. The runs are almost completely identical for the first 10 minutes, until CCG catches that Bellsprout. About 6 minutes later, glitchless catches a Wooper. In essence, both runs catch a Pokemon along the path, which evens out in time. 2. CCG messes around on the PC to manipulate EGG. Glitchless gets EGG first, then puts EGG in PC. In essence, both runs do things re: EGG on the PC, which evens out in time. 3. CCG does have faster battle strats, but that's all explained in the sub text, and they don't amount to much difference at all. 4. The times between the two runs end up nearly completely even since the runs are basically doing the same things, just slightly differently. The paths diverge for good at about 28 minutes (glitchless catches an Abra just before Goldenrod, CCG goes straight to Game Corner). 5. CCG setup is literally "get to the Coin Case, look at Bellsprout, open Coin Case". And then, just like save glitch, appear in front of Red, Red disappears, credits roll. There's nothing interesting about it. Like, sure, it's cool that something so innocuous instantly leads to the end, but it's not really interesting to watch, and hardly anything is different when it comes to a direct comparison to glitchless. You could pretty much just watch glitchless until Goldenrod and then watch the end credits and you'd get the same effect as watching CCG. I don't really know what's left to say at this point. I'm now 100% convinced save glitch should obsolete CCG. Save glitch has the more interesting setup, it's 26 minutes shorter, and it isn't 95% identical to another published run. And that's not counting the fact that both runs are ACE so save glitch should obsolete CCG anyway, regardless of any other argument. EDIT: I'm refraining from voting since I don't feel comfortable doing so after talking about how the entertainment value might factor into a decision on whether or not to keep the branch. I guess that in and of itself implies my opinion isn't all that high, but I still won't poison the well. It feels like manipulating the submission votes just to further prove my point, and that ain't good.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
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Memory wrote:
1. I don't think CCG is even that well received.
Currently published run has a 6.6 entertainment rating from 14 votes, this submission has only received 8 total votes (with one meh), and as far as I've seen, the only people who are defending the branch's existence are people already in the community, and I don't think an individual game's community should determine whether or not it gets to defy a general site's rules. As for the thing about gameplay differences, I'm going to watch glitchless and this submission at the same time and see if there's really any reason to show(coin)case this run in terms of different content. Will post notes/findings in some amount of time.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
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nymx wrote:
One item that I believe could be a factor is cutting lag; however, I don't see that lag is a factor...unless a frame of it exist upon hitting or killing an enemy. If this is the case, a frame of lag in these cases could mount up to a big saving by the end...if shooting it on a different frame would actually remove it.
Took a quick look at the game: There's no lag when shooting. Hardly any at all, actually, at least as far as I've watched in emulator (20+ minutes in and less than 2 seconds of lag, all from loading and literally none at all during gameplay, which I am incredibly jealous of after NOES). There's a stage select (it flashes by fairly quickly in the TAS so I didn't catch it when watching the encode), so level order in the TAS just seems to be whatever ends up directly under the cursor when the stage select screen appears. I assume the RTA runs use a different level order to maximize their chances of a run finishing (i.e, getting harder levels out of the way early), since every level appears to be laid out the same no matter when they're chosen. If the triviality rules hadn't been changed while I was gone, I'd be more hesitant about this run, seeing as it's almost completely on-rails except for the bosses. Hell, two people are tied for the RTA record, and it's only about a minute slower than the TAS. The bosses are clearly non-trivial, though, and the killing during the stages looks pretty nice. I agree with 100% kills, too (or at least 100% of what's possible to kill, given that not all enemies seem to be that way). The bonuses don't take too long and given what I'm seeing (and what I've messed around with myself), leaving enemies alive might kill Frank Punishman before it even starts to affect how long the bonuses last. Either way, TASMania rolls onward with another Vault run. No vote for entertainment, but worthy of publication IMO.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Post subject: Re: Clarification on Console Verification flag requirements.
Samsara
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EZGames69 wrote:
So there are 3 types of verifications I’d like to use as cases: 1. Movies that sync on console without any changes in input. [...] So first up, case number 1. It’s pretty much impossible for anyone to argue that this case should be excluded. It’s a perfect example of the spirit of console verification, and is the best case scenario for what we would want.
Haha, what? No, we can't add the flag for that. That's ridiculous. Of course this is fine.
2. Movies that sync with the same input, but might need a few frames added or deleted to work [...] Second up, case number 2. This is where we start to notice issues with emulation not being exact with console. Emulation is not likely to be 100% accurate to console every time, and can usually depend on the game being tested. For Sonic Advance, 1 lag frame was added in order to get the run to sync. A small sacrifice which doesn’t affect anything significant in the input file. In the case of SMA4, 10 frames had to be added in some loading areas to get it to sync, and about 500 frames were removed from the movie file so save data creation did not have to be an issue. I think in these cases, it would still count to include them as console verified, since the adjustments that had to be done were not relevant to the gameplay, but rather just loading. These cases should also have documentation on how to get them to sync, likely in the submission thread.
Adjusting frames for loading times is perfectly reasonable, if that's all you have to do to get a run to work on console then I see no reason not to call it verified.
3. Movies that were on older emulation but resynced to newest emulation in order to verify.
Ah, this is where it gets dicey.
Then we have the 3rd case. This is where things start to get very sketchy.
Aw heck, you said that already.
There are a couple of movies that use older inaccurate emulation that were adjusted to work on console, like Super Mario Land and Trip World. For Trip World, I was able to get the movie to play on GBC in GBA mode, which is required to get GB/C games to console verify. I then added frames to any screen transition which would be an average of about 1-2 frames each. There was no lag during gameplay that I had to adjust, so it was a seamless sync.
This sounds fine to me, pretty much the same as Case 2 just with a couple of extra caveats that don't matter too much in my eyes.
However we have a case like Super Mario Land that needs some high hurdles to get to work. For one, bonus levels have to be adjusted in order to get fire flower after each world in the bonus rooms. These are based on what frame you finish the world on, and sometimes require wasting them via pausing and simmilar. The other issue is lag during gameplay. There might be cases where you have to change the inputs slightly in order to keep optimal lag reduction, and when that happens, it breaks the spirit of a true console verification. Since you aren’t testing to see if specific inputs will work on console, and have to make these adjustments in order to work, it might disqualify the verification.
Yeah, if you actually have to change the button inputs, that's no longer the original run. The idea is that the submitted run's inputs work on console. To me, adding a blank frame because the console lags where the emulator doesn't is fine. Adding/removing a frame of an A press for any reason isn't, even if it doesn't change how the run looks and only removes a frame of lag. A case could be made that tiny adjustments like that are still okay because the run is 99% accurate to the console, meaning that the emulator is pretty much 99% accurate as well, but it still rubs me the wrong way. Like, don't get me wrong, it's still impressive to see, and it shouldn't discourage anyone from trying to get runs to sync on console. These are arguably the most important cases, since it could potentially show the emu devs what they need to do to make things more accurate. I just think that changing actual button presses disqualifies the run from getting the flag.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
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Run syncs from beginning to end with the provided instructions (I did have to export the files from the provided memory card). RE4 speedruns/TASes always have the same effect on me: They just make me wanna play RE4 again, every single time. Mercenaries was never really my thing, but the TASes make me really appreciate how much planning goes into maximizing the score. I love how smooth the killing segments look, the rapid headshots (as have been said before) and the careful grouping of enemies for grenades were a treat. The grenade stuff in particular, the grouping was like a buildup to the exact payoff you want as a viewer... Or the exact payoff I want as someone who just likes seeing many zombies explode at the same time. Yes vote, great work!
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
She/They
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
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Believe me, I'm no closer than you to understanding how TASvideos operates, and I helped write some of these rules. At this point, if improvements are in the works, it might be easier to take the same route as janus and cancel this submission in favor of the new one. Having two optimized runs would be a lot easier of a comparison to make regarding whether or not both runs are publishable alongside each other. Are you two working together? Your post makes it sound like you're both separately working on any% runs, which seems a bit weird to me.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
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So, once again we have an interesting situation on our hands, here. The currently published run is in Vault, and it uses time-saving glitches (just not weapon glitch as that wasn't discovered at the time, as far as I can tell), which means that glitchless would have to be a separate category, and glitchless isn't a Vaultable category. So what needs to be determined here is whether or not this run is entertaining enough to make it to Moons, and... Given that the published run is sitting comfortably in Vault, and this is a 4 hour and 45 minute TAS (as soon as the file gets updated) to begin with, the deck's a bit stacked against it... But this is a weird case, because at the current moment this is the fastest known TAS of this game, at least that I can find. Nicovideo doesn't return a lot of results other than janus' previous runs, but I could have missed something (searching on Nico directly returns nothing because apparently I'm awful at searches, everything I found was searching through Google), and even if there was something on Nico, I'd imagine a 5ish hour RPG TAS would be significantly faster through the text differences alone, meaning it would be harder to compare actual improvements without watching the runs in full. On the same note of comparisons, it's hard to compare this run and the published run given that this one's purely glitchless, and it's hard to compare this run and the other submission because the other submission is missing techniques used in this run, and comparing this run to the improvement run... Kiiiiiinda requires the improvement run in the first place. So how do we judge the entertainment value of this run in the meantime? As a non-fastest completion category, we can't let it stand on its own. As a 4 hour and 45 minute RPG TAS, I imagine it'd be kind of a difficult watch for a lot of people... And there's also the precedent that foregoing time saves in a Breath of Fire TAS isn't publishable. Yes, I'm aware that's BoF3, which is 3 hours longer than this, and that it's strictly slower than the published BoF3 TAS overall, but in terms of pure comparison I think it's still worth bringing up. Does entertainment even matter right now, though, given that this is currently the fastest completion of the game? Even if an improvement that will be faster is in the works, assuming this run gets judged before the new submission comes in, does the fact that it's the current TAS record make it Vault eligible, or do the known improvements nullify that? I can't immediately think of a precedent for this, a glitchless run obsoleting a glitched Vault run as fastest completion despite the fact that it's known glitches are faster, and honestly I don't even know where to begin to look with that. Obviously, this is a tough ask, but I think this run needs a good amount of audience feedback given the weird situation. I'm planning on watching this run and janus' (EDIT: RECENTLY CANCELLED) submission side by side within the next couple of days to compare them on an entertainment level. I'm sure the categories warrant separate publications, but that would require this run meeting the entertainment level it needs to be published in the first place. ...TASvideos, as always, remains one of the most complicated places on the internet. I love it. Genuinely. No sarcasm. Never change. <3
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
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Considering the length of the movie, the time it could take to redo, and the potential size of the improvements, I would recommend cancelling and submitting the improvement separately.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
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Is it weird to think a TAS is cute? ...Well, if it is, then I guess I'm weird. I really liked the entertainment stuff, it kept me smiling all the way through watching it. The routing looks good, especially with the way you were able to end the input early and coast straight to the end. Really nice little run, aaaaaaaand that music's gonna be stuck in my head for a while. Voted Yes on entertainment. Excellent work!
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
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"Major skip glitch" includes game end glitch, but it is not exclusively game end glitch. The Earthbound example in particular, the major skip in the 1 hour run is an OOB glitch, as far as I know there's no memory or save corruption of any kind. "Foregoes save corruption" is there because most of those runs also forego memory corruption, save for... Whattaya know, Pokemon! ACE in general makes a lot of categories completely worthless, since you could just glitch in whatever you wanted from the exact same GEG/save glitch setups, but also if we didn't have categories for foregoing GEGs then we wouldn't have "normal" runs of any game that had a GEG. Imagine if the only SMB3 TAS we had published was the sub-1 second one. Whoof! TASvideos is complicated, it has always been complicated, and it will always be complicated. I appreciate all this discourse, hopefully things will get cleared up one way or another.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
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feos wrote:
There is fundamental similarity in all such glitches, even if visually they may differ a lot. Someone probably needs to do a search through all movie branches on the site to tell if any other game has had "save glitch" alongside some other major skip glitch like "game end glitch".
I went through every currently published run categorized with Major Skip Glitch, and out of all of them, only Gen1 Pokemon (Yellow "game end" and Red "save") and Gen2 Pokemon (Crystal "save" and Silver "coin case") fit this criteria. I can check obsoleted movies and obsoletion chains as well, though I imagine that'd take a lot more time.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
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TiKevin83 wrote:
There's a balance between how the branches have been treated historically...
Which, reminder, is that save glitch and CCG have been treated the same as the site.
...how voting is going (which appears universally positive anyway in this case)...
What also needs to be considered is how many votes there are. 8 total votes after a month on the workbench doesn't exactly imply that people are interested in the run. The Crystal submission has 20 total votes, and the glitchless Silver submission has 10 despite being six times longer than this run. It really feels like interest in CCG as a whole is waning, at least in terms of people on the site.
...and how best to handle the TASes against current publication rules.
Going back to the first quote and the previous standards I brought up (SMB3 and Chrono Trigger), "game end glitch" is generally treated as a universal category despite what methods are used. Save corruption or no save corruption, both runs get to a point where they manipulate memory to reach the credits instantly. My arguments are upholding how the site has historically handled (coin) cases like these.
I remain unconvinced that this even applies in this situation though because we're also talking about different games.
The "different games" counterpoint completely falls apart considering the circumstances. This is a Gold run meant to obsolete a Silver run that originally obsoleted a Gold run, which is now obsoleted by a Crystal run. CCG is unique to Gold/Silver, yes, but there's still questions that arise from it still having a published branch. If someone submits a save glitch run for Gold/Silver, what happens? Does CCG get obsoleted by the faster ACE run, or does Gold/Silver save glitch get rejected because it isn't the fastest Gen2 save glitch run? Both of these options counteract each other, but they're both the correct choice as far as judging is concerned. That's the problem with continuing to have this branch published. It isn't consistent with how we've done things in the past (obsoleting slower GEGs with faster methods), it raises more questions than it answers, and it makes no sense to arbitrarily change how obsoletions work within the Pokemon franchise (i.e, any game within a generation can obsolete any other game within a generation) just for this one specific branch, even if CCG is version-exclusive.
I would suggest that entertainment is not an issue generally, a layperson would be entertained simply by the varied game choice for the exploit, and the more niche TASer/infosec audience would be entertained by what I laid out about the various attack vectors.
Entertainment is quite literally the focus of the site, though. This run has to be entertaining to be published, as it isn't the fastest completion in its category (which is, again, Crystal save glitch). That's why I brought up the (seemingly) lack of interest in this run (most of this submission thread has been tech questions/this ongoing debate about the branch) and the relatively low-ish entertainment score on the published run (6.6 is what I'd consider just north of the Vault/Moon cutoff). It's still a valid point when considering what to do with this run, even if my main issue is still that it's a slower GEG run when we not only have a faster one published, but an improvement to that published run also sitting on the workbench. If the audience's interest/entertainment has dropped off to this point, it might not even qualify for the site at all anymore regardless of the branching.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
She/They
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Wait for the replacement. If someone doesn't get around to replacing it sooner, the Judge will replace it when they get around to judging it.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
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Submission text is a major WIP, should have it finished up within a day though. Enjoy the run in the meantime! EDIT: Submission text is now finished, barring some minor grammar edits and more jokes if I can think of them. I'll probably think of more jokes. I'm going to think of more jokes. Jokes will never end. I am the Queen of Jokes.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
She/They
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The rules on looping games are hard to get a solid definition for, but what we have seems reasonable enough (if a bit confusingly worded) as a general guideline that can be refined by a judge on a game-by-game basis. In this particular case, I don't think just the first loop is enough.
Winslinator wrote:
I understand that the TAS would've been more complete had I beaten the first 7 loops (49 stages) but I haven't been able to complete any stage in that loop, considering enemies move more than twice the speed of the player. Therefore, I figured this would be complete enough for now but feel free to prove me wrong.
When you say that, do you mean RTA or under TAS conditions? If it's impossible in even TAS conditions, that sounds like a form of a killscreen to me, and we've already established that a killscreen is the logical endpoint of a (seemingly) infinitely looping game. If they ARE possible when TASed, then it's going to look extra impressive due to the high enemy speed, and since the last stage of loop 7 appears to be the defined difficulty cap, it still makes this general section the most logical endpoint for a TAS of this version.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
She/They
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TiKevin83 wrote:
I'll try to reframe it from an information security perspective: [rest of post snipped]
Let's continue with that metaphor, then. If the end result of both attack vectors is the same (i.e, a successful attack), why does it matter which one was used to begin with? Assuming, for some reason, that your average layperson is watching these attacks happen, they're not going to understand the mechanics behind each one. They're just going to wonder why one attack is 25+ minutes slower than the other. Sure, you'll get the occasional person who's interested in how both attacks work, and will gain entertainment out of both of them (I'm sure a lot of people who actually visit the site are interested in that), but most people (i.e, casual speedrun fans and the YouTube audience) aren't going to see a difference apart from time. The analogy falls apart when you realize that different attack vectors in infosec are important because each one needs to be specifically prevented, so ultimately the only thing that matters there is finding them in the first place. In one of the strangest phrases I've ever had to write: This isn't infosec, it's Pokemon speedrunning. Speed matters, and there's a 0% chance that any of these methods of attack are going to be "fixed" in any way, barring a revelation that something only works on an emulator, and given your dedication to console verifying these runs, I don't even see that happening, so in terms of what gets showcased on the site, what matters the most is speed. I mentioned the Chrono Trigger and SMB3 examples in a previous post, where two highly entertaining and universally praised runs were obsoleted by clear Vault runs, just because those runs used faster methods of attack. I don't see why Pokemon should continue to receive special treatment here, especially considering the current CCG run isn't considered to be the same level of entertaining as the aforementioned runs. Of course, that's not to say these methods shouldn't be redone at all, or that they shouldn't be studied. This is purely an issue of site publication and how we handle these sorts of (coin) cases. The Pokemon speedrunning community will absolutely benefit from CCG being studied further and done faster in the same way that it'll benefit from any other GEG run getting the same treatment, but this isn't the Pokemon speedrunning community. It's a much larger niche that contains members of that community. As far as I'm (and I assume most other people are) concerned, CCG and save corruption are the same category of glitch (memory manipulation/game end glitch), and thus the faster one should be the preferred one. This is further evidenced by save corruption being our first Gen 2 GEG run, initially obsoleted by CCG (which was the fastest known at the time), and as far as I can tell, the only reason why CCG was even kept despite the original Crystal save glitch run being submitted is because nobody had any opinion on it. Still, it's a good thing this was submitted, and it's a good thing this conversation is happening. We need runs like this to spark discussions like this to keep improving and refining how the site operates. I've seen a lot of positive change from the last time I was on the site, and I'd like to keep seeing that going forward. This run getting rejected is far from the end of the world: Like I said on the S3K Sonic run, we can always take another look at it in the future when the rules change. Rejection is only really a black mark in the case of obviously horrible optimization, or blatantly stolen input, or Super Mario Bros 1. There almost certainly will be a place for this run on the site someday, even if it takes 11 years like Lee Trevino's Combat Golfsketball.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
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This confused me, so I'll explain it here: BizHawk in its current state shows the time as 13:10.75, which is reflected in the encode and the previous publications. The submission parser was recently updated to a more accurate PSX framerate (it's fixed in BizHawk dev builds as well, so it'll be in 2.5), so the time of 13:02.21 is actually accurate. The currently published run is actually 13:02.83 under the correct framerate, making this a 37 frame improvement as opposed to a 9 second improvement. The run desyncs very early on 2.4.2, but syncs fine to the end on 2.3.3. It's still Oddworld! Another long-running series of TASes, though I'm not nearly as fond of it as I am TTYD or FFCC. It's nice to see another tradition continuing, though! Everything still looks fine to me, optimized, nicely put together and all that, typical of every Oddworld submission that I've seen. Still can't give this more than a Meh on entertainment, though.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.