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arkiandruski wrote:
Barring that, what is this forum's view on necroing threads?
Necroing is preferred over starting new threads. There's a thread for general Vault discussion where further conversation should probably be happening.
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This is excellent information, thank you. I definitely intend to tackle this in the future, once I get the verification file up and running. On that note: Would anyone still happen to have copies of rhebus' scripts? The general drop script would be a huge boon to making the file if I (or someone else, more likely) can get my hands on it and properly convert it to something usable in BizHawk. I've been brute-forcing everything so far and at this rate it's going to take forever to have it ready.
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Mothrayas wrote:
It has an entertainment rating of 5.8, not exactly what I would call "quite good". I'd have to see around one full point added to that before I would consider moving a run from Vault to Moons.
That's fair, though I think it's a bit high.
I'm convinced that Vaulted movies get much lower entertainment ratings in general simply due to the fact that they're Vaulted in the first place. Even particularly entertaining runs that got pushed there during the Vault's implementation tend to get lower scores than most would think they deserve. It seems like a psychological thing: You're already going into watching the run thinking that it's not going to be entertaining, so you focus on what people aren't finding entertaining about it, meaning you're more like to come out of it in agreement.
Maybe I'm overthinking this, but after having quite a few discussions on post-publication rating I feel like we can get away with promoting Vaulted movies with 6+ Entertainment ratings as long as people post sound reasons behind why they think those movies deserve promotion.
Also, looking at Hydlide's votes in the submission thread, it was unanimously Yes: 82%, which is above the 80% "strong majority" suggested in the Judge Guidelines. I'm aware that this could have happened after the tier decision and the votes might have been a little less positive, but it's still another metric to consider for other potential tier promotions.
Kurabupengin wrote:
Speaking of which, there was a Moons run with a 5.0, I think it was Tecmo Bowl by adelikat, I'm not sure.
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TehBerral wrote:
I would nominate the GnG run but I do believe that an improvement is in the works so it could be moot depending on what the improvements look like. I'm kind of surprised to see it in the Vault, though. It's an infamously hard game made to look easy using arguably the hardest weapon to use for a large chunk of the game. I understand that "the Arcade version is preferable" was Adelikat's reason, but that shouldn't detract from the NES version in this case.
Yeah, an improvement is being worked on. I wouldn't be surprised if the improvement is bumped up to Moons upon being judged, it definitely deserves it.
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dunnius wrote:
RPG games are rather lacking, so I recommend http://tasvideos.org/1482M.html Dragon Warrior [1], which is short, and shows how a normally long RPG can be beat quickly using luck manipulation.
I agree, if only because the run it obsoleted was my introduction to the site (as I mentioned previously). People have this opinion of RPGs as being long, grindy, and full of random encounters, and the Dragon Warrior 1 TAS is absolutely none of that. Definitely a recommendation I can get behind.
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This is just like the Special Stars thread, except this one's for discussing changes between Vault and Moon tiers. If you see a Vault run that you think deserves to be upgraded to Moon, or vice versa, then post about it here. If you suggest a Moon movie be downgraded to Vault, then it has to qualify for Vault: No playarounds, no arbitrary categories, no sports games, to name a few guidelines.
For reference, here's all the Vaulted movies on the site, organized from highest to lowest rated: http://tasvideos.org/Movies-Vault-RatingY.html
I'll start with, what else, Hydlide. This was a huge topic of debate around the time it was published, with a lot of people (myself included) thinking it was entertaining enough for Moons. It makes an unplayable game look entertaining and fast, and with AVGN exposure from way back in the day, I think it needs a bit more of a presence on the site without having to languish in the Vault. The rating's still quite good, too, and there are plenty of Moons that are less entertaining than it.
EDIT: Also, should we elect someone to handle these tier changes? A Moonkid to go along with the Starman, perhaps?
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moozooh wrote:
4. The current list.[2320] SNES Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island "100%" by Baxter, Carl_Sagan & NxCy in 1:59:35.12
This is a great example of failing criterion #2 spectacularly. Even I had to finish it in two sittings because the action was so dense and there were so many things I had to pay attention to, despite being one of the most vocal supporters of the run during its creation. This run is as great as it is physically tiring to watch. I never had a chance to notice it from WIPs because the WIPs ended before I could be overwhelmed.
That being said, it should probably stay on the list exactly because the good things in it are non-area-specific and work even in small portions. The first 10-15 minutes fully convey the message, so whatever you think of them will likely extend to the rest of the run.
Keep it. The RTA community is hype as hell over SMW2 thanks in part to the runners being so charismatic and energetic during GDQs. It's a staple game and a lot of people would definitely sit there and enjoy how intense the TAS is. Barring that, replace it with the original Super Mario World and watch as a thousand 14 year olds come in and capitalize the J in Masterjun.
[2741] Genesis Sonic 3 & Knuckles by Aglar & marzojr in 26:53.06
There's a very good reason why my entertainment rating for this branch started at 10 with nitsuja's first attempt and gradually arrived at 9 by now: because every single trick is being gradually replaced by zipping and Tails-facilitated OOB travel. They are nowhere near as interesting to look at as good old TAS-precise platforming. In my opinion, this flag should either be moved to an earlier iteration of this branch or to some other run of S3&K or S2 entirely (although by this time all Sonic games are just one huge zip).
I'll get more into this later, but I say this should be replaced with a different Sonic run, possibly one of the no ultra-spindash Advance games. I see the reason for this being recommended to newcomers: It shows off things like TAS precision and utilizing zip glitches to get to the end of stages as fast as possible... but now we have the new Aria of Sorrow all souls run for that, so it'd be better to show off a popular game that still goes ridiculously fast without using zips: Only precision. Something that clearly can't be done in real time, of course.
[1851] N64 The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask by MrGrunz in 1:29:32.02
I haven't watched this run so I won't comment on it. My unwillingness to watch it is probably not an indication of anything. But ratings and comments seem to suggest that the overwhelming positive response comes from the fans of the game, with the rest either not watching it at all or being subdued in their reaction.
OoT and Majora have both reached a point where RTA play is getting much closer to TAS levels, so it might be time to retire this in favor of something else... I don't know, maybe I'm biased against the games or something even though they're great. Call it Super Metroid Syndrome or something, where the runs are just too popular for me to really handle why everyone loves them so much.
[1649] NES Mega Man 2 by aglasscage, finalfighter, pirohiko & Shinryuu in 23:48.51
Nice pick. Glitches are sufficiently varied, length is good, there's nice music and many TAS-only tricks. I was never nostalgic about this game (I only played it very briefly before watching a TAS for the first time), but I was sufficiently entertained.
Yeah, keep it. Either that or replace it with the upcoming improvement to the original Mega Man. There needs to be one there, and I trend toward the more ridiculous runs for newcomers in general.
[2078] SNES Super Metroid "reverse boss order" by Saturn in 46:42.38
Okay pick. The length is rather imposing, and the goal may be hard to comprehend without prior knowledge of the game, but every minute of the action is entertaining enough in its own right and screams TAS-level precision. I'd say it's one of the more newcomer-friendly runs of Metroid series made on arguably the best game in the series, on par with the in-game run.
This needs to be kept, and the tag needs to be inherited for each successive improvement. It's one of the site's defining runs, in my opinion.
[2995] GBA Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow "all souls" by Fz-Last, alkdc, Pike in 18:45.26
Compared to its predecessor, I find it barely acceptable at best. It's very hard to follow without intimate knowledge of the game, boss fights take either too long or too short, much of the soul usage variety is gone, one of the best fights is skipped, and general character progression dynamics is all over the place. It's most certainly a TAS for the fans in the first place. It also contains at least two known unimplemented improvements as well as a couple more potential improvements. I believe the RFN flag should either remain at the previous movie or be transferred to the warpless any% which has almost none of the problems while containing virtually all the same benefits as this and the warpless all-souls.
I feel a headache coming on already.
I'm completely in favor of keeping the tag here. What I want to see in the newcomer tag are things that are absolutely mindblowing: I think "hard to follow" is actually a plus in a lot of cases! Maybe I'm weird for thinking this, but this would honestly be the first run I show people who are brand new to the idea of TASing. The run exemplifies the art just as well as the previous all souls runs did.
You tell someone that a "modern" game with a lot of random elements was beaten 100% in less than 20 minutes and they'll think you're crazy, then you show them this run and they'll wonder what they just watched. That's how I came to the site: I didn't think any JRPG could be beaten in less than 20 minutes, let alone a few hours, and then I saw that this Dragon Warrior run existed and I've been hooked on the site ever since.
The run being insanely fast paced and clearly broken makes it even better for newcomers, because it gives them a ton of questions, and asking questions is important. "How did they do that? What just happened? Where do I learn to do things like this?" They start off with an interest in the community, they take the time to learn what's going on, and we end up with great potential.
So it needs to keep the tag, in my opinion.
Morimoto's original run is pretty much why the site exists in the first place, isn't it? I don't think I need to say more than that. Keep it.
[1917] Windows Cave Story "best ending" by nitsuja in 50:10.30
Okay pick. Again, the length is about to fail criterion #2, and the run only picks up pace upon reaching the machine gun 17 minutes in. Nothing really spectacular is going on before that. But the game is really well-designed and has incredibly good music, which helps alleviate the initial boredom, and it has author's commentary as well, so I believe it should stay so far.
I love this run. Yeah, it starts out a bit slow, but it's one of those runs that shows off very clearly how something seemingly trivial can be abused to the fullest extent. I think those are my favorite runs on the site, actually, when something is obtained and then the entire scope of the run changes drastically from there on out as it's broken in half by this single, seemingly normal item or ability.
This is one of the most popular runs on the site in general, and it's absolutely essential as a recommendation to show people something: TASes aren't just about being fast. They're about being entertaining, doing the unexpected and having it still come out right in the end. It's not the most technical movie out there, but it's obvious that the parser is broken and it leads to hilarious results.
[1546] NES Gimmick! "100%" by Aglar & Hotarubi in 07:44.45
Excellent pick. The game has a lot of room for tool-assisted precision to shine, and the run uses all of it spectacularly, the run is short, action-packed, the game has excellent music and cute graphics.
It's not a very well-known game, but I think that works in its favor. Watching some of the earlier publications was an eye-opener for me, personally, so definitely keep it.
[2676] NES Super Mario Bros. "warpless, walkathon" by Mars608 & HappyLee in 25:19.23
Has any newcomer ever watched all of it? Not only the flag; the existence of this movie and the fact that a shorter branch was sacrificed for it confuses me. The warped version was a neat novelty run and was good because in the six minutes of its runtime it could show pretty much every known way to overcome the in-game obstacles without pressing B. What exactly is being accomplished by having a movie four times its length escapes me. It doesn't contain four times the tricks. It doesn't even contain four times the amount of situations previously considered impassable without B. It can't allure even all the people who love Mario, judging from the sheer number of rating votes on it and the fact that it has the poorest entertainment rating of all SMB movies at 7.2. 7.2 is barely above average and probably below median as far as site-wide rating statistics goes.
The recent max coins run might be a better choice here, but I still think this run holds up if only because of the ridiculous and long-researched 4-3 strategy that made the run impossible for the longest time. Four times longer, sure, but that one strategy is enough to make up for 4 brand new tricks.
5. Movies absent from the current list.
Some movies, including a few obsolete ones, that I believe are quite fit for being recommended for newcomers.
[2715] Windows VVVVVV "20 trinkets, no death mode" by Masterjun in 17:33.77: although not always easily distinguishable from the current unassisted runs (they are actually very very good), it has everything a good newcomer movie should: aesthetics, optimization, style, excellent music and visuals, and decent length.
Eh, I'm not so sure here. It doesn't have the sort of charm that other newcomer movies have. It's not too popular of a game, and as you said it's not much different from the unassisted runs.
I'm gonna have to go with the same thing here. There's one amazingly impressive strat and the rest is just optimizing what RTA runners have been figuring out and doing for a while. It deserves the Star, yeah, but I wouldn't really recommend it to a newcomer, especially one who's already familiar with the RTA runs.
[1438] SNES International Superstar Soccer Deluxe "playaround" by Marcokarty in 15:24.38: Amazing playaround. Zero game knowledge and only a very rudimentary understanding of soccer rules is necessary to enjoy it. My mother, a soccer fan, enjoyed it a lot—and I assure you, she never really played anything other than Minesweeper. If this isn't telling, I don't know what is.
Absolutely this. This more than almost anything else. This is the run that you show people who don't know much about video games in general, let alone speedrunning or TASing.
[711] NES Gradius by adelikat in 10:52.35: Remember how this was among the first picks to show verified at AGDQ? For a good reason. It's short, extremely entertaining, shows unconventional TAS-only behavior and whatnot. It's also a popular game of an easy-to-understand genre.
What shocks me is that this isn't already recommended. I thought it was?
This is the first run I think of when I hear people talk about TASing and art and being entertaining during autoscrollers/wait times. Why isn't this recommended? Seriously. This needs it. It's practically a meme at this point due to the AGDQ '14 mishaps.
[1103] NES Mega Man by Deign in 15:29.27: on par with the MM2 run, probably even better in terms of length and the tricks used. Not as broken as the newer one, and is better because of it.
I still maintain that broken = better for newcomers.
*shrug* As I said earlier, I'd recommend one of the shorter Advance runs or something like that over the Genesis games. They've all gotten too zippy, and RTA's started to take after them, so showing what you can do without any insane zipping is a huge boon.
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TehBerral wrote:
I just wanted to pose a question (I figured it'd be better posted here rather than in the submission poll of the All Souls TAS). Is there any reason why no one is using BizHawk for this game - if for nothing else, for accuracy? I realize almost all of the runs use SRAM to skip cutscenes, so is making a verification file the issue, or is there something else? I'm just curious if there's some technical hoo-hah I don't know about.
Not many people use BizHawk for GBA as it is. I don't know if there's a specific reason or anything, though I'd assume it's simply because people are more used to VBA.
Speaking of verification files and using BizHawk for this game, I think I've convinced myself to start preparing for a Boss Rush TAS. Making a proper verification file for the most optimal Boss Rush will probably take far longer than it'll take to actually make the TAS, but I've got enough affection for the game to take it on.
Probably a reposted video, but here's the best TAS I could find (though I wasn't having any luck on Nico so there might be a faster one there):
Link to video
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zhangsongcui wrote:
I'm not very glad to see the existing all souls run will get obsoleted by this, as the existing run shows more such as using of Catoblepas soul & Julius fight.
Oh, just get the Blocking Mail and let it bounce off of you.
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xy2_ wrote:
You'd have to see if this game works exactly the same as ETC, where running is flat out faster than jumping, in which case, I'm alright with delaying/cancelling this submission and redoing some levels :)
Assuming there are no super noticeable changes to the improved run, it'd be preferable for the run to be set to delayed. If you two are actually planning on improving this, let me know so I can do just that.
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My temp/WIP encodes got flagged as well. It's only unavailable in the US, everywhere else can see it fine. It's a pain, but there's really not much we can do about it, is there?
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As moozooh said, my decision was based on the fact that no one in the thread wanted it published alongside the SMS run. The most it got to was "I don't see why it can't be published alongside the SMS run", as if they actually had no strong opinion either way. In a way, you are the first person to actually question that decision.
There isn't necessarily a rule that states only one version of a game has to exist on the site at a time: What matters in my opinion is how different each version is. If two versions of a game are sufficiently different, then they both deserve to be published alongside each other. If they're nearly identical, as in Dragon Crystal's case, then it should be a matter of which version is the "best" for the site, and that needs to be decided by the audience. It doesn't necessarily have to be the fastest, though I assume in a majority of cases that's going to be what the audience would prefer.
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Is it a confirmed good dump? More specifically, is the symbol in the lower left corner of the BizHawk window a checkmark or a question block?
EDIT: If it's good, does it act the same in 1.11.3?
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Just had an idea, apologies if it was brought up before: Could we potentially start using this thread to discuss tier changes in general, not just star suggestions? As far as I know, there isn't a place to discuss published runs that are worthy/unworthy enough to be promoted/demoted from tier to tier, and since this thread is already about promoting/demoting Stars, why not generalize it to all tiers?
EDIT: Or we could start and sticky a new topic in its stead.
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Might as well weigh in on the category discussion, since this is basically going to be the only thing discussed that isn't well-deserved praise.
As much as it pains me to say this, I'm in favor of this obsoleting the current all souls run. Why? Because this run exists: [1478] GBA Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow by Kriole in 20:58.62
The current all souls run is basically an extension of that run. In a way, while they're both perfectly fit for the site, there's no point to having both since the only real difference between these two runs is that one run spends about 5 extra minutes collecting souls. On the other hand, this run shows off a "new" glitch, one that hasn't been seen in any run on the site up until now, and it does so to absolutely ridiculous proportions. The fact that this new run shows off so much more content makes it a very, very worthy successor to the all souls throne.
Of course, I'd like to see more of what everyone else thinks before I can make an informed decision.
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Of course I had to watch this immediately upon its submission. This was my most anticipated run of the year and it exceeded my expectations in every possible way.
I consider myself to be pretty intimately familiar with Aria of Sorrow, but this was absolutely mind-blowing. There were new tricks I'd never seen before, routes I never even dreamed of when I first experimented with bat zipping, and, just... I can't even explain how happy this run makes me. The routing in general must have been an absolute nightmare. Not just figuring out the zipping from area to area, but all the zipping just to make single rooms faster as well.
Yes vote, without any hesitation. TAS of the Year, my new favorite TAS even. Thank you all for making this run.
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By "obsoleting the SMS run", I didn't mean time-wise, I meant game-wise. If this run is proven to be as fast as possible, and people prefer this version of the game, it could obsolete the SMS run just for being preferred/more entertaining at the cost of some speed, but judging from the posts in the thread I can see that people really don't care about version choice, so this isn't an issue anymore.
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TASVideoAgent wrote:
This version of CT is probably the best one for a almost glitchless run, since most of the glitches from SNES ans PSX versions are gone.
So I made one.
...
The arena duplication glitch seems hard to be manipulated and will break the pace of the run so I avoided the Arena as a whole.
This entire section doesn't make sense to me. You say it's "almost" glitchless, which implies that there are glitches being used, and yet you pass up a major, DS-exclusive glitch that could potentially shave an hour off the run? I don't really understand that. On top of that, the primary goal of defeating Dream Devourer in the fastest time doesn't make sense either since there are optional sidequests being done, which means it's not done in the fastest time... And yet, it already wasn't being done in the fastest time due to the exclusion of a major glitch in a run that apparently uses them.
This was all brought up in the thread before, so it really needs some major clarifications from the author.
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