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Warp wrote:
In other words, the Vault tier has a really bad reputation.
It just occurred to me that the poll question probably helps reinforcing this notion, which is a shame.
Unfortunately I don't know what the solution to this is (even assuming it could be solved).
The tier system is in fact supposed to award entertainment. Some may see it from the other way around, that is, punishing lack of entertainment. It sure would be nicer to have people seeing it from the positive point of view rather than from the negative one, but I'm afraid that attempting to fix misconceptions of people would go far beyond the purpose of this site. I apologize for my nihilism.
On the other hand, while it could be true that the presence of the poll question may be reinforcing this negative point of view, in my opinion it's still better than having no poll, even though there are already other aspects that the judges use for determining tier, beside that. Because the poll has the unique advantage to allow to share an opinion anonymously, even if it's a very simplified (and often misinterpreted) opinion. Sometimes some people may be having troubles sharing their opinion openly for whatever reason, so it's still better than nothing. It's part of the judge job to understand when and how much each poll may be more or less trustworthy, by putting in use as many informations and aspects as possible, for each case independently. And in case anyone is wondering: we judges can't see the voter's identity, and we don't need to know it either, as that wouldn't help us with understanding the reasons behind a vote, and it would also uselessly damage the privacy of the users.
In any case, as I already wrote recently in another thread, if enough people consider the requirement for voting to be too loose, we could propose to raise the required post count to a higher amount, or even figuring out additional requirements.
DrD2k9 wrote:
Memory wrote:
DrD2k9 wrote:
1) Should this movie be published (does it adhere to the rules as you understand them)?
Yes
No
I'd like to note that this question would not contribute to the actual publication process. It's explicitly the judge's role to determine this, not the viewer.
I know that the judge is the ultimate decision maker regarding acceptance/publication and not the community.
I suggested this question for two reasons.
1) It will help us understand if the community as a whole generally understand the rules.
2) With either acceptance or rejection, having the results from this question provides the judge with information that may allow for formulation of more detailed judgement notes in regards to the rules. If the majority of voters are in agreement with the judge, the judgement notes may not need to be as detailed. However if the majority of voters are in disagreement with the judge, the judge knows that a more thorough explanation of why the movie does/doesn't fit the rules is warranted as part of the judgement note.
I agree that's it's useful to know about how the community feels about a judgment, but I don't think that a poll could help much; actually, it would make things even more confusing. Only speaking out your mind with a post can help the judge to understand what does need to be clarified, or sometimes even considering a revision of the verdict (we're not infallible). It happened in the past and it always worked out (people never keep quiet when they are unhappy), so I really don't see any reason to implement a poll for this. Or do you have any example of cases where things couldn't work out?
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MESHUGGAH wrote:
Meaning that any user (with 10 post) are eligible to submit their answer to the question Did you find this movie entertaining?, which results will be processed by the judge in question
That's not the only basis on which judges should decide the tier. A judge should take in account to as many aspects as possible when making a decision, especially when the case is complex. As Nach noted, in some situations the poll votes are mostly ignored, meaning that other aspects may take more relevance in a tier decision, like the posts in the submission thread, for example.
In any case, if you think that 10 posts are too few for deserving the ability to vote, then we could propose to raise that amount. Though I personally don't feel that it would be necessary, as judgments aren't based on polls alone.
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MrCheeze wrote:
Extremely disappointed to see this run - by my view, the most historic TAS ever - getting vaulted.
Tier decision is up to the community as a whole. That's just how democracy works. Insisting in displaying your opinion won't change others' opinion, especially for something subjective like feeling entertained. On the other hand, I don't see why it should be different, as it seems to me that the current approach for determining Tier works just fine for its intended purpose. Maybe it's not infallible, but in my opinion this specific movie didn't get a borderline response from the audience, so there is no chance that there was a judgment mistake.
Warp wrote:
You cannot measure subjective feelings like that.
I totally agree. And for this reason, I think that it would be useless to drag this discussion any further, as it's destined to turn into a basic clash of subjective opinions. If anyone does really care, then open a new tread for discussing about entertaining, Tiers, etc. I think that no one is going to gain anything from continuing to discuss about the judgment decision for this specific movie.
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Despite the fact that I little contributed with DTC7, I really find this movie entertaining and impressive.
By the way, I'm still amazed that a game like this isn't a bootleg.
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Jont wrote:
Does anyone know what's up with the judge of this movie? It's been a few weeks since they unclaimed it and nothing's happened since.
I found myself being unable to work with Linux, mainly due to having an obsoleted computer. You'll have to wait for a differet judge to pick it, sorry.
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For the moment, I can't contribute further to the discussion, but I wanted to hop here and say that I agree with everything DrD2k9 wrote in his first post.
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Spikestuff wrote:
Personally, I just want to see you walk to the doors of SM64 and convince them that it's really an Adventure Game.
Cause Spoilers. It isn't.
Please read my posts. I actually wrote that my line on reasoning brought me to the conclusion that SM64 is not Adventure genre.
Also, I noticed that you removed the Adventure genre from Tomba (again). Why?
In my opinion it features all the typical characteristics of an Adventure game:
you travel through an unified world where you can roam freely,
you complete secondary quests in a non-linear fashion,
you have an inventory for your items of choice.
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MESHUGGAH wrote:
- Stick to the main objective:The goal of classes is to categorize movies based on game genre, movie goals, and various aspects of TASing (that may or may not be entertaining to an audience member). This gives visitors the freedom to group movies based around their particular interests. Therefore proper tagging is critical to the usefulness of this feature.
My objective is to define the genre so that a certain kind of games would be included in it, while other kind of games would be excluded, as I explained in the first post. Because that's the most functional approach.
MESHUGGAH wrote:
My own interpretation of the word Adventure as in real life:
I think that an adventure is more about experiencing something new you didn't already. It comes with risk and you probably don't plan the whole thing opposing to a trip/travel.
That's deep... Way too deep! Only games that use procedural generation can achieve this experience, like Minecraft or rouguelike games.
MESHUGGAH wrote:
My own interpretation of the word Adventure as in video games:
Going through all the places that someone did/does, experiencing myself what he/she did.
Mine instead is more or less: go wherever you want, gameplay is tendentially non-linear.
MESHUGGAH wrote:
Revisiting/backtracking/traceback/reenter shouldn't be a feature of Adventure. I mean that you aren't going for an adventure to revisit something.
But that's exactly the main feature of most games that are officially been recognized or presented as Adventure genre. It's just a functional way of recognizing them. It's not like we're defying the concept of adventure in a general way, we're just using it as a way of labelling a certain kind of games, regardless of the meaning that the word has outside of videogames.
MESHUGGAH wrote:
You can't really decide objectively the connection of places. Just because it's visually represented in some way, it could come out differently in the game regarding it's plot or simply the similarity of the levels.
It's not just a visual representation! In adventure games, you have to walk your way through a single, unified world, and that's what it makes it unique in its TASing aspects.
And I agree that Metroid is an Adventure game.
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We apply the genre tags to game movies on our own, instead than following what external sources claim, since often different sources make contradicting statements, or sometimes they don't even make sense altogether.
The problem is that I noticed that the current wording of the guideline for Adventure genre seems to be somewhat misleading, as it leaves room for some controversial conclusions. See how is currently written:
Movie Class Guidelines wrote:
Adventure
This genre commonly gives the player secondary goals and allows him/her to revisit earlier locations with no hard time limit.
If we follow closely what it's telling, then it would mean that games like Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, SM64, SMW, NSMB are Adventure games. However, I'm pretty sure that most people would agree that these are not. So I think that we need to add another requirement to the guideline, so that games like the ones I've mentioned would be excluded, while games like Tomba and Zelda would be included.
In my opinion, Adventure games are such because there isn't a level list or a main room from which you can access the levels, like for the games I've mentioned. For example, in Crash Bandicoot you have a Warp Room from which you can access the levels, while instead in Tomba you can access only the places that are positioned near the one where you are in. (of course excluding the ability to teleport, as it's a feature often included in many Adventure games)
So, my idea is to add something like this:
"However, if the game consists in a series of levels that can be accessed from a level map or main room, then it can't be considered as an Adventure game because the different places of the game are not connected to each other depending of their different map location."
Opinions?
I'd also like to see if anyone can find other possible loopholes/flaws with definition of other game genres in our Movie Class Guidelines.
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TiKevin83 wrote:
The movie publication happened with the incorrect time of 1:30:03 and not the correct 1:29:53 somehow... this is very disappointing
Please don't be concerned for something like that. The time was promptly corrected and any future mistake will as well. Also, please understand that the site code is old and some functionalities aren't automated.
Zowayix wrote:
Regarding the changed obsoletion chain, shouldn't 504M and 548M belong to the glitched chain instead of the glitchless chain? Those two movies use the Mew glitch which involves memory corruption. That would leave the glitchless chain with only two movies (this one and the very earliest R/B one), the only ones to obey the glitchless rules.
My mistake, I apologize. I've now proceeded to add the lacking "corrupts memory" category and the "trainer escape glitch" label to the two movies you mentioned. I also added a correction note at the bottom of the submission text, and contacted a higher staff member for fixing the obsoletion chain. Thank you for the report.
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Kung Knut wrote:
For the record, I voted yes, because I was entertained. I believe this deserves to be in Moons. Ten years from now, we will remember this as one of the most important moments in TAS history. Thanks for your amazing efforts!
[3430] A2600 Dragster by Omnigamer in 00:08.49
That movie got a terrific audience response when it was submitted, much better than this submission. Also, in my opinion that was as well another of the most important moments in TAS history. But despite all that, it got mediocre entertaining ratings and had to be moved to Vault, some time after publication.
Don't misunderstand, I'm not saying that we should disregard submissions reception altogether. However, to me it doesn't make much sense to accept a submission for Moons for cases where we can tell in advance that it's going to get Vault ratings.
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TwistedTammer wrote:
Mklip2001, I am considering TASing the "100%" branch with these same rules, involving the collection of all items, hearts(fight all bosses), songs, capacity upgrades, and obtaining a tunic upgrade. I'm sure that would make a more interesting run.
That would be amazing. I think it should also include all seashells and achieve the best ending (no deaths).
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Spikestuff wrote:
Should disabling music specifically to improve the load times (not reducing lag) be allowed in future TASes and would it be a factor in the judge's comments?
It's not a factor, unless disabling the music has such consequences on lag behavior that it allows the introduction of new tricks or techniques that have some technical relevance.
In other words, it's not considered as improvement if all it does is just shortening the loading times alone.
Apart from that, the author is free to disable music if they prefers so for stylistic choices, if these are still on top of actual gameplay improvements.
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Sorry if I didn't answer earlier to these posts, but I had to take a break for being sure of my conclusions.
feos wrote:
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
As I already wrote in this post, it would be a limitation for Vault-only movies that aim for fastest-completion. The only reason it's not the case for this specific submission, it's because the currently published GEG is Moons. My point is: what if it wasn't Moons? That would mean that it's going to get obsoleted and that there could be no freedom left to compete for that kind of TASing. Since similar glitches could be executed in other games, there are chances that at some point we will see Vault movies getting obsoleted by them, locking away the freedom of competing for a certain kind of TASing in favor of another.
There's always a chance some movie can't be improved by "regular gameplay" anymore. And there are always people interested in trying "irregular" gameplay against them. There's still room for improvement, so that part isn't limited. As for the feel of the movie, it's already Vault, there's very little to expect in the first place. We should be ready to lose old movies, because they're boring either way.
This argument looks perfectly sound to me, as I really can't disagree. It would indeed be counter-progressive to cling to what's old despite its obsolescence, both for TASing and for life in general. Also, since this is part of my personal ideas, it would be hypocritical for me to go against it.
Memory wrote:
Now, I understand that you see no reasons to make a distinction between the glitch used for this movie and other glitches, as you only feel the positive aspects of it...
Now I feel this misrepresents me entirely. I feel there is a very obvious negative aspect of this glitch: it's not fun for me to watch.
With Vault, what is entertaining to watch is an irrelevant. In my eyes, there are three relevant points.
Does it complete its objective? Yes. It completes its objective of completing the game as quickly as possible.
Is it performed in a legitimate environment? Well I haven't looked into the technical details myself but it sounds like it is the case or close enough for our rules.
Is it superhuman?
This last one is key to this submission I feel and the answer is quite clear.
Absolutely.
I apologize for misunderstanding, now I see why you don't consider the glitch performed to be different from what we've seen before.
The definition you gave seems sensible to me, so that this movie is a TAS in all aspects. And in light of this, any attempt of making a differentiation with "traditional" kind of glitches would make things uselessly more complex.
At this point I can't argue anymore in favor of introducing a new rule or argue against the accepting of this movie.
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<feos> how do you improve your action tho?
<ThunderAxe31> by TRYING HARD! :D
<feos> ThunderAxe31: trying *what* hard
<ThunderAxe31> everything I do!
<feos> but what's your guideline on what to even do (what to try hard)
<ThunderAxe31> feos: honestly, I don't know it myself. I always try to follow my insticts, and I often find myself lost without a clue about where I'm going. yet I'm ok with that, because that's just what's my nature is about.
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Memory wrote:
Limitations go against the spirit of vault.
Vault has more limitations than the other tiers, as it poses restrains to game choice and goal choice. The only freedom that it introduces, compared to the other tiers, is that it has (almost) no entertaining requirements.
Memory wrote:
I still don't see how this is different compared to other game end glitches. Other game end glitches have had the same sort of accusations of "this isn't playing the game, this shouldn't count". I really don't think this particular glitch is any different.
It entirely depends from the personal point of view. Anything can look either different or similar, depending on how we decide to look at it. In the end it all depends from what we want to do about it, that is, if we want to introduce a restrain to such glitches or not. And if that turns to be the case, then finding a yardstick for drawing the difference could be possible. For example, see how the full completion rules does differentiate between what is criteria reached through in-game actions and what isn't. That is indeed a complex definition, and it relies on the ability to handle each case in their uniqueness, yet it's a functional rule because it works with definite criteria that can objectively measured.
Now, I understand that you see no reasons to make a distinction between the glitch used for this movie and other glitches, as you only feel the positive aspects of it, and that's exactly why I'm saying that there is no objective "right" and "wrong" in this debate, as it all begins from what we want to allow or disallow. I also acknowledge that my point of view does feature some downsides, as well as the fact that it doesn't seem to be shared by the majority of the people here. And in any case, despite how much I'm being dedicated to this discussion so far, I don't need at all costs to have my opinion applied to the final decision, as I could still accept an outcome that differs from what I'm expecting.
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ninespaces wrote:
Is there any way I can update it with the new time save?
If you have an improvement for your currently submitted movie, you can upload it there: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/my#uploadfile
Then I will replace the submission file for you, like I already did for the blank frames.
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As I already wrote in this post, it would be a limitation for Vault-only movies that aim for fastest-completion. The only reason it's not the case for this specific submission, it's because the currently published GEG is Moons. My point is: what if it wasn't Moons? That would mean that it's going to get obsoleted and that there could be no freedom left to compete for that kind of TASing. Since similar glitches could be executed in other games, there are chances that at some point we will see Vault movies getting obsoleted by them, locking away the freedom of competing for a certain kind of TASing in favor of another.
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ais523 wrote:
FWIW, I see problems with ThunderAxe's definition, too: suppose the game stored a value representing the game mode somewhere which was inevitably executed as part of the glitch, and suppose that the game mode for the title screen happened to correspond to an instruction that crashes the NES. In that case, we wouldn't have ACE from the title screen (the NES would just crash) – but we would have ACE as soon as the game started normally! I don't think that situation is any conceptually different from this one, but it would lead to a different outcome under ThunderAxe's definition, which implies a mistake in the definition.
That would be an edge case, but I can't deny that it's a possibility As Memory mentioned, we already had a movie pretty close to that. Still, the fact that a rule could be stressed out to its limit, doesn't invalidate it. Otherwise we could consider any possible rule as broken just because borderline cases are a reality. Of course the world features shades, while the rules are necessarily trying to draw clear cuts, which often is hard to apply to reality. Still, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't have rules, as these exist specifically for making a definite decision out of the infinite possibilities that reality can offer, in order to define a finite field of possibilities that we want.
In my opinion, the biggest problem is not whatever my idea would work or not, but whatever we want to put a restrain to this kind of glitches or not. It's just a matter of choice, that it simply depends to what we want to be allowed and what we don't. And allowing something, always means excluding something else, as I explained in my previous post.
feos wrote:
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Another alternative would be to allow both possibilities for Vault, effectively increasing the amount of Vault-applicable goals to three.
I think it's already resolved by our current rules, and this movie goes to Vault, while the current GEG just stays in Moons. Coming up with a proper label could be tricky though. Also maybe the audience just prefers obsoletion.
I wasn't referring to this specific submission. Generally speaking, if we decide to indiscriminately allow this kind of glitches, it would inevitably limit something else at some point.
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feos wrote:
Also you're still making up the goal of the site.
If that's the case, then none of my arguments are valid. And of course, I'm aware that its not up to me to decide; I'm merely sharing my ideas.
feos wrote:
I don't see how my problems are resolved by this requirement, nor how do I consistently apply it, nor why exactly. It's not making things better than they are, but it dramatically limits creativity and perfection as (actual) goals of the site.
Depending of the point of view, a restriction can limit freedom or can enlarge freedom. If we decide for forbid certain exploits, that would indeed be a limitation, but on the other hand it would leave more freedom to make more Vault-only movies that make use of exploits that don't nullify gameplay, as these wouldn't end up competing with movies like the one from this submission.
Another alternative would be to allow both possibilities for Vault, effectively increasing the amount of Vault-applicable goals to three.
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feos wrote:
in order for the demonstrations to resemble superhuman playing sessions
No.
That's the problem. Even if there are more "Yes" than "No", it doesn't mean that we can ignore this part, as it's critically important. What's the point of publishing a TAS that produces a video that doesn't feature any form of gameplay, on a site that wants to showcase gameplays?
feos wrote:
Now let's get to your definition of proper gameplay. I'm not quoting parts where you say that this movie doesn't have it, because that depends on the definition anyway, and you explained well enough why your definition of gameplay isn't present.
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Now answering more thoroughly to your question: What do we consider as gameplay?
In my opinion, it can be objectively defined with two rules:
1) The movie must trigger the beginning of the playable part of the game, and it must do it the the supposed way, i.e.: from the relative game's main menu or title screen. This can be objectively defined and verified with some basic trace logging, after that we identify the function that starts the play. This can also safely include "demo glitch" movies that starts the game from an in-game demoplay or scripted cutscene (984M, 2285M, 3471M, 3557M, 3567M)
2) The movie must not make use of a glitch or gimmick that could save even more time if performed before starting playing the game in its supposed way, or before that the game begins playing the demoplay or the cutscene normally, for cases where that is used for beginning the play.
There is a problem with this notion. Of course this movie can be tweaked to start from such a point. But the key is that none of regular gameplay is required for this technique to work, at all. It doesn't matter at which point you trigger this glitch. It won't involve any character movements, none of "traditional gameplay" code has to be executed. Gameplay is fundamentally and wholly irrelevant to this movie.
Now if we try to force it to have gameplay, more problems appear. The movie doesn't become more impressive. It doesn't get harder to reproduce in real time. It doesn't get harder to make. It doesn't get more entertaining. But it does become sub-optimal! And even if ending point can be vague (which is why we compare game's overall behavior), starting point, in addition to being a pointless restriction, becomes vague too. For example, how would this requirement impact movies that don't have to end before regular gameplay is started? Can we still optimize menuing? Can we glitch menuing to happen faster, or to skip it altogether? Can we use menuing to trigger in-game glitches? Why?
I'm sorry, but it seems to me that you missed the purpose of my 2) point. It would specifically handle cases like this, by forbidding the usage of an exploit that could be used before starting the actual gameplay, regardless of how was used in a movie. That would mean that I'm not suggesting of forcing an exploit of being used suboptimally, but being forbidden altogether for being potentially game-devoiding, like in this case. Reassuming my idea:
1) All movies should trigger the function that starts the game mode during the movie, before the beating the game, and in its supposed way.
2) Any exploit that could allow to end the game before its normal start, are banned regardless of when are triggered in a movie.
I don't see any possible loophole or arbitrariness for the functioning of my idea, so far.
