Posts for Truncated


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>But can anyone think of a game where this isn't detectable visually? Josh the FunkDOC mentioned that his Sword Master run had experience leftover from his last run, even though he reset the game. This went unnoticed by himself until now. The savestate could probably be hacked to set any quantity of experience, which would go undetected in all but very few cases. >But another question: if a patched version of FCEU was released that fixed this problem, would it be possible to detect then? Could you tell from the fcm whether a person was playing on the most recent version? Yeah, you could. If someone records a movie from savestate+reset with a "bad" emulator, that movie would desynch when replayed by a "good" patched emulator, because the starting conditions are different.
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Phil: This timeattack only collects one item. This makes it slower than Arc's at some points. But it also uses Up-A which makes it slightly faster on the whole.
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I think an earlier version of Zelda didn't use the Up-A, and was obsoleted by one that did. But well, this seems to be a constant source of dispute if Up-A is better or not. I know what I think. Perhaps it is better left decided to the Powers That Be.
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This was very good. If there's an interest in multiple categories of Metroid timeattacks I don't see any reason not to publish it. Thinking of doing a regular timeattack for this game? Arc's time can obviously be improved some.
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That's what I thought, but those times just seemed too unrealistic to fit that. Thanks in any case. I hope xebra will tell us how it's done.
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>Currently I have no idea how to even detect it. I don't know how does a poweron savestate look like and if I can trust it's the same for all games. And I don't know if anyone is actually able to produce such a save for their movies. Until it's fixed, you could patch your own FCEU to force reload of the rom when the reset bit is set. If the results aren't the same as when playing the unpatched version, something is probably fishy. Now that I think of it, how difficult would a patch be that switches console reset for rom reload when you record/play a reset-based movie? Doesn't sound too hard.
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Do you find pleasure in being enigmatic? Why don't you just tell us how you did it? That would be more entertaining that just reading numbers. What's the difference between creation and new game in this case? Does any of them refer to creating a new character?
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>Thanks, I was thinking you'd come in with one of your lists of improvements. =P Heh. But I can only do that if I know the game well, or there are obvious mistakes. People tend to appreciate ideas and improvements anyway. I wish someone would send me a list of improvements too. ;) It's too bad this game has those pointless overworld maps. There's usually only one thing to do anyway. The action in the caves is much better. Another thing: Is there no "play from savestate" in FCEU? Do I have to watch the whole movie from the bloody start every time?
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It's not against the actual rules, but that's because the rules assume that a reset will be enough for the game to assume starting position. It seems it's not. We need either new rules, or a patch. Preferably a patch, because it's not obvious when this happens, neither for the recorder or the judges.
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>The only solution to couter this is, open a rom then pause the menu, close the rom and reopen it, it must stay paused evidently. Now you can start to record from reset without having this problem. To me it's pretty obvious that most people will miss this, forget, or not care. It almost has to be hardcoded.
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Found it.
Even if the header says "movie begins from reset", the file still contains a quicksave, and the quicksave is actually loaded. This flag can't therefore be trusted. To check if the movie actually begins from reset, you'll have to analyze the events and see if the first non-idle command in the file is a Reset type control command.
Guess it's time for some programming, either a check when you submit the movie, or (preferably) a patch to FCEU to not load the savestate. Otherwise you might end up losing a lot of work when you find out your movie didn't actually begin from scratch. In this case, probably the quicksave contains the level settings, and these are not changed with the reset command.
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Yeah, but ziplock's submission shouldn't include the RAM-file, should it?
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What puzzles me is how this somehow was saved in the moviefile, which is only keypresses. Was this movie from savestate and not from reset?
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Why the heck didn't you use the bombs? There's a jeep in the second level which speeds up things a lot. Probably there are others as well. There are times when you seem to not be moving in a composant which gets you further in the level. Also there are corners which you don't cut as close as possible. The game lags a bit at some places. Kill more enemies. So this doesn't happen. When killing a subboss you should be standing at the edge of the screen so you can continue as soon as possible.
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Nothing to be sorry about. I wish you good luck with your video, I will watch eagerly when it's done.
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Just watched it. I don't know this game well, but it seemed well played.
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I see your point. I don't loose time there but it would look better. Point taken.
I'm pretty sure it wastes time. Let's see if I can make some ASCII art, here is the part going up at 1460:
your path:
     *****
    A*****
** / *****
** | *****
**  \      
**   ---     
**********

suggested path:
     *****
    A*****
**  |*****
**  |*****
**   \     
**    --  
**********
Jumping earlier, and just barely missing the corner, means you get to the A earlier. When going down at 1310:
your path:
        _     **
       / \    **
    ---   \   **
    ****** \  **
  ********  \ **
************/ **
************A **
****          **
****          **
****          **
****   *********

suggested path:
       _      **
      / \     **
    --   \    **
    ******\   **
  ******** \  **
************| **
************A **
****          **
****          **
****          **
****   *********
Same thing here. There's another small jump at the bottom of this complex, which you miss in the same fashion.
The word acceleration is unknown to this game, the moment I start moving down I've reached top speed so soon that I doubt it would be faster. Checking that out too.
I'm pretty sure this isn't correct. I can even see the character gaining speed as he falls at 100%. You might be right about the horizontal acceleration though.
>Very bad corner cut at 19350-ish, no need to jump so late. True, no need to but I don't loose anything on it either. I don't see what is bad with it, please explain.
Jumping late means low jump, which means low speed as you pass the corner. A higher jump means you have max downward speed earlier. I can draw some more pictures:
your path:
         /\     
      ---  \     
      ***** \
    *******  |
    *******  |
  *********
  *********   **
***********   **
***********
***********
***********
*************

suggested path:
        /\
       /  \     
      /    \   
      ***** \
    *******  |
    *******  |
  *********
  *********   **
***********   **
***********
***********
***********
*************
There are some slowdowns when all the flowers fire at the same time and it wouldn't be possible to destroy all the seeds at once.
I was thinking maybe you could bomb the flowers before they shoot at all. But if you say there is no slowdown anyway this isn't neccesary.
Correct. This can be seen in some more places.
Which one was correct - that you switched too late or that you can't switch with shots in the air? If you can't, don't shoot that much, just the ones you need to get past. As it is now you shoot everyone, I don't think that's neccesary.
There are some things that need to be re-done. Do people think I should redo the movie from scratch?
Sooner or later, yes. I don't think this will pass the judges as it is now. If you want to continue to try out the new levels first (and get comments on them), or do it right from the start directly, is really up to you.
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Hm, okay. You're saying that getting all the items and taking the detour to get the shoryuken is actually faster than skipping all of them and killing the bosses with the usual weapons? Did you measure it? I wouldn't know, it just felt like a long time to get all the stuff... but then it was a while since I watched it. If this is the case, then yes, it's certainly something belonging in the movie description.
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Personally, I just like shorter, completion-focused movies over ones that aim for some other goal (like 100% items). It has nothing to do with the playing quality in this case. Are you thinking of my comment about recommendations?
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Bisqwit: >The movie should be able to impress even those who don't know the game, and Zelda and Metroid are very hard to judge for those who don't know them. This is true but most people have probably played Zelda and Metroid. >I won't give SMB a star either, because the movie is more or less straightforward, and it looks too obvious. If you don't know the current non-toolassisted world record of a SMB, you can't even know how impressive the movie is. It requires external knowledge. I agree with this. But when I looked at the new recommendations page, one was magically there anyway. Change of heart? :) Blechy: >I don't think editors should be able to add stars freely either. I agree. That would probably result in a mess in no time. I can settle for dictatorship on this one, especially since I know we have a competent dictator. The voting idea is good too. It's possible to have both, of course...
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This was nice, and has a lot of potential. But I think it can be done even better. Some ideas: * In Samson's level, you jump later than neccesary going upward. For example at 840 (first jump), 1030, 1090, 1460. * At 1310 it looks like you could have done one longer jump instead of two small. * When going downward, you should jump as high as possible, and so that there is no gap beween the end of the platform and yourself when you pass it. This doesn't appear to be the case at 2340, 2420, 2500, 2600, and so on. * Also when falling, don't "hug the wall", stay a bit away from it and time it so you have some speed when passing the ceiling instead of starting from 0. * From 13740 onward, there seems to be a bit of lag as you jump over the flowers with the mouse. Perhaps you could bomb some of them or their shots so there aren't that many shots on screen later? * On the first boss, you switch to the dragon too early I think. Since you can't shoot directly anyway, it's faster to run towards him with the mouse and switch to the dragon halfway. * On his second form, can't you start laying new bombs earlier, after your last set explodes? It looks like you wait too long. * At 18250, it looks like you stay as Samson too long. Switch to the mouse earlier. (Perhaps it's not possible while a shot is in the air?) * Very bad cornercut at 19350-ish, no need to jump so late. * Before the water boss, you switch to the stone man, they you don't use him and switch directly to the mouse again. Huh? (Am I missing something here?) * At the water boss you place the first set of bombs very high. Is there a reason for this? Why not place them direcly at the bottom so they hit the boss as it's moving upward? * 22170 doesn't seem like a neccesary switch either, but I might be wrong. Jump differently somehow.
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Three is definitely not enough. A good idea would have been to start out with a very small, simple game, to see how the organization works and if people have the stamina for a bigger project. But that's all hypothetical now anyway, since there's not enough people.
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At one point all the beaten SMB2 videos were the fastest. But we don't keep all of those recommended.
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Depends on which Japanese version you use. There are both 50 and 60 fps Japanese systems. Just played trough it, the ending is not different other than that the names of the characters and the game are changed, and the protagonist wears his toga instead of the armor in the ending picture.
Post subject: Recommended movies
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This feature just seemed to be there one day without any discussion on it, so I thought I'd start one. 1) There seems to be no way to list all recommended movies. This would probably be a good idea to have as an obvious link for first-time visitors, plus you could sneak in some info on about how the movies are made on the same page. 2) There currently is no way for editors to change the recommended status. Is this an oversight, or a deliberate choice? I can see the reasons for it being be the latter. If so, is there any way to make suggestions on which movies to reccomend, or is it decided purely by dictatorship? For the record, my opinions are: Remove Princess only-SMB2 Remove Castlevania 4 Add Zelda Add Metroid Add Sonic 3 & Knuckles Possibly: Add Mega Man X