Posts for Warp


Banned User
Joined: 3/10/2004
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Cardboard wrote:
Or, we just remove the ratings of the movies. No, really. It causes more controversy than good.
We could just as well terminate the entire website and the bittorrent tracker. You know, because tool-assisted speedruns cause controversy in the speedrunning community (even today). We must be Politically Correct and avoid all constroversies and anything that might cause disagreement. This is, after all, the current PC trend here.
Bezman wrote:
If neither stars nor ratings existed when I arrived, I'd have just looked through the Snes games that I've already completed and probably missed a lot of gems.
Removing the stars is one of the symptoms of the current Political Correctness trend here, and I still heavily oppose the decision. They were clearly useful for first-time visitors, and removing them lessens the quality of the website. But of course it's more important to avoid causing controversies than to make the website more approachable to newcomers.
Banned User
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Baxter wrote:
My suggestion You are able to give a single decimal number (0.0, 0.1, ..., 7.6, 7.7, ..., 10.0).
Basically you are suggesting a value range of 0-100. I'm not completely convinced such accuracy is necessary.
- Even though right after the technical rating it says "(how close it is to perfection)", no one really agrees on what it actually means, and gives it an own meaning.
I have always had the opinion that people understand the technical rating wrong. It was not what I had in mind when we created the voting system. Most people seem to think that the technical rating evaluates how many errors there are in the run, ie. approximately how many frames could still be saved with better running in relation to the movie length. That's not what I was thinking. Ok, it can be *part* of the judgment, but only a small part. (Certainly if a movie is extremely sloppy it shouldn't get a very high technical score, but most runs are not sloppy, but they don't necessarily deserve a high technical score either.) I thought about the technical score to be an evaluation of the *techniques* used in the run. In other words, rather than being a pure optimal-frames/actual-frames-in-the-run score, it's an estimation of the quality and diversity of techniques used in the run. A bit like figure skating: The judges don't estimate how fast they are skating, but how well they perform their techniques (and how many there are). Does it perform heavy luck manipulation? If so, does it do it to its great advantage? Is it "cool"? Does it zip through walls? Is the zipping performed with good style and technique? Does it "look good"? What kind of tools were used to make the run? Was lua scripting used to aid in making the run? Was a bot written to create part of the run? Was the game disassembled in order to understand how the rng works? That kind of things. Even a frame-perfect run may deserve a low technical score if it doesn't show advanced and well-executed techniques. Perhaps the game in question just doesn't lend itself to awesome techniques, but then it's simply a poor game choice. I have suggested this a couple of times in the past, but always shot down. For whatever reason I cannot comprehend, people don't want this. They want the technical score to be a pure optimal-frames/used-frames score, and nothing else. Interpreting it like that makes the whole technical score kind of moot and uninteresting. It has no value. It doesn't say anything.
Banned User
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Location: Finland
alden wrote:
couldn't hurt to try it I guess
I agree. Let's try it, and if it doesn't work well, they can always be removed.
Banned User
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Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
mmbossman wrote:
Warp wrote:
This wouldn't be a pure unpublication. This submission would replace the existing video. That's it. We are replacing a published run with another one.
To avoid further argumentation, I'd like to ask how this suggestion above is any different than a simple obsoletion?
As I said in my original suggestion, *in practice* it would indeed be an obsoletion. (Its just that a future any% would not obsolete this run because it's submitted under a different category.) I believe it's not even the first time when a movie has been obsoleted by another using a different category.
Banned User
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mmbossman wrote:
You act like you're the first one to suggest unpublication. You're not. It's been brought up multiple times before, and been shot down before, by the administrator of the site. I, for one, am actually in favor of it for various games, but unless you can convince Bisqwit that it should be a viable option, you're just reviving old arguments.
You are missing the point, just for the sake of argumentation. This wouldn't be a pure unpublication. This submission would replace the existing video. That's it. We are replacing a published run with another one. The only thing is that in the future, when someone makes an acceptable any% run, it will not obsolete this submission.
I especially dislike this line: I disagree. Just because one video is unpublished will *not* open any can of worms. If someone requests unpublishing something else "because that Zelda run was also unpublished" you simply answer to him "that was an exception", and if he protests, just ignore him. We should ignore him, unless of course, it's you? And if I were to ignore you, you'd just start complaining about the Nazi regime here? Great system there, Warp.
Right. I am requesting the unpublication of a video because videos have been unpublished in the past, and thus I should be ignored. Yes, that's exactly what happened here. Good thing you are not arguing just for the sake of arguing.
Banned User
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Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
Maybe it is a good idea to remove the voting system. Some people were clearly not taking it seriously. "It's that time of the month, so I'm voting no." OTOH, I hope this decision will not cause the *comments* people post to submissions to be drastically reduced. Less comments means the judges will not have a good perspective on the overall opinion of the submission.
Banned User
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mmbossman wrote:
A solution like that would open up a very, very large can of worms, especially when it comes to unpublishing other runs.
I'm getting really tired of this current trend of shooting down all possible improvement suggestions with either a slippery slope argumentation or the tired "it would only cause disagreements" argument. I disagree. Just because one video is unpublished will *not* open any can of worms. If someone requests unpublishing something else "because that Zelda run was also unpublished" you simply answer to him "that was an exception", and if he protests, just ignore him. Again: Since when has this website converted into a nazi regime where every rule is absolutely strict and no exceptions are allowed, ever?
superjupi wrote:
It's been stated clearly that some games really aren't suited to TASing, just due to the fact that they're incredibly boring to watch.
A perfect example of where the "should this movie be published?" question applies perfectly. The answer is: No, it should not be published because it's a very bad game choice.
If the only question is, "should this be published?" then you could supply any reason you wanted for publication. If you thought a run should be published because the author had the A button depressed for 20976 frames, which can be parsed as your birthday, you could cite that as your reason.
You are joking, right? That's fine, but I was being serious.
Banned User
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Satoryu wrote:
i originally was in favor of this run replacing the current run. i retract that. the two runs have different goals. and Guano's will be undone eventually. i know it's way out of date, but that really isn't a good reason for wanting to get rid of it asap.
Didn't someone suggest that the existing movie could be "unpublished" at the same time as this one is published? Although in practice this movie "obsoletes" the existing one, technically speaking it doesn't obsolete it, but stays on its own separate category. It's simply that the existing one is removed because it's known to be highly suboptimal. When a new run using the same category as the currently published one is submitted, it will not obsolete this one (ie the one which this thread is about). (Man, how confusing that paragraph turned out to be. I hope you got what I mean.)
Banned User
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Acheron86 wrote:
So, voting "no" because a movie's boring to you at that point isn't wrong, because it does answer the question of "did you enjoy this movie"...
I have always hated how people opportunistically interpret that question more literally or less literally depending on which better suits their opinion. I understand the spirit of the question to mean "is this movie good enough for it to be published, or should it be rejected?" In other words, even though you might not have enjoyed a movie too much, it may still be publish-worthy, and people who vote should judge whether it should be published, not so much *literally* "did you like it a lot?" The significance of the question "is this movie good enough to be published" gets a special meaning when someone submits a movie which ought to obsolete an existing publication. In this case the question is "is this movie good enough to be published, and is it *better* than the existing publication?". And again, even if you didn't like the movie a lot, you could still judge whether it's better than the existing movie and whether the new one should obsolete it or not. But of course people will stick to the literal meaning of that question when it fits better their mood and opinion. Can't that question be finally changed to "should this movie be published"? It would better avoid this problem.
Banned User
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Some stages were so frustrating that I got bored.
Banned User
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Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
At least Opera is free nowadays. Some years ago it was not free, which was the greatest obstacle for many.
Banned User
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Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
pirate_sephiroth wrote:
Now folowing Zucca's line of thought, Live Action Golden Axe!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ6FBebn7F4
The constantly moving, shaking and zooming camera spoils it completely. Good idea, implementation sucks.
Banned User
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Bisqwit wrote:
Baxter's proposal has now been activated
Could someone recapitulate, for those people (like me) who haven't been following the thread closely, what this proposal is and how can you see it in practice? Maybe some specific URL where you can see this proposal in action? I can see from the posts in this page some mathematical formulas and something about player rankings, but it's not telling me anything.
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That's cool. But... I understand that you want to show that it's done in an emulator, but is it really necessary to capture the emulator window borders too, rather than just the contents? Capturing just the contents would allow the image to be larger and clearer.
Banned User
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alden wrote:
stickyman05 was kind enough to encode a drawing for me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLVpMIhWD5Y
I still think the Naruto image would have been more impressive.
Post subject: Re: Double posting and egotism
Banned User
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alden wrote:
I made another one http://tasvideos.org/Alden/Exhibitions/AVGN.html
Great idea. :P
Banned User
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atro city wrote:
Spybot and Ad-Aware both immediately threw red flags, telling me that the site attempted to alter my registry and execute a process.
I think that's a clear sign that you should use a better web browser rather than keeping your broken one and rely solely on ad-aware and spybot to keep you safe.
Banned User
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Derakon wrote:
Tails is controlled by the computer up until the second controller sends some input to the game, at which point he's put under the control of that controller.
Ok, but I still don't see how that is not 2-player mode.
Banned User
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I don't understand. It doesn't use the 2-player mode, but still controls two characters simultaneously with two controllers? How is that not 2-player mode?
Banned User
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Raiscan wrote:
Sonic 2 has a two player mode, but the latest run plays single player mode. The run also uses tails, a second character. Your category does not work for this game. What do you use instead?
Does "uses" means "controls"? Or is tails controlled by the computer?
Banned User
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pirate_sephiroth wrote:
??? for some reason, I can't stop laughing...
Not only hypocrite, but also arrogant.
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pirate_sephiroth wrote:
You have 2 choices: to pay or not to pay. Software creators are aware of that.
I believe that you pirating the program was not the actual objection. The objection was that you showed a great deal of hypocrisy by praising the program and telling how people should buy it because the authors deserve it, and in the same sentence, telling how you pirated it and didn't pay anything for it.
Pirated software is also free advertisement for the product.
That's just a lousy excuse to make yourself feel better about your pirating. "Ok, so I use pirated software. But it's not *all* that bad. Actually the authors benefit from software piracy because it's free advertisement for their products." IMO you should cut the crap and be honest to yourself: Pirating commercial software is *not* a good thing for the creators of that software in any way, and you are doing it solely because you don't care. No lousy excuses.
Banned User
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Aqfaq wrote:
I'm too lazy to read the older discussion right now, so I'm not sure if there was some problem with introducing a new tag for "uses # controllers".
I warmly suggest you read the previous dicussion about the subject. It's just page 2 in this thread. It deals exactly with your suggestions.
Technically speaking, I think this is the order of priority: 1. The number of controllers used This gives technical information about the input file content. For people who know the game, it also immediately tells how many characters were used. Thus, it is more relevant than the two others below.
As noted by several people, some TASes use more than one controller, but not for gameplay (ie. not to control that many playable characters). For example if the second controller is used exclusively to activate a restart sequence, should it be counted as "uses 2 controllers" or not? (IMO not.) Also someone argued that "uses # controllers" might be a bit confusing because usually the keyboard (a single one) is used to create TASes, not gamepads (and even if gamepads were used, I bet nobody has made a "1 player controls 2 characters" with two gamepads :) ). Of course "uses # controllers" refers to emulated controllers (not physical ones), but that might not be completely clear to some.
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Assuming the dualshock controller indeed sends 256 distinct values for the x and y axes of the analog stick, then the extreme positions of the stick would have 256 (all the values in the extreme left) + 256 (all values in the extreme right) + 256 (all values in the extreme up) + 256 (all values in the extreme bottom) - 4 (because the four corners share values) possible directions in the extreme position of the analog stick, for a total of 1020 different directions. I wouldn't be surprised if the actual number was slightly lower than this, though (eg. because of physical issues, calibration issues, chipset issues, driver issues...). Btw, doesn't the dualshock gamepad have two distinct modes (switchable with a mode button on the gamepad)? In one mode it emulates the old gamepad, while in the other mode it works as a dualshock gamepad, and in this latter mode it requires that the game specifically supports it?
Banned User
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Since the "abuses luck" tag is rather non-descriptive, as it's given to movies very lightly, how about a list like "extreme luck abuse"? Movies where luck is abused with tool-assistance so much, that it would be absolutely impossible to get even close to that with regular play. For example walking enormous distances in an RPG without even a single random fight is a perfect example. Another one is getting a drop from every single enemy, even though normally they drop rarely (at least castlevania 2 has this).