First off, to those using software firewalls...they suck. Get yourself a hardware one.
What good is a hardware firewall? They only stop inbound attacks, something a software firewall can do as well.
The largest problem are not inbound attacks. I don't have hard numbers, but I bet less than 0.1% of hacker problems is caused by hackers attacking from the outside and finding a security hole.
99.9% of hacking problems happen from the computer itself, in the form of spyware, trojans and backdoors. A hardware firewall is not going to stop those and, what is absolutely worse, they won't even inform you that something is connecting to the internet that shouldn't. A software firewall will. And that's the point: If it so happens that your system gets infected by a spyware you will *immediately* get notified of the fact when that spyware tries to contact the outside. You can stop it, and you can immediately run something to remove it. A hardware firewall is completely useless for this purpose.
Not having a software firewall in Windows is just madness. You are asking for trouble. Just running ad-aware or spybots S&D from time to time is not enough: By that time your computer may have already been compromised (and used eg. as a spam server).
Just face it people, you can't entertain everyone all the time.
But you can annoy almost everybody. That's a lot easier (and also equally easy to avoid).
Just live with it, and move on. If you don't enjoy watching something, don't watch it.
That's the problem: I do enjoy watching speedruns. It's just that when a few speedruns do something stupid to annoy me, it ruins the watching experience. "Don't watch speedruns" is not the answer because I *want* to watch speedruns. I just wish some speedrunners were a bit less annoying.[/quote]
If you look at it from seconds 34-38, he seems to be growing and shrinking without that much extra lower extremity motion. I think there's a reason he's wearing all black;)
You may be just seeing forgery where there's none. People will see signs of forgery when they want to see it.
It's like all those yoga levitation photos: People will try to see signs of image manipulation and forgery, and they will see them even if there are none. (The real explanation is usually much simpler than that.)
That said, you don't need to say it, either. Especially when nothing will be done about it.
Given the amount of speedrunners who have expressed their (often misguided) opinion on the subject in this thread, I think I have gained some insight into the mindset of (at least some) speedrunners: It indeed is so that they don't give a rat's ass about what may or may not annoy the viewer. The actual goals of performing these extremely annoying things to ruin cutscenes are not completely clear.
But anyways, my original sentiment is still valid: Some speedrunners seem to be worried that TASes "steal" viewers. Well, if they put more attention on the actual entertainment value of the speedruns, perhaps that would somewhat alleviate the problem. Instead of trying to annoy the user to death, why not try to entertain the user?
Less lag probably means that the playing looks even faster than before? Or is the effect even noticeable?
Anyways, I'm looking forward to watching this.
If you have speedrunned a game like Half-Life a hundred times, the cutscenes start to get really annoying... so the speedrunners often do something annoying to make the waiting less annoying for them. As a consequence we viewers might get annoyed by their projected annoyance.
Whatever the reason, I don't think it would be unreasonable or unfair to at least strongly suggest speedrunners to avoid doing things that may degrade the enjoyment of the speedrun from a first-time viewer's point of view. Even if the speedrunner himself has seen the cutscene a million times, the average viewer hasn't.
Also it looks like I will be up to 3 minutes faster.
Wow, how's that even possible? (After all, this *is* an autoscroller. The only place where you can improve is in boss fights, and I don't believe all the boss fights combined take even 1 minute. Maybe lag reduction?)
I still stand by my opinion that anyone can get a TAS onto the site with enough patience.
Well, this is a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy. Given enough time and patience, most people will actually get the necessary knowledge, experience and skill to create a good TAS (or regular speedrun). In other words, they get better at it with time through practice and patience, by getting more skillful and/or knowledgeable of the game and TASing/speedrunning mechanics.
That still doesn't mean that making a good TAS or speedrun is easy.
How you posed the original claim sounded more like "anyone can make a great TAS (or segmented speedrun) *without* having to get experience, knowledge an practice on the game and the techniques involved". That's just not true.
And I disagree: Not everyone has the patience necessary for this. While in theory almost anyone can get good enough at it, some people just lack the required patience.
Unrelated to this speedrun per se, but related to SDA: Is there a way to order the list of videos by date of publication (of the speedrun)?
There's a "sort by release date", but it's the relase date of the *game*, not the speedrun.
It's very hard to find recent additions without being able to list by date of publication.
Your idea of entertainment isn't shared by the players (who have seen that cutscene before) nor the developers (who allow you to ignore the cutscene and play with the physics engine). Again, if you want to watch cutscenes, watch a Japanese game, not a Western one.
Why is this different in speedruns than in TASes?
It almost seems like speedruns are the completely *opposite* of TASes in this respect: It seems as if making interactive (unskippable) cutscenes entertaining and watchable is frowned upon with speedrunds, while with TASes anything that makes the video more annoying and less entertaining is frowned upon.
In the TAS side, it's not unthinkable to see some opinions like "you didn't make it as entertaining as you could, remake it, and perhaps then it will be published". In the speedrun side it seems like even expecting the authors to create something even barely entertaining is a sin.
Why this difference?
(And it's not like making the cutscenes watchable would require effort from the part of the speedrunner. For example, the HL:OF speedrun is the quintessential example of this: Making the cutscenes watchable would have not required *anything at all* from the author. Ruining it required a fair amount of effort and patience from his part. So he actually put effort in ruining the cutscenes, while leaving them intact would have required no effort whatsoever. Why would it be unreasonable to expect him not to ruin those cutscenes? As if it was something too much to ask.)
I have to admit that not seeing where the player is going was slightly annoying, and in fact gave me motion sickness (I usually don't get motion sickness with 3D games, but watching this gave me, probably precisely because of the constant diagonal running). Most of the time only a wall flying by was on screen.
Of course I understand that diagonal running is the fastest in this game, but...
I also haven't heard any of this. Could you cite some quotes where you think this feeling has been conveyed?
RT-55J wrote:
regular speedrans stink just like ur mom loltbqh. tool asisted speedruins complet the games fastre in my fact tbqh imo and are theirfour much beter.
u craz normul spedrun suportters need to get alife lol!!!!111!!! pwned lol!!!!111!!! (jus tlik ur mom lol( we shuod make the normall seped runers pay by makign thim make tasses imo,
sincerly,
rt-55j
pss, tivbnfstbqhief
Mmkay, I know this is a dangerous ground to be making a first post on, but really. Jesus christ guys, get a hold of yourselves. All I hear is 'TAS is superior because ---' 'Fuck you regular speedruns > TAS' and it's just plain stupid.
You are right: It indeed is plain stupid for you to hear that.
That's because nobody in this thread is saying that. I haven't said that (on the contrary, I have several times commented that I'm a big fan of regular speedruns), and I can't see anyone else saying that either. There's no "war" between anybody. The only one who is seeing that is you.
Maybe you should learn to read?
Haven't watched the actual video (I have problems with fceu in linux...) but the idea sounds fun. I look forward to watching the avi if this gets published.
Wow, the first post is the biggest pile of BS I have seen in a long time.
Obnoxious too. First he basically classifies TASers as a bunch of cheating people, and then he as the audacity to say "I expect that a friendly debate will follow this post, and I will punish any disrespect shown to any member of the speed running community, whether TAS or not."
[EDIT]
<LinkTetra> Warp in the SDA hate thread at TASvideos continues to entertain me.
Riiight, so it's an "SDA hate" thread now. Amazing.
It's really incredible how people can misinterpret what other people write simply because of a few words in a subject line (in this case "hate" and "speedruns"). Seems like some people only see what they want to see.
Let me straighten some things: I like watching speedruns. I regularly check SDA to see if new speedruns have appeared for games I have played in the past. For instance, just a few days ago, I downloaded and watched the Driver speedrun (for the PC), which was recently added. I found it entertaining.
Moreover, I'm a huge fan of QdQ speedruns. I even *bought* Quake (in a pack which had Quakes 1-3) partially because I wanted to watch the speedruns on the actual game. I constantly check the QdQ site to see if new speedruns have been published.
If someone got the impression that I somehow hate speedruns or SDA, that impression was completely false.
What I *do* hate is that in a few speedruns it seems like the runner does his best to annoy the viewer, for no good reason. I also find it bothersome if some speedrun uses the lowest possible graphics settings which make the game look like crap (although, as I have mentioned several times, I understand there may be technical reasons to do that).
If you want to laugh at this opinion of mine, then go ahead. My response to such condescending attitude will still be a big FU. If you don't want to discuss it seriously, then don't.
(Edit: And to make things clear, the "you" did *not* refer to moozooh. It referred to whoever wrote what he quoted, and anyone else having the same idiotic attitude.)
I haven't posted much on these forums, but I'm a regular at SDA. I have to disagree with Warp--I don't think that the whole point of a speedrun is entertainment.
Maybe we are talking about completely different conceptual categories.
When I say "entertainment" I mean that speedruns are not done as someone's payjob or because it's something which must be done. Some people make speedruns because they enjoy doing them, and some people watch speedruns because they enjoy watching them. The sole purpose of speedruns even existing is because of entertainment reasons.
Someone could argue that speedrunners create speedruns only for their own entertainment. They don't care if viewers are entertained or not. That's fine. I was just pointing out that, from a viewer's point of view, if some speedrunner wanted to make his runs more watchable and entertaining, then IMO they should take aesthetic decisions more into account.
I also had a secondary point: Some speedrunners and speedrun fans diss tool-assisted speedruns, maybe because they feel that they are somehow "stealing" viewers or something (maybe they feel that when viewers watch speedruns and TASes they will switch to the latter because the former seem imperfect in comparison). Well, my answer to that is that if they thought a bit more about their audience, for example by making more aesthetically pleasing videos, that would help a bit. They clearly care about their audience because if they didn't, they wouldn't care about TASes either. If they did speedruns 100% for themselves, without giving a damn about who watches them, then they probably wouldn't mind about other people using tool-assistance for the same thing.
(No, I'm not saying all speedrunners and speedrun fans are like that. I'm just saying that some are.)
Sure, entertainment is important (and nice for the viewer as well), but it doesn't take precedence over speed.
I never said that entertainment should be increased at the cost of speed. I just said that in situations where speed is irrelevant (unskippable interactive cutscenes, for example), the better choice is the most entertaining thing to do instead of trying to annoy the viewer.
As for segmented and single-segment runs: I have completed runs of both types (admittedly they were RPGs, so my experience is limited in this area), and I'd say that both types take a lot of work. In an SS run, you have to be good at the entire game all at once, but more perfection is expected in a segmented run. I'll stay out of the debate over which is faster, though, because I don't have enough experience with other types of games.
I just said that I like segmented speedruns more because they allow the runner to perform crazier and more awesome stunts, which he might not even attempt in a single-segment run because of its high risk. Again, this is because crazy stunts add to the entertainment value of the run, even if they only made the run 0.5 seconds faster.
Maybe you should try to look for the gameplay in other runs instead of calling them utter crap because of the waiting antics or graphics.
Maybe you missed my point? I was talking about entertainment. Speedruns are made for entertainment.
When a modern FPS game uses its game engine at full quality, the visual experience is a lot better than if it looks like a 90's game played with the first 3D card in the market. In other words, it's more entertaining.
If the game had an option to draw completely flat-colored untextured polygons, completely ignoring any lighting, would that be ok in your opinion? Personally I would skip that kind of speedrun completely because it wouldn't make any sense.
The whole point of those videos is entertainment. If the image quality is utter crap, how is that entertaining?
Missing out on the story? Play the game goddamnit if you really care about it, you shouldn't be watching a speedrun of the game if you want to see the story.
Again, I'm talking about entertainment. The story of the game adds to its entertaining value. Ruining the story doesn't.
It doesn't matter if I have played the game or not: I still want to see an entertaining video. Some strobo flickering which ruins the cutscenes is not entertaining. It's crap.
Also forcing runners to do something 'funny' during waits is just stupid
Why? What is the point in speedrun videos if not entertainment?
I'd rather watch spinning around furiously for 5 minutes than some regular "let's put a radio in to the toilet" kinda funny antics.
If there was a 5-minute unskippable wait in a game, would you prefer the speedrunner statically looking at a plain-colored wall the whole time, or would you prefer him doing something interesting and entertaining?
If the answer is the latter, why? You don't seem to appreciate entertainment.
´The Quake done Quick speedruns are the quintessential example of this: They are polished to almost perfection, showing almost superhuman skills from the players. True playing skills. A single-segment Quake run would simply hinder the player and forbid him from even trying the craziest stunts. Thus we wouldn't see as much playing skill in a single-segment run.
I hate when they so fast in those runs, makes me miss all the story! I also hate to watch the Quake runs because of the all the mountain size pixels. Honestly, the graphics suck ass. They should record FEAR at full settings. Also they should be more entertaining, in general, during waiting periods. Just because I don't like it.
I honestly don't understand what is it that you are trying to say with that sarcasm. Or is it just random fun poking?
Anyone can do a great looking segmented speedrun. Just like anyone can TAS to a very high standard. It just takes patience.
Speedrunning, no matter in how short segments, is extremely hard. TASing with the high quality standards required currently here is extremely hard. Claiming anything else is just ludicrous.
Care to explain where there's a contradiction?
He wrote as if making a segmented speedrun required almost no skill to speak of. "Anyone can do a great looking segmented speedrun". I completely disagree with this. Even if you can make one level at a time, it still requires awesome skills to make a great-looking speedrun. Just look at the QdQ speedruns and tell me "anyone" can do those, even if they do it one level at a time. I seriously doubt it. It requires a *lot* of practice, ie. skill.
Saying that making a great-looking segmented speedrun is easy is exactly as flawed as saying that making a high-quality TAS is easy. Which is exactly what he said immediately after that.
Also... Go smoke some bud or something, dude. Chill out =|
The attitude of some people just pisses me off. (I'm talking about Enhasa's stupid posts.) May as well give them all the money's worth of stupidness if that's what they are looking for.
Nothing is as boring as either watching the player to stare a wall or the same cut scene you've seen over and over again.
The average speedrun viewer (such as myself) has not seen the cutscenes over and over. When I watched the HL:OF speedrun I had seen the cutscenes exactly once: When I played the game. Seeing them again would have been much nicer than that awful flickering.
And why whine here at TASvideos, of all places?
At least it's more on topic than most of the other threads in this group.
Ok, now that I read the first post, this thread is awesome because Warp is complaining about "regular" speedruns being boring, yet he made the most boring post of all time.
Obviously coming from someone who has done no speedrunning at all. This is just pure stupidity.
Says you, and then you write no less than two utter stupidities yourself:
Anyone can do a great looking segmented speedrun. Just like anyone can TAS to a very high standard. It just takes patience.
Speedrunning, no matter in how short segments, is extremely hard. TASing with the high quality standards required currently here is extremely hard. Claiming anything else is just ludicrous.
