That's nothing. I really hate the modern trend of people, rather than writing a few lines of text somewhere that explain the solution to a problem (such as how to do something in Windows or some program, for instance), they instead make a long-ass video about it.
Some of the worst cases I have seen were like a 10-minute video to explain something that could have literally been explained with a relatively short paragraph of text. The video didn't add any useful information by the fact of it being a video. (What's worse, in it, the guy doesn't even get to starting to explain the solution until several minutes into the video. It's just painful to try to find the answer by randomly seeking.)
This appears to have become more and more common recently.
As much as I crave for OoT TASes (I have become quite a big fan of OoT speedrunning lately), I can't help but think about how completely arbitrary these goals are.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm all for opening up tasvideos to be less restrictive when it comes to accepting different categories for the same game (in fact, I have recently even several times suggested a new site design that's similar to that of speedrun.com, to make it much easier to categorize and list runs for a single game based on category), but at least as it is now, in general the number of different categories and arbitrary goals is at least attempted to be kept somewhat minimal.
But even under current rules and principles, I have also always supported the notion of being more "lenient" when it comes to games that are very notorious (either in general, or in speedrunning in particular). And there aren't many games as notorious as OoT when it comes to speedrunning, so some leeway in arbitrary goals may be warranted (especially since there are currently so few TASes of it in the first place.)
And if this is indeed a category that can only be TASed, it's another selling point.
Yes, because it contains major game elements not present in the original version (e.g. the second fight with Jafar, different physics engine, completely new graphics and outro sequence, and the speed setting options menu). As far as I can tell, this isn't actually a port of the game, but a wholly new version rewritten from scratch.
So what exactly are the rules for considering two versions of a game for different platforms separate games or the same game (with respect to the question of whether it warrants separate publication)?
I'm asking that genuinely, because I just don't know.
I think one easy rule would be: If the games are for different consoles, they will be considered different games (regardless of how similar they look and play). But I'm assuming that's not the current rule.
Well, I don't know exactly if the recent Prince of Persia run could be accepted on Vault. I actually consider more interessing completing stages with these skips than beating normally.
I wasn't asking if it could be accepted to Vault. I was asking that if it would go to Vault, whether it would co-exist as a separate game with the other PoP games, as per the current rules.
Famously,
lim(x → ∞) (1 + 1/x)x = e
which is one of the definitions of e. However, it seems that also:
lim(x → -∞) (1 + 1/x)x = e
although it's not immediately apparent why.
The recent Prince of Persia submission brings up once again the question I posed earlier: Is it the "same" game as the ones for other platforms, or is it its own different game, deserving its own place in vault (assuming it doesn't go to moons)?
What exactly makes it inaccurate? If the end result will end up being exactly the same, how is it inaccurate? (Ostensibly inaccuracies would cause the correct version to be shorter or longer... or at least different in some manner.)
- Atari 2600 Dragster with recent console verification (it may not be accepted but we've been told we absolutely must submit it)
Meh. It's neat, but not something I'd think is very GDQ entertaining (unless there's some big history I don't know about).
The history is that some guy got a WR on the game (I think it was in the 80's) which seemed impossible, but got accepted, and it turns out that it indeed appears to be impossible, meaning that he possibly defrauded people with a fake record (possibly with doctored video footage of some sort). The controversy is that it's still an open question whether he really did get the record (due to, perhaps, some unique hardware glitch), or whether he was a fraudster.
I can't really say if that story would make good GDQ material.
When it comes to GDQs, I really don't think console verification vs. emulator is much of an issue. Most of the viewers are coming to the TASBlock to see something cool and out of the ordinary, to be blown away by things that humans are simply incapable of doing.
When at that one GDQ they showed the Ikaruga (I think it was that) run as a video, rather than being run in real time in a console, it received a lot of criticism from the viewers.
Granted, perhaps being run in real time in an emulator is ok with the public, but I have the feeling that being run on an actual console is preferred. Being run on an emulator always gives the feeling of it not being completely "legit" in the eyes of the wider public (who may not be intimately acquainted with how TASes work).
By the way, a couple of questions I thought of, for your consideration:
1) If the site were redesigned to be more like speedrun.com, as I suggested earlier, with each game having its own page, with all the TASes of said game being neatly and clearly listed or tabulated there, would you agree that this would perhaps allow loosening the principle of keeping the number of branches/categories for a single game minimal (since perceived clutter wouldn't be a problem anymore)?
2) If you answered the previous in the positive, do you think it would be a silly idea to start the loosening of that principle now, even prior to such a potential site redesign? Should we just wait for the redesign to happen before we start accepting more categories for games?
If a movie with adult-theme is published it could be verified the age to access the Wips / publication in the page without putting at "risk" to the younger visitors / users. The same as TASVideoschannel in youtube, set up the video only to be seen over a certain age. Also add a sub-forum for these types of games that require age verification to enter
To be fair, simply having an age verification system to access certain content could be seen by many people as enough to consider the entire site unsafe for kids. It could give a picture of the site that's worse than it really is.
(I'm not saying I'm opposing the idea. Just thinking in a pragmatic manner.)
That part of the line only applies to unrated games, such as games that never were released in the USA, were released before the ESRB was founded, etc.
Something the rule does not say. Maybe add that part to the rule, to make it, as you say, "as clear as it can possibly get".
But even with that addition, the question remains: Based on whose opinion does an unrated game contain "AO content"?
It is as clear as it can possibly get. Take any game officially published in the west since the mid-90s and you will get a straight yes or no answer as to whether it is eligible or not.
Actually that's not true. Let's read the rule again (emphasis mine):
"Video games rated adult-only, or other adult video games with strong sexual content and/or extreme violence to AO standards, are not allowed."
The rule is not a binary "has an AO rating" choice. It says "has an AO rating or has such kind of content". Implying that having something less than an AO rating is not a guarantee for acceptability. And it's that last part that's being discussed.
I can't even begin to imagine how you solve the exact value of something like sin(82°).
Btw, I can't help to notice how much sqrt(5) appears everywhere. It seems to appear much more often than other square roots. Is there something inherent in the sine of integer degrees that somehow links it to sqrt(5)?
It would be useful for the math thread and anywhere else where non-trivial formulas are used (such as damage formulas for games, or RNG update formulas, and so on.)
I indeed often crave for this kind of support when trying to express even slightly more complicated math expressions. The support is great at sites like physicsforums.com.
Is the rule (written in the first post, and which spawned this topic to begin with) seriously this unclear, or do you just not read it?
Yes, it is very unclear in that it makes little sense. It seems that it actually doesn't matter what the content of the game is; the only thing that matters is the classification by some organization somewhere.
Therefore a game with full-frontal male nudity and explicit sexual acts, effectively soft-core porn, would be accepted if that organization didn't classify it as AO, but a game with no sexual content of any kind would be banned if it has that AO rating.
Which seems completely nonsensical. You are not objecting to the actual content of the game. You are looking completely blindly at some classification by some arbitrary organization in one arbitrary country.
So yes, it is seriously this unclear.
I have no familiarity with this other site.
Even if TASs are organized by game, if you see 30 TASs on a page for a single game, and what differentiates them isn't clear could be difficult for viewers.
Take, for instance, the speedrun.com page for Ocarina of Time. It has a whopping 13 categories. I don't think the page is confusing at all. The different categories are neatly in labeled tabs, and the description of each category can be found in each tab (by clicking the "view rules" button).
