Posts for Warp


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Masterjun wrote:
'We simply changed the whole concept of control we've been using for days so that it now turned into a slow Let's Play'.
Yes, because lying about it is the honest thing to do. (Yes, you would be lying, because you make it sound like the old mode was completely replaced by the new mode for the rest of the project.) The optional democracy mode is much better than hacking the game to remove the difficult parts: It gives the participants the option to use one mode or the other. If the majority think that an extra-difficult part should be done in democracy mode, then why not? What do you prefer? Spending a week grinding the one and same part, with no progress, no new events, no new memes, decreasing popular interest and viewership... or spend 10 minutes in a "boring" mode to get past that short segment, and then go on as before? I, for one, prefer the latter.
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Zeupar wrote:
I have to admit I also dislike the fact that both games played so far have been hacks. Also, I would enjoy the experiment much more if there was no democracy mode.
If both of those things had been so, then the experiment would have died in the Safari zone, we would not have Zapdos, the resurrected Omanyte, the events of Bloody Sunday, the underdog ATV beating a dragon twice its size and earning the nickname "Dragonslayer", and tons and tons of other fantastic events and memes. All those became to be thanks to democracy mode. They would have not have happened, and the stream would have just died and faded into obscurity, without it.
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I suppose any game where there are no "kills" becomes a candidate, and it becomes simply a question of which one of them is the longest.
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Patashu wrote:
Why are you obsessed with the need for 'purity'?
Strange question, at tasvideos.org in particular. If the name of the project is "twitch plays pokemon crystal", then I'd expect them to play pokemon crystal, not some custom game. If any modification is allowed, then it becomes completely arbitrary.
Hacking the ROM is the name of the experiment.
If that's the case, then it makes me lose interest.
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I think there's an easy way of demonstrating why you never need consecutive fibonacci numbers. If in your sum there are two consecutive fibonacci numbers, let's say F(n) and F(n+1), you can replace those two terms with, by definition, F(n+2). You can keep doing this recursively until there are no consecutive pairs. The result of the sum doesn't change.
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Why is the streamer using a hacked rom? That kind of deteriorates the feeling of authenticity of the project, and somewhat defeats the purpose (which is to see if 50 thousand people can beat Pokemon Crystal. This isn't Pokemon Crystal. This is a custom modification. It doesn't feel like a genuine project.)
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rhebus wrote:
Hmm, actually now I think I was wrong about that. If the algorithm picks Fn then it won't pick Fn-1; but there's nothing to stop it picking Fn-3. I guess there's a weaker statement: the algorithm won't pick two consecutive fibonacci numbers.
So the original problem could be made slightly "harder" by phrasing it as: "Prove that every natural number can be written as the sum of unique, non-consecutive fibonacci numbers."
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rhebus wrote:
Proof: for a given number N. Find the greatest fibonacci number less than or equal to N; call this Fn. Now, N < Fn+1 = Fn-1+Fn, so N-Fn < Fn-1. Therefore, the algorithm can be repeated while only ever using strictly smaller fibonacci numbers, maintaining the uniqueness constraint. The algorithm terminates because N gets strictly smaller with each step while remaining a natural number; and because for every N ≥ 1 there is a Fn ≤ N (because F1 = 1); and because the natural numbers are well-ordered by <.
I'm not sure I understand that proof.
Interestingly, this algorithm will either only use even-indexed or odd-indexed fibonacci numbers.
If that observation is correct, would it mean that every natural number can be written as the sum of unique even-index or odd-indexed fibonacci numbers?
On a similar note: Suppose you have a two-pan balance. What is the minimum number of weights you need to measure items of every integer weight from 1 to 40?
I can at least give an upper bound. If you use weights of powers of 2, then with 6 weights you can represent any value between 1 and 63 as a "binary number" using the weights. I don't know, however, if when using 1-40 in particular, some other scheme would allow 5 weights to be used.
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50 is a suspiciously round number. Is there a limit in the daycare that stops leveling it up after 50?
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Maybe she's the Messiah?
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Prove that every natural number can be written as a sum of unique (ie. non-repeated) fibonacci numbers.
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CoolKirby wrote:
Especially since nothing changes except his sprite
How does one destroy eg. spikes in the original game?
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Chamale wrote:
They talked to him from that position and fought, causing the trainer to stay there. It took over an hour for all the stream's team to faint from random encounter battles.
I'm assuming that can happen in normal gameplay as well. Seems to be a slight design mistake. (Even in normal gameplay you wouldn't necessarily have dig or escape ropes at this point, and even if you did, having to use them would be a bummer.)
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I think the best option for the future to avoid this problem is if the emulator itself were to be developed to emulate several games at the same time with the same input, in order to make the recording robust. But honestly, I really wish people made more 2-game TASes rather than trying to break records.
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AngerFist wrote:
There is no dispute in what you are saying Warp. We could theorize all day long if we want to. "What/How/When would you react if person X did this or that". But we are here and dealing with this now. And this situation is not your ordinary dish. We need to have a bit more perspective and ask ourselves: are there situations where it feels right to break a rule once? This ain't a single movie we are discussing.
You kind of avoided my question. Do you think it would be fair if we grant you the exception and then deny a similar exception in the future for someone else? (And if you think the fair thing would be to grant the exceptions, where do you draw the line?)
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If we are lenient, and then someone else makes a similar request in the future, what should be done? Do you think it would be fair to say to that person "sorry, that was just a one-time thing, an exception we granted to a long-time runner; we won't grant you the same exception"? I think that you would agree that showing such favoritism would be a bit questionable, and therefore we would have to grant such exceptions in the future as well, if someone requests them. Thus the question becomes: Where do we draw the line? What if someone made, for example, a 9-game run where two of the games require a separate file. Do we grant the exception then or not? What if someone made an 8-game run where one of the games requires a separate file? Or a 7-game run? Or a three-game run? what's the allowed minimum? (Btw, I really wish people did more 2-game runs. They are much more fun to watch, especially if the two games sync visually as much as possible. Million-game runs are technical achievements, but they are too chaotic to be all that entertaining...)
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ALAKTORN wrote:
the logic being that the single point of interest this stream had was the question “will they beat it?” and now it has already been answered by someone else
The stream has got wider media attention, has its own wikipedia page, has a really extensive tvtropes page, it's very possible that the project will get into the Guinness Book of Records, it's constantly generating tons of memes and fanart, and following the stream generates quite a lot of drama and tension. And you think it's boring because some other stream completed the game with significantly less participants (and generated zero memes and public attention)? No, I still don't follow your logic.
it stopped being fun when trolls made up 80% of the players anyway
Curiously it's still progressing. Those trolls must be quite incompetent.
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ALAKTORN wrote:
I lost all interest for this after finding out a different stream with far fewer people has already beaten the game, and started playing Gold a few days ago (haven’t checked how far in they are with that)
I'm not really following your logic.
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I know it's not wise to get trolled by the vocal "anarchists" in the twitch chat, but man, can they be childish. I really find it highly ironic (and hypocritical) that they constantly accuse people wanting democracy mode (for difficult/risky parts) "crybabies", and immediately when democracy mode turns on they start whining and moaning like little children how it's "boring" and "not fun", and throwing a tantrum by spamming "start9", as if that was going to help anything. (After all, "start9" isn't going to restore anarchy mode any faster. On the contrary, it only makes it longer to restore it.) Also they complain how democracy mode is "slow and boring", as if grinding the same spot for 20+ hours, or having a party roster that can't be used for anything, isn't slow and boring. And of course even after all the bickering and bitching, they are nevertheless happy to embrace any progress that was achieved in democracy mode. Suddenly having got past that extra-difficult part is not "slow" and "boring" anymore. (Note that I'm not saying that democracy mode should be used all the time. In fact, I think it should almost never be used, reserved only for the few parts that would take exceedingly long time (20+ hours or so), or would just outright ruin the whole thing if botched, but otherwise anarchy mode is the way to go.) Bah, I'm getting riled up over trolls. Just letting off some steam, I suppose.
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Btw, for some reason following this whole project makes me want to buy Pokemon Black/White 2. (I have the first one for my DS and while it was quite good, I was never quite interested in the second one. After all, when you have played one Pokemon game you have basically played them all. This stream, however, makes me want to play the second one...)
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I think that if they end up releasing Pidgeot, Zapdos and Lapras, it's basically stream over, at least for me. (I'd say the major problem with releasing Pidgeot and Zapdos at this point is that a good portion of all trainer and gym leader battles are done, and can't be redone. This means that they would have to level-grind some lvl20 pokemon with random encounters, many of which will simply be escaped from, slowing down the level-grinding quite a lot. Trainer battles have the great property that they can't be escaped from, so getting exp is pretty much guaranteed. Without trainers left, however, it becomes a lot more difficult and tedious.) Well, I suppose that if that happens, it's for the better. I can finally do other things than follow that damned stream.
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It seems that the fight between those who want to sabotage the whole thing and those who don't has once again flared up. The party is now pretty much as perfect as it could possibly be (no dig, free spot for lapras.) Every time they end up in the pokecenter it becomes an incredible fight between those who want to go to the pc to mess things up, and those who just want to get out...
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So far it seems that Safari Zone is an impossible hurdle. In anarchy mode it's obviously physically impossible to complete it. They invariably run out of steps or dig themselves out. Ironically, at least so far, democracy mode isn't helping either. Every time there's a random fight, people start voting 'a' to dismiss the popup, which carries on and proceeds to throw a ball. After that the only way to dismiss the popup is to press 'a'... and the votes keep carrying on for the next move which causes it to throw another ball... Thus they soon run out of balls, and back to square one. (Of course it doesn't help either that the anarchists do their damnest to halt any kind of progress.) The only way seems to be for them to either get their act together, or for the admin to hack the game and remove the step limit. Edit: It seems that there is some progress after all. The majority finally learned that 'b' can be used to dismiss messages. Edit 2: It succeeded more easily than I expected (once the majority learned of 'b' dismissing messages.) Welcome anarchy once again... :P
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Electric current is a phenomenon that happens when a big bunch of electrons move to a certain direction in matter. It does not consist of the absolute movement of each electron, but of the overall combination of them. Even though the phenomenon traverses very rapidly through a conductor (something like 0.7c eg. in copper), the electrons themselves move very slowly (like some centimeters per second, or even slower). It's a bit like a domino effect, or like a soundwave: A soundwave is a phenomenon of moving particles. The particles themselves don't move much, but the phenomenon itself does. Incidentally, it doesn't really matter which direction the electrons are moving, the phenomenon that's the electric current behaves about the same either way. (If the "signal", ie. the "front of the wave" that's moving eg. at about 0.7c through the conductor is moving in the same direction as the electrons, it's just like the electrons being "compressed" in that direction. If the "signal" is moving the other direction, the electrons are being "stretched". Either way this signal behaves the same way.)