Posts for abyrvalg

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Posted: 7/15/2015 3:01 PM
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abyrvalg
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Joined: 6/9/2011
Posts: 29
FFX is indeed extremely linear, i loved the story though and found it quite touching, to each their own i guess. Once you get close to the end, though, you'll get an option to visit a bonus dungeon (Omega Ruins), which can be quite challenging. There's also monster arena, dark aeons and Penance. And even Anima and the ultimate weapons are relatively well hidden. Story pretty much ends at this point and real gameplay kicks in. In terms of endgame/postgame this entry in the series definitely delivers, not sure if it's what you're looking for though, because it's mostly about grinding and fighting and less about exploration. FF12 is one of the most open final fantasies out there, if not the most open one. Even more so than ff7/ff8 in my opinion. The world is quite vast, the game gives you enough freedom to explore a little bit here and there, fight optional (and sometimes difficult or weird) battles, letting you take a break from the story and enjoy the world on your own. And at some point (again, close to the end) the freedom can get overwhelming, and probably requires a walkthrough in several spots :p It's a quite unique game. It features creepy and challenging optional areas like the underground levels of Pharos, the infamous but captivating Great Crystal, the 50 million HP Yiazmat boss that takes 3-5 hours to beat without ZJS, fishing minigame, cryptic secrets (Zodiac spear anyone?), several whole optional areas and so on. But, on the other hand, story can get boring real fast due to overabundance of politics and lack of fancy traditional final fantasy stuff. Seriously, so much politics, and the villains arent even interesting. With an exception of Cid, of course. I would recommend this game, but it's a bit controversial due to it being a dark horse. I agree with your general points about Square and the modern FF franchise though. Those are totally different games nowadays, and i have consistently failed to enjoy each of the ff13 arc games. My expectations for ff15 are farily low.
Posted: 5/29/2015 8:53 PM
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abyrvalg
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"otherwise the TASer exploits the nature of LMP" - yep, that's exactly what we're doing right now, and it's been going on for many years, which is a pretty big problem. There are few posts on the doomworld forums that discuss the possibility of producing a strafe50-on-turns input by using weird joystick drivers (?) or something along those lines. As of now, none of such approaches have been publicly displayed anywhere. I can look up some of those posts on doomworld forums tomorrow. "This is easily detectable with basic tools" - there are tools that quickly scan LMPs for str50-on-turns / str50 / turbo and various other things. LMPC comes to mind, i've never used it myself though. Regarding the first few frames in demos - most non-tasing speedrunners have learned to shove input into their runs as soon as possible, it's not difficult and is in fact one of the oldest techniques, but it's not something entirely intuitive and robust. I described it in my post mostly because it's a relevant issue that i happened to have remembered off the top of my head, and it shows one of the problems with the LMP format and all the ambiguity it introduces into TASing. Also you're correct, it's most likely impractical to attempt to actually "prove" the statement i made in the previous post. The only work that has been done in this field is just a few speedruns that demonstrated that with the original doom2.exe you can make a demo start with a GF50 SR40 TRXXX tic, with subsequent tics being GF50 SR50 ones. And the same fact applies to a LMP which runs through more than one level. It's probably safe to assume that the same fact would apply if you record runs for other WADs, or if you play Ultimate Doom / Final Doom / Boom. If someone was willing to somehow verify it by studying the code, that'd be awesome.
Posted: 5/29/2015 6:12 PM
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abyrvalg
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LMP isn't a very good format, it basically doesn't store inputs per se. Instead for each frame it stores stuff like "accelerate forward by 49 units/sec^2", "turn 179 degrees to the left", and whether the Use/Fire buttons are being held or not. That's it. Anyone can boot up a hex editor and set acceleration at each frame to as high as 4 times the regular maximum. This is easily detectable with basic tools (or even notepad), and even the doom engine itself will output a message about the player running at turbo speed. All of those invalid inputs are easily detectable in fact, but there's one problem - our knowledge about doom engine isn't perfect, which has lead to a lot of questionable TAS runs over time. The "strafe-50 problem" is the most widely known one, - it's possible to create a LMP which, for a given frame, states "accelerate_right_50 + turn_wherever". Each of those actions is possible to do on its own, - accelerating sideways at 50 units is a common trick, turning left/right is a basic function, but there's one issue with this: you can't do both of them in the same frame by using mouse, keyboard, or dual mice/keyboards. There's currently no known way of producing such input, only theories about it being possible with a joystick. It's "good enough" for most people, but some community members reject it and restrict themselves to "accelerate_right_40 + turn_wherever" inputs. There are other interesting issues that arise from LMPs not being able to store actual keypresses. For example, if one decides to record a speedrun of some level, and then checks his demo in a hex editor or other tools, he'll most likely find that the first several frames (after the header) are all zeroes. This dead no-input zone can last for as long as ~0.3sec, and if you're going for a world record in a small map, that can be a significant handicap. But in all TASes that got submitted to this site so far, player always starts running instantly, and moreover - as soon as level loads, he's already looking in the direction he wants. It's trivial to hex-edit such LMPs, but is it possible to actually produce valid inputs within a game that lead to that result? In this case the answer's yes, it's been shown that it's possible.
Posted: 3/22/2015 7:04 PM
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abyrvalg
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Noob question here. Is the built-in "-viddump" prboom-plus feature not good enough for encoding btw? It's quite thoroughly described in the usage.txt that usually can be found in prboom's folder.
Posted: 3/14/2015 8:17 AM
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abyrvalg
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grassini wrote:
do you mean it can't be done because of keyboard limitation(not accepting that many inputs)but theoretically it's acceptable input?
It's definitely impossible to produce such an input with keyboard. It's difficult to say anything more than that. The question about such input being acceptable is still open. However, I haven't followed doom scene for several years, so i might be out of the loop. The only remotely relevant thing i can remember off the top of my head is this: http://doomwiki.org/wiki/External_control_driver
Posted: 3/13/2015 9:15 AM
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abyrvalg
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Strafe-50 is a part of original doom and is a major speedrunning trick. Basically, to do it, you need to simultaneously press and hold both the regular directional strafe button and the button that turns your turning into strafing (ALT by default). For some reason it makes your strafing speed higher in all versions of doom. However, you cannot turn while performing it (because you're holding alt), so usually in non-TAS runs it's done in situations where you have to run straight for prolonged periods of time. Technically, you can then stop str50-ing for 1 frame, do a regular strafe (which is called strafe-40) for that one frame, turn as far as you want, and switch back to str-50 in the next frame. Good players manage to use str50 even for short distances with lots of turns. As has been stated above, there's still some ambiguity about str50 being possible to do WHILE turning in the same frame. The feature to do it automatically was added to the main Doom TAS program by mistake, but nowadays it's speculated that you can actually do it by using some joystick driver or something. This TAS uses it under this assumption basically. I guess as long as it's not proven, the str-50-on-turns runs maybe should get obsoleted by the runs that do not rely on turning while using str-50. Or maybe not. I personally agree with the description and the analogy with left+right buttons that is presented there.
Posted: 3/12/2015 6:27 PM
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abyrvalg
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Most of the time it shouldn't desync. I believe that speeding up the intermission screens should leave this particular movie in sync. There are special cases where that isn't true, and there are more of those in doom2 (for example, revenant rockets rely on the global frame counter).
Posted: 10/29/2013 4:23 PM
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abyrvalg
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Mikhail Gorbachev and Donald Knuth here. The former was a big disappointment, as i was always curious to listen to a beautiful language of a professional accomplished politician, but instead got to hear a boring uninspired lecture full of words and void of any information. Knuth was nice to see, but sadly i had only managed to get few glances at him and had to leave soon after.
Posted: 8/29/2013 11:45 AM
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abyrvalg
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http://pastebin.com/NzDvYmZf
Posted: 6/18/2013 4:37 PM
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abyrvalg
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It was really exciting to see new WIPs appear, each was a joy to see, and even though i havent seen the finished run yet, easy yes vote from me. Thanks for your hard work, this is definitely one of the movies i won't get bored of watching again and again.
Posted: 4/10/2013 4:47 AM
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abyrvalg
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This game is amazing, i used to speedrun it many years ago, so definitely looking forward to seeing a complete run. Looks solid so far, but let's see what you'll come up with in Collector ;)
Posted: 11/20/2012 8:47 AM
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abyrvalg
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This could be maybe used as a blend of obscure new game+ thingie & playaround tas. Probably not publishable on this site, but definitely could be fun to watch nonetheless.
Posted: 11/18/2012 10:26 PM
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abyrvalg
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Why not? Same could be said about any highly optimized game. There are always new tactics to use in TAS, given how complex quake is. The only drawback would be non-smooth mouse movements in frame advance demos which could hinder (or just completely destroy) entertainment for casual players. That being said, i tested rerecording today and everything worked perfectly (i've just used low timescale and savestates in e1m1 though), except for explosions, which werent visually completely erased after loading a savestate. Also rr_recordinput cvar does not exist? p.s. Is it possible to include a speedometer? Like the one that is used in half-life runs.
Posted: 11/18/2012 6:33 AM
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abyrvalg
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This is very interesting, q1 was the game that got me into speedrunning and i have always wished TASing for it to come some day. Cvars seem interesting, i'll test later today.
Posted: 10/21/2012 6:15 AM
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abyrvalg
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what snorlax said ^
I am surprised with all the Yes votes because "its historically significant." Who cares? That doesn't change the fact that the TAS is below average at best.
This TAS isn't below average, care to specify the improvements? Entertainment-wise it's below average if you look at it as just-another-tas-of-a-random-game-i-dont-know, but since it's E.T., which is the most notorious thing in the gaming world ever probably, at least i was hyped to see it destroyed, and i'm sure many of those who know this game (and hate it) wouldn't mind devoting 1min of his time on watching the run once.
Posted: 10/10/2012 6:40 PM
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abyrvalg
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lol why every OOT thread gets filled with hate so often, there should be some correlation, let's derive some equations! Gotta disagree with Zeupar on it being a waste of time, it's fun to read imo, for the comical content is presented in a very brutal and stylish manner.
Posted: 9/10/2012 12:46 PM
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abyrvalg
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Warp wrote:
I would love to see a Doom TAS (any kind) in the first place...
There exists a vast amount of doom TASes of very high quality, most recent wip for doom2.wad can be found here, 20 maps out of 30. Or does your definiton of TAS exclude such movies? The only controversial technique used in modern demos is a so called "strafe50 on turns" (which was coded by a mistake by the developers of the most used tool, and now became a standard, sadly), but otherwise all these TASed doom movies/demos can be reproduced in an actual engine. And demos in Doom's case contain only header and info about what speed/turning angle was inputted in each frame, and whether player used fire button, use button or weapon switching or did nothing. Emulating the whole environment could theoretically allow some memory hacking & game breaking techniques to be done, but none of that was found so far.
Posted: 8/18/2012 10:58 AM
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abyrvalg
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Yes, it would be quicker and easier to learn tasing this game yourself instead of starting endless arguing for months, like you do, SW. At least it's a better solution than calling names and insulting everyone else for being mean to you. You're not being productive and not encouraging anyone to help you with testing your ideas. Also, i respect you very much as a player and your dedication is admirable, but your handling of this situation is incredibly immature, and it would be sad if you get banned from this place too. It doesn't matter what others think anyway, just ignore the "ignorant" people if you're so sure you're right, what's the problem.
Posted: 7/5/2012 5:17 AM
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abyrvalg
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Warepire wrote:
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Nice name change, Warp. :P
Like CoolKirby said, I am not Warp, Warp is still known as Warp. I am actually a bit amazed that you never seen me before around here since I consider myself somewhat active.
I think he was joking there. Your post made me think of Warp too, the style is very similar to his posts :)
Posted: 5/19/2012 1:05 PM
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abyrvalg
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DrJones wrote:
However, if the previous run could coexist with this one (maybe relabel it as a playaround), I would change the vote to yes.
Previous run shouldn't exist in the first place, because it's based on emulation errors, if i interpreted adelikat's post correctly. Which is a shame considering the amount of jawdropping situations in that old run and how glitchy it was (it's one of the best glitchfest show-offs imo).
Posted: 5/18/2012 3:56 AM
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abyrvalg
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Much less entertaining than previous run, to the point that i really don't want to rewatch it, ever. But it's a huge improvement so it's an automatic yes vote from me and, well, if the fastest route is the most boring one, we just have to deal with it. If it was up to me though, i would create a separate category for runs which call the ending credits (and end level/stage functions, like in megaman1) prematurely (i.e. not from the scene they're meant to be called from), but i understand it's a very moot point i'm talking about.
Posted: 5/4/2012 4:57 PM
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abyrvalg
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I think the only reason this skip is possible is because we can control the character while scripted thing is happening (i.e. Barry is walking), and by going into item screen at the same frame as the script-function is called, we can prevent this call. I can't remember any other similar setup in the game, all other cutscenes just start and you immediately lose control of the character. Or is there any similar situation in the game, where some scripted things are happening while you're able to move?
when you say director's cut, its japanesse or usa version ? the cd ID is usually simpler way to identify (SLUS ect...)
It's a US version, SLUS00747.
Posted: 5/4/2012 9:35 AM
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abyrvalg
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Tested it in psxjin202 using a Director's Cut version and it worked on about a 20th attempt. No idea what is the cause of this, but Barry just stops on a 2nd screen. Was recording a movie, so maybe there is a way to look into it. Dropping the pjm in just in case: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17623935/re1skip.zip EDIT: the skip happens as early as you get in the item select screen. No matter what you do next, Barry has already stopped near the clock by that moment and no cutscene will be played. I'll fiddle with it more. EDIT2: Ok, there is a 1-frame window in which you have to press the start button. From what i've tested, it appears that all what's needed is this one buttonpress. Coordinates & other buttons do not matter. Also if you reenter the room without triggering the zombie FMV, the cutscene with blood gets played. So, i suppose the main reason which allows for a cutscene skip is that Barry is too far away from a blood pool. And when you exit the room, the game just puts him there, and upon reentering the cutscene is triggered. Wonder what causes him to stop in the first place.
Posted: 5/2/2012 10:18 AM
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abyrvalg
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Entertainment value is quite low and unappealing for general audience, but from a technical point of view this is a pretty original and interesting movie/category. I would like to see this run get published.
Posted: 2/24/2012 6:03 PM
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abyrvalg
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So, the warp trick route is slower for a tas-run, but for a non-tas it's faster? This is interesting, because i've seen Cosmo get 49:38 today in a ganonless run and it looked quite improvable. I'm not very familiar with OOT though, so i could be telling garbage information. Disregard this post if this is the case :s
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