Posts for ais523

1 2
32 33 34
40 41
Posted: 12/25/2011 12:16 PM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
I think there's definitely value in using tool assistance for things other than superplays of games (whether they go for speed, or some other category); tool assisted Let's Plays, etc, can be fun to watch. (I seem to remember tool assisted Let's Players asking people on this site for advice on the past.) I don't think it'd be appropriate to publish them here, though; probably best for sites to stick to what they're good at. (It'd be fun to have an offtopic thread that links to a best of tool-assisted non-superplays, though.)
Posted: 12/23/2011 12:59 AM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
Why does the time in the title include the credits? And should it?
Posted: 12/22/2011 10:15 AM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
To answer your question directly, SMB1 has only the one ending, so there's no way to get a worst (or best) ending in that game.
Posted: 12/22/2011 8:12 AM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
It means that the game is being played in a way that causes it to give a better ending sequence than normal (the best, to be precise). For instance, Sonic games often have, in their ending, a message saying that you have to collect all the Chaos Emeralds but didn't, if you don't; this counts as an ending other than the best one (although in Sonic games, "best ending" is probably the same as "100%"; the category's more useful in games where the two differ). Quite a lot of games only have one ending which counts as a win, by the way, in which case the "best ending" tag is meaningless and isn't used. If you have questions about what counts as the best ending for any specific game, you can ask in the game thread (and I guess you can also ask here, because any question can be asked here, including duplicates).
Posted: 12/18/2011 10:31 PM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
The "branch name" box is about what goal you were aiming for. If you were trying to complete the game in the fastest time possible without any restrictions, you can leave it empty. If your time was slowed due to restrictions, such as trying to aim to complete every level in the game, you mention that in the branch name box (that example would be "all levels"; there are others, and if you have a particular category in mind, you can explain and someone can tell you what it would be called).
Posted: 12/17/2011 9:16 PM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
N. Harmonik wrote:
I'm certain that the 3D Sonic games would be great choices for tool-assisted scorerunning; as the Balow brothers have often demonstrated, getting to the goal in the fastest time doesn't always mean they get the highest rank (thus, definitely not the highest score) possible. The question is, just how much do you waver from the beaten path in order to pick up a stray ring or destroy an enemy for points? In Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy, the number of coins acquired for each course is used as the high score. Assuming that there are no enemies that give out an infinite number of coins and that no enemies will respawn, doing these games might be a good idea.
If I remember correctly, in Super Mario 64 there are enemies that respawn, but they don't give coins the second time. This means it's pretty likely that there's deliberately a finite high score in each level.
Posted: 12/10/2011 9:38 PM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
If your movie syncs with all the save files you've found, it's very likely that it'll sync with the save file produced by a verification movie too, so a verification movie shouldn't be too hard to produce. (It doesn't have to be a TAS, just recorded on an emulator.)
Posted: 12/8/2011 11:35 PM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
Aha! Dragging the seek cursor doesn't work, nor does visiting the video via any other link. However, if I go to your channel, I can watch it there. Mystery not solved, but at least I can watch the run now! Thanks for your suggestions.
Posted: 12/8/2011 5:25 PM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
Is it still doing that for you? I tried arriving at Part 2 from a variety of links and resizing the player, but I never had the video fail to load on me yet. You did click the links I gave in this topic and weren't just following my account as I uploaded things and sometimes trashed them when the uploader choked, right? Maybe YouTube just hated you that day, and you should try again.
Yep, still doing it. It happens for an apparently random selection of other videos on YouTube too. (I clicked on the link in my quote of your post, and in the original post, to test.) I'm not sure what the pattern is. If it helps, I'm using Epiphany on Ubuntu to watch, although the browser is unlikely to matter so much as the version of Flash involved.
Posted: 12/7/2011 9:45 PM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
Yay, YouTube has started working now that I've switched to the old uploader, so I may have some videos to show you tonight. Okay, it's ready! Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7
Part 2 doesn't work for me, for whatever reason (it's NaN seconds long…). Parts 1 and 3 work just fine, so I'm not sure what's up there.
Posted: 12/5/2011 4:38 PM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
I've heard, from other people, that the "emulation errors" in MMBN4 happen on actual hardware too, except the original GBA. (That is, they happen running on a GBA SP, or a DS, too.) That puts it in a bit of a weird position as far as TASing is concerned, as the problem isn't even necessarily an emulator bug.
Posted: 11/26/2011 5:01 PM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
OK, so I've watched this, with a particular mind to the category selected. In response to the whole sprite ejection issue, I noticed three obvious wrong-looking ejections, in Labyrinth Zone 1, Scrap Brain 2, and Scrap Brain 3. It's interesting to note that the one in Labyrinth Zone 1 didn't lead to a sequence break (it was merely to get onto a platform faster), but I feel it should be handled the same way as the one in Scrap Brain 2, which does, as they're both clearly the same glitch. The one in Scrap Brain 3 was the only one that actually bothered me; even though it wasn't a zip, it was notably different from the other ejections I spotted, because it used a diagonal surface. In order to create a good "low-glitch" category for the game, I'd suggest banning zips, but also sprite ejections that eject Sonic out a different side of the sprite from which he entered (unless the sprite is destroyed in the process). For instance, if a sprite is entered from above, it needs to be left from above, and if it's entered from the left side, it needs to be left from the left side. That would hopefully allow the everyday use of sprite ejections that has nothing to do with sequence breaking, but ban the sequence break in Scrap Brain 3. (I think the Scrap Brain 2 sequence break still works, though, unless the conveyor belt also counts as a sprite.) (EDIT: That said, the run clearly conforms to the category listed. The debate's more about whether it's an entertaining category; I think it is, but could be improved, so have voted Yes.)
Posted: 11/12/2011 9:29 PM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
Nahoc wrote:
Wait... it looks highly doubtful to me that you managed to make this run syncs on a real N64. There are a lot of lag differences between a real N64 and Mupen64, especially in Super Mario 64. Also, how in hell would you get the same exact RNG when playing back the "120 stars" run? Really, really inconceivable...
My guesses as the answers to these questions: it's possible to detect if the console is lagging by monitoring the voltage input to the controller (so the N64bot can automatically adjust for Mupen being wrong about what the lag actually is), and that the RNG is reset to a constant value at power-on (with the problems matching up the RNG only happening when hexing during a run, because obviously TASes don't battery-save and reset the console). I don't know for certain, though.
Posted: 11/11/2011 10:26 PM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
I loved the first version of this TAS, so I'm going to watch the WIP encodes so far again. Glad to see you trying to improve it!
Posted: 11/10/2011 3:48 PM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
I liked the start of the run more than the end, but it was all good. One minor question: why do you spend so long on the title screen? (Will it not respond to starting earlier, or do you need to manipulate something?) Also, how does damage work in this game? You took quite a lot of hits with no obvious ill effect from doing so.
Posted: 10/31/2011 9:24 PM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
Most RTSes (and many TBSes, for that matter) have an internal massively sync-stable recording format for the purpose of making multiplayer work (they send each other the "movie files", as sending the entire gamestate would be too slow). I'm not really sure that such "game-specific" TASes would be accepted here, though, as they'd be rather awkward to verify possible.
Posted: 10/29/2011 9:25 PM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
The start of the run isn't nearly as boring as you said it would be. (Also, this game is the most clearly explained demonstration of the common glitch where sprites don't exist off-camera that I've ever seen.)
Posted: 10/26/2011 7:22 PM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
CoolKirby wrote:
The whole Game Boy line seems to play less bass than the NES or SNES, which I think is why most GBx/GBA music is made of higher notes (Kirby music, Pokémon music, etc.)
Technically, I think this is because speakers are better at bass the physically larger they are. You're not going to be able to fit a physically large speaker inside a Game Boy.
Posted: 10/25/2011 10:19 PM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
Derakon wrote:
The non-best endings are strict subsets of the best ending, so they aren't really all that interesting; I doubt anybody would make a TAS of them. The worst ending skips everything after the second Egg Corridor (so climbing the Outer Wall, the Plantation, etc. are all skipped), and the "middle" ending cuts out a sidequest done during the Plantation section and the entire final level. The only significant difference would be getting the fake Final Cave instead of the real one, but I wouldn't consider that worth doing the entire rest of the game.
Yep, the category choice seems fine; I just think it should be in the title of the run (e.g. nitsuja's Windows Cave Story "best ending" in 50:10.3). Is 100% an interesting category for this game, incidentally?
Posted: 10/25/2011 10:08 PM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
I like this, but need to learn more about the game before I can figure out how impressive this is. (Also, I assume best ending isn't fastest; should it be in the category name?)
Posted: 10/25/2011 11:32 AM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
Should definitely be published. I don't have a strong preference about whether it obsoletes the realtime run, or is published alongside it (although I'd mildly prefer the latter).
Posted: 10/24/2011 8:37 PM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
I'd prefer it if you didn't cut out the item collection popups, because it makes the game very hard to follow. (For instance, Space Jump First just looks like a suboptimal sequence of scandashes if you don't notice the Space Jump Boots being collected, which is a very much blink-and-you'll-miss-it sort of thing in that encode; and it's hard to notice that it allows Samus to double-jump because you hardly get to see the fact that she can't double-jump before.)
Posted: 10/22/2011 1:54 PM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
I think emulating loading times correctly is really important when it actually affects the way the game plays. (For a really obvious example, watch the Metroid Prime 3 (Wii) speedrun at SDA; the runner frequently uses an invincibility ability while waiting for doors to open so that he doesn't take damage from getting shot at during loading times. The point is that the loading time is gameplay time too. Likewise, slightly less obviously, loading times lead to frame rules in Metroid Prime games; eliminating frame rules obviously causes major differences to which routes are possible. Basically, any game that allows gameplay during loading times is likely to be very affected by this. (Non-Metroid, non-CD-based example: fourth generation Pokémon games, on the DS, start loading an area as you cross the centre of the area before, in a similar way to the Prime games. Cross the load lines fast enough and the game's loading routines get confused, allowing you to go through an unloaded area out of bounds. This would be impossible with instant loading.) Sure, it's annoying waiting for a door to open while things are shooting at you. But it's part of the game, and cutting it out on an emulator is much the same as using a cheat code to make doors open faster in a game where they're unrelated to loading. I suspect an approximate solution will be accurate enough to make this work to within a frame or two, though, and within the range that actual consoles actually manage. So I like the average bandwidth/average latency suggestion above.
Posted: 10/18/2011 9:24 PM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
agwawaf wrote:
I found a possibility to save many frames. It is easy. Just use J version rom. In intro stage of J version rom, 2 comments fewer than U version rom (I didn't see comments of later stages). J rom is used in some TASes. Because of fewer comments. But I don't know that I can use J version rom for the game. Also, I think my next is "100% good ending" of the game. So I need your opinions about rom version. Thanks.
Text differences are normally ignored when calculating obsoletions; if you use a version with text 1000 frames shorter, you're going to have to save at least 1001 frames to get an improvement. Also, non-English versions are often rejected for entertainment reasons; unless the text makes up a really obnoxiously huge amount of the game (and sometimes even then), the English version's typically considered more entertaining on an English-speaking website, unless there's some trick that only works in the Japanese version. (Typically, the US version is the only accepted version because European English versions tend to have the PAL/NTSC timing difference.)
Posted: 10/8/2011 9:16 PM
Quote
ais523
Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
I like the third of Mister Epic's; OOB screenshot for OOB run.
1 2
32 33 34
40 41