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From Wikipedia: "An idiom is a term or phrase whose meaning cannot be deduced from the literal definitions and the arrangement of its parts, but refers instead to a figurative meaning that is known only through common use."
Different languages have different idioms for saying pretty much the same thing. For example, what a husband is afraid of when he stays out too late:
American English -- When I go home I’ll be in the doghouse!
Chinese -- When I go home my knees will be on the washboard (or abacus)!
Mexican Spanish -- When I go home the beans will be burning!
Danish -- When I go home I’ll be hit with a rolling pin!
French -- When I go home there will be water in the gas!
I've was wondering if perhaps some folks on this multilingual board have any they could share with me. The Internet has some info, but it's fairly limited.
Here's some popular ones, but feel free to share any you can think of!
Cost an arm and a leg -- To be very expensive
Sweep under the carpet -- To hide or make little of a matter that one does not want to discuss
Drink like a fish -- To drink far too much alcohol
Have egg on your face -- To be made to look foolish or embarrassed
Let the cat out of the bag -- To accidentally or intentionally reveal a secret
Cry crocodile tears -- To pretend one is crying
Have a skeleton in the closet -- To keep secret a dark, shameful, personal fact from the past
There's more than one way to skin a cat -- There are many different ways to achieve the same result
Have two left feet -- To be clumsy (a person with two left feet can't dance)
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Well then it sounds like we three are all somewhat on the same page. Maybe this conversation can be continued somewhere besides a "random" rejected movie? I'm not sure anyone else is looking at it. :P
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Xkeeper wrote:
Well, shit, what did we just spend the last several hours arguing over?
I think I tried a bit too hard to couch my argument and made it seem like I was saying the opposite of what I meant. Sorry I didn't clarify earlier :)
Also, I think besides the slightly immature remark (which we have all demonstrated that we are capable of doing ourselves ;P ) mmbossman makes some very good points as well and has the best interest of the site at heart. We all have valuable input (even if the ultimate decision making lies elsewhere).
I would add as well that some of the "less prominent" movies could continue to not have AVI's, but we could still make finding them and their input movies easier.
And I don't think sending people to another website would be beneficial to this one :( speedruns.net is a nice supplement, but this one is superior in many, many ways (not just in terms of quality movies) and I'd hate to see it wane because we're driving people away.
Oh, also, here's an amusing page that highlights some popular "series" of games ... http://tasvideos.org/Alden/PopularGames.html ... these six "franchises" comprise about 15% of all movies currently published :P
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Xkeeper, I think you and I are not really at odds here. mmbossman did a pretty good job of pointing out some things that I might not have made entirely clear, but I do want to add a few additional comments that were not stated bluntly in my last post:
More movies should be published on TASvideos. This means, among other things, that some reasons for rejection should be ignored or loosened, for example, "Bad Game Choice" and "Bad Goal Choice". (One slightly misleading statement I made was "I support the judging decision of not publishing [these movies] prominently to the general audience." I explicitly did not say "I support the judging decision of not publishing these movies at all.")
Along with and increase in content though comes a need to organize. Like it or not, some movies appeal to a larger audience than others. I personally would not mind seeing just a huge list of movies with no regard to popularity. But for the sake of accessibility and friendliness to newcomers, I don't object to the idea of having a shorter list that is a collection of more popular movies and that is featured more prominently on the site. It would end up being a mix of movies of popular games and well made, implicitly exciting movies of less popular games.
Xkeeper wrote:
Why not just have a prominent link to the highest-rated movies so that people interested in popular games can find them, and leave the full system listings to the rest?
Exactly.
Even though I think that popular movies should be more prominent, I don't think that that would detract attention from all the other diverse and unique movies. There is just as wide an audience for these "unpopular" movies, even if each individual movie has a very small target audience. By publishing more movies, while having less popular movies featured less prominently, we would still be giving far more attention than we do now to some very competently made and entertaining movies.
I would even say that good TASes of "bad" games wouldn't really hurt, as long as we acknowledge that it shouldn't be held in comparison with the popular movies, but is of interest in it's own right. I say, publish Front Line. Some people like "bad" games (like me).
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FractalFusion wrote:
Request granted.
(If it was a request, that is).
It was a suggestion, and I would have done it myself eventually if no one protested :) My laziness thanks you!
----
Xkeeper wrote:
Especially when the dissenting portion happen to be judges.
To me, judges are the voters we entrust with making decisions that will be good for the long term survival and proliferation of the site. I "voted yes" on both the movies you reference, but I support the judging decision of not publishing them prominently to the general audience. Both are rather long, repetitive and dull to the viewer who does not have the context of what the games offer. Quality (ie a perceived high probability that a movie will be entertaining to many) in featured movies is far more important than quantity (ie featuring every movie that appears to go as fast as possible) in terms of attracting new viewers.
I would say that this is a website where the featured, easily accessible content should astound and entertain almost universally.
However, I do not see any reason that it cannot also be a place for movies that astound and entertain some, but said movies do not need the same exposure.
One of aspects of the "WWW" medium that distinguishes it from, say, TV is that nothing is force fed, and we do not have to exclusively pander to the lowest common denominator to achieve "ratings". On the other hand, the initial grab of an astounding movie will be more likely to make people get curious and excited about the site. Then they can dig deeper, find that one movie of an obscure game that they enjoyed and take pleasure from it in a way that most will not. It is pull rather than push, and if there is more for people to pull from they will feel more at home, become interested, comment, make movies -- all things that will help TASvideos thrive.
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Nice! I vaguely tried a bit of turboing to try to jump farther and make the shortcut in the first level, glad it's possible (at least I assume that's the shortcut you're talking about, can't watch it now) ... Damn, this game just gets crazier and crazier.
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I'm not entirely sure what you're asking :)
You can continue recording from a movie (any movie), if you pause the emulator where you want to start "rerecording", make a savestate, and then load the savestate (also make sure you are not in Read Only mode, press Shift-8 by default to toggle in FCEU).
Or maybe it's something else? ;)
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adelikat wrote:
Nostalgia is quite a power influence it seems.
...
I'm surprised at the viewer response.
Why would we be playing any of these games except for nostalgia's sake? Is it a surprise that the highest rated movies are generally the best selling and most well known games? (One could say technical ratings shouldn't have anything to do with that, but usually the tech ratings are high because many people have competed on them since they are popular.)
Anyways, as you can tell I certainly agree with that first statement, and as with most of the movies here a previous familiarity seems to be a major asset in enjoying this run. This is in contrast to the KQ1 movie, which I think is fast paced and short enough to be a sort of experience in itself -- it obviously helps to know and like the game but I imagine that it is not as much a requirement.
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Well, it's definitely getting better and better :) The shortcut not only makes the game faster but really helps that section seem much less monotonous. And the last boss did seem faster. I still think lots can be improved though.
In particular, the intro/first level is still slower than my WIP. In yours the first level appears on frame 591, but in mine it is 501, a full second and a half just from optimal pressing of Start. You can definitely match that, don't know if it can be any faster.
Your movie fades out after entering the door at the end of that section on frame 3889, mine at 3722, and taking out the 90 frames from the beginning that's 77 frames faster. You do get an extra damage boost, but your positioning is not optimal in the screens where people pop out at you. You should try to have the last one come out as close to the exit side of the screen as possible. In the first set you do this well, not so much in the following. I didn't even do this well on the last set, so with that and the extra damage boost you should be able to easily beat my time there. Oh, also on the stairs I was able to avoid having to stop in front of the bomb by jumping differently.
At this point you must have a pretty thorough knowledge of how this game works, and I don't mean to belabor the point but I think you could shave easily 10 seconds off this run with frame advance if not more.
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Yes, but with frame advance you have much more control, since even at 6% speed you have to rely on timing your button presses. If you come to a point where you don't care about the input (like the example you give) you can unpause the emulator, hit turbo or whatever, then go back to frame advance. You certainly don't have to use it, but most TASes done well are done with frame advance. I don't mean to rag on you or anything -- you certainly seem to have the motivation and ability -- I just think that using all the tools available to you will be a major asset in getting your movies published.
I'll watch your WIP when I have a chance and critique :)
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Honesty is a good policy :)
Yes, every version of FCEU since a long time ago has it, and I would highly suggest it. Here's a (kind of) description of how it works: http://tasvideos.org/EmulatorResources/Using.html#FrameAdvance
By default I believe it is \, but you can go into the Hotkeys to assign it to anything else.
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Well, you may know some of this already, but...
As far as air travel goes, you might want to check out http://www.tsa.dhs.gov/ for all the gory details of what you can't do.
One of the biggest things to watch for is bringing liquids or gels -- you are only allowed "3 oz" bottles and they must be in a "1 quart" ziplock bag.
Also, for going through security you will probably be asked to remove your shoes, so consider a pair that are easy to take on and off. Also anything with metal, like a belt -- I was very happy to have my non-metal belt with me last time.
Your electrical gear will not fit into US sockets unless you have an adaptor, plus we use an antiquated 110 vac mains circuit so you might need a voltage converter as well (though many items like laptops are rated for 100-240 volts). Hotels can sometimes provide these, but the staff will not necessarily be knowledgeable enough to give you exactly the right equipment.
Also, here's a neat "Worldwide Tipping Guide":
http://www.magellans.com/store/article/367?Args=
Don't know how accurate it is as it says you should tip in Finland, but I think it's interesting (NERD!).
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Kuwaga wrote:
The point is if runs like this got accepted, random people could find this site, watch one video and think something along the lines of "Oh, nothing special.. Let's go back to Youtube and never come again!
I'm sure anyone who is familiar with this game and has never seen any sort TAS would mess themselves watching this run.
As with the P.DOT run, I doubt most people could spot where it is "unoptimized."
Personally I was happy to see the new route in action, but frankly the entertainment factor suffers because of it. The cutscene ration seems much higher, and we hardly get to see Link kicking ass at all. Part of it is probably that I'm jaded from seeing most if not all of the glitches before. Now I'm eager to see an all-dungeons run...
Voted yes for being entertaining, voting yes to publish, and voting yes to at least acknowledge that the current run is highly highly obsolete. If anything, Kuwaga's projection of people being unexcited by a Zelda movie is much more likely with the current run, since it is longer than the unassisted run.
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It was perhaps a bit too long, but I found it interesting enough to watch to the end. I bet if I had played it before I would probably be more amazed though. Without the context of how the game is supposed to be played, it sort of looks like a slow-ish platformer without many enemies. (Not that there's anything wrong with that! :P)
Nevertheless, there were a few pretty funny moments and it seems quite optimized of course.
Also, one of those minigames reminded me of Pipe Dream which was a plus.
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Thanks for the suggestions!
Enhasa wrote:
I haven't waded through the gruefood forum (it would be a lot easier if they were sorted by poor play vs other reasons)
You might already know this, but there is another useful way of looking through them:
http://tasvideos.org/Subs-All.html
You can sort by status which will group Cancelled (which tend be better as you mentioned) and Rejected.
- Air (got obsoleted)
I was thinking about a list of interesting obsoleted movies as well; other examples off the top of my head would be old A Boy and His Blob, Sonic (you know, like ones where you can actually *see* sonic ^_^), 16 Star M64, Adventure Island, Hitler no Fukkatsu... probably a lot of others. Basically, movies that have something unique not in the current published movie, but at this point have virtually no visibility.
The main reason I'm interested in these is because I feel that some submissions were rejected for reasons other than the TAS itself.
I agree, and support a more permissive submission process, coupled with more site organization. As it is, if we were to accept everything that was optimized it would clearly get messy. But if we divided a bit more it could be manageable. I would like to see "bad game choice" disappear as a valid reason to reject a run. The very fact that someone chose to devote time to a movie implies to me that there is also a corresponding audience for the movie. They could go to a different section, without an AVI even. At the same time, I think a lot of movies that are currently published could be moved there as well. A personal example would be my Dizzy movie -- I'm the first to admit that it is not the most exciting game in the world. However, it definitely has a place here. Also, jimsfriend seems to be commenting on some movies that might be appropriate to "downgrade" :) (I liked that movie by the way, but it is definitely not anywhere near jaw-dropping)
I support the move getting rid of the starred movies btw. It takes effort to maintain and causes drama, there's already the ratings, and it's basically just the most popular games anyway.
Effort is of course a big stumbling block to my ideas about further classification, but it is also one that can be overcome if people care about the site, and this site definitely has many people that do. As for drama/elitism, I think that is inevitable (since 100% of the movies here are "pride movies" ;) but honestly that already exists in the form of published/not published movies. Also, the use of "stars" leads to the perception that it is a list of the "best" movies when it should be (and was) a list of good starting points for new visitors. And they should definitely be different from "highest-rated", though that would actually be another good categorization (it exists in the stats section, but I think it would be appropriate to increase its visibility and also be listed in expanded screenshot/description mode, like normal movie pages).
But I digress.
