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dwangoAC, I'm sorry to hear about your situation. It sounds terrifying, and I can't imagine the grief and stress people in your area are battling. Take care and keep safe.
On topic, if Super Metroid didn't make it, then I feel a little better about the TAS decision. Save/Kill the animals has been an even bigger staple of GDQs in the past, so I'm very surprised they took it out. I guess they're shaking things up a bit this year.
Best of luck on the Super Dram World 2. Let us know if it becomes an incentive so we can all support it!
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Spikestuff wrote:
Accepted: -nothing-
Accepted (as a Bonus): Monkey Ball "all levels"
Rejected: Donkey Kong Country 2, F-Zero X "Jack Cup", Dragster, Kaizo 3.
WHAT?!? I have trouble believing they completely cut out the TASBlock. I mean, I understand taking a break for SGDQ, but TASBot has been a staple event for years at AGDQ. Wow... I'm just at a loss for words.
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Looks there's a consensus to not use debug mode to skip the waiting. We'll keep the waiting in, and either add links in the encode to skip it, or speed up the video for the waiting parts.
Thanks for the input everyone!
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Mothrayas wrote:
Also, I would like to have some more context here - for example, how long is the run going to be (so how much time is 8 minutes in relative terms), and how limited are you in your actions during these 8 minutes (is some playaround possible)?
I'm anticipating the run to be around five minutes without the waiting at the inn. Adding the 8 minutes wait results in the run growing to 13 minutes. Actions are extremely limited during the waiting period, since typing anything stops the game clock, and exiting the screen causes time loss as well. So all that's available is running around the room and moving the mouse pointer.
To give you an idea, here's mrprmiller's realtime run doing one of the two wait sequences.
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Hi all,
I'm planning on creating a Quest For Glory II TAS and I've encountered a situation where the game forces you to wait until nightfall to be able to access your room at the inn. Until then, there is absolutely nothing interesting you can do, resulting in 8 minutes of down time that would be completely boring in a run. I've gone to the extent of decompiling the source and pouring over the code, and I cannot find a playable way around the long wait.
Fortunately, there is a debug mode you can use to advance time ahead. Unfortunately, debug modes are forbidden by default on this site. So before I start making the run, I'm coming here to get preapproval to use the debug mode to skip the wait time at the inn. I feel this falls under the spirit of the rule, as it states:
These rules are not strict, but are motivated by the same concept as the guideline that says you should play on the hardest difficulty.
Using the debug mode to skip 8 minutes of dead-air will improve the entertainment value of the TAS incredibly while not impacting the game's difficulty. Also, it can be stated in the submission text that if anyone does find a way around the delay without using the debug mode, then that run would qualify to obsolete this one, even if it were longer in length.
Please let me know your thoughts on the matter.
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As an outsider to PoP, the faster speed made for a quicker TAS and was more fun to watch. It was great to see how quickly each screen went by and each enemy was bypassed.
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Check this out: A human SMW ACE submission! And he's looking for an opponent.
I bet a TASBot 11 Exit vs. Human ACE would be very well received. People there would be especially excited if the Human beat TASBot for once (gotta give them something to celebrate, eh?).
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dwangoAC wrote:
straight through run with no stops, all levels but allowing the replay on each level to loop to fully provide commentary, and selected levels of interest with in-depth commentary while omitting boring filler levels.
That will be great! Every time I've watched a Monkey Ball run, I've had to back up the video and replay it several times just to figure out what the heck happened, so I'm really looking forward to the commentary!
dwangoAC wrote:
Sorry to shoot you down on both of your suggestions but feel free to keep them coming!
No worries, I appreciate your honesty, and I'd definitely not want a run that would shed a poor light on the community.
It looks like my edit to my last post came too late, so I'll post it here:
I wrote:
Okay, I just finished watching through the first 30 stars of N64 Super Mario 64 (USA) "70 stars, no BLJ" and was once again floored by all the amazing tricks that are pulled off in that run. In spite of its length, that has got to be a main contender IMO for Door #5.
What do you think? I know some people think BLJ is cheap or overused, so this would be an opportunity to show what a TAS can do in the game without it.
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dwangoAC wrote:
- SNES Kaizo Mario 3, hopefully with console verification (to be tested as soon as possible, potentially as early as tonight)
Great choice! Lots of fun play around and split-second timing. Truly entertaining!
dwangoAC wrote:
- GC Super Monkey Ball with console verification via replay files (already confirmed working on two setups)
Saw this run on HRDQ and although it's extremely impressive, each level goes by so quickly that there's no time to understand what just happened before the next level is upon you. Unlike Kaizo above, there's no down time to process and appreciate what's going on, so after a while it just feels like you're getting bombarded with input. I think what would make it better is if the full replay of every level could be shown so the audience gets a second look at the tricks, however that would go against the spirit of the speedrun, and may cause desyncs requiring the whole run to be done over...
dwangoAC wrote:
- 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). But if we absolutely must submit it, then I guess we have no choice?
dwangoAC wrote:
- SNES DKC2 out of our back pocket, an unpublished run by p4plus2 and assistance from Masterjun (we can consistently crash the game and we think we can finally get an ACE to be consistent on console but aren't there just yet. This one is risky because we're running out of time.)
Ooh! Sounds intriguing! Good luck!
dwangoAC wrote:
- Door #5. Please help define what this is, because there are too many good options.
I've already voiced my candidate and reasons for Door #5. It'd be a shame to hold back such a great run indefinitely. However, in lieu of that choice, Family Feud is always good for generating laughs. :)
(Were it not so long, I'd also recommend N64 Super Mario 64 (USA) "70 stars, no BLJ". There are some amazing tricks in there that would seriously wow people, much more than what the BLJ does. Maybe just run part of the run?)
Edit: Okay, I just finished watching through the first 30 stars of N64 Super Mario 64 (USA) "70 stars, no BLJ" and was once again floored by all the amazing tricks that are pulled off in that run. In spite of its length, that has got to be a main contender IMO for Door #5.
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dwangoAC wrote:
This isn't a bad suggestion but the challenge is we can't currently console verify it. We'd have to show it in an emulator and for an ACE like that I think it's better to wait until we have the tools we need to try this on real hardware. Eventually we may just give in and do it in an emulator because I do think this one is quite fun.
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. As long as it's entertaining, it'll draw people to it, and thus draw donations. I have a feeling most people watching online wouldn't know or care about the difference.
So my opinion is that we showcase the most entertaining runs we have, to draw the most viewers, to bring in the most donations, as well as to secure TASBlocks for every GDQ in the future!
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First of all, great job on HRDQ! That was thoroughly enjoyable.
Second, I mentioned this in the survey but I'll also mention it here: I would love to see MrWint's GBC Pokémon: Yellow Version "Arbitrary Code Execution" in 05:48.28 at AGDQ 2018. I think it hits that sweet spot with enough ACE WTF?!? without going too long or overboard.
It would help to explain to the audience that the only inputs to the run are pressing up, down, left, right, A, B, select or start at specific moments. There are no other inputs or data feed than those eight buttons.
Also, to make it more of a surprise, you could run it as if it were a real timed run, starting the clock on power up. Then you can finish by calling 'Time!' when the Yellow credits start to roll.
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Nice run! I really liked the skip through the end doors, even if it wasn't a TAS-only trick. It made it shorter and more interesting.
Yes vote from me. And I'm really curious the reasons behind the two 'no' votes. This seems very optimized with some interesting enemy skips. I can't see how this gets anything less than a 'Meh".
This code will advance time by x*y ns, where x should be the number of nanoseconds per frame (will depend on your game's FPS) and y is the number of frames you want to advance.
Okay, so that seems to work once, and only once. Once I have advanced X frames, then do something (like press a key on the keyboard), then I can't advance frames again. It just ignores the second frame advance.
I've tried creating a sleep function to have it pause between frame advances, but then the second advance just hangs.
My code so far:
function sleep(sec)
for i=1,sec*18000000 do end
end
TimeAdvance = function(numMs)
jpcrr.vretrace_start_trap();
jpcrr.vretrace_end_trap();
jpcrr.timed_trap(1000000 * numMs);
jpcrr.pc_start();
end
print("Testing frame increment")
TimeAdvance(10)
print("sleeping")
sleep(10);
print("waking")
TimeAdvance(10) -- This one hangs JPC-RR
print("Frame increment Complete!")
Any ideas on how to get that second frame advance working?
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Habreno wrote:
feos wrote:
I started reading Habreno's megapost to give it due consideration and reply where needed, but after a few paragraphs I officially refuse. It is completely unreadable, with all sorts of tag quotes, manual quotes, huge quotes, tiny quotes, parentheses, double parentheses (seriously?), and when it all gets twisted together and overlaps in a single freaking paragraph, I protest against this post despite of all the things that it might have gotten right or wrong (I'll never know).
The tables as copied from the judgement text did not come out correctly and I need to fix this, yes. What other parts of the post aside from that were unreadable?
Hi Habreno,
For me, what made it unreadable was sheer volume. I stop by TASVideos in the morning before work, or for briefly before I go to bed. Lack of time kept me from being able to read what you wrote. I don't discourage long posts, but a quick TLDR section at the bottom of the post really helps people like me who are short on time.
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Niamek wrote:
Guys, how about we simply enjoy how good this submission was and discuss/argue about the PAL vs. NTSC ruling in a different thread (look here!) ? =D Especially if you're not HappyLee!
The judging has been done, there isn't not much you can do. Especially when HappyLee accepts the judging of his own submission. It's really up to him to contest the judging if he doesn't like it.
From what I understand, it got rejected principally for one reason:
In conclusion, while some PAL games are acceptable, and other branches for SMB PAL may be acceptable, this TAS does not seem to be acceptable with what we know right now and how we handle these sorts of things.
Which is what you should try to change if you want to give this submission a second chance. =)
I second Niamek's sentiment here. Unless HappyLee contests the judgement, further discussion here is unproductive. Let's not spend any more energy going back and forth over this run, and instead use that time and passion in the general thread to make things better for *all* of TASVideos, including this run!
This code will advance time by x*y ns, where x should be the number of nanoseconds per frame (will depend on your game's FPS) and y is the number of frames you want to advance.
Sweet, that seems to work! I tried something similar, but didn't send nil into start and end trap, and it only ever went a maximum of one frame, no matter how big I made the timed trap. Sending in nils makes it work, though.
My first goal is to write a script that performs an optimized boot up so I don't have to do it myself each time. Next step is to see if I can advance x frames, provide some keyboard input and then advance y more frames.
Thanks again for your help!!
EDIT: Looks like a script already exists: optboot.lua, however it does it in a very different way than I'm trying
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feos wrote:
HappyLee x MrWint comparison.
Thanks for posting that. It's really interesting seeing how they go about doing the same things in sometimes very different ways. It's also neat to see how HappyLee's falls behind, but that it makes no difference in the end.
Hi slamo, the one frame increment works. Now I'm trying to create a function that advances a variable number of frames, but it keeps hanging. Any suggestions as to how to make this a variable advance?
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Mothrayas wrote:
c-square wrote:
This is interesting... I've never seen a ruling challenged before. Is there a process set up at TASVideos for contesting a judge's decision? If not, one ought to be set up, as I don't see arguing it out in the forums resulting in quick resolution.
If there is a significant majority that disagrees with the judgment, then the senior judge can review it and rejudge if needed.
However, I'm not seeing enough grounds to revisit this judgment (based on current rules). Plenty of people do agree with or respect the judgment, and I'm not seeing a majority against it. A large majority of the judges also agrees. Regarding the judgment itself, Nach's judgment and decision tree tell enough about how it was judged, I agree with its conclusion, and I would not judge it any differently.
Thanks for the reply, Mothrayas. That's good information to know, and may be useful info to add to one of the FAQs if it's not already there.
To those still debating this judgement, it appears that the ruling will stand and there is little-to-no chance of it being revisited under the current rules. Of course, people should feel free to open discussion in an attempt to gain further understanding. However, if your goal is to have the ruling on this run overturned, your time and effort will have more impact in the general PAL vs. NTSC thread, working to get the rules changed so that this run can be revisited, rather than debating here constricted by the current rule set.
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This is interesting... I've never seen a ruling challenged before. Is there a process set up at TASVideos for contesting a judge's decision? If not, one ought to be set up, as I don't see arguing it out in the forums resulting in a quick resolution.
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Thank you Nach for your thoughtful, considered judgement. I appreciate the lengths you went to in order to try and get a well rounded judgement, even looking to other judges to make sure your reasoning was sound.
I don't envy your position. Any decision you made would have resulted in people railing against you, so I applaud you for willingly taking on this difficult role.
Finally, I would like to be the first to nominate this run for Gruefood Delight. It's certainly a worthy submission for it, and it would also be a good link to all the discussions we've had about this. I expect we will want to refer back to this submission when considering future runs.
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I'll finally throw an opinion on the stack.
This is HappyLee's creation, and all other things being equal, I'd rather defer to what he wants done with his work:
HappyLee wrote:
I'm against obsoleting the NTSC run
...
Those who favor replacing the NTSC run, if you don't think the PAL warped run is less entertaining than NTSC run, you can be sure that the PAL warpless run would definitely be more boring.
If this should be published, I'm in favor of CtrlAltDestroy's idea of publishing this to the Vault, as a "bad port" of a game that's not recommended for TASing.
...
If people find this too controversial or not enough to make an exception, the best solution would be to reject it, and maybe put the submission link to where people might be interested in.
So my vote goes to HappyLee's suggestion. Either vault it (which I'm not sure is possible under the rules), or reject it. Actually, if the decision is made to obsolete the NTSC run, I half-expect HappyLee would cancel his submission before it could be published anyway.
Finally, I don't think we're ever going to get to consensus on this, so at some point the Judge is just going to have to judge.
