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Invariel wrote:
Facts
Thank you, Invariel!
Disagreement to my opinion with supporting evidence as to why it's wrong!
There's a subtle difference between obtuse and uniformed, so maybe that's where the disconnect has been.
I didn't know what the code does behind the scenes, all I knew is how to use it.
Since it directly manipulates the ROM, I can see how it can not be separated from it's classification of a cheat.
That's really too bad, because without the code this run simply isn't feasible. At least not for me, but then again who am I?
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Invariel wrote:
Furthermore, it seems that you've conveniently skipped all of the parts that suggest that if you do the work that your inserted cheat does for you
Alright, forget Frank. I think it's incredibly absurd that the most appropriate solution to this problem requires me to perform twice as much work than I have already done, just to get back to where we are right now.
Here's a phrase: "Let's not and say we did." This seems to accomplish the same result for the viewer, and only we will know the difference. If that wasn't true, I would be more willing to comply.
Samsara wrote:
Funnily enough, you've also conveniently skipped that part, because you're prolonging this useless argument instead of shutting the hell up about it and cancelling the run like you should have when you "decided" you were "in favor" of the rule.
Ah, and a nice serving of "shut the hell up" to go with your previous "get the hell out." Thank you, Samsara! Another wonderful contribution to a thread you deplore while mysteriously exuding a vested interest in.
Look bud, the first cancellation was never a motion of defeat. It was a act of respect towards this site (very little of which has been returned here) by choosing to wait and affirm my position on a more appropriate day for such antics, April 1st.
This submission will not be canceled by me again, as I simply want an official judgement.
I find it very hard to find this request unreasonable, so once again, your personal attacks display a clear misunderstanding of the point. I'll admit, it seems the discussion has gotten convoluted, so allow me to refocus the conversation.
I'll shorten my opinion down to this single sentence:
The term "cheat" has been incorrectly applied to my use of a tool, at least in the capacity with which I used it in this run.
That's it. The tool removes roughly 70 frames per use where I do not have control of Mega Man (and by extension, the timer is paused).
Since my goal is in-game time instead of real-time, the effect of the tool is to simplify the creation of the TAS itself and edit the video as it's created. The tool has zero effect on the completion or advancement of the game in any way.
That's just my opinion folks, which is based on my unique experiences and may only ever belong to me. Regardless of the outcome, I find it perfectly acceptable to post in defense of my own submission in my own submission thread.
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It seems you're trying to make me out to be a matyr, but in contrast to the steadfast stubbornness you're displaying, I've displayed my capacity to empathize and reason.
Also noted in the last page, is where I say I'm in favor of the rule and want it to remain in place, but you've conveniently skipped that part, and probably everything I've written in this thread.
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Invariel wrote:
diggidoyo wrote:
Let me be Frank...
If Frank had read the movie rules, he would have found helpful paragraphs like these
Oh don't worry. I'm not Frank, and as you've mentioned, was forewarned in advance of this outcome.
This has allowed me to relinquish any emotional investment in this run and enabled me to admire the solidarity of the rule that's being contested.
But I'll vehemently stand by Frank on this issue if he is determined to be at fault.
If the response to any proposal for change is met with "that's just the rules" or "we've always done it that way," that's a clear indication that the rules need to be reviewed.
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feos wrote:
diggidoyo wrote:
Are you suggesting that this same run done properly and subsequently encoded appropriately would be published?
Yes, unless I'm utterly retarded and have no idea of how judging works (after judging 347 runs myself). This can be the case, really.
The only problem would be syncing the music, so if it magically syncs, a cheat code to pause the music just for encoding is perfectly fine, as long as no codes are used in the original movie. And it would just require creating such a code.
Got it.
Once again, that's a valid perspective of the issue, possibly shared by most of the opposition, and provides a feasible solution which satisfies the prevailing argument that's been brought up against this run. Thank you, feos!
This is solid advice that can be followed now or at any point in the future by anyone who acquires the aforementioned motivation.
Allow me to introduce an alternative perspective. Meet Frank:
Frank is an author who wishes to create a tool-assisted superplay.
He begins to work on it, but soon realizes the run is more tedious to make than he anticipated.
He also predicts the finished quality of his run would not be up to his own standards.
With these drawbacks combined and unresolved, Frank postpones his project until......
Frank discovers a new tool to assist him with his tool-assisted superplay.
This wonderful tool incredibly boosts his efficiency at creating this tool-assisted superplay, while at the same time vastly improving the finished quality!
He finishes his tool-assisted superplay and giddily submits it to a TASvideos.org, a site which hosts a "community dedicated to creating and publishing Tool-Assisted Superplay(TAS) videos."
The community cringes at the submission, and is quick to berate Frank for his actions.
They sternly inform him that the tool he chose to assist him in the making of his tool-assisted superplay was the worst kind of tool imaginable!
It was a cheat code! An outlawed tool much like Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start.
Envisioning the inevitable and uncontrollable decline of the once firmly established community into a chaotic cheat-assisted superplay shitstorm, Frank's submission was promptly rejected.
Frank feels more like a tool than the tool he used to assist him on his tool-assisted superplay.
Poor Frank.
But there's hope for him yet! He's been provided with very clear instructions to make amends for his misdeed:
Recreate the superplay in it's entirety without the assistance of his newfound tool.
Find someone willing to carefully and accurately apply the effects of the forbidden tool, or learn how to to do this himself.
Resubmit his tool-less tool-assisted superplay and rest assured that it will absolutely be published with no possible chance of it still being rejected and his extra work for naught.
To summarize, Frank is being told to redo his tool-assisted superplay without tool assistance in order to:
Avoid intentionally confusing the unlimited supply of new people who go through the inevitable and ubiquitous process of briefly mistaking a tool-assisted superplay for a Let's Play.
Abide by a rule in it's original and literal context without consideration for the spirit of the rule or to the possibility that its context is outdated.
Prevent the community from ultimately destroying itself by following Frank's example and defending their actions with the super effective justification "but Frank did!"
Although this revised edition will take much longer to make and ultimately look exactly the same to the viewer as the edition he has already submitted, the technical background processes involved in displaying it will not use his cheatool.
Thus, the community can then honestly say no cheatools were used to make this tool-assisted superplay. Crisis averted.
I tried my best to curb the sarcasm, but it sucks to be Frank.
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feos wrote:
So IIRC, the only reason to use this code here, is the author's motivation, or rather, lack thereof to TAS this without it. Given all of the above, as in:
it can be done the proper way and result in a similar viewer experience without breaking the rules
it doesn't add new entertaining content to the run, it only reduces some boring parts, so the viewer support isn't exceptional
it is an arbitrary decision
this run would even get rejected by the acceptionist Demo rules.
You've summed this up into a legitimate perspective here, thanks.
This could be the general consensus or just your own perspective, but please clarify for me, if you could.
Are you suggesting that this same run done properly and subsequently encoded appropriately would be published?
So I'm clear myself, by "properly" I mean without the code, and by "appropriately" I mean with pauses removed and the music synced.
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Masterjun wrote:
diggidoyo wrote:
I then chose to wait 5 months and resubmit it on April Fool's Day, a day I've noticed has been annually dedicated to runs that don't seriously expect to be published, often intentionally breaking the rules and pushing the envelope on what's acceptable for comedic or technical value.
I don't think a lot of them break rules to be honest.
Egads! You've expertly exposed my exiguos exaggeration for emphasis!!
More than one, then?
It's not the first, is all I'm saying, but thanks for the correction and valuable reminder that walls of text are easily usurped by semantics and grammar. :)
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*****TLDR*****
Ok fine. Rule good. Code bad. Diggi sorry.
After watching this run and comparing it to the real time route, is "in game time" even a legitimate goal for this game?
What about a run through of all the time trials consecutively?
Should I give up on MM9 already and wait patiently for MM11?
****************
Mothrayas wrote:
I am literally asking for you to make an argument. If this is the response to that, I give up.
Well ask and you shall recieve, but all I ask is for you to seriously consider my point of view. Not my opinions, as those belong to me and you're entitled to your own, but honestly, what would you have done with my options?
I'm kind of in a tough spot, because I don't really have a good argument. The rule is clear and valid, and I don't think it should be changed at all. I fully understand the underlying reason for it, and I can imagine the consequences that could happen if it were changed.
I'm in favor of the rule and I always have been.
To further complicate matters, "in game time" is a debatably arbitrary category to use in the first place, and typically holds less merit than a real time run unless there's a good reason for doing so.
My understanding of these issues is why I initially chose to scrap this run for the real time one. That's also why I canceled the first submission and removed it from the workbench myself shortly after the rules were regurgitated... I mean restated for clarity.
This all occurred before it was claimed for judgement, before it had more than one official vote, and before it was formally rejected.
I then chose to wait 5 months and resubmit it on April Fool's Day, a day I've noticed has been annually dedicated to runs that don't seriously expect to be published, often intentionally breaking the rules and pushing the envelope on what's acceptable for comedic or technical value.
But I didn't create this run to encourage cheats or even rock the boat around here, so personal jousts and a classic GTFO is rather unnecessary and indicates a misinterpretation of my intentions for creating this run as well as my hope for the outcome of this submission.
My intentions stem from actually playing this game.
The developers included an in-game timer, and minimizing it's value as opposed to the systems value results in a very different route and liberates new strategies. Watching MegaDestructor9's runs is largely what brought me into speedrunning in the first place, and I wanted to know how much his record 19:18 could be improved. But even his runs have appropriately received negative feedback from excessive pausing and been called unwatchable.
Although I disagree in his case, this TAS would have been an order of magnitude worse. That's a TAS that wouldn't be fun to make or watch.
So the only options at the time to TAS were real time or not at all. Thus, I completed the real time with AngerFist.
However the real time run, despite strictly adhering to the rules of this site, still felt arbitrarily throttled.
This game was released with its own timer, complete with its own set of rules for when it advances tailored to it's specific gameplay. In brief, the timer only ticks when the player has control of Mega Man, and this allowed for novel ideas and tricks utilizing all of the weapons available.
That is how I remember playing this game.
Real time has only ever been a formality for this game that severely limited the player's options.
This limitation is an acceptable and negligble consequence of RTA authentication, while a TAS is severely hindered in that category for no apparant benefit beyond basic continuity.
Despite the overwhelmingly vocal majority in this thread, there are others with similar experiences who shared my sentiments, but could do no more than wish MM9 had the weapon switching abilities of MM10. So wish we did.
Suddenly...
A wild code appears!
Not perfect, but for the most part it accomplishes it's intended purpose, and brings MM9's gameplay up to date with the latest game, MM10.
At first, I started using it on the real time route, which instantly revealed an obvious gameplay advantage that consoles didn't have.
This created the blasphemous category of "fastest time using code". Clearly an unacceptable modification of gameplay and was immediately abandonded.
Using it on the in-game time route, however, I learned that it didn't provide any gameplay advantage at all.
It merely condensed a repetitive ~70 frame pause into a single frame.
Finally a watchable in game time TAS was possible!
But regardless, my intentions for creating it seem to be an irrelevant footnote in the face of the unwavering rule, so I'll explain my reasoning for submission.
I wanted people to at least see it, especially those that had asked for something like it.
Perhaps someone might use the input to script a legitimate run.
Perhaps an intrigued viewer would be motivated enough by it to create the hack that's required.
Perhaps the legality of using a code to serve an acceptably appropriate function would be reconsidered.
Perhaps it is instantly published to the star tier and I'm awarded a massive bounty for my unprecedented contribution.
Perhaps it gets violently rejected and no one attempts such a blatant disregard for established protocol ever again.
Perhaps I mistakenly identified April 1st as a sort of "safe haven" or amnesty day for questionable runs.
Perhaps I'll be banned from this site for intentionally creating such an atrocity.
Perhaps not.
samsara wrote:
If you can't handle this simple, easy-to-follow rule, either leave the site or don't submit runs with cheats. Hack this feature into the game, provide a patch that anyone can easily apply and have it work 100% consistently, and then we can properly judge the run for site publication
Such passion! Seems like you've devoted yourself to the framework of this site and you view this submission as my reckless attempt to undermine it.
If I knew how to do more than simply re-record a TAS, I'd be happy to provide the hack or patch you suggested.
Instead of teaching myself the proper technical skills to accomplish that task, I used the ineffecient tools available to me at the time (much like when I TAS'd MM10 in 2011) to essentially mimic a version of what I wanted to exist. For that, my punishment is exile?? Did you actually play MM9?
As much as it gets thrown around alot here and in the real world, I still feel slippery-slope is a rather unfounded argument that makes a lot of worst-case assumptions about the future.
Your scenario of utter disarray implies BOTH malicious intent enmasse to take advantage of any real or imagined precedent set here, as well as the inability of the judges to make impartial decisions on a case-by-case basis. It either of those are true, then we already have a problem, but I seriously doubt they can both be true.
Lastly, your catchphrase "your movie does not need to be published here" is appropriate and an indisputably true statement.
But let's be honest about it, if this TAS belongs in only one place or nowhere at all, it's going to be here. Isn't that enough reason to try?
Simply being on the workbench for a day doubled the views it's received in the past 5 months.
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Of course! Your tone makes it clear that no discussion will be tolerated. I have to at least make you open to suggestions before a suggestion can be made. You announced your verdict before the trial started.
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Mothrayas wrote:
How about anyone who does not know what a TAS is? They are going to get the misconception that TASing involves cheating, which most certainly should not be the case.
I'd contest that this run is NOT for people who don't know what a TAS is. Most TAS's wont be. That's what we have the star tier for.
Your arguments sound more like you're unwilling to make a decision on the matter, both now and in the future, and want to uphold the foundation by which a decision will never have to be made.
If that's how judgements are made around here, I'm thankful this is only a TAS.
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Mothrayas wrote:
TASVideos was founded on the principle of informing viewers what tool-assisted speedruns were and are, and that the "tools" involved were not cheat devices that directly modified the game data. Publishing this run would go directly against that very founding principle.
I'll politely counter with the fact that this "principle" you speak of was founded before the Wii was even released, and the capabilities it (and by extension it's emulators) bring could not have been foreseen.
Times change, technology improves, and art (which is what this is) evolves.
Furthermore, exactly what kind viewer would be uniformed here? Are you worried my grandma will feel betrayed by this??
Anyone who has played MM9 would know what's going on.
All it takes is a little cognitive decision making based on facts instead of blind judgments based on fear.
If the main drawback is the assumption that troves of cheat code runs will follow from the dangerous precedent, then that assumes a lack of faith in the judges to maintain reason in the first place.
With that said, I canceled my earlier submission shortly after I submitted it because of the negative backlash and decided it would be better submitted as a joke.
Submission or rejection status doesn't take away from it's completed status, which is all I ever meant to do.
This run took me a few months to finish and is the run I wanted to see done. I have no motivation to recreate this run with the pauses included, but anyone is free to use this route as a guide if that's what they want.
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Achievement unlocked.
Cheers, AngerFist! Couldn't have done it without ya.
I was secretly invested in my in-game time TAS the whole time, lol.
We all saw how that turned out, though, so I'm glad this got finished.
Still find it funny how this got an award and MM10 didn't.
Not taking away from our work, but MM10 is the better of the two as far as TAS capabilities go.
This game just felt too constricting by losing the quick weapon switch, which is why I opted to do an in-game time as well.
But this game will always hold a special place in my heart. And my ears, because the music is so badass. T-man FTW!
Link to video
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sack_bot wrote:
Well, if you can merge the code into the game, it can qualify as a romhack.
This is an interesting idea, but why go through the trouble? The end result will look very much like what I have already created. The in-game time to beat for the original game is now 18:09. A romhack could have any level design with an arbritary in-game completion time. I wouldn't create this TAS again with a romhack just to satisfy the bureaucratic rules of this site which have nothing to do with my chosen goal.
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Orange Claw Hammer wrote:
The excess pausing was a bit unpleasant during boss fights
This was necessary because the code didn't work quite as fast as needed in order to switch to the Magma Bazooka on the very next frame. Then I switch to the weakness weapon again using the code so even the boss fights have half as many pauses. But that is what the whole game would look like without the code. Terrible to watch.
Orange Claw Hammer wrote:
A couple questions: there was one pause menu (can't remember which level) where you moved the cursor rather slowly, why was that.
I ate a bite of my pizza. No seriously, it's near the end of Wily 1 there's no reason. I noticed I missed that part later on but since I aimed for in-game time and wont be published it doesn't really matter. Couldn't be bothered to fix it.
What exactly happened at the start of the Twin Devil fight? Looked like a weird glitch to do with the weapon switching code.
Just something I noticed while playing around with the code. Not sure what the code is doing behind the scenes but the charged shot was cool. Doesn't do any extra damage, though.
It's a shame this apparently can't be published. I think TAS's like these should be examined on a case-by-case basis to determine if the code used adds enough value to the gameplay as well as doesn't subvert or render too arbitrary the spirit of the game.
My thoughts exactly, but with the immediate backlash against this TAS from day one I decided to pull the submission. There's a big difference between "slippery slopes" and "strawman" arguments, and they are both solved by using sound judgment and reason on a case-by-case basis.
But still, I don't want people to look back at this game as the "gateway TAS" that lead to the degeneration of TASvideos into one-button clear cheat videos. I just want people to see it for what it is.
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While Morthyas made it vehemently clear that a run of this nature will not be published because of it's use of a gecko code, I still believe this is the Mega Man 9 run that I always wanted to be made. And sometimes when you want something done......
This run aims for in-game time instead of real time. For the purposes of this run, the code is ONLY used to provide a smoother viewing experience.
An in-game time run without using the code would use the exact same strategies, but every weapon change would include a ~70 frame pause. After obtaining concrete shot, this would become incredibly jarring and unpleasant to watch.
The code isn't perfect, and there are some frames where it doesn't work or I need to change weapons faster than the code allows. For this, I still use the menu as normal.
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While you're probably right, lua is not something I'm familiar with and I don't have the will nor the patience to create this run again.
I started this TAS with the code because it made it more enjoyable to work on and watch. I worked on the regular published MM9 TAS first out of respect for the "rules" of this site, but honestly I felt it to be more of a formality than anything.
With the in-game timer present in this game and MegaDestructor9's fantastic IL runs, this was the TAS that I always wanted to see. And sometimes when you want something done.....
AngerFist wrote:
This and what Mothrayas said. As cool as it may look like, but above points stands firm to me and what this site is about. Sorry Diggi :(
There's no need to be sorry. I don't create my TAS's for TASvideos, however authoritative this place may be. I create them for myself and for anyone who enjoys watching them. I will admit it will be harder to publicize without the official TASvideos seal of approval, but at least the hard part is over. My main interest was to find out how far off from perfect MegaDestructor9's in-game time of 19:18 was. Frankly, I was surprised that our run beat him (by a mere 7 seconds) with how sub-optimal it was. This TAS improves on it by another full minute. A new-game+ with max screws could buy M-tanks before every level and possibly bring this run down into the 17's. Perhaps that would be a project for someone to run their lua on. ;)
Link to video
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Well to that I'd agree and was the sole reason I went without the code for the published run.
However, I'm uploading an encode now, and I'd like to propose an exception to this rule. My arguments will make more sense once the run is seen, so I'll withhold them for now.
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Basically, the code worked fine when it was introduced back in 2013. I'm not sure what revision I was using, but version 3.5-299 was the newest back when I made this video showcasing the working code:
Link to video
But now the code doesn't seem to work at all anymore. Not on older revisions nor the newest ones. I'm not sure what has changed since then, and unfortunately I can't seem to get into contact with Delroth or Darkeye. Other gecko codes work fine (moon jump, invinicbility, etc), but nothing happens when I press the A or B buttons on the wiimote.
If someone could get the code working I was going to look into finishing the TAS I started with it.
