Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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The current version of the page looks good, but I discovered these 2 pages that also answer newcomer questions, so we may want to reorganize things a little bit so it's not 3 separate FAQ pages:
Wiki: FAQ/SiteWiki: FAQ/TASing
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Dimon12321 wrote:
Some games for GC and Wii feature Action Replay cheats which unlock 60 FPS, I think, by uncapping the framerate. Are they allowed to be used?
Action Replay cheats are not features of games but external modifications of them.
External codes are allowed in Alternative if they unlock gameplay or content in the game that in-game codes can't access. Otherwise they are treated as ROM hacks.
Uncapping framerate in console games sounds like a cosmetic improvement, overclocking also uses to remove lag and make gameplay smoother, but it's a territory we haven't explored yet. With PC games you could tweak the environment they run in to make them perform better, but with consoles it's a hack, of either the game or the environment, and neither supported such modification officially.
It would be definitely good for Wiki: Playground, but whether it's worth publishing may require a new discussion. The main question would be where exactly do we stop with external cosmetic improvements, and how legit the result would feel the the wide audience.
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Randomno wrote:
TASes are produced in emulators or other deterministic frameworks that let their creators have complete control over the play environment. For example, TASers can slow the game down as much as they want, save and load at any time to remove mistakes, and at times even directly access and change the game's code by only using controller input.
The first two items are tools to make TASes (frame advance and savestates), the third is more of a consequence of those tools (ACE). A more fitting option might be viewing the game's memory (RAM watch).
While not ambiguous, the consequences of this being misunderstood are fairly large, if it gets incorrectly reiterated elsewhere online, implying that ROM hacking is allowed.
Even if not in that section, ACE is definitely worth a mention on the intro page. On a more technical note, I don't think ACE is really modifying the game's code (i.e. the ROM)? Rather making the game execute code from RAM.
Agreed, the first 2 items are definitely examples of tools usage, and fiddling with game code via controller input is not a TAS tool, it's a result of tool usage. It's also correct that you can't change game code through controller input because it's read-only memory (ROM).
Tools we use that fiddle with game memory are disassembly/decompilation, and sometimes memory poking to see how the game would behave if a certain thing happens (and then we decide if we even want to grind for such an event). It's important to make it clear that games are unmodified when a movie is replayed.
It would be better to list ACE in a different section, among examples of movie features (which we have tags for).
a database of game resources for those who wish to learn
What if we link Wiki: Games/List here instead, for an all-encompassing database (which contains links to game resources and more)?
Suggestion for the Why do we do this? section:
I think a huge part of why this hobby is thriving is because it involves a huge variety of spheres, so nobody feels limited:
taste for creativity (entertaining movies, innovative movie goals and TAS tools)
working with people on various levels (co-operative TASing, inspiring and teaching newcomers, designing policies upon consensus)
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I think it would be fair to have a default guideline similar to this: "If some technique causes questions, it's better to avoid it". Of course for pre-existing definitions it should be acceptable to just rely on them, but making them stricter for a TAS would be worth a preference IMO.
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I linked a specific thread for asking about specific games. And to make sensible decisions we need as much info as possible on a given glitch.
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WarHippy wrote:
What about movies that only have graphical differences when a glitch is used? Should there be two movies published side by side where one has the character moonwalking and the other doesn't even though there's zero difference in the final time?
Should we define glitchless to only include glitches that would save time?
Are there examples of games where the only known glitch is cosmetic and doesn't save time?
jlun2 wrote:
I'm actually inspired by your quote:
If TASing is meta-play, TASVideos Movie Rules are meta-meta-play!
Then why were you frustrated at the discussion?
jlun2 wrote:
I am a glitch hunter, so I love finding exploits to use. In this case, rules like this I find fun to utilize. The same thing happens for games. The developers make a bunch of rules (the code), and I immediately go "so what can I do to break the game?" In other words, I'm asking this not in the view of "this class bad", but in the view of "so how do I break it"?
As a TASer you would need to do your best judgment on how to break a game the least, and if unsure ask judges as well. Ideally talk to the existing community for that game too. Again, the global policies, and game specific rules, are meant to make sense.
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moozooh wrote:
We're talking about cases where using glitches introduces major gameplay-affecting changes. So major they make people want to see a run without them: either because too much content is skipped, or because the content that isn't skipped is trivialized to an extent that makes the category less fun. Cases where TASers optimize the fun out of the movie are common, and the purpose of this category is only relevant to such cases.
You're describing how it works currently, with "glitchless" being an Alternative category that depends on how different it is from standard categories, and how fun it looks to people.
Major gameplay changes coming from skipping or trivializing content are usually called a "major skip glitch", and the category that avoids it (but not other glitches) is already standard.
If a game only has "minor" glitches but they still save time, avoiding them as a separate branch seems to cause questions in this thread. But if we aim for creative freedom, we let authors to have some questionable stuff accepted, while trying to create a trend of authors also making more brilliant works all the while. It's like a trade-off. It's a rule that would allow us to accept something we (community and staff) want to accept.
moozooh wrote:
Dacicus wrote:
Back to the topic at hand, I don't see why "Glitchless" would be considered unacceptable as a goal with a separate branch if "Forgoes Major Skip Glitch" is allowed, to use the wording from Wiki: Standard.
Right, and most of the time these would be functionally identical.
Why?
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jlun2 wrote:
I just found out about this thread. If this passes, I am totally going to submit runs with minor changes to get more easy records.
I'm not sure if it exist, but I hope one day I can find a game with only a single menu bug at the very beginning, then submit 2 runs as "glitchless" and "any%".
Which problem would revenge spam solve?
jlun2 wrote:
Also, for things like "Super Scribblenauts" or "Brain Age", how exactly would a "glitchless" run be like? I am curious how large of a number for instance "2" needs to be to not count as "bug", given you can basically draw anything and it will count.
If this does pass, I will need to ask, for multiple games, what counts as a bug. For instance, Jurassic Park (NES) doubles your need for 1 single frame every time you land. Am I supposed to minimize jumping in a glitchless run?
In Spongebob the movie, if you do not hold on a direction when in the air using Patrick's pants to fly, they don't reduce your speed. Is that a bug? How much do I limit myself to count as glitchless in this case?
For Digimon Ruby, it was noted that the story progression flags do not match the actual dialogue given.
The game's script (as in plot progression requirements) is...less than solid. The plot can tell you to destroy a Dark Crystal, when in reality the script will ignore the flag about the destruction of that crystal entirely, and it would speed things up significantly if you avoid doing so.
Is a "glitchless" run required to beat the crystal, even if the game doesn't check it?
I'm not sure if it exist, but I hope one day I can find a game with only a single menu bug at the very beginning, then submit 2 runs as "glitchless" and "any%".
"Define the term glitch exactly for every game out there" is the opposite to what we're trying to do here. The whole point is, again, it will vary per game and per community around that game. It doesn't make sense to invent the rules for every single game in existence in advance and then to enforce those rules forever for everybody. An open discussion is how those rules are invented, by people who know the game and are interested in figuring out new goals.
Global rules that are meant to work for all games while being clear cut and objective to everybody - are absolutely impossible in practice. We've tried. Now we're moving away from dictatorial practices, because they don't help us thrive as a community, they don't make us more happy, and they don't make us enjoy what we do more. They don't help us discover new cool things, feel fresh and interested.
jlun2 wrote:
For real though, I find "glitchless" usually just refer to popular games that are broken.
Like, who even cares about some obscure (J) only game no one else ever heard of it to bother gltichless/glitched?
Are we here to dictate people what to TAS? Or are we here to reject TAS works we don't subjectively like, based on limitations that gradually render us irrelevant in this hobby?
jlun2 wrote:
It is rather frustrating there's this discussion
Being frustrated at people who dare discuss things doesn't sound very promising.
jlun2 wrote:
I immediately get the feeling the games people usually have in mind are the popular ones with glitches, with no regard in how it may work as a standard in general for most other games, or ones that have very minor bugs that affect 1 single stage.
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GMP wrote:
I think it can never be non-arbitrary for any game even if every single human on earth agree to a given ruleset.
Previous years of judging made us realize we cannot aim for absolutes when dealing with people and their works, and even definitions of the term "objective" vary from person to person (as well as things they consider objective). So the best we could aim for is whether some decision makes sense for majority of participants.
As I mentioned in the first post, we can't blindly rely on a sum of everyone's views, but we can work with functionality concerns regarding any particular decision. And the more concerns we faithfully resolve, the better the quality of the decision will be.
This is the case because for any given group of people polled, simply polling more people can still result in previous conclusions being rendered invalid. Because it's not always possible to know specific group biases of the people we've previously polled, without having an idea of which groups exist out there. It only becomes apparent if we're ready to continue digging in.
As a result, our solution to those problems is working with functional concerns until there's no more of them, but being ready to work on them again when they appear again. We're fundamentally open to changes and improvements now, which means we're more prepared for the future than if we tied to come up with perfect rules (like we did before).
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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moozooh wrote:
The main potential problem is mismatched rulesets (which are the definitions for our purpose) between ourselves and the RTA/unassisted community, i.e. what we want to see as the optimal ruleset for the glitchless category vs. what the playerbase and the viewerbase of the game in question wants to see. In cases where there's either no community around the game or at least no universally accepted standard for glitchless runs, and we have to come up with one, there will be situations where others don't agree. In which case we have a choice to either adapt the definition for the game in question or stand by ours if we have reasons to believe it suits a TAS better. I expect this to be decided on a case-by-case basis.
Yes.
moozooh wrote:
If we allow ourselves to get hung up on the semantics, the next thing to discuss is whether stabbing a person should be considered murder as opposed to an optimized use of the knife. Your Honor, I only used the knife for its intended purpose! You can always arrive at unintended results even if you limit yourself purely to intended mechanics. Hence, rather than the mechanics, you need to draw the line at the results you want to achieve using them, or at least follow the lines drawn by somebody with authority to do so.
Interestingly, the OoT community thinking is the opposite: they've agreed on what they consider a glitch, and none of the results of the rest of the techniques is banned, even if it looks glitchy. But yes, when the primary criterion for any policy or decision is whether it makes sense, we'll figure out when we want to agree with RTA and when we don't.
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EZGames69 wrote:
It’s not the entertainment aspect I’m referring to. It’s wether or not it creates a notable difference in how the game is played.
Here’s an example, in [4048] GBA Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest by illayaya, Snodeca & EZGames69 in 50:11.76, the entire game contains no glitches or bugs, except for when it reaches 6-3 where it performs a glitch that saves 50 frames overall.
This is a clip of the glitch: https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx4ImmE_J0Hlv4TUZ66bTlRG7LlshuNExV
Here’s what the SNES run does for reference: https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxQVqxP0OYbNFWRzd9HEO8phmiowr7RYlq
Would it make sense to do a glitchless TAS for DKC2 GBA, where the only difference would be that one stage? While every other level would be basically identical? Because I don’t see how that’s a good enough argument to put it into standard just on the fact alone that it’s glitchless.
While it may be this questionable for some games, the benefit for games where it's less questionable outweighs it to me. Because by introducing any borderline that isn't minimum/maximum we're losing objectivity, which makes it harder to manage because we will have to answer two questions each time:
Should a particular borderline case count as allowed or banned from stanard?
Is our borderline actually good enough in itself, or should it be improved?
The very reason we've added standard is people not super eager to provide feedback for every single submission, therefore there was too little data to work with if you have to decide on a tier (or maybe rejection). While there's now much less content that requires feedback to be judged, it's those borderline cases that make the issues accumulate over time and lead to judges hating to have to collect feedback, and users wearing off as well. So for things that can be measured objectively, that's usually a sign that it could be standard.
Now there's a question of how hard it can be to figure out whether some used technique is a glitch or not, but it's there regardless of where we draw the line in the end.
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KusogeMan wrote:
i would only allow it if it's significantly different from glitched gameplay, in which most cases it exist, it is.
As I mentioned above, it runs into subjective arguments of how different is different enough and everyone having a special personal feeling about it.
Having 3 levels of the most fundamental factors of gaming makes the most sense IMO:
lowest completion, fastest completion, full completion
fewest players, fastest amount of players, most players
fewest glitches, all common glitches, most glitches
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Randomno wrote:
Which value should be used then? Should BizHawk be updated?
What BlackWinnerYoshi posted, and it should be used on site and hawk.
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EZGames69 wrote:
My only issue with making it standard is not every game has their entire speedrun changed just because they don’t go for glitches. If a speedrun for a game happens to be purely glitchless, but has one glitch that saves like 2 seconds (in say a 20 minute run), then would it make sense to have both a normal TAS and a glitchless TAS where the only difference is that one rather insignificant change?
Doesn't that mean that we're letting the game shine through whatever extremes it allows for? In some games the use of glitches is the only thing you can minimize or maximize, and we would be highlighting those differences officially, rather then requiring it to be entertaining.
DrD2k9 wrote:
Perhaps we need to establish some degree of difference between glitched/glitchless branches to allow both in standard class.
I think it would make it more subjective, because when it comes to the "x enough or not" arguments, there appears the need for something else objective that we could rely on, to then decide whether the difference is subjectively big enough or not. But why add this extra ambiguity?
DrD2k9 wrote:
I agree that it seems odd to have two nearly identical runs side by side in standard just because one uses a glitch that saves a tiny fraction of the overall run time.
Why?
DrD2k9 wrote:
So perhaps we could compromise and keep "Glitchless" branches as being published into the Aternative class, but make an exception rule that "Glitchless" runs aren't held to the entertainment requirements that other Alternative class goals would require. This would make "Glitchless" branches more of a pseudo-standard situation; where acceptance would strictly based on obeying the movie rules sans glitches, while still having the actual publication being listed with all other Alternative goal runs.
Which problems does that solve that appear if it's just a standard goal?
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That's the thing, if it's not feasible to generalize reliably, we should work with variety, and with what makes sense for a particular game, without automatic extrapolation.
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The "glitchless" category is somewhat standard among humans, because it resembles regular play the most, and it's not too hard to agree on what is considered a glitch. While there can be potential issues with coming up with an absolutely objective definition of a glitch, we don't have to be absolutely objective at all times, we just need a definition to make sense for the people involved. That in turn is achieved not by asking literally everyone and blindly relying on their opinions, but by resolving real concerns people may have.
For some games, the RTA community has already come up with a list of glitchesbanned in the glitchless category. But what are potential problems for games where we may try to invent this category from scratch? Do we even need any kind of future proof terms for this?
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MAME's framerate is still an approximation because we have to reduce a 64-bit integer value of attoseconds that represent frame duration to something usable in video files. But over the course of many hours the framerate currently reported by User movie #638183669502074999 is accurate enough to rely on.
Before this we got different values out of MAME (60.056453065881932 and 49.970017989206475) because we relied on MAME's AVI dumping back then which I only recently fixed, but those were the values used by the site code. I didn't expect Alyosha to just use 60 there.
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Will the colors from the 2 options still be different if you paste them into some other program like Paint?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Can you post example images, with 4 proper colors as it should be, and the same frame with 6 colors?
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A better question is, does it work ok in the newest bizhawk release?
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