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What does "Add the 3 audio sources" mean?
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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So this submission can now be judged since we have a system for content warnings, but since libTAS framerates for ruffle represent how the FlashPlayer can poll mouse (which is not tied to video refresh rate), we can also accept variable framerate for this game. Would it help this submission, or should I proceed with the judgment?
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feos wrote:
so the main question is what's the fundamental objective difference between the 2 kinds of cheats in this game - those fine-for-normal-play ones on one hand, and actually-illegitimate on the other?
Tukkun wrote:
It's kinda difficult... when I created Anti-Idle, I included the cheat code as an easter egg, make it discoverable by showing a progress bar when you tap the correct key, and it only gives a minimal reward multiplier but is required for 100% completion of in-game achievements. So I'd say it's more like an "easter egg" than a "cheat code", and the achievement name "Cheater" is just a humorous name for the achievement
feos wrote:
illegitimate cheats don't give any achievements, right?
Tukkun wrote:
Yes, the game actually does include some real "illegitimate cheats" which give no achievements, disqualify you from the leaderboards (now removed) and show a "cheat savefile" watermark on top of the game. This so-called Konami cheat code does not lead to any of that and is more of an "easter egg" than a cheat. I personally consider it a game feature
I did watch the video of the TAS myself, and while many techniques used are not possible without the help of TAS, they do not include anything that I would call a "cheat"
feos wrote:
are there any docs left (or archived) on what would disqualify a run from leaderboards?
Tukkun wrote:
Unfortunately no docs, but the "illegitimate cheat" involves pressing a button in the options menu that says "Enable Cheats", which would put the "cheat savefile" watermark on the game which is permanent and cannot be removed
This was not used in the TAS in question
feos wrote:
what was the nature of the leaderboards?
Tukkun wrote:
It was integrated with the leaderboards feature of the gaming website Kongregate (now deprecated), where various statistics of the players were logged. Activating the "cheat savefile" would disqualify the player from logging scores into said leaderboards
feos wrote:
they were properly official right? like you were directly involved in their rules and maintenance?
Tukkun wrote:
Yes
Now I consider recognition on official leaderboards a critical aspect.
It makes this case identical to Half Life where we discussed usage of console to set arbitrary framerate. The game explicitly considers it normal gameplay if it works on multiplayer servers without enabling cheats.
In the old days we would allow cheats if they make the game harder or if the game advertises them to you officially in the docs. Lately we switched to somewhat broader definitions, but in those definitions we just call them in-game codes and judge them by their immediate gameplay effect.
But if the game has explicit mechanics to distinguish a certain thing as illegitimate for normal play, we're back to PC game environment talk where our goal is legitimacy of the environment, and there dev intent is critical.
I'll think about the rule wording later.
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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Please ask what makes them fundamentally different from explicit cheats.
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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When deciding case-by-case, there still needs to be some kind of guideline, so people have understanding on how to make a decision, also important for users so they know what is allowed. Case-by-case can't be "just use the rules of the RTA community, even if they are not public", because what if there are several communities with different rules? And yeah I still don't understand how a working guideline for such cases would look.
If needed i can ask the creator of the game for his opinion on whether konami & gift codes are a cheat, since he is still active
Sounds good!
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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I got the farthest in Dolphin 5.0-97, which is what the movie calls out by commit hash. It also kept complaining until I switched to proprietary DSP ROMs. Text disappears in the game unless Microsoft Driver is used. But I was unable to sync this movie fully. With OpenGL or MS driver, it desyncs somewhere after 100k frames.
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.
Above all else, treat our community with care. Be kind and courteous to them, always respect their work, encourage them to continue, and use your knowledge and skill to help them improve.
Always adapt to the needs of the community. Consider every angle of a problem, and work together with the rest of staff to provide the best solution.
The site should change to fit the community. The community should never change to fit the site.
and we're even discussing how we can switch to a community-controlled system with per-game rules, the current system entirely depends on universal rules for all movies.
Obviously those rules can evolve to match community needs better. But in this particular case I'm having serious problems boiling down the cheat borderline used for this game to something universal that we could switch to. Very few games have special achievements for cheats that are "actually intended" even thought the game does call them cheats and doesn't explain in official docs how to use them, and then "real unintended cheats" with a different system that needs to be enabled. We use the borderline of "an in-game code is allowed in Standard if it unlocks gameplay features" and it covers overwhelming majority of cases very well, it also got approved by the site's community and staff.
Do you have any suggestions on how exactly the rules could be reworded to include your case, while also not turning into "anything goes"? How can we universally distinguish in all games cheats that are allowed in this game, from those that are not?
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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And cheats that you guys ban are not mentioned in those changelogs or docs?
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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xy2_ wrote:
for konami (and gift codes), we don't consider it a cheat. both are allowed in speedruns.
this is because it's intended to be done in the game, and has achievements related to it (see the secrets achievements section) which is needed for completion. both are intentionally balanced:
- konami can be done only once per level, and gives a minor 10% boost. it can't be spammed to cheat your way out and get more levels
- the two gift codes can only be used once and give a minor amount of resources
why do i say this isn't a cheat? beacuse we have actual cheat mechanics in the game:
https://i.imgur.com/8O3LlcR.png -> requires clicking an enable cheats button, irreversible
this leads you to a cheat menu https://i.imgur.com/NlS0yjn.png, and the savefile permanently has a CHEAT SAVEFILE banner plastered across
in my opinion a run using these kinds of cheats would not be real
Does the game tell you about those codes that this movie uses, in any official and clear way?
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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Does the 100% speedrun even exist?
Also why doesn't this game have a speedrun.com entry?
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Is there any speedrun page for all this? I found nothing on SRC.
What is a speedrun savefile?
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If "all achievements" requires several months of non-stop play, that doesn't sound like a good full completion definition.
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Is "all achievements" the only way to define full completion for this game?
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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xy2_ wrote:
for konami (and gift codes), we don't consider it a cheat. both are allowed in speedruns.
this is because it's intended to be done in the game, and has achievements related to it (see the secrets achievements section) which is needed for completion.
What exactly does "needed for completion" mean?
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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Link to video
Such an awesome music on title and ending (Matt Furniss!) but no music in the game :(
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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McBobX wrote:
So I have a question about mode choice for Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. Basically, the current TASes for this game both runs from power-on (which every run should be), meaning only Story Mode, however it is actually better to play on the Time Trial Mode (the speedrun mode for this game... The big reason for this is that it removes a quite boring part of the game which is about defending the tablet every time you want to warp... I believe we do have similar case of preferring speedrun mode for Braid.
My question is: Would a TAS of same categories for Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions obsolete current ones if they're done on Time Trial mode?
RTA runners also use Time Trials as well, so it will be convenient for comparison. I'm willing to improve one of them and I want to make sure which decision to make.
Time Trial can only be accessed after clearing the game, thus we may use current Any% TAS for unlocking it (as verification movie).
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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Done.
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libTAS does hook those bindings, but ruffle recently added some "feature" that broke this.
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Should we say it 3 times in the rules instead of just 2?
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We need a correctly cropped file that still syncs. We can't make it on our end since it won't sync for us.
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Trees 1 minute in aren't getting seeded on my end (xubuntu 23.10, everything else matches).
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InputEvelution wrote:
Currently, under the "Use the correct version of the game" section of the Movie Rules, there is a clause stating that English versions of games are preferred:
NTSC is usually preferred over PAL. USA versions, labelled (U), are preferred as a majority of our audience is English speaking, though any NTSC release can be used interchangeably. Using a PAL version of the game is allowed in some situations:
I have not been a fan of this clause for a while, but I was reminded of it again recently when McBobX expressed some confusion about whether or not he was able to TAS the Japanese version of Mega Man 7, and expressed some regret at not having done so for his recent submission. I feel that it would be for the best if the clause stating a preference for USA/English versions was removed, for the following reasons:
The clause is confusing to new users. It is not immediately clear from reading what consequence, if any, may apply to movie acceptance if someone uses a version other than NTSC-U, especially in the presence of more serious rules submissions must abide by. As in the above case, this can potentially mislead people into believing their submission will be judged more harshly if they don't TAS on English, introducing a level of ambiguity that goes against the goal of making the Movie Rules clear and easy to understand.
(As noted by Drakodan) The vast majority of RTA communities do not have any kind of policy mandating the use of a particular language in speedruns. The presence of such a rule on TASVideos is a bit unusual, and someone coming into TASing from outside this circle may not see much sense in it.
The majority of site users speaking English already means that the majority of submissions to the site are already likely to be in English. Even in the event that removing this rule did lead to a sudden increase in submissions of games in other languages, I feel that this is not likely to be a problem because...
A game that can be officially played in multiple languages is unlikely to be obscure enough for a judge to have a difficult time figuring out what's going on.
"People will do worse TASes in Japanese for a lazy obsoletion" is not going to be a problem when there is already a separate rule specifying that regional differences between text and cutscene lengths are discounted during judgement.
Now, OceanBagel has made the counterpoint on Discord that for movies with Alternative goals which are judged partially on entertainment, noting that English is preferred by viewers may be important. I don't think that someone making a TAS on a non-English version of the game is likely to be a dealbreaker for acceptance (especially when such submissions already regularly need judges to request more feedback), but I think the wording of this clause could still be improved if it were to remain. Perhaps if it was phrased differently, along the lines of "All NTSC versions are acceptable, but USA versions are preferred because such and such, here are the conditions under which PAL is acceptable", it would be clearer to users that they won't have their TAS rejected if they play on Japanese or another language. Being more specific about the relevance of language choice to movies with Alternative goals could also help somewhat.
The very first sentence of the chapter already says:
Any official release of a game is allowed as long as you can explain your choice, and as long as that version is easily available for verification.
The next sentence says this (you even quote it):
any NTSC release can be used interchangeably
I have no idea how anyone can read this as "NTSC-J may be judged more harshly".
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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Thanks for being a legend!
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So I waited for more than a month, and I pinged the author on Discord a few times but got no responce. I may have to cancel this submission until reproducible build instructions are provided, then either me or the author could uncancel it.
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.
