The thing with Ikaruga is that realtime superplays also exist for it (even an extremely skillful double-play). The run on the site doesn't really revolutionize the game since it was virtually perfected more than a decade ago. It's a decent choice, but the human superplays are crazy cool already.
The thing with super popular games is that a good deal of the time recommending them is redundant. Most of the Mario and Zelda games (especially the N64 gen) attract quite enough attention on their own. So popularity itself should never be a criterion for a recommendation. It's by itself a recommendation.
The thing with certain mindblowing runs is that they only appear positively mindblowing if you have some sort of understanding of their mechanics, otherwise being just an incomprehensible mess (e.g. all of those ACE runs—and those are arguably state-of-the-art). There's a fine line between "this is goddamn amazing, I want to see more of this" and "this is some bullshit, to hell with it", and a lot of "mindblowing" runs end up on the wrong side of that line unless you have intimate knowledge of the game and/or have read the submission novel.
In my opinion, and I think I can back it up sufficiently, a newcomer rec should first and foremost be newcomer-friendly. Which means they should look and sound good, have intuitive mechanics and the run itself should demonstrate easily discernible level of precision and planning without boring nor alienating the viewer. What is friendly for a pro isn't necessarily friendly for a newcomer. We already have stars for the pros.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I mostly agree with Samsara. A big reason to even have such thing as newcomer recommendations is that the movies in question are really good at representing what a great TAS is but can be easily skipped over, because naturally newcomers will start with something that is most familiar to them. Gimmick is a game very few are familiar with, and it's a great game, and its TASes are excellent and short and well-received by both younger and older audiences. What is showcased in these runs is intuitively clear and doesn't require intimate knowledge of the game mechanics. It checks out on everything a newcomer recommendation should have.
Literally the only advantage MK64 has over it is that more people have played it. Its lap skips aren't intuitively comprehensible, the odds of getting particular items are had to put into perspective without having played the game for a while, and precision involved doesn't immediately pop out due to the weird friction mechanics (that, again, require experience to put into perspective). A star is appropriate, a newcomer recommendation... less so. It's a movie mainly for Mario Kart fans, obviously they're going to check it out anyway, and having to educate oneself at length about the mechanics to fully enjoy the movie defeats the purpose of recommending it to newcomers. Hell, I've played this game and still wasn't very entertained. It's more fun to play than it is to watch.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
If a subject is too abstract, one of the two things usually helps:
1) finding a real-world, relatable application of the subject (this works for pretty much everything except some subset of mathematics);
2) finding a decent explanation (there are dozens of YouTube channels that are basically dedicated to that exact goal, then there's r/ELI5, Simple English Wikipedia, etc.).
The students of today don't realize how incredibly lucky they are to live in an age where simple explanations for almost everything exist and take at most a few minutes to find.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I've only seen the OVA series that was at that point chronologically first with regards to the story (was released second though), and it was so-so—fun at times but not too captivating. But then again it is also the lowest ranked one on MAL and AniDB. People say the series keeps getting better, so I intend to catch up one day as well.
I think you should go with the anime because the fights get quite ridiculous at some points.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I'm starting to think that I will wait about 3 weeks from now and it things aren't going back to normal, I will stop going there, as much as it hurts. But maybe things will look differently then.
Sounds quite reasonable.
MUGG wrote:
I hadn't called any parent so far. Last Friday, I approached one of the parents that expressed sympathy and asked if I can call them to talk and keep in touch. It seems none of the children or the parents knew that I'm arranged to visit only once a week, they just wondered where I have been. Calling that parent can backfire my situation beyond repair if I'm not careful with my words but I plan on calling sometime soonish.
Right. Parents are extremely protective of their children and are afraid that any conflict or strife among the kindergarten staff might involve the children in one way or another—something that should not be allowed to happen under any circumstances because none of such involvements are desirable. Perhaps that is why the administration isn't willing to dig deep into this matter—they're afraid of their inability to keep the situation under control if you somehow lose your composure—which they sense might happen even if you strive to keep your emotional turmoil under wraps. Even if there is no direct harm to the children, if parents catch wind of the conflict, it might reflect badly on the kindergarten's and its administration's image—something they don't want, either. In this sense it's understandable that they assume such an impenetrable position—it's the safest in their situation.
Which is why, if/when you end up talking to people familiar with the overall context, you shouldn't construe the topic as venting your frustration (which is something you should do with friends/relatives, not people you're in a service/client or other hierarchical relationship). Make it clear that you honestly want to improve and make sure conflicts such as this don't happen in the future as long as you can help it. The message you want to get across to the person you're coming for help to is that you lack crucial experience—something you can only gain if there is enough feedback, and that the person in question can provide that feedback when the directly involved party fails to. In this sense subtlety matters a lot, as the difference between "this was unjust" and "was this just?" is that the former assumes your innocence by default while denying your agency and shutting off potentially contrarian feedback. Extremely few situations you end up in truly bypass your agency, and people are wary of those quick to assume nothing was their fault, since that can extend to rationalizing any future misdemeanor. Always make sure to recognize the rights and wrongs of both sides in a conversation—that makes people a lot more likely to relate to your problems even if they don't 100% agree with you. (Note that most of the time the social protocol plays out like this: the troubled one should try to be somewhere between being impartial and/or blaming themselves, while the helper should try to be somewhere between being impartial and blaming the third party, i.e. occupying the opposite position on the spectrum at the same distance from zero. Oh society, you so weird.)
Another point to consider is that people are instinctively afraid of the unknown, and in case with people they don't know well—like yourself—they cling to the secondary indicators of one's well-being and integration into society; in no particular order: education, career, family, friends, wealth, health, fame (not to be confused with infamy). Having those in good order typically suggests that you are at least able to achieve/maintain those states/relationships, and thus can be trusted with responsibilities. Knowing that gives hope to the outsiders that you are well-enough integrated into society that the likelihood of you being dangerous to them, their endeavors, or their family is within the acceptable (for a near-stranger) bounds—if only because you have valuable things to lose if you decide to step on the wrong path. Having them in disarray, on the other hand, might indicate that you will eventually fail your responsibilities—even if by no ill will of your own—or even cause harm consciously. (It's sad, but that's how it works.) As such, you probably shouldn't announce the extent of your social problems at any point, or at least do so extremely carefully and in a way the other person can relate to, lest you scare them off right off the bat. You can veil the actual deficiencies by semantics; e. g. if you say you're socially anxious or that you're afraid of talking to people you're much more likely to raise a warning flag than if you say you're shy, which is basically the same thing expressed in a less-loaded way.
Thus your choice of words and tone in such talks is instrumental to your success in gaining clarity of the current situation and formulating further goals. Your best friends are open-mindedness, respect, and striving for self-improvement and resolving the conflict in the most peaceful way possible. If the other person can sense them coming from you, you should be able to win them over without being 100% honest about your psychological issues. At least to the point where you can extract useful information out of them and have a mutually pleasing talk in the process, which is what's needed.
Sorry if that was too much to digest at once. In any case, in order to help you get into the more constructive mindset, I recommend these two wonderful resources.
1. Alain de Botton's The School of Life YouTube short series on self and relationships. Lots of useful insights put in words easy to understand and relate to.
2. Tim Urban's WaitButWhyblog. Tim is perhaps the sharpest and most thorough person to ever write in a non-specialist blog, with articles routinely exceeding 10k (sometimes 20k) words because of his near-obsessive pursuit to get to the bottom of the chosen topic. Among other things, he's written some extremely insightful pieces on the nature of consciousness and social behavior (some good examples: 1, 2, 3, 4), all spruced up with good humor and numerous links to data sources.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Unjust things happen, even to the most diligent of us. They suck. Sometimes you can remedy them, sometimes you can't. Unless you have clear yet unused ways in mind to remedy the situation, dwelling on it probably is probably going to do you more harm than good. People who have affinity for depression or similar conditions tend to get stuck thinking about problems to the point where it continually reduces their ability to find and enact a solution.
I'm sure you want to know what it was in your behavior that set off this unfortunate chain of events, but it doesn't look like the people actually responsible for your "ban" are willing to inform you (...or they just don't like you, period), so it's unlikely that you'll find satisfactory answers there. If you have any allies in that organization, or parents that have expressed their sympathy towards you, you could try talk to them about your conflict with the kindergarten administration and see if they can offer you some new perspective (besides, talking itself can be hugely therapeutic). Now, reading up on your story, I see you've already considered that. What came of it, if anything?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
It's that time of the year again! The time of unending disappointment and a new round of stomach-churning mediocrity to be consumed and digested by yours truly.
But before that, a couple more notes on the previous season.
• Mob Psycho 100. My intuition didn't fail me: this was indeed the AotS. Lots of incredible trope subversion and the most impressive visuals I've seen since about Redline, too.
• Re:Zero. Still very decent but panders too hard to the shounen audience and loses the grit established in the first cour.
• Souma S2. Gets some enjoyable character development near the end... for like three episodes. Oh well.
• Orange. The protagonist girl has the personality of a doorknob and ruins an otherwise genuine show. Almost dropped it.
Let's move on to my new picks. From what I gather so far, there will be some genuinely fun stuff this time around.
Drifters. Saw the pilot; this is the raw action anime people have been waiting for—the real deal, none of the whiny boys nor limpdick zombies. Only swords, guns, fists, gore, and lots of general badassery. Knowing the author, I have reasons to believe it won't be dumb, either, which is a step above the typical action show.
Natsume Yuujinchou Go / Natsume's Book of Friends 5. I haven't yet caught up on all the previous seasons, but if it's as good as any of the first three, that's already excellent.
Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku / Magical Girl Raising Project (yes, sounds very cringeworthy). Started it because everyone said it tried its hardest to be like Madoka. But trying to imitate Madoka is silly, so it'll most likely either turn into an hilarious trainwreck or, less likely but not impossible, an unexpectedly good show—either of which is fine with me.
Bungo Stray Dogs S2. I know it's unfounded, but let's hope it'll be better than S1 because that one felt like it wasn't making use of its potential at all.
Nanbaka / The Numbers. Fabulous in all senses of the word. I expect some legit good comedy from this.
TO BE HERO. Nabeshin, the director of Excel Saga and Puni Puni Poemi, returns with a better superhero genre parody than the audience deserves. This will likely be the funniest short-form of the season.
Gakuen Handsome. Another short-form, this time an incredible yaoi parody. That teacher reveal... not for the faint of heart.
3-gatsu no Lion / March Comes in Like a Lion. Hasn't aired yet, but it's a seinen/SoL directed by Shaft's powerhouse Akiyuki Shinbou, and that guy knows his shit; I have no doubts this will be good.
Fune wo Amu. Not sure what to expect from this yet, but the premise seems good, and it's based on a novel (not light novel—actual novel) which is typically a good sign.
Here are the sub groups who have expressed the will to do these, if you're one of those retrogrades like me who generally prefer fansubs over official translations.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Hey Mugg, just dropping in to say you're a handsome dude, still pretty young, and children love you. That's more than what many people will ever have (again), so your situation is absolutely not hopeless.
I do agree with Samsara that not all psychologists/psychiatrists/psychotherapists (geez, there are seriously too many of those) are helpful. I dated a girl who, despite being a smart and talented person, struggled getting her life together; she couldn't even get a job that wouldn't stress her out immediately, and her luck with one-on-one counseling was... well, less than convincing. And before that I dated an actual psychologist-in-training and talked to a lot of her friends. It's pretty surprising how many psychologists get into the profession in an attempt to solve their own issues (and don't succeed at that, for the most part). So if you don't feel like there's any progress going on within the first few sessions, don't be shy to pull out and find somebody else. Group therapy is a decent option because that's also how you can potentially make some real-life friends, and that's usually helpful in either case.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
There is a long-standing precedent for harming powerup containers in a pacifist run: [1926] NES Contra (Japan) "pacifist" by Soig & zyr2288 in 09:29.08. There was a discussion about this at some point, but as far as I remember it quickly died down as most participants were in favor of the status quo. In case with NG there is probably (I'm not actually sure!) all the more point to using powerups to make the run different since in Contra it only served to make the run faster and, consequently, more like the any%. If you can somehow achieve the opposite using the powerups, well, more power to you. I'd be fine with either. Not using them is certainly the safer option, but in my opinion, use your informed judgment as to what would actually look and feel better throughout the entire run.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
What I ended up watching this season.
Ongoing
Re:Zero is gradually becoming better, though it has already started on a high note. Mild harem notions aside, it's one of the few successful attempts to deconstruct the premise of an everyday person ending up in a fantasy-themed world. And it doesn't pull its punches when showing the less desirable traits of the protagonist! Not on NGE's level of psyche exploration, of course, but good enough to be believable.
Mob Psycho 100. Clever and insightful satire from ONE, as expected, and amazing animation from Studio Bones, even better than expected! Well done all around.
Amaama to Inazuma / Sweetness & Lightning. It's much like Usagi Drop, except with blood-related father and daughter, and focused on... making food. Likable characters and their very natural interaction makes it one of the better SoL shows I've seen recently.
91 Days. A gritty Prohibition-era mafia drama from the studio that made Baccano and Durarara. Seems well-written and not at all insulting to the intelligence. I expect a nice plot twist coming up soon, so if any of you is going to watch this, better start now lest you get spoiled.
Shokugeki no Souma S2. It's exact same as S1, except with no characterization and more monster-of-the-week approach. If you like your cooking showdowns, you're going to have a blast, but if you're looking for more substance and less shounen porn, you probably won't find that here. I wouldn't bother, had I not liked the previous season.
Orange. Very slow and girly. I'm not sure if I like it, but there's nothing really bad about it except the glacial pace.
Onara Gorou. A brilliant short-form series straight from the bowels of Takashi Taniguchi, the man behind such acclaimed masterpieces as Mr Ando of the Woods, Salaryman Man, and, of course, Mukidashi no Mitsuko.
Bananya. Another short-form about a cat that lives in a banana peel, and his friends, who are also cats living inside banana peels. It's exactly what you'd expect from a description like that.
Berserk. A very, very poorly made adaptation of a best-selling manga that pales in comparison even to one made 19 years ago. I'm not even sure how you can fail so badly. But since it's the only adaptation of my favorite manga, I still have to witness it destroyed by the incompetent hands of whoever comprises the production committee. There's no excuse that Mob Psycho 100, a manga that barely anyone outside Japan knows, receives incredibly well-done animation by one of the premier studios, yet a worldwide phenomenon Berserk only gets low-budget 3D with unremarkable music, laughable sound effects, and... censored nipples (yes, in an R-rated series where 90% of the cast eventually gets tortured and/or brutally killed).
Older stuff
Monogatari series. I've watched all of it up to and including Kizumonogatari movie 1. Loved it! Great humor, very confident sense of style to the point where it becomes the substance, infinitely lovable and well-written characters, entertaining dialogue, extreme fanservice executed in such a deliberate and confident way that you can only applaud and say, "fucking this, THIS is how you do it". Kizu is more subdued in the latter regard, clearly more suited for cinematic experience. Can't wait for the other two parts and the final TV season.
Umineko no Naku Koro ni / When the Seagulls Cry. I'm about halfway through, and I still don't get what some people like about this show. In some rare moments it appears like an intelligent mystery series, but it takes only a few minutes to wash that impression away with how annoying and unnatural everyone and everything is.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I expected Nintendo to eventually act on this like they have on ROM sites and whatnot, but this was even quicker than I imagined. It's shameful, really. They haven't done anything decent with the franchise for our money in over ten years, and they prevent its fans from doing anything decent with it for free just as well.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
If it were up to me, and me alone, I would use the "heavy glitch abuse" tag as an umbrella term for RAM and save data corruption, ACE, generic hardware glitches like the DPCM, and other instances of (near-)total control originating from glitch abuse. And then I'd just make all the runs made that way completely separate from the rest of the runs so that the two groups never overlap in obsoletion chains. :p
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I can put it another way. There's a difference between zero and null. Zero is a valid number, null is absence of any valid entity. So, regarding completion, we have any% (fastest completion), 100% (full completion), 0% (lowest completion), but do we want to have null% (completion is for pussies) competing with those?
The problem is clearly and unambiguously defining the difference between any% and null%.
— We can't go by run length (absolute, relative, doesn't matter) because it would be an arbitrary variable which will bring more problems than it will solve.
— We probably can't go by glitch type or method, because in some cases the glitch in question is only triggerable 20-30 minutes into the run, and in others right at the start screen. This is arguable, though.
— We can't go by the amount of skipped content because 1) every speedrun skips some; 2) it's impossible to gauge precisely; 3) it's impossible to draw the line most people would agree with.
It might be that, regardless of the accepted publication/categorization paradigm, it will have to be decided manually by the judges, if only because every other mechanism is even less reliable.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Replay is alright imo. Many games with built-in input recording refer to the resulting files as replay files (Touhou Project engine games' .rpy files, for instance). The reason why I like it less is that it feels less specific to emulators and shares more context with videos and the act of playing the game again (that is, replaying it). It would likely be my second choice.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Well... you can talk candidly without being rude, right? I mean I value your honest opinions and would love to read them as well, and I'm pretty sure this is exactly what forums are for. This is a subject that potentially concerns all community members, and clearly, closed discussion is what it needs the least.
Though it's your call, of course.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
moozooh: MESHUGGAH is continuing work on a pacifist run, not an improvement to the published run. Personally, I wasn't sold on a pacifist run being submission-worthy until feos made some test runs and made clear that, done right, it would take full application of every little thing known about the game—including some stuff that just isn't relevant when you can kill everything.
As for any%, thanks to a couple recent finds from MESHUGGAH and feos, I've resumed my sporadic efforts of improving it and it's currently 65 frames faster (should be a few more by later today).
Ohh, I see now, thanks. Still, with all that knowledge, saving just over a second over a ten year old run for what I understand to be around 1/3 into the game signifies just how good the previous one was. Mid-2006 was just about when memory watch was only becoming popular here.
Anyways, good luck to both of you! I love this game and eagerly anticipate the upcoming runs.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Hmm... Please define "publication". I'm not entirely sure what exactly it is, in this context.
xxxxM.html and the videos located therein. After all they're presented a lot like actual movies, with video files, "box art", list of authors, description, subtitles, sometimes even a commentary, and whatnot. An input file is an input file, however. Right now the term "movie" refers both to the input file and the publication, which is supremely confusing because they're completely different things.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
So... What is wrong with moozooh's really well defined ... uhh ... definition?
Thanks, but I can even name one huge thing that is "wrong" with it myself: it doesn't involve the appreciation of gameplay that, while not crucial to labeling something a speedrun, is nevertheless crucial to deriving entertainment from it. That's where the complications arise. The entire history of speedrun communities is the history of compromises between that which is objectively quickest and that which is best subjectively appreciated, which is not at all always the same thing (especially when pushed to extremes where entire games are skipped). There will inevitably be grey areas involved that have no clear resolution.
That being said, I believe this to be the exact reason Warp has started the discussion in the first place: the gameplay appreciation bit that is lacking from any clear definition adopted so far, yet the one causing the most concerns with obsoletion chains, judgment decisions, categorization, and so on.
Perhaps we shouldn't touch the definition of speedrun per se but rather establish a clearer understanding of what the community and the site's preferences are with regards to them. In other words, what are the speedruns (or their goals, etc.) we appreciate the most ("we absolutely want more of such and such"), and what are the speedruns/goals we appreciate less ("such and such will do, but not at the expense of the rest"). Because changes in that understanding influence a LOT with regards to the content policy of the site and the work of its contributors, as has been seen over the years with "boring" speedruns and the changes that the introduction of the Vault, etc., has brought.
The other question is, of course, how would we do it without involving personal bias too strongly. Reconciling fans of moderate gameplay breakage with ACE/corruption fans is not a simple task, and it's clear their mindsets are very different. Not unlike the difference between mathematicians/theoretical physicists vs. inventors/engineers. One is chiefly focused on the fundamentals and theoretical limits, the other on practical implementation and its aesthetics. And there's clearly not enough unbiased statistics (eg. a statistically significant amount of well-understood entertainment rating scores from a large set of mostly the same people) to draw any automatic conclusions. I wouldn't be surprised if this discussion with all of its potential importance will end up hanging for several more years while the will and the resources for radical changes accumulate (or are drained, in the less fortunate case).
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Wow. I knew the TASes of this game were extremely well done back at the time of their submission, but to think it would be this difficult to improve upon a ten year old run by single frames is just crazy. :D
(Btw, good to know you're still posting here, MESHUGGAH.)
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
