It's the automatic script set up by Bisqwit that monitors the amount of peers needed for each movie. In case there are none, it doesn't seed anything, thus becoming a "1/2 seed".
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
This is very interesting. Movie rewind is a very useful feature by itself, and I would love to see it as well.
Will the v1 be fully useful without desyncs nor additional bugs?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I prefer a smiley quiz. What do these smileys mean?
O :-)
~~:-(
D|-|
:-:
@==[
{8^{l}
#1: A holy person; alternatively, a person living their last happy moment before they're hit by a falling rock.
#2: Very sad, perhaps gravely disappointed person; alternatively, someone disappointed with their poorly-made mohawk.
#3: A poorly designed happy doll; alternatively, a poorly designed wine glass.
#4: Маша! (Sorry, internal joke.)
#5: A hilt of a blade; alternatively, a dildo.
#6: Warp's face when coming up with the smileys.
How many hits/misses?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Please name some examples of such ritualistic morals. I found this question hard to answer.
Pretty much the entire set of rules of etiquette, starting from semi-mandatory to follow answer formulas to common questions (— "How are you?" — "Fine, thanks; how are you?" etc.) which are sometimes opposite to the person's condition, and concluding with certain ways of handling the silverware in restaurants. In other words, things you are expected to do in the modern society to not pass off as caveman, even if they don't bear their original or any functional value at all anymore.
Bisqwit wrote:
Theoretically speaking, one should always (I suppose) strive for the greater good. In practise, whether one is able to do it depends on many factors. One cannot really know until faced with such situation.
Well, I know it's difficult to say beforehand, but theoretically, what would you expect (or want) yourself to do in such situation, generally speaking?
I know I'm "passive" (hesitant, basically) and more prone to avoiding danger myself rather than doing some actions which will require bearing great responsibility. Since I'm inherently lazy, it's generally easier for me to accept a loss than to take certain actions to prevent it (though it doesn't mean I always decide to act this way).
Also, what about my last question? You're made no indication whether you are going to answer it or not.
moozooh wrote:
Imagine that you have a choice of either you or one of your relatives getting killed/raped/anything similar. Who would you choose? Can you endure something you panically fear or despise so that someone you value the most could remain safe?
Warp wrote:
Firstly, it assumes that if you do nothing you are choosing to let the 5 people die. In a real situation that would be *hesitation*, not a choice. You are not choosing absolutely anything, you are just hesitating because you don't know what to do. There's no morality there, just panic. Thus it would be completely unjust to interpret that in the way that you are *choosing* to let the 5 people die.
Hesitation eventually defaults to the choice of inaction (even if it is un-/semi-conscious: in state of emergency a human is doing what their instincts are telling them, hesitation is a result of an internal conflict between instincts and the brain's struggle to produce a rational solution through the debris of panic-induced thoughts), and the more is the time span between the realization of the jeopardy and its conclusion, the less of an excuse one has when it comes to reflecting upon the possible courses of action that could/should have taken place. In many countries, inaction can be considered a crime if it's proven that you've been a witness to the events yet decided not to do anything to prevent or stop them. It might depend on the definition of choice you are used to, but to me, a choice is a power to influence the event branch. Inaction will merely result in one of its possible resolutions, and as such, will be a valid choice in my book.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Actually, I think that quality of the original thread was diminished by people yelling at xebra much more so than just by xebra's posts. Even though pretty much everyone who ended up in this splitoff against xebra was eager to call him a troll, they failed to comply to the first rule of dealing with trolls: don't feed them.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I'd think it would boil down to personal indecisiveness, rather than having a connection to religion. Even if Bisqwit wasn't religious, I would have asked him this question regardless.
I think both ways are equally bad/good, however rationale differs in each case: by choosing inaction, one acts more selfishly, saving themself from responsibility and possible harm; by choosing action, one acts for the good of the majority, but by purposefully harming or gambling with the interests of minority (and/or, in some cases, themself).
Indeed a very interesting thing to ask, you know.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Bisqwit,
What are you commonly offended by? What common offenses generally don't affect you? (Inspired by Guybrush's question.)
I consider ethics a certain way of doing things that has lost its functional value; i.e., a certain action makes sense in the paradigm of the set of actions it belongs to, then after its purpose dies or is forgotten, people involved in this set of actions remain used to it and repeat it without thinking of the reason, effectively becoming a ritual (commonly excercised by high class society members). Do you share this opinion? Do you think ethics in this context is detrimental to various aspects of society relationships? Or any ritual (= tradition that has lost its functional purpose or has its meaning forgotten), for that matter? (For the record, I do.)
What would you choose, doing a thing you consider bad/wrong, but for greater good (for example, stealing a medicine for a badly ill relative when there is no other viable choice nor time to make enough money), or not doing anything at all? How far can you go in the first case? Would you kill someone (say, a terrorist) in order to protect the innocent?
This question might be tough. Imagine that you have a choice of either you or one of your relatives getting killed/raped/anything similar. Who would you choose? Can you endure something you panically fear or despise so that someone you value the most could remain safe?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Then why not implement these known improvements? The Metroid TASing community is large
If by "Metroid TASing community" you mean the list of people directly involved in making tasvideos-quality runs, then I have to disappoint you: as of now, it consists of about 5 players, with one of them (Hero of the day) working on an improvement to an any% TAS. All the others are already busy with their own projects.
That being said, "why not to implement these known improvements" is a good concern, but most (if not all) considerably large projects had known improvements in them at time of submission, including all the previous Super Metroid runs, including the current any%. That doesn't mean they were of bad quality, it's just that the game is versatile enough so that new tricks and strategies are found all the time. SM64 is another example of such game, with 6 any% runs being submitted over a year.
AKA wrote:
Not a justified reason and "hyhocrisy" as you would call it, a slower run cannot obselete the current one by having different goals, there must be a solid base for all future improvements
All the SM any% runs preceding Hero's aimed for ingame time. How the hell should a real-time run have obsoleted them, judging by your words?
Not to mention that similar situations happen all the time; here's a little selection out of the more recent examples:
movie #958: different difficulty, no damage run obsoleted the previous (the successive run could have been faster with the goal set identical to the previous run);
movie #948: different ROMs where characters have different abilities;
movie #945: Longer run with 2-players that contained a lot of speed/entertainment tradeoffs obsoleted a shorter run without them;
movie #859: a longer 100% run obsoleted any%;
movie #852: I think you remember the debates around this and the preceding movies yourself.
Where did the solid base go with those runs, huh? The goals were obviously different in them, yet the improvements were published, the common ground there being, from what I remember, higher technical quality (and in some cases entertainment). Indisputable, and fully understandable. Be aware that SM is no different from those games when it comes to appraising optimization quality, except it's even somewhat more conventient with there being a dedicated timer for in-game events. The solid base you are reffering to didn't change.
AKA wrote:
All the other three points were unjustified reasons to justify your third point which was your primary argument.
Even though it was primary, those points were merely illustrating how the case in question doesn't prevent publication in other cases, with the solid base and all the other things.
Do you want to continue?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
You see, that really isn't important given that its a different catagory, you could easily invest all that time and effort into a real time run.
Erm, wait a minute, why isn't it important? Yes, it's a different category and it's possible to implement the timesavers in a realtime-oriented run, but there is no new realtime-oriented run, and won't be for the time being. It doesn't make this submission of any less play quality.
AKA wrote:
Having two different runs would be too confusing for non-fans of the game.
And if you read the previous pages carefully, I didn't suggest having two runs. I suggested this one obsoleting the previous on grounds on being more optimized (and different, not simply "do all the same actions, just better").
Also, it seems you've ignored the other three points; they're supposed to work as a whole.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Even if it serves no useful purpose, it still doesn't explain why it's a negative thing. Are you saying you'd be happier if the status of Cpadolf's submission was changed to cancelled or rejected instead of published but nothing else changed?
Yes, since a rejection would be far less hypocritical. Publishing a movie means creating a separate page for it, with separate rating and links and other stuff, making it "published" in the site's database. "Half-publication", or as Truncated himself put it, "non-publication", is in all practical senses a rejection, just called differently not to needlessly aggravate the fans without having to state actual reasons for rejection (hence, hypocrisy).
As I understand it, the judges (at least those who had opinion on the matter) hesitated accepting it due to a different ("unwanted") goal set which made the movie longer in frame count than the current one. Not that it's a bad reason by itself, but provided the fact that it's, by far:
1) not the first movie with different goals to obsolete the preceding one;
2) not the first longer movie to obsolete the preceding one;
3) more optimized and up to date than the preceding one;
4) doesn't prevent a new movie with different goals to obsolete it,
it would be much preferred if the decision was justified. I don't have any problems with justified decisions. It wasn't. I've resigned myself, so you won't see me bickering with Truncated about it, but it doesn't make it any better in my book.
Does that answer your question?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
If it's a good movie and is otherwise worthy of publication, why is "half-publishing" it a negative thing? I do agree that there should probably be some note on the front page/published movies list about it.
Because having its status "upped" like that serves no useful purpose. Keep in mind that making a note in the published movie description would have been perfectly possible without having to "half-publish" this movie; we don't have to have a special permission for altering the description to include that kind of information, anyway.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
That's not a new trick, that's what I was talking about here. Abusing the turnaround animation will inevitably make a jump slower than if you'd make it one frame later; and to make the jump at that exact point, you need to have a certain pixel position to clear the ledge without hitting it while turning around. Unfortunately, that position is impossible to get faster than by running.
Try looking into the door entry from debris room into the elevator shaft. There might be a way to enter it via spinjump turnaround but without hitting the ledge in the next room. That will gain the frames needed.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
1) You know what I'm saying but you are deliberately nitpicking, just for the sake of argument.
2) You are stupid and you honestly don't understand what I'm saying.
Consider option #3: You make multiple ambiguous and/or opinionated statements and pose problems with no definitive solution, use them in your arguments that you yourself start so often, and hope me to understand what's on your mind and how to deal with that, then grasp for a straw to avoid the questions I directly asked you.
Have a nice day.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I'd prefer testing against bsnes's output. So far it's the most accurate SNES emulator, and since we're talking about emulators and their timing, it's probably a way to go (not to mention that it doesn't require any additional hardware nor having to rely on any third parties).
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
That's a perfectly unambiguous condition… not. Who is it up to to define sense then?
Warp wrote:
A run *with a certain goal* is undisputably faster than another run *with that same goal* if the former uses less frames. Two runs of the same game with *different* goals cannot be compared.
That sounds good, except such a comparison takes place all the time, because different players have different goals in mind, and they don't want to change them only because the original author made their movie earlier. There is no way to avoid comparisons. I have already proposed a solution to such problems, and apparently, many movies in the past were published on similar grounds.
Warp wrote:
For the border cases, let the voters and judges decide.
The problem with that is that a fair number of voters (and to some extent, judges as well) follow a certain mindset similar to what I've been talking about earlier: obsession with numbers and goalset conflicts, talks about whether it is right or wrong for the site's standards, etc. — instead of appraising quality and entertainment value of the run within its own goal set (which is what the workbench forum was created for, or so I thought).
Warp wrote:
If it didn't aim for the fastest time to achieve those goals, it can hardly be called a speedrun. However, if it wastes time for no good reason (not even for entertainment purposes) then I wouldn't call it flawless either.
Well it did aim for fastest time within that goal set. The question is, however, if such a set is acceptable by itself.
Another question is whether anyone should concern themselves with goal sets at all. On one extreme, we'll be led to unified and strict rules for all games, which is bad. On another, to abundance of variations in goal sets for games that allow many of them, so that it's hard to decide which existing movie to compare a new submission to, and all problems related to that, which is also bad. Where/how to find balance?
Warp wrote:
Now you are introducing some new definition to the concept of "superplay": A run is not a "superplay" if it's "boring". That's a rather fuzzy definition, I would say.
Nope, I don't. If you look at the definition above, you'll see that I said its main goal is to showcase skill-related stuff. If it purposefully chooses an easier route, it's a bad superplay — nothing less, nothing more. I didn't introduce boring-entertaining dichotomy, it's all within the original definition. If it takes no skill (or at least considerably less skill) to run through an easier route, the superplay loses its value. Even for an extreme case like Front Line, I can assume a possibility of a superplay — as long as it doesn't complete the game by doing what a speedrun would do.
Warp wrote:
I'll have to elaborate or else I'm wrong? That doesn't make any sense.
Basically, with the amount of of ambiguity posed by some of your statements, I'm free to interpret your words to my heart's content and use them against you any time until/unless you state what exactly did you mean.
QdQ runs don't encompass every possible category, yet provide more categories than would probably get accepted here. From what I gather now, you're saying that for a speedrun, any restriction in any amount goes as long as it's logically justified. By "logically justified", I assume that it can be freely disputed using logical arguments which create neverending debates locked in a loop by inherent errors in the theory of logic itself, and humans' inherent subjectivity. How do you plan on dealing with that? Obviously, it's not very hard for you because you're not a judge, but what if you were?
And you still haven't stated your definition of a speedrun, anyway. I'm curious as to how exactly it corresponds with the site's proposed goals and the current metaconditions for publishing.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
First of all, you're focusing on time again. Note that I'm talking about superplay — something you wanted somebody to define — which doesn't by default imply fastest completion.
I'm not *focusing* on speed. I'm saying that wasting time for no reason is a flaw. Thus a flawless run cannot do that.
You're not focusing on speed. You're focusing on time. Reread your sentence and find the word "time". You're focusing on it. Reread my proposed definition and my post after it. Compare it with what you just said.
Warp wrote:
That's simply not true. Speedruns can have different goals. Just go look at the myriad of QdQ speedruns. Would you not call the hard-mode QdQ a speedrun simply because it's not as fast as the easy-mode QdQ? Of course not. The former is also a speedrun because it tries to complete the game as fast as possible, with a specific goal (complete it using hard mode).
What about ingame time as one of the goals then? Doesn't look particularly worse to me than perversions like Quake done Chopped. :P
Of course I acknowledge all these categories as valid for speedrunning; I'm a highly lenient person after all.
Warp wrote:
Speedrunning an alternative route is still speedrunning even if the other route is faster.
This is begging a question: how to define alternative routes, and what routes to take so that the speedrun wouldn't lose its value? What if there are alternative routes inside one room, maybe inside each room (often seen in puzzle games like Mighty Bomb Jack)? What constitutes sloppy play in this context?
Warp wrote:
Why is it that every single time this issue comes up, someone will draw this "a speedrun has only one goal" card? It's just not true. Not in the regular speedrunning community nor here.
Because it's the only "objectively measurable" result?
I don't really understand. To you, a run is undisputably faster if it uses less frames. What's the point of a longer run then? Why even bother publishing it?
Also, how many goals does a speedrun have, and how many can it have before it becomes a superplay by the above definition?
Example. Dragonfangs's first Metroid Fusion 0% TAS done for m2k2 community aimed for traversing each room in most impressive ways and taking no damage. Is this a speedrun? What would you say if such a run was submitted here?
Warp wrote:
Besides, why would a "superplay" automatically choose the other route? Would the shorter route not be a "superplay"?
Because there's nothing interesting in the shorter route. You can't get to showcase your skill in the linear, easier route — be it tool-assisted or otherwise. Otherwise it would be a bad superplay. But likely a good speedrun — assuming it "aims for fastest time". Otherwise it fails to accomplish that, doesn't it? Or are we talking about speed/entertainment tradeoffs here?
Warp wrote:
Perhaps *your* definition of "speedrun" is like that. However, it's not the definition of the speedrunning community. Just go to the QdQ site.
What is yours then; is it something other than "complete the game in shortest time possible"? If you extend it to "complete the game in shortest time possible with additional restrictions put on it", I'm afraid you'll have to elaborate on the restrictions and which of them are or aren't acceptable. So far I've elaborated on everything you asked me, so do the same.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
When describing the process that a human can do but not a TAS bot try to be as specific as possible.
A human can eat. When humans eat, they take a fork and a knife, cut the food into small pieces, then pierce them with a fork and put in their mouth. In case it's impossible to pierce the food, they use a spoon, or use a fork as they would use a spoon. After food arrives into mouth, humans start grinding it with their teeth until the food becomes a soft mass. Then they swallow it, and the food goes through digestive tract. After the food is fully digested, it's ejected out of anus in form of fecal matter.
A TAS bot cannot eat.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
In the vast majority of games I have hard time thinking about a definition of "flawless" which would not include "don't waste any time". After all, if you are going to make the run slower than it could be, you will be wasting frames doing nothing on purpose. You could as well not waste those frames in order to make the run better, more flawless. (And if wasting the frames was not made on purpose then it would simply be sloppy play.)
First of all, you're focusing on time again. Note that I'm talking about superplay — something you wanted somebody to define — which doesn't by default imply fastest completion.
Imagine a game with two routes to take, one is shorter, linear, and easier; second is longer, twisted and harder. Obviously a superplay would go with the second route because it allows more interesting stuff to showcase. Speedrun is confined to the first, since time is its primary objective. This generic distinction is exactly what makes the difference and exactly what makes Xkeeper so sad. Superplay purposefully chooses more interesting ways of doing stuff, whereas such a choice doesn't stand for a speedrun (which is actually a problem of speedruns).
However, if the site was absolutely truthful to this ideology, it wouldn't contain such restrictions as "play on hardest difficulty" or such a category as "no damage". Guess why? Because these restrictions are there to increase entertainment value, i.e. make it less of a "speedrun" and more of a "superplay", because it's obvious that easier difficulty will allow faster completion in vast majority of cases, much as taking damage (except games that offer no benefit from taking it).
This poses an inherent controversy in definition of the site's goals, since the FAQ pages claim that "entertainment" and "art" are primary objectives, which are, as seen from the above example, not always feasible if shortest input time is the primary goal of a player. Of course it's easy to deny all that and just go with "lowest frame count = absolute win, period", but seeing as many improvement runs have been rejected on grounds of being not entertaining enough, it's still true that such statement would be just wrong (and I'm very glad it is).
Warp wrote:
Even in games where goal is not a pure "minimize the number of frames to complete the game" time is still not wasted for nothing. Even when implementing the goal no time is wasted. The goal is performed as fast as possible, without wasted frames, without sloppy play. Thus it can be defined as a speedrun (with a specific goal). Wasting frames for nothing would be a flaw.
Define "nothing" now.
For example, as seen in my Super Metroid low% test run WIPs, I shoot many enemies. Shooting many enemies creates small (literally unnoticeable — around 3-5 frames per room) amount of realtime lag. It is a tradeoff between realtime frame count and entertainment, which can only be avoided by not shooting any enemies at all. I want this run to be different from others, so I purposeful spend these frames on something they don't do and would never do, something that is easily noticeable (unlike the handful of lag frames) and is arguably more entertaining than just running, which you have already seen in all the other runs. Does that constitute sloppy play yet? Keep in mind that I pay much attention to style and other entertainment factors, being truthful to the site's proposed goals.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
