I'm sure at least some of the pre-game arcade game demos are TASes. I mean the demos played while "Insert coin" is flashing on the screen.
I tried to remember a single one that wasn't average at best, and even asked some of the knowledgeable people, but couldn't find any. I'm sure none of them were deliberately played close to the limits—let alone above—of human abilities, because that wouldn't look inviting for newcomers.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Have you tried reading the Hourglass development thread? I'm probably wrong, but this question was asked, like, every two pages. There is no short answer.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
All it takes is one guy who knows enough about programming to download the source code, comment out the "turn off tool-assistance" statement, and recompile and your extra legitimacy for non-assisted runs is damaged. Or a more tech-savvy person to figure out the change to the file format and convert an actual TAS to the "this file wasn't cheated I swear" format. I think it might actually be worse to pretend that such BizHawk runs are "legitimate" than it would be to recognize that there's no such thing as verifiable legitimacy in this area -- you'd build up an expectation that people aren't cheating, which would surely be subverted by some asshole at some point. Result: massive drama.
I've edited my post above, so you might want to revisit it. First of all, claiming legitimacy never was my intention; however, it is logically deduced that something that is harder to tamper with is less likely to be a fraud. There is no contradiction or a leap of logic with it. Even simple anti-idiot measures you pile up on this can significantly reduce the probability. The one guy in your example is one guy who has the expertise to find the needed portion of the code, commenting it out and compiling the emulator; and even then he can fail by not concealing his cheating well enough. The more knowledge and effort is required to cheat, the less worthwhile it becomes.
There are replay collections that, despite scrutiny associated with them, technically allow for an insignificant amount of cheating: SDA with its verification system, MARP with its moderators and confirmation system, Royalflare, and so on. All of these are self-regulating communities that assume good faith in their contributors, having no way to tell with 100% confidence whether somebody has cheated. But none of them are deemed untrustworthy because of it, and none of them have failed in their mission either. I find this fact telling.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
You could actually dig a bit deeper with this. The main reason people who dislike ".tas" do so is because purportedly unassisted replays would look bad, misleading. or otherwise inappropriate with such an extension. However, I believe nobody who has opposed .tas so far is against having such extension for actual TASes.
So what I propose instead is adding a checkbox to the movie recording dialog, "block tool-assistance" (or just "block tools"). If checked, it will write a file with a different extension and a different header, so that simple extension change or copypasting movie content wouldn't be enough to pass one type of replay as another. As per the actual effect, it will, as the name implies, block hotkeys and grey-out menu items for slowdown, savestates, pause button, frame advance, and possibly Lua scripts; i.e. tools that can be used to cheat.
I didn't come up with this—it's pretty much identical to MAME's default behavior for replay recording. It won't be a bullet-proof anti-cheating measure, sure, but it will make it much harder to tamper with replays mid-recording, and will at least limit the cheating users of BizHawk to smart and extremely tech-savvy people, who would likely not partake in such activities anyway. This way people who claim their replays to be unassisted will enjoy additional credibility, and those who don't will have no problems using the normal .tas extension either. I could see an additional side-effect to this option being BizHawk's better popularity in communities dedicated to unassisted play, especially considering it's a multiplatform emulator.
[EDIT]
Some more clarification. MAME's input recording mechanism (and particularly its WolfMAME fork) has been established by various gaming communities to be a sufficient—not absolute or even highly authoritative!—anti-cheating measure because it makes it very hard to use tools such as the slowdown, and if any slowdown (like from a slow CPU) is used, it will be indicated and visible. WolfMAME doesn't claim itself to be an efficient anti-cheating measure, but its audience agrees on the benefits of making cheating harder. Because the harder you make it, the less worthy it will be to cheat in the first place, and thus the amount of potential cheaters shrinks from pretty much everyone to a very small group of people who understand precisely how to do it, can, and are willing to. As I noted in my bike lock analogy, something as simple as a bike lock divides people into two groups: those who carry bolt cutters with them, and everybody else. A simple measure like this doesn't eliminate the probability of theft, but still reduces it by orders of magnitude to acceptable levels.
Compressing the non-.tas replay file can further help reducing cheaters' capability to tamper with it, as the easy input editing has no possible benefits outside of TASing.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Would using three players help in any way? The lead character could scroll the screen at constant pace while the other two would pick up bones with minimal interruption.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Basically, how I would envision it.
simplified rating
What you see before rating: a gauge representing the average rating with a numerical value on the right.
How to rate: the gauge becomes active on mouseover; a single click will pass the mark limited to 11 possible values (0–10).
What you see afterwards: the gauge will represent the combined rating by default and your marks on mouseover (like on IMDB).
detailed rating
What you see before rating: a gauge representing the average rating with a numerical value on the right and a link to see the detailed rating.
How to rate: on mouseover, the gauge will split into two active gauges stacked vertically; you pass the mark by clicking on each (with limited precision) or entering the precise value in the small text box to the right, akin to what we have (but possibly without the dropdown lists).
What you see afterwards: the gauge will represent the combined rating by default and will split into two representing your marks on mouseover.
We can possibly just go with the latter option without making it a user preference; it's still simpler and more inviting than what we have.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I support the idea, but on one condition: it should still be possible to vote on entertainment and tech quality separately and view them as such—whether by some kind of user preferences or 1-2 clicks away, that I don't care about. The separate votes' effect on the combined rating won't have to be changed, either.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Oh, that would be a lot more simple if the community wasn't so uneven in its preferences in the first place. If you make a divisive decision it always has the potential to benefit some and fuck over the rest.
What everything seems to prefer, however, is for such decisions to be taken respectfully; i.e. with much consideration and constructive dialog on both sides. None of this "don't bother; your arguments don't matter" bullshit, have some bloody shame.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I do think the name is silly, but for me not offensively so. I don't care if it's changed as long as it's top result on Google.
I also want to address some things said here.
DarkKobold wrote:
No, no they did not [make it for the community].
[...]
BizHawk is NOT part of tasvideos, and should be treated as such.
I haven't been following closely, but what were the plans for BH being the official emulator of TASVideos and gradually ousting all/most other rerecording emulators used here about? Is that still relevant? Because these ideologies don't mix well.
(Btw, "such" in your line refers to "part of TASVideos"; you probably meant to say "shouldn't be treated as such".)
Nach wrote:
Your arguments are worthless
Thanks Nach, that's exactly the reassuring thing we all wanted to hear.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Watch the video, it shows how much the timing differs between ZSNES, SNES9x and bsnes (note that in the beginning, ZSNES is sometimes earlier than SNES9x).
Wtf, ZSNES fails even static images.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I think Warp's gripe in this case is more with wording than estimating a threshold. A 17 y.o. person can be underage, but calling them a child makes no more sense than if they were a 30 y.o.
Edit: Damn, nice sink.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
If you find 17 years olds sexually attractive (as an adult), you are a sick and have committed a felony in your heart.
???
There are plenty of sexually attractive 17 year olds. I don't and won't consider that a "felony in the heart" because physiologically they're well developed for sex, and many are having it right and left at that age. The main reason I don't want to deal with them as an adult is that, barring rare exceptions, they're stupid and/or immature.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I think it's because a phrase such as "underage porn" doesn't have a nice enough ring to it. "Child porn", on the other hand, has only two syllables—but what power!
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
No, when you pay taxes you expect the value to return to you in form of health care and other social benefits. With charities, you don't expect value to return in any way that would benefit you.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
