For what it's worth, nobody cares about absolute values of realtime frames/commands/actions/etc., because there is simply no reference frame. If you spend some of them on options, it's one hundred percent fine because all future runs will have to do likewise anyway. Now if we were talking in-game time, which is highly competed (and thus you have absolute reference), then it would make sense. But options screen doesn't count towards those.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
If an option can be implemented/switched on during gameplay, it should be done during gameplay — the more transparent option-fiddling is, the better. This way you won't need an accompanying text file saying what options were used — that can be inferred from the video.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
it's clear that normal play wouldn't be anywhere near as smooth or fast.
Unfortunately it's also clear that normal play would be able to get about 3x as many points. :(
I'll vote yes because I enjoyed it, but playing score-em-ups for speed just doesn't sit well with me.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Personally, I stopped any attempts to understand this game. I think Alucard is actually reading my thoughts every time I hear his "WHAT?" from my headphones. Grunt's encode also has fun sound glitches here and there that add to my confusion.
Anyway, I'd like to see more of it. :)
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
SVN is a system that allows files to be changed by any number of users with revision histories, diffs, and so on. Think wiki. Adelikat and a few others have been using it for some time to collaborate upon difficult projects where several authors chip away at stuff rather than do portions exclusively. If there was a best way to finish this run without waiting for Spoofer to return, that would likely be it.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
This is, by far, the most daring and optimized RBO I have seen to date, and abandoning it would be a crime. But not upholding the optimization standard it has set would also be a crime (I'm very judgmental today!), so I'm sure it should become a collaborative project of some sorts, so that all experienced players could participate and polish this run. SVN, anyone?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Is it possible to shuffle the RNG without advancing the in-game clock? How?
Oh wait, I guess I misunderstood what ais523 had said earlier. I was under the impression that you could shuffle the RNG by waiting for a certain amount of real-time frames between turns. If it's not the case and all the manipulation takes turns, I see no problems at all with minimum-turns any% runs.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
You don't have to edit the video file, you can change its framerate from the default 60 (or whatever it is for JPC) to, say, 2 — at 60 fps turn #2000 will happen a bit more than half a minute after the start. Or make it variable.
I'm not really competent at NetHack (I've always preferred ADoM myself), but for me, minimum turns glitched & non-glitched sound like good categories precisely because the game is turn-based. I don't know how much freedom exactly this game allows — there are other classic challenges to be attempted once at least one run is complete so we could see how it turned out.
The fact that you can shuffle the RNG almost infinitely every frame in an in-game time-oriented run worries me, though, because that means, the author either has to settle with "good enough" results all the time (such thing works, but is rather wonky), or come up with arbitrary restrictions ("aims for minimum turns except when they take too long" may be a problem during judgment).
Subtitles are a must in any case, of course.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Wow, there's already a topic for this? I guess I should be vocal then.
DarkKobold wrote:
One thing that has come to my attention is the amount of infrastructure work that Nach puts into the site, that goes largely unnoticed by the community.
henke37 wrote:
But is that enough to consider removing him? Definitely not.
scrimpeh wrote:
Sure, you may not like his methods or the way he acts, that may be the case with everyone, but strip him from his judge powers?
Derakon wrote:
My personal opinion is that Nach is abrasive, probably unnecessarily so, but not to the point that he should be punished for it.
Sorry if I disrupt your argument, but it looks like you guys consider judging to be a privilege of sorts?.. One that is granted as a reward for hard work on the site, including aspects that have nothing to do with playing games?
Sorry, but it's just a task, like any other task at the site, and should be treated as one. You're either suited for it or you aren't. If you're suited for one task, it doesn't mean you're equally suited for another. This is really, really simple, and there's nothing personal with that, no grudges or crucifictions involved. Nach is a good coder, he has his merits in that field that anybody knowledgeable enough admits, but he's still a poor judge, so I don't see why he should continue doing this. Moreover, there never was a reason for him to be a judge in the first place, so you can't "punish" him by "demoting" him back to an admin (now doesn't that sound funny).
DarkKobold wrote:
However, it falls on Nach's head to be the unpopular judge, and reject it. He serves a purpose, and does his job well.
I don't see how we need a "scapegoat judge", the very notion seems absurd. You are an author. What would you want to see from the person who appraises the fruit of your labor? You want them to be competent, and you want their competence to show either by documented experience or the amount of help and constructive criticism they're providing to other authors, right? You probably want this person to be easy to communicate with, one that would be able to tell you what you've done wrong without mockery or disguising personal preference with the more arbitrary rules? You don't want your work to be judged by somebody who doesn't fit the description but is easy to hate, do you? Cause that's just disrespectful.
I guess I just described a perfect judge that doesn't exist, but in my opinion, Nach barely fits any of the aspects anyway. Moreover, I'm sure we have quite enough judges to take on the submission rate without much pressing.
I would have listed all the submissions where I thought Nach has done inappropriately as a judge, but I'm not writing a log of his mishaps, and asking that from my memory would be too much. I do remember telling both Nach and adelikat on a number of occasions that I didn't see a reason for the former to be a judge, while I did see the reasons why he should not.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Guys, I know we don't like both Saturn and the amount of Super Metroid on the site, but couldn't you, you know, watch a different run and appreciate it for what it is, for once, before voting "no"? This is actually a cool run, and even if it doesn't offer anything substantially new compared to what we already have published, it's still a cool run. Thanks for releasing it! I enjoyed it. Voting No.
On topic, though, speedy rejections are a very bad thing for the site's image, because the fact that some submissions aren't even considered for publication puts (anti-)favoritism and dire bureaucracy TASVideos has grown to be so infamous for in the past to the front. Which of you want to deal with that? Which of you doesn't know how any incident can become an ugly mess real quick?
All submissions should be considered, except plagiarized ones, because even when they don't follow the standards, they help us keep these standards dynamic and formulate exceptions that eventually give birth to more and better material.
And no submission should be left without a signed, properly explained reason for rejection, period. What I see above is cowardly and inexcusable. Whoever did that should just stop judging. I suspect it's Nach, though, whom I suggested to stop judging months ago. :D
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Some considerations.
Difficulty could either be merged into Goal (because it's a part of the goal set) or Mode (because it's a setting you decide upon before playing the game).
Restrictions could be merged into Goal, because they are a part of the goal, and not meeting them suggests that either a different goal choice is needed, or the run is technically inconsistent (and is thus judged by merits of optimization).
Sync could be merged with Emulation, and that should probably be renamed to Software, because those are both software problems not pertaining to games per se, and sync stability is primarily a problem of emulators unsuitable for the site. This one is probably the most obvious change, as reflected by, say, Star Control 2.
Plagiarism could be merged into Unauthorized, because plagiarized runs are those submitted without authorization. This one also feels obvious to me, and it gets rid of the additional negative connotations.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
It's pretty cumbersome to track wiki edits and publication maintenance items via the main site, at least for editors that actually try doing that instead of accidentally stumbling upon them (I know I stopped because of that very reason).
Can we have a separate RSS feed with combined content of FullRecentChanges and MovieMaintenanceLog? That would help a lot, and in more ways than one.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
The link doesn't start the download of the .fm2 file, it just shows a page with a lot of info. Is it supposed to be this way?
If you mean the whole page is filled with loads of text data, that means the browser didn't interpret the content type correctly. Either go back and use "save as" on the link, or let the page load completely and save it as filename.fm2.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Really cool TAS. Your lag reduction was so competent the slowdown didn't bother me at all! Also, I already forgot how cool the music was in this game.
While a well-deserved yes vote is heading your way, what will be your next project?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I actually support things Arc is talking about. I like seeing general ideas behind stylistics (like dancing to the music) as opposed to spur of the moment stuff, although that, of course, is still much better than twitching or doing things that are otherwise boring.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
