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Chamale wrote:
Dang... My revised theory is now that Birdo is hit and dies, but respawns anyway. But maybe it's possible to ride the Shyguys to the Birdo stage. Better yet, maybe there's a vine glitch to get to the Birdo stage.
Killing Birdo is immaterial; you just need to collect the pearl (or whatever) at the end. And Birdo respawns if you go off the screen anyway, so there's nothing special about that. Unless the "stairway" glitch is going to transport you to another level or part of the same level, it's pretty useless. Killing things offscreen is amusing, but not very useful to a speed run.
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I bought this game last week, and so I felt better equipped to watch this movie. I must say it was vastly entertaining now that I know, for instance, what the crap those little bombs do (from Crashman). Anyway, great job on this; it was awesome.
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adelikat wrote:
Tmont, sounds like you read and saw what you wanted to.
I'm not attacking anyone. I did come into the run with a prejudice against two-player runs, and unforunately, this run did not break that prejudice. I'm sorry if you feel like I didn't give your run a fair evaluation; I thought I expressed my reasons pretty fairly. Note that many of the reasons I listed in my first post were what I don't like about two-player runs in general. Some of the things I don't like about two-player runs showed up in this run.
Lag was just one of many reasons listed here. Had there been no lag, it still would have been a sub-optimal choice.
I know, I did read the submission text. I said effective strategies are bypassed due to lag. An effective strategy was bypassed due to lag (and other reasons). It wasn't abundantly clear to me from your submission text that the default gun was faster than the spread gun in those particular instances; I guess I didn't read close enough.
I don't see how you can think 2 player runs are less entertaining. 2 players = more strategy, more action, and more difficult TASing scenarios. I could have finished a 1 player run in a fraction of the time it took me to do this run.
I don't see why time and effort expended should have any bearing on a run's entertainment value. I gleamed from your submission text that you spent a lot of time making minute improvements (adjusting for smaller jumps on the waterfall level, for example), and while that's commendable, from a viewer's perspective, that doesn't make the run any more entertaining: it just makes it shorter. In the case of Contra, I'm not sure there's enough strategy, aside from choosing what gun to shoot with, to make a two-player run's strategic decisions that much more entertaining than a one-player run's. I'm not saying no strategy was implemented in the making of this run, I'm just saying it's not perceptible enough to make me think the second player wasn't wasted. Also, I don't think there's more action, since in general, both players are shooting at the same time, and often jumping at the same time. I saw that you took different paths when possible, but that's not enough for me to get excited about this run.
It was very well made, but I just don't see the appeal of using two players, other than the challenge of making it. At any rate, my vote is moot, but I voted based on what I liked and disliked about the movie, not what I did or did not read in the submission text. I tired to explain my rationale in an unbiased and informative way, but I clearly failed.
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Truncated wrote:
>... usually effective strategies (i.e. two players with spread) are bypassed because of lag.
This is not the reason, if you read the description. The spread is slower than the regular weapon for the base levels.
the description wrote:
dual spread guns is sub-optimal for the two base levels due to lag
I assumed that meant that the normally effective strategy of using spread was bypassed because of lag. Unless we're misunderstanding each other.
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I vote meh. I find two-player runs in general to be boring, as usually effective strategies (i.e. two players with spread) are bypassed because of lag. Also, the second player a lot of the time turns out to be superfluous, in that it's necessary to intentionally kill him off because having two players on the screen at that point is bad, and to me, if you're intentionally getting rid of the second player at any point, a two-player run seems unneeded.
As for Contra, watching one player decimate all the enemies is way cooler than watching two players doing it. When one player does it, it looks amazing and unbelievable; when two players do it, it's more believable because, well, there's twice as many bullets. Also, I hate how on occasion both players align and it looks like there's only one player, or how both players are doing the same thing at the same time, so it makes it seem like having the second player is worthless.
In summary, I don't really like two-player games. I don't think Contra benefits from having two players instead of one; in fact, I think it suffers. Very well-made run, though.
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For what it's worth, someone made a "tool-assisted" speed run of Pitfall! (link) over a year ago. I think he just hacked the ROM (no savestates, etc.), although I didn't ever really look at it. And, of course, that score has been matched by two or three people on a console, so it's not that impressive anymore.
There aren't a whole lot of 2600 games that have an end. Of the ones that do, I can't think of any that would be interesting to watch. Except maybe Adventure. That dragon is hilarious. And it would be nice to see someone totally rock that damn bat.
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The javascript used to show the tabs seems to have suddenly broken a few days ago (in IE7, anyway). I don't know if it has anything to do with the updated code, but that's about the time when I noticed it. It still works in Firefox and Opera.
I know some people have a predisposed notion to hate IE no matter what the cost, but the tabs have never been a problem before.
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adelikat wrote:
A low record count of course doesn't prove that there wasn't massive luck manipulation, but it is a reasonable assumption. And were aren't talking a little low. Comparable length rpg's have 10x more.
I still think you're missing my point (even though you were responding to someone else). Comparing this game to a turn-based RPG like Dragon Warrior or Final Fantasy is, in my opinion, an act of lunacy. Crystalis is not turn-based, and there aren't any forced encounters (besides bosses and stuff). I think most of us can agree that most of the rerecords in RPGs are a result of avoiding forced encounters and manipulating critical hits (and other stuff, too, of course). Since this game doesn't have either of those, I don't see the reason why even comparing rerecords in two such dissimilar games is relevant. You seem to be suggesting that because they're in the same genre (and I'd argue about Crystalis being called an RPG) they should be compared trait by trait. If you want to compare two games that way, then you should compare two games that are similar, instead of two games that are different (like say, Zelda II and Crystalis). But I'm of the opinion that rejecting a run even partially based on the reason that it doesn't compare favorably to another run is stupid (unless they're the same game).
It is certainly possibly for me to reconsider the verdict of a submission, but I haven't heard any compelling reason to do so.
The only compelling reason I can think of for reconsidering the verdict would be that the current run is trash and and this is one is played more optimally with more glitches, despite its greater length. No offense to TheAxeMan, but that run is pretty old, and it shows.
Keep in mind that I'm not trying to convince you to reverse your decision; I'm trying to get you to explain your reasons, which I thought were uh... misinformed. Comparing this game to Final Fantasy makes me wonder if you even watched it, and quite honestly, that kind of pisses me off.
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Interesting.
I'm not posting this because I disagree (well, I kind of do), or because I dislike someone. I didn't make this run really, really hoping that I would be lucky enough to have it published here. I made it because I wanted to see how fast the game could be beaten perfectly.
boring if you haven't played the game, and few people have.
Yeah, I guess. I'd argue the "few" part, though. It was released worldwide, and there was a remake, so it's not that unpopular.
there is luck manipulation but no where near the ammount present in many of the published rpg's. Compare the 2500 re-record count to say that of ff1 (25k), dw2 (21k), dw4 (110k). The ridiculous luck manipulation is the life blood of an entertaining rpg TAS. This isn't exactly an RPG but fits mostly into the category.
In my opinion, this is not relevant in any way. If this run had over 100k rerecords, it would not make it any more impressive or interesting. Even if there was insane luck that was manipulated as a result of those extra 98,000 rerecords, the run would not be made more interesting. Luck manipulation is not a prerequisite for entertainment, nor are rerecords. It irritates me that this movie would even be judged by its rerecords. I used 1/8 of the rerecords TheAxeMan did, and made a superior (in my opinion) movie. And you tell me that's one of your reasons for rejection. If one of the DW movies were obsoleted by a movie with fewer rerecords, would that make it less entertaining? Or that the luck was any less manipulated? This run had a small number of rerecords because I know this game probably better than anyone else in the world, not because I didn't manipulate luck very well, or didn't manipulate luck that much in general.
While controversial, we have a "wild warps" run to satisfy the craving of the few who love & want to see a run of this game
I'm not going to argue whether that run deserves to be on the site because of the rule-breaking stuff. I think offering a subpar movie (it's been bested [incompletely] by both myself and TheAxeMan) with less glitches is not the answer to catering to people who crave a run of this game. At a site where glitches are glorified (by most), this disappoints me.
Even most of the yes voters metnioned it being boring but either wanted it to replace the current run or should be published anyway.
I don't see this as a reason for rejection. I see it as grounds for accepting it and letting it melt to the bottom of the queue to be encoded when one of the encoders is bored like many other runs do. And I think most of the yes voters said it was boring in places, not boring in general.
Obviously there isn't a great demand for this run. Obviously it's boring in places. Maybe it doesn't deserve a place on this site (I don't really care). I just wish your reasons for rejection were better than this (I do appreciate that you wrote out your reasons, though).
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adelikat wrote:
For the record, the previous run destroys those tanks as well.
I don't think that's a good enough reason to warrant not avoiding them. Other runs have been published (like the "100%" Kid Icarus run) that didn't seem to completely accomplish their goals, and I think the previous run suffered from the same problem (probably because no one thought about trying to avoid the tanks). Since this run seems to have gotten accepted without resolving this issue, I'm voting no. The run was entertaining and well-optimized, but this seems like a rather glaring error if this is labeled as a "Pacifist" run (nothing personal). For the record, for a run labeled as pacifist, I'd like to see something clever and unexpected like killing yourself to avoid killing others. The ultimate sacrifice for the true pacifist. :)
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adelikat wrote:
Gross. Not sure what to think about that. I guess I could just die and move past them :/ I'd probably rather just redo the end and add a few frames to avoid the death and call it a no-death run. Well, I don't like that option either.
Why did you have to go and complicate things? ;p
Sorry. :)
That probably sounded like nonsense but it is my best attempt at explaining the damn thing :p
That nonsense you just spouted is probably the reason why I never figured it out myself. I wonder if it's consistently duplicatable on a console...
Thanks for the answers. Oh, and the run's good and stuff.
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I was so ready to vote no if you didn't do the waterfall jump trick. I'm very happy to see that this was utilized!
A few questions/comments:
-Why the wasted shots in Hangar? I know some of the offscreen shots were wasted to manipulate the spread spamming thing, but some of them seemed worthless (like around 28400, for instance).
-It's not necessary to kill the tanks in Snowfield... if you die. Destroying the tanks makes it not seem pacifist, since you're killing stuff that's avoidable. Dying is pretty ugly, but it's not really "no death" since you die at the end anyway. It seems like something needs to give (like not dying at all, and distinguishing that this is a no death run, or redoing Snowfield and bypassing the tanks).
-How does the waterfall thing work? I've tried to duplicate it many times and could never get it to work consistently.
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REJECT'D wrote:
the stupid concept and the everlooping music in particular.
I knew the music would come back to bite me. Seriously, who programs a game that has one tune playing the entire time? I'll avoid the obvious religious pejorative.
Also, I think the game is pretty clever, just poorly executed. Kind of like Kid Icarus: it had a lot of potential to be awesome, but it just seems unfinished, like the programmers gave up. In the case of Spiritual Warfare, the main problem is that it's just a lot of wandering around. The enemies are trivial until the very last portion of the game, and the bosses are only difficult when you can't figure out how the hell you're supposed to hurt them.
That said, I admit I agree with the rejection slip. With no trace of modesty, I'm pretty proud of the clever strategy I came up with to finish the game in a fairly astounding time. Despite that, it's still just a bunch of wandering around. I was hoping that enough people had experienced the game when they were 11 years old to make it interesting enough to be worth publishing.
Fun trivia: this is the only game in the Wisdom Tree series that I don't own for NES. That's part of the reason I wanted to make this.
Also, someone should probably remove this from the List of Ideas.
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xebra wrote:
I just paused watching this run to ask a question. I'm not sure which palace you are in since I don't know the game that well, but the palace is green, you have sword 6, magic 7, and 1222/5000 xp. You just took an elevator down and turned into a fairy on the way down, and you are about to pick up the flute in the next room. Was it an error that you did not do your usual double stab the elevator shaft optimization?
When you're a fairy (ha ha!) you can move left and right at will on the elevators. I think it has something to do with how you can't duck when you're a fairy (ha ha!), so holding down has no effect on your movement.
And another question, why do you bring up the spell selection screen so many times without actually switching spells?
You can only cast the spell once after you select it. To cast it again you have to access the spell screen again.
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It seems like this whole problem would be resolved (and probably would have never surfaced) if people would just vote whether they liked the movie or not, which is what the poll question asks, rather than voting based on current/past/future publications. For example, people voting no for weird reasons like "there's already a run of the same game and we don't need two/three/ten runs of this game," when they should be voting no only because they disliked the movie. Like in the recent FDS Super Mario Bros. thread.
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Everything TheAxeMan just said.
Also, while I kind of kept my prejudiced thoughts private, I never liked the Wild Warp run because it wasn't as fast as it easily could have been. The dance between the fortune teller and the queen is unbearable to watch when you know it can be skipped (in an unexpected way, no less). Especially since I've known about that trick for 10+ years. Also, some of the leveling choices in the first half of the game are not optimal. I started a wild warp run of this game and improved it by 1000 frames in the first three minutes, and by 5000 frames in the first 15, purely from choosing better places to level up (and a few other things, too). That's not to say that it shouldn't have been published (or that I'm putting down the author); I only thought these things because I was already familiar with the game.
That all said, I believed that this run should obsolete the current run (even though I said it wasn't meant to) simply because of two things:
1. There aren't any known glitches that aren't used. i.e. it's perfect strategically.
2. The opportunity for showing off more glitches. e.g. ghetto flight bug and the skip-the-ball-of-fire glitches, which don't need to be used in a wild warp run.
I know this run is boring in parts. Nobody wants to watch the same thing happen for 2-3 minutes in a row. However, anyone who has played this game before casually will be awestruck by the ghetto flight bug (I was the first time I did it), and even though I hate internet acronyms, the skip-the-ball-of-fire glitch (still don't have a good name for it) is a true "WTF moment." I think the glitches make up for the 10+ minutes of extra time I have to spend walking around when compared to the WW run. Also, this run features more boss fights, which are pretty cool to watch in my opinion.
I think a lot of people can't get past the fact that you have to do forced leveling in this game, and voted accordingly, which I think is too bad. The leveling is more spread out in this run, so I thought it might be more bearable, but I guess not. Which I fully understand and completely expected. This game indeed gets no love.
In conclusion, I thought the cool use of glitches would make up for the longer time, but I guess everyone's just not as good looking as I am.
And adelikat, I hate you forever for voting no on my submissions. Punk.
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That makes sense. I didn't think it would be faster, but I forgot about rigging the six count and stuff. On a console, you'd never hike back from Palace 3 to the dock even if it was faster, because you don't want to risk a random encounter in the graveyard, which was the reason for my dubiousness.
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That was pretty cool to watch. I think this is one of those movies that the legit console runners don't like to watch: everything's so damned perfect. One of the frustrating things about speedrunning Zelda II is that strategies are decided based on red potion and p-bag drops, and if you don't get them, you might be screwed. In that sense, this was both satisfying and annoying to watch (I never watched the currently published run because of this). One question, and one comment:
-Is it really faster to not use up+a after the third palace?
-Ooh, you used my route through palace four! How exciting! [beat Carock, re-enter and get Boots, up+a] I was very proud of myself for figuring that out.
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Okay, just so there's no confusion, I didn't do a run of this game because it was on the list of ideas and I thought everyone would really, really like it. The truth is, I think the game is rather boring, too (to be honest, The Legend of Zelda would be rather boring to someone who's not familiar with it). I did a run of this game because I thought it would be fun to optimize. Also, I like making maps. I didn't even realize it was on the list of ideas until a couple weeks ago. It wouldn't particularly break my heart if the run got rejected, because I already got my satisfaction out of it. I just thought I'd give it a chance to see if it was worth publishing.
It is a fun little game, though, and it's surprising how fast it can be beaten, which is why I think it's mildly entertaining to watch.