I would caution against having a "race", at least one in which the human is destined to lose. If anything could fuel a common newcomer's misconception of TASes being intended to compete against Unassisted Runs on equal ground, and thus as "cheating", that would do it. And besides, I don't think it would be more interesting than the TAS on its own. It would basically be like, "here's a normal unassisted run, oh and here's also a video of a TAS happening alongside it to see what one of those looks like. Try to watch both.".
The original "race" idea was to give a TASer only a few hours (and not tell him the game beforehand), and then let his run compete with a speedrunner who is already experienced at that same game. For a simple game like NES Baby Moses, 2 hours are enough to make a really optimized run. If the game is complex, the race becomes way more interesting.
As for SGDQ, I say that it's better to have audience applauding upright once a year, than spend resources on something average for the sake of itself. Unless there's another person who's ready to run a TASBot.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
There seems to be this concept that the TAS showcases at the GDQ events need to do something special, something never seen before, something that has never been shown nor attempted before, something that shocks even TASers and regular visitors to tasvideos.org. It's like not getting a standing ovation would be considered a failure.
This year this idea went so far that there actually was not a single actual speedrun showcased, even though it's supposed to be a "tool-assisted speedrun".
Personally I don't see why that has to be some kind of necessity. Just plain regular old TASes, run on a real console, are awesome enough, when the game and the TAS are chosen appropriately. Just take eg. a glitchfest TAS (like the Megaman one), and it ought to be awesome to watch. Not every viewer has seen TASes before. Especially not run on a real console.
Of course I don't know if the event organizers will accept just a "regular TAS" for the event. But if that's a concern, why not just ask them? Make a case that 1) it's actually the very idea of TASing, and 2) a cool-enough existing TAS that does crazy things ought to be awesome to watch all in itself.
That's not to say there can't be any never-seen-before things at all, but perhaps it would be easier, and even better, if the TAS block doesn't consist solely of those.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Warp wrote:
That's more of a backronym than anything else. The 'S' has always stood for "speedrun" since the days of Doom tool-assisted speedrunning.
On this site?
Originally, they were called time attacks here, and every movie was marked "time attack".
The original logo:
After people complained that not every movie is about time, we switched to the name TAS, specifically to denote that all our movies are superplays.
Original TAS logo:
TAS term elsewhere may have been about speedrunning, but it's original use here was to denote superplays, and we used this logo on movies that were fast as well as for those that entertained in other ways, as it's a term applicable to both.
Edit:
I found the original edit of when TAS was added to the glossary: http://tasvideos.org/diff.exe?page=Glossary&rev=17&prev=16
TAS:Abbreviation for tool-assisted run.
Shortly thereafter a fight ensued regarding the acronym elsewhere and here.. The fight is in a thread somewhere here which I'm sure someone can dig up. We've accepted TAS meant speedrun elsewhere, and is the usual meaning of it, but it wasn't the original meaning here, and was purposely selected for the ambiguity, unlike time attack.
Edit 2:
I would also like to direct your attention to our logo in the upper left corner of our forum.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
I would also like to direct your attention to our logo in the upper left corner of our forum.
I have always loved that argument.
You can argue all day long, but "superplay" is a backronym. The term "TAS" existed and was proposed to be used here before anybody came up with that interpretation.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Warp wrote:
You can argue all day long, but "superplay" is a backronym. The term "TAS" existed and was proposed to be used here before anybody came up with that interpretation.
Elsewhere.
Here, the term has originally meant superplay.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
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Warp wrote:
Of course I don't know if the event organizers will accept just a "regular TAS" for the event. But if that's a concern, why not just ask them? Make a case that 1) it's actually the very idea of TASing, and 2) a cool-enough existing TAS that does crazy things ought to be awesome to watch all in itself.
I'll assume responsibility for what TASVideos pitched as ideas and Mike, the head organizer of AGDQ 2015, was the primary individual who accepted and denied runs. I created a potential participation thread as well as this pitch video for AGDQ 2015:
Link to video
Of the five ideas I pitched, two of them were more or less "normal" TAS's - a playaround TAS such as RBI Baseball (or some other playaround TAS) and Final Fantasy. The ideas that were accepted were the Mario Kart 64 modified course, a single playaround TAS, and a total control TAS with a 40 minute limit for all three runs, which meant that Final Fantasy was not accepted and there was very little time to surreptitiously add in another game without grossly overrunning our alloted time or otherwise irritating the organizers.
The initial plan was to use Family Feud as the playaround TAS which would have more or less been a normal TAS run but we ran into serious problems with synchronizing the run on real hardware that we were unable to overcome (this situation is one of the primary reasons I put out a disclaimer that we may opt to do exhibitions of runs that cannot be console verified on emulators). Around that time, p4plus2 came in with his SMB on SNES ROM and the idea to have that as the payload in a new shorter SMW exploit was born, at which point that run replaced the playaround block.
The end result of these events is we had three runs that were all entertaining but none of them are what I would consider to be "normal" runs. We have definitely put ourselves on the map as it were and we can probably pitch what would be described as more typical TAS content in the next pitch but it is ultimately up to Mike or other run coordinators to decide what makes it on the schedule. As was the case this year I do have some amount of freedom to make substitutions but there's only so far I can push it.
In summary, I will again endeavor to pitch a normal run in the next *GDQ event I organize but it is ultimately up to the head run selection organizer for that *GDQ to make the final decision on what gets in. When I next attempt to organize a *GDQ event I will again create a potential participation thread soliciting ideas and I encourage you to voice your opinions on what would make a good run at that time. Thanks for the feedback!
There seems to be this concept that the TAS showcases at the GDQ events need to do something special, something never seen before, something that has never been shown nor attempted before, something that shocks even TASers and regular visitors to tasvideos.org. It's like not getting a standing ovation would be considered a failure.
This year this idea went so far that there actually was not a single actual speedrun showcased, even though it's supposed to be a "tool-assisted speedrun".
Personally I don't see why that has to be some kind of necessity. Just plain regular old TASes, run on a real console, are awesome enough, when the game and the TAS are chosen appropriately. Just take eg. a glitchfest TAS (like the Megaman one), and it ought to be awesome to watch. Not every viewer has seen TASes before. Especially not run on a real console.
Of course I don't know if the event organizers will accept just a "regular TAS" for the event. But if that's a concern, why not just ask them? Make a case that 1) it's actually the very idea of TASing, and 2) a cool-enough existing TAS that does crazy things ought to be awesome to watch all in itself.
That's not to say there can't be any never-seen-before things at all, but perhaps it would be easier, and even better, if the TAS block doesn't consist solely of those.
Do you mean that SGDQ should be considered, or that the overall TAS block WOW degree could be loosed?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Do you mean that SGDQ should be considered, or that the overall TAS block WOW degree could be loosed?
I don't really understand your question.
Anyway, it's just that I was thinking about an alternative that wouldn't necessarily require as much time and resources for the people making it all happen. This showcase was excellent, but as dwangoAC has said, it took a ginormous amount of time, work and even money.
I think it ought to be possible to be a bit more conservative, while still keeping the awe factor of the TAS block pretty high. It wouldn't also hurt to show actual TASes (running on a real console), rather than demonstrations. I think that showing an existing TAS that's impressive (eg. a glitchfest), with someone explaining what's happening on screen, would be good.
After all, the event is "games done quick", so shouldn't we be showing games being completed quickly?
Do you mean that SGDQ should be considered, or that the overall TAS block WOW degree could be loosed?
I don't really understand your question.
Anyway, it's just that I was thinking about an alternative that wouldn't necessarily require as much time and resources for the people making it all happen. This showcase was excellent, but as dwangoAC has said, it took a ginormous amount of time, work and even money.
I think it ought to be possible to be a bit more conservative, while still keeping the awe factor of the TAS block pretty high. It wouldn't also hurt to show actual TASes (running on a real console), rather than demonstrations. I think that showing an existing TAS that's impressive (eg. a glitchfest), with someone explaining what's happening on screen, would be good.
After all, the event is "games done quick", so shouldn't we be showing games being completed quickly?
Just to specify one thing that's been said already. I don't think having the TAS running on a console is the only way to show good runs. I don't see any problem with using an emulator running on a computer (and it would allow for any TAS to be shown).
After all, even some speedruns at AGDQ are done on emulators, Symphony of the Night for example, was done on emulator (on console, but on an emulator provided alongside the game when purchasing it). I'm not 100% sure about this one in fact, but it's highly likely (I don't think they completely ported the game). At least it's true for many "virtual console" games, and it's usually ok for the speedrunners to play on these versions.
Running games on the original hardware is obviously a plus and demonstrates that there is no "cheating" involved; it also makes for something interesting technically... But I don't think it's absolutely necessary.
Just having an explanation about how we make a TAS and then showing some runs is already good enough in my opinion.
(all that just to say that the part about running them on a real console is not mandatory in my opinion, yeah I'm nitpicking ^^)
SDA only continues to accept runs from "official" emulators, but SRL doesn't care, and as it is a collaborative and separate effort, I see no reason GDQ should consider an emulator to be a problem. Of course it's not up to me, but I can at least provide feedback to the organizers as a viewer.
SDA only continues to accept runs from "official" emulators...
They do that, not because they dislike emulators, but because it's just too hard to prove non-cheating when using an emulator. SDA's rules does not allow the use of tools for speedrunning, which is a decision they've made and stayed to.
On the other hand, they do allow official emulators, because, again, it's just much harder to cheat on those.
Now TASVideos DO use tools for speedrunning, so in this case, it's expected to use savestates and other tools that SDA does not accept for speedruns submitted to their site. Of course, SDA is not against tool-assisted speedrunning either. It's simple that SDA focuses on hosting non-tool assisted runs. The community if very welcoming of any type of running, whether that be racing or tool-assisted.
They've also allowed our non-traditional arbitrary code execution and the gradius run which weren't the normal non-tool assisted runs. So I don't think it's a matter of not allowing emulators or stuff like that - I think that'd be very welcome. It's simple a matter of question about what stuff brings the most entertainment and donations.
So yeah, once again, all we have to do is ask the organizers.
I know it was posted that it isn't a 100% requirement for TASes to be console verified for showcasing, but if its possible, I think people may enjoy seeing TASes that require heavy luck manipulation consoled verified, since in my experience viewers sometimes claim the frequent luck (such as constant criticals) as impossible/cheating/hack.
After people complained that not every movie is about time, we switched to the name TAS, specifically to denote that all our movies are superplays.
Original TAS logo:
TAS term elsewhere may have been about speedrunning, but it's original use here was to denote superplays, and we used this logo on movies that were fast as well as for those that entertained in other ways, as it's a term applicable to both.
Edit:
I found the original edit of when TAS was added to the glossary: http://tasvideos.org/diff.exe?page=Glossary&rev=17&prev=16
TAS:Abbreviation for tool-assisted run.
Shortly thereafter a fight ensued regarding the acronym elsewhere and here.. The fight is in a thread somewhere here which I'm sure someone can dig up. We've accepted TAS meant speedrun elsewhere, and is the usual meaning of it, but it wasn't the original meaning here, and was purposely selected for the ambiguity, unlike time attack.
Edit 2:
I would also like to direct your attention to our logo in the upper left corner of our forum.
