http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Now I'm well aware ahead of time that the majority opinion is going to be leaning towards Alyosha, due to how nice he is and his high level of output. That's completely fine, it's your opinion of course, and let me preface this by saying that I think Alyosha is a fantastic member of the community.
But, in my honest opinion, being TASer of the year is about more then just obsoleting a large amount of old movies. While I can recognize that Alyosha was doing a task that should have been done a while ago, I don't feel this sort of goal should translate into TASer of the year, which i'll explain.
TASing is basically an art form, and the best way for this to be represented is with it being entertaining. If I'm completely, totally honest, quite a few runs Alyosha has done really aren't that entertaining, for example Arumana no Kiseki or Quattro Adventure: Boomerang Kid.
This mainly derives as a result of many runs from the 2004/2005 era being basic NES games, with an occasional SNES game. As a result, as Alyosha redoes these runs for a new age, he's basically bringing forth what was good in an old age, 10 years ago, into a new age.
That's not to say that all his runs are boring. Quite the contrary, there's quite a few good ones, Umihara Kawase and Kabuki: Quantum Fighter being some good ones.
So who do I think should be TASer of the year, considering my opposition of Alyosha? This has to be someone who is notable for not only being as good of a forum member as Alyosha, but also having a more entertaining pool of movies.
The answer's obvious, don't you think?
Samsara.
Yeah, a year ago that sentence would be quite the laugh, but this is not a year ago. A lot has changed since then, the biggest of which is Samsara. Gone are the days when she would basically troll a topic. Now, she's easily one of the most proactive members of the site, completely cleaning up her act to be a respectable member.
Of course personality isn't everything, and in the runs department Samsara has an incredible range. I mean, except for perhaps Riddle of the Sphinx, Samsara has shown an ability to choose a multitude of games from a wide variety of consoles, and has made an entertaining run out of all of them.
Earnest Evans with its crazy flinging about, Coca Cola Kid with its sonic speed, and Splatterhouse showing how to make autoscrollers great.
So that's the reason I'm nominating her instead.
(P.S. I am well aware Samsara and Alyosha collaborated to do the first Umihara. For the sake of argument I excluded it)
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter
- some loser
Joined: 12/28/2013
Posts: 396
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
What a tricky decision! I'll be voting for Samsara as I loved much of her job this year. I would agree with arandomgameTASer about the crazy amount of Alyosha's TASes not being necessarily an indicative of TASer of the year, but now I realize I still haven't watched most of his TASes for some reason. I sure will do so before voting, it is undeniable that he also did an awesome job this year.
It's really hard to be fair as it's difficult to watch everyone's movies. I hope we have more nominations soon so that I know where to start watching!
TAS plans (if I feel like TASing):
Ninja Crusaders 1-player.
Toy Story 2 any% (maybe if can I fix crosshair not moving)
Paper Mario 3D Land (if I fix the inputs not working problem)
Quint's Revenge (see PM3DL)
Mega Man 10 Proto man easy
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2823
Location: Northern California
arandomgameTASer. Insane, varied output, a lot of really cool technical runs and improvements to his runs from last year that show how far he's come. Plus, anyone who can wrangle DeSMuMe for five runs deserves an insane amount of respect, given that a lot of the runs were long in length and suffered various desyncs all throughout, but his DETERMINATION drove him through to finish each of them! Things like that count for a lot in my book: Not just variety and technical skill, but overall panache and drive as a TASer as well.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Plus, anyone who can wrangle DeSMuMe for five runs deserves an insane amount of respect, given that a lot of the runs were long in length and suffered various desyncs all throughout,
Is that really a thing? I never heard of anyone saying that DeSmuME isn’t sync-stable. I find it to be one of, if not the, best emulator around. I probably like it over BizHawk as well, even though BizHawk has some great things and will undoubtedly become the best emulator given time.
Edit: Now that I think about it… versions 0.9.10 and 0.9.11 of DeSmuME have known SRAM issues. That could certainly create desyncs, I suppose, but if you know about it you shouldn’t have them, and there is always version 0.9.9 to fall back on.
Joined: 12/8/2012
Posts: 706
Location: Missouri, USA
I've gotta say that the top 3, in my book, this year boils down to Alyosha, arandomgameTASer, and Samsara. All three certainly stayed busy throughout 2015 and produced multiple runs, on varying genres and platforms.
• arandomgameTASer's output this year was outstanding, in producing almost 8 hours of TAS content, spanning 10 unique runs.
• Alyosha (as I've mentioned in the NES TASer award thread) got more runs published this year since the site's inception, back in '04. It was almost a weekly ritual in seeing a new run from him posted onto the Workbench. Just excellent work ethic, all-around.
• To talk about "stepping your game up", Samsara was just driven this year in completing different projects. His entertaining movement choreography, in particular, during moments of downtime, is among the best I've seen.
My nominations: arandomgameTASer, Alyosha, & Samsara.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
Is that really a thing? I never heard of anyone saying that DeSmuME isn’t sync-stable. I find it to be one of, if not the, best emulator around. I probably like it over BizHawk as well, even though BizHawk has some great things and will undoubtedly become the best emulator given time.
Siding with ALAKTORN here. DeSmuME is undoubtedly the best emulator I have worked with. I would understand the complaint here if we were talking about 9.10 or 9.11, but there's a stickied post recommending 9.9 and no reason to not use it.
I guess Tyler Kehne doesn't count as an eligible TASer since he's only really found tricks and not made/submitted a full movie? His work in SM64 this past year has been incredible and mind blowing, really bring that game into a new age with both TAS speed strats and TAS A button challenge stuff.
Also I vote for mkdasher and was0x.
Completed:
2010-Current | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Individual Level TASes
2014 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 1:05:03.23
2014 | Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - Hero Story (w/ THC98) in 25:11.87
2016 | Metroid Prime - Any% in 00:37 (In-Game Time)
2018 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:42.350
2020 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Any% in 0:39:20.10
2022 | Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Cheat% in 1:25.567
Currently working on:
SA2:B DARK STORY
Joined: 2/2/2013
Posts: 316
Location: Where the world can see me.
arandomgameTASer
Perception is the greatest deception.
nitrogenesis: 04:43:04: but TAS is life
nitrogenesis: 04:43:23: TAS everyday
MKWii TAS Discord: https://discord.gg/z5bu44H
MKWii TAS Records: https://goo.gl/ZrGKgt
Currently Trying to TAS:
On Hold:
The Incredibles (GC)
The Incredibles: Rise Of The Underminer (GC)
Future:
(GC) Egg Mania: Eggstreme Madness
(Wii) The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of The Unicorn
Mario Kart Wii 32 Track GP
Joined: 12/28/2013
Posts: 396
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
After a good reflection during the nomination period, I voted for Samsara and arandomgameTASer. There're many awesome candidates, though, but I tried to not vote in too much people. Good luck!
Voted for Samsara, same as my nom. I get that Hetfield did good work with Mega Man this year, and certainly deserves Rookie of the Year, but TASer of the Year as well is too far.
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter
- some loser
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2823
Location: Northern California
arandomgameTASer wrote:
I get that Hetfield did good work with Mega Man this year, and certainly deserves Rookie of the Year, but TASer of the Year as well is too far.
Agreed. Variety is key to me, and 6 TASes of what can be considered the exact same game doesn't exactly scream "variety" to me. Hetfield's proven himself to be an amazing Mega Man TASer (I'm counting the recent RKS runs under Mega Man as well), but that's about it as far as I'm concerned. Also, having longstanding familiarity with the X series as an RTA runner counts against him in my opinion, as I feel any top RTA runner of a game with the patience and motivation can produce a top-tier TAS of said game. What I'd want to see is a more general exhibition of TASing skill applied to a wider variety of games.
Which, naturally, is why I followed my nomination and voted arandomgameTASer, due to his incredible variety over the year and for picking very good, super-technical runs without even knowing the game beforehand and still producing high-quality runs. That's what I mean by a "general exhibition of TASing skill": Someone who can theoretically pick up any game no matter how unknown or unexplored it is and produce an amazing TAS from it.
That's why I also feel weird about voting for Alyosha, since while his output this year was incredible and fairly varied within the NES library, it wasn't exactly a display of personal skill: It was simply adaptation of previously known tricks plus some optimization along the way. Had he redone every single run from scratch and discovered new things himself, he would've had my vote for sure, but his methodology prevents me from being able to see him as the year's best TASer.
They're both great people and great TASers for sure, and they deserve to win in other categories, but in my eyes it takes a lot more to win TASer of the Year, and Random's certainly showed that "a lot more"... well, a lot more than any other listed nominee.
Yes I'm aware that I fall under my own metric of what constitutes TASer of the Year. I still think Random's a far better example than I am, though.But don't let that dissuade you from voting for me.*places stack of $100 bills on table next to sign with Nach's name on it*
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Joined: 12/28/2013
Posts: 396
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
Samsara posted exactly what I think about this TASer of 2015 voting. Alyosha indeed did a nice job this year, and Hetfield90 made some awesome Mega Man TASes. Despite I was also nominated for Rookie of 2015, I understand why Hetfield90 will be the winner in this category. The any% TASes I've done with Amaraticando did bring some novel concepts and ideas to SMW and SDW, but it was also, and especially, about heavy optimization (7 rerecords per frame is a pain); and the game end glitch was just a small optimization. Hetfield90's work brought a lot of new concepts, he made much more TASes than us, and Mega Man is a very entertaining game, maybe more than SMW. But I think someone who pretty much made all TASes of the same game isn't who I'm looking for as the TASer of the year. The same goes for Alyosha, who made some entertaining TASes, but most of his job was to improve old unoptimal TASes. Please don't get me wrong, I appreciated and admired a lot the TASes of them both. For sure they are awesome contributors of TASVideos. But the thing is that the TASer of the year needs to be who made the best, most amazing work. Someone who TASed different consoles, types of games, maybe 3D stuff, etc. That's why I voted for Samsara and arandomgameTASer, and not in who made the biggest absolute quantity of TASes.
It seems until now that Hetfield90 will win this voting, but we are still in the beginning. Let's see what will happen in the next days.
Wow so competitive players here it will be harder.
My votes goes to Hetfield, Samsara and Arandom, don't get me wrong but I enjoyed a lot the runs made by many of authors which are on the poll.
@BrunoVisnadi: for me the question here aren't the quantify question and more for game choice and entertainment qualify, occurred the same when x2poet win as TASer of year 5 years ago doing Metal Slug series so it isn't surprise that Hetfield are winning atm.
I will vote for arandomgametaser and samsara as I think they did the best work this year. I am particularly envious of Samsara's ability to add entertainment to otherwise bland games / stages.
