In response to one of RGamma's questions, I'd say that the purpose of a TASing tool (whether an emulator or an Hourglass-alike) is to provide as repeatable an environment as possible. So that at least gives a baseline as to what sort of glitches we can expect to work.
Something like this already comes up in NetHack. I TAS the DOS version, which is a DPMI game; in order to run it on a practical DOS system, you need to first run an extra program known as a "DPMI extender". One particularly well-known DPMI extender is Windows, and that's what most people use in practice; however, if you have a pure-DOS system, you'd need to use something else. More than one extender is available (although my choice is somewhat forced because JPC-RR only emulates one correctly), and they have slightly different lag properties, memory layouts, etc.. In this case, it seems to be most reasonable to rule that any extender that emulates correctly can be used; it's sort-of like the difference between running a NES and FDS version of the same game, or a GB and SGB version.
I'm actually excited to see what sort of glitches might be opened up by running games on unusual hardware (that they're theoretically designed for, just unusual). PC games often claim to support a wide range of platforms, and if you can take advantage of that to make ACE happen in an unusual way, it'd be interesting to see it. Whether doing so is "speedrun-legal" or not will depend somewhat on the details.
So the whole claim that they're NOT trying to beat the game as quickly as possible is, quite frankly, silly.
If I modded a game so that it would simply show the end credits when it's started, would you consider that a legit game completion? Would you consider it having "beat the game"?
If your answer is "no", then think about the reasons why you think it's not, and perhaps then you'll understand why I don't consider ACE runs to be legit either.
link_7777 wrote:
Since the developers had to write code for it and it had to be tested I'd say save features are a part of the game
So is the developer console in games like Half-Life 2, yet using it is banned.
Samsara wrote:
I'll be locking the thread if it starts going further south from here
What is it with this obsession of locking threads? Aren't people allowed to have discussions? Even if it's just one person against everybody else, so what? As long as the discussion remains civil (as it has), who cares? Nobody is out of line. There is an exchange of opinions, there is discussion, there is social interaction. If somebody is out of line, punish them, not everybody. Stop with this thread-locking obsession already, please. Allow people to speak their minds. (And this wasn't a plea to you in particular, but to the moderators in general.)
RGamma wrote:
I can see where you're coming from with this Warp and I tend to be open to everything, but I wouldn't necessarily characterise this trend you describe as "worrying".
To clarify, what I meant by the trend being worrying is that these techniques seem to be becoming more and more prevalent, and I fear that at some point speedrunners will just stop making (what I consider) "clean" speedruns, and just litter speedruns with all these external non-gameplay glitching techniques.
If we take HL2 as an example, we don't even have to go many years back to go to a time where HL2 speedruns were pure gameplay. There was glitch abuse aplenty, of course, but they were all triggered by gameplay (ie. just using the movement keys etc.) It was awesome. I know that I'm a very small minority in this, but nowadays it seems that all HL2 speedruns use non-gameplay techniques to glitch the game, which I find boring. It just doesn't feel right; it doesn't feel like a real speedrun, if you have to, for the lack of a better word, "cheat" the game into glitching by using external means (such as deleting a save file). I worry that, perhaps, at some point there will never be a new "clean" speedrun of HL2 anymore, which would be a shame. It would be the end of an era, and in my view the enjoyability of HL2 speedruns would have diminished, permanently.
That is what I find worrying.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11473
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Warp wrote:
arandomgameTASer wrote:
So the whole claim that they're NOT trying to beat the game as quickly as possible is, quite frankly, silly.
If I modded a game so that it would simply show the end credits when it's started, would you consider that a legit game completion? Would you consider it having "beat the game"?
If your answer is "no", then think about the reasons why you think it's not, and perhaps then you'll understand why I don't consider ACE runs to be legit either.
Can you remind me why you consider using emulator tools legit means of game completion?
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.
Can you remind me why you consider using emulator tools legit means of game completion?
Because they feed controller input to the game, which is running as exactly as possible compared to the actual console? All TASes could ostensibly be hardware-verified.
After all, abusing emulator bugs is not considered legit. Modifying the game code itself using the emulator is also not considered legit.
I don't really understand what you are getting at.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11473
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Warp wrote:
feos wrote:
Can you remind me why you consider using emulator tools legit means of game completion?
Because they feed controller input to the game, which is running as exactly as possible compared to the actual console? All TASes could ostensibly be hardware-verified.
After all, abusing emulator bugs is not considered legit. Modifying the game code itself using the emulator is also not considered legit.
I don't really understand what you are getting at.
But you have a whole crowd of people who say "Emulator replay removes all the fun, all the challenge from game completion, only real-time speedrunners are really the men!" No one is able to find what exactly is wrong with replays for them, just because replays rely on some special rules and in that case they get approved by community that is interested in them. Not modding the game is a rule that community likes. That's the only reason it exists. For some people, having the game unmodded isn't enough to consider the playthrough legit. No problem, tastes differ. For different tastes we have different branches. There's too few of branches that complete the game without breaking it? I don't think you'll go ahead and say that. Right now, nothing is taken away from people who like it, even non-game-breaking runs were umobsoleted a few years ago to exist in Moons. What is the real problem then? The fact that people keep creating ACEs? The fact that people keep jumping to credits using TASVideos-approved controller input? Maybe the fact that there's more and more of that, while there's not less and less of the other? Answer and say why.
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.
If I modded a game so that it would simply show the end credits when it's started, would you consider that a legit game completion? Would you consider it having "beat the game"?
If your answer is "no", then think about the reasons why you think it's not, and perhaps then you'll understand why I don't consider ACE runs to be legit either.
That's not what an ACE is, at all. ACE =/= modding or cheating.
link_7777 wrote:
Since the developers had to write code for it and it had to be tested I'd say save features are a part of the game
Warp wrote:
So is the developer console in games like Half-Life 2, yet using it is banned.
dev console isn't completely used for cheating like noclip, you know. It's used for other stuff.
Warp wrote:
What is it with this obsession of locking threads? Aren't people allowed to have discussions? Even if it's just one person against everybody else, so what?
Discussion isn't the problem. The problem is that this discussion is going nowhere because it's obvious that you're not going to change your mind, and have a skewed perspective on what exactly ACE is. For some reason you think ACE is cheating and think it doesn't complete the game, when like 20 other people are explaining to you that no, no it isn't. What's the point of a topic that doesn't solve anything?
Warp wrote:
To clarify, what I meant by the trend being worrying is that these techniques seem to be becoming more and more prevalent, and I fear that at some point speedrunners will just stop making (what I consider) "clean" speedruns, and just litter speedruns with all these external non-gameplay glitching techniques.
Yes, because if ONE game uses save abuse then that means every single game will use it. It's a slippery slope, OF COURSE. I get that you enjoy speedruns that don't use glitches such as this, but, like, too bad I guess. Speedrunning is an art form. It evolves, it grows. Saying that all runs shouldn't use save exploits and other such things would be limiting it as an art form.
Warp wrote:
Modifying the game code itself using the emulator is also not considered legit.
'cept the glitch used to do an ACE has been VERIFIED ON A CONSOLE.
Link to video
So saying ACE is not legit is not a valid viewpoint, because it quite obviously is. If you don't like ACE runs, that's fine. But please don't say they're not 'real' speedruns just because you don't like them.
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter
- some loser
Modifying the game code itself using the emulator is also not considered legit.
'cept the glitch used to do an ACE has been VERIFIED ON A CONSOLE.
I'm pretty sure Warp was referring to modifying the ROM directly via editing it, which is something you can't do on a console (without a flashcart or similar additional hardware), and is different from ACE. This is more commonly known as a "romhack", and although we do accept TASes of those here, they have a very high bar (both the run, and the edits to the game, are under scrutiny).
Segmented runs are fine (as long as saving and loading is used to start the segment, not to glitch the game.)
So then you would disapprove of a Keen 4 speedrun using the save glitch that's in the TAS. The Commander Keen community is okay with this sort of shenanigans provided the run is tagged as "glitched."Are you considering your opinion to be more valid than theirs? Or that a speedrun that fits your criteria is somehow more "pure" than one that merely fits theirs?
Would you approve of a segmented run where the segments are dictated by when (heavy) RNG has to be favorable to get the fastest result? Such as virtually every windows Might and Magic game?
LOL this discussion is fucking retarded. People completely misunderstanding Warp and mods threatening to close the topic, lol.
This community truly has gone to shit.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11473
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
ALAKTORN wrote:
This community truly has gone to shit.
Then you seem to love shit don't you?
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.
LOL this discussion is fucking retarded. People completely misunderstanding Warp and mods threatening to close the topic, lol.
This community truly has gone to shit.
Nah it can't be that we just don't understand his viewpoint and think that it's flawed. NOPE WE JUST HATE HIM LOLLLLLLL.
Plus so far you've contributed nothing to the topic except to chime in to say that we're hating on him, basically ignoring everything else about the discussion.
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter
- some loser
Nah it can't be that we just don't understand his viewpoint and think that it's flawed. NOPE WE JUST HATE HIM LOLLLLLLL.
You people seem incapable of having a civile discussion with him, and instead just attack his opinion at every turn. Yes, you just hate him. Not agreeing with a viewpoint doesn’t mean you attack the other person’s viewpoint when all he’s trying to do is to have a conversation.
Nah it can't be that we just don't understand his viewpoint and think that it's flawed. NOPE WE JUST HATE HIM LOLLLLLLL.
You people seem incapable of having a civile discussion with him, and instead just attack his opinion at every turn. Yes, you just hate him. Not agreeing with a viewpoint doesn’t mean you attack the other person’s viewpoint when all he’s trying to do is to have a conversation.
"You people" being one or two people. As in, me.
I'll admit, I tend to be quite snarky with my responses to Warp, but it's because I'm passionate about my opinions and feel frustrated that this viewpoint isn't understood. It is NOT because of some sort of blind hatred to him, as much as it appears to be.
As much as I disagree with Warp, I do respect him for expressing opinions that are quite controversial without feeling intimidated. That takes some courage, especially if that viewpoint for the most part isn't shared by the rest of the community.
Getting back on topic, I see where Warp is coming from for the most part in terms of speedruns changing. I understand that, but it doesn't mean I should completely agree with everything he thinks about how to resolve such a problem with traditional speedrunning disappearing, or agree with his views on nontraditional speedrunning such as ACE.
If you think that we're WRONG about our opinions on Warp's views, talk about it. That's the point of a discussion, after all.
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter
- some loser
If you think that we're WRONG about our opinions on Warp's views, talk about it. That's the point of a discussion, after all.
Nobody’s opinion is wrong. It’s how you and some others expressed them that was wrong. I didn’t have much to say about this discussion except for the fact that some people brush Warp’s concern with “well that’s what categories are for, duh”. Guess what? Speedrunners tend to favor categories that go fast, saying “watch the categories you like” is completely missing Warp’s point, and completely misunderstanding how speedruns/speedrunners work.
I don’t really want to discuss this further, though.
I don't always agree with the agreements individual communities come to for specific games, but I do admire the democratic process by which those decisions are made.
If I modded a game so that it would simply show the end credits when it's started, would you consider that a legit game completion? Would you consider it having "beat the game"?
If your answer is "no", then think about the reasons why you think it's not, and perhaps then you'll understand why I don't consider ACE runs to be legit either.
That's not what an ACE is, at all. ACE =/= modding or cheating.
You missed my point completely. Let me repeat:
Would you consider a game that was modded to simply show the end credits a legit completion of said game? (Note emphasis.) If not, then think about the reasons why not. Why would you not consider it a legit completion?
If you think about those reasons, then perhaps you'll understand why I don't consider glitching to ACE, and from there jumping to the end credits a legit completion of the game either. The reasons are very similar.
This has nothing to do with "cheating". This has to do with what we consider a legit completion of a game and what not.
Warp wrote:
What is it with this obsession of locking threads? Aren't people allowed to have discussions? Even if it's just one person against everybody else, so what?
Discussion isn't the problem. The problem is that this discussion is going nowhere because it's obvious that you're not going to change your mind, and have a skewed perspective on what exactly ACE is.
And that deserves the thread to be locked?
And by the way, I'm getting really sick of the old tired (and flawed) argument of "20 people disagree with you, therefore you must conform to their opinion".
I am allowed to have an opinion, even an unpopular one, and I do not think it to be a completely unreasonable one. I want to discuss this opinion with other people, and have different points of view expressed. I'm completely ok with people presenting disagreeing opinions, and in fact I welcome it. I want to discuss the subject. Shutting me up by locking the thread simply because I will not conform to the majority opinion makes no sense. I don't even understand why it would. If somebody doesn't want to read the thread, nobody is forcing them to. It's not like this thread takes things away from people.
For some reason you think ACE is cheating
No, I don't. What I think is that glitching to ACE ends the game, and thus it's not a proper completion anymore.
Considering that this thread started as, "I, Warp, find the following speedrunning techniques distasteful," the only real place for the thread to go is to a discussion about which techniques used in speedrunning Warp finds offensive, and why other people find them to be valid. It looks like people are attacking Warp, sure, but that is because Warp is the focus of this thread.
With that out of the way,
Warp wrote:
Because they feed controller input to the game, which is running as exactly as possible compared to the actual console? All TASes could ostensibly be hardware-verified.
If that was the case, emulators wouldn't be releasing better or improved versions.
If that was the case, the technical parts of this article would hold no relevance, notably the "Why accuracy matters" portion of page 1.
Warp wrote:
Would you consider a game that was modded to simply show the end credits a legit completion of said game? (Note emphasis.) If not, then think about the reasons why not. Why would you not consider it a legit completion?
And, as arandomgameTASer pointed out to you, the two scenarios are not comparable at all because ACE is different than modding or cheating. ACE requires finding problems with the game's code /from inside the game/ that enable code to be written by controller input that results in something unintuitive happening. Modding requires external tools and changes to the ROM before the game starts running. The two scenarios are not equivalent, they require entirely different circumstances.
I am still the wizard that did it.
"On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata
<scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is
Considering that this thread started as, "I, Warp, find the following speedrunning techniques distasteful," the only real place for the thread to go is to a discussion about which techniques used in speedrunning Warp finds offensive, and why other people find them to be valid. It looks like people are attacking Warp, sure, but that is because Warp is the focus of this thread.
Over the years I have learned the hard way to always be sure to make it clear when I'm expressing a personal opinion (rather than something that's a more widely accepted fact.) When one expresses strong opinions without the softening expressions (like "in my opinion", "I think", etc) one may sound a lot more arrogant than is the intent, as if everything one says is fact and everybody must accept it. Sounding too arrogant like this, even if unintentionally, has bitten me in the behind too many times, which is why I have learned to always try to express myself clearly, and separate personal opinions from facts.
Yet, it seems, no matter what I do, some people will still manage to turn it against me. Now the very fact that I make extremely clear that this is my personal opinion is somehow used as a weapon against me.
*sigh*
Can we please just discuss the subject and not turn it personal? Does this always have to turn ugly?
And, as arandomgameTASer pointed out to you, the two scenarios are not comparable at all because ACE is different than modding or cheating.
So, in short, you would like to see more speedruns of the game the developers intended to make, rather than of the programs that the programmers released.
Is that roughly approximate?
Over the years [...] and separate personal opinions from facts.
Yet, it seems, no matter what I do, some people will still manage to turn it against me. Now the very fact that I make extremely clear that this is my personal opinion is somehow used as a weapon against me.
It's not being used as a weapon against you, it's the subject of the thread -- YOUR opinions about speedrunning, and why YOU don't like them. These are not worrying trends to many other participants in this thread, and the discussion is trying to center around, "Warp, why do you feel this way," and "Others have accepted these trends as not worrying things and, in fact, have embraced them."
Warp wrote:
Can we please just discuss the subject and not turn it personal?
We ... are discussing the subject. The only reason it is personal is because you, in the original post, made it about the things /you/ see as worrying.
Warp wrote:
Invariel wrote:
And, as arandomgameTASer pointed out to you, the two scenarios are not comparable at all because ACE is different than modding or cheating.
And you, too, miss my point entirely.
No, I didn't miss your point at all. You are conflating two separate entities, and arandomgameTASer (and I) are trying to point out that they are separate things, one involving external tools (which, I would agree with you, is not legitimate), and one involving internal exploits which have to be worked toward, and can take place within the context of the game. The console-verified ACEd runs are running on original hardware, and nothing more than button inputs are being used to generate the outcome. That is as /within the game/ as possible. Errors in the programming made getting to ACE possible, ACE doesn't generate those programming errors.
I am still the wizard that did it.
"On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata
<scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is
Joined: 6/5/2006
Posts: 188
Location: Malmö, Sweden
For the record, I mostly agree with Warp. I tend to just not watch/follow the runs I don't like, but I do get a bit sad when a run I've liked in the past turns into something I would rather not watch.
I think people are jumping on Warp a bit much in this thread as if he's trying to make these things go away or delegitimize certain speedrunning techniques. He's just expressing his opinion and trying to start a discussion. This shitstorm is kind of uncalled for... from all sides.
Even the best player is limited by the speed of his fingers, or his mind's ability to control them. But what happens when speed is not a factor, when theory becomes reality?
So, in short, you would like to see more speedruns of the game the developers intended to make, rather than of the programs that the programmers released.
Is that roughly approximate?
No. Glitches are fine. Unintended shortcuts are fine. Zipping through walls is fine.
It's not about what is done, but how.
Invariel wrote:
No, I didn't miss your point at all. You are conflating two separate entities, and arandomgameTASer (and I) are trying to point out that they are separate things
So perhaps you indeed don't understand what I mean, even with the help of the comparison. You are just clinging to the example, rather than understanding what I want to convey with it.
Anyway, it doesn't matter. My original post was not about ACE, but about unassisted speedruns.
Perhaps not, but ACE has been called out as a worrying trend in speedruns, and people are willing to debate that.
I am still the wizard that did it.
"On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata
<scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is
