Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4089
Location: The Netherlands
Following up on the #5617: HappyLee's NES Super Mario Bros. "PAL" in 04:55.16 judgment, multiple users have expressed critique about the current state of movie rules regarding differences in acceptability between NTSC movies and PAL movies. Most criticism is along the lines of the movie rules being too unclear, or poorly applied, or they just do not agree with them.
The relevant rule, as written right now, is as follows: (especially relevant here is the topmost bullet point)
NTSC vs PAL (USA/Japan vs Europe)
Console versions of PAL games run at a lower framerate than NTSC games, running at ~50Hz compared to NTSC's ~60Hz, and the games themselves are often not modified or poorly modified to accommodate to the change in timing. Due to this, PAL versions of ROMs are generally not allowed, unless there are significant technical and/or entertainment merits to using this version. See Rygar and Blaster Master for examples of good usage of the PAL ROM.
PAL versions of the following games are allowed, but are not recommended. Use an (U) version if available.
Any game for a handheld game console that does not directly connect to a television (e.g. Game Boy)
Any modern console game that supports PAL 60 (e.g. many GameCube games)
Commodore 64 games (regarding region settings, not game versions, as C64 games have no easily identifiable or verifiable region information)
The Sega Master System is an unique system in that it can officially play PAL games at NTSC frequency in PAL-M regions (Brazil). Therefore, playing PAL games with NTSC settings is allowed for SMS games, but only if the game has a known official release in Brazil. More details about PAL-M here.
I'd like to use this topic so users can express specifically how they disagree with the rule as stated in question, and how they would like the rule to be improved.
I am open to suggestions, keeping in mind that the movie rules are or should be defined such that it:
furthers the goal of TASVideos to publish a diverse and entertaining set of publications (or speed records where suitable)
should not be intrinsically biased in favor of any single submission, game or series
should aim to minimize subjectivity (this is not fully possible, but it should aim to come close)
should be as clear and unambiguous as possible to follow for the general audience and judges.
I'll be interested to hear if anyone has any solid ideas that follow above guidelines and get some popular support.
If the rules do get updated, then submission judgments such as the Super Mario Bros. one above can be revisited accordingly.
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.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Let me add that whatever changes are proposed to the rules, they should fit with the Judge Guidelines (which may need updating together with it?)
Some notable examples:
Quantity is not quality.
Keep the number of different branches per game minimal. A run for a proposed new branch for a game should offer compelling differences relative to previously published runs of that game.
In the past, we generally preferred one version of a game. The preference was for the original, such as Wonderboy for SMS instead of NES Adventure Island.
There are several observed schools of thought in regards to ports and conversions considered similar enough to warrant a strong preference. In some cases it becomes similar to ROM selection for the same platform where different regions have noticeable changes in content.
The first dictates that the original (chronologically first to be released) version should be preferred. Advantages: indisputable authenticity.
The second dictates that the more popular (more widely spread and/or recognized among the audience) version should be preferred. Advantages: easier and better recognition, better compatibility with existing records.
The third dictates that the superior (such as having expanded content, better graphics or music, more glitches, less lag or shorter loading times) version should be preferred. Advantages: potentially better watching experience, potentially more opportunities for creative timesavers. Superiority in this case can be disputed.
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'm going to quote what I said a few minutes ago in the submission thread of SMB1 PAL:
The way I see it, the rules should say that you can use whatever 60Hz version you want and that the fastest such version is preferred. If you want to use a 50Hz version you need to justify it with gameplay differences, so it can be decided if this version should receive a separate publication or obsolete the 60Hz publication. If the gameplay differences are small enough, it could still be rejected for being basically "the same but slower".
Current project: Gex 3 any%
Paused: Gex 64 any%
There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Reposting what I pointed out in the submission thread:
Mothrayas wrote:
Does this movie have "significant technical and/or entertainment merits" over the NTSC run? I think that's a very legitimate question, and it is what your argument rests upon.
Let's see...
Movie Rules wrote:
See Rygar and Blaster Master for examples of good usage of the PAL ROM.
This movie plays on the European version of the game, which includes a few bugs such as stopping movement by pausing and allowing double (and more) jumping. A changed zip mechanism is also in the European version which allows warping through things you really shouldn't be able to warp through.
Different glitches themselves aren't a bad thing. And if a PAL game tries to compensate for the slower framerate, it's hard to clearly tell if it is what causes those glitches (not impossible probably).
I can't easily find any explanation on why European Rygar is justified. The USA pub just says that the glitches are different.
Also, different region versions don't have to obsolete oneanother.
Now about "significant technical and/or entertainment merits". Neither the rule, nor the above cases clearly define what is considered significant here, but the votes for this run are fine. Differences in glitches and difficulty probably affect both tech and entertainment aspects, but don't exhaust them. I guess it should be first figured out what merits are expected from a run to justify different region versions published alongside each other, then we could evaluate the significance of what we have here.
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.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
feos wrote:
Now about "significant technical and/or entertainment merits". Neither the rule, nor the above cases clearly define what is considered significant here, but the votes for this run are fine. Differences in glitches and difficulty probably affect both tech and entertainment aspects, but don't exhaust them. I guess it should be first figured out what merits are expected from a run to justify different region versions published alongside each other, then we could evaluate the significance of what we have here.
Let me just add that up until yesterday I pretty much agreed with all your earlier arguments (as well as some good points from Warp). However, seeing judge reactions yesterday on that potential outcome made me reread the judge guidelines I just mentioned above, which I think is clearer: Keep the number of different branches per game minimal. A run for a proposed new branch for a game should offer compelling differences relative to previously published runs of that game. .
We've worked with the compelling differences line of thought for a long time with all our branches. It is clear to me this guidelines applies to NTSC vs PAL also, and at that point it's not hard to get a sense what "significant technical and/or entertainment merits" are, we've dealt with this sort of thing for a long time. It always boils down to what percent of the run is unique material, how much is that noticeable, what are the long term consequences, and how runs may change in the future to become more closely aligned and lack differences.
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.
Good idea for a thread.
Under the second bullet point, I'd suggest an exception for games where the PAL version is the original; i.e. the game was verifiably made and first published in Europe, and later ported to USA/Japan. However, I am not sure if there are any examples of such games, so the point may be moot.
If a run on an English ROM is compared to one in (e.g.) Japanese language, the judges typically discount the rate at which text is displayed for calculating which of the two is faster. It may help to clarify that the same principle applies to non-interactive parts of the game on a different framerate. For instance, if the run for one region is faster solely because the cutscenes run quicker, then that doesn't count.
Regarding what Nach posted, the line "In the past, we generally preferred" is not a guideline but a description of site history. Therefore it should not be on a page with guidelines. As to the section "There are several observed schools of thought", I am curious if there is consensus among judges as to which of the three should be applied.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Radiant wrote:
As to the section "There are several observed schools of thought", I am curious if there is consensus among judges as to which of the three should be applied.
I cannot speak for others, but my thoughts are a case by case basis kind of thing. Most of the time, we accept the original, and anything else that offers something with large amount of differences.
If a later version adds on a ton of features, and a TAS of it ends up being a superset of the original, with equal or better quality, there's a good chance we do a cross-variant/cross-game/cross-platform obsoletion.
Only if the original is poor would I consider going forgoing it altogether and choosing something superior or more widely recognized.
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.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Nach wrote:
We've worked with the compelling differences line of thought for a long time with all our branches. It is clear to me this guidelines applies to NTSC vs PAL also, and at that point it's not hard to get a sense what "significant technical and/or entertainment merits" are, we've dealt with this sort of thing for a long time. It always boils down to what percent of the run is unique material, how much is that noticeable, what are the long term consequences, and how runs may change in the future to become more closely aligned and lack differences.
There is an option to completely prefer PAL to NTSC, and by definition, it should be possible to switch to PAL if the requirements for that are met. But there's no list of requirements. Blaster Master and Rygar are just presented as examples, and I don't think they are as much better than their NTSC counterparts as this imaginary requirement wants. They just happened to be made on PAL, and that's how they are automatically good examples of PAL preference.
And there are two ways to look at this: 1) past mistakes don't justify bla bla; 2) history of having PAL as a main branch is about as long as the site's, so we have to consider these 2 cases precedents instead.
In the Movie Rules, it should be clearly stated that different regions might qualify for different branches if they meet the Moons requirements. These requirements, unlike the ones I mentioned above, are well known and clear, no problem with them. It should just be mentioned, so people understand what's going on and what to expect.
Branching different regions separately has also happened already a few times, it just remains unspoken, and hence confusing.
Finally, maybe we need to clarify the Moons requirements for different branches too? I keepcoming up with my own, and I dunno if they are even good enough.
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.
Now about "significant technical and/or entertainment merits". Neither the rule, nor the above cases clearly define what is considered significant here
It looks pretty clear to me.
For Rygar, the branches are not for different versions of the game but for different goals. The first run is any%-with-warps, the second is any%-without-warps, and the third is low%. It strikes me as pretty obvious that a European low% run could obsolete the USA low% run, or conversely that a USA any%-with-warps run could obsolete the European any%-with-warps, assuming it was faster of course.
The same thing applies to Blaster Master. Again, the branches don't exist for different versions but for different goals.
For Mario Bros, as the judge points out, the two have different levels (20 levels vs 23, for starters), and then there's a type of enemy that's present in one version but not the other. That's a pretty big difference that would be obvious to even a casual player. That's important; you don't have to delve into technical minutiae or cause a casual watcher's eyes to glaze over to explain this.
I'd say this is comparable to why "no running" is a valid branch for SMB whereas a category like "avoids this particular glitch but not that particular glitch" gets rejected: one is exceedingly obvious to everyone, and the other requires technical minutiae to explain the difference.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
feos,
I think the requirements are more fully enumerated within related sections in the Judge Guidelines. My biggest issue with just accepting PAL games with a blanket understanding that it's a new game variant is that suddenly every existing branch of a particular game variant will try to be remade with the other.
I accept PAL as the main variant if one of the following two is true (which I think is also fairly obvious even if not 100% spelled out):
1) The PAL version is the original (or heck the only!).
2) The PAL version is vastly superior objectively (Lufia 2 E is objectively vastly superior to Lufia 2 U (but not necessarily Lufia 2 J)).
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.
My proposal would be that if you are aiming for a speed record, use the fastest version of the game (for that console.) To me preferring NTSC U is the outdated part here. Is PAL NES the same console as NTSC NES? Probably close enough (although not 100% compatible.)
But, the bigger picture as I see it is that there is still a much more outdated notion that branches for games should be kept at the bare minimum. This often, and sometimes awkwardly, factors into the judging of new submissions of runs that don't fit neatly into the existing framework.
I think that this problem arises from the idea that any content we accept has to also be published. Publishing is as far as I can tell an arduous process, so this makes sense.
What if instead, we were able to accept runs without the need to publish them? They can exist in movie file / submission page form alone and still be present and searchable. We can save publication for those rus that people find entertaining enough for the effort.
Obviously there would still be need to manage branches somewhat, but you could open up the field a bit at least and take pressure off publishers.
This would of course only work if the moons-vault system were replaced by something game based, so all accepted runs would follow the game. I'm under no illusions that the moons-vault system is going anywhere anytime soon, but these are my thoughs on the matter.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Nach wrote:
2) The PAL version is vastly superior objectively (Lufia 2 E is objectively vastly superior to Lufia 2 U (but not necessarily Lufia 2 J)).
This is the "judge instinct". I'll read Radiant's take later (pretending it matters), but I need this to be elevated above instincts and set in words, that would nicely match what Rygar and Blaster Master happen to have.
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.
2) The PAL version is vastly superior objectively (Lufia 2 E is objectively vastly superior to Lufia 2 U (but not necessarily Lufia 2 J)).
This is the "judge instinct". I'll read Radiant's take later (pretending it matters), but I need this to be elevated above instincts and set in words, that would nicely match what Rygar and Blaster Master happen to have.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
What's wrong with me treating your post as a word of a judge?
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.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
feos wrote:
Nach wrote:
2) The PAL version is vastly superior objectively (Lufia 2 E is objectively vastly superior to Lufia 2 U (but not necessarily Lufia 2 J)).
This is the "judge instinct". But I need this to be elevated above instincts and set in words, that would nicely match what Rygar and Blaster Master happen to have.
I specifically chose Lufia 2 as my example because it's more than just instinct, it's objective fact known by Lufia 2 fans.
Lufia 2 U was released in a broken fashion. Parts of the game have the graphics completely garbled. Parts of the game are outright missing. Logic is screwed up during one of the boss fights. The menus vomit on themselves. This doesn't lead to amazing game advancing glitches, it just leads to annoying the heck out of the player/viewer. Lufia 2 E fixes all these problems, and Lufia 2 J never had them in the first place. (Okay, there is some places in Lufia 2 U that clipping is missing where it isn't in Lufia 2 E, although I'm not sure that leads to any major game advances. I also found some additional details for Lufia 2 ending which are not normally displayed in any version are hidden in the U version which ties in both with earlier plot points and a tie-in with Lufia 1 that otherwise flies under the radar, but aside from getting a deeper understanding of the story, you'll never see it in a TAS.)
Anything of a similar nature to Lufia 2 I could see accepting PAL as the main branch.
Also as in Mario Bros. where there's some major differences in the game itself, or anything of a similar nature, I can see accepting both side by side, along with a whole set of branches on each.
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.
What if instead, we were able to accept runs without the need to publish them? They can exist in movie file / submission page form alone and still be present and searchable. We can save publication for those rus that people find entertaining enough for the effort.
All rejected submissions are archived. The notably good ones are even listed in Gruefood Delight.
I think the most unclear part of the rules is the definition of being "poorly modified". A PAL version that is "not modified" should obviously not be used because the resulted run would be slower than an optimized run done on NTSC version for sure, but what is "poorly modified", exactly? And why is it especially important for PAL games? It's not uncommon for J and U versions of the same game to have different glitches, and the one with more beneficial glitches that result in a faster run is usually chosen (for any%, at least). I don't think anyone would argue that [2565] GBC Pokémon: Silver Version "game end glitch" by MrWint in 30:39.49(there are faster methods now, I know, but this was the fastest run back then) should not obsolete its predecessor for using a glitch resulted from localization, nor do I think anyone was against the use of J version of TTYD for being more broken.
IMHO, the fastest version should be chosen for any% in all cases unless the only differences are texts(using English versions for better understanding is a good idea, unless J is the only NTSC version). If a slower version is considered more authentic or popular, a run of that version should be the one that is judged as a special category run.
TL;DR: The fastest version should be used for Vaultable categories. Choosing English versions with longer texts should be fine unless it's PAL. I fall into the third school mentioned by Nach, I guess.
More importantly I find the consequences here a bit strange. Does this mean a run could be submitted of SMB NTSC U that only times playable segments and by this analysis obsolete the current run? I think this is a more important question then what to do with PAL.
You could definitely make such a submission. It would probably be accepted as a new branch if the audience liked it and the judge found it differed enough from the existing content we have.
What if it got rejected? If it were then your in-game time comparison to a hypothetical NTSC run would be to something that exists but is rejected. That certainly seems awkward. Then you'd have a run with a faster in game time (PAL SMB) then a published run (current NTSC SMB), but can't be accepted because it's slower then a rejected run that is faster. 0_0
This seems like a problem to me. If conversions necessarily are judged across in-game time, then I don't think you should be able to have a situation where the faster in-game time run can't be or isn't published.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Alyosha wrote:
From the SMB PAL thread:
Nach wrote:
Alyosha wrote:
More importantly I find the consequences here a bit strange. Does this mean a run could be submitted of SMB NTSC U that only times playable segments and by this analysis obsolete the current run? I think this is a more important question then what to do with PAL.
You could definitely make such a submission. It would probably be accepted as a new branch if the audience liked it and the judge found it differed enough from the existing content we have.
Why the heck are you posting this here? If you want an answer to your questions don't post in some unrelated thread.
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 am open to suggestions, keeping in mind that the movie rules are or should be defined such that it:
should be as clear and unambiguous as possible to follow for the general audience and judges.
I'm saying that the curent situation results in some far from clear results, where it could and should be much simpler.
EDIT: If it wasn't clear, my suggestion is this part: If conversions necessarily are judged across in-game time, then I don't think you should be able to have a situation where the faster in-game time run can't be or isn't published.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
This is a general discussion thread, if you want to discuss a specific submission judgment please do so in the appropriate thread.
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 didn't want to disucss that judgement, I was making a general case and just using that as a current example.
Let me try again.
In the current scheme, an in game time run cannot strictly obsolete a real time run in the same region. As such, it is possible for such a run to get rejected.
However, conversion runs are strictly judged against their in-game time counterparts.
This leads to the a situation where a judgement can be made on a submission (of a conversion ex PAL) based on rejected content. If that run is slower in-game time, even if faster real time, it will be rejected even though the other run that is faster is also rejected.
My point is:
This leads to a situation where neither the fastest real time run or the fastest in-game time run is published.
This seems strange to me and my suggestion is always allow the publication of in-game time (if the current rule of judging conversions on in-game time is kept.)
EDIT: well, my actual suggestion is to drop the in-game time comparison, but excluding that this is my second suggestion.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Your point is based upon a concept that a faster version should be the one published and should obsolete the other. I don't think our current NTSC vs PAL rules demand this. If you're suggesting that is something we should codify, you just raised a good argument why we shouldn't.
At this moment I'm not convinced our NTSC vs PAL rules need to change. Although I accept that clarifying certain points in the rules may be called for. If we do modify them, I'd want to look in the direction of accepting each as game variants individually, not as looking for one to obsolete the other which I think for many games makes little sense.
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.
Your point is based upon a concept that a faster version should be the one published and should obsolete the other. I don't think our current NTSC vs PAL rules demand this. If you're suggesting that is something we should codify, you just raised a good argument why we shouldn't.
...what? If you're saying that having neither record published is fine, then we simply disagree (but I don't know if that's what you're saying.)
I'm saying that whatever we base judgements on for conversions, the fastest run of the basis of that judgement should be published. It doesn't have to obsolete another run (ex. the in-game time run doesn't have to obsolete the real time) but it shouldn't be able to be rejected.
That way we always have at least one of in-game time or real time records published.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
I'm saying that I can see fastest real time and fastest game time for just one of NTSC or PAL. I don't think that necessarily they should cross obsolete nor that we need to publish both NTSC and PAL.
The point in this thread is to ask whether some changes are wanted to codify cross obsoletion or publishing both. I'm not convinced there's any benefit in cross obsoletion. For publishing both NTSC and PAL, maybe it's warranted.
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.
Ok I see what you are saying now. We see this issue in very different ways.
I don't think having in-game conversion comparison is much use without consistent cross obsoletion. The simple solution would be to just publish PAL seperately, which I think is a good option as well.
EDIT: And I think not publishing PAL at all would be a bad choice.
