Hi guys. Recently we updated the Publisher Guidelines regarding branch names.
http://tasvideos.org/PublisherGuidelines.html#BranchName
This approach was in use since 2014. Before it was introduced, a few enthusiasts who decided not to listen to common sense ended up having branch labels like SNES Super Mario World (USA) "no null sprite spit, no stun glitch" by bahamete, Kaizoman666, Mister & PangaeaPanga in 09:57.82 for real. They "fixed" literally all publications retroactively to have branch labels that were only comprehensible to them. Staff members united in order to come up with an actually usable long-term approach, and that's what we use now, but there remained one problem: not all old and obsoleted runs were made to meet the updated guidelines.
So I decided to finish fixing all the labels, because ThunderAxe31 felt like helping. Together we figured out how to properly label all Pokemon runs, current and obsolete. Here's what we fixed:
If you feel we're wrong, or ignoring the rules, or the rules are bad, tell us. Otherwise, suggest branch labels to fix. We will ponder them and fix appropriately, with compliance to the guidelines.
Note: all goals that are uncommon, like Playaround, need labels, so please don't limit your suggestions to only Major skip glitch category.
Note to users who have privs for editing branch labels:DO NOT edit anything before prior agreement.
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.
A branch name can consist of more than one focus if concise and most accurately reflects the branch used, for example, "pacifist, warps". When adding a second goal, make sure it's not a subset of the main one nor implied by it. Still avoid having more than two goals in the label. All the extra conditions can instead be put into movie description.
While "warpless" is indeed not a default category for SMB (neither is "warps"), the very goals of "maximum coins" and "all items" contain warp usage definitions in them. Also:
PublisherGuidelines wrote:
If the condition is not overwhelmingly common, we label each unique approach, if there are counterpart runs of the same game. Most of the time such a condition is internal.
In this case, we don't have counterpart warp usage runs for "maximum coins" and "all items". They only exist in one version. And since warp usage is not a default condition, we don't have to mention it everywhere.
So instead of changing "warpless, walkathon" to "walkathlon", change the obsoleted warped walkathons to "warps, walkathlon". Those are legacy branches that no longer work, just like dropping "warps" no longer works for any%.
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 the condition is not overwhelmingly common, we label each unique approach, if there are counterpart runs of the same game. Most of the time such a condition is internal.
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.
You are being nitpicky for the walkathon in my opinion. in my eyes, Walkathon is perfectly fine even for the obsoleted one.
The first one was published when it was thought that warpless wasn't possible. And it got obsoleted, but it's still a walkathon. It just got improved by pushing the boundaries.
You are being nitpicky for the walkathon in my opinion. in my eyes, Walkathon is perfectly fine even for the obsoleted one.
The first one was published when it was thought that warpless wasn't possible. And it got obsoleted, but it's still a walkathon. It just got improved by pushing the boundaries.
It is exactly why it needs a compound label: to highlight the difference. And it's not possible to fix utter mess without being nitpicky. You just need to come up with good principles and reasonably apply them, that's all. And I think we're set in regards to both.
Also, I fixed these:
http://tasvideos.org/movies.cgi?id=696,862
The glitch used there is not a Major skip glitch, just a regular time-saving technique that cuts small amount of overall time. And avoiding such glitches is uncommon, while avoiding major skip glitches is common. So I put the branch "no X" to the newer run and cleared the branch of the older one.
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.
Also, there are many Super Mario World movies, including hacks, that lack an appropriate label, but we also have to decide if going for the "warps"-"warpless" naming or "low exits"-"max exits" naming
By our IRC discussion, the goal of SMW "warps" doesn't care how many or few exists are used, it just aims to beat the game ASAP without major skip glitches. And "96 exits" isn't strictly warpless either (hence no Forgoes warps class).
I think it's the best to rely on our reasoning from 2014 that led to marking it "warps" and leaving "96 exits" intact, even though I don't remember the reasons anymore. Not as simple as strict antonyms, but in this case it seems they won't increase sensibility, but will instead reduce it.
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.
Simply linking to the new guidelines does not make it clear how they've changed. Even looking through the page history, both the new and old versions are fairly wordy, and structured differently, so an explanation of the goal of this tidy-up would be appreciated. Only including the new goal names in this thread didn't help with comprehension either. I'll leave comments on branch names for SM64DS until after there's more clarification.
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.
Spot cases where some rare condition is used, and a new branch is made out of that. If that condition is used the same way in some other games, but is still very rare, each run that uses it for a different branch must be labeled.
If it's a "game-breaking glitch", the label must be "X glitch". If the rare condition is still used in most runs of some game (like BLJ in SM64), the run that avoids it should be 'no X".
After looking over this more, especially the quote above, I think that the current SM64DS movies should remain as the trunk branch. Use of major skips is what will be seen in the majority of movies, with the rare condition being to limit their use. So the fastest completion remains the trunk, 80 Star would be "80 Star, No Castle OoB" or a similar variant like No Castle Skips or No Overworld Skips, and 150 Star would be "150 Star". Any other goal would be "<goal>" or "<goal>, No Castle OoB", though another goal restricting castle OoB is very unlikely. Potential goals for the future are "B Button Challenge", "Best Ending" or "Maximum Coins", all of which would not restrict castle skips, consolidating my point that restricting castle skips is the rare condition. Hope I've understood that right, and if I have then nothing needs changed.
Major skip glitch is viewed on the scale of entire game base, because it's virtually possible in any game, it's just a matter of time and effort invested. And for now it's a really rare feature: 181 runs against total publication count of 3642.
Something must be considered possible unless we are sure it is not. Statistics can be assessed on two levels (including obsoleted movies):
- Against the range of the runs this particular condition is applicable to (Ultraspindash is only applicable to a few Sonic games)
- Against the range of runs the type of that condition is applicable to (Pacifist completion is possible in a large variety of different games)
So even if all branches for some game use it, it's still considered a rare external condition overall. Hence we label all runs that use it.
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.
Are these all going to be changed then? Many of them have no branch.
I think trying to label uncommon major skips explicitly rather than using a generic "major skip glitch" label (akin to the current "game end glitch", "warp glitch", etc, labels) is detrimental to the site. When a run uses several different major skips this will get out of hand and lead to a complete lack of clarity. For example, if [3497] PSX Crash Bandicoot: Warped "item glitch, gate clip" by pirohiko in 05:40.77 was obsoleted using a new major glitch, maybe even twice, would it end up with four labels? Even the current name seems almost as bad as the example quoted in the first post.
Publisher Guidelines wrote:
Avoid more than two goals in the label. All the extra conditions can instead be put into movie description.
This rule would seem to mitigate the problem slightly, but then you have to decide which of the major skip glitches are worth mentioning. The biggest ones? The most recent ones? Even determining the biggest or second-biggest could be difficult and subjective, depending on the structure of the game.
In SM64DS, the biggest skip is clearly the endless stairs skip, as 80 stars are required otherwise. However, all of the five movies but one have notable route changes due to new skips. And even the first movie included other major skips that made the run 14 instead of 40 minutes long, the second-biggest being 50 star door skip, then 30 star door skip, then moat skip... if the aim is to differentiate notable route changes by marking the skips that cut a large portion of the run, this seems like it will result in a complete mess. The current movie might be "endless stairs skip, 50 star door skip, 8 star door skip, moat skip, 2nd key door skip", as without a single one of these skips the run would be over 10% longer, but this still doesn't make clear that a completely different method of the 2nd key door skip was used between the last two movies. Then there's the improvement being worked on which uses generally the same route but a different method for the endless stairs skip, resulting in a notable timesave.
I wouldn't expect the actual label to end up this complex, but there would need to be subjective decisions of which skips are the most important to limit the name down to two skips. And no, a name such as "3 Star" wouldn't be ideal, given the unintuitive improvement from 1 Star to 3 Star, along with the notable improvements between the last two movies despite them both getting 3 stars. The branch name chosen might have skips moving in and out of it between movies based on the combination of other skips used, and it wouldn't help understand the improvement, instead creating clutter and confusion.
To summarise, I think this push to improve the branch names will have the opposite effect when applied to uncommon major skip glitches, so I propose a generic "major skip glitch" label to alleviate this issue. I do appreciate the effort to fix branch names, but creating unique names for major skip glitches in hundreds of different games seems like the wrong way to go about it.
P.S. This "major skip glitch" label could be an optional choice depending on author/staff preference, or only used if there would be 2+ or 3+ glitches in the label. It could also replace some of the common major skip labels currently used: the details aren't final. But I think for games where it is difficult and annoying to accurately reflect the contents of a major skip glitch run by putting specific skip names in the label, such as SM64DS, the option of a generic name would be beneficial, so I hope this suggestion is considered.
I think trying to label uncommon major skips explicitly rather than using a generic "major skip glitch" label (akin to the current "game end glitch", "warp glitch", etc, labels) is detrimental to the site. When a run uses several different major skips this will get out of hand and lead to a complete lack of clarity. For example, if [3497] PSX Crash Bandicoot: Warped "item glitch, gate clip" by pirohiko in 05:40.77 was obsoleted using a new major glitch, maybe even twice, would it end up with four labels? Even the current name seems almost as bad as the example quoted in the first post.
You are correct, and I always preferred the old way to simply label them "glitched" and be fine. But 40% of the community hated that, saying it's meaningful and non-descriptive. Another 40% liked it that way. So we had to use the approach that pleases both camps and neither at the same time.
Really_Tall wrote:
To summarise, I think this push to improve the branch names will have the opposite effect when applied to uncommon major skip glitches, so I propose a generic "major skip glitch" label to alleviate this issue. I do appreciate the effort to fix branch names, but creating unique names for major skip glitches in hundreds of different games seems like the wrong way to go about it.
P.S. This "major skip glitch" label could be an optional choice depending on author/staff preference, or only used if there would be 2+ or 3+ glitches in the label. It could also replace some of the common major skip labels currently used: the details aren't final. But I think for games where it is difficult and annoying to accurately reflect the contents of a major skip glitch run by putting specific skip names in the label, such as SM64DS, the option of a generic name would be beneficial, so I hope this suggestion is considered.
Ideally, we'd just find what type of major skip glitch is used. For example if something lets you skip 60% of the movie by teleporting to the wrong location, it's clearly a "warp glitch". And we don't care how this teleporting looks, it just has to happen in some way.
It gets complicated if there are several unrelated glitches that only cut down the time so much if used together. I think there's no solution to that ATM, and Crash Warped is an example when we only have 2 such glitches, yet there can be more in future, what do we do then?
Can you tell briefly what each major skip glitch used in those sm64ds runs does gameplay-wise, in an abstract way? For example "glitch X lets you clip into a wall", "glitch Y lets you increase your speed tenfold", etc.
I don't think we can return to "glitched" or "well, just SOME major skip glitches, I dunno". Maybe there's a way. But I'd need some insight on what the existing MSGs do.
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 the condition is not overwhelmingly common, we label each unique approach, if there are counterpart runs of the same game. Most of the time such a condition is internal.
feos, your thinking here is problematic. Warpless for these games is just as a common thing to make a run for, even if not yet submitted to TASVideos.
Here's my post originally summarizing the new rules (which were later refined somewhat after).
Nach wrote:
The most important point is to give labels which properly define what the run is about. If the labeling needs to be edited upon obsoletion, it shows it was not defined correctly in the first place.
...
Tags which define avoiding normal gameplay do not need to have counter tags listed in other branches. Meaning, tag walkathon and pacifist, do not tag uses running and kills enemies. However, something like warps and forgoes warps should be tagged on both sets of applicable branches.
Things like pacifist or avoiding running needs to be tagged when such a run is submitted. The opposite does not require it.
Something that is warped or warpless should be that way from the outset, and not need a whole bunch of runs to be updated just because it took a while for someone to submit a run of the opposite case, and many runs were made in the interim.
More information is helpful as long as it doesn't become meaningless. Knowing that a run uses warps by looking at the name of it is great. This is true even if warpless was not yet published. Knowing that an SMB run uses actual running is just lengthy excess. We only mention something like this when it's unsual.
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.
The rule does imply that warped and warpless are common. But not "so common that the opposite is an exception", not "overwhelmingly common". Just standard, average.
Back in 2014 I had a talk with adelikat, after the new branching rules, where he wanted to prevent labeling nearly all of our existing runs that only have 1 branch (in all cases where a certain in-game option is used)). I came up with a reasonable approach to that. The full text of the rule is quite similar to what we had in judge guidelines initially.
Original suggestion:
Post #373887
Old version everyone liked:
JudgeGuidelines&rev=57 wrote:
When figuring out the needed label, one should assess the statistics and answer the question: "Is the applied approach so common that the opposite is an exception?"
- If it is that common, we don't label runs that do it the common way, and label runs that don't, if there are counterpart runs of the same game.
- If it's not that common, we label each approach, if there are counterpart runs of the same game.
To determine the branch label, we need to answer this question:
Is the condition for this run common enough for this game that the opposite is an exception?
- If the condition is overwhelmingly common, we won't label runs that stick to the common way of play, and instead label runs that are unusual. Most of the time such a condition is external.
- If the condition is not overwhelmingly common, we label each unique approach, if there are counterpart runs of the same game. Most of the time such a condition is internal.
For goals that are generally uncommon and cannot be a trunk (pacifist, playaround, various kinds of major skip glitches, newgame+, etc) it is preferred to put a label even if there are no counterpart runs. This works the same as with branches of a single game, just on a larger scale, and has the same purpose: highlighting unique goal types.
Goals that are common (specific player count, character choice, route through the map) don't have to be labeled if there are no counterpart runs.
Why is it all so? Because if we decide that we need to label "warps", "warpless", "1 player", "2 players", and similar in all cases when they are true, we will quickly drown in trains of labels for each run:
NES Super Mario Bros. 3 (USA PRG1) "arbitrary code execution, warps"
NES Super Mario Bros. 3 (USA PRG0) "warpless"
NES Super Mario Bros. 3 (USA PRG0) "warps"
NES Super Mario Bros. 3 (USA PRG0) "100%, warpless"
NES Super Mario Bros. 3 (USA PRG0) "game end glitch, warps"
SNES Super Mario World (USA) "96 exits, warps" (some are used, AFAIK)
SNES Super Mario World (USA) "game end glitch, warpless" (lol)
SNES Super Mario World (USA) "small only, warps"SNES Super Mario World (USA) "arbitrary code execution, warpless"
SNES Super Mario World (USA) "warps"
I personally don't find this too elegant. Sure, this situation is exceptional, and maybe some people agree that using such labels regardless of how huge they will get is fine, when we only have a few exceptional "trees". But I believe the system should work regardless of our current scale, even in 10 years if we have several times more branches for most games. I think it's imperfect to depend on rarity of bizarre situations: we need to know exactly how to deal with them.
Another problem is that the game might have several factors that are all standard and would need such a label, which results in 3+ entries in labels. Finally, where do we draw the line between "unique" (pacifist) and "just common" (warps)?
However, if it's not what you're suggestion, then we need to clarify what we disagree about 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:
Why is it all so? Because if we decide that we need to label "warps", "warpless", "1 player", "2 players", and similar in all cases when they are true, we will quickly drown in trains of labels for each run:
NES Super Mario Bros. 3 (USA PRG1) "arbitrary code execution, warps"
NES Super Mario Bros. 3 (USA PRG0) "warpless"
NES Super Mario Bros. 3 (USA PRG0) "warps"
NES Super Mario Bros. 3 (USA PRG0) "100%, warpless"
NES Super Mario Bros. 3 (USA PRG0) "game end glitch, warps"
SNES Super Mario World (USA) "96 exits, warps" (some are used, AFAIK)
SNES Super Mario World (USA) "game end glitch, warpless" (lol)
SNES Super Mario World (USA) "small only, warps"SNES Super Mario World (USA) "arbitrary code execution, warpless"
SNES Super Mario World (USA) "warps"
I personally don't find this too elegant.
I find this style to be terrific. You know what each run is about by looking at it's title.
feos wrote:
But I believe the system should work regardless of our current scale, even in 10 years
This is one of the key points we agreed about back in 2014. If a game over 10 years has accumulated a dozen "warps" runs, and it's not labeled "warps" from the get go, when that "warpless" run is finally published, we have to go back and "fix" 10 years worth of "warps" runs. For cases like "warps" vs. "warpless" we can label them correctly from the get go and avoid this problem.
feos wrote:
Another problem is that the game might have several factors that are all standard and would need such a label, which results in 3+ entries in labels. Finally, where do we draw the line between "unique" (pacifist) and "just common" (warps)?
By your own example, pacifist is not internal to the game. There's no need to label something which is non-pacifist. However if a pacifist run is the only one that is published, it should still say "pacifist" and we can expect normal not "pacifist" runs to eventually be published.
"Warps" is internal to the game and should always be labled both ways.
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.
Alright, then I accidentally discovered a decent dividing factor back then, which is "something the game suggests as an option".
But still, what if more than 2 sub-labels start stacking up? I would hate to see this:
NES Battletoads (USA) "game end glitch, waps, 2 players"
With the current approach, unless we completely change the requirements of accepting new Moons branches, there's no way to have all versions of game end glitch simultaneously published:
"game end glitch, warps, 2 players"
"game end glitch, warplesss, 2 players"
"game end glitch, warps, 1 player"
"game end glitch, warplesss, 1 players"
So in quite a few cases, we won't end up having to rename all the old branches retroactively.
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.
I find this style to be terrific. You know what each run is about by looking at it's title.
Do you really need to know that much info?
I still stand by my opinion that some aren't that needed. The warpless walkathon could be only called walkathon. As a viewer, I wouldn't care if the run is warpless or not. I would care if it's a walkathon.
Same goes with 96 exits. I wouldn't care as a viewer if a movie uses warps. I would care if it does 96 exits.
*If* ther eis 2 movies that does 96 exits, or a walkathon (of the same game) now you're talking. But now there is only one.
Concerning the walkathon: consider this scenario:
Run A does a highscore that was thought to be the best that doesN't use any warps.
Then Run B obsoletes run A by beating the score AND using a warp because of new tricks or something.
Do you need to put "warp" in the run B label or you just keep "High score"? I say no. You only need to lknow that's a high score. Not High score AND warps.
Do you really need to know that much info?
I still stand by my opinion that some aren't that needed. The warpless walkathon could be only called walkathon. As a viewer, I wouldn't care if the run is warpless or not. I would care if it's a walkathon.
Same goes with 96 exits. I wouldn't care as a viewer if a movie uses warps. I would care if it does 96 exits.
*If* ther eis 2 movies that does 96 exits, or a walkathon (of the same game) now you're talking. But now there is only one.
Concerning the walkathon: consider this scenario:
Run A does a highscore that was thought to be the best that doesN't use any warps.
Then Run B obsoletes run A by beating the score AND using a warp because of new tricks or something.
Do you need to put "warp" in the run B label or you just keep "High score"? I say no. You only need to lknow that's a high score. Not High score AND warps.
I see something good in this notion as well. I feel like I will need a poll. Nach, please don't debunk it by several anti-polls when I make it. There's no staff agreement anymore, so I want users to say.
"Walkathon" goal doesn't care if it will have to use or skip warps.
"Game end glitch" goal doesn't care about this.
"Max coins" doesn't care.
"All items" doesn't care.
They only care about reaching their main goal ASAP, regardless of using or avoiding warps, or amount of players involved.
I would argue that warps are not even part of the goal for them, just a side effect. In which case, it makes sense to only address warp usage in movie classes.
For Battletoads "1p warps", "1p warpless", "2p warps" and "2p warpless" both conditions are primary and equally important. Both conditions are essential parts of the goal. You can not do a ran that you want to explicitly be "2 players" with just 1 player all along. For a "walkathon" run, you can do either of those and be fine. And only have to put extra labels if both walkathons are currently published. Because then highlighting warp usage or player count is completely unavoidable.
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.
I don't know that that's necessary. Doesn't game end glitch imply warps?
feos wrote:
"game end glitch, warplesss, 2 players"
"game end glitch, warplesss, 1 players"
Are we likely to accept these?
Niamek wrote:
Nach wrote:
I find this style to be terrific. You know what each run is about by looking at it's title.
Do you really need to know that much info?
Forget me. What does random new guy visiting/joining the site, who knows little, need to know? He sees a bunch of runs, how does he know what he's looking at and how to differentiate between them?
Niamek wrote:
Same goes with 96 exits. I wouldn't care as a viewer if a movie uses warps. I would care if it does 96 exits.
96 exits implies Star World and nothing skipped. It doesn't need other labels in this regard.
feos wrote:
I see something good in this notion as well. I feel like I will need a poll. Nach, please don't debunk it by several anti-polls when I make it. There's no staff agreement anymore, so I want users to say.
1) I don't believe in polls.
2) If you're going to be making a poll with leading questions and strategic ambiguity in order to highlight your way is best with clever deception, don't expect me to leave you to it.
3) If staff randomly wakes up one day and completely changes their mind on something that was well agreed to, I don't even know what the point is in cleaning this stuff up. That would mean renaming everything every other year.
4) Making more polls when something was already polled and discussed to death and agreed to is basically nullifying what the audience already was polled on. So you get a result with your poll which someone dislikes, hey let's just make another and nullify that new semi-consensus.
--------------------------------------------------------------
My position is this:
1) We want clarity for our users. (And think users who aren't intimately familiar with the game to divine surely what it must be about without specific information being presented)
2) More clarity is always preferable. (But avoid information overload, because that obfuscates)
3) We also want to limit the amount of work our publishers need to do each time they publish.
4) Beyond this I don't really care what is done.
You're free to disagree with my criteria. However if you do happen to disagree with my criteria, I am calling you out on prioritizing your own opinions, ideals, and fanciful ideas over what is best for our users and staff.
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 find this style to be terrific. You know what each run is about by looking at it's title.
Do you really need to know that much info?
Forget me. What does random new guy visiting/joining the site, who knows little, need to know? He sees a bunch of runs, how does he know what he's looking at and how to differentiate between them?
You are indeed correct in the part that movies will need to be differenciated from others.
However, I'm not saying to remove the entire label. I'm saying that some infos aren't that needed such as warpless in a walkathon movie. Unless there are two walkathon published side by side, which is not the case.
If we take a look at all SMB runs, there is:
Warpless
Warps (I don't think we need that label that much, but it's not a big deal... Removing the warps label would reflect it's the any% like most of the movies on the site)
Walkathon (This means this one is different form the others because it doesn't run. I wouldn't need to know if it's warpless or not unless there is an another movie published that is warpless... Which is not the case since it's obsoleted...)
All items (This indicates it gets all items. So I already know it's not the same as any% or warps)
Maximum coins... It,s pretty much self explanatory. Do you need to add warps in the category name?
For the categories like walkathon or maximum coins, the tags like "Uses warps" is enough. Shouldn't need anything more complicated than that. We don't need all infos.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Niamek wrote:
However, I'm not saying to remove the entire label. I'm saying that some infos aren't that needed such as warpless in a walkathon movie. Unless there are two walkathon published side by side, which is not the case.
If one implies the other, then the label isn't needed. If it doesn't imply the other, then it does.
Niamek wrote:
Maximum coins... It,s pretty much self explanatory. Do you need to add warps in the category name?
You tell me. Imagine someone who is casually familiar with the game in question. Is it informative or information overload. Does it properly differentiate or not? Is it clear enough?
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 don't know that that's necessary. Doesn't game end glitch imply warps?
It implies neither warps nor warpless. It just uses the approach to warping that's faster. If some day we discover than you can trigger game end glitch right after the warp point in level 1, "game end glitch" branch will become warpless.
The opposite happened with SMB "walkathon": the longer warpless movie obsoleted the shorter warped run because it was more entertaining. But the "walkathon" branch implies neither.
Nach wrote:
feos wrote:
"game end glitch, warplesss, 2 players"
"game end glitch, warplesss, 1 players"
Are we likely to accept these?
This is an important question. If we stick to the current rules, there's no way such movies would be published alongside each other. Yet there's a chance they obsolete one another in future. So they can co-exist in history, just not among current branches. Should we put 3+ goals into labels?
Nach wrote:
1) I don't believe in polls.
2) If you're going to be making a poll with leading questions and strategic ambiguity in order to highlight your way is best with clever deception, don't expect me to leave you to it.
3) If staff randomly wakes up one day and completely changes their mind on something that was well agreed to, I don't even know what the point is in cleaning this stuff up. That would mean renaming everything every other year.
4) Making more polls when something was already polled and discussed to death and agreed to is basically nullifying what the audience already was polled on. So you get a result with your poll which someone dislikes, hey let's just make another and nullify that new semi-consensus.
Yeah, if people barely care, and if the questions aren't perfect, it won't help us out.
Nach wrote:
However if you do happen to disagree with my criteria, I am calling you out on prioritizing your own opinions, ideals, and fanciful ideas over what is best for our users and staff.
No, my plan here is to perfect the system, and to dig into our problems as deep as needed. I want it to be resolved in a reasonable and elegant way.
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.
I don't know that that's necessary. Doesn't game end glitch imply warps?
It implies neither warps nor warpless. It just uses the approach to warping that's faster. If some day we discover than you can trigger game end glitch right after the warp point in level 1, "game end glitch" branch will become warpless.
I think the issue of warps when you're glitching as soon as possible to the end is moot.
You're unlikely to play straight to level 3 and then glitch to the end if you can warp directly to level 3 from level 1. I don't think we'd accept a run which plays to level 3 and then glitch warps to the end of the game.
If you can glitch warp right after the level 1 warp to the end if you bypass the built-in level 1 warp, that's basically saying the fastest possible glitch warp is mutually exclusive with the built-in warp.
It's not that you really care about normal in-game play in this sense whether you played the game with warps or not, a game end glitch run ignores anything you think of normal play, and does whatever it can as soon as possible, whether that means using a built in warp or not.
I think for such cases warps vs. warpless is moot and and any mention of it can even be misleading.
feos wrote:
The opposite happened with SMB "walkathon": the longer warpless movie obsoleted the shorter warped run because it was more entertaining. But the "walkathon" branch implies neither.
Walkathon indeed implies neither. The question whether warps or warpless should appear alongside it depends on whether the issue of Walkathon makes the question of warping moot as in the above example, in which case we leave it off. If it's not moot, then it boils down to whether this is information that is self explanatory to the viewer when they see "Walkathon" for the game in question. If it isn't, then it should appear there to give them info.
Really, put yourself into someone new to TASVideos and only casual familiarity with the game. What title do you want to see that advises you what to expect, why you should watch this run, and how it differs from others you're likely to see alongside it for the same game. If you think "Walkathon" is honestly all you need, then fine. If you feel you're missing something and "warps" or "warpless" would better inform your choice of what to watch, then it should be added.
feos wrote:
Nach wrote:
feos wrote:
"game end glitch, warplesss, 2 players"
"game end glitch, warplesss, 1 players"
Are we likely to accept these?
This is an important question. If we stick to the current rules, there's no way such movies would be published alongside each other. Yet there's a chance they obsolete one another in future. So they can co-exist in history, just not among current branches. Should we put 3+ goals into labels?
For specific case, refer to what I just said above in this post.
Regarding 3+ labels, I have no hard reason to be against 3 or 4 or whatever number, the rule as I said is:
Nach wrote:
2) More clarity is always preferable. (But avoid information overload, because that obfuscates)
The ideal number of labels might differ on a case by case basis. Or it might mean max 3 or max 4 or whatever. I'm not strong on any number. I just want clarity without information overload.
feos wrote:
No, my plan here is to perfect the system, and to dig into our problems as deep as needed. I want it to be resolved in a reasonable and elegant way.
That I can agree with. I think in pursuit of that though, we should avoid accumulating opinions from people who elevate their own opinions over clarity for users and ease of publishing for our staff.
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.
2) More clarity is always preferable. (But avoid information overload, because that obfuscates)
I need to understand this borderline as well.
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 you feel we're wrong, or ignoring the rules, or the rules are bad, tell us. Otherwise, suggest branch labels to fix. We will ponder them and fix appropriately, with compliance to the guidelines.
Note: all goals that are uncommon, like Playaround, need labels, so please don't limit your suggestions to only Major skip glitch category.
Note to users who have privs for editing branch labels: DO NOT edit anything before prior agreement.
