Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player
(907)
Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1014
There's a lot to say and I don't have a lot of time to say it all but here goes:
First, progress *is* happening with most discussion happening on either #tasbot on IRC or on Discord.TASBot.net. Having said that, a lot of things didn't quite go to plan and we're now scrambling to solve the following issues:
- Console verification of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow has stalled out. There has been no new progress in weeks. This is most unfortunate as I would have really liked to see that pan out. This means we're falling back on the VBA emulator since porting it to BizHawk *also* failed (although I'd love it if one of the original authors wanted to try to do the conversion).
- Because we're showing Castlevania in VBA I would like to work toward making a visualization script in Lua that works with the PSoC5 board that illy and serisium made for Celeste. If you can help with this, come to #tasbot on IRC or #tasbot-dev in Discord and let us know.
- We should also adapt the same board mentioned above to work with libTAS in Linux. Same deal as the above, swing by and chat.
- Super Scribblenauts still scares the daylights out of me. I have a DS Phat capture card but my DS is in way worse shape than I thought it was. I need help getting something that the GDQ folks can capture from if they don't have their own. I'm going to check with them but it would be good to have a spare. There are *so* many risks to this but if it works it will be spectacular.
- MAGFest is looking good but at the same time I could use some help - I need to get my hands on a copy of Rockman 3, stat. I'm bad at ebay. I failed. There's still time but I have to get this worked out really soon if we're going to console verify this run. I've sent a request out to the MAGFest guys asking them for confirmation on whether they want this run or not. If they do, it would really help if I can find someone who can provide commentary on it.
- Hey Weatherton, are you seeing this? If so, contact me. There's a possibility they will show SMK64 all cups and if so I'd love to have you come and provide commentary. You'd get a free pass to MAGFest out of it. I haven't been able to reach you so far.
I need some personal help getting to the events but that's a separate issue entirely. For now, if you can assist with any of these tech things we'd be most appreciative. Thanks!
Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player
(907)
Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1014
We've made some really good progress on at least one front, thanks to some really hard work by the entire Super Scribblenauts team (which has now grown to the point that I honestly don't know who is even on it, a new first for me in delegation but I digress). We've made reasonable progress on Castlevania thanks to taters hunting down commentary from a handful of sources which is critical to make up for the fact that console verification has completely failed and we're falling back to playing it in an emulator. We're solid on libTAS assuming my tests go smoothly in the next couple of days.
On the MAGFest front we're unconfirmed on whether or not Weatherton can be there to provide commentary for MK64 but I'm likely going to get him a badge either way. We have a copy of Rockman 3 and it looks like we have folks on site for commentary so that's good. I'm way behind on slides for the talk as I'm adapting the panel from previous presentations and I'm also really concerned that I won't have enough time after I arrive to properly set up the video path. If anyone will be at MAGFest and can help out the first day I'd definitely appreciate it.
In general there are a lot of things that still need to be done. If you want to help out please come to #tasbot on Freenode IRC or Discord.TASBot.net and we'll put you to use. Even if you don't think you have skills there's always things that need to be written up. If you don't have time or don't think you have anything to contribute skills wise I could definitely still use help with paying for the trip, I've received $175 in donations against $2.5k in AGDQ 2019 and related expenses. There's a link in my signature if you're willing.
Thanks for all the help (especially from folks who have been on the Discord server) and here's to another great GDQ!
just watched the block and i think that the "lack of knowledge and interactivity" hurted the block pretty hard
the mari0 glitchless for introducing linux Tasing was a good idea but the game being virtually unknown, it flopped especially hard on the custom maps
also i think peoples tilted hard for the outrageous 100k incensitive for the scribblenauts extra AND having then to subscibe to be able to make use of it for a.... 4 choices 10 sec question where in the earlier years we did kinda bigger and more impressive for a lot less.
maybe setting a grid with "safe adjectives" and letting peoples type those forcing the majority to make "valid object" for the bot to use in a level (and hence giving the possibility for the bot to fail because the crowd choosed poorly ) as a FREEby +convincing the staff to pass the chat in free mode during the event would "greatly apease" peoples
last thing; VB__ did run aria of sorrow any % monday, maybe sticking that particular TAS just after and having the runner coexplain tricks would have made the run a bit more "public friendly"
just watched the block and i think that the "lack of knowledge and interactivity" hurted the block pretty hard
Something else to consider for a GDQ audience: It's not a TAS audience, it's a speedrun audience. The majority of the attendees don't pay for passes to go to a GDQ to see what newfangled, fancy, or technically impressive stuff we TAS people come up with by using games as a launchpad. They go for the speedruns (and to support the cause).
I'm not suggesting that the technical stuff we've done isn't interesting or noteworthy accomplishments.
Yet, while our TAS community may find some of this technical stuff very interesting/creative/entertaining, the speedrun community may not share those perspectives because they look at gaming from a slightly different standpoint. In some cases they simply may not have the requisite background (or interest) to follow/enjoy all of what we are presenting.
It doesn't mean that what we're doing isn't worthwhile. I'm suggesting that the GDQ audience isn't the appropriate audience for presenting this aspect of the TAS community. In other words, we may simply not be catering to the correct audience.
While gaining complete control and doing arbitrary things can be very interesting; I'd dare to bet that many in attendance at these events would be perfectly thrilled by a TAS exhibition that simply beats games much faster than a human could ever hope to, instead of having ACE or extra non-game related stuff in the TAS Block that isn't actually playing a game.
Again, being able to accomplish these non-game effects is awesome, but it's not the core of what GDQ is about. GDQ = Games done quick. If it's not game-related, does it really fit in with the concept?
My personal perspective regarding ACE runs at a GDQ event is the following:
-If the ACE is used to get to the endgame/credits faster, it's worthy of showing off at a GDQ.
-If the ACE is only used as an entry to do something completely non-game related, it doesn't fit in with the concept of games being beaten quickly and thus doesn't really fit with the concept of GDQ in the first place. This doesn't mean that this type of ACE isn't interesting, just that it's not related to games being done quickly.
Being technically impressive doesn't always equate to being entertaining. Perhaps we just need to simplify: stop worrying about showing the audience fancy new technical achievements and show them the speed-gaming they're there for anyway...just better than what they expect.
If we do want to demonstrate something that's not strictly about beating a game quickly, we should strive to still offer a sense of speed-gaming in the presentation. For example Brain Age (while not a very fast completion) maintained that feel of speed-gaming while still demonstrating something unattainable by human standards.
To reiterate...I suspect that the majority of GDQ attendees are there primarily for the speed gaming...not to see all the other non-game related stuff that just so happens to be doable using technology that is designed primarily for gaming (whether or not a game is used as the primary access point to achieve that other stuff).
Being technically impressive doesn't always equate to being entertaining. Perhaps we just need to simplify: stop worrying about showing the audience fancy new technical achievements and show them the speed-gaming they're there for anyway...just better than what they expect.
I think this is the key point to the criticism.
It is the very same reason we have vault, moons, and stars. There was a SM64 any% tas that obsoleted a starred movie but the camera angles were beyond obnoxious. We elected to have it as the top movie for the category but not inherit the star because it was difficult to watch. We also had movies that were technically impressive but very boring to watch and before vault existed, they were not accepted based on entertainment alone.
I think the same standards should be held for tasbot content. Only showcase content that can be considered moon/star material or have great commentary to make up the difference. There are movies here with great author commentary in some form that bring entertainment up a notch and I'm sure the same effect can be achieved at a GDQ with the right people.
i agree, it's before everything a entertainement event, what entertain peoples is that the runners go fast but at the risk of failing
when they watch a TAS, they know that it's gonna be either "perfect" or desynching.
there is no risk, no possible mistakes (due to our standards) no trickiness and that's the most common critics we get
that lack of "runners interactivity" was kinda set of by either making the chat or the public participate in our Demos or simply mind blowing the public with things like heavy code injections that "looked cool"
i think that one a small moon/star level run + a interactive event is a good formula but with every year, we need to include more and more the crowd, so they might come for "the bling" but stays for the technicity.
i think that if there is a next year we should try something impressive where the result would be based on the crowd direct choices instead of just influenced
like some kinda dragon's lair choices, exept that the TASbot would frame perfect the ensuing outcome
Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6438
Location: The land down under.
Nicos wrote:
the mari0 glitchless for introducing linux Tasing was a good idea but the game being virtually unknown, it flopped especially hard on the custom maps
The game was virtually well known... 7 years ago.
The Linux TAS should've lined up with something that was on the floor to demonstrate the TASing end of it, this worked in the past. That game this time was Celeste.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account.Something better for yourself and also others.
the mari0 glitchless for introducing linux Tasing was a good idea but the game being virtually unknown, it flopped especially hard on the custom maps
The game was virtually well known... 7 years ago.
The Linux TAS should've lined up with something that was on the floor to demonstrate the TASing end of it, this worked in the past. That game this time was Celeste.
i think celeste was showcased at sgdq 2018, maybe shocasing shovelknight ?
I'd like to give some criticism as well.
A reoccurring problem a lot of people have with the TAS block is the lack of context.
If you read some of the feedback links MESHUGGAH posted up there, you will see this over and over again. Of course, reddit being the single source, all feedback should be taken with a grain of salt, but there is no denying the amount of similar comments.
In fact, prior to the event I had the idea to introduce more context. So instead of paraphrasing, I'll just quote it here.
2018-10-05
<Masterjun> dwangoAC: btw, one thing just so you can keep it in mind:
<dwangoAC> Yes?
<Masterjun> once you show Mari0, I do think you need to show the game in a normal way beforehand
<Masterjun> instead of going straight into the TASes
<Masterjun> just the mechanics
<dwangoAC> Masterjun: Should we identify someone to do that on-site?
<dwangoAC> We're saving some frames here and there and I added 5 minutes for explanation.
<Masterjun> not speedrunning or anything of the sort
<dwangoAC> Masterjun: Someone with better mastery over a mouse than I.
<Masterjun> well, you don't even need to do all that much
<dwangoAC> Masterjun: I may try it myself
<dwangoAC> We'll see
<Masterjun> just shoot a portal, shoot another one, go through one, there you go
<Masterjun> that's it, that's all you need for the people to get into what's coming, but without that a lot of context is missing
Warning: Might glitch to creditsI will finish this ACE soon as possible
(or will I?)
Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6438
Location: The land down under.
Nicos wrote:
I think celeste was showcased at sgdq 2018, maybe shocasing shovelknight ?
It was to. Blanked that one out of memory somehow.
Yeah Shovel Knight would've been a better bet in that case since people still know that game.
Actually that would've been a good bid war. "Which mode would you like to see?"
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account.Something better for yourself and also others.
Mari0: It was ok, definitely too long though. I agree that some context would have helped. Probably could have replaced the 4 player segment with the kind of introduction Masterjun suggested since it was too hard to follow anyway.
Castlevania: Boring. To echo some earlier points, there is no expectation of failure in TAS, so seeing perfect play isn't impressive. It was also very jumpy which made it confusing for me and not fun to watch. (Also it was on emulator but I think that point is beaten to death by now.)
Scribblenauts: I like the idea of interaction, but I don't like pay to play. This is on GDQs end so nothing you can do about it. I also found it strange that the automation made it slower then just typing in the answers by hand, which at least for me put it more in the realm of a needless gadget. But maybe a general audience liked it I don't really know.
Everything seemed to go smooth though so that's good. Although that guy describing the difficulty of working with the scribblenauts machine makes me think that it was probably a close call again.
Anyway I'm looking forward to seeing more cool stuff come out of LibTAS, so that seems like a fruitful direction to go in.
Too bad the console verification front seems to be hitting a wall and giving you lot's of problems, but that's on emulator authors so you can only do so much.
I disagree with perfect play with no expectation of failure being boring to a marathon audience necessarily. I personally premiered a TAS of mine in the Power Up With Pride Winter Pride 2018 event and it was received quite well (twitch highlight). Honestly the big thing to realize is that presentation is super important and commentary is key in these events.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Games are basically math with a visual representation of this math, that's why I make the scripts, to re-see games as math.
My things:
YouTube, GitHub, Pastebin, Twitter
While gaining complete control and doing arbitrary things can be very interesting; I'd dare to bet that many in attendance at these events would be perfectly thrilled by a TAS exhibition that simply beats games much faster than a human could ever hope to, instead of having ACE or extra non-game related stuff in the TAS Block that isn't actually playing a game.
For years I have been wondering, and often commenting about, how TASing exhibitions at the GDQ events have devolved from "speedrunning with superhuman perfect skills" to "let's exploit games and inject our own code into the console"... which has pretty much nothing to do with TASing. After all, how many "I inject my own demo program into the console using an exploit in this particular game" TASes do we have at tasvideos, from the several thousands of published runs? Like a couple?
I find it ironic that the TAS block at GDQ is, for the most part, not representative of what TASing, and tasvideos.org, is about, at least when it comes to those ACE exploits. We don't hack games here and inject code into the console to run our self-made demos and games. (Sure, many TASers do that as a hobby, but generally we don't publish such experiments here because that's not what tasvideos is about.)
We are, essentially, just presenting custom console demos at GDQ, even though GDQ is about speedrunning. It's not a demo scene party. (Yes, there are usually also more "genuine" tool-assisted speedruns, but still... It always feels like they are the less prominent thing in the TAS exhibition.)
Also, year after year we are just making our own lives harder, because we always have/want to surpass the previous years in "coolness" of the ACE payload.
Of course it might not be entirely our fault either. When in a few occasions there has been a pure-speedrunning TAS exhibition, the community feedback has often been somewhat lukewarm, even negative at parts. I sometimes get the feeling that the GDQ audience doesn't know what it wants: They come to see speedruns, but then they complain when they get speedruns rather than glitch exhibitions and custom demos.
It's a dilemma. Perhaps there is no answer.
For years I have been wondering, and often commenting about, how TASing exhibitions at the GDQ events have devolved from "speedrunning with superhuman perfect skills" to "let's exploit games and inject our own code into the console"
Looking at the past runs, I wonder how you came to that conclusion. Please elaborate (or quote your old replies).
Warning: Might glitch to creditsI will finish this ACE soon as possible
(or will I?)
Joined: 11/27/2018
Posts: 10
Location: United States
I don't know. I kind of agree with Warp. But what he said isn't 100 percent true, at least in my opinion. the TASes at AGDQ events still adhere to the old properties of TASing: using superhuman skill to beat the game as fast as possible. One example includes SGDQ2018's Super Monkey Ball and F-Zero GX runs, as well as Masterjun's Mari0 run from this year.
Laying in bed, thinking about how many rerecords I will go through the next day.
I figured I'd write up my thoughts on the TASBlock this year. I attended AGDQ 2019 but I just watched from the audience live in the room.
Mari0
Mari0 seems like a neat mashup game, but I have't played it and I imagine that a majority of the audience hasn't either. I have played Portal so I understand the portal mechanic, but there are probably some people who didn't know how that worked. It might have helped to give a brief description of the mechanics, or as Masterjun recommended there should have been a demonstration before the run to give us an idea of what the game is like. It would also help put into perspective how difficult the game is.
It felt very odd playing the warped run first. Using that glitch to skip to 8-4 meant you ended up showing very little of the game that few have seen. Plus since this is SMB1 everyone knows that glitch is only in this specific game, so it came off feeling a bit weird. Then the warpless run looked pretty similar to the warped run. It probably would have made more sense to show the warped run after the warpless run.
The map packs meant even less to me again because I haven't played this game or those map packs. Overall I think this was a very poor game choice.
Castlevania
I'm not a huge fan of Castlevania games in general, so I expected to not enjoy this run. Maybe someone who knows the game enjoyed it though, so I don't really have any comments on this segment.
Scribblenauts
There were a lot of things wrong with this segment. I fail to see how a "twitch plays" fits into a speedrunning marathon, but that was up to the marathon organizers to decide. But this wasn't really even a twitch "plays", it was more like a twitch votes. I think people were expecting something more open ended which would allow twitch to enter whatever they wanted, but that's not what we got.
Displaying the voting options and results was rather bad. I was live in the room in front of a large projector view of the stream and I couldn't read the 4 options. Looking at the twitch VOD I can just barely make them out when full screened. Those poor mobile users stood no chance.
Two out of the 10 voting rounds had all answers the same, so twitch chat had no input there. One round really only had 3 answers. One time the voting was ended because the host prefered the option that was winning at the time. Several times the options were read out quickly and then voting was closed leaving little time for twitch to actually vote. A lot of the voting rounds had an obvious outlier answer (all of the dead lion options for example) that it was pretty clear twitch chat would pick. At this point why not just play back a TAS where you decided the answers in advance?
I was confused by the usage of that machine to tap the screen. The machine was so slow I feel like an average player could have entered the answers faster. And there was a lot of talk about how flaky it was. That doesn't sound like something that should be shown on stage until the problems are worked out.
This also really wasn't a TAS by any definition. A TAS is either a Tool Assisted Speedrun or Superplay depending on who you ask. This was definitely not a speedrun. And nothing in this segment seemed like something a human couldn't do, so I wouldn't call this a superplay either. This is more like a fun project to show on someone's personal stream, not at an event like this.
Overall
I was rather unimpressed with the block. Commentary was subpar and mostly reactions to surprising things in the run. But you should know exactly what is going to happen. This isn't like a live speedrun where things change every time. You should know what is going to happen next and have well rehearsed commentary ready. Instead you basically watched the runs for the first time on stage.
You might ask me what content should have been in this marathon instead, but I don't have any good ideas. But that doesn't mean you need to show something at the marathon. Good content is hard to come up with. Why not leave Scribblenauts until SGDQ or later when the bot is faster and more refined? Why is content always finished last minute instead of in advance? What is stopping you from just skipping a GDQ to make sure things are ready?
Attribution is obviously still an issue, and you even stated that at the end of the block. I don't understand the difficulty in having a list of names prepared to be read off. This has been a problem for years now and it is obvious you have done nothing to resolve it. One nagging issue with that is I think the runner name should not be a username but instead a group name, like "The TASBot Team" or something similar. This way the whole group gets attribution instead of one person as has been the case since the beginning.
For years I have been wondering, and often commenting about, how TASing exhibitions at the GDQ events have devolved from "speedrunning with superhuman perfect skills" to "let's exploit games and inject our own code into the console"... which has pretty much nothing to do with TASing.
the real problem with TASing is that the result is the "interesting part" and that you need a certain knowledge of the game to see a difference between a live speedrun and a TAS ( for example SMB where the human speedruns are getting Close to TAS levels)
for live speedruning, the entertainement not only comes from the speedrun itself but also from the runner who struggle during countless atempts playing risk /reward strats that might fail on a epic proprtions; and for a live event like GDQ it's the that specific part that's put on stage: speedruners don't come to get a world record, they come to entertain while keeping a "speedruning speed".
a TAS alone can't provide that because we don't allow randomnes and are defined by the word "perfection"; it's perfect or nothing.
The demo tech is a good idea to "hook" peoples,providing the entertainement part and the coupled TAS keeps those who stick focused on what we do and what we aim for.
lastly, every year we have to outdo ourselves because that's what we do : we always aim for better until we reach perfection.
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.
For years I have been wondering, and often commenting about, how TASing exhibitions at the GDQ events have devolved from "speedrunning with superhuman perfect skills" to "let's exploit games and inject our own code into the console"
Looking at the past runs, I wonder how you came to that conclusion. Please elaborate (or quote your old replies).
It may quite well be that if we look at the raw numbers there are way more "genuine" TASes than glitch/exploit demonstrations. However, the latter are the ones that, I would say, people remember the most and, perhaps, even might leave them with the impressions that that's the main goal of TASing.
I would guess that every year the majority of work for GDQ goes towards these demonstrations. Which in itself is quite commendable and admirable, and that in itself isn't wrong. It's just that it kind of creates this whole separate category of TASing which isn't really what at least tasvideos.org is about.
I'm not saying it should be stopped. Maybe it shouldn't. I'm just thinking out loud here.
Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player
(907)
Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1014
Before I talk about AGDQ 2019 I want to pull back for a moment and post the most recent run we did from GDQx at TwitchCon 2018 as a useful point of comparison. The run is Item Abuse 3 by xHF01x with commentary by GlitchCat7 and contains tight TAS content, extremely well done commentary, a relaxed presentation and just the right amount of length to entertainment value. This is my take and as always everyone's tastes are different but feedback and sentiment across all mediums was generally aligned with a viewpoint that this was at least acceptably good content. You might want to (re)watch this 8 minute run and come back here when you're done.
Link to video
Now let's talk about AGDQ 2019 when compared and contrasted against that. At AGDQ 2019 we yet again found ourselves working to the last minute to get everything done, cutting content to have something hopefully functional to show and making tweaks 15 minutes before we walked on stage which is something many veterans of these events have had to endure on more than one occasion. We had issues with visualization that caused last minute scrambling, mostly due to my own ineptitude to prioritize it earlier in the week after I discovered the board had been damaged in shipping. Some people providing content could not show up until the day of but in part due to the aforementioned distractions we never managed to get through a proper rehearsal. One commentator didn't even show up to talk to us until a couple of hours before the event and declined to use our prepared commentary or do a rehearsal (granted, I didn't push the issue hard). We received a new run less than 24 hours before we were supposed to be on stage which left limited time to prepare commentary.
In short, we weren't ready. And the results are obvious.
Why were the two so different? Well, in part it's because I was talking to GlitchCat7 months before GDQx and we had a solid plan on how we were going to present that content. He put in the time to rehearse, and we had ample time to do multiple runthroughs with both of us present at the event prior to going live. In short, we were comfortable with the run and we were prepared, with the majority of the credit going to GlitchCat7 for doing the heavy lifting on commentary. AGDQ 2019 was, to put it mildly, not nearly as well organized. A lot of that had to do with the quick succession of doing SGDQ 2018, GDQx TwitchCon 2018, Bot Bash Charity Brawl 2018, MAGFest 2019, and AGDQ 2019 all in the same 6 month period (think about that for a second).
The time between when AGDQ 2019 submissions started and we had to have content ready at the event was shorter than the normal interval due to GDQx and on top of that we pivoted our content substantially during that time. This shorter interval stress was evident with Twitch staff as well; I alerted staff in early December that we would need to show voting on screen and everyone agreed it should happen but no one had time to do it, so what we ended up with for Super Scribblenauts was thrown together in the 48 hours prior to going on stage and no one realized the text was going to be too small because we never had an opportunity to test it. Prior to the event itself we had typical failures happen that set us back, ones I had attempted to prepare for such as allowing a fallback to the use of an emulator for Castlevania, but the combination of everything we were facing along with equipment being damaged in shipment led to quite a lot of challenges during the week of AGDQ 2019 itself. So, let me say this clearly:
I agree with the feedback in this thread and as a result I'm done doing GDQ events if we are not prepared for them.
In particular, micro500 is spot on. A lot of the things that were issues at AGDQ 2017 were just as evident this year and that can't happen again. Ever. And the number one issue that keeps cropping up is last minute scrambling. Every event I've tried to set progressively earlier deadlines, things like "OK, we need everything ready the week before the event" or "We need everything ready by the end of the year" but especially for AGDQ which happens in early January it never quite works out as well as we all intend because, frankly, we all want to spend time with our families over the holiday break. This is reasonable and should be the priority. Expecting it to change is naive. So I'm announcing a very major change for upcoming GDQ events:
From here on out, all GDQ content must be in a state ready to show to an audience before submissions open. Period.
That's right, not a month before the event, or when submissions close... when submissions *open*. Why am I as keeper of TASBot and organizer of these events so presumptuously requiring such a drastic change of everyone else?
Look, let's face it, these problems keep happening because we just never have enough time to rehearse, to make notes, to put together a proper credits list (mighty hard to do that when it keeps shifting in the days or even hours leading up to the event), to polish, to test at the event, etc. We should only be using the time at GDQ events to make sure the things we prepared off-site still work the way we expect them to and to practice in that environment. The time between submissions and GDQ events can definitely be used to polish what we've submitted but should remain substantially the same - I mean, common sense says that if someone discovers a 10 second save and there's low risk in accepting it a month before the event but after submissions we'll obviously take the 10 second improvement, but I'm done with doing that kind of stuff the day of the event. It has yet to work out well.
On the front end we need the week of submissions to refine the descriptions, ensure we have videos, and pitch what we have to offer. Sure, it's challenging to work hard to make something that may not get accepted and the reality is that a lot of what we've made wasn't (initially) accepted but we often find a use for it in the future.
Let's talk about one other thing, and that's content selection. We had somewhat deliberately drained out some content at SGDQ and GDQx to focus on new platform ideas. Some of those ideas didn't come to fruition, and when I solicited feedback on what runs to show we had reasonable suggestions such as Castlevania which was ultimately accepted. That run suffered from poor commentary (and being done on such an old version of VBA that it wouldn't even sync on a newer release of VBA let alone real hardware) and wasn't received well, but everyone was on board with it.
Sometimes we make content selections with the best intentions and, well, they don't pan out. A good example is PwnAdventureZ which is probably the second biggest flop after Ikaruga. Sometimes content just flat out isn't received as well as we'd like. Still, if those in the thread who have had as much to say about content selection during the feedback stages after the event had provided said guidance during the content selection phase we possibly would have gone in a different direction. Note, however, that not everyone hated everything we did - despite the mixed to negative feedback here and on Reddit we still had positive coverage of this event.
I'm still open to specific critique. I haven't covered everything despite the length of this post and if there's something you feel I'm glossing over or if there's a particular aspect you feel I'm not addressing directly enough please speak up. I can say, however, that TASVideos forums has clearly not been a place where people have stepped up to help. Dacicus did post in the thread but it really seems like most of TASVideos just sort of ignored this event. Heck, it's clear there's fatigue on the financial side too as I'm still $2,325 short of my funding goals (I haven't added up all expenses to find out exact numbers but my estimate wasn't far off). The point is, TASVideos just isn't as excited at working on this. Compare the activity in the earlier events - we're at the 5 year mark now and interest has waned. I'm not saying I'm giving up or that I'm deadset on skipping an event or two but I can tell you that I'm currently pushing to potentially skip AGDQ 2020 unless content is created specifically for it and unless there are champions who are willing to get it done by September. I just have to be realistic about where we're at.
In summary, I want to do less, better. We shine when we polish what we do. We shine when we have good commentary, and that comes from having the time and space to rehearse. The only way to have that is to create a culture where sweating out the small details is important, and I think that's something that is absolutely feasible for a site like TASVideos where we care about saving every frame we can. Let's pick ourselves up, learn from what wasn't perfect, and make it better for whenever and whatever the next event is.
From here on out, all GDQ content must be in a state ready to show to an audience before submissions open. Period.
I think this is a very good idea.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
