Submission Text Full Submission Page
  • Emulator used: FCEUX 2.2.3 (default settings)
  • Aims for fastest completion (any%)
In this movie i try to improve previous run by zyr2288. Using new strategies, reducing lag frames, optimising some boss fights allowed me to save 147 frames.
Level 2, reducing amount of lag frames in the "laggy" room, faster boss fight.
Level 3, using Soig's pacifist root (more double jumps), faster boss fight.
Level 4, removing lag frames, faster boss fight.
Level 6, having better global timer and using pause to control lazers.
Level 7, taking B (invincibility) allows to take a faster path.

feos: Judging...
feos: Updated the movie file author and removed the hard reset input from the first frame. Movie itself remained the same.
feos: I compared everything closely and even though the previous submission's movie file was initially imported, all the input is original and vastly different. I noticed tiny trade-offs that led to bigger improvements, and overall this movie shows significant optimization effort, every level has been improved. Great job, accepting to obsolete [1783] NES Contra (Japan) "2 players" by zyr2288 in 08:51.73.
Note about future attempts to obsolete this movie: Make use of this WIP that is 5 frames faster in Level 1 than this submission.
Dacicus: Processing...
feos: Sorry for the delay, but now this movie can't be published, because an improvement has been submitted, and this record has been beaten. So I have to reject it in favor of the new movie.

DrD2k9
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Spikestuff wrote:
And you didn't have anything for this then?
Spikestuff wrote:
If you're placing an argument for that you might as well place an argument for this then.
Assuming that is the same situation, I feel that the run that was un-accepted should be published 'as already obsoleted' just like I'm arguing for this submission.
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DrD2k9 wrote:
If 'accepted' movies can still be rejected, then perhaps we should change the judgment of 'accepted' to 'provisionally accepted pending publication' as that's more accurate and less disrespectful toward authors to whom this situation has already occurred and to those whom it will happen to in the future.
Where are you even seeing disrespect?
DrD2k9 wrote:
Still, the proposal to publish 'as obsoleted' would add minimal stress/work to the site staff, maintain honor toward the author, and improve the accuracy of archival for the game's history on the site.
Publishing as obsoleted makes no sense, because what would the actual record be? Technically obsoletion works by setting the "obsoleted by" movie ID, it can't be "spherical obsoletion in vacuum" if there's nothing to obsolete it. Overall, it's undeniable that this movie has been proven to be sub-optimal. Usually we publish improvable movies if the improvement is hard to implement, but it has been properly bested now, from start to finish, with the improvement that MESHUGGAH posted, and with lots of other timesaves. This is a speed competition after all, one should always expect to be bested and work hard in order to win.
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.
DrD2k9
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Not trying to anger/frustrate anyone. Trying to ask questions/present ideas that I feel need deeper consideration. If we are never willing to question the way things are done, we don't really know if they are actually being done the best they can be.
feos wrote:
Where are you even seeing disrespect? ... Publishing as obsoleted makes no sense, because what would the actual record be? Technically obsoletion works by setting the "obsoleted by" movie ID, it can't be "spherical obsoletion in vacuum" if there's nothing to obsolete it. Overall, it's undeniable that this movie has been proven to be sub-optimal. Usually we publish improvable movies if the improvement is hard to implement, but it has been properly bested now, from start to finish, with the improvement that MESHUGGAH posted, and with lots of other timesaves.
Regarding Disrespect I see disrespect in not officially recognizing (through publication) that alex_ik's run was (at least for a time) the fastest officially accepted Contra record. More specifically, I see further issue in only a pseudo-acknowledgement of that record only to have the official archive (our sequence of publications of Contra) be lacking that run simply due to the timing circumstances of the next submitted run. I'm not trying to claim anyone is intentionally trying to show personal disrespect toward the author. Perhaps "disrespect" isn't the right term to begin with, but I can't currently think of another term that would fit. As an analogy, consider Track & Field records: If an athlete breaks a world record for an event during a heat-race, then a different athlete breaks the record again in the very next heat-race; the first athlete still officially held the world record for a period of time (however brief it was). History officially recognizes the first athlete as having been a past world record holder, and that individual's name would be immortalized in a list of past record holders even though his/her record was beaten only minutes later. The honor of the first athlete would still be published in an official document listing the series of world record holders even if that document couldn't be published before the second athlete re-broke the record. The way I compare our situation to this Track analogy: --Two un-judged runs on the workbench that both beat the current publication are 'in the same heat-race' and only the faster wins the award of being named the record holder. This is how it would work in Track & Field: even if two athletes beat the current world record in the same heat-race, only the faster gets the official recognition of being the new record holder. --An already judged and accepted run that is simply awaiting publication has 'already won its race and broken the record' and thus has already earned its position in a published list/series as being a past world record holder; regardless of whether or not that publication itself was able to be created before the record was subsequently re-broken. If an even faster submission arrives, while the first is awaiting publication, the newer run (assuming its own acceptance) becomes the new world record holder for winning its own heat-race and re-breaking the recently broken record. For our site (as with Track), BOTH of the runs/authors (athletes) deserve published recognition of their accomplishments. How long it takes for that publication to happen (whether the publication itself is a simple text listing of athletic records, or a series of movie pages on our site), should not be allowed to alter the archived history of the series of record holders. At the absolute bare minimum, alex_ik's run should not have been un-accepted until the present submission was fully accepted itself. If for some reason, it does get rejected, then alex_ik's run would still be the record holder of accepted runs. Regarding Publishing I'm going to preface the following thoughts/questions with this: I don't fully understand all the various site mechanics of publication. I'm not denying that alex_ik's movie is subopitmal based on current knowledge. I'm arguing that it was the most optimal known run at the time of its acceptance. Is it not possible to make a movie page of a run that is slower than another run of the same game on our site? Wouldn't it be possible to directly mark the later publication as slower/already obsoleted by the earlier faster run? If these aren't possible, what would it take to make them possible so that we can officially and duly honor the line of record holders? As far as publishing an 'already obsoleted' run, the current record would be the faster run sitting on the workbench. If the faster run is published first, the true record is maintained in a published state and there's no weird discrepancy of having a known non-record holder as the current fastest publication. By publishing the slower run second, the 'obsoleted by' ID could be set to the appropriate movie page of the faster run, and there'd be no obsoleting in a vacuum. That said, every time ANY run is accepted as better than a current publication, the current publication stays on our site as the fastest published run even though it's not technically the record holder anymore....but that's probably getting overly nitpicky.
This is a speed competition after all, one should always expect to be bested and work hard in order to win.
Speed competition and expectations of others potentially beating you does drive us to do our best. But neither of those things should give our site the right to write-off the accomplishments that are made. A world record being re-broken almost immediately after it was first broken doesn't mean the custodians of record keeping should simply write-off the the first of those two record-breaking accomplishments. Two simple YES/NO questions. 1)Do we care about maintaining an archive of record breaking runs/techniques/progressions for history's sake? 2)Do we ONLY care about maintaining publications of the fastest known runs? If the answers are YES to both....there's an inherent problem with our site, as doing both isn't possible. If the answers are NO/YES respectively, there is no reason to maintain any obsoleted movie pages. And the argument that 'there is valuable information in those obsoleted runs' only supports including a publication of this submission. If the answers are YES/NO respectively, then my proposal is valid. For completeness sake: If the answers are NO to both, then entertainment is the ONLY arguable purpose for the site IMO. Which then begs the question: why do we even care so much about rules and consistency if we're only archiving/documenting entertainment? We should then just become a 'YouTube of TASes' and not care about the competition/record side of this hobby. EDIT: I'm willing to accept that my perspectives may not change things. But I feel the perspectives still need shared.
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DrD2k9 wrote:
As far as publishing an 'already obsoleted' run, the current record would be the faster run sitting on the workbench. If the faster run is published first, the true record is maintained in a published state and there's no weird discrepancy of having a known non-record holder as the current fastest publication. By publishing the slower run second, the 'obsoleted by' ID could be set to the appropriate movie page of the faster run, and there'd be no obsoleting in a vacuum.
I don't understand what you're saying at all. I'll try to reply to the actual post when I see the relation between reality and your feelings about 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.
DrD2k9
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feos wrote:
DrD2k9 wrote:
As far as publishing an 'already obsoleted' run, the current record would be the faster run sitting on the workbench. If the faster run is published first, the true record is maintained in a published state and there's no weird discrepancy of having a known non-record holder as the current fastest publication. By publishing the slower run second, the 'obsoleted by' ID could be set to the appropriate movie page of the faster run, and there'd be no obsoleting in a vacuum.
I don't understand what you're saying at all. I'll try to reply to the actual post when I see the relation between reality and your feelings about it.
Thank you for at least reading and considering the post. Here's what I'm trying to get at regarding publication order and maintaining a valid "obsoleted by" flag while still being able to publish both runs. Alex_ik's run un-accepted and sits in gruefood due to the arrival of Mars608, et.al.'s run Mars608's run sits on the workbench. Step 1 - Assuming Mars608's run is accepted, publish it. It then gets a movie page designation/number of XXXXM.html. Step 2 - After Mars608's run has been published, then publish Alex_ik's run. Since Mars608's run has already been published and has it's movie number designation, the "obsoleted by" flag can be set in alex_ik's publication pointing to Mars608's run. This allows both runs to be published without arbitrarily obsoleting alex_ik's run in a vacuum. In other words, when this type of rare situation happens. Simply publish the faster run first and set "obsoleted by" ID accordingly when publishing the slower run.
Masterjun
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As an author of runs myself, I would dislike it if my run would get published when there is a faster run. Talking about disrespect here works in both directions.
Warning: Might glitch to credits I will finish this ACE soon as possible (or will I?)
BigBoct
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I see DrD2k9's point in his sports-record analogy. alex_ik DID have that record for a time, and I agree that it should be officially acknowledged in some fashion.
Previous Name: boct1584
Spikestuff
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boct1584 wrote:
and I agree that it should be officially acknowledged in some fashion.
If we can generate the list of Canned/Rejected on Publication to Submissions that got bested leading up to that then we can have a list on Gruefood Delight called whatever would suit it.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. Something better for yourself and also others.
EZGames69
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Call it “bested runs” or something.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
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What about "sniped"? This would showcase the dramatic effect. Overall I like this idea.
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.
DrD2k9
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feos wrote:
What about "sniped"? This would showcase the dramatic effect. Overall I like this idea.
I like "Sniped" or "Sniped Runs." It's, at least, some degree of official recognition/archival of the accomplishments that would otherwise have been published.
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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.
DrD2k9
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That'd work. It's still more than simply leaving the run to rot in Gruefood without any recognition.
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It's honestly as much as we can do. We don't offer the recognition you're requesting via publications. Publications (for speed oriented movies) mean "this movie is the fastest completed verified one at the time of publication". And there's no clean unabusable way to add more to this meaning.
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.