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I'm very proud to say that TAS content at various charity events helped raise over $282k in 2019 for causes including Doctors Without Borders, the Prevent Cancer Foundation, National Alliance on Mental Illness, Child's Play, and Alzheimer's research in Sweden among others. In the last year we've done BBCB, AGDQ, DTCD, RPGLB, SGDQ, ESA, and MAGWest Go charity events along with auxillary events like Rocket Beans' Speedrundale show, Bot Bash / BattleBots appearances, and several podcast appearances to boost awareness. It's been incredible. I may never be able to repeat that much volume of content in one year and that's OK. I can't say thank you enough for everyone from the TASVideos community who tirelessly worked on content and helped make this possible. This was an incredible achievement and I'm thrilled to have been a part of something so much bigger than myself, or rather, so much bigger than any one person could have done on their own. This truly was a team effort encompassing multiple communities well beyond TASVideos itself. Here's to 2020 and beyond!
Speaking of 2020 and beyond, we're quickly approaching two major events - MAGFest (see the Guest page for TASBot at https://super.magfest.org/guests-2020/tasbot) and AGDQ 2020 (https://GamesDoneQuick.com). Plenty of last-minute arrangements are in play for MAGFest but for once I feel good about AGDQ content currently scheduled for January 10th. Why? It has a lot to do with TiKevin83 stepping up to organize content for the event. I will in fact be able to be on site for the event thanks to some creative plane ticket wrangling and a TASBot Discord member providing a free place to stay but the only part I'll be playing is the intro and outro. I'll be highlighting that the general TASing community is much bigger than just me as a person and I'll be giving TiKevin83 his chance to shine.
MAGFest 2020 content is a lot less organized and we're still in the last minute preparations phase but if you're in the Washington, DC area you should definitely come check out what we have planned. I'll be giving a panel talk (which might end up being different than what it says it is in the MAGFest guidebook) and I'll also be participating in a trivia round for fun. The slightly awkward part of all this is I'll also be doing an autograph session where anyone who wants to can get a picture with TASBot in his current form, possibly the last chance anyone will have before we redesign him without any Nintendo components as part of the "#tasbot-x" project. (Stay tuned for more on that as prototype plans advance or swing by Discord.TAS.Bot and have a glance in the aforementioned channel.) Finally, MAGFest includes a charity event called MAGFast where we'll be trying a variety of more dangerous things than we'd be willing to attempt at a GDQ event. Tune in at https://www.magfast.org/ January 2-5 to see it happen live.
Discussions about events are still happening in #tasbot on Freenode IRC but the TASBot Discord server has become the primary place where we're organizing event content. There's very healthy involvement from a wide variety of people both in and out of the TASVideos community and I'm happy to see the momentum.
As an aside, I've moved on to a new career as a Senior Security Analyst at Bishop Fox. I'm still working out what work life balance looks like but it has been a good fit and there is a strong possibility of Bishop Fox sponsoring a future event in 2020 and beyond. It's a different season but an exciting one. Thank you to everyone who helped me bridge the gap when I was unemployed.
Again, thank you to everyone who has helped keep TAS content at events alive. It's been an incredible time.
Since there is no AGDQ 2020 planning or feedback thread I guess I'll post this here.
This was probably one of the best TASBlocks I've seen in a while. All three games were solid choices to show in the marathon: classic games that everyone knows and loves, and have likely seen speedruns in the past.
The commentary was possibly the strongest I've seen from any TASBlock segment. Even though I've seen the SMB2/SMB3 TASes before the commentary pointed out new things I hadn't noticed before and taught me about minor optimizations that you see throughout the run but might never really get an explanation for.
I enjoyed the commentary for Pokemon Blue as well. Intentionally misleading the audience as to what is about to happen is a fun gimmick as long as it isn't overused, and I think you guys nailed it. Plus you didn't have any genuinely surprised reactions showing that you hadn't really seen the run before.
Overall the commentary was really good. I could tell you guys rehearsed and studied the games before hand to really understand even the smaller tricks in the games. The pacing on the commentary was just right, not too rushed and not too sparse. You guys passed the commentary back and forth between everyone well. I appreciated having speedrunners of each game on the couch who could comment on the differences between an RTA run and the TAS being shown. Also props to sven(?) for bringing what looked notes to the SMB2 commentary. That shows dedication to the cause.
TiKevin83: congrats on putting together a really solid TASblock!
I agree with Micro500.
The only real criticisms I have are pretty nitpicky so take this with a grain of salt.
I dont know if this is a GDQ decision or a TASBot decision, but I dont like how author’s name are displayed on screen. They are put into the run category section on screen, and it’s really small and sometimes hard to see. I wouldn’t mind it if the author’s name was displayed in a 2nd box on the bottom where the runner’s name usually is.
The other nitpick I have is where viewers are directed if they want to see more. I truly believe that for each TASBlock, more people are going to the TASBot discord instead of the TASVideos discord, not realizing they are two different things. And maybe this is due to them (viewers) thinking that tases are only done on console rather than emulator. So I really think more focus should be brought to TASVideos itself more than just TASBot, that including both the site and discord server.
Again, I do think this event was great overall. Just have a few minor complaints that are really just nitpicks.
[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
One improvement would have been to have also tassed a couple Mario maker 2 levels that were played during the event. It would have really highlighted the differences even more.
The consensus feedback on /v/ was that the 2020 AGDQ TAS Block was too safe and unambitious. They are tired of seeing Mario and Pokemon all the time and suggested trying a different genre. Some of them believe that TASBot can handle only short, simple games that have few buttons to press. They want to see more than a playback of an old video. Something cool needs to happen in the TAS (Pokemon Blue had nothing cool happen). They like arbitrary code execution as long as it isn't used for reddit memes. They also suggested using some games that aren't so ancient. The zoomers watching were born around the year 2000 and didn't grow up with games from the 1980s/90s. They want the commentary to demonstrate high-level knowledge of the game rather than rag on speedrunners' inability to replicate TAS tricks. They also criticize going over the time estimate with a TAS.
Mario Maker was awesome!
That is the kind of innovative stuff that really fascinates me about TASBot, great work to all involved there.
For the other part of the block I agree with Arc's comments mostly, but am not really sure what to do about it. It's a tough spot to be in.
We have LibTAS now, but Celeste is done already so what comes next? I could make a SubGBHawk for GBC ACE, but that probably would still be seen as old news.
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On Reddit the feedback demonstrated some of Arc's concerns but also why we did what we did for the year. If we had just shown Mario Maker 2 people would've complained about it being too short and not Speedrun related. If we just did the TAS block I organized it would've been criticized for being the same games we always see.
They are tired of seeing Mario and Pokemon all the time and suggested trying a different genre.
What kinda of genres do they want to see? Im sure there’s been TASBlocks in the past that have shown off other game genres, the problem is you have to show something that will entertain an audience, and in most cases, platformers are the better choice in that regard.
“arc” wrote:
Some of them believe that TASBot can handle only short, simple games that have few buttons to press.
Except that’s not what’s going on at all. Do they not realize that doing ACE on console requires MANY button presses? They seem to get the idea that console verifications are way more simple than they are. If that was the case then TASBot wouldn’t have to restrict itself to “ancient games” as they call it.
Besides, the amount of button presses is not what makes something more likely to console verify, it’s how good the emulator is that the tas was made on.
“arc” wrote:
They like arbitrary code execution as long as it isn't used for reddit memes.
This is not valid criticism from them. The internet is going to make something a meme no matter what. That’s not something anyone can control.
“arc” wrote:
They also suggested using some games that aren't so ancient. The zoomers watching were born around the year 2000 and didn't grow up with games from the 1980s/90s.
Do they also realize that GDQ runs also play “ancient” games? Because this isn’t a TASBot only thing. Do they even understand the point of GDQ?
“arc” wrote:
They want the commentary to demonstrate high-level knowledge of the game rather than rag on speedrunners' inability to replicate TAS tricks.
This is the only criticism that is somewhat reasonable. I think the issue is just not being able to fly out all the tasers to the event. Unless the specific taser of a tas that’s being shown off is there, there isn’t really an easy way to solve this issue unless you had them commentate live on voice chat or something, but even then you might run into terrible mic quality and/or connection cutting in and out due to internet.
“arc wrote:
They also criticize going over the time estimate with a TAS.
Estimate for TAS vs estimate for RTA in GDQ are completely different. Since RTA has some room for error, estimate is usually larger to accommodate for that. For TAS, the exact time of the run is so precise that you can have an exact estimate for the run. The only time it would “be over estimate” is if the timer didn’t stop right away.
Honestly I think people in general take run estimate way too seriously, as long as the runner doesn’t give an estimate that is unreasonable.
[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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To clarify the thing with going over estimate, dwango was used to submitting exact run times as estimates, but they round estimates down to the minute now and suggested that for the future we submit estimates of total showtime and not just the TAS playback.
I have a strong feeling that these people have no idea how a tas is really made or what effort goes into it. There seems to be a lot of extra effort to make a tasbot run actually work, since I watched a bit of a stream where dwango I think was trying to get smb working.
Particularly that one person seems strangely against tasbot but offers no suggestions for improvements except saying it needs to be something crazy and unique and highly technical and saying he would rather watch rta.
I think the criticism of wanting to see tas only runs of games that are wildly different from rta runs is a good tack to take. Also to have the presenters fully explain what is going on and why it is actually impressive. Acting like you don't know what is going on I found confusing personally since if it desynced there would be no way the run could even finish.
A future game to show could be that new Megaman tas, 100% super metroid, or Zelda 100%. Basically something really wild and obviously tas only.
They also suggested using some games that aren't so ancient. The zoomers watching were born around the year 2000 and didn't grow up with games from the 1980s/90s.
Do they also realize that GDQ runs also play “ancient” games? Because this isn’t a TASBot only thing. Do they even understand the point of GDQ?
I don't think they are really comparable. I think people expect novel things from TASBot that demonstrates advancement, it's why TASBot gets prime time spots and not early morning spots.
My biggest problems with this event honestly lie with how things were submitted rather than the actual execution. The actual execution seemed ok for the most part though a fair amount of "I bet you can't do this RTA" was fairly unnecessary.
I disliked the lack of any real communications to the site, from submissions leading up to the event. Supposedly a lot of the communications happened within the TASBot discord itself, leading to a feeling of separation between the TASBot community and TASVideos itself.
I am really unsure why NES Lizard was submitted at all really. I wasn't at all surprised to see it rejected from the event. I found it borderline Vault tier when I initially judged the TAS, there's really not much making it distinct from RTA and the game isn't that well known either.
Honestly, I WOULD lean towards TASes where the author will be attending the event. It would result in more in depth and more genuine commentary imo. While currently there are not too many TASers that attend these events, I see no reason that has to be the case necessarily. Notably Malleo is a frequent attendee and a lot of his work could be viable for these events assuming there is no requirement for console verification. There are no doubt other TASers that could attend (in fact I attended this AGDQ to perform commentary for Bonk's Adventure) and they could be reached out to as well.
[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
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People on r/speedrun were upset with the lack of explanation in Super Mario Maker 2 and Pokemon.
For the bonus with MM2. People felt that you should've said something like this opens TASing up to Odyssey or Cadence of Hyrule without emulation.
Pokemon was pretty much "Read the submission text for more information on the tricks used."
At the end of Pokemon I was actually expecting a payload to happen. Not "game end, done".
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account.Something better for yourself and also others.
SMB3 and SMB2 were exactly what I hoped to see out of the TAS block. Skillful runs with rehearsed commentary, explaining the subtleties that uninitiated viewers would otherwise miss. I appreciated, for example, where you pointed out how Shy Guys let you skip a row of digging just before handing it back to the announcer for the digging sections—just overall a well-managed performance. I prefer when commentators show (as you did) that they are well-acquainted with a run and not surprised by it, and remark in a scholarly way on what tricks are shared in common with RTA runs, which are possible RTA but excessively difficult or risky, and which are only used in TAS runs—in short, what makes the TAS runs special.
The Pokémon run felt a little mysterious. I understood that some kind of game-end glitch was being set up and that it was being done by means other than save corruption, but I didn't know the nature of the glitch or whether it was something only a TAS could do.
In the future, you may consider comparing the TAS time not only to the current RTA time but also to past TAS times, to give a sense of the incremental and iterative nature of TASing, and demonstrate that tool assistance doesn't automatically make a run perfect—it still takes plenty of time and research.
Kudos on a good performance.
I think one problem with the tasbot segment is that because of all the past demonstrations people are expecting something surprising and awesome, doing something with the console that seems impossible, or utterly breaking the game and run custom code, or whatever.
In other words, essentially, many viewers expect the tasbot segment to be a glitch exhibition, tool-assisted version, rather than just a "normal" speedrun.
When a TAS shown on stream seems just like a normal speedrun (perhaps just more perfectly played than human speedruns), I'm sure many of them expect some kind of surprise to pop up at any moment. For the "normal-looking" gameplay to actually hide behind itself the console being hacked and some custom payload to be prepared to be shown at any moment.
And then, when it doesn't happen... they are disappointed. The expectations were not met.
I have noted in past years how ironic it is that 99.9% of TASes are "regular" straightforward speedruns (just played as perfectly as possible), yet at GDQ it's expected for TASes to do gimmicks, not "normal" speedruns. (And, moreover, it's expected for the next tasbot demonstration to surpass the previous ones in innovation and entertainment.)
The console hacks via the controller port are absolutely incredible and show an amazing amount of technical knowledge, skill and work. However, in the long run they have kind of "ruined" the tasbot segment at GDQ, in that they have pretty much defined what TASing is, in the mind of the majority of viewers. They are expecting something that TASes are actually not.
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Thank you for the feedback everyone. I'm glad to hear some appreciated the return to speedrun oriented TAS content and not just ACE payloads. For those expecting a surprise, I imagine we'll try to balance payloads and speedruns at future events. We plan to have an SGDQ TASBot prep thread here again to gather suggestions.
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A nice surprise doesn't need to be a ACE payload: a new TAS for a game, especially if it has new tech would be really nice. Combining with the TAS author being there, if possible.
The internet is going to make something a meme no matter what.
The criticism is aimed specifically at "reddit" memes, meaning that they don't want to see content that intentionally tries to appeal to reddit or has reddit traits. There is a cultural difference between /v/ and reddit. Reddit is about fitting in with (echoing) the norms of a community. /v/ forces people with differing views into a single room where they can't rely on reputation; the only thing that matters is the strength of their ideas.
EZGames69 wrote:
Do they also realize that GDQ runs also play “ancient” games? Because this isn’t a TASBot only thing. Do they even understand the point of GDQ?
The criticism is of using old 'pixel' games exclusively. It is a good idea to have a mix of old games and newer ones to demonstrate that TASBot can handle games on consoles like PSX, GC, Wii, etc.
EZGames69 wrote:
What kinda of genres do they want to see? Im sure there’s been TASBlocks in the past that have shown off other game genres, the problem is you have to show something that will entertain an audience, and in most cases, platformers are the better choice in that regard.
Chronologically, these are the games that have been used at GDQ:
NES - Gradius
N64 - Mario Kart 64
N64 - Super Mario 64
SNES - Super Mario World
N64 - Mario Kart 64
SNES - Super Mario World
GB - Pokemon
NES - Mega Man
GBA - Sonic Advance
GC - Ikaruga
N64 - Mario Kart 64
NES - Pwn Adventure Z
NES - Zelda II
DS - Brain Age
NES - Super Mario Bros 3
SNES - Super Mario World
GB - Super Mario Land 2
PC - VVVVVV
NES - Super Mario Bros. 1, 2 + 3
NES - Super Mario Bros. 3
NES - Galaga
NES - Gradius
NES - Super Mario Bros
NES - Mega Man
SNES - Zelda: A Link to the Past
PC - Portal
GC - Super Monkey Ball
PC - Celeste
SNES - Super Metroid
GC - F-Zero GX
PC - Mari0
GBA - Castlevania: Aria Of Sorrow
DS - Super Scribblenauts
NES - Tetris
Wii - Mario Kart Wii
PC - Celeste
NES - Super Mario Bros. 3
NES - Super Mario Bros. 2
GB - Pokemon
Platform games are generally entertaining, but the criticism is overdoing them, especially Mario. There has never been a fighting game demonstrated, for example. A heavily glitched Mortal Kombat movie would be good for GDQ purposes. Or something else like Crazy Taxi or International Superstar Soccer Deluxe that makes viewers feel that they haven't seen it before.
Memory wrote:
I disliked the lack of any real communications to the site, from submissions leading up to the event. Supposedly a lot of the communications happened within the TASBot discord itself, leading to a feeling of separation between the TASBot community and TASVideos itself.
I agree with this point. I would like to propose that future Dream Team Contests be used as one source (but not the only source) of content for future GDQ events. The timeline would be:
Brainstorm an interesting GDQ TAS idea
Set contest deadline before GDQ submission deadline
Hold the Dream Team Contest for a few months
Submit winning entry to GDQ
(Optional) Optimize winning TAS before actual GDQ event
Debut winning TAS to the world at GDQ
Submit and publish to TASVideos after GDQ
This idea seems like it would be win-win for everyone because (1) it generates TAS content specifically with GDQ in mind, (2) the TAS is completed before the GDQ submission deadline, (3) it gives everyone in the community a fair chance to have a TAS they made shown at a GDQ (if they win the contest), and (4) the competition ensures a TAS of high quality.
I disliked the lack of any real communications to the site, from submissions leading up to the event. Supposedly a lot of the communications happened within the TASBot discord itself, leading to a feeling of separation between the TASBot community and TASVideos itself.
I agree with this point. I would like to propose that future Dream Team Contests be used as one source (but not the only source) of content for future GDQ events. The timeline would be:
Brainstorm an interesting GDQ TAS idea
Set contest deadline before GDQ submission deadline
Hold the Dream Team Contest for a few months
Submit winning entry to GDQ
(Optional) Optimize winning TAS before actual GDQ event
Debut winning TAS to the world at GDQ
Submit and publish to TASVideos after GDQ
This idea seems like it would be win-win for everyone because (1) it generates TAS content specifically with GDQ in mind, (2) the TAS is completed before the GDQ submission deadline, (3) it gives everyone in the community a fair chance to have a TAS they made shown at a GDQ (if they win the contest), and (4) the competition ensures a TAS of high quality.
While I am not against this idea, it does ultimately depend on if console verification is required. If so, games for the contest would be limited to whatever platforms are able to be console verified, which would be unfortunate. I would like some clarification on whether or not console verification is a strict requirement.
[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
i'll rephrase there what i said in the other thread:
while the tas segment itself was good; the main problem i think was that it got really "overhyped" by GDQ to a ridiculous amount:
first we got an humongous incensitve for the pokemon run and then they gate locked the "main novelty" that was switch TASing behind a milestone goal that was 400k away when announced (god still looking at those numbers gives me chills, GDQ got REAL big; it's scary)
with those numbers peoples where expecting something that made them shit litteral bricks, something that they never saw before.... and instead they got a "standard" pokemon blue run that do a trick that was already done RTA (something popular enough so that all those who know something about pokemons or speedruning in general knew what was coming... ) but also already done in an earlier GDQ
I kinda understand why peoples felt the way they felt, even i who's a regular there and see all kind of stuff was like "wait, that's it?" at the end of the block
to resume : we got sold as a main event while we where just here to speedrun
maybe for the next event, we either need to crank up the madness enough to meet the publics expectaiton (as ark said something mind blowing or funny like the ISS / Mk3 runs) or simply ask the gdq staff to not oversell us so peoples know that we're "just here to speedrun"
