Topic by Bisqwit

Posted: 3/10/2008 11:35 PM

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Bezman

Joined: 2/7/2008
Posts: 185

I just wanted to point out that the 'recommended movies' page isn't working. If you already know or if this isn't the place to mention it, I apologise. Anyway, this is the address I was on: http://tasvideos.org/Movies-Rec.html And it said: Sorry, there were no movies matching your request. Hit back on your browser or return to the Front Page. error_handler: errstr=Array to string conversion errfile=/home/WWW/wikisites/nesvideos-site/inc/wikiexpr.php errline=133 error_handler: errstr=Array to string conversion errfile=/home/WWW/wikisites/nesvideos-site/inc/wikiexpr.php errline=133 error_handler: errstr=krsort() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given errfile=/home/WWW/wikisites/nesvideos-site/modules/moviechangelog.php errline=277 error_handler: errstr=Invalid argument supplied for foreach() errfile=/home/WWW/wikisites/nesvideos-site/modules/moviechangelog.php errline=279 Also, I wanted to suggest that you make the 'recommended' section more prominent. Just now, clicking on 'movies' only shows the system menus. Recommended movies are only available at the bottom of other lists. I think recommended movies should be linked to on the front page too. Again, I apologiseif this has already been discussed here. I read the first few pages of the thread but not all 17.

I'm just some random guy. Don't let my words get you riled - I have my opinions but they're only mine.

Posted: 3/10/2008 11:39 PM

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Baxter

Skilled player (1410)

Joined: 5/31/2004
Posts: 1821

Bezman wrote:

I just wanted to point out that the 'recommended movies' page isn't working. If you already know or if this isn't the place to mention it, I apologise. [...] I think recommended movies should be linked to on the front page too. Again, I apologiseif this has already been discussed here. I read the first few pages of the thread but not all 17.

You should have read the last 2 pages (only those have recent posts). On the 15th page:

Bisqwit wrote:

In any case, I'll remove the stars temporarily (as in, indefinitely until something different comes up), as they have not been verified for some time and there may be discrepancies in them that I am not able to off-hand justify.

http://tasvideos.org/Baxter.html

Posted: 3/11/2008 12:07 AM

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Bezman

Joined: 2/7/2008
Posts: 185

Baxter wrote:

You should have read the last 2 pages (only those have recent posts).

You're right. Sorry folks. I've now caught up on the last 2.5 pages and...

DarkKobold wrote:

Do we really need to tell people to watch a super mario 3 run, or Mario 64?

Maybe it seems obvious to you, but to me, when I came, I didn't want to watch Mario 64 being played for a couple of hours! I'd rather watch a short video showing game-breaking skill and it didn't cross my mind that such a thing would be possible on the N64. I was astonished to see the incredible run and though I don't really understand what was going on, it was a pleasure to watch. I'm certainly glad I was pointed in that direction! I'm more interested in Snes games, being generally familiar with them. Beyond that, I feel that I do need pointers. I didn't watch all the recommended submissions, but it was great to have a starting point. Whether the star system is voted upon by you experts or if it's some other system such as the highest voted submission from each category (highest '2-player' highest 'luck manipulation' etc), I earnestly suggest that some sort of 'recommended list' returns. Similarly, the short descriptions on each submission is a great little pointer to tell me whether a run is worth watching. I can only hope that when trying to reduce the bandwidth consumed, you don't eliminate the option to see such summaries.

I'm just some random guy. Don't let my words get you riled - I have my opinions but they're only mine.

Posted: 4/25/2008 8:57 PM

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ccfreak2k

Joined: 11/1/2007
Posts: 100

Bisqwit wrote:

In any case, I'll remove the stars temporarily (as in, indefinitely until something different comes up), as they have not been verified for some time and there may be discrepancies in them that I am not able to off-hand justify.

SELECT * FROM movies WHERE numberofyesvotes > 0 SORT BY numberofyesvotes LIMIT 10; and then sort alphabetically or something. Oh god I hate SQL.

Posted: 5/2/2008 7:39 PM

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Lord_Tom

He/Him

Expert player (3143)

Joined: 5/25/2007
Posts: 399
Location: New England

I, for one, think the site suffers from the loss of the starred movies. Without them, I think the content is flatter and visitors are left perusing giant lists of movies or searching for particular games. My suggestion is a "player's choice" (or member's choice) section with say five categories...Best Overall, Most Innovative, Glitchfest, High Speed, and Nearly Perfect. (PLEASE don't criticize these categories; they're just examples, and PLEASE don't write for the umpteenth time that xyz is subjective; I know, trust me, I know. Really. I do.) Anyways, each voting member (ie non-lurker) can have a link in his profile to nominate up to 5 published movies in each category. The member's choice section lists all movies with at least 1 nomination, most to least. Members can change their nominations at any time, and maybe nominations are removed once a movie is obsoleted/no longer published. The advantages as I see it are that it's community driven and thus more likely to stay up to date. This page would have much fewer movies than, say, the NES page, so would be less cumbersome. And on the data side it should just be a cross-reference table with a reasonable query. I really don't see this as telling people what to watch, it's just a way to make the site's content less monolithic, build a sense of community, and even give player's something to aspire to.

Posted: 5/2/2008 7:50 PM

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alden

Player (121)

Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522

Seconded. Outside of technical limitations, I think you should be able to nominate as many movies as you like though, and the lists should be just the top 20 or so. It doesn't really matter how many nominations each member can make, because the more you make the less each one counts. For example, nominating every movie has the same overall effect as nominating none. Coincidentally, Lord Tom made the top of my list :) though it's not in any particular order

Also, previously in this thread, I wrote:

I think it would be neat to have lists of games that are interesting in different distinct ways (super fast looking, crazy luck manipulation, glitchy, ?) and would appeal to different folks. Maybe even lists from individual users that people could browse, and then some sort of aggregation of that into a more general list (man this is getting complicated).

:P

I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs

Posted: 5/2/2008 8:23 PM

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Mitjitsu

He/Him

Banned User

Joined: 4/24/2006
Posts: 2997

Lord Tom wrote:

I, for one, think the site suffers from the loss of the starred movies. Without them, I think the content is flatter and visitors are left perusing giant lists of movies or searching for particular games. My suggestion is a "player's choice" (or member's choice) section with say five categories...Best Overall, Most Innovative, Glitchfest, High Speed, and Nearly Perfect.

Thats already been covered

Posted: 5/2/2008 8:48 PM

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Lord_Tom

He/Him

Expert player (3143)

Joined: 5/25/2007
Posts: 399
Location: New England

Well ha. I think the awards you linked to are great, though I think it says something about their visibility that I won an award for a run but didn't even know it... Thanks for anyone who voted for me ;) Were these presented somewhere with links, that would be great; I think it's, heh, unoptimized, to have them languish in a forum post.

Posted: 5/3/2008 12:52 AM

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alden

Player (121)

Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522

Yeah, those awards are kind of related, but it should be something that is dynamic, includes all movies, includes the ability to "vote" for multiple movies, and is non-hidden :) I'm going to hold a "straw poll": anyone feel free to contact me with a list of your favorite overall movies and I'll come up with an aggregate list. Nominate as many as you like...

I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs

Posted: 5/6/2008 7:57 AM

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alden

Player (121)

Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522

OK, so no one wanted to send me a list (I probably wouldn't either) so I went out looking for them. Here is what I've found so far. And yes, the sample size is far too small. Feel free to help out with that :)

I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs

Posted: 5/6/2008 8:32 AM

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Warp

Banned User

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

IMO there can (and probably should) be a slight difference between the most favorite movies of TASers in general, and movies which deserve a star. Experienced TASers and TAS watchers may (and often do) appreciate subtler things than first-time viewers. There may be TASes which are greatly appreciated by the community, but which may be "too complicated" for a first-time viewer who has no experience on TASes. Starred movies should be a "light and easy to understand" introduction to TASes. Preferably they should also cause a "wow, this looks cool!" effect on the first-time viewer. Also, the TASes of known and popular games are more suitable for first-time viewers than TASes of obscure games, regardless of how appreciated those TASes are. For this reason I would say that for example the SMB1 TAS should be given a star because SMB1 is one of the best known and most popular games in history. Given that the TAS itself is well above average in quality and relatively short also helps.

Posted: 5/6/2008 8:59 AM

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moozooh

Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away

The reason why I don't think giving SMB a star makes sense is: 1) it's going to be checked among the first hits, anyway; 2) the TAS is only a couple seconds faster than the fastest unassisted run — hardly a WOWAWESOME thing. Tool-assistance is not very prominent there, at least not for a first-timer.

Warp wrote:

Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.

Posted: 5/6/2008 10:24 AM

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Baxter

Skilled player (1410)

Joined: 5/31/2004
Posts: 1821

Moozooh wrote:

The reason why I don't think giving SMB a star makes sense is: 1) it's going to be checked among the first hits, anyway; 2) the TAS is only a couple seconds faster than the fastest unassisted run — hardly a WOWAWESOME thing. Tool-assistance is not very prominent there, at least not for a first-timer.

Exactly the points I wanted to make.

http://tasvideos.org/Baxter.html

Posted: 5/6/2008 10:25 AM

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Deign

Active player (437)

Joined: 7/23/2006
Posts: 389
Location: Washington

Baxter wrote:

[quote="Moozooh;

I love Baxter =D

I'm sciencing as fast as I can ! ______________________________________ <adelikat> once more balls enter the picture, everything gets a lot more entertraining <adelikat> mmmmm yummy penises

Posted: 5/6/2008 5:41 PM

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alden

Player (121)

Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522

Warp wrote:

IMO there can (and probably should) be a slight difference between the most favorite movies of TASers in general, and movies which deserve a star.

I would agree with this to a certain extent, if having a star denotes "good for people new to this site" which it traditionally has of course. Personally, I think having a "star" isn't really the best way to present these. Having a star implies to me that the movie is a "star", got a "star" on their homework, is "stellar" etc, ie runs that are deemed "really good"[/digression] Aside from the semantics of it, there's no magical function to determine movies that fit your (or anyone's) criteria for "good first time movies". So, we are left with either: having a big ole debate about it; having someone (Bisqwit) just say this is the list; or having an automated method of polling people's opinions and spitting out a dynamic, informed list. While my list above is geared towards "people's favorites," there could be multiple lists (like Lord Tom said as well). One of them could be "Good for new visitors." Everyone can apply their own criteria towards getting the same result, and in the end we would be left with a list where most people will agree with most of the movies. I think the most important point is that there probably should be more directed ways of mediating visitor's experiences. The most obvious way to do this, and in the spirit of the site, is generating automated user-produced categories (though I do realize that this will still take a non-trivial amount of overhead to start out with).

I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs

Posted: 5/6/2008 8:35 PM

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Warp

Banned User

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

alden wrote:

So, we are left with either: having a big ole debate about it; having someone (Bisqwit) just say this is the list; or having an automated method of polling people's opinions and spitting out a dynamic, informed list.

IMO all of those are better than not having any list at all.

Posted: 5/7/2008 4:00 PM

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alden

Player (121)

Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522

Warp wrote:

IMO all of those are better than not having any list at all.

Agreed. So, a big debate it is!

I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs

Posted: 5/8/2008 11:59 AM

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Baxter

Skilled player (1410)

Joined: 5/31/2004
Posts: 1821

Alden wrote:

So, we are left with either: having a big ole debate about it; having someone (Bisqwit) just say this is the list; or having an automated method of polling people's opinions and spitting out a dynamic, informed list.

Alden wrote:

Agreed. So, a big debate it is!

Yeah, a big debate is probably better than popular vote. After all, it should be movies that are best suited for some kind of list to make the list, and not the most popular movies. A combination of people's lists gives no garantee that the resulting list will be good. Arguments that a certain movie is original and different from everything else already in the list could be a good argument to have it.

http://tasvideos.org/Baxter.html

Posted: 7/16/2008 8:23 PM

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Bezman

Joined: 2/7/2008
Posts: 185

I think the Mario 64 TAS is - from all I have seen so far - the most impressive thing and really shows what's possible when you take the game beyond breaking point. As a non-experienced person, that is what I would recommend to fellow newcomers.

I'm just some random guy. Don't let my words get you riled - I have my opinions but they're only mine.

Posted: 7/16/2008 8:54 PM

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Derakon

Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960

I liked the suggestion earlier that movies should get categorized based on e.g. glitchiness. What might actually be helpful here is if there was a tag system - users tag movies with appropriate words, and then you can search through the movies by looking for tags. So a new user comes by and watches the SMB TAS, and sees that it has the tags "smb platformer nes warp zip", say. And probably also has "lolcat zomg" in there as well, because this is an open tag system, but oh well (probably wanna restrict tagging to forumgoers). So he watches the SMB TAS, and thinks "I liked that one; what other ones are like it?" So he clicks on the "smb" tag, and gets a list of all games that have that tag, which presumably is all of the Super Mario Bros. TASes. Or he clicks on "platformer" and gets all the platforming TASes. We could also implement "stars" as tags too; I mean, fundamentally tags are just a convenient way to categorize things, and stars (and the by-console breakdown) are different categorizations. This is just an elegant and flexible design that, once implemented, should involve minimal effort to maintain.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 11/17/2008 9:08 AM

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Bisqwit

Editor, Active player (297)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

The category of starred movies is now open again ― they're called "special stars". Because the name is now different, maybe the criteria should be too, so I'm starting a new thread because the reading of the previous posts in this thread is not relevant for the new thread. I'm locking this thread. Discussion relating to the stars should be conducted in this new thread: http://tasvideos.org/forum/t/7498

Forum General Star nominees

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Star nominees