(Link to video)
Spyro the Dragon Vortex TAS in 20:32
Made by wafflewizard1
Adjusted to RTA timing standards with PS2 fast disk speed: 18:25
Δ World record: -2:05

Game objectives:
Emulator used: BizHawk 2.7.0 with no memory card inserted
BIOS: scph1001.bin
SHA1 hash of Spyro the Dragon (USA).bin: cf3ce6bedeb89dfbc40990336180f3b9b0f40d9f
Takes damage to save time
Uses death to save time
RNG/enemy manipulation
Videos:
Goal of this TAS:
After using the unlock all homeworlds cheat code, we go into each individual level (excluding the completionist bonus level) and attempt to reach the exit level vortex as fast as possible. Normally in Spyro you have to collect gems, dragons and eggs to unlock the following homeworlds. Due to the nature of these collectable requirements, skipping them is currently impossible. This category aims to showcase the types of movement, boosts, and glitches that Spyro 1 has to offer when collectables aren't taken into consideration. Going from point A to point B as fast as possible is the primary focus in this category.
Acronyms/Generalities:
Vortex: The end of level portal that takes you back to the homeworld
Charge: Holding square causes Spyro to run forward in a “charge”
Proxy: Getting a boost off an enemy/scenery from hitbox or animation
Squeeze proxy: Getting a boost by squeezing with enemies or scenery
Wallglide: Gaining height while gliding along a wall at a specific angle
Damage boost: Getting a boost from getting damaged by an enemy, possible because of how the game stores momentum
Skitter jump: A charging jump input while on a sloped surface which causes an immediate landing on said slope, allows for faster travel up hills
Charge glide: A charge input with a glide input the frame after which causes your glide to start with a boost of momentum, and reach top speed instantly.
Charge jump: Pressing jump while charging will give you a short but fast jump the direction you're charging
Bonk: When you charge into a wall or enemy that can't be moved
Instant Load: Entering level portals from specific angles to reduce, or completely remove the level entry animation.
Roll: Pressing L1 or R1 makes Spyro roll left or right
OoB: Out of bounds E.g. Going over a wall to unintended areas
Flop: The falling animation state
Power jump: A charge into a late jump input that gains extra momentum
Supercharge ramp: Ramps with arrows that gives Spyro extra speed with a special animation
Squop: A charge into a glide input
Magic stairs: Utilising the mechanics of edges to push you up stairs with a charge jump
TAS: Tool assisted speedrun
Fodder: The small creatures that when killed gives you a hit point
Balloonist: The NPC in each homeworld that takes you to the other homeworlds
RTA: Human viable
Glide buffer: When doing a charge jump, pressing x will make Spyro glide for one frame and charge again, which extends the charge jump a little

Interesting level comments:
General run:
I'm stoked with how this TAS turned out. Major improvements from the last TAS in terms of both movement and tricks. I timed a lot more stuff this time around to make sure I was doing optimal strats.
Magic stairs/glide buffers - Last TAS I tried to magic stairs on every stair, turns out a lot of them were slower and I've timed this one to check which ones are worth going for.
Artisans homeworld:
Stone - More optimised skitter jumps, nothing huge. The cheat code entry was also moved to the portal entry for this level rather than the balloonist.
Town Square - Getting magic stairs at the start carries a lot of momentum through the start of the level which is faster than the RTA jumps currently used.
Wallglide into Toasty - Instead of using a jump into a glide, a charge jump is used which is slightly faster. After jumping off the scenery Spyro lands on, we glide OoB and touch the level portal. A specific angle is used to get an instant load into the level.
Toasty - We get a proxy off the dog at the start of the level which sends Spyro directly up, skipping all of the level. I tried getting to the dog as fast as possible to get the proxy faster. I cut the proxy off with a glide so we touch the top of the vortex. This proxy is due to the interaction between both the dog and the shepherd, not just one of them. Leaving Toasty, more skitter jumps were found and implemented for faster movement.
Dark Hollow - Most of the level is running in a straight line to the end, but this updated TAS also includes a proxy off the frog fodder at the end, saving a little time.

Magic Crafters homeworld:
Alpine Ridge - The wallglide in this level is an improvement on the RTA version of the trick and was named “Fish Escalator”. Using the scenery Spyro can glide along the wall and achieve enough height to fly OoB and into a later part of the level that is much closer to the vortex.
Alpine to High Caves - I was messing around with the moving platform outside alpine one day and managed to get a small boost off it which sparked this new boost. While making the TAS I managed to tweak it so it got Spyro just enough height to get up to the platform, skipping the need to run around.
High Caves - Magic stairs are used to optimise the movement up to the super charge ramp, which leads into using the supercharge to fling Spyro against a metal gem chest and up into the vortex. This flop was proven to be faster than the previous TAS implementation.
Wizard Peak - After supercharging up to the ledge, I keep the supercharge to proxy off one of the druids. This was much faster than the last TAS.
Blowhard - There are multiple damage boosts utilising the wizards in this level, some of which are RTA, but there is one at the very start of the level that is carried into a very tight wallglide that we use which saves a few seconds.
Tuco the Balloonist - Unlike the other balloonists, this one has an RNG element. The next level we want to go to is in the Peace Keepers homeworld, and Tuco lets us select this homeworld but there's an optimisation; Tuco has a 2/5 chance to give us a level inside the homeworld which lets us skip running from the Peace Keepers spawn and instead it already puts us inside a level inside of Peace Keepers. One of the 2/5 options saves more time because it skips some backtracking. We manipulated the RNG (through small input changes) to give us the best option which is the level ‘Dry Canyon’.

Peace Keepers homeworld:
Dry Canyon - Using a wallglide at the start of the level allows us to get upto a small platform which is normally unreachable. Once on the platform we roll while Spyro is very close to the edge which sends Spyro up the sloped wall to the vortex platform. For some reason rolling up slopes only works when Spyro’s teetering over the edge of a platform which is why we have to get close to the edge.
Cliff Town - One of the hardest squeeze proxies to get, it saves us having to charge up the long windy level which is a big time save. Was in XandoToasters old vortex TAS. After getting the squeeze we get magic stairs to carry momentum up to the vortex.
Doctor Shemp - Off the start of the level we manipulate the enemy thrown at us so that they run into a corner. If we roll into the corner as the enemy is running into it we can set up for a trick that is called ‘Shemp skip’. Shemp skip is performed when we jump frame perfectly as the enemy is swinging their knife at Spyro which proxies Spyro high enough to get up to the vortex, skipping the level and the boss fight.
Ice Cavern - This level was altered from the previous TAS to exclude wall gliding into the top of the vortex as it was timed to be slower.

Dream Weavers homeworld:
Haunted Towers - We skip a large proportion of the start of the level through multiple dead body proxies off of the wizard enemies (the first one was a new find by me which was a nice surprise), currently dubbed ‘Quad Wiz’. The supercharge turnaround is then used which is done by taking the supercharge out of its intended area and doing large jumps across platforms that are normally unreachable.
Dark Passage - Most of this level is skipped from a damage boost off the archer enemies. Bonking into the wall while getting shot gets the boost high enough to where we can use a small wallglide to reach the end of level vortex.
Lofty Castle - This level is the first instance where power jumps are used. You may recognise the two power jumps by the size of the gap Spyro clears. The jumps are not RTA viable and are very precise with positioning and angle. After getting the power jumps we get boosted up to the vortex on the enemy known as the turkey with the trick suitably named “turkey boost”. By jumping at the right time and flopping onto the enemy, it puts Spyro in a perfect position where he wont slide off and instead, gets hit again and lifted up. By pressing X we glide off the turkey when we are able to glide to the vortex.
Lofty to Jaques - WOW, I finally found the trick to take us from lofty to Jaques, and it turns out it's slightly faster! Super sick find + an awesome instant load into the level.
Jaques - Last TAS I said there was a potential proxy off one of the fools onto the scenery, and I found it. This new trick saves over 5 seconds compared to the last TAS. I then glide off into a slight scenery proxy which puts us up onto one of the platforms at the end of the level, entirely skipping the boss fight.

Beast Makers homeworld:
Terrace Village - The proxy you see in this level is called “Bisquick”, an alternative name of the original trick named Biscuit Blast, which has recently become RTA viable. The height acquired in this instance is much harder to accomplish, and saves time because Spyro is high enough to reach the top of the vortex portal and skips excessive gliding behind the scenery as an RTA route would perform.
Tree Tops - By getting a small squeeze proxy between the torch pole and the sloped wall, we can make a jump onto the platform across which is a direct supercharge to the end of the level. A proxy was removed at the end from last TAS as it was slower and instead ramped off the wall to get some height. The fodder is still hit and replenishes a hit point for Spyro.
Metalhead - Some magic stairs were removed as timed jump charging up stairs was definitively found to be faster. “Double Bowling” is the new implemented strategy here which involves timing a jump and charge glide to bounce off of the metal monkey’s hitbox, skipping the usual route of crossing the bridge as well as the Metalhead boss room. A new scenery proxy was also implemented, dubbed “Squooce” (or Bowling 2.0) which involves using the boost obtained from the second bowling and in and out of the wall’s scenery in a specific manner to obtain more height. This new version is faster than the previous strategy by approximately 3 seconds and allows enough height to glide directly into the vortex room.

Gnasty’s World:
Gnorc Cove - Rat Proxy. This one didn't get us as high as I’d like it to, but it's still a second faster over the old TAS because we use a new trick that Lumilaura found which is the barrel boost at the start.
Twilight Harbour - The tricks in this level were tricks I found around 4 months ago. It's multiple tricks chained in a row which creates an amazing but overwhelming level so bare with the explanation. The enemy at the start can be charged at such an angle that it starts shaking up and down because it's stuck in a glitchy bit of scenery. If you attempt to squop onto the enemy when it's shaking it launches you upwards which can then be used to glide into another proxy, this one being a scenery squeeze between the archway and the wall. This scenery squeeze launches you straight up and you land on the roof above. The chimneys on the side of the roof happen to have collision only on the side facing the wall, so we clip into the chimney and get *yet another* scenery squeeze proxy which sends us finally high enough to glide to the end of the level. The RTA strat for this level charges through the whole level and this trick manages to save some time because it's a more direct line from start to finish.
Gnasty Gnorc - Gnasty Gnorc was altered to involve some tougher movement tech. Grabbing the keys from both thieves remains unchanged however in the Gnasty chase Spyro has been manipulated to be directly in front of Gnasty Gnorc the entire run up to the first flame, allowing for optimal speed on Gnasty.

Potential improvements:
This TAS has been made as optimal as possible with current strats and movement. New strats and movement tech would be needed to see any improvement on this time. For example the balloon proxy in Lofty, or a new clip in Cove. Most of the potential improvements I stated last time came to fruition through some strat finding, some of which were found literally days after the first TAS which was unfortunate timing.
Special Thanks:
Thank you to my friends in discord for helping me keep sane through the creation of this TAS. Thank you to XandoToaster for teaching me the ropes of TASing (who also made the former TAS) and to c0mposer for help with TAS stuff.

-wafflewizard1&c0mposer - tex wuz here ඞ

ThunderAxe31: Removed 12764 blank frames at the end of the movie file.
feos: I know nothing about this game, so judging this precedent setting submission is going to be a lot of fun.
feos: Indeed it was crazy, as detailed in this post I made. It doesn't make sense to repeat it, but it's important to emphasize the main points:
  • Indeed this movie uses a cheat code that does not meet our old rules on codes.
  • Our old rules on codes weren't helping more people like and respect TASVideos.
  • We want rules to serve people, not people to serve rules.
  • We want to inspire and educate more people so they make more cool TASes.
So we agreed to adjust the rules a little bit to feature Moons level content even if an in-game code by itself makes the game easier. If the code is so bad that people can't even enjoy the movie, I think it's a perfect reason to reject send such a run to Playground. But if it ends up helping a movie stand out more and people also like it for what it is, I don't see a problem.
However I don't really know how to make the branch label make more sense to those who don't know the game. A vortex is just an end level portal, it doesn't imply any cheats, it doesn't get tracked by the game how many vortexes you visited. But adding anything to the label feels even more confusing. At least it's better to leave it capitalized so it means a phenomenon and not a singular portal.
Accepting to Moons.
fsvgm777: Processing. Spikestuff is handling the encodes for this one.

TASVideoAgent
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iDuL
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TASVideoAgent wrote:
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #7420: wafflewizard1 & c0mposer's PSX Spyro the Dragon "Vortex" in 20:30.80
Truly a great submission, hope to see this published.
wafflewizard1
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Really appreciated, glad you enjoyed <3
iDuL wrote:
TASVideoAgent wrote:
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #7420: wafflewizard1 & c0mposer's PSX Spyro the Dragon "Vortex" in 20:30.80
Truly a great submission, hope to see this published.
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Is it correct that you can replicate this category by playing further after any% completion, and also by using save data of that, instead of entering the cheat code?
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.
CoolHandMike
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I thought the movement and paths looked good even though I know nothing about this game. Was I entertained? Yes. How is the cheat code even done though?
discord: CoolHandMike#0352
Joined: 5/22/2022
Posts: 2
feos wrote:
Is it correct that you can replicate this category by playing further after any% completion, and also by using save data of that, instead of entering the cheat code?
You can come close, but not quite. If you started from a savefile with all homeworlds unlocked via any% completion up to the point of unlocking them, the run would be very similar and contain basically all of the same tricks/tech/movement, but have some minor differences. I list the largest ones that come to mind here: Any collectible (including dragons, which slow you down if you talk to them, so you have to avoid them) that you collected to do your any%/120% savefile would be missing from the world. In a fresh file cheat code run, all collectibles are still present in the world, and hence dragons have to generally be avoided. The entrance to the level toasty would already be open in the savefile, assuming toasty was entered. From a fresh file you need to free a dragon after exiting another level's vortex to open the entrance to the level. With a fresh file the fastest entry is going out of bounds and entering the level from behind. With a savefile, you could just run straight in, or do the same out of bounds but enter with much more leeway. However, as far as I know you could just unlock all the homeworlds without ever opening toasty, getting around this issue. A major difference would be the Magic Crafters balloonist Tuco. Tuco has a "catchup" mechanic where if you don't have the 5 eggs he requires to be an active balloonist, he'll warp you directly into a level that has an egg (he decides which level to offer to send you to randomly). From a savefile, Tuco's catchup mechanic would be missing, as you'd already have 5 eggs. Using the egg warp from tuco is usually fast because instead of taking you to the start of a homeworld, he drops you directly into a level with an egg. This obviously skips homeworld movement, and also a loading screen. In a savefile run you'd instead have to take the balloon normally to the peacekeepers homeworld, and traverse through it to the next level in your route. There'll also be several whirlwinds active in levels that skip platforming that the game assumes you've already tackled, as far as I know. The ones that come to mind are Cliff Town and Lofty Castle. Using a 120% savefile would provide an interesting quirk. Although of course it would have issues such as having the toasty head already open, it would allow access to the bonus level "Gnasty's Loot", which actually also contains a vortex. Vortex in its current form ignores this vortex, as you need 100% of the base game completed to access Gnasty's Loot. In a 120% savefile run, you could complete the "true vortex" goal of entering all the vortices in the game, instead of all but one. Just for some final clarification, all the cheatcode used in this run actually does is make the balloonists ignore their normal collectible requirements, and allow you to select any homeworld you wish to go to straight away. Other than that, the game behaves as if you're playing from a fresh file, and even Tuco's catchup mechanic still functions, as although he's willing to take you to any homeworld, he also recognises that you don't have 5 eggs. Also several of these differences that I listed could likely be avoided by getting very specific collectibles to build the any% savefile, as if Spyro hasn't visited the areas / collected things that "matter", they'll be there as if the file was fresh.
Joined: 5/22/2022
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CoolHandMike wrote:
I thought the movement and paths looked good even though I know nothing about this game. Was I entertained? Yes. How is the cheat code even done though?
The cheat code is entered via a series of controller inputs on the inventory screen. Refer to this image:
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TL;DR: Please watch this movie, vote, and post your impression about the run in the thread!!!
I spent a week talking to Spyro people and watching different TAS and RTA branches, trying to compare them while still figuring out how the game works and why something makes sense. There's A LOT to unpack, so hold tight! Moons First and foremost, I'm not convinced this branch meets the Moons requirements yet. The original thread has 8 Yes votes and no No votes, but only a single post about voting Yes, and one post about being unsure what to vote, though "it was still enjoyable to watch". This thread is 7 Yes against 0 No votes, and also two posts about entertainment. The nature of the goal itself also plays a role in how this should be judged. And the previous thread contains an opinion that using the cheat makes this goal questionable. I'll try to explain what that means. Cheat The game is divided into several worlds, and from each world you have access to a set of levels. You can access new worlds by going to balloonists (one per world) that send you there, but they only start talking to you after you've fulfilled their requirements, otherwise you can't exit the current world and go to the next one.
Spikestuff wrote:
To enter Peace Keepers you require 10 dragons. To enter Magic Crafters you require 1,200 gems. To enter Beast Makers you require 5 dragon eggs. To enter Dream Weavers you require 50 dragons. To enter Gnasty's World you require 6,000 gems.
This is why any% [1862] PSX Spyro The Dragon by lapogne36 in 41:38.30 is basically a collectathon. The game requires you to do quite some work to be able to go from point A to point B. The cheat code in this run removes that requirement. Which gives you the ability to go from point A to point B directly, basically you can just go beat the final boss right away. Vortex The vortex goal means you need to leave each level through its end portal (vortex) instead of through menu, and that's a human imposed goal not recognized by the game. It's important to know that there's one vortex that's only accessible after you've beaten the game 120%, so this run doesn't have it. The Vortex goal is not directly tied to the cheat code that unlocks all worlds. You can use all vortexes in a 120% run, or all but one in a regular run. Also you can unlock all worlds and then save the game, and playing from that save you can also access all but one vortexes while not having to collect anything, which will look somewhat close to this submission. I asked the Spyro speedrun community, and the only reason the cheat is used and not a pre-made in-game save, is convenience and tradition. It's how this category appeared, and people liked it and it's now one of the most popular RTA categories. Difference So how different is this run from any% in the end? While watching the 2 side by side I noticed that the movement in this run is much less intense, however the tricks are more pronounced. Spyro runners confirmed me that all the major mechanics and techniques used in Vortex also have an optimal application in any%, you just can't really glitch any% too hard because then you're out of your way and can't collect the required things anymore. So this category is definitely more glitchy. Legitimacy The previous thread contains some discussion about whether it's fair to call this a meme category. I want to note that even in the video the author linked where the goods of the goal are explained it's called a meme at 6:51 ("It was looking like the category would have the same fate as many other meme categories"). Now more seriously, it was argued that this goal meets the spirit (intent) of our original rule about codes and unlockable content.
We allow playing unlockable content using in-game passwords Using in-game codes[1] or passwords at the start of a game is allowed if it uses a built-in hard mode or if it makes cosmetic changes to the game, as long as parts of the game are not skipped. Using in-game codes or passwords at the start of a game to unlock a special game mode, character, level sets, or otherwise play the game in some unusual way is allowed.
And here's the current wording for comparison:
Cheat codes and passwords are only allowed to access harder difficulties and/or bonus content, including cosmetic improvements.
However I think my explanations of how this game works make it clear that the cheat code used here does not unlock any content. It doesn't add any bonus mechanics or features. It just removes a hard requirement. It absolutely results in unusual gameplay compared to any%, but so does noclip in other games. And it absolutely does not result in inherent gameplay differences, because you can still collect things like in any% or 120% and only use the balloonists after that. It also does not automatically result in the Vortex category, the players just voluntarily decide to use those vortexes. I think the rule about codes always meant that you can unlock new mechanics or levels, which means it needs to be present in the game already, just hidden. Or even more broadly, you can use codes to add or change existing mechanics or gameplay, but removing mechanics or gameplay is usually seen as simply making the game easier, without inherently changing the nature of the challenge completely. The fact that you can mostly replicate this run by starting from a post-completion save, which we absolutely do accept for Moons, probably can play a role in how exactly we treat this particular cheat code, but still it's not about unlocking new content. Rule changes 5 months ago changing the rule about cheat codes was considered an interesting idea, but we were very busy back then. Also now we have Wiki: Playground where this run can already safely go without problems. But #7451: andy120195's DS Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team "Wondermail" in 1:36:40.01 and probably even #7033: CasualPokePlayer's GBC Fushigi no Dungeon: Fuurai no Shiren GB2: Sabaku no Majou in 50:55.62 raise a question of whether we can accept runs using codes on more open terms, obviously as a different branch? If you can do crazy things with a password system, why ban it from TASing? We discussed this among staff and this idea was thrown around:
  • For codes that add content, allow a separate branch for Standard.
  • For other kinds of in-game codes, just require that it meets Moons requirements.
Outside world It exists???!!! Yeah, we spent almost 20 years limiting what is allowed to be published regardless of how many people want to make a TAS of something and how cool it can be. To be published, it absolutely had to entertain our general audience, or, later, to meet our really strict Tier rules. If something didn't meet those rules, we could be sorry all day but still reject a great piece of work. While initially it was necessary to gain ourselves the name for only publishing really good movies, it looks like we missed the moment when the world around us caught up on speedrunning and got rid of ignorance about what TAS actually is. Those were also the times when human speedrunners started replicating techniques that were believed to be TAS only. Reality started producing better humans (so to speak), who were able to match TAS times or even beat them. That one aspect was already worth worrying about, because it was a start of a bigger trend: people became so interested in real-time speedrunning that they didn't bother to also/instead make a TAS. You might think it's natural, because real-time speedrunning is EASIER, but that assumption actually contradicts the main premise: humans learned to pull off TAS-only techniques. It's can't be so much harder to TAS for them. They are just more interested in their own actual gameplay skills. If you actually talk to those people, they will tell you that while TASing is obviously cool in itself, the freedom they have in their self-imposed speedrun rules is a much better ground for really inventive competition than rigid rules of TASVideos that simply ignore the outside world and its trends. To be able to influence TASVideos judgments one has to register and become an active viewer, which means a viewer generally caring enough to be around and to post every once in a while. And to be able to influence TASVideos policies, it doesn't even help to be an admin apparently.
Nach wrote:
As much as I would like to see this published, this run is not eligible for the vault, and didn't gather enough support for anything higher, rejecting.
Let alone regular staff members. And yeah, "having" to reject good movies was already an indication we were shooting our own foot. Look where it brought us (this is from Spyro Speedrunning discord):
CFGamebreaker wrote:
why dont we simply just make the run significantly less cool to conform to an arbitrary rule so we can get judged by people who dont even know the game? like no attack on any individuals but this whole debate is a great example of why i think the whole tasvideos process is just archaic and silly.
lu.cx wrote:
id even go as far as saying that category extension tas can also be as enjoyable to watch and shouldnt be just looked down on by tasvideos
aldeezy1 wrote:
The TASvideos' hard "no cheats" rule is too restrictive for niche categories like vortex. The entire run is predicated on allowing the use of cheats. Requiring a 120% file devalues the movement in cliff town, wastes 20 seconds at tuco, adds a level not historically done in the category (replacing Gnasty Gnorc as an endpoint), and occasionally removes obstacles (dragons, chests). If that's the only kind of run that can be accepted on TASvideos, fine, but that run is not the vortex category RTA runners run, nor care about. They have multiple TASes that were made within the rules of the category they care about. Who are TASvideos to say those are invalid? This arbitrary judgement is just silly to me. [...] I'm just saying that I can think of a few sites that dropped out of fashion due to restrictive global rules that failed to accommodate
Composer wrote:
Yeah both using the cheat, or starting from a full completion file are just as arbitrary as one another. But like Hum said, we have legitimized the category we now know today as vortex, with the cheat. So it only makes sense that the TAS follows the same rules of the category. Even if starting from a file would be more interesting (which it isn't), that should be pointless since the category has legitimized itself with the ruleset it has for the past few years, so changing the rules of the entire category for a TAS to fit a no cheat rule is silly imo, because then it is no longer a "vortex TAS" Vortex isn't vortex without the cheat
These are just from my interactions with them. You can find much more if you search for "tasvideos". One may say "LOL, SO WHAT, WHO CARES", and it's what we've been replying, officially. But guess what, there are dozens of people who speedrun Spyro 1 all the time, and there's only a single TAS publication and it's a freaking decade old. You know what is also a decade old? https://speeddemosarchive.com/Spyro.html If this is not an indication that we are actively becoming irrelevant, then I don't know what is. If motivating people to create and contribute TASes is not our goal anymore, then we're just wasting our time here. And if it is, then we're not so good at it apparently.
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.
Fortranm
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feos wrote:
First and foremost, I'm not convinced this branch meets the Moons requirements yet. The original thread has 8 Yes votes and no No votes, but only a single post about voting Yes, and one post about being unsure what to vote, thought "it was still enjoyable to watch". This thread is 7 Yes against 0 No votes, and also two posts about entertainment.
What intrigues me the most from all of this is actually the implication that the existing feedback does not suffice for the entertainment criterion. In fact, there have been a couple of times over the years where I found decisions on publishing a movie to Vault vs Moon (before the tier revamp) to be somewhat arbitrary, namely not considering a movie qualified for Moon despite the poll result showing significantly more Yes votes than the other options. It might be better if there is a clearer stated threshold that a Standard-ineligible submission needs to meet in order to be qualified for Moon.
feos wrote:
The fact that you can mostly replicate this run by starting from a post-completion save, which we absolutely do accept for Moons, probably can play a role in how exactly we treat this particular cheat code, but still it's not about unlocking new content.
Composer wrote:
Yeah both using the cheat, or starting from a full completion file are just as arbitrary as one another.
I agree that the use of built-in codes shouldn't be much of a limiting factor for Moon. It's a mechanism provided by the game itself after all.
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Fortranm wrote:
What intrigues me the most from all of this is actually the implication that the existing feedback does not suffice for the entertainment criterion. In fact, there have been a couple of times over the years where I found the decision on publishing a movie to Vault vs Moon (before the tier revamp) to be somewhat arbitrary, namely not considering a movie qualified for Moon despite the poll result showing significantly more Yes votes than the other options. It might be better if there is a clearer stated threshold that a Standard-ineligible submission needs to meet in order to be qualified for Moon.
The context around this movie makes its Moons eligibility not proven. There has been a hard disagreement about legitimacy of its goal, which is a fundamental Moons factor. And not just about the goal in isolation but also how it relates to our approach to cheats over the years. There's no way to resolve this in a future proof way without setting some kind of a precedent, and there's no way to set a precedent if we only got 4 Yes posts in 5 months and no real discussion about why it makes sense with a cheat.
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.
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I don't think there's any question that this should qualify for Moons - at least I personally would feel comfortable putting it there. The voting is pretty good, the goal is clear, and I thought it was different enough from any%. I already watched it and voted yes. Now here's something that deviates from our past philosophy: I think we should weigh a category's significance in the speedrunning community more heavily. This category has had over 100 different runners and hundreds of attempted runs over the past couple of years. If we don't believe that makes this category significant enough to publish, then we are the ones that are irrelevant. These kinds of categories are birthed from a specialized community, and as outsiders to that, we should not really be the ones deciding if it's meaningful or not. As for runs with codes in general, I think there is a place for that in Standard, at least in certain circumstances. With this run I'm not so sure - I don't think anyone wants this to get obsoleted by a cheat run that just goes straight to the last level. Probably best that it stays in Moons as a separate category. But for other submissions, like #7451: andy120195's DS Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team "Wondermail" in 1:36:40.01 and #7485: ThunderAxe31's GB Rolan's Curse "password, game end glitch" in 04:04.80, finding the best possible passwords to use and beating the game as fast as possible actually represents an interesting optimization challenge. I wouldn't want codes that overly trivialize the game and wouldn't actually impress anyone, like noclip or God mode, but I think there's some room to work with here. Something like a "New Game+" goal would be cool, where you can utilize password systems or SRAM to have things unlocked from the start.
CoolHandMike
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To be clear I voted Yes for this one. To me the goal of making tases and watching them is to have fun. Judging and processing tases should not be more important than the actual tases themselves. If a rule is cumbersome than drop it.
discord: CoolHandMike#0352
wafflewizard1
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feos wrote:
there's only a single TAS publication and it's a freaking decade old.
I plan to TAS out a modern and exciting any% TAS with the help of some runners, so don't worry about that ;) Aside from that, this convo has been really interesting to read. The reason I started running vortex was because of the glitches used, rather than running a category that needs collectables. This is the same reason I started speedrunning spyro 3 any% and spyro 2 any% and is what I look for in speedruns.
Memory
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If it is uniquely entertaining, there should be nothing holding this back from Moons. It's not that different from [2059] SNES Mega Man X "password glitch" by FractalFusion in 16:56.88. A sort of "remove the collection requirements" run can easily be appreciated by your typical audience, which imo should be the main factor in deciding between moons and playground. EDIT: In regards to rules for standard, I'd be ok with a sort of "fastest with codes" but that'd be a discussion for another thread.
[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
Samsara
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Moons, absolutely, but honestly I'm starting to lean standard on this. We definitely need a discussion thread for allowing in-game cheats in standard as separate categories. Given class changes are effectively a free action on the site (some changes to publications require an updated re-encode, class changes don't), there shouldn't be anything holding us back from accepting to Moons now and changing to standard later once we get that discussion going.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
wafflewizard1
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Hey guys, if this does get published i think a cool thumbnail would be one where spyros up high, maybe like gliding in twilight harbour or peak rat proxy in gnorc cove. Intro waifu request: Misato/android 18 🙏
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [4710] PSX Spyro the Dragon "Vortex" by wafflewizard1 in 20:30.80