<rant>
OK, so I think all this fuss is fluff and completely superfluous.
Why should we sink to the level of those who decide to flame or berate. Even if we labelled something, "This is Toxic Waste: EXTREMELY RADIOACTIVEDO NOTopen" you would still find people opening it. I find it rather unsettling that one such as Bisqwit should bend to the will of those who don't or wouldn't care if they were hit on the head with intelligence.
The current intro screen I find to be nice and concise. What I might suggest is a couple additional frames appending the movie with a "reminder" for the site. Or maybe, even including the additional information you talk about: rerecord count, and such. What I don't know is why this is really necessary. I applaud the movie makers and Bisqwit and others who spread the goodness which is console gaming, preserved for the masses.
I close with a quote from an old and dear mentor of mine: "We are the music makers. We are the dreamers of dreams."
</rant>[/b]
People could interpret this as video editing - many people unfamiliar with the why/how already think this way.
So how about something like "tool-assisted (button presses) recording for entertainment purposes".
simply saying "this video was created for entertainment and is not legitamate record" should silence the critics. I don't think mentioning the word emulator is enough because you can do no-save speedruns on them.
Speaking of silencing critics, why doesn't your website differentiate between legit runs and tool assisted runs? Just labeling the legit runs as speed runs without any explanations doesn't do anything, and the last thing gamers want to see is the two kinds of videos being mixed together.
Some guy at GameFAQs thinks all the videos should have a message at the beginning explaining that save states and slow motion were used. I think that's rediculous and I'm trying to convince him that as long as people don't think they're legitimate records it's enough to just have a link to the information about how Famtasia works. What do you people think? Should the movies explain that with Famtasia you can play at 15% speed and save every half second or is giving the link to the website enough?
laziness; I'll add explanations soon.
Until then, if you're going to label the legit runs as "speed runs" then you should at least do it correctly. You forgot to label the ALttP, FSA, and Tetris as speed runs.
He should still do something to let people know it wasn't done with save states or slow motion.
the links to the speed run videos are mostly on SDA so there is an explanation (along with strict rules forbidding emulators) there that the runs are legit, which is why I didn't bother to emphasize it at first. But I can't update my site until tomorrow because I don't have access to the FTP at the moment.
See I just wonder why there is still intellectual philosophizing going on.
Those who complain mainly do it for the attention. Plain and simple. Oh yea, I did forget those who care that someone who used these extra abilities beat their time record... personal gain, plain and simple. Yes I agree these are different... so go elsewhere if you feel that you're being under-represented. These are another genre of game movies.... Those who detract should be so lucky that the game they made a record on is being pursued to be "perfect"... It means people enjoy it, and would enjoy watching a video of it. Please someone.. lock these threads now.
EDIT: spelling/syntax
These are another genre of game movies
Well the guy at GameFAQs is saying that people don't know they're different and people think the videos are legit, so he's saying that there should be explanations of what advantages we have, such as save states and slow motion, to make sure that there are no misconceptions and that people don't think they're seeing actual gameplay.
Edit: By the way, I wouldn't mind if you help me win this argument on GameFAQs because it's been going on for 5 pages and I'm getting tired of it. No matter how clearly I try to explain things they just keep complaining, so maybe you can help me out. Here's the topic:
http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=7882&topic=14123697
I suggest you stop wasting your time.
Last I read many of TGs local heroes are considering quitting competative gaming since everyone is acusing everyone else of cheating using emulators.
This is a quote from Mister DAN in first post of the second page of that thread. This makes it quite clear that the ONLY people who have a problem with these videos are the ones who want to be idolized for their accomplishments.
If they need other people to laud their efforts in order to receive satisfaction from their gaming is that our fault. IMO, only bitter people complain about others stealing their thunder.
I will now make an attempt to summarize all the arguments that I have seen throughout these past few months over Emulated Time Attack Videos. Keep in mind that these ARE NOT necessarily my views. But here's a list of everything I can conjure:
-Emulator time attack videos do undermine legit runs despite their intention to entertain.
-A pure speedrun video will never do anything that can't be reproduced in a time attack, but this doesn't work the other way around. Anyone can reproduce the incredible feats preformed in time attacks by using emulators. But there are very few people in the world that can reproduce the feats of a legit run "authentically".
-People are misinformed of how these videos are made, so they are accepted as legit runs. Emulators can be used to create cheated runs that can pass themselves off as world records.
-Emulators allow poorly skilled gamers to produce videos that are faster, better, and far more entertaining than pure speedrun attempts of highly skilled gamers.
-It is far more difficult to do a pure speedrun than it is to make a time attack. There are psychological factors, like handling anxiety and nervousness when recording yourself playing continuously. There is no anxiety when making a time attack; just savestate, replay, or try again from the same spot tomorrow.
-Even though Time attacks are meant for entertainment, it is often forgotten that pure speedruns have the same aim. Legit gamers sometimes take that extra step to find ways to make their videos entertaining to watch. Saying "this movie was made for entertainment" is thus meaningless in that respect.
-Using savestates and slow-motion is in fact cheating. You cannot do the preceding on a regular NES and it gives you an unintended and unfair advantage. An advantage that legit players will never have.
-Time attack players have too much pride to honestly mention in their videos that the games have used slow-motion, savestates, and are illegitamate records produced with virtually no skillful play. Being clever is not a skill unique to time attacks.
-Time attack players have egos as well. The videos are not just for entertainment or education; they stamp their names on the runs just as in legit speedruns. The name Morimoto now has an almost symbolic meaning.
-Despite what is commonly believed there is a competition between legit runs and emulator-crafted time attacks. Both are trying to get the attention of the members gaming world and the general, but game-interested public. Time attacks are stealing the spotlight. We are all trying to impress!
I'll make a list of counter-arguments next. But I'm sure there are some comments already.
I think most of these arguments have some truth to them, but mostly they can be traced to the fact that people are not aware of how they are made. I personally think a short disclaimer should be put in front of the movies saying, "These movies were made to appear perfect by recording at a reduced speed and using savestates" or something. If people know that and still enjoy them, they have no argument against time attacks.
I would summarize all my counter-arguments, but I've done that so many times that I'm getting sick of it, so I'll just see what you have to say, and maybe you'll be able to explain it better than I can.
Joined: 3/13/2004
Posts: 1118
Location: Kansai, JAPAN
Again, I reiterate my feelings that no further explanations are needed. All the information anyone would want is right here on the site. People will complain no matter what.
I agree with the above poster. I first saw the now classic SMB3 movie on Morimoto's site, so I ended up downloading the FMV. I had never used Famtasia before, but I easily understood what the 'rerecord count' thing meant.
So, not everyone is entirely ignorant if you can pieve together the clues. (I believe the avi file had the 'Movie Stop' message at the end, so it was clearly an emulator movie.)
-Emulator time attack videos do undermine legit runs despite their intention to entertain.
You can't please everyone. Many people enjoy watching these "perfect" runs which are theoretically possible but in practice impossible for a human to do. Some of these people might find it boring to watch a "legit" video with tons of imperfections.
I'm not saying speedruns are not enjoyable. In fact, I enjoy for example the QdQ speedruns a lot and would actually find them more boring if they were tool-assisted.
However, IMO most nes games are different from Quake: Most nes games simply don't offer the same possibilities to show pure skill as Quake does. For example, imagine a "legit" speedrun of Castlevania 2: Since you need to collect a quite vast amount of hearts and in a speedrun it's practically impossible to control the randomness of the dropped hearts, the vast mayority of the game would be watching the player killing zombies for the hearts (which would take probably 10 times longer in a speedrun than in the timeattack). This would be extremely boring and certainly uninteresting. However, a timeattack can make an interesting video.
-People are misinformed of how these videos are made, so they are accepted as legit runs. Emulators can be used to create cheated runs that can pass themselves off as world records.
The problem is not so much that people are misinformed (which is something we can't avoid, no matter how many disclaimers we include to every possible place) but the reaction of people when they find out: Instead of thinking "ah, I understand now, silly me" they will often start a holy war against the "cheaters".
When I first saw the SMB3 timeattack by Morimoto, I did not know anything about timeattacks, but I immediately realized it was not a speedrun, but a tool-assisted run (it's quite obvious IMO). I was not disappointed at all, but I enjoyed it. Too bad most of the people are not intelligent enough to realize the same thing.
-Emulators allow poorly skilled gamers to produce videos that are faster, better, and far more entertaining than pure speedrun attempts of highly skilled gamers.
Is this a bad thing?
Besides, timeattacks is not gaming. It is its own skill in itself. You may not need gaming skills to make a timeattack, but you need lots of other skills, and making a good timeattack requires its work. If making a perfect run would be easy there would not be lots of newer and newer versions of timeattacks.
An unskilled person making a timeattack of almost any game will most probably get a much much worse result than the currently existing timeattacks in the nesvideos page. It's not thateasy.
-Using savestates and slow-motion is in fact cheating.
I disagree. It's cheating only in a certain context.
If people were competing on who can make the fastest speedrun, then a timeattack would indeed be cheating. In a speedrun there are written and/or unwritten rules, and a timeattack would blatantly break many of them and thus would be cheating.
However, why would a timeattack be cheating in the context of timeattacks? Of course it's not cheating: It's doing exactly what is promised: A tool-assisted run as fast as possible through the game. There are no cheats, there's no faking.
It would be possible to cheat in a timeattack as well: For example, you could use a patched version of the ROM which gives you eg. immunity and would allow you to make things no-one else could do with the unmodified ROM. In this case this would not be a legit timeattack and would be cheating.
The term "legit timeattack" is not used too often, and IMO it should be.
You cannot do the preceding on a regular NES and it gives you an unintended and unfair advantage. An advantage that legit players will never have.
Advantage on what? We are not making speedruns.
-Time attack players have too much pride to honestly mention in their videos that the games have used slow-motion, savestates, and are illegitamate records produced with virtually no skillful play. Being clever is not a skill unique to time attacks.
This is bending the truth way too much.
Not having a 10-seconds initial screen in each video explaining every little detail on how the video was made is simply a question of practicality: It's not practical to have the same thing on each video, and once you have seen it, having to watch the same thing each time is annoying.
Besides, going too far in making sure the viewer really really really knows what a timeattack is can insult the viewer's intelligence. If the viewer is so stupid to believe it's a speedrun and when he finds out it's not and starts a flamewar, then it's simply that: Stupidity. We can't shepherd everyone like little children.
The term "legit timeattack" is not used too often, and IMO it should be.
No it shouldn't. "Legit" would make people think it's an actual real-time speed run with no saving or slow motion. Timeattack doesn't necessarily mean that save states or slow motion was used, and most people don't know what Arc's definition of timeattack is.
To get back a little more to topic, I think the information in v4 of MFrieds SMB run is more than sufficient for people to understand how the movies are made. The problem is that people are too lazy to check things up berfore getting an opininon about it.
Personally I make my movies for those people that know the differences between timeattacks and speedruns. If other people who see it thinks its a real speedrun, and later get dissapointed or angry when they learn that it's not. It's their problem, 'cause the information they need is right there in the movie! It's a work of art, like any other real movie (real as in Hollywood movies) and it just uses another medium to show what the creator wants to show.
SuperStringyAfroMan9:
To me, what these people are doing is a waste of their time. While they spend hours perfecting save states, they could easily be using those hours to actually improve their gaming skills, making them into actual gamers, or doing something else, like going out for some exercise or asking a woman out to the movies. Instead, these people sit in front of their monitors for hours, stealing the respect that others have earned.
Haha, this made my day :D
Speedrunners are really cool people, that instead of sitting in front of monitors, goes out to see girls.
Wow... if only I where a speedrunner :(
