Topic by JXQ

Posted: 5/28/2006 2:41 PM

Post subject: Re: "Straightforward"

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JXQ

Experienced player (750)

Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132

Tombad wrote:

I don't see nothing wrong with this. It's his site, he can do whatever he wants with the name.

I just want to point out that in every case, this is a time-wasting and pointless statement. It only serves to state the obvious fact that someone is the admin of the site, and ignores discussion about the issue at hand. On with the discussion.

<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)

Posted: 5/28/2006 3:49 PM

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moozooh

Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5770
Location: Away

Warp wrote:

Oh, sure, giving *one* example (on a fixed-speed scroller game) surely is enough to prove me wrong, yeah. It doesn't matter that several hundreds of movies have been obsoleted by faster entries and many submissions have even been rejected because of not being fast enough. "Hey, there's this *one* entry which was not obsoleted by a faster entry, thus we don't aim for speed." Sure.

Oh, come on. Somewhat later he submitted another movie, to obsolete Genisto's princess-only SMB2 run. "Albeit being faster, this run is not up to our current standards of quality, moreover we don't need it at all — but the older one will stay here." And I'm dead sure it's not the only example. In the meantime, we say we are tool-assisted speedrunning community, but when it comes to obsoleting old movies with faster ones, it may become a matter of entertainment and art and whatever, but not speedrunning.

Warp wrote:

There's nothing contradictory in having different types of runs: A run of the type "as fast as possible, whatever it takes to do it" and runs which have some constraints or additional goals to them for entertainment value (but still are as fast as possible to achieve those goals).

Either you're consistently trying to miss my point, or you don't get it at all. For a recent example, check m2k2 forum for a 0% TAS of Metroid Fusion. The guy who made it, Dragonfangs, had two objectives: 1) going through each room the coolest looking way possible, 2) try to make that at maximum speed. In other words, he perfectly fulfilled our goals written on the WhyAndHow page. However, his run would never obsolete Megafrost's, cause we're not an entertainment community, we're speedrunning community. That's what I'm talking about. And the WhyAndHow page must be rewritten to reflect that.

Warp wrote:

Can you give some examples where speed greatly reduces the entertainment factor?

Basically, most (if not all) of the 1-vs-1 fighting games. Then, puzzle games like Monopoly. They are a challenge to TAS but completely uninteresting to watch. "Wait, did he… oh, wait… and that's all? Oh…" Then, games like Alien Soldier: "start-wheep-wheep-wheep-wheep-wheep-boss!-whoosh-bzzt-bang-start…" and so on. There are lots of games that totally lose their appeal when being TASed if their greatest timesaver is a move (or a glitch) that allows you to travel through the levels with so much speed that it strips the game from any action at all. I'm sure I can come up with more examples, but it's enough for now to show what I mean.

Warp wrote:

And what is it that you want? Supermario fooling around, the objective being... what? Who dances the funniest?

You're starting to sound religious here, honestly. No, that's not what I want. I want (*sigh*) the goals to be rewritten to reflect the true purposes of this site. If that's still not clear, then I give up.

Warp wrote:

Superhuman speed is exactly what makes these movies awesome, and achieving extreme tool-assisted speed requires in most games a huge amount of work and dedication. Anyone can easily make a movie where the character fools around and does "funny" things, but not everyone can beat the best (tool-assisted) completion time for the game.

Did you ever think that to get the tool-assisted movie to be interesting and generally entertaining (this means not only entertaining for the hardcore fans, but for the average player, either) requires about the same, if not even more, amount of work? If you browse up the movies rated 9+ for the technical perfection, you'll soon find up that not all of them scored the same in the entertainment domain. Donkey Kong FTW.

Warp wrote:

Ah, please don't tell me you are jealous. You would want to make videos yourself but you aren't able to beat people's times?

Wut? o_0 Attacking someone with offensive but a totally irrelevant point isn't the right strategy to win the argument, is it? It only proves that you don't have much constructive things to say. As for the question, no, I'm not jealous. I have neither enough will nor dedication to start a TAS myself, and it's perfectly ok with me. But of course, if I decide to make a TAS to be published here, I would make sure it will be of high standard. Most probably, I will start with improving one of the older runs.

Warp wrote:

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

Posted: 5/28/2006 4:00 PM

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zefiris

Joined: 4/11/2006
Posts: 487
Location: North of Russia :[

pirate_sephiroth wrote:

What seems to be irritating is the fact that the name change was decided by veteran users, because they think they don't need to ask the permission of anyone, because they're here for a long time and they are friends with the admin.

As far as I remember name TASvideos was suggested not by veteran user, but Bisqwit and some other people seemed to like it ^^ I aslo agree that this change is for good, and Bisqwit is really one to decide. besides, there was one more reason for address change, mentioned on irc =)

18:34:59| <NesVideoAgent> New reply by Baxter (OT: Within a Deep Forest): http://tasvideos.org/forum/p/83432 18:35:36| <Bisqwit> Yay, NesVideoAgent no longer triggers my nick-highlight

Posted: 5/28/2006 4:31 PM

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Truncated

Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (969)

Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden

There has been a few isolated cases where movies were faster than a published movie but still rejected because they were played in a boring manner. Examples: SMB3 without extra lives, Gradius, SF2. A few movies have two versions, where one does not use a very time-saving glitch, because it skips large portions of the game and makes the movie less entertaining. Examples: Rygar, Zelda 2, ALttP. Countless movies have been rejected for, while being fast, not being entertaining at all. Conclusion: even though the primary objective around here is speed, it's not the only deciding factor. I'm not even sure what you are disagreeing about, but I hope that helps.

Posted: 5/28/2006 5:04 PM

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moozooh

Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5770
Location: Away

Truncated wrote:

even though the primary objective around here is speed

This is the primary objective in the real world, but the goals say… You know the drill. Apart from the guidelines, the goal section mentiones speed only in "the run must be entertaining, but fast as well; not sloppy" kind of context. Nobody says speed and entertainment are mutually exclusive, but there are too many controversive situations around this that must be dealt with somehow. That's all.

Warp wrote:

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

Posted: 5/28/2006 5:43 PM

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trazz

Player (94)

Joined: 6/25/2005
Posts: 122

moozooh wrote:

Then, puzzle games like Monopoly. They are a challenge to TAS but completely uninteresting to watch. "Wait, did he… oh, wait… and that's all? Oh…"

Different strokes for different folks--the Monopoly runs are among my favorites. They're fast and extremely brutal demonstrations of luck manipulation. You don't have to like them, of course, but I certainly do.

Posted: 5/28/2006 6:38 PM

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moozooh

Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5770
Location: Away

trazz wrote:

They're fast and extremely brutal demonstrations of luck manipulation.

I don't have to like anything else, but I fail to see how Monopoly run is connected to the art and stuff, either. Surely, what are you saying about it is true, but mere 30 seconds without any discernable action?… To me, the fact that the game could be beaten in such a ridiculous amount of time is much more impressive than the run itself.

Warp wrote:

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

Posted: 5/28/2006 8:14 PM

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Truncated

Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (969)

Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden

>This is the primary objective in the real world, but the goals say… You know the drill. Apart from the guidelines, the goal section mentiones speed only in "the run must be entertaining, but fast as well; not sloppy" kind of context. Which section(s) would you change, and how?

Posted: 5/28/2006 8:27 PM

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moozooh

Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5770
Location: Away

Truncated wrote:

Which section(s) would you change, and how?

This one. Don't know how exactly (can't really help with the exact wording); but as Warp suggests it, this is a speedrunning community, so I guess it should say something about aiming for fastest completion time as a primary objective and everything else as a secondary (despite the fact that in many cases, the appeal of a run is nothing more than a consequence of its speed, let alone a separate objective).

Warp wrote:

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

Posted: 5/28/2006 9:01 PM

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Dada

Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands

That depends, moozooh. I wouldn't change that page. Like I said before, I believe that entertainment is indeed the ultimate goal, but that speed is simply the only real way to achieve it. Maybe speed should be mentioned more prominently on that page, however.

Posted: 5/29/2006 1:41 AM

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Zurreco

Former player

Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA

Omega wrote:

Like I said before, I believe that entertainment is indeed the ultimate goal, but that speed is simply the only real way to achieve it.

I agree with this. Entertainment is the main focus of these runs, and we admit that speed is one of the most entertaining aspects of the submissions. A movie that is super fast but in no way entertaining would probably be looked down upon, which is why we have the guidelines state that we shouldn't bother running a game that no one will watch.

hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine

Posted: 5/29/2006 9:32 AM

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Warp

Banned User, Former player

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

Zurreco wrote:

So you're saying that, if someone found a way to glitch SMB3 to go straight from startup to endgame sequence, it should obsolete the current run?

No. There can be different categories for the run of a specific game. Why do you think there are several versions of the supermetroid run and two versions of the rygar run? Two versions of Zelda2 run? The list is actually quite large. However, even when some constraints are put into a certain run in the name of entertainment, speed is still the main goal. The video would be rejected if it wasn't aiming for speed.

The problem with your argument is that 'TAS' means that all movies are focused entirely on speed.

That's as silly as saying that "speedrun" means that it's focused entirely on speed. Just look at the vast amount of Quake speedruns to see that it's not *only* about speed (even though speed is the *main* objective).

However, this site is not all speed inclusive, and so to accept 'TAS' as a term for these movies would call for the instant rejection of all non-fastest movies.

Don't be silly. There's nothing in the term "TAS" that would exclude putting constraints on a specific run. Even though a constraint is put in a run to make it more entertaining, its main goal is still speed and it's still done tool-assisted, hence it's a TAS. By your classification the 100% Quake speedrun is not a speedrun.

Also, for the record, there have been a lot of movies that have been rejected despite being faster. IIRC, Atlantis No Nazo can be beaten by one frame, as many have shown, and yet we haven't accepted it because it adds nothing to the entertainment value of the run.

SMB runs have been obsoleted by runs which are only a few frames faster even though the new ones do not add *anything* to the run (besides those few frames of extra speed). It's not a question of "is it more entertaining?" but a question of "is this game so popular that it's ok to screw up the original runner by allowing someone else to obsolete his movie by 1 frame?" Surely if someone posted an AnN run which was 2000 frames faster it would obsolete the current one regardless of whether it's more "entertaining" or not. If entertainment was the main goal, then an AnN movie which was *slower* than the current one, but more "entertaining", could perfectly obsolete the current one. However, I don't see that ever happening. Why? Because speed is, after all, the main issue.

As soon as one faster movie is rejected due to being less entertaining, it sets a precedent that refutes the term 'TAS'.

No, a couple of exceptions do not make the rule false. They are just exceptions. The Rygar TAS has been granted a special exception: It's *not* necessary to provide input for the final ending screen to change (it requires a button to be pressed) even though the rules say that in all submitted movies all the necessary input has to be included in order to get to the ending of the game. Does this exception make that rule false? Of course not. It's just one exception.

Posted: 5/29/2006 9:35 AM

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Brushy

Former player

Joined: 11/13/2005
Posts: 1587

Warp wrote:

By your classification the 100% Quake speedrun is not a speedrun.

It IS a speedrun that aims for fastest time to fully complete the game.

Posted: 5/29/2006 9:38 AM

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Bisqwit

Editor, Active player (296)

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

Warp wrote:

If entertainment was the main goal, then an AnN movie which was *slower* than the current one, but more "entertaining", could perfectly obsolete the current one. However, I don't see that ever happening. Why? Because speed is, after all, the main issue.

Which is only a consequence of the fact, that entertainment is nowhere as easy to compare as speed is. (Note: this post did not disagree with the quoted post.)

Posted: 5/29/2006 9:39 AM

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Warp

Banned User, Former player

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

Exactly. It has some constraints ("must kill every monster, must find all secrets") which cause it to not to be as fast as a non-constrained run, but it's still done as fast as possible. Thus it's a speedrun.

Posted: 5/29/2006 9:56 AM

Post subject: RAWR FURIOUS DEBATE SETTLED

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Zurreco

Former player

Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA

Warp wrote:

Don't be silly. There's nothing in the term "TAS" that would exclude putting constraints on a specific run. Even though a constraint is put in a run to make it more entertaining, its main goal is still speed and it's still done tool-assisted, hence it's a TAS. By your classification the 100% Quake speedrun is not a speedrun.

By my classification, every movie that isn't played as fast as possible under certain constraints should be rejected. A 100% movie is still completed as quickly as possible while collecting 100%. The Castlevania 3 Sypha only route is done as fast as possible, even though the Alucard route is officially faster. The SF2 movies on this site would be rejected for not using the ultimate fastest attack combo with Zangief in every fight. However, they were instead accepted, since they sacrifice unecessary speed for a very necessary bump in entertainment. That is the difference.

SMB runs have been obsoleted by runs which are only a few frames faster even though the new ones do not add *anything* to the run (besides those few frames of extra speed).

And a lot of people had a huge argument over it. I'm not saying that movies shouldn't be accepted just because they are a few frames faster: I'm saying that there are cases for and against the idea that speed is the main goal here, and so making a claim that we should call our movies 'tool assisted speedruns' is an incorrect label. For the record, it is pretty impressive to squeeze 13 frames out of such an already optimised movie. When the whole argument between Sleepz and Phil took place, I took a third party stance because a) Phil showed his skills by finding an improvement and using it, b) the difference was almost so unnoticeable that it almost seemed not worth submitting, and c) everyone in that thread came off as an elitist prick, and I lost respect for almost all who posted in that thread.

It's not a question of "is it more entertaining?" but a question of "is this game so popular that it's ok to screw up the original runner by allowing someone else to obsolete his movie by 1 frame?" Surely if someone posted an AnN run which was 2000 frames faster it would obsolete the current one regardless of whether it's more "entertaining" or not. If entertainment was the main goal, then an AnN movie which was *slower* than the current one, but more "entertaining", could perfectly obsolete the current one. However, I don't see that ever happening. Why? Because speed is, after all, the main issue.

On a tangent: we don't "screw up the original runner" because this site isn't a pissing contest, and no one should feel like they own the rights to run certain games. Egos have no place here. On topic: No, because otherwise the Gradius movies on the site should be obsoleted by faster submissions. However, Bisqwit has already stated that he isn't so sure that this is the best idea, since it isn't going to be any more entertaining than the original. If it was a difference of 2000 frames, then yes, it should be obsoleted. However, if it was 2000 frames of nothing but standing around instead of passing the time doing entertaining things, a lot of people would complain/vote 'meh', because who wants to watch a boring movie, even if it's faster? If it was the difference between a XXX2 frame movie that was jaw droppingly cool versus an XXX0 that was faster but too boring to watch, I don't think it would be obsoleted. I do think that someone would eventually make the improvement with the necessary cool tricks, and that would end in obsoletion/evolution.

No, a couple of exceptions do not make the rule false. They are just exceptions.

Right, but a couple of exceptions definitely stand to contest naming these movies as 'speedruns'. If we start hosting even ONE nonspeedrun on a speedrun website, then what is next?

The Rygar -movie- has been granted a special exception: It's *not* necessary to provide input for the final ending screen to change (it requires a button to be pressed) even though the rules say that in all submitted movies all the necessary input has to be included in order to get to the ending of the game. Does this exception make that rule false? Of course not. It's just one exception.

I don't understand why this exception was given: the movie should be completed as per the rules of the submission queue. Otherwise, we shouldn't turn back other submissions that don't complete themselves. An equally interesting exception to your theory is the SMW 100% completion run. Viper7 added a few seconds of input to his movie just so that Mario would dance during the credits. Should this be obsoleted by a clone movie that ends as soon as Bowser dies, or do you agree that entertainment trumps speed just as often as speed seems to trump entertainment? Furthermore, it seems like the term TAS is being 'officially' interpreted as 'Tool-assisted superplay', which is acceptable by my argument. I still think the verbal term 'TAS' sounds terrible, but that's just me.[/b]

hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine

Posted: 5/29/2006 12:59 PM

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xebra

Joined: 5/3/2004
Posts: 1203

This was a joke thread, guys! Put down your swords and pick up a fpoon! Have a smoothie!

Posted: 5/29/2006 3:26 PM

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jimsfriend

Former player

Joined: 1/17/2006
Posts: 775
Location: Deign

Or, have a roughie.

Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign aqfaq Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign

Posted: 5/29/2006 5:28 PM

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Truncated

Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (969)

Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden

Smoothies are for wimps. I think we should have a fist fight instead. That should settle it. Perhaps something to include in the schedule for the Tasvideos meet, should it ever come into realization.

Posted: 5/29/2006 10:36 PM

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Zurreco

Former player

Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA

Bareknuckle or gloves?

hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine

Posted: 5/29/2006 10:37 PM

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moozooh

Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5770
Location: Away

Tool-assisted only!

Warp wrote:

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

Posted: 5/29/2006 11:32 PM

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JXQ

Experienced player (750)

Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132

Warp wrote:

It's not a question of "is it more entertaining?" but a question of "is this game so popular that it's ok to screw up the original runner by allowing someone else to obsolete his movie by 1 frame?"

What the hell does this have to do with the current discussion?

<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)

Posted: 5/30/2006 12:13 AM

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dtm

Joined: 3/11/2006
Posts: 43

In the interest of antagonizing our dear, flailingly irrational pirate_sephiroth...

NESvideos looks better

No. It doesn't.

sounds better

Nothing inherent about the sound either!

and IS BETTER.

:-I Hmm. (generously over-reflective pause) No.

Besides that, everyone was used to it.

Not anymore!

What seems to be irritating

If you can't be sure, why self-flagellate over it?

A mere POLL could solve this problem.

There was, and is no problem. Glad I could clear all that up.

Posted: 5/30/2006 12:35 AM

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jimsfriend

Former player

Joined: 1/17/2006
Posts: 775
Location: Deign

Oops. I hope you don't get it, more fun for me that way.

Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign aqfaq Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign Deign

Posted: 5/30/2006 1:27 AM

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dtm

Joined: 3/11/2006
Posts: 43

I've read the arguments related to mission objectives and priorities for this community. I'd like to clarify the argument. You guys are arguing about definitions of entertainment and about overarching philosophy (or purpose). In defining who we are and what we do, first comes philosophy. In defining the philosophy of this site, there are four main criteria at stake: * the definition of entertainment and its application toward art * what constraints are acceptable * the criteria of acceptance of content (evaluating performance under certain constraints) * how to categorize successful submissions according to the above Definitions of Entertainment and of Art: When you're arguing about entertainment, you're confusing the perspective of entertainment. Entertainment is a matter of perspective. What is entertaining to the designer may not be entertaining to the uninitiated, casual viewer. It may not even be entertaining to the initiated viewer, because there is no slowmotion replay mode with explanatory subtitles at this point in our community's evolution. And a successful submission may not be entertaining at all to a non-TAS naysayer. The particularly ignorant or elitist amongst them may not even consider it to be a valid form of art at all. Watching a blindingly fast video like Zelda II or Monopoly may not be cinematically entertaining, but still may inspire wonder and curiosity. Not all videos can be as spectacular as Mario64 or SMB3. Nevertheless, the entertainment and art value exists, however theoretical. Philosophically, all videos are ultimately created for artistic purposes with an emphasis on entertainment. Even prestige, honor, design, and software engineering behind it all are a form of intangible emotional and psychological reward. That may be entertainment or a more basic artistic expression. One definition of "fun" is the response your brain makes to the successful matching of a pattern. It sure isn't for the morality of it! People don't labor over routes and frames and bots for their health or to save human life! These aren't photojournals of the aftermath of the atomic age. Mario's not curing cancer! Even where the primary constraint is speed, the motivation or philosophy is still that of art with an emphasis on entertainment. The philosophically useful way to convey value is by considering all content to be art. Because it is. See wikipedia's definitive discussion of art itself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art "the product or process of the effective application of a body of knowledge, most often using a set of skills ... from concept to creation, adhere to the "creative impulse"—that is, art is distinguished from other works by being in large part unprompted by necessity, by biological drive, or by any undisciplined pursuit of recreation" Acceptable Constraints: The list of acceptable constraints should be broadened where speed is only one of all possible primary constraints. The reason why the moniker "Tool Assisted Superplay" is most appropriate is because there are such a wide variety of constraints and criteria available to the art form. Constraints include collection of all items, fastest time to completion, taking no damage, pacifist... you know them. Maybe someday someone will make a video whose objective is to be the least entertaining, most obfuscated, or most unviewable possible, in the spirit of the C and perl obfuscation contests or of the BF programming language. That would still be an application of nontrivial skill as applied to a given medium. Profound unentertainment is a form of entertainment known as irony. Maybe someone will make one whose purpose is to exploit the most programming bugs (Hello, Ikari Warriors; we are your worst nightmare!) regardless of speed. The constraints should be an open variable akin to impressionism vs. photorealism vs. surrealism. The definitions of acceptable constraints as stated on the site are great, but should eliminate restrictions of edited game images (rom hacks) and of multiple submissions based on the same subject with different constraints. We can continue to accept entries based on hacked games if those games are essential works of art in their own right as with Super Demo World and if a definitive IPS is provided so that the work can be universally reproduced. That is, they should not blatantly degrade the original work by introducing bugs or by ending abruptly as with a crash. Criteria of Acceptance The bottom line is that, as with any other art form, the community must observe and evaluate the constraints as declared by the author and according to the estimated possibilities thereof. Yeah we obsolete a video when it's slightly faster when speed is the primary constraint, if it still achieves the goal of being good art. See above. See this discussion on art appreciation: http://silenteloquence.suryaonline.org/2005/02/22/why-do-we-appreciate-art/ Note the latter page's discussion of art appreciation as a community effort akin to an ongoing multi-leg race, and of art as being relative to the eyes of the artist and of the beholders. Art is a participatory process in which nobody should be denied unless it's just not good art. We already mostly acknowledge this philosophical element. Categorization of Successful Submissions This community has to evolve into a multi-categorical structure where speed is only one criteria. In other words, we must ask "is this good art?" A robust voting, and subsequent rating system goes a long way toward that. I think we can just take the above criteria and make one category for each. There won't really be a need for subcategories as long as that one primary category is set to define it as art. The other attributes exist for searchability, such as what platform it's made for. In conclusion, the bottom line is that we already do all of these things overall; it's just that due to a scattered, limited, and contradictory view of our philosophy amongst various community members, we're collectively in denial of them. And as such, we're limited for no good reason other than to validate the popular-to-date pursuit by appeal to authority. Although it's not a primary goal, having a robust and uniform philosophy will help to further differentiate us from the native (non-TAS) players.

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