Joined: 4/11/2006
Posts: 487
Location: North of Russia :[
I personally like TASvideos more then NESvideos, as when I came to this site(from wikipedia's tool-assisted speedruns page) it held movies for different emulators and I got confused o_O I first thought that all games were somehow ported to NES to record movies o_O Sounds stupid, but that's it...
What's the deal with this "speedrun" thing anyway? Isn't the primary goal entertainment? Am I right or what?
Well, it should be, but not always, as it seems.
Alright this is what I'm talking about! Some focused discussion of this very important, yet so neglected, topic. I encourage everyone to chime in with their views. You know I should probably make a thread about it.
Edit: Someone just suggested in the irc channel that we should change the meaning of TAS to Tool-Assisted Superplay. I'm pretty sure this idea hasn't come up before, and I think it's really interesting. It'd be cool to hear what you all think about it.
Edit 2: Arne_The_great wanted it to be on record that he was the one who made the suggestion in the irc channel. So here it is.
Fabian,
you cannot just change the meaning of an established term. The S in TAS is speedrun.
Also, Arne_The_great wasn't the first to think of the term "tool-assisted superplay".
btw, there already was a spam-thread, turning into the discussion about the site name, turning into a discussion about the term TAS, turning into a discussion about the goals of this site, turning into a spam-thread. You know what thread I'm talking about, since you posted in it. If you actually try to read it, you'll find enough intelligent and not-so-intelligent views on the speed-vs-entertainment debate.
Someone just suggested in the irc channel that we should change the meaning of TAS to Tool-Assisted Superplay.
Why?
Speed is the main objective in the movies. Entertainment is achieved by speed. Besides, "tool-assisted speedrun" is an established term to describe exactly what these videos are (way before this site even existed). Why it has to be changed?
"tool-assisted speedrun" is an established term to describe exactly what these videos are (way before this site even existed). Why it has to be changed?
The same argument could be made for not changing the site's name from Nesvideos to TASvideos.
Edit: The "established" part, not the "accurately describes" part.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Fabian,
you cannot just change the meaning of an established term. The S in TAS is speedrun.
Also, Arne_The_great wasn't the first to think of the term "tool-assisted superplay".
btw, there already was a spam-thread, turning into the discussion about the site name, turning into a discussion about the term TAS, turning into a discussion about the goals of this site, turning into a spam-thread. You know what thread I'm talking about, since you posted in it. If you actually try to read it, you'll find enough intelligent and not-so-intelligent views on the speed-vs-entertainment debate.
The same argument could be made for not changing the site's name from Nesvideos to TASvideos.
Personally I don't care if it's nesvideos or tasvideos. Nesvideos was more established, tasvideos is more accurate.
However, your comparison is flawed because "tool-assisted speedrun" is *both* established and accurate to describe these runs.
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
Fabian wrote:
But aren't the main focus entertainment, as opposed to speed? It doesn't feel very accurate when they're called speedruns.
This discussion has been going on for a long time, it just gets dispersed into dense packets of debate that occur infrequently.
Most people agree that the main focus of the site is entertainment, and one source of entertainment comes from speed.
Other people agree that the main focus of the site is speed, although entertainment is also an important role.
But aren't the main focus entertainment, as opposed to speed? It doesn't feel very accurate when they're called speedruns.
I still don't know where this misconception has started and why it seems so prevalent.
Just look at the videos. What is the common thing to all of them (except perhaps two or three)? To complete the game as fast as possible. The main source of entertainment is the speed of completing the game as fast as possible with superhuman reflexes (thanks to tool-assistance). Even when some constraints are put in a run (eg. no warps, no death, collect all objects or whatever) the main goal is still the same: To complete the game as fast as possible (within the constraints).
The author of the run should aim for entertainment other than speed too, but only if it doesn't make the run slower.
How many times have you seen a run which is significantly slower obsolete a previous run? (This rule is *flexible*, of course, we are not robots nor lawyers, but by default the rule is imposed quite strictly.)
I believe you are confusing the statement "we are not trying to compete with regular speedruns, we are not trying to beat anyone, this is just for entertainment puposes only" to mean something like "we only do this for entertainment, not speed" which is a completely different thing.
