Post subject: Request for Clarification: Concept Demos
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The "concept demo/other" category is in use but hasn't been defined, which has been causing a good deal of unproductive debate. The most recent iteration has been over Phil's SMB1 submission , which is currently at 7 pages. To avoid future debates and make sure everyone has a compatible understanding, it'd be helpful if Bisqwit would define his idea of what this category is for and what does and doesn't fall under it.
ideamagnate| .seen aqfaq <nothing happens> DK64_MASTER| .seen nesvideoagent * DK64_MASTER slaps forehead
Post subject: Definition of a concept demo.
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As I'm seriously afraid to grow senile before there would be an exact and transparent definition of a concept demo (see this and this for more details), I'll try to create one myself just out of sheer boredom. A concept demo, derived from the runs currently residing in that section: 1) a run of a hack; 2) a run aiming for a not serious (or insignificant) goal, ie. to demonstrate something never thought to be possible before, but absolutely irrelevant to any run aiming for pure speed (think SMB sidestroller); 3) a "second quest"/alternative character run beginning from a "dirty" SRAM (think CT new game+); 4) an incomplete run, demonstrating a concept how would a complete run look like, without taking the effort of actually doing the complete run; possibly in order [not] to get the full game TASed some time later (think F-Zero Mute City); 5) a run that technically beats the game, but does that using an unconventional method not designed by the developers (as in being a programming flaw), and thus not getting the correct ending sequence (Phil's recent SMB run that is to be published as a concept demo). My own representation of an "ideal" concept demo section: 1), 2) — same as above; 3) any run that uses an unlockable character or beats the game under "new game+" conditions (that is, when player character doesn't start their quest from scratch, but has either some of the previously earned items, or the previously gained experience, or access to the warps, or a combination of the above); 4), 5) — same as above; 6) any run that uses a severe glitch allowing the player character to be taken from the beginning of the game right to its end (glitched Zelda 2, glitched ALttP, glitched CotM, glitched HoD — you get the idea) — a subject to further elaboration; 7) any run where speed can't be directly influenced and thus isn't a primary objective (basically, any autoscroller — I think it's rather obvious why I decided to put them here); 8) any run that beats the game solely by luck manipulation (Monopoly, King's Bounty), and thus isn't really made by a human (rather by a bruteforce bot); 9) any run that starts from a dirty SRAM, doesn't have a clean movie to generate that SRAM from, but still has to be published per judge's decision. That's all I could come up with, I think. Any comments? Bisqwit, any willing to clarify a definition of a concept demo, so that people wouldn't have to guess if a run falls under this category?
Warp wrote:
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After carefully reading and rereading this post, I have to say that I agree with all of it.
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I dont see that we really need a description as detailed as this. It is the "other" category for runs that ARE interesting, but ARNT covered by the rules that govern the other submissions.
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Well put Twelvepack. Maybe the name on the front page should just be changed to "Movies of hacked games/other movies". I agree that the term "concept demo" is pretty intolerable, since no definition of it can be found anywhere. EDIT: And why was this thread created when there's an existing one? Or did you spend 1,5 hours writing this and didn't notice?
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A concept demo is a run that is not as clean as the main publications. It doesn't complete the game under normal conditions; either the starting conditions are changed (by an unusual SRAM * or password), or the game is some kind of variant of the main game, or the running conditions are changed (by some technique that changes the game more profoundly than I did for Rockman 1). *) Chrono Trigger Newgame+ qualifies as one, Castlevania AoS Julius run doesn't qualify. The keyword is quantity. That being said, I'd rather keep the qualifications open-ended instead of painting myself to a corner when something comes up that I can't quite define clearly. [Edit: Topics merged.]
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Twelvepack wrote:
I dont see that we really need a description as detailed as this. If it were relabeled so that it would be the "other" category for runs that ARE interesting, but ARNT covered by the rules that govern the other submissions.
Yes, that's what I was talking about when I said this. The thing is, in my above post, I derived the patterns out of the movies already assigned to be concept demos (that is, I simply justified their status of concept demos just in hope of grasping the general pattern of differentiation), not the otherwise, and that's what is troublesome about it. For example, the general goal of the site is speedruns — movies that aim for speed with some occasional restrictions in favor of entertainment and/or secondary goals. Look here: • Morimoto's Gradius run (now thankfully obsoleted), which didn't aim for fastest completion time in any possible way, somehow was among the true speedruns, while Phil's recent SMB run is considered a concept demo; • every "second quest" run has its place among speedruns, but Chrono Trigger new game+ one somehow is a concept demo; • Monopoly "run" isn't even a speedrun, but exactly a demonstration of extreme luck manipulation — yet it is among the speedruns as well. See what I mean now?
Kyrsimys wrote:
And why was this thread created when there's an existing one? Or did you spend 1,5 hours writing this and didn't notice?
Apparently, I didn't. Probably due to the fact that I haven't slept in 20 hours. =_=
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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Bisqwit wrote:
A concept demo is a run that is not as clean as the main publications.
Well, that I can understand. The definition of "clean" is what still continues to be fiercely disputable, though. For example:
Bisqwit wrote:
or the running conditions are changed (by some technique that changes the game more profoundly than I did for Rockman 1).
The glitched runs I mentioned earlier all broke the game completely, not leaving almost a single hint on what needed to be done to reach the goal — that is, they qualify by this one of your criteria. Still, none of them are concept demos.
Bisqwit wrote:
That being said, I'd rather keep the qualifications open-ended instead of painting myself to a corner when something comes up that I can't quite define clearly.
Well, actually, I wrote that post exactly in an attempt to help defining it clearly. :) Guess I didn't really succeed, but at least now I know why. And thanks for merging.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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I was thinking for a while, and why not add a new option when voting for a submission, ie 'To be published as a Concept Demo' option. Perhaps letting the masses decide can save the needless debate each time
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That still requires a clear understanding of what a concept demo is, otherwise it wouldn't be any better than now, and probably even more confusing. But with that understanding, such a feature would be kinda useless since it'd already be clear that a movie does or doesn't belong to concept demos.
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But come on, it would never get old to vote "To be published as a Concept Demo" for every regular TAS.
JXQ
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I see now why Bisqwit chooses to not explicitly define a concept demo. It stops people later from saying "This falls into a concept demo so it should be published, despite the fact that its boring". However, one thing I realized last night thinking about this situation that I haven't brought up is the inherent confusion in just having the category to begin with. What I mean is this: say someone finds our site and says "I'd like to see if they have a movie for my favorite game, F-Zero." That was an SNES game, and since the other categories are listed by system, that would be the instinctive place to check first. Alas, no run exists. The other choices on the main menu divide games by systems, where the "Concept demos" divides them by their goals, and does so very open-endedly. Some of the concept demos have the "Is a demonstration" category. My idea is to use that category on the runs that are less "clean", and do away with the seperate section. (Or, keep it for hacks. I realize that a hack is still for a system, however, a hacked game is much more clearly defined, and I believe people will see the menu and know that if a game is hacked, it may be in a special place.)
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JXQ wrote:
What I mean is this: say someone finds our site and says "I'd like to see if they have a movie for my favorite game, F-Zero." That was an SNES game, and since the other categories are listed by system, that would be the instinctive place to check first. Alas, no run exists.
This would mean Top Gear, and F-zero shouldn't fall into concept demo's (if you want to make them easy to find). If these two aren't at the concept demo's, you will only have hacks + "no B" SMB1. Personally, I think the "no B" restriction, is similar to the "peach only" restriction at SMB2, or the "pacifist" restriction at games like Contra. Edit: I forgot about the Chrono Trigger run which starts from a predefined save. Same could be applied to this I think. If a predefined save is allowed here, it should also be allowed for a Super Mario Kart run, that wants to beat 150CC... but for this being easy to find, it would also have to be in the SNES section...
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Baxter wrote:
Personally, I think the "no B" restriction, is similar to the "peach only" restriction at SMB2, or the "pacifist" restriction at games like Contra.
Agreed. Perhaps the point of "concept demos" is that there's really no point. "Concept demos" was originally created for game hacks such as Super Demo World. Later, I extended it to be "concept demos" in the hopes that movies that are cool, but that would otherwise be rejected on the site, can be published on the site nevertheless, but without cluttering the main movie pages. Perhaps a redesign would be in place. Perhaps, I have a headache and will think of this some other time. Edit: And re: JXQ's thoughts, yes, I don't want the site to have a dumpster category.
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Maybe concept demos shouldn't be concept demos. Maybe simply Hacked games/Demos? Oh and by your definition, SNES Mega Man X & X2 (USA v1.1) in 41:41 by Sean P. (aka. DeHackEd) is a concept demo.
Tub
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how does any user look for movies? - newcomers will probably look at the starred movies. IMHO no hack or concept demo should be in that category, so everything's fine. - regulars will watch NewMovies most of the time. category doesn't matter there, everything's fine. - everyone looking for a specific game or just browsing will use the Movies-<system> pages, including the Movies-Hacks. so IMHO, the organisation of the latter is the trouble here, and has been for a while for different reasons - for example, when obsoleting runs from different categorys or rejecting good runs because there shouldn't be more than x movies of this game published. my suggestion is to change those pages into a more game-centric way: right now, they're already sorted by game names, but there could be a stronger grouping, including an additional Movies-<game> page which includes all the movies for that game (basically a different filter). To avoid flooding the Movies-<system>-pages, those pages are only to display the main categorys for the game (as in: the most interesting movies), containing links to the game-specific filter with all the other movies - be it concept demos, hacks, gameplay with exotic limitations, or just obsoleted movies. well, it's probably best described with an image, in this sample with one of the most category- and hack-intensive games: super metroid. http://www.authmann.de/misc/Movies_snes.png (please don't mind design/layout issues, broken character encoding or spelling errors) This way, the concept demos / hacks category can be removed, as everything has it's place. Games with lots of characters / game modes can have lots of movies without cluttering the movie index. There's also no need to put artificial limitations to run categories any more (like limiting SMB to the any% and 100% runs). Anything producing an interesting movie that's different enough from previous categories goes and can be published without littering the index. As a consequence, no movie should be allowed to obsolete a movie of a different category any more, although the categories displayed on the index can be allowed to change. oh, my definition of concept demo is "anything that does not complete the game". (there's more to say about SRAM movies, but let's not spawn that discussion here)
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JXQ
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Baxter wrote:
This would mean Top Gear, and F-zero shouldn't fall into concept demo's (if you want to make them easy to find).
I don't think this is a bad thing (perhaps you don't either, I can't really tell from your post). Excitebike was just one track at first and it was on the NES page list. I also agree with Phil's point about the bi-game movie, which actually goes against what I said earlier about classifying games by system. Sigh, so confusing... When reading Tub's post, I first thought he meant for each game to have a seperate page, like SDA, which I thought was a bad idea. But after looking at his example screenshot, it actually keeps the main system movie pages intact, reduces clutter, and improves clarity. Overall I think it's an excellent idea.
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JXQ wrote:
I don't think this is a bad thing (perhaps you don't either, I can't really tell from your post).
Wow... I tried to make some conclusions from your post, while staying as objective as possible... cool I actually succeeded :) Btw, I also don't think it's a bad thing if those movies were placed outside the concept demo's section.
Tub
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JXQ wrote:
When reading Tub's post, I first thought he meant for each game to have a seperate page, like SDA, which I thought was a bad idea.
not mainly, just in addition to provide links to all the movies not worthy of the main index - hacks, concept demos, exotic gameplay limitations, and of course obsoleted demos. I didn't even think about sda at that time. SDA uses manually edited pages for the games. I was thinking about a new database-driven script, basically just a different filter for the movies page. I'll edit my post to clarify.
m00
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Tub wrote:
my suggestion is to change those pages into a more game-centric way: right now, they're already sorted by game names, but there could be a stronger grouping, including a seperate Movies-<game> page with additional information the Movies-<system> index cannot provide.
In summer 2004, I originally intended the movie pages to be grouped that way ­-- by game. However, the system cannot work automatically, because game names for different versions are different (think Rockman vs Megaman), and manually maintaining those seemed like too much hassle back then. > To avoid flooding the Movies-<system>-pages, those pages are only to display the main categorys for the game (as in: the most interesting movies), containing links to the game-specific page with all the other movies. Deciding which movie is the "main" one is bound to yield similar debates as with the starred movies... Is it the most complete movie? Or is it the one that is most entertaining to watch? > http://www.authmann.de/misc/Movies_snes.png Your idea is intriguing, but I'm afraid there might be too much maintenance in it...
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everyone looking for a specific game or just browsing will use the Movies-<system> pages, including the Movies-Hacks
why not search? ^^
Bisqwit wrote:
However, the system cannot work automatically, because game names for different versions are different (think Rockman vs Megaman), and manually maintaining those seemed like too much hassle back then.
creating a data file with list of "compatible" titles (like
    megaman rockman "mega man" "rock man" (e) (j) (u)
making all fragments listed in one string be interpreted as one? It's actually needed only to reorganize base once. new movies can be assigned to their groups when published.
Bisqwit wrote:
Deciding which movie is the "main" one is bound to yield similar debates as with the starred movies... Is it the most complete movie? Or is it the one that is most entertaining to watch?
Or is it the best-rated movie? ^^
Tub
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Bisqwit wrote:
Deciding which movie is the "main" one is bound to yield similar debates as with the starred movies... Is it the most complete movie? Or is it the one that is most entertaining to watch?
Note that I mentioned "main categories", plural. Not just one movie, but possibly as many as we currently got on the index for any given game. As with the star, "the movies you'd suggest to a potential viewer first". right now, when we run out of space on the main index, the only option is to obsolete one movie, no matter if a hard mode glitched run is obsoleting a normal mode unglitched movie, or PAL obsoletes NTSC, etc.. The decision itself doesn't change, but instead of obsoleting the old movie, it can remain visible in its own category on the game-specific page. As zefiris mentioned, the decision could be moved from the publisher to the voting system if desired, so we'll have even less to argue about. about the maintainance trouble: I'm not aware of the details of your system, but maintenance is something that's only to be done on publication (which doesn't happen daily) and doesn't take an hour to complete. For obsoletion, the game id can be filled in automatically, for non-obsoletion, you could let the publisher specify a previous movie to get the game id from. For new games, there has to be a form to create them. Coding the system is probably the most work, followed by manually giving game id's for the 700 existing movies (which I volunteer to do), followed by the additional work on publication. I'm thinking of a simple table like game-id, system-id, game-name, hack (whereas hack = 0 for non-hacks, and hack = game-id of the original game for others, for proper linkage) edit: it also needs a field to carry the additional information I displayed in the screenshot: "There is a page about Super Metroid Tricks"
zefiris wrote:
why not search? ^^
if you're looking for just one specific game: true. If you're looking for "one of the SNES games I enjoyed as a child" or are just browsing: nope. Even with the searching, it might be good to have a working and structured Movie-<game> the search-function could forward to.
m00
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While we are talking about it, Tecmo Superbowl (NES) should be in concept/demos. It doesn't complete the game (that would require playing the entire 19 game season). Instead it just demonstrate a single match. I agree that megamanx/x2 should definatley be a concept/demo until there are more runs like it. Then perhaps we could have a bigame section.
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Wow, I sooo dig Tub's idea… It'd really solve a TON of problems!
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Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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I really like that screenshot Tub posted on the first page. It reduces the clutter and makes it easy to find everything related to a certain game. For Super Mario World, you could even have links to the Super Demo World runs. As far as what is and isnt a concept demo, I think Tub's idea really makes this a non-issue. If all "concept demo-y" runs have links next to their "real" counterparts in the movies page, then authors of concept demo-like runs wont need to worry about their run being placed in a "dumpster" section and not being taken seriously. There arent really that many games that have multiple movies with different goals, so I dont think Tub's idea would be too hard to carry out. The one problem with this idea is that a nice one or two word link doesnt always clarify the goal of the run (when I see Super Metroid "minmal," I dont see a clear difference between that and "any%"). There might be some cases where a sentence is needed to explain the goal of the run, but I dont think the occaisonal sentence would cause any noticeable clutter, since in most cases one or two words will do.