I realize that the submission text is the personal choice of the author, however I've recently become irritated and annoyed with certain texts. Mainly, the biggest problem I see is when a new run is submitted, and an old one is obsoleted, lots of important information is buried in "obsoleted submissions." I often find myself watching a video, and saying "I want to know how they did that!" to find the submission text says: "saved 4 frames on last boss by pressing down instead of up." And then trying to trace back to the first submission to learn the tricks, by going back through 10 obsoleted submissions.
I propose that any video that obsoletes a previous run, automatically have the previous submission text included. Or, perhaps a page devoted simply to a hierarchy of submission texts, with most recent being first.
This is mainly just an annoyance, because it takes so many clicks/loads to trace back through a game's history.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
You say you are annoyed if someone improves a movie, says how much time he improved it, tells how many frames he saved at what places, and what he did to save these frames... IF someone does all of this, I'm actually really happy. Most submission texts nowadays barely mention IF it is even an improvement to another movie, or what the exact goals are.
Like you said, a trick that was already present in the previous version can easily be found in the previous submission text (links to previous submissions are even on the same page as the submission text). If not, it's also easy to check what input is used to do it. Finding out yourself will probably enable you to understand it better than anyone could tell you. Then there is also the option of asking something you don't understand.
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
For several games, this is countered by there being a tricks page. I always thought this was a good touch, People should think about making one for more games, since its a good place to leave information about tricks, without clogging the submission text.
I propose that any video that obsoletes a previous run, automatically have the previous submission text included. Or, perhaps a page devoted simply to a hierarchy of submission texts, with most recent being first.
Submission Text
Submission Text
Submission Text
Submission Text
Submission Text
Submission Text
Submission Text
Submission Text
Submission Text
Submission Text
Surely I can't be the only one who thinks this idea is really, really, really bad.
Just go to the page for the currently published run and click on the "History of this Entry". From there, you can easily navigate to links of previous submission texts. :)
Maybe DarkKobold never noticed that. Sorry, my bad. Ignore this thread.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Just go to the page for the currently published run and click on the "History of this Entry". From there, you can easily navigate to links of previous submission texts. :)
The only problem with this is that to get to the page for the currently published run, you have to go to the page for all runs on that console, find the publication, click "view the submission for this" and then "click to view the actual publication".
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
to get to the page for the currently published run, you have to go to the page for all runs on that console, find the publication, click "view the submission for this" and then "click to view the actual publication".
Or,
* for editors, click Edit, click Back to the movie entry
* mouseover the game name, enter the ID into URL (if it says #552, enter 552M.html)
Admittably, neither is a really good option.
The nested quotes would be a terrible implementation of what is theoretically a good idea. It might be nice to have something like a Javascript button at the bottom of the submission text, and pressing said button toggles the previous texts to display/hide.
IMO, part of the appeal of the idea is that TASers would have an incentive to write down what their improvements were, and omit what's already been covered, because it's all right there anyway.
Just thinking out loud.
to get to the page for the currently published run, you have to go to the page for all runs on that console, find the publication, click "view the submission for this" and then "click to view the actual publication".
Or,
* for editors, click Edit, click Back to the movie entry
* mouseover the game name, enter the ID into URL (if it says #552, enter 552M.html)
Admittably, neither is a really good option.
Indeed. It would be nice if clicking on the run name took you to the current publication of it.
For example:
example wrote:
SNES "any%" Super Metroid (JPN/USA) in 40:57.85 by Ryan Foley (aka. hero of the day).
Download AVI file via BitTorrent (size: 108 MB, length: 45:14)
Download snes9x movie file (.smv) (date: 2007-02-09)
Read author's comments in submission #1441Discuss this movie
Obsoletes movie #311 (46:37.08)
Rating: 8.6 (30 votes) — Rate this movie
- Aims for fastest time
- Takes damage to save time
- Abuses programming errors in the game
- Manipulates luck
- No predefined saves
- Genre: Action
- Genre: Platform
Super Metroid is a sequel to NES Metroid, with bigger and better graphics and music.
Due to how the game tracks time, the in-game completion time is 25 minutes, and 18% of items were collected. However, this movie aims for lowest real time as opposed to lowest in-game time.
Compared to the predecessor movie, it accomplishes that 5 minutes and 39 seconds faster.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
Joined: 3/25/2006
Posts: 850
Location: stuck in Pandora's box HELLPP!!!
While you're at it, you could link the user name to their home page
SNES Mega Man X3 (USA) in 38:14.65 by Justin Chan (aka. FractalFusion).
Download AVI file via BitTorrent (size: 121 MB, length: 44:56)
Download snes9x movie file (.smv) (date: 2006-01-05)
Watch online (video.google.com)
Read author's comments in submission #934Discuss this movie
Obsoletes movie #329 (39:50.92)
Rating: 7.2 (28 votes) — Rate this movie
- Aims for fastest time
- Takes damage to save time
- Abuses programming errors in the game
- Manipulates luck
- Uses no passwords
- Genre: Action
- Genre: Platform
In Mega Man X3, you will find yourself finally using Zero's coveted sword. The author speeds through the game very rapidly, and uses the sword to beat the 8 bosses very quickly the second time around.
This run is a whopping 1:36 faster than the last version, both by using some new tricks and playing with more precision.
The page Mega Man X Tricks explains some of the tricks that can be used in the X series games.
The submission I've quoted hasn't linked to FractalFusion's homepage
The fact that there is a http://tasvideos.org/FractalFusion.html does not mean that bisqwit has edited Fractal Fusion's user entry to make tha this homepage.
By comparison, look at any published run by adelikat, foda, dehacked, Baxter, Deign, or JXQ. (to name a few)
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
You say you are annoyed if someone improves a movie, says how much time he improved it, tells how many frames he saved at what places, and what he did to save these frames...
Actually he didn't say that. He said that he is annoyed when the submission text includes no explanations of the tricks used to make the run (simply because the tricks were mentioned 10 obsoleted submissions earlier).
Like you said, a trick that was already present in the previous version can easily be found in the previous submission text
I think that was the whole point of the original post: It can't be easily found. It's cumbersome. You have to browse in the worst case through half a dozen of old submissions to gather the information you want instead of the relevant information being nicely presented in one page.
If not, it's also easy to check what input is used to do it.
I don't believe the point is "how can I replicate this?". The point is "I watched the avi and it looks really cool, I wonder what and how the tricks were done".
Besides, I wouldn't say that checking the input used to do it is "easy".
Personally, I won't write same things over and over again. There are already those xtricks page for that. If it doesn't exist, then create it yourself. Btw, it's so easy to understand the tricks yourself if you try YOURSELF.
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
Maybe DarkKobald doesn't want to have to do that. Maybe timeattackers should be more considerate.
Phil makes a good point - The games that are TASed often enough to have that many tricks, all have tricks & tips pages. So I propose all submission pages link to the tricks & tips page of the game, if there is one.
There's a small difference between the "tricks&tips" pages and the submission text: The former present generic tricks appliable to any run. The latter describes exactly what was done in *this* run. Things like "at 12:34 notice how I fooled the NPC to look the other way", or "at 01:23 there's a small graphical glitch which looks funny" and such tidbits of interesting info which might be missed by the viewer otherwise..
