My thoughts on why a princess-only run was published way back when is because she was the only character that didn't get any screen time at all in the old runs of SMB2. Now Mario doesn't either. However, Mario is an average character who plays normally. Mario isn't a very good choice. A princess run is good because she's terrible at everything but has an interesting quirk. So, in this case it's probably a bad idea for a Mario run, a Toad run and a Luigi run is pointless because they already have screen time.

You put into words more or less what I was thinking much better than I could have ever done.

I agree with basically everything moozoh said. Contentless post, but then, could restated-yet-obvious content really be content at all?

moozooh: >But I DO. No, and it makes it a lot less interesting to debate with you. >Whether you agree on the subjective matters or not, doesn't make them less subjective. Warp was entertained by this run, you weren't. Does that make you more right? No, sir. He said it was entertaining — well guess what, for him it was. Nothing is objectively entertaining, anyway. Is there an echo in here? To me this sounds just like what I said. I never said or implied that I my opinion on what is entertaining was somehow the global standard. What Warp said, made me think he had that opinion. >It kills variety in goal choice, it confines you to seeing same shit over and over, being improved by tiny amounts of time and most of the time killing variety and entertainment in each iteration, instead of doing something different. The other extreme would be that we only see countless variations of goals for the same famous games, like no caps/coins/cannons, no minibosses/real time, only weakest weapon, or whatever it might be. I think we are far from either of those extremes, but I'd still rather width rather than depth. After 3 or 4 movies for one game, you have most likely seen almost everything it has to offer. Omni: >So, in this case it's probably a bad idea for a Mario run, a Toad run and a Luigi run is pointless because they already have screen time. Thanks for strawmanning me though. It's appriciated. I don't think I was strawmanning you, and I don't think you would appreciate it if I did. (More sarcasm I suppose - are we pissed at each other?) If you don't think Mario and Toad runs should be published, and I suspected that you wouldn't, I wanted to hear your reasoning for that. I'll take this as that you won't be opposed to a mixed run which includes Princess obsoleting both this run and the current mixed run.

I'll take this as that you won't be opposed to a mixed run which includes Princess obsoleting both this run and the current mixed run.

That wouldn't be so interesting because there wouldn't be so much of a "challenge". It would feel more artificial.

No, and it makes it a lot less interesting to debate with you.

At least it makes these tiring debates more entertaining for me. If you are offended by it, sorry.

The other extreme would be that we only see countless variations of goals for the same famous games, like no caps/coins/cannons, no minibosses/real time, only weakest weapon, or whatever it might be. I think we are far from either of those extremes, but I'd still rather width rather than depth.

Why are you fixing on extremes? This is a typical slippery slope argument; loosening the rules does not imply their absense nor further loosening. I can tell it with enough confidence that at least 2/3 of the games we have TASed here won't see more than one-two runs anyway (yes, that's pretty much how it is at the moment). If CCC for SM64 is a well-recognized goal outside of this community, I see no problem in including it in the list of categories after the movie listing structure is reworked. It's rather obvious for me that some games (like the aforementioned SM64) have enough merit for additional categories.

After 3 or 4 movies for one game, you have most likely seen almost everything it has to offer.

3 or 4 movies would really be just enough for about 99% of the games out there, yet the big problem is that, for instance, you are very reluctant to provide 3rd category slot, and have never once allowed 4th so far (see example). You have to remember that most (and I mean most) of the games good for TASing on the current platforms (sans SMS) have already been TASed. I have no problem with width, but it is highly unlikely that you'll see many new entertaining games on the well-established TASing platforms. We don't have to sacrifice depth for width (which is pretty much the current state of affairs), we can have them being developed simultaneously, increasing both the quality and quantity of content.

>Why are you fixing on extremes? You provided one extreme, so I provided the other. I don't think "At most, you're getting a run of a crappy generic game (see: a half of NES platformers) instead of an a priori more interesting run of a game that has its category slots already full." describes the current situation very well. >you are very reluctant to provide 3rd category slot, and have never once allowed 4th so far (see example). Is true that I don't like having lots of odd goals for any one game, but even regardless of what I think, Bisqwit has stated in for once certain terms - we should never publish more than three movies for a game. (Yes, we all know that Metroid has 4 for historical reasons.) >... I see no problem in including it in the list of categories after the movie listing structure is reworked. That's an if rather than an after. Also, reworking the movie structure is not an excuse to have more movies for the same game, unless Bisqwit decides to change abovementioned rule as well.

I'll take this as that you won't be opposed to a mixed run which includes Princess obsoleting both this run and the current mixed run.

As long as a princess-only run is entertaining and different compared to the mixed run, I'd like to see a princess-only run published. I was merely providing a historical perspective on why this category was made, and why I consider it entertaining and different.