Topic by Mitjitsu

Posted: 3/4/2008 4:14 PM
(Edited: 3/4/2008 5:44 PM)

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Mitjitsu

He/Him

Banned User, Experienced player (532)

Joined: 4/24/2006
Posts: 2997

Provided new systems come along I would expect a graph to give a DNA like pattern.

Posted: 3/4/2008 4:59 PM

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Xkeeper

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 12/23/2004
Posts: 1850

First movie of the type published (+/- a few pixels)... This doesn't seem to indicate that new consoles help that much. SMS is a notable exception, but judging from "new" consoles like N64...

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Posted: 3/4/2008 5:48 PM

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Mitjitsu

He/Him

Banned User, Experienced player (532)

Joined: 4/24/2006
Posts: 2997

But still I don't see what inherently wrong/good about having more obseletions than new publications. Ideally what you want is to have relativley new publications from time to time while keeping the most popular movies as tightly optimized and competive as possible.

Posted: 3/4/2008 9:57 PM

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Xkeeper

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 12/23/2004
Posts: 1850

AKA wrote:

But still I don't see what inherently wrong/good about having more obseletions than new publications. Ideally what you want is to have relativley new publications from time to time while keeping the most popular movies as tightly optimized and competive as possible.

Unfortunately, you have to consider that a lot of people tire of the same thing. People get tired of seeing the SM64 TASes get shaved over and over when there's nothing else new. (Obviously, major improvements are an exception, but how often do major improvements really crop up?) All-new publications bring something new that most people haven't seen before to the site. Obsoletions are just updated ones that aren't as exciting (again, exceptions apply). In the long term, "more new good content" far outweighs "more of the same or similar content", to a point.

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Posted: 3/5/2008 8:47 AM
(Edited: 3/5/2008 8:54 AM)

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Bisqwit

Editor, Active player (296)

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

We have to do with what we can have. Unless you have an idea of some radically new concept, the curve of non-obsoleting movies will indefinitely decrease as the number of remaining TAS-worthy games grows shorter. Obsoleting movies are not a bad thing in my opinion. The games which were obsoleted, are as good now as they were when the previous movie was made. That, and the new movies provide something new worth watching. New art, new strategies, new numbers. As for new audience, they don't care whether it's the 11th revision of the same game's TAS or the first one (because they haven't seen any earlier ones). They want an entertaining movie, and they will have it.

Xkeeper wrote:

This doesn't seem to indicate that new consoles help that much. SMS is a notable exception, but judging from "new" consoles like N64...

How about snes9x and Gens? N64 had indeed quite little impact: There aren't still many TASed games for it, and those projects tend to take a long time.

Posted: 3/5/2008 1:37 PM

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mmbossman

Experienced player (822)

Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong

Bisqwit wrote:

N64 had indeed quite little impact: There aren't still many TASed games for it, and those projects tend to take a long time.

And when playstation emulation come along, I can imagine similar problems will be seen. As consoles have progressed and grown, more emphasis has been placed on collecting items and exploration, as opposed to the "action" oriented games of yesteryear. I think this has a lot to do with the ability to build much larger and intricate 3-D worlds, along with the change in game paradigm towards replay value over a short but intense game (ie Mario or Sonic). Large worlds combined with three dimensions leads to more planning, more planes of thinking, more possibilities, and thus longer TASes. However there are still a lot of good games for SMS, Genesis, SNES and especially the GBA that have yet to be TASed, which I hope will help to continue the publication of new movies for a few years.

Living Well Is The Best Revenge My Personal Page

Posted: 3/5/2008 9:40 PM

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Xkeeper

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 12/23/2004
Posts: 1850

Of course, there are plenty of GB/C/A games out there waiting to be TASed. The problem is that nobody is... Most people seem to be focusing on the same old games and trying to obsolete them. There are a lot of possible causes: - Already knowing that kind of game - Not wanting to learn how another game works - ...or the emulator features - ...or the external (e.g. memory watch, hexeditng) ones - "Uncertainty" problem, "will this game even get published - Small audience (judging mostly from the repiles GBA threads get) I'm sure there are more. The key word is possible -- I can't just debug people to find out why they aren't doing something. Although as an aside, look at something like DK '94; I know a ton of people want to see that movie, and it's been over 2 years now (afaik) -- it still isn't near finished.

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Posted: 3/5/2008 11:54 PM

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jimsfriend

Former player

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

Which of those reasons is keeping you from doing it?

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: 3/6/2008 1:17 AM

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DarkKobold

Skilled player (1638)

Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy

jimsfriend wrote:

Which of those reasons is keeping you from doing it?

Xkeeper wrote:

- Small audience (judging mostly from the repiles GBA threads get)

This is pretty huge. If you look at the length of a metroid, mario, link, or sonic thread... they dominate any other thread. Then yours, on a game you may be working equally hard at, gets 3 views in 1 day, and a post every week... is disheartening. Popular game = popular TAS. No one can do anything about that. Emotional reasons aside, its difficult to work on a run if the first and only time you get input is when you submit it for publication. Additionally, if a video is on the line of being publish-worthy, do you spend 6 months on it, for it to get rejected as boring? Theenglishman seemed like he had to beg to get people to watch his PofP video WIP.

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.

Posted: 3/6/2008 10:48 PM

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Xkeeper

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 12/23/2004
Posts: 1850

Xkeeper wrote:

- Already knowing that kind of game - Not wanting to learn how another game works - ...or the emulator features - ...or the external (e.g. memory watch, hexeditng) ones - "Uncertainty" problem, "will this game even get published - Small audience (judging mostly from the repiles GBA threads get)

jimsfriend wrote:

Which of those reasons is keeping you from doing it?

All of the above. I've already done one TAS, and even I know it's probably not optimal. However, the tools to do it felt very awkward to use and I do not have the patience to work on something for months for something that will probably get very little attention. DarkKobold: Yes. I used to spend some time every now and then looking at the lesser-known TASes and commenting on them, but recently I've stopped. A lot of it was due to Gens (DO NOT CHANGE MY SCREEN SETTINGS!*@!@*), as well as the difficulty of running GBA games I had. Most of those are fixed, so I'll try to stick around the Workbench a bit more. (as an aside, if you want me to watch your run, just PM me on IRC or something. It's a good way to get me to do it)

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Posted: 3/7/2008 9:05 PM

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DarkKobold

Skilled player (1638)

Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy

Xkeeper wrote:

DarkKobold: Yes. I used to spend some time every now and then looking at the lesser-known TASes and commenting on them, but recently I've stopped. A lot of it was due to Gens (DO NOT CHANGE MY SCREEN SETTINGS!*@!@*), as well as the difficulty of running GBA games I had.

This wasn't a comment directed at you, more the community in general. It seems if the main character isn't Sonic, Samus, Mario, or Link, the run gets 10% of the attention. It isn't anyone's fault. Popular games make for popular TASes. No one can change that. A run of a game you've never played is going to be pretty boring, even with amazing glitches and precision. In reality, (no offense to the authors) the Super Mario 3 video is not astoundingly amazingly better than any other run on this site. Its just the most popular game. (It is astounding and amazing, don't get me wrong, but so are many TASes here)

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.

Posted: 3/9/2008 11:17 PM

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AnS

Emulator Coder, Experienced player (724)

Joined: 2/23/2006
Posts: 682

Just thinking about working on some new game (instead of improving one of published TASes) makes me feel VERY uncomfortable. I catch myself on not even trying to distinguish pros and cons, because even strong motivation quickly fades away from pressure of huge risk to waste time for non-publishable material. I don't remember having such feeling when I only began TASing. So it must be something I gathered from these 2 years of TASing experience and communication. Something that was born from judging policy, voting/rating trends and common discussions/feedbacks. Now I know for sure: making new runs is far more difficult than improving other. Of course, polishing is tedious, but at least it's ...safe, yeah, this word suits it. Starting new run requires a lot of encouragement, which currently cannot be found anywhere on tasvideos.

Posted: 3/9/2008 11:36 PM

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Baxter

Skilled player (1402)

Joined: 5/31/2004
Posts: 1821

AnS wrote:

Just thinking about working on some new game (instead of improving one of published TASes) makes me feel VERY uncomfortable. I catch myself on not even trying to distinguish pros and cons, because even strong motivation quickly fades away from pressure of huge risk to waste time for non-publishable material. I don't remember having such feeling when I only began TASing. So it must be something I gathered from these 2 years of TASing experience and communication. Something that was born from judging policy, voting/rating trends and common discussions/feedbacks. Now I know for sure: making new runs is far more difficult than improving other. Of course, polishing is tedious, but at least it's ...safe, yeah, this word suits it. Starting new run requires a lot of encouragement, which currently cannot be found anywhere on tasvideos.

Very true. I think when TASing started, it was about making a TAS of a game that hadn't been done yet, to show some things that had never been seen before. Right now, most popular games have already been done, and it's now about getting movies frame perfect. It takes a lot more time, and it's a lot harder to spot. There is nothing more frustrating on a movie that you spent lots of your time on being rejected. I had relatively little of these movies (2 come to my mind), but I'm still rather discontent with both not being published. I wouldn't really know what to do about this thought... it seems like going for improvements instead of new movies might indeed be the best option to be sure of not wasting your time.

http://tasvideos.org/Baxter.html

Posted: 3/11/2008 3:02 PM

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Baxter

Skilled player (1402)

Joined: 5/31/2004
Posts: 1821

After seeing all these graphs in this topic... I wouldn't mind seeing a graph of #of published movies for specific players vs time (they could be plotted in the same graph with different colors). Such a graph is probably most interesting if it contains data from people who have/had lots of movies, like walkerboh.

http://tasvideos.org/Baxter.html

Posted: 3/11/2008 5:17 PM

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Mitjitsu

He/Him

Banned User, Experienced player (532)

Joined: 4/24/2006
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Baxter wrote:

After seeing all these graphs in this topic... I wouldn't mind seeing a graph of #of published movies for specific players vs time (they could be plotted in the same graph with different colors). Such a graph is probably most interesting if it contains data from people who have/had lots of movies, like walkerboh.

That might be interesting but it won't take into account, length, diifficulty and popularity of game.

Posted: 3/24/2008 4:06 PM

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Aqfaq

Editor, Expert player (2461)

Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!

I wonder how a graph showing the number of rejected submissions would relate to these graphs.

Posted: 5/3/2008 10:05 PM

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jimsfriend

Former player

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

Average ratings for tech and entertainment for the movies here. Somewhere along the line I missed ~5 movies, so something in there is a bit inaccurate.

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: 5/3/2008 10:55 PM

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Cpadolf

Skilled player (1432)

Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden

Could anyone make a graph of the average number of votes (ent/tech votes after publication, not yes/no/meh votes) movies submitted for each month has been given? I have the feeling that the number has been decreasing and would like to see if there is any truth to it.

Agare Bagare Kopparslagare

Posted: 5/5/2008 7:59 AM

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Bisqwit

Editor, Active player (296)

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

Cpadolf wrote:

Could anyone make a graph of the average number of votes (ent/tech votes after publication, not yes/no/meh votes) movies submitted for each month has been given? I have the feeling that the number has been decreasing and would like to see if there is any truth to it.

It's only common sense that movies that have been published for longer time have accumulated more ratings.

Posted: 5/6/2008 8:20 AM

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Cpadolf

Skilled player (1432)

Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden

Yes of course but it seems to me that they are getting lower still, and not only in month old publications. But then again I don't know how long it took for the movies I'm comparing to, to get the number of ratings they did.

Agare Bagare Kopparslagare

Posted: 5/13/2008 5:06 PM

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Youhei

Joined: 5/13/2008
Posts: 3

This is my first post here, but I do a lot of lurking. Just thought maybe it is time I start getting involved a little ^^. Congrats on the 1000th movie by the way! (it seems like this topic got derailed from the original intention) I would be interested in seeing the number of movies that have been obseleted with the new movie being < ~30 second improvement over the old movie. To me, a lot of the new movies that seem to be coming out are anywhere from 15 to 30 second improvements. I know this won't go over well, but maybe to encourage people to do new movies to get their fame you could set a minimum improvement mark so that people do not make videos that are < ~15 second improvements? I have not been around for more then three or four months, so I am not sure if this is something that you tried in the past. I apologize if it is!

Posted: 5/13/2008 5:17 PM

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alden

Player (120)

Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522

But we seek "perfection"! No improvement is too small :P

I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs

Posted: 5/13/2008 6:26 PM

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Youhei

Joined: 5/13/2008
Posts: 3

It might be seeking perfection and I can understand that completely, but sometimes the improvements are not even noticable (especially for someone like me who does not do TASes) and the only thing I notice the difference in is the time that is posted for completion. I prefer to SEE something new and quite honestly (for example, the Mario 64 video) I do not really see anything noticably different then the obseleted version. I would rather see a completely new game instead of seeing a five second improvement. Then again, beggars can't be choosers.

Posted: 5/13/2008 7:07 PM

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alden

Player (120)

Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522

Maybe improvements of under a certain amount could be marked as "minor" improvements? Believe me, I do know what you're talking about... On the other hand, a set number of frames/percentage improvement doesn't always work. For example, the new SMB movie was <5% improvement (and well below 15 seconds) but contained a revelatory new glitch. As far as seeing new games, this seems to be a growing problem as the site grows (as has been stated elsewhere). Most of the really awesome games have been done (which is not to say that more will not be found), and submitting a "fairly awesome to some" movie runs the risk of the dreaded rejection. The largely unexplored systems, N64 and SMS still have issues/challenges. Anyways, sorry for the rant. Thanks for posting your opinion; I think it's great reading feedback from different site users :)

I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs

Posted: 5/13/2008 7:32 PM

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Youhei

Joined: 5/13/2008
Posts: 3

No not a problem at all! I figure since I can't figure out how to do TASes I might as well try to help giving some feedback. I still would like to see the number of obseleted videos that are under 30 seconds though. It seems like there are a lot of recent videos that are coming out that fit this criteria.