This topic is for the purpose of discussing #2015: Dammit's Genesis Might and Magic II: Gates to Another World in 06:15.33

Yay! Dammit is back TASing again! Sadly, will have to watch tomorrow, for bedtime is now. Will edit later with my vote. EDIT: Well, I am giving this a weak yes vote. I began to get bored towards the end, but judging from the reactions of everyone else, 7 minutes is simply amazing. Also, I did enjoy not knowing what the hell you were doing (ie. running on water)

I can't get this to play back, even following the guidelines to do so... I am so bummed out.. I've been waiting ages to see this! Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

Whenever TP would save time, TP was used. Whenever TP wouldn't save time, TP wasn't used.

Not usually the thought process I go through but hey different strokes!

Oh!!! That was surprising! I seriously expected a multihour TAS for this game. My vote is very positive.

Yes vote. o_O I don't know the game, had no clue what's going on and the ending confused me even more.

I don't like this (TAS) as much as the Might & Magic on the NES... I think it's the amount of menus. Doesn't quite have the same 'wtf' factor for me.

I can't get this to play back, even following the guidelines to do so... I am so bummed out.. I've been waiting ages to see this! Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

Does it desync? How far does it get? You have the right version of gens and no SRAM? Does your rom has a crc32 of f509145f?

O.O;; DAYUM! I mean I know this game really well! [Hence my guides on Gamefaqs] But even "I" got lost trying to keep up! I did recognize a lot of stuff though and think this was mindboggling! I figured maybe 15 mins or so.. but under 7?! Definite yes vote! [Don't ask why it worked.. I am still figuring that one out] Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

i had thought of using the archer and robber in the character list and then spamming free ice sickles to get money because wilfrey goes down in one critical hit from fountain-boosted character; also my testing shows that you only need show up with sherman to fulfill quest; no need to get crusader and accept quest? but yes good run.

Dammit, your movies always seem to make my head hurt; I like that. Yes vote.

I watched this, and was impressed, but far from entertained. After watching this and Aqfaq's run, I have yet to be convinced that these types of games make good TASes. They seem to only be entertaining to the people who have played the game. Is there anyone who hasn't played this who disagrees with me?

I disagree... But I'm probably in the minority. This is the perfect example of a movie in that limbo zone, very amusing to some and not at all to most. Either you publish it and disappoint people looking for another SM64/Sonic/ace-in-the-hole-entertaining movie, or reject it and disappoint people who find (or would find, if they could locate and watch it easily) the run better than a lot of published movies. A solution would be to make this movie and movies like it a larger aspect of the main site, with high visibility compared to current rejects, but low visibility compared to the really totally mind bogglingly entertaining-even-if-you've-never-played-the-game movies. At the same time you could even take some of the borderline published movies and move them "back" a bit into this new area, which would end up making a less sprawling and more highly concentrated "super-entertaining" section. PS: I haven't played this game, in case that wasn't clear :)

Accept:

• It's short and high quality.
• Rejecting quality runs is bad practice.
• Subs like it have been accepted (e.g., MM1).

Reject:

• It's unpopular.
• Accepting unpopular runs is bad practice.
• Subs like it have been rejected (e.g., Aqfaq's Madou movie).

So short of refining the accept/reject dichotomy like alden suggests, you're back to where you started. I'm glad I'm not a judge. In any case, I'm unlikely to do any more of these envelope-pushing TASes.

In any case, I'm unlikely to do any more of these envelope-pushing TASes.

And this is why this movie should be published in some form... Why do we want to encourage people not to make movies that entertain (some) people?

I went into this TAS really really hoping to enjoy it... but 90% of it is a blue inventory screen... where I have no idea what the player is doing. It's sort of Tool-Assisted Excel Spreadsheet when it is all one screen of an item list. Which is really sad to me, because I agree this site needs more videos that are not 'Walk right for Victory!' Additionally, it is clear that the author spent quite a bit of time making sure the menus were optimized, as well as route planning, and finished an epic game in 6 minutes... Really cool concept, but not the most interesting movie. I'd feel guilty voting even Meh, so I withhold my vote.

Well, I vote no for "Did you enjoy watching this movie". Maybe this is one of those you need to know the game to enjoy it. Lots of menus I don't have time to read, and no action. As far as publication, I don't know. Might and Magic for NES looks an awful lot like this: menus, stuff I don't understand, somehow teleporting & skipping most of the game. So it seems to be a rehash of something we already have.

...it seems to be a rehash of something we already have.

Unlike the published runs on this site, which are all beautiful and unique snowflakes :)

I wonder what TASVideos would look like if alden and I could be judges for a week. We could call the week "The Saturnalia Week!" Actually, according to Wikipedia, it has happened, almost:

Origins The Saturnalia was a large and important LAN party in TASVideos. The Saturnalia was originally celebrated in Ancient NESVideos for only a day, but it was so popular that soon it lasted a week, despite adelikat's efforts to reduce it to three days, and Truncated's, to five. It involved the conventional sacrifices, a couch (lectisternium) set out in front of the temple of Saturn and the untying of the ropes that bound the statue of Saturn during the rest of the year. A Saturnalicius princeps was elected master of ceremonies for the proceedings. Besides the public off-topic discussions there were a series of WIP TAS exchanges and customs celebrated via private messages. The celebrations included a school holiday, the making and giving of small presents (saturnalia et sigillaricia) and a special gruefood (sigillaria). Voting was allowed for all, even lurkers; however, although it was officially condoned only during this period, one should not assume that it was rare or much remarked upon during the rest of the year. It was a time to eat, drink, and be merry. The mood avatars were not used, but rather the synthesis, i.e. colorful, informal "dinosaur clothes"; and the pileus (megaman's hat) was worn by everyone. Lurkers were exempt from punishment, and treated their masters with (a pretense of) disrespect. The lurkers celebrated admin privileges: before, with, or served by the masters. Yet the reversal of the social order was mostly superficial; the submissions, for example, would often be prepared by the lurkers, and they would encode their masters' AVIs as well. It was license within careful boundaries; it reversed the social order without subverting it. The customary greeting for the occasion is a "io, Saturnalia!" — io (pronounced "yo") being a Latin interjection related to "ho" (as in "Ho, praise to Saturn").[/quote] I only had to change a few words, so it's almost true for the most part!

Might and Magic for NES looks an awful lot like this: menus, stuff I don't understand, somehow teleporting & skipping most of the game.

Yeah, unlike, uh, most RPG runs on the s… wait, nevermind. Apparently, the NES M&M publication did a very good job of explaining what's what by embedding subtitles with relevant information into the stream. This is a highly beneficial course of action that is often overlooked here. I, for one, didn't have a single question about the run after I watched the avi.

Try saving the following as a SUB file and loading it in your media player with an avi. I would upload a video but mencoder gives me nothing but errors. This chore makes me wish for a feature to load plain text subtitles into the emulator alongside the movie file.

{0}{300}Might and Magic: Gates to Another World|played by Dammit|Play length: 06:15.33|Rerecord count: 4886
{400}{640}This is a tool-assisted recording.|For more information, visit http://tasvideos.org/
{711}{951}Temple blessing for Walk on Water
{958}{1198}Steal 3.2 million gold from a glitch character
{1212}{1452}Paid portal to Sandsobar town
{1659}{1899}Paid portal to Tundara town
{1979}{2219}Buy Witch's Broom for 1,000
{2366}{2606}Fly to B4, rescue Sherman and Nakazawa
{2870}{3110}Fly to A4, enter Atlantium
{3119}{3359}Pick up Sherman and Nakazawa at the inn
{3555}{3795}Buy 2 Teleport Orbs and 3 Black Tickets for 103,000
{3891}{4131}Black Ticket at Atlantium arena (1 of 3)
{4184}{4424}Fly to B2
{4454}{4694}Portal to Luxus basement
{4808}{5048}Get A1-Tolidor (1 of 4)
{5385}{5625}Portal to Hillstone basement
{5731}{5971}Get N-19 Capitor (2 of 4)
{6158}{6398}Portal to Woodhaven basement
{6796}{7036}Get M-27 Radicon (3 of 4)
{7333}{7573}Portal to Pinehurst basement
{7829}{8069}Get J-26 Fluxer (4 of 4)
{8174}{8414}Sherman quest done
{8563}{8803}Travel to year 800
{8936}{9176}Hide from guards, enter Xabran
{9483}{9663}Get Earth disc (1 of 4)
{9688}{9868}Get Fire disc (2 of 4)
{9877}{10057}Get Air disc (3 of 4)
{10090}{10270}Get Water disc (4 of 4)
{10316}{10556}Temple blessing for Water Transmutation
{10615}{10855}Buy Mountaineering skill x2 for 4,000
{10942}{11182}Fly to A4, enter water plane
{11365}{11605}Get Water talon (1 of 4)
{11722}{11962}Temple blessing for Air Transmutation
{11981}{12221}Fly to A1, enter air plane
{12522}{12762}Get Air talon (2 of 4)
{12847}{13087}Temple blessing for Earth Transmutation
{13091}{13331}Fly to E1, enter earth plane
{13392}{13632}Get Earth talon (3 of 4)
{13721}{13961}Temple blessing for Fire Transmutation
{13986}{14226}Fly to E4, enter fire plane
{14376}{14616}Get Fire talon (4 of 4)
{14731}{14971}Black Ticket at Middlegate arena (2 of 3)
{15034}{15274}Fly to D4, enter Dawn's Cavern
{15502}{15742}Ninja quest: Kill Dawn
{15869}{16109}Get Element Orb, dismiss hireling
{16123}{16363}Run to exit
{16727}{16967}Get back hireling and orb
{17270}{17510}Fly to A2, enter Pinehurst
{18029}{18269}Travel to year 800, give orb and talons
{18472}{18712}Temple blessing for Walk on Water
{18869}{19109}Black Ticket at Sandsobar arena (3 of 3)
{19208}{19448}Fly to D2, get credit for ninja quest
{19709}{19949}Hide from guards, enter Luxus
{20164}{20404}Receive final quest
{20560}{20800}Fly to C2, enter Square Lake
{21862}{22519}We, the people of Terra, in order to form a more perfect union, establish...

I wonder what TASVideos would look like if alden and I could be judges for a week. We could call the week "The Saturnalia Week!"

Yo, Aqfaq! LOL To be fair I don't think we're demanding or suggesting a total reversal here... Also, your avatar is melting! Awesome.

I'm seriously beginning to question if having adelikat and mmbossman as judges is the right choice. If only because they seem to hold everything to an insane standard, and anything possibly below the "Full of action, no glaring errors, perfect TASvideos material" is rejected regardless of how many people liked it. Yes, yes, blah blah whine not a democracy, etc. But I have had several people I introduced to here talk to me that it always seems that these two reject every questionable movie... which means that none of the other ones is added. (Honestly, another question: Why are we still accepting Deja Vu/Shadowgate/Uninvited TASes if this run is getting rejected? Those are almost 99% cursor movement and unless you know what is going on beforehand, all the text/movement happens too quickly to follow.) I'm sorry to see that Dammit will not be trying anything "out of the ordinary" again.

I fully support mmbossman and adelikat's decision. From an outside perspective it's easy to criticize, but once you work with some of the runs it's fairly obvious they suck ass. I'm sure that one of them will reply to you, but I personally think they shouldn't have to answer to anybody for the decisions they make. Things aren't going to sit well with everybody, those are the breaks.

I'm seriously beginning to question if having adelikat and mmbossman as judges is the right choice. If only because they seem to hold everything to an insane standard, and anything possibly below the "Full of action, no glaring errors, perfect TASvideos material" is rejected regardless of how many people liked it. Yes, yes, blah blah whine not a democracy, etc. But I have had several people I introduced to here talk to me that it always seems that these two reject every questionable movie... which means that none of the other ones is added. (Honestly, another question: Why are we still accepting Deja Vu/Shadowgate/Uninvited TASes if this run is getting rejected? Those are almost 99% cursor movement and unless you know what is going on beforehand, all the text/movement happens too quickly to follow.) I'm sorry to see that Dammit will not be trying anything "out of the ordinary" again.

I do not try to hold things to an impossibly high standard. I do try to think about the audience in general, and think of whether they will be entertained. If a run is full of action, and has some smaller errors, it will likely be accepted. If a run is mediocre on action, but is impeccably done, it will also likely be accepted. But this run, and runs like it, are boring (I also agree that the three storybook TASes you mention are boring, but take that up with whoever originally accepted them in 2004 and 2005, not me. We don't unpublish movies here, so that's a topic for a different thread, or a different PM). If you believe that we should cater to everyone, and publish any movie that makes at least one person happy, then we seem to have a difference in ideals, and I can accept that. But this site is different because it provides both high quality and entertaining movies, with very few instances of one being present without the other. If we accept every run that is well done from a precision standpoint, we'd get bitched at for being too lenient and decreasing the entertainment value of the site. If we reject a run that a few people enjoyed because of nostalgia, we get bitched at for not accepting enough. As the saying goes, "You can make some people happy all the time...." I do hope that dammit (and others) continue to think differently with his submissions, however. This should not be seen as a rejection of his work or technique, but as a suggestion for improved game choice.