Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Randil wrote:
You're all probably well aware of this, but I thought I should tell you just in case: a lot of movies have the tag "N/A" now for some reason (see the NES movies for example). I'm guessing it should be possible to write a script that simply removes this tag from the movies that has it.
For the record, N/A is two tags, and represents "does not start from a saved state" and "uses no passwords". We'll remove them as we work through the movies, if they're not wiped in this fashion.
One example of the "foregoes time saving damage" is Halamantariel's Illusion of Gaia. There was one place in the entire run where taking damage would have saved time. He didn't take damage then because it would look sloppy.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Another thing I was wanting to throw out. How would the judges react if I included "Glitch abuse: severe" and "Luck manipulation: extreme" in my submissions? I'm talking levels of "moderate", "heavy", "severe" and "extreme" in such categories that the player is aiming for.
Well, Saturn labeled his Super Metroid 14% Ice run with "Very high luck manipulation" and there were no complaints I saw, except for a few people laughing at him, so there's no reason you couldn't do it.
Personally, I think the glitch categories should be "abuses minor glitches" and "abuses major glitches." For example, ISM and Mister's new SMW run is labeled with "Major glitch abuse," which is a bit misleading, because while there is a major glitch abused, it's only abused once.
Personally, I think the glitch categories should be "abuses minor glitches" and "abuses major glitches." For example, ISM and Mister's new SMW run is labeled with "Major glitch abuse," which is a bit misleading, because while there is a major glitch abused, it's only abused once.
Also I understand "heavy glitch abuse" to be related to the amount and frequency of glitches as much as their impact on the game. Also the total amount of time saved by abusing the glitches in relation to the whole movie length.
But it is a difficult question whether it's "heavy glitch abuse" if a run uses one single gigantic glitch abuse which almost crashes the entire game and makes everything look corrupted... for a few seconds, but otherwise there is no significant glitch abuse in the rest of the run.
But it is a difficult question whether it's "heavy glitch abuse" if a run uses one single gigantic glitch abuse which almost crashes the entire game and makes everything look corrupted... for a few seconds, but otherwise there is no significant glitch abuse in the rest of the run.
I'd suggest that where there are equally valid arguments on both sides, you should apply the label. In a case like above, there could be a line of explanation in the publication's description.
Assuming that the reason for tags is to ensure folk watch runs that interest them, it seems better that such a run would appear with a disclaimer in the text than not appear.
I'm just some random guy. Don't let my words get you riled - I have my opinions but they're only mine.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3586)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
One example of the "foregoes time saving damage" is Halamantariel's Illusion of Gaia. There was one place in the entire run where taking damage would have saved time. He didn't take damage then because it would look sloppy.
Thank you for pointing this out. This is by far one of the hardest tags for someone to know to put on a movie since usually only the author knows damage could save time.
One example of the "foregoes time saving damage" is Halamantariel's Illusion of Gaia. There was one place in the entire run where taking damage would have saved time. He didn't take damage then because it would look sloppy.
Thank you for pointing this out. This is by far one of the hardest tags for someone to know to put on a movie since usually only the author knows damage could save time.
NES Batman is also tagged with "foregoes timesaving damage"*. I don't think taking damage in that game really helps much. A damage-taking run probably will not be slower, but it probably won't be faster either. Taking no damage is an artistic choice, not a timesaving choice.
*) I had trouble understanding at first what that even means. I don't see the word "forego" very often, and my first intuition says "go forth", i.e. proceed. If I wanted to use a fancy word there, I'd use "forfeit"… For that word I know. :)
Joined: 5/25/2007
Posts: 399
Location: New England
I would fold "foregoes taking damage" into Time/Entertainment tradeoffs and call it a day. In the end, the tactic of having a slower overall time while preserving life. The "takes no damage" class could still be used for damage free runs regardless of whether time is lost to do so.
As a rule, I think the classes should serve to make the user aware of a feature that might make them want to watch the movie. "Foregoes..." falls short in this measure; it's strangely worded and does not sound exciting.
This may be a bit too complicated, but how about categories based on how often glitches are abused in addition to the severity of the glitches abused?
In addition to this, I propose a category that reads 'Selective glitches used', pertaining to TAS runs which omit certain glitches which would increase time. These sorts of runs are already in effect, but it would bring these sorts of runs under one category. These glitches are usually avoided because they make the run less entertaining to watch, so it adds to the entertainment factor too.
I've got a question: do "warps" include or exclude "unintended warps resulted from glitches"? I've found it problematical without a clear definition of "warps".
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
Kriole tagged his Aria of Sorrow run with "warpless" despite using the teleporter, so he seems to think that that tag includes glitches. It's a pretty confusing grey area no matter how you look at it, though.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I think it might be a good idea to distinguish between the game's own warps (eg. in SMB1) and "warping" due to glitching.
"Uses warps" has a whole different meaning in those cases.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3586)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
http://tasvideos.org/MovieClassGuidelines.html
The movie class guidelines clearly describe uses warps as BOTH intended and unintended warps. I don't believe unintended warps are a common enough occurance to warrant a new category. Both have something in common, skipping a significant portion of the game.
By these guidelines, the AoS publication is incorrectly labeled and should be fixed.
Btw, the "pacifist version" tag is, basically, the polar opposite of the "maximum kills" tag. Hence it would actually make sense to call it "minimum kills" instead. After all, making a minimum kills run doesn't necessarily mean that violence is minimized (only kills are)... Also "minimum kills" - "maximum kills" make a good pair of opposite tags.
So I missed that stealthy page. My bad.
adelikat wrote:
By these guidelines, the AoS publication is incorrectly labeled and should be fixed.
I assume that you were talking about the "100% souls" run, and then I suppose it was the "Best ending" versus "100% completion" under debate.
In this game, "Best ending" is automatically achieved with the "100% souls" collection and Chaos (the final boss) beaten. So the "100% completion" category fits. The problem is, as a tradition of Metroid-like Castlevania games, "100% completion" just suggests "100% map percentage". Thus tagging the AoS publication with "100% completion" can be misleading to quite a few people. Out of the consideration, I added "Best ending" instead of "100% completion" without knowing the two tags were mutual exclusive.
I don't oppose applying the "100% completion in common sense" for this publication, though.
BTW, we now have the contradictory "Maxim no warps" publication that clearly uses warps:
Comicalflop wrote:
There are 3 types of what you would call "warps".
-Door Warps (backdash through a door, and warp to a middle area of that level.)
-Wall Sinking (where you whip launch into the wall, and zip up, and warp to extremely far away places seemingly at random.)
-Going through walls with whip launching.
Door warps were used very infrequently, and only to prevent back tracking.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
Why does it say "uses hardest difficulty"? How is this difficulty particularly used? Was there something wrong with the old "plays at hardest difficulty?