I originally thought some kind of show case publication system would be good for our site. However, after a lot more thought on this subject, I am withdrawing my support for the concept. I will leave this page up for historical reasons.
I liked this idea at first due to being able to demonstrate new and interesting (to me) kinds of material. Although, upon further reflection, I think my support was in a large part biased due to being a programmer and enjoying programming challenges, as well as being personally involved in technically impressive material some of our skilled site members were putting together.
As I've been reviewing feedback from those less skilled than I, I've come to realize how far my personal viewpoint was from our average viewers. Most regular viewers do not care that we did something technically impressive, nor the effort involved. As more of our technically oriented users made posts pushing for this kind of material, the more it became apparent to me how divorced their goals were with the rest of the site and our publication system. Each new post arguing for such a concept highlighted to me more and more reasons why the aims and reasons of these users did not mesh with what publications are supposed to be about, and what the site rules for publications aim to accomplish.
Doing something difficult and novel programming-wise with a game is not a substitution for entertainment. Certainly not for the average viewer. Overcoming these kinds of limitations and providing a variety of material in this regard is endless. The fact no one asides myself even attempted to put any effort into classifying these kind of programming projects in some way has enlightened me as to the futility to try to shove such projects into our publication system.
Regarding showing off this material, we certainly will continue to do so. Our game resources pages are a fine place to show off new techniques. Users' personal pages and userfiles can host material for these users' personal vanity projects. These projects can be discussed in our forum. Technically impressive stuff shown off at live events or as part of noteworthy media can be published in our YouTube channel. I just do not see any place for them within the publication system proper.
Staging for a tier (or multiple tiers) to allow inclusion of technical showcases, but exclude subpar material.
The Technical Showcases LegacyPages/Tier at TASVideos focuses exclusively on collecting runs designed to showcase technical novelties one can do with video games. This tier aims to collect important technical runs which due to the nature of external limitations prevent or detract from these runs as being viewed as speedruns or superplays throughout.
Overview
- This category showcases runs where the primary purpose for a run is to demonstrate a technical non-typical-gameplay mechanic for the game or platform in question.
- Its purpose is to collect runs which cannot be elsewhere due to what would otherwise be considered subpar game playing compared to the other tiers on the site, or simply fit in better with the other runs in this category.
- Meaning if the run belongs here, it will not be placed elsewhere. As this tier will supersede other tiers when runs belong here.
Technical requirements
The run must accomplish at least one of the following:
- Add to the game new code which demonstrates a new game or software application that did not exist in the game or within the console prior.
- Adding to a game the ability to interface with new devices that the platform was not officially able to interface with previously, and the new devices can be used with the game to introduce new capabilities that did not exist within the game previously.
- Overcome a limitation that would make it difficult to consistently complete a particular game with prerecorded input on reference hardware for the platform.
Entertainment requirements
- The primary technical purpose of the run must be considered interesting in and of itself to the viewers.
- The viewers found the parts performed after the primary technicality to be interesting as a whole, and not one interesting moment to be followed by a ton of noise.
- At no point did the viewers feel they were being annoyed or hurt by the showcase and want to turn it off.
Speed requirements
- The run must accomplish each of its components as fast as possible, this includes bootstrapping, entering payloads, demonstrating payloads, analyzing data, unless one of the following is true for that components:
- Performing a certain operation as fast as possible significantly increases the likeliness that the technical novelty will not consistently complete on the reference hardware.
- The showcase in and of itself was designed to be shown at an event or be featured in a media where there was a time constraint to meet the external deadlines of the event or publication of the media.
- In order to qualify for leniency due to the external deadlines of an event, the event must be large and have many people there viewing the TAS, or the TAS at the event must be covered by reputable news sources.
- In order to qualify for leniency due to the external deadlines of publication for a particular media, the media must be considered reputable, or covered by reputable news sources.
- The showcase focuses on featuring different aspects or parts of a payload, and not in reaching a particular state within it.
- The amount of time wasted given the constraints should be deemed reasonable, and not overly detract from the technical aspects of the run. This is weighed on a case by case basis upon understanding the constraints and limitations.
Goal choice
- The showcase must complete its objectives.
- In the case that the show case plays the original game without adding new games or applications, it must complete the original game.
- In all other cases, the showcase must reach the completion point of its payload, or alternatively, show off enough of its payload that the audience feels the payload has been well demonstrated and that the payload is not significantly lacking from whatever its purpose was.
Obsoletions
- A run can only obsolete another if the primary technical novelty demonstrated greatly overlaps with the other run(s) in question. This is judged at the output level, what the viewers see and hear as a result, not at what is happening internally within the run itself, as there are many ways to achieve the same or similar outcomes.
- In the case that a particular run was demonstrated at an event or within media, that particular run in its category cannot be obsoleted unless the improved run was also featured later at a similar event or within similar media.