TASVideos
Add entry field for alternative timing methods to submissions and publications, option to choose which is displayed in title
Currently, all movies on TASVideos are displayed purely in terms of the input file's parsed time (usually boot-up until final input). While this is a useful general-purpose solution, it comes with a number of drawbacks that are exacerbated for games with prominent TAS/RTA speedrun communities:
- A TAS may appear to be slower than the RTA world record to an uninformed viewer due to the longer time (e.g. SMB1 warps)
- A TAS that aims for in-game time will only display its real time completion time despite that being irrelevant, making it appear as though TASVideos doesn't want these kinds of submissions (e.g. Celeste)
- A TAS that improves the time on a real console may be slower on an emulator, disincentivizing submission since it will appear to lose time over the predecessor (e,g, SM64 1 key)
Currently, other timings are only able to be mentioned in the sub or pub description, maybe in the encode if the publisher wants to include it. These issues are particularly problematic on TVC, as not only are viewers likely to decide whether they will engage with content based on first impressions alone, but they are also unlikely to check the description for more information even after watching, and tags such as "Aims for in-game time" are not preserved anywhere.
In this proposed solution, the Submit Movie page would have an additional field where the user could select a timing method from a drop-down list (IGT, RTA, Console, etc.), manually enter a time, and check a box if they would prefer it to be displayed on the submission/publication. (See this mockup from Samsara for reference:)
This time would then be verified by a Reviewer or Judge, and if preferred, replace the automatically parsed time in the title.
How those timing alt methods are called could be handled by an admin maintained list, where entities could be added/removed/renamed.
When that alt timing is preferred for a movie, it would override the displayed time, with the name/code of the method in parentheses, like this:
Super Mayo Bros by adelikat in 90:80.4000 (IGT)
Making those codes short matters for youtube titles, however on the site we could put their full names.
Alright, so important questions for implementation:
- Do we expect any given movie to have more than one possible timing method?
- Should userfiles be able to use this system too?
- A problem I see is that in the event of a submission improvement, the new timing method cannot be automatically parsed always from the improved movie. Should judges or reviewers be the only people allowed to modify that field after submission? How do we handle this?
Do we expect any given movie to have more than one possible timing method?
For cases that depend on alt time overriding parsed time, I think just 1 alt time is enough. For informational purposes several alt times could be mentioned in textual form, but it wouldn't make sense to have several overrides for the same movie.
When it's not an override, it won't appear in movie titles, so to see them one would either read the description, or look at a new UI element that tells this alt time. I think descriptions have a bigger chance of being noticed because they appear on yt as well, and UI elements don't.
And of course having several alt times would complicate the system with unclear benefit, so I'd say just one should be enough.
Should userfiles be able to use this system too?
Depends on where we display their titles with parsed time, which I don't think we do anywhere? Their titles are arbitrary, so users can put arbitrary times in them, while parsed time is just a UI element. So I don't think userfiles need this.
A problem I see is that in the event of a submission improvement, the new timing method cannot be automatically parsed always from the improved movie. Should judges or reviewers be the only people allowed to modify that field after submission? How do we handle this?
Looks like it needs to be another checkbox similar to "sync verified" that verifiers would be setting, and it'd reset on replacement.
I have a point of concern. Currently everyone can easily understand frame timing. Those not familiar with any custom timings of games can assume when they reduce the number of frames, they have a faster movie.
But with this new override, how does a TASer know beforehand what time their movie has, or if it's even faster? (IGT is displayed directly in the game, so that's probably fine, but what about others?)
This is a fair assesment, and I guess the way I think about it is that if you are working with a game for a community large enough where having the non TAS timing method is expected, you probably are already familiar with that method. In most cases, the time will roughly line up. Also, it's not like TAS timing is impervious to "what is shorter" philosophical schisms (I say to the author of SMW Ends Input Early).
I guess part of the change would also require us to expect authors to provide timing information if it is not obvious how it has been calculated, and this information could be then also added to game data pages on our side if relevant.
Yeah since we'll be verifying the alt time that they provide, they're expected to know how to calculate it if they want to use it as the primary time for their submission. With cases when alt time is such a big deal that they want the override, there surely is some community behind it who already actively prefers it and has all the docs on how to time things.
So is that what we'll tell new users asking about the timing of a publication? "Research it yourself. There surely is some community behind it who already actively prefers it and has all the docs on how to time things."
how does a TASer know beforehand what time their movie has
So is that what we'll tell new users asking about the timing of a publication?
You asked one question, we answered it, and then you used that answer for a completely different question you didn't ask before. That's weird.
What?
- I specifically said "Those not familiar with any custom timings of games", and then later I said "new users", which I intended to be the same.
- And then I said "or if it's even faster" which implies knowing the timing of your movie AND the existing publication, so you can compare.
But with a response like that, I honestly don't care anymore. Do what you want.