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Never_Again said:
Let's just say, for simplicity's sake, that if you have the slightest doubt whether your demo is TAS or not - mark it as TAS in the TXT and your posts, and specify your reasons for doing so.

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Grazza said:
Personally, I consider using a live-monsters counter in a Max category to be more questionable.

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Henning would often go to Windows to pause in his 30nm runs, and no one seemed to object to that.

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Pausing definitely makes things easier.

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j4rio said:
imho
outside C-N - optional, besides most of latest maps are quite
different than maps that were around when Max category was defined. I wouldn't make such a halo out of it. Not like you can remember if all the monsters in maps like "playground" are down.

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Qaatar said:
Are you sure that you only want to reserve TAS for slo-mo, segmentation, and SR50 automation, if the monster counter is *that* questionable in Max demos?

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Grazza said:
I was asked by dew to give my view on this, and it seemed relevant to give my personal thoughts of how this compared with other things that have been subject to discussion. FYI, a live monsters counter was something that Tasdoom.exe introduced. I'd view it as a similar level to using IDDT-IDDT - it certainly shouldn't go unmentioned, but it doesn't mean the demo should be instantly elevated to TAS status.

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Grazza said:
I view "TAS" as a very positive label, and a demo marked in this way ought to live up to the expectations it arouses.

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Qaatar said:

Edit: For example, justanotherfool requested that his demos on DSDA have the "kills/secrets/items" qualifier under them. I'm sure that he doesn't care, but I don't think that it's particularly fair to him. He essentially has a proverbial asterisk next to his demos, while others who have used it (including myself) don't. I know I'm being overly pedantic and anal, but this inconsistency bothers me, and that's why I'm still curious to this day about general opinions on this issue.

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Paska said:
Maybe those demos used with the counter should be tagged with MC (monster counter) or something like that instead of just "TAS".

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Paska said:
In my opinion, using monster counter is indeed tool-assisted. It isn't a feature in the vanilla and it gives great advantage in max demos because you will know how many monsters should be dead at each part of the map. Maybe those demos used with the counter should be tagged with MC (monster counter) or something like that instead of just "TAS".

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Qaatar said:
Overall, as myk pointed out, there are also tons of other factors that play into demo recording and the quality of the end product. If everyone uses common sense, as most of us have been using, most of this shit doesn't really matter.

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myk said:
On one hand, as far as I'm concerned, I meant it does matter and that vanilla demos and PrBoom+ demos are not the same, even if the latter can englobe the former. People can make, and have made choices on what they want to do with the game, and that is perfectly valid and there's nothing wrong with it. People try to maintain a classic tradition within PrBoom+ usage which is full of subjective assumptions, and which doesn't mean much. At the end of the day, they all use PrBoom+ with a bunch of its features, generally excluding the ones defined as TAS unless specified. What it means to record a vanilla compatible demo using PrBoom+ really depends more on what the PrBoom coder and Andrey add to the engine than what anybody thinks is common sensical.

On the other hand, I think it does not matter in the sense that if people choose to use PrBoom+ they should not really worry about whether the features they use are fair, as long as they specify TAS stuff. If they really have concerns, they can stick to vanilla, either constantly or under certain circumstances.

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Qaatar said:
- No one said that they were the same.

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Since I suck at low resolutions and value my eyesight as well as other aspects of my personal well-being, I can only try to use prboom+.

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myk said:
You know the saying "actions speak better than words", although here the actions were words of a different sort, and what people didn't say holds little against what people insinuate with what they say or the implications it has. If one assumes vanilla is different, there aren't any serious reasons to be concerned about whether the HUD is fair. Fair in respect to what? The reference outside PrBoom+ itself is vanilla, because it does not have that HUD functionality. Inside PrBoom+ the HUD is just another little feature people can use at their convenience.

I have good eyesight and my well being is dandy, so I can't really buy that as an excuse. Low resolution becomes natural once one is used to it. The "suck" part is valid, yet there's where the benefit and difference of using a higher resolution comes in.

That aside, originally your concern was whether the smart totals HUD is TAS. In that, I think we all agree that, as far as regular PrBoom+ demos compatible with vanilla or Boom are concerned, it isn't. Acknowledging that PrBoom+ demos are different than vanilla demos is what allows us to reach that conclusion without concerns.

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I have good eyesight and my well being is dandy, so I can't really buy that as an excuse.

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Qaatar said:
Therefore, I think it's perfectly fine to compare demos and discuss features within the engine, but we also have to take those features into account, and what those features entail.

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Everything is subjective like you said,

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This has absolutely nothing to do with the vanilla vs. pr+ debate,

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I'm sorry, but your first paragraph was nonsensical. Of course there are serious reasons to consider whether the HUD is fair or not, even ouside of the vanilla context. What makes you think it isn't?

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Eyesight is a very subjective thing, and playing at 320x200 strains my eyes to a large degree. As I've gotten extremely used to higher resolutions, going back is useless to me.

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I have no desire to compete in C-N, so what's the point?

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As I said, I'm slightly interested in keeping the playing field even, but not interested to the extent that I'm willing to sacrifice months of time to practice in vanilla.

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Also, it doesn't work with Boom, so that's another aspect. How would we compare Boom demos?

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we're just rehashing old bullshit all over again.

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Phml said:
Or were you actually making the argument that since low resolution had no ill effect on you, it means low resolution can't have any negative effect on anyone ever?

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myk said:
PrBoom+, like many ports, has the complication of having a huge array of features that alter how the game is played. My point wasn't that any discussion about the effects of the features is pointless but that much of that discussion is trimmed by considering where the standards (that is, what is fair) are coming from.

What I said is that, compared to the fact that the engine allows these features, judging whether they are fair or valid is subjective. When using vanilla people aren't wondering whether some engine feature is valid, short of an exploit or extraneous tool.

Not knowing that the comparison is relevant here is what leads to that subjectivity I referred to.

I aimed to explain that previously in saying that the engine's nature beats any attempts at defining standards arbitrarily.

The eyes do get strained when seeing that resolution and expecting a higher one, I've experienced that, although your second sentence modifies the first because if you were train yourself to be extremely used to 320x200 instead, you'd revert your inability to use it. Should you? Only if you want and find reasons to.

The point would be to record demos that are comparable to vanilla demos. You also get a much more standardized recording standard (much less of "wait, which features did this guy enable to record this, is it fair?"). Otherwise it's fine to say "these are vanilla compatible PrBoom+ demos".

It's also not clear that not wanting to compete in Compet~n is a factor in your argument since there's another factor that can be causing that: not wanting to use vanilla. The two form a circle. Which is the cause, which the effect? You gave practical reasonings to why you'd not like to use vanilla, which seems to point to motivating elements. Not wanting to compete in Compet~n had less clear reasons related to the avoidance of direct competition with others.

That's cool, and in a smaller group of regulars it's easier to reach agreements in that sense if there's a shared intent to do so. Still, easier doesn't necessarily mean easy, as you noted referring to how some people don't even bother with a text file. It won't be even with vanilla, but a few guys could agree to make PrBoom+ demos that are more easily comparable with each other under their standards. Still, "anything goes except slow motion, saves and always SR50" (off the top of my head; there may be are a couple more sheer TAS features I'm forgetting) should work rather well. That was a main part of my point. Just allowing people to use anything but the most blatant TAS stuff is fair enough. There lies the importance of acknowledging PrBoom+ demos and vanilla demos are different. TAS itself can be set apart because of how radically each feature changes the game by itself.

You mean Compet~n, I guess. Not only that but it also has relatively few demos recorded with Boom. Boom itself is the basis and can be considered a point of comparison, but I prefer playing vanilla WADs of which there are already too many for my time and only check Boom demos for entertainment, something I haven't done much lately due to time restraints, so I'm not one to say.

I post about this because I think it's not bullshit. I wouldn't waste my time, otherwise.

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eargosedown said:
Way I see it, there's two categories: Vanilla, and Tool-assisted. Vanilla is just that--original executable, just playing the game. Anything else falls into the tool-assisted, and any "tools" used to help your demo should be mentioned.

I don't think it's really necessary to mark the entire demo in CAPS LOCK that it's OMG TAS if you're using something like a simple timer or something, but you definitely should mark it somewhere in the text file that you did use something--be it a HUD, or a watch taped to your monitor.

I'd say the only time that you should really make it painfully obvious it's a TAS is with save states and the like, but any outside assistance at all should be mentioned somewhere in the text.

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Point me to a reference of this medical (and not psychological?) inability to adapt to low screen resolutions and maybe we can start somewhere on the grounds of your analogy.

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eargosedown said:
Actually, I thought that people had to recorded demos that they wanted to have "be official" on the original executable (through dosbox or whatnot.) Are Boom (and I guess PrBoom?) entries actually considered valid?

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