u/dwangoAC

This is a super old thread, but I wanted to drop a quick note to say we're looking for folks who are willing to help out and help finish this. There's a ##nethack-tas channel on Libera IRC that's still amazingly alive but ping me if you'd like to join the Discord side; either way, here's hoping it comes to fruition, I'd love to finish it before we hit the 15 year mark. :)

I'll try to reach out to him once the dust settles - I'm still waiting for SDA to render a final decision and then attempt to contact Guinness

Thanks for the compliment, got any leads for something with a bit of not so filthy lucre associated with it? I'm open

Imagine how I feel - "Does my neck *really* look like that?!?: :) (The reflection off the window behind me made everything look nearly comically exaggerated but I'm not complaining, heh)

dwangoAC, keeper of TASBot here - I wouldn't say hunting cheaters is my passion as I generally prefer to help raise money for charity with a cute robot mascot but this situation caught my eye when we couldn't recreate the Diablo speedrun even with TAS techniques. Diablo analysis is up at https://Diablo.TAS.Bot with more details with much credit to the subject matter experts who contributed. (Second try at a post as my first attempt got eated, heh)

Aww, thank you so much for saying that! I can't emphasize enough that I can't lead this stuff without a ton of subject matter experts and fantastic volunteers but I'm very proud of what we've been able to do, we've now crossed more than $1.5m for charity which has been incredible

Anything you can do within the game as it was written is, well, exactly how the code works regardless of the intentions of the developer. Some speedrunning branches have additional restrictions but that's more categorization. Cheating is when you externally alter the game to behave differently or use external tools to do things such as splicing video in ways that violate the category rules. Have a read of https://Diablo.TAS.Bot for more information on the specific situation applicable to Diablo.

I will take that as a compliment, heh - I can sort of see it :)

Right before traveling to DEF CON I was swatting a bug away from my face when I hooked my glasses and sent them flying painfully into asphalt, I was able to get my old lenses in but I've also opted for contacts at times, heh. It happens.

dwangoAC, keeper of TASBot here - first, check out https://Diablo.TAS.Bot for the Diablo analysis I wrote with much credit to the subject matter experts who contributed. I wouldn't say hunting cheaters is my passion as I generally prefer to help raise money for charity with a cute robot mascot but this situation caught my eye when we couldn't recreate the Diablo speedrun even with TAS techniques.

To folks who suggested I get a life, I'm always thankful for constructive feedback. If you have a paid opportunity where you feel my time would be better spent, please chat. It was nice having a break between jobs to do this but I need to feed my family now, heh. Joking aside, real people were impacted here and I'm just happy to have been in a position to help.

Hi all, dwangoAC here - to provide a bit of clarity, this was created using the Lua script at https://github.com/PJBoy/lua/blob/master/Super%20Camhack.lua which does have some minor trade-offs we described in the presentation but results in a far more comprehensible view. The script has notes on how the various issues are fixed and the side-effects. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have and I'll do my best to answer them. Thanks!

There is only one TASBot and he is our mascot, he isn't for sale because we need him but we've made replay devices available with open hardware and open source software. Our community is focused on creating content for charity rather than making money selling devices.

I worked hard to carefully mislead at the beginning without telling any mistruths - suspension of disbelief is incredibly powerful and can greatly increase enjoyment but comes at the risk of dishonesty so I was cautious with how I approached it. I'm glad you enjoyed the run!

Hi! I can provide some details - we switched control of the game from Savestate to TASBot and then back to both of them at the same time (you can see me giving a thumbs up when that portion is complete so they know they can proceed). After that we sent data from TASBot on controller ports 2, 3 and 4 while Savestate continued playing on controller port 1, allowing us to write everything but the live chat into the expansion pak which Ocarina of Time doesn't use. A final script was used for chat interaction but that was the only time there was streaming content; everything else was done entirely in game and on the unmodified cartridge.

We've uploaded the official encode at https://youtu.be/2x_pqyrf9lA - it includes the full credits at the end and links to all of the explanation videos as well as our partner creators.

It took an immense effort to do this and I'm unsure of where we could possibly go next but I'm thankful we've made something you enjoyed!

That was me several years ago, I still cringe at how poor I was at presentation at the time, heh. I showed Mega Man using an emulator, but I think the run we showed was played on a real NES. That aside, we certainly *have* shown runs that weren't console verified such as Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow played back in an emulator and many years ago Ikaruga which was worse as it was literally a movie. Having said that, we pitched Castlevania as console verifiable and we failed to get it working so that one is a bit different. GDQ has declined all non-console-verified TAS content in every event, although we've continued to try submitting it anyway. We did TASGiving in part to show TAS runs that are entertaining but can't be verified alongside console verified runs.

I'd like to weigh in, but my response might actually surprise a few people. If you read nothing else, know that I actually agree there are some serious issues raised here and I think we should work on fixing them.
I'd like to comment on what "the TASBot community" actually does for big events (GDQ, ESA, RPGLB, MAGFest and so on). We present Tool-Assisted Speedruns using an extra layer of console verification, or specifically, playing back runs made in an emulator on the original hardware. There are a couple of grey areas with libTAS and custom rerecording frameworks that complicate things but in most cases the process of making a TAS is very different from performing a console verification with a replay device. In other words, the TASBot community is focused on the obscure process of creating hardware to play back TAS runs on the original console.

There are some challenges with this; first and foremost, GDQ in particular has taken an extremely dim view of late on accepting any TAS content that is not console verified. This cuts out a huge amount of the TAS content that can't be console verified but would be extremely entertaining if we could present it, such as International Superstar Soccer Deluxe (I'd love to see "OWN GOAL?" at an event sometime). I should also note that just because we put TASBot on a submission doesn't give it preferential treatment and we've been declined entirely in several past events.
Because there is such a strong focus on console verification and console verification requires specialized hardware devices and knowledge we've formed into a community that provides a service in a sense, having TASBot use a replay device to play back a TAS. Part of that has also historically been an aspect of curation where we identify a slate of console verified TAS content that we feel would be something the GDQ selection committe would want to see. Lastly, some TAS authors don't feel comfortable providing commentary on their own runs or the TAS came from TASVideos and the author is no longer in contact in which case we help work out commentary. In regard to coolmatty's comment, we always show TASVideos content in accordance with the site's content use policies and whenever possible with the invovlement of the TAS author themselves.

I want to pause and say something important - anyone is absolutely welcome to submit TAS content directly at any time and I will never act as a mob boss standing in the way of others. I want the TASBot community to provide a service, not interfere. We're here to help, not obstruct. TAS content has been shown at GDQ without our involvement and I welcome more.

There is one issue that is absolutely an ongoing problem that is maddening to me, and that's attribution. Every time I think we have a handle on it we have something like this come up and I realize how much further we have to go. In my official position as Senior Ambassador on staff for TASVideos.org it is extremely important to me that all content has proper attribution. For AGDQ 2021 we were blessed to have the actual TAS authors present so it was less of a concern but the picture in the linked Twitter thread proves to me that there is far more that needs to be done.

My name should not have been up there during the run itself for starters, it should have only been present when I was actually on camera introducing TiKevin83 - the tech team did eventually replace my name thankfully. (Regarding commentary - while I originally intended to be more involved there, a series of family emergencies between submissions and now led me to rely heavily on TiKevin83, and I feel he did a fantastic job of managing the content for this event; I am not taking on any other events after this weekend for a bit while I recover, as eluded to in an earlier comment.)

For AGDQ 2021 the TAS author's names were visible but could have been more prominent. There are major limitations with this COVID forced online only event but I'd agree that it wasn't clear who was on camera or why, in this case it was TiKevin83 who was performing the actual console verification on the GameBoy Player shown in the camera but it could have been more clear.

I think we can work through the issues raised. I'd like to engage in an open dialog with GDQ staff on how we can better provide attribution to the TAS authors ahead of time. Even if GDQ changes their policies and accepts TAS runs directly from authors without requiring console verification we will continue to run into this middleman problem whenever we *do* have a TAS run that is then played back on console with our involvement. I would much rather we prioritized the TAS authors over "our" names. I plan to start a TASBot Revisited project to go back to old events where we didn't have good attribution and dig into the authors, creators, and tool builders who made it possible. We rarely have enough time to fully explain what's going on and who did what and this would give us an opportunity to right past wrongs. Lastly, I'd like to encourage others to directly submit content - we'll continue to curate what we think is the best slate of TASVideos and other TAS exhibition content but we never want anyone to feel like they have to go through us.

I'd like to thank those who engaged in constructive conversation here. I'll engage here as much as is healthy for me to do so and I look forward to seeing us continuing to improve. Thanks all!

Thanks for the clarification. Agreed, correlation does not mean causation. Having said that, we *have* caused lag spikes on AWS as a result of our TASBot chat antics in the past, so it isn't entirely unprecedented. In that case the service that was impacted was Twitch chat and the failure mode involved substantial buffering followed by purging of many chat messages at once. In this case, the result seen on stream was messages not being delivered to some clients (including the one in use).

If you are reading this, please note that ViGreyTech worked hard on demonstrating that Discord can operate on a NES. He will be making an appropriate submission for the hoodie prize in the next few days through a homebrew version that will include two-way communication in addition to chat display. I'd love for his work to be noticed, this misappropriated blame aside. :) Thanks for your response!

I'd work with Malleo again in a heartbeat. Perhaps there's a way we can get Paper Mario working... :)

I share your criticism, as in, I was unhappy with my own performance at AGDQ 2019. The commentary for Castlevania was especially weak as a result of lack of rehearsal time but there were no problems with that for this event thanks to Malleo and team putting in the time to rehearse and rehearse and rehearse again, working out who was going to say what at each stage. Huge props to them.

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The list of people who helped out is very long but we have them all listed in the TASBot encode of the run which is here: https://youtu.be/FxKlY-g17Ik

I don't know as if I'd go so far as to say I "fell out of love" with it because I love the work I've been able to do with TASBot but I was certainly right there with you in being disappointed in how the presentation went. I feel like we've made substantial, meaningful improvements for this event across all of the content we showed and I'm thrilled with the audience response. None of that would have been possible without the dedication of Malleo and team.

I appreciate the feedback. You're absolutely right, it's hard to get in good commentary when things are going at extreme speeds. I feel like this event's content went much, much better.

I regret that there were so many people in the crowd that it was impossible to influence them... It did get a bit much. Overall though I'm extremely happy with how this event's TAS content turned out. I admit to being discouraged earlier this year and I'm thrilled to have led this team to an amazing rebound.

I appreciate the feedback! I share your feelings about the Castlevania run. I had no such concerns with anything this time around. Everyone knocked it out of the park.

We're entirely on Linux. Some of the devices use Python for convenience but there are parts that have to be done on the replay devices, usually CPLD / FPGA type stuff. You can find out more at http://Discord.TAS.Bot - we're very open to answering questions.