Planescape: Torment - February 14th, 2011

2011-02-14 10:07:31 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Game Page: Doesn't exist yet, still.

Mark 'ExplodingCabbage' Amery's run

Verifier Responses

Quote:

There were no problems with cheating, video, audio, or syncing.

This is a very good run. Movement was fluid and appeared optimized. Dialogues were close to instantaneous. Multiple characters were used effectively to accomplish things as quickly as possible. The route seemed to be the fastest of which I'm aware.

Recommendation: Accept

Quote:

As stated above, there was no cheating or any problems with the technicalities. A lot of time saved from the previous run, mostly due to the instantenous travel glitch discovered by the runner, but some nice small timesavers present too. The micromanagement (as well as dialogue skipping) was superb. The only problem, as the runner himself stated, was a slight hiccup in planning evident at the end, which lost a couple seconds. Apart from that minor flaw, the run uses all the skips and tricks known up to that point, though some recent developments show that it might be possible to break the game even more. Still, an easy accept.

Recommendation: Accept

Quote:

I must agree with earlier reports that there do not appear to be any technical problems in this run.
Although I'm sure Cabbage would disagree, this run is of the highest standard and therefore

recommendation: accept.

Some comments:

- First an opinion: these infinity engine runs are more and more all about how to exploiting engine quirks; I personally enjoy the planning aspect of a run more than the hacking / luck manipulating aspect. Yeah, I know, SDA policy is clear and well motivated, it's just that I don't like watching broken games that much. Sorry. It's also a severe disadvantage for runners who are good gamers but poor game breakers. That said, I certainly appreciate the great skill with which such game-breaking is being pulled off here.

- I was a bit taken aback when I discovered the 60 page commentary, but it's very well written and entertaining. It explains the whole run, and without it I'm sure most viewers would not know at all what is going on in there. Very good job! (Although I do think it should be possible to do an equally excellent job in 25 pages).

- I know Cabbage is a perfectionist and cannot bear any slip-ups in his runs. I on the other hand care only so much about perfection (perhaps I'm older?), I'm perfectly happy watching something that is simply very, very good. I think viewers reading his notes would enjoy the run more if there wasn't this undercurrent in the text of "yeah, I just quickly knocked together this run which is really badly flawed, you know, and someone really should improve it soon". Goddammit man, be proud of this great run. Yeah, I know a couple of seconds could have been shaved off. No-one cares.

Decision: Accept

Reason: Poor Bioware, it seems like none of their games can catch a break...

...or maybe they catch too many. Tongue

Thread title:

Game Page: Doesn't exist yet, still.

Mark 'ExplodingCabbage' Amery's run

[b]Verifier Responses[/b]

[quote]There were no problems with cheating, video, audio, or syncing.

This is a very good run. Movement was fluid and appeared optimized. Dialogues were close to instantaneous. Multiple characters were used effectively to accomplish things as quickly as possible. The route seemed to be the fastest of which I'm aware.

Recommendation: Accept[/quote]

[quote]As stated above, there was no cheating or any problems with the technicalities. A lot of time saved from the previous run, mostly due to the instantenous travel glitch discovered by the runner, but some nice small timesavers present too. The micromanagement (as well as dialogue skipping) was superb. The only problem, as the runner himself stated, was a slight hiccup in planning evident at the end, which lost a couple seconds. Apart from that minor flaw, the run uses all the skips and tricks known up to that point, though some recent developments show that it might be possible to break the game even more. Still, an easy accept.

Recommendation: Accept[/quote]

[quote]I must agree with earlier reports that there do not appear to be any technical problems in this run.
Although I'm sure Cabbage would disagree, this run is of the highest standard and therefore

recommendation: accept.

Some comments:

- First an opinion: these infinity engine runs are more and more all about how to exploiting engine quirks; I personally enjoy the planning aspect of a run more than the hacking / luck manipulating aspect. Yeah, I know, SDA policy is clear and well motivated, it's just that I don't like watching broken games that much. Sorry. It's also a severe disadvantage for runners who are good gamers but poor game breakers. That said, I certainly appreciate the great skill with which such game-breaking is being pulled off here.

- I was a bit taken aback when I discovered the 60 page commentary, but it's very well written and entertaining. It explains the whole run, and without it I'm sure most viewers would not know at all what is going on in there. Very good job! (Although I do think it should be possible to do an equally excellent job in 25 pages).

- I know Cabbage is a perfectionist and cannot bear any slip-ups in his runs. I on the other hand care only so much about perfection (perhaps I'm older?), I'm perfectly happy watching something that is simply very, very good. I think viewers reading his notes would enjoy the run more if there wasn't this undercurrent in the text of "yeah, I just quickly knocked together this run which is really badly flawed, you know, and someone really should improve it soon". Goddammit man, be proud of this great run. Yeah, I know a couple of seconds could have been shaved off. No-one cares.[/quote]

[b]Decision[/b]: Accept

[b]Reason[/b]: Poor Bioware, it seems like none of their games can catch a break...

...or maybe they catch too many. :P

ExplodingCabbage

Edit history:

ExplodingCabbage: 2011-02-15 06:30:11 am

ExplodingCabbage: 2011-02-15 06:29:19 am

ExplodingCabbage: 2011-02-15 06:27:19 am

ExplodingCabbage: 2011-02-15 06:26:54 am

2011-02-15 06:26:26 am

Thanks for the responses and accepts, guys. Smiley

The run is badly flawed though, and I hope it gets beaten. I mean, my planning (or lack of planning) of my XP and levelling quite literally managed to make the wrong decision at every point and there must be 10-15 seconds lost right there. That may not be that much time, but a major aspect of the run is still as bad as it's possible for that aspect to be. If it weren't for the fact that this beats niebezimienny's previously accepted run by 10 minutes, I would consider the poor levelling strategy to put this run straight into borderline rejection territory.

There's also the very simple missed trick of using the suicide scroll to skip the Ignus cutscene in the Fortress Of Regrets, which I should've found. I forget exactly how much time that saves but it must be in the region of another 10 seconds. We're approaching 25 seconds lost over a 20 minute non-execution-intensive run to basic planning mistakes; I've rejected much longer runs in the past for much smaller percentage losses.

On top of that there's the more recent discovery of the glitch (with which Smilge and I will be raping ToB) that lets you choose dialogue options without meeting the conditions for them to be available. It's fairly easy to get this working, at least in Sigil, using the talk-warp glitch when being forced into dialogue by Dustmen in the Mortuary, and as of yet I have no idea what potential it has, but I have thoughts. We might be able to skip the Buried Village, Annah, Pharod and the Catacombs entirely by getting Annah's dialogue with the Painted Door to trigger without her being there. Certainly we should at least be able to give the Bronze Sphere to Pharod without actually having the Bronze Sphere. Sections of Ravel's dialogue can be skipped, speeding it up. We can exploit a disabled dialogue option with a Curst guard from a quest that was actually taken out of the game before release to get teleported straight to prison after arriving in Curst, although I'm not sure, if we do this, whether we'd ever be able to leave. We might be able to return Celestial Fire to Trias without having it, or get Fhjull to tell us how to return to Curst without ever visiting Baator. Finally, it should be possible to pick any of the dialogue options in the final dialogue to win the game without actually meeting the prerequisites, which should let us simply skip increasing our Wisdom at all (and hence skip all the time spent spending fucking thieving skill points). Even if only half of these ideas work out in practice, we're surely talking about another minute knocked off, here.

So yeah, this run needs a redo at some point. I don't think I can bring myself to leave it on the site in its present form indefinitely, but I hope someone other than me steps up and takes this run down (I'll be more than happy to help) because I don't really look forward to rerunning this.

Thanks for the responses and accepts, guys. :)

The run [i]is[/i] badly flawed though, and I hope it gets beaten. I mean, my planning (or lack of planning) of my XP and levelling quite literally managed to make the wrong decision at every point and there must be 10-15 seconds lost right there. That may not be that much time, but a major aspect of the run is still as bad as it's possible for that aspect to be. If it weren't for the fact that this beats niebezimienny's previously accepted run by 10 minutes, I would consider the poor levelling strategy to put this run straight into borderline rejection territory.

There's also the very simple missed trick of using the suicide scroll to skip the Ignus cutscene in the Fortress Of Regrets, which I should've found. I forget exactly how much time that saves but it must be in the region of another 10 seconds. We're approaching 25 seconds lost over a 20 minute non-execution-intensive run to basic planning mistakes; I've rejected much longer runs in the past for much smaller percentage losses.

On top of that there's the more recent discovery of the glitch (with which Smilge and I will be raping ToB) that lets you choose dialogue options without meeting the conditions for them to be available. It's fairly easy to get this working, at least in Sigil, using the talk-warp glitch when being forced into dialogue by Dustmen in the Mortuary, and as of yet I have no idea what potential it has, but I have thoughts. We might be able to skip the Buried Village, Annah, Pharod and the Catacombs entirely by getting Annah's dialogue with the Painted Door to trigger without her being there. Certainly we should at least be able to give the Bronze Sphere to Pharod without actually having the Bronze Sphere. Sections of Ravel's dialogue can be skipped, speeding it up. We can exploit a disabled dialogue option with a Curst guard from a quest that was actually taken out of the game before release to get teleported straight to prison after arriving in Curst, although I'm not sure, if we do this, whether we'd ever be able to leave. We might be able to return Celestial Fire to Trias without having it, or get Fhjull to tell us how to return to Curst without ever visiting Baator. Finally, it should be possible to pick any of the dialogue options in the final dialogue to win the game without actually meeting the prerequisites, which should let us simply skip increasing our Wisdom at all (and hence skip all the time spent spending fucking thieving skill points). Even if only half of these ideas work out in practice, we're surely talking about another minute knocked off, here.

So yeah, this run needs a redo at some point. I don't think I can bring myself to leave it on the site in its present form indefinitely, but I hope someone other than me steps up and takes this run down (I'll be more than happy to help) because I don't really look forward to rerunning this.

Axel Ryman

2011-02-15 07:46:50 pm

We all scream for Eyes Cream

Quote from mikwuyma:

Reason: Poor Bioware, it seems like none of their games can catch a break...

...or maybe they catch too many. Tongue

WHERE'S THE DUCT TAPE?!?!

ExplodingCabbage

2011-03-14 01:46:16 pm

Updated comments attached. As suggested in the third verifier's response, I've tried to tone down the negativity a bit, as well as fixing spelling, grammar, and factual errors, improving the writing style, and clarifying things I thought were unclear.

Any feedback would be welcome.

Attachment:

torment comments.htm

atomicJo

2011-05-01 09:18:49 am

Hey great run!
And your comments really help clarify what's happening on screen!
poor infinity engine ... you got completely broken