Philosophy of Sequence Breaking

2005-07-12 01:02:15 pm

in the name of justice!

Quote from njahnke:

if houston doesn't say that he put it there on purpose, then there's no way to know. go things seeming intentional in metroid prime that we now know were very much not.

Were the SM sequence breaks and tricks intentional? Mockball seems too bizarre to be totally accidental (though it probably is). The thing I'm really wondering about is the Grapple skip. The very fact that a pair of accurate shinesparks will get you to the Wrecked Ship seems a little too convenient to me. And you can't tell me that they expected five screens of spikes to keep people away from the Gravity Suit.

Thread title:

arkarian

2005-07-12 01:04:05 pm

red chamber dream

I am still under the belief that at least some of the Sequence Breaks in Metroid 1 and SM were intentional.

Yoshi348

2005-07-12 01:28:58 pm

PAGE BREAKER

Ready and willing.

Whoo boy, not this again... mainly it just feels like people think the people working on Super Metroid were some omnicient gods who knew all this stuff.

DominicanZero

2005-07-12 01:34:54 pm

直死の魔眼使い

Considering I haven't played any of the Primes, anybody care to tell a blatant example of a sequence break that wasn't supposed to be there? I've heard here and there that Retro looks down upon sequence breakers, but have never been able to figure out why. o.O

Yoshi348

2005-07-12 01:36:59 pm

PAGE BREAKER

Ready and willing.

Um, mainly it's because everything gets fixed in the later releases. Just look at the topic about the Japanese Echoes.

Accidently missed a post as I was splitting. Not sure whether it goes here or after Ark's post:

Quote from njahnke:

all sequence breaks in prime were unintended. probably everything you see in the prime section is not there by design. of course, we know that they found a lot of it themselves by looking at what was fixed in the pal release, which was surely mastered before sequence breaking on gamefaqs really got off the ground.

edit: as for super metroid, many consider the fact that the chozo statue in lower norfair checks to see if you have space jump proof that the designers of super metroid were aware of some of the things that could be done before the game was finished, and hints that they may have been unintentional (or else the chozo would not be checking for space jump).

arkarian

2005-07-12 02:11:48 pm

red chamber dream

Quote from Yoshi348:

mainly it just feels like people think the people working on Super Metroid were some omnicient gods who knew all this stuff.

I don't think they knew nearly all of it. I just think that a few of the SBs were intentional.

Chanoire

2005-07-12 03:41:25 pm

Re SM, I'm a bit inclined to think that at least a few things were anticipated with putting the walljump and bomb-jumping in. Specifically, early Wave Beam > Crocomire, as shown in Smokey's glitchless run; it seems an odd place to put a blue gate otherwise (below/left of the bubble room). The placement of the energy refill after those two long rooms, too, since without grapple (or space jump) you'd likely get hurt a lot on your way to Croc. If that gate had truly been intended to be exit-only, it would've been green, I think. There is otherwise no reason at all to go into those rooms if you've gotten wave beam in sequence (because you would've already defeated Crocomire and gotten the Grapple Beam to grapple over to Wave). And I've never been able to figure out anything vital the wave beam is for otherwise, barring returning to green Brinstar the way you originally left it...but that second blue gate is conveniently right near the wave beam. I don't remember any other blue gates in the game besides those two, offhand.

Also, I remember one guide -- the NBMB faq, I think -- commenting on how there were just enough cool rooms in Lower Norfair to survive without varia/gravity, even though it'd be perfectly reasonable to have the entire area be heated. The author said repeatedly that it was almost as if they planned for people to be able to do this.

Re SM, I'm a bit inclined to think that at least a few things were anticipated with putting the walljump and bomb-jumping in.  Specifically, early Wave Beam > Crocomire, as shown in Smokey's glitchless run; it seems an odd place to put a blue gate otherwise (below/left of the bubble room).  The placement of the energy refill after those two long rooms, too, since without grapple (or space jump) you'd likely get hurt a lot on your way to Croc.  If that gate had truly been intended to be exit-only, it would've been green, I think.  There is otherwise no reason at all to go into those rooms if you've gotten wave beam in sequence (because you would've already defeated Crocomire and gotten the Grapple Beam to grapple over to Wave).  And I've never been able to figure out anything vital the wave beam is for otherwise, barring returning to green Brinstar the way you originally left it...but that second blue gate is conveniently right near the wave beam.  I don't remember any other blue gates in the game besides those two, offhand.

Also, I remember one guide -- the NBMB faq, I think -- commenting on how there were just enough cool rooms in Lower Norfair to survive without varia/gravity, even though it'd be perfectly reasonable to have the entire area be heated.  The author said repeatedly that it was almost as if they planned for people to be able to do this.

SABERinBLUE

2005-07-12 11:07:40 pm

Cook of the Sea

All of the SBs in ZM were intended except a couple, of course. I seriously don't like that, as it defeats the purpose of Sequence Breaking.

spineshark

2005-07-13 12:36:38 am

in the name of justice!

Quote from Chanoire:

Re SM, I'm a bit inclined to think that at least a few things were anticipated with putting the walljump and bomb-jumping in.

Also, I remember one guide -- the NBMB faq, I think -- commenting on how there were just enough cool rooms in Lower Norfair to survive without varia/gravity, even though it'd be perfectly reasonable to have the entire area be heated. The author said repeatedly that it was almost as if they planned for people to be able to do this.

the interesting thing is how there's a mix. if it were all heated then it would be obvious that they didn't want people going down there underequipped. if it were all cool then it could be interpreted either as they wanted people to get down there or that they believed it was impossible. i think it's possible that they 'cheated' their way down there so that they could check it out. though that would be really weird.

having totally 'unintentional' sb's that don't utilize bugs is way too complicated for me to imagine. like watching ssb btt videos and seeing how precise the timing and spacing is on the moves that just barely allow them to finish so fast. it's like they looked at it and said 'can we line three targets up on a curve so link can hit them all on one boomerang throw?'

and by the way, the norfair side shaft is practically insulting to me.

[quote="Chanoire"]Re SM, I'm a bit inclined to think that at least a few things were anticipated with putting the walljump and bomb-jumping in.

Also, I remember one guide -- the NBMB faq, I think -- commenting on how there were just enough cool rooms in Lower Norfair to survive without varia/gravity, even though it'd be perfectly reasonable to have the entire area be heated.  The author said repeatedly that it was almost as if they planned for people to be able to do this.[/quote]
the interesting thing is how there's a mix.  if it were all heated then it would be obvious that they didn't want people going down there underequipped.  if it were all cool then it could be interpreted either as they wanted people to get down there or that they believed it was impossible.  i think it's possible that they 'cheated' their way down there so that they could check it out.  though that would be really weird.

having totally 'unintentional' sb's that don't utilize bugs is way too complicated for me to imagine.  like watching ssb btt videos and seeing how precise the timing and spacing is on the moves that just barely allow them to finish so fast.  it's like they looked at it and said 'can we line three targets up on a curve so link can hit them all on one boomerang throw?'

and by the way, the norfair side shaft is practically insulting to me.

Chanoire

2005-07-13 04:19:28 am

Okay, I'm trying to figure out what you just said. I'm guessing that by Norfair side shaft you're referring to ZM. But what is "ssb btt"?

I didn't mind the ZM shaft and such when I played. My general approach to games has been that the important thing is to find out/appreciate everything the developers put into them (I used to get into arguments with my roommate on this, as he would insist that the object of the game is to beat the game rather than to learn everything about it). However, that was long before I knew about the whole thesis of this site, and I can appreciate the irritation at things like that shaft...although I don't mind it if I think of it as simply an alternate path rather than a patronizing gesture toward people who like to find their own unconventional approaches, as the common viewpoint seems to be.

Saber, I can't help but think that what you really mean is game breaking.

I dunno. I don't really want to get into an argument about this, and of course this conversation has happened many times already here. But it's tough being sympathetic to all points of view. I fully understand the appeal in finding glitches -- that's why I came here to begin with, mainly, as I will probably never finish any Metroid game in under 3 hours (well, 2) -- and in using them to get insanely fast speeds and just in general seeing what can be done with the games, useful or not. And yet the anger at the developers, the demand that they produce a buggy product (which could potentially mess up the majority of the players, who simply want to play the game normally) for the evisceration of a few, turns me cold. And it's really a shame that when the developers do try to give the general gaming populace a taste of sequence breaking and provide some shortcuts that will make those people feel cool and proud for finding something "secret", they get further blasted by the flaw-hunting niche. I mean, you're really asking the ridiculous, folks; having worked (briefly) for a game publisher I am pretty sure that bringing enjoyment to a few via overlooking bugs to be exploited won't make up for the masses who may just get confused and messed up, or the subset of those who attack the developers for careless testing.

Just as an example, although I'm not sure of what exactly, the publisher/localizer of the RPG series I collect released a playable demo of one of the installments that had a few hours of the game on it. Then a tester found, before the full game was released, that there was a bug which had been present in the Japanese version of the game that would make the game impossible to complete at the very end, at the very last game-advancing point there was (after defeating the final boss, before the ending). In order to correct this, a change was put in where an item needed at that point was impossible to remove from the hero's personal inventory -- the bug was that if it was given to someone else before then, the hero wouldn't have it when he was the only party member and couldn't take the final action in the game. Well, the demo didn't have that fix, and a big point of the demo was that you could use the saves from it with the main game so you wouldn't have to replay those first few hours. But if you'd removed the item from the hero's inventory while playing the demo, which was a natural thing to do since it had no specific use until the end of the game, and then continued that save with the main game, you could never put it back in his inventory. Unsurprisingly, many people lambasted the publisher for this horrible bug, when they got to the end of the game and couldn't finish it...even though it was there in the attempt to correct the exact same problem in the original game. Only the people who had the demo were affected, but people who didn't have the demo were still extremely critical of the publisher, even though that "fix" had prevented the bug from affecting them.

Okay, I'm trying to figure out what you just said.  I'm guessing that by Norfair side shaft you're referring to ZM.  But what is "ssb btt"?

I didn't mind the ZM shaft and such when I played.  My general approach to games has been that the important thing is to find out/appreciate everything the developers put into them (I used to get into arguments with my roommate on this, as he would insist that the object of the game is to beat the game rather than to learn everything about it).  However, that was long before I knew about the whole thesis of this site, and I can appreciate the irritation at things like that shaft...although I don't mind it if I think of it as simply an alternate path rather than a patronizing gesture toward people who like to find their own unconventional approaches, as the common viewpoint seems to be.

Saber, I can't help but think that what you really mean is [i]game[/i] breaking.

I dunno.  I don't really want to get into an argument about this, and of course this conversation has happened many times already here.  But it's tough being sympathetic to all points of view.  I fully understand the appeal in finding glitches -- that's why I came here to begin with, mainly, as I will probably never finish any Metroid game in under 3 hours (well, 2) -- and in using them to get insanely fast speeds and just in general seeing what can be done with the games, useful or not.  And yet the anger at the developers, the demand that they produce a buggy product (which could potentially  mess up the majority of the players, who simply want to play the game normally) for the evisceration of a few, turns me cold.  And it's really a shame that when the developers do try to give the general gaming populace a taste of sequence breaking and provide some shortcuts that will make those people feel cool and proud for finding something "secret", they get further blasted by the flaw-hunting niche.  I mean, you're really asking the ridiculous, folks; having worked (briefly) for a game publisher I am pretty sure that bringing enjoyment to a few via overlooking bugs to be exploited won't make up for the masses who may just get confused and messed up, or the subset of those who attack the developers for careless testing.

Just as an example, although I'm not sure of what exactly, the publisher/localizer of the RPG series I collect released a playable demo of one of the installments that had a few hours of the game on it.  Then a tester found, before the full game was released, that there was a bug which had been present in the Japanese version of the game that would make the game impossible to complete at the very end, at the very last game-advancing point there was (after defeating the final boss, before the ending).  In order to correct this, a change was put in where an item needed at that point was impossible to remove from the hero's personal inventory -- the bug was that if it was given to someone else before then, the hero wouldn't have it when he was the only party member and couldn't take the final action in the game.  Well, the demo didn't have that fix, and a big point of the demo was that you could use the saves from it with the main game so you wouldn't have to replay those first few hours.  But if you'd removed the item from the hero's inventory while playing the demo, which was a natural thing to do since it had no specific use until the end of the game, and then continued that save with the main game, you could never put it back in his inventory.  Unsurprisingly, many people lambasted the publisher for this horrible bug, when they got to the end of the game and couldn't finish it...even though it was there in the attempt to [i]correct[/i] the exact same problem in the original game.  Only the people who had the demo were affected, but people who didn't have the demo were still extremely critical of the publisher, even though that "fix" had [i]prevented[/i] the bug from affecting them.

SABERinBLUE

2005-07-13 05:09:09 am

Cook of the Sea

Quote from Chanoire:

Saber, I can't help but think that what you really mean is game breaking.

I dunno. I don't really want to get into an argument about this, and of course this conversation has happened many times already here. But it's tough being sympathetic to all points of view. I fully understand the appeal in finding glitches -- that's why I came here to begin with, mainly, as I will probably never finish any Metroid game in under 3 hours (well, 2) -- and in using them to get insanely fast speeds and just in general seeing what can be done with the games, useful or not. And yet the anger at the developers, the demand that they produce a buggy product (which could potentially mess up the majority of the players, who simply want to play the game normally) for the evisceration of a few, turns me cold. And it's really a shame that when the developers do try to give the general gaming populace a taste of sequence breaking and provide some shortcuts that will make those people feel cool and proud for finding something "secret", they get further blasted by the flaw-hunting niche. I mean, you're really asking the ridiculous, folks; having worked (briefly) for a game publisher I am pretty sure that bringing enjoyment to a few via overlooking bugs to be exploited won't make up for the masses who may just get confused and messed up, or the subset of those who attack the developers for careless testing.

Now see, I'd never say "make a buggy game" to developers, but honestly, how many people to this day know about SJF in Prime? Metroid Prime was riddled with bugs, but only the crazyinsane people (these people here) know about them. so it wasn't a failure on the developers' part, they merely made a game that catered to both parties--normal gamers and SBers--equally. That's probably why it spawned places like this, and why Prime is the flagship game of this site. and why it's still regarded as a masterpiece by the common gaming community since no one knows about its flaws expect the people who like the flaws. See, the devs could have done that again, but they had to go and do Echoes, which was brick-walled all over the place simply to prevent SBing. That's annoying, but I like it better than their approach with ZM. There's no satisfaction from doing the shaft in ZM, even though it's hard (I did it, people, it can't be that hard), because you're still running around in the predefined maze. It's not a sequence break if it's programmed in, because you didn't break anything; you just took a different sequence path. Turning left instead of right in the maze when both ways take you to the finish anyway. Sequence Breaking is when you jump over the walls of the maze.

[quote="Chanoire"]
Saber, I can't help but think that what you really mean is [i]game[/i] breaking.

I dunno.  I don't really want to get into an argument about this, and of course this conversation has happened many times already here.  But it's tough being sympathetic to all points of view.  I fully understand the appeal in finding glitches -- that's why I came here to begin with, mainly, as I will probably never finish any Metroid game in under 3 hours (well, 2) -- and in using them to get insanely fast speeds and just in general seeing what can be done with the games, useful or not.  And yet the anger at the developers, the demand that they produce a buggy product (which could potentially  mess up the majority of the players, who simply want to play the game normally) for the evisceration of a few, turns me cold.  And it's really a shame that when the developers do try to give the general gaming populace a taste of sequence breaking and provide some shortcuts that will make those people feel cool and proud for finding something "secret", they get further blasted by the flaw-hunting niche.  I mean, you're really asking the ridiculous, folks; having worked (briefly) for a game publisher I am pretty sure that bringing enjoyment to a few via overlooking bugs to be exploited won't make up for the masses who may just get confused and messed up, or the subset of those who attack the developers for careless testing.  [/quote]

Now see, I'd never say "make a buggy game" to developers, but honestly, how many people to this [i]day[/i] know about SJF in Prime?  Metroid Prime was riddled with bugs, but only the crazyinsane people (these people here) know about them.  so it wasn't a failure on the developers' part, they merely made a game that catered to both parties--normal gamers and SBers--equally.  That's probably why it spawned places like this, and why Prime is the flagship game of this site.  and why it's still regarded as a masterpiece by the common gaming community since no one knows about its flaws expect the people who like the flaws.  See, the devs could have done that again, but they had to go and do Echoes, which was brick-walled all over the place simply to prevent SBing.  That's annoying, but I like it better than their approach with ZM.  There's no satisfaction from doing the shaft in ZM, even though it's hard (I did it, people, it can't be [i]that[/i] hard), because you're still running around in the predefined maze.  It's not a sequence break if it's programmed in, because you didn't break anything; you just took a different sequence path.  Turning left instead of right in the maze when both ways take you to the finish anyway.  Sequence Breaking is when you jump over the walls of the maze.

Toozin

2005-07-13 08:14:12 am

Not impossible

just highly unlikely

Quote from Chanoire:

But what is "ssb btt"?

Super Smash Brothers, Break the Targets

Chanoire

2005-07-13 12:54:58 pm

Well, almost the first thing I heard about MP when it came out was that it was buggy -- and I had pretty much never heard of Metroid at that point, let alone seen it. But I remember posts about, for example, a boss getting stuck in a wall so that the player was able to finish it off without taking any damage. What struck me, though, was how cheerfully forgiving people were of the bugs in general, which was really quite surprising considering the apprehension I'd also seen about a 3D Metroid before its release.

I suppose that the bugs come with complexity and new approaches. SM's developers perhaps take a lot of heat for all the exploitable glitches in the game, but that's a byproduct of it being complex, with many more possible moves and such than the other 2D games. With so much to track, there're bound to be bugs; indeed, the remarkable thing may be that it's as robust as it is. With Prime, well, 3D games have literally a whole new dimension to mess around with and the exponentially more complex collision detection and interaction will practically guarantee that unexpected things will happen. Of course, once the first game was out and communities like this one had given it the really rigorous error testing it was possible to make those "fixes" in the second game that used that engine, just as it was possible to close off the SM glitches in Fusion and ZM -- though that was also done largely by simplifying the gameplay and removing aspects which had led to so many glitches, such as being able to unequip stuff.

So perhaps the solution to make everyone happy, or happier, is for the developers to keep trying lots of new things that can't possibly be completely tested. They get credit for innovation (although that usually gets panned with series installments by people who want them all to be the same) and you get something to do. ;)

Well, almost the first thing I heard about MP when it came out was that it was buggy -- and I had pretty much never heard of Metroid at that point, let alone seen it.  But I remember posts about, for example, a boss getting stuck in a wall so that the player was able to finish it off without taking any damage.  What struck me, though, was how cheerfully forgiving people were of the bugs in general, which was really quite surprising considering the apprehension I'd also seen about a 3D Metroid before its release.

I suppose that the bugs come with complexity and new approaches.  SM's developers perhaps take a lot of heat for all the exploitable glitches in the game, but that's a byproduct of it being complex, with many more possible moves and such than the other 2D games.  With so much to track, there're bound to be bugs; indeed, the remarkable thing may be that it's as robust as it is.  With Prime, well, 3D games have literally a whole new dimension to mess around with and the exponentially more complex collision detection and interaction will practically guarantee that unexpected things will happen.  Of course, once the first game was out and communities like this one had given it the really rigorous error testing it was possible to make those "fixes" in the second game that used that engine, just as it was possible to close off the SM glitches in Fusion and ZM -- though that was also done largely by simplifying the gameplay and removing aspects which had led to so many glitches, such as being able to unequip stuff.

So perhaps the solution to make everyone happy, or happier, is for the developers to keep trying lots of new things that can't possibly be completely tested.  They get credit for innovation (although that usually gets panned with series installments by people who want them all to be the same) and you get something to do. ;)

Yoshi348

2005-07-13 01:10:36 pm

PAGE BREAKER

Ready and willing.

See, I've been sort of wrestling with this myself. I'm a watcher here, not a doer. I tried doing the whole MP low % thing, but when it came down to the Suntower bomb jump back up thing, it was hard, but more importantly everytime you failed you had to beat Flaggy again, so it just wasn't fun.

On the one hand, the position Retro and Nintendo get put in by you guys often seems simply untenable. It is quite hard to please you on purpose. Plus for some they also have to compete not with Super Metroid, but an idealized, romantized Super Metroid where the developers did what they did to please you too and they knew exactly what they were doing, and it was easy, effortless.

On the other hand, what Saber says is true; the kind of bugs that get prevented by a sequence breaking net very rarely are bugs that would hinder the average player in any way, let alone cause easy "you're screwed" save files. Plus Retro goes around with a fucking checklist when it comes time to localize.

One thing, is that if you go out of there message boards, you do see people that think Retro is incompetent developer because of all these breaks, so when Retro stops these breaks, they attack this group to try and been seen as a better game maker for another group. At the extreme, you get people out there who see us at whining "how dare Retro make a better quality game?" Of course, the thing is Echoes isn't really less buggy, just differently buggy.

Fact of life, you can't please everybody. When you make a product or service, you often have two groups that want mutually exclusive things. So whose group is bigger, and whose group takes more work? I have no clue. You can't find the answers only here at M2K2.

Is Retro right or wrong? The answer is out there somewhere, but it'll take a long time to truly understand.

See, I've been sort of wrestling with this myself. I'm a watcher here, not a doer. I tried doing the whole MP low % thing, but when it came down to the Suntower bomb jump back up thing, it was hard, but more importantly everytime you failed you had to beat Flaggy again, so it just wasn't fun.

On the one hand, the position Retro and Nintendo get put in by you guys often seems simply untenable. It is quite hard to please you on purpose. Plus for some they also have to compete not with Super Metroid, but an idealized, romantized Super Metroid where the developers did what they did to please you too and they knew exactly what they were doing, and it was easy, effortless.

On the other hand, what Saber says is true; the kind of bugs that get prevented by a sequence breaking net very rarely are bugs that would hinder the average player in any way, let alone cause easy "you're screwed" save files. Plus Retro goes around with a fucking checklist when it comes time to localize.

One thing, is that if you go out of there message boards, you do see people that think Retro is incompetent developer because of all these breaks, so when Retro stops these breaks, they attack this group to try and been seen as a better game maker for another group. At the extreme, you get people out there who see us at whining "how dare Retro make a better quality game?" Of course, the thing is Echoes isn't really less buggy, just differently buggy.

Fact of life, you can't please everybody. When you make a product or service, you often have two groups that want mutually exclusive things. So whose group is bigger, and whose group takes more work? I have no clue.  You can't find the answers only here at M2K2.

Is Retro right or wrong? The answer is out there somewhere, but it'll take a long time to truly understand.

Chanoire

2005-07-13 01:18:30 pm

Quote from Yoshi348:

One thing, is that if you go out of there message boards, you do see people that think Retro is incompetent developer because of all these breaks, so when Retro stops these breaks, they attack this group to try and been seen as a better game maker for another group. At the extreme, you get people out there who see us at whining "how dare Retro make a better quality game?" Of course, the thing is Echoes isn't really less buggy, just differently buggy.

Sorry, Yosh, but I can't figure out what you're saying in that first sentence at all. Who's attacking who?

nate

2005-07-13 01:31:57 pm

Quote from Yoshi348:

So whose group is bigger, and whose group takes more work?

don't know about the second one, but the first one should be pretty obvious ... there is no way, if prime sold over a million copies, that sequence breaking is even 1% of how people play. would be lucky to be 0.1%. thus, the "fixes."

Prime Hunter

2005-07-13 01:37:47 pm

Correct me if I'm wrong, but at this point the only games Retro has done are the Prime ones, right? We have no idea what they would do for games besides Metroid ones since they haven't had the chance to prove themselves with anything but Metroid.

The Metroid series is one of those with a smaller fan base than some, but for those who do play it they get some very high quality games. Retro was given very big shoes to fill after the success of Super, and the fact that it had been about 8 years since Super had been released. By this time, a lot of what happened with SBs in Super were probably known only by a select few, am I right?

My guess is that Retro obviously wanted a game as sucessful and as great as Super, but since this was their first game ever we had no knowledge of how that would turn out. Of course, once Prime was released and we knew how good it really was, they would only want to make another game like it to get the same results.

However, by the time Echoes was being made, this site had already appeared and the world of Sequence Breaking was shown to the general internet public if they wished to find it. This included Nintendo and Retro, who seem to take what we have found as a bad thing for their games. Most of these things are not used by the majority of the Metroid gamers, but there are enough of us here that do to make some sort of impact on them. Why else would they fix the "bugs" in the game for future versions if we weren't affecting them?

I guess that's the thing that really gets me though. Since I live in the US, I have the original version of both Prime and Echoes, with all of the bugs included. The fact that they don't allow the same version of the game to be released elsewhere does annoy me slightly. I understand why they would fix things that can cause big problems for the casual gamer (Or things that would crash the game), but the fact that they fix things like SJF and such doesn't make sense to me. Sure, it wasn't the intended path of the game, but if it allows for more entertainment out of their game without causing any damage, why not leave it in?

Of course, a few years from now I may have a different opinion on this, since I'm going to study how to animate video games and such in college. But for now, I have to agree with Yoshi on the fact that it's hard to say if we are right or if Retro and Nintendo are.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but at this point the only games Retro has done are the Prime ones, right? We have no idea what they would do for games besides Metroid ones since they haven't had the chance to prove themselves with anything but Metroid.

The Metroid series is one of those with a smaller fan base than some, but for those who do play it they get some very high quality games. Retro was given very big shoes to fill after the success of Super, and the fact that it had been about 8 years since Super had been released. By this time, a lot of what happened with SBs in Super were probably known only by a select few, am I right?

My guess is that Retro obviously wanted a game as sucessful and as great as Super, but since this was their first game ever we had no knowledge of how that would turn out. Of course, once Prime was released and we knew how good it really was, they would only want to make another game like it to get the same results.

However, by the time Echoes was being made, this site had already appeared and the world of Sequence Breaking was shown to the general internet public if they wished to find it. This included Nintendo and Retro, who seem to take what we have found as a bad thing for their games. Most of these things are not used by the majority of the Metroid gamers, but there are enough of us here that do to make some sort of impact on them. Why else would they fix the "bugs" in the game for future versions if we weren't affecting them?

I guess that's the thing that really gets me though. Since I live in the US, I have the original version of both Prime and Echoes, with all of the bugs included. The fact that they don't allow the same version of the game to be released elsewhere does annoy me slightly. I understand why they would fix things that can cause big problems for the casual gamer (Or things that would crash the game), but the fact that they fix things like SJF and such doesn't make sense to me. Sure, it wasn't the intended path of the game, but if it allows for more entertainment out of their game without causing any damage, why not leave it in?

Of course, a few years from now I may have a different opinion on this, since I'm going to study how to animate video games and such in college. But for now, I have to agree with Yoshi on the fact that it's hard to say if we are right or if Retro and Nintendo are.

Andrew Mills

2005-07-13 01:55:02 pm

Strategy Guide Writer

It's a funny old chestnut is this topic. I posted my feelings on it a while back and melded a bunch of points brought up here.

While I think that Retro SHOULD be trying to prevent their games from being buggy, I DON'T think that they need to be fixing issues that aren't REALLY issues in later versions of teh same game (unless of course we're talking about things like the echo visor key lock glitch in Main Research which can muck up your entire game).

WHY remove Jump Guardian from the room in MP2DE? Normal players simply won't find him, as he's invisible anyways, but you don't crash the game BY finding him either. But they remove him AFTER AJbolt found that they had simply masked him in the room and that you could make the fight quicker and easier.

Geo Core is another one too. That single room has had 5 alterations to it over the 5 retail versions of MP released. 5 DIFFERENT changes to ONE room. Madness. And NONE of the changes prevented any major game crippling crashes either. And all because we we're (essentially) "one-upping" the developers in getting Plasma Early. It's funny how it took 4 previous versions to realise that to fix it properly a lock had to be placed on the door! (Even then you can get around that using SW's). Laughing

Sequence Breaks are primarily discovered through the abusing of glitches that are found (whether it be in the physics engine - ala Ghetto jump - or elesewhere), and no-one wants a buggy game. But to REALLY appreciate sequence breaking, THAT'S what's required. Intentional SB'ing (ala MZM) just isn't the same (although it IS much better than Fusions f-off 2 fingered salute to the hardcore players).

So it's fully understandable that Retro/Nintendo DON'T want to release a massively buggy game, but they can't (and never can) find EVERY SINGLE glitch in the game (if they could, the Main Research issue, SA SW's etc wouldn't exist in the first place). In a way it IS quite flattering that they DO make these changes to the later versions of their games as it proves that they're paying attention to the hardcore fans that discover and document their findings. But at the end of the day, did they REALLLLY have to take out the non-essential stuff (such as BSJ) from the Japanese version of echoes (for example) if only the very, very small amount of hardcore Japanese players are ever likely to find them? Surely those man hours used could have been spent on their next projects?

At the end of the day, we as hardcore fans will NEVER be satisfied. And why should Retro appease to the minority, when it's the majority that matter (financially) and the majority want a game that plays well and isn't going to leave them stuck because of some glitch the hardcore love, but prevents normal players from progressing to the end of the game?

At least we can rest safe in the knowledge that the Nintendo/Retro testing net CANNOT find every bug and glitch in the game. Ever. They have money-consuming timescales to work on, and as such we'll benefit from that as a community as stuff will inevitably slip through the net (glitch wise) allowing us to benefit as players of the series.

And for that, surely we should be grateful. Oh, and MUCHO kudos to Retro for MP1 (and in many respects MP2) has stood up ADMIREABLY to all the abuse it has suffered over the years. Just like SM in fact...

It's a funny old chestnut is this topic. I posted my feelings on it a while back and melded a bunch of points brought up here.

While I think that Retro SHOULD be trying to prevent their games from being buggy, I DON'T think that they need to be fixing issues that aren't REALLY issues in later versions of teh same game (unless of course we're talking about things like the echo visor key lock glitch in Main Research which can muck up your entire game).

WHY remove Jump Guardian from the room in MP2DE? Normal players simply won't find him, as he's invisible anyways, but you don't crash the game BY finding him either. But they remove him AFTER AJbolt found that they had simply masked him in the room and that you could make the fight quicker and easier.

Geo Core is another one too. That single room has had [b]5[/b] alterations to it over the 5 retail versions of MP released. 5 [b]DIFFERENT[/b] changes to [i]ONE[/i] room. Madness. And NONE of the changes prevented any major game crippling crashes either. And all because we we're (essentially) "one-upping" the developers in getting Plasma Early. It's funny how it took 4 previous versions to realise that to fix it properly a lock had to be placed on the door! (Even then you can get around that using SW's).  :lol:

Sequence Breaks are primarily discovered through the abusing of glitches that are found (whether it be in the physics engine - ala Ghetto jump - or elesewhere), and no-one wants a buggy game. But to REALLY appreciate sequence breaking, THAT'S what's required. Intentional SB'ing (ala MZM) just isn't the same (although it IS much better than Fusions f-off 2 fingered salute to the hardcore players).

So it's fully understandable that Retro/Nintendo DON'T want to release a massively buggy game, but they can't (and never can) find EVERY SINGLE glitch in the game (if they could, the Main Research issue, SA SW's etc wouldn't exist in the first place). In a way it IS quite flattering that they DO make these changes to the later versions of their games as it proves that they're paying attention to the hardcore fans that discover and document their findings. But at the end of the day, did they REALLLLY have to take out the non-essential stuff (such as BSJ) from the Japanese version of echoes (for example) if only the very, very small amount of hardcore Japanese players are ever likely to find them? Surely those man hours used could have been spent on their next projects?

At the end of the day, we as hardcore fans will NEVER be satisfied. And why [i]should[/i] Retro appease to the minority, when it's the majority that matter (financially) and the majority want a game that plays well and isn't going to leave them stuck because of some glitch the hardcore love, but prevents normal players from progressing to the end of the game?

At least we can rest safe in the knowledge that the Nintendo/Retro testing net [b]CANNOT[/b] find every bug and glitch in the game. Ever. They have money-consuming timescales to work on, and as such we'll benefit from that as a community as stuff will inevitably slip through the net (glitch wise) allowing us to benefit as players of the series.

And for that, surely we should be grateful. Oh, and MUCHO kudos to Retro for MP1 (and in many respects MP2) has stood up ADMIREABLY to all the abuse it has suffered over the years. Just like SM in fact...

SABERinBLUE

2005-07-13 01:58:05 pm

Cook of the Sea

Quote from Yoshi348:

The answer is out there somewhere, but it'll take a long time to truly understand.

Hey, maybe I'll make a webcomic about it! 8)

Mr. Aran

2005-07-13 02:00:18 pm

everybody knows it's true

Quote from Andrew Mills:

WHY remove Jump Guardian from the room in MP2DE? Normal players simply won't find him, as he's invisible anyways, but you don't crash the game BY finding him either. But they remove him AFTER AJbolt found that they had simply masked him in the room and that you could make the fight quicker and easier.

Curse you, AJ. Why didn't you discover it after MP2:DE was released?? Evil or Very Mad

Toozin

2005-07-13 02:12:40 pm

Not impossible

just highly unlikely

Quote from Yoshi348:

At the extreme, you get people out there who see us at whining "how dare Retro make a better quality game?"

Haha, Yoshi is reading my brain.

arkarian

2005-07-13 02:30:25 pm

red chamber dream

I'm just going to sum up my opinion:

I think Retro should be trying to make their games as least buggy as possible. However, I don't think they should intentionally put in Sequence Breaking "Wedges," as I'll call them. Things like locks on doors and such that are ONLY put in the game to stop SBing. They should just try to make the game the best they can without any of that stuff, try to one-up us with new, creative ideas, like they did with Prime I. In Prime I, they tried to fix all the bugs they saw, without purposefully putting in Wedges, and, IMO, that's what they should do in future games.

Yoshi348

2005-07-13 03:27:03 pm

PAGE BREAKER

Ready and willing.

Quote from Chanoire:

Quote from Yoshi348:

One thing, is that if you go out of there message boards, you do see people that think Retro is incompetent developer because of all these breaks, so when Retro stops these breaks, they attack this group to try and been seen as a better game maker for another group. At the extreme, you get people out there who see us at whining "how dare Retro make a better quality game?" Of course, the thing is Echoes isn't really less buggy, just differently buggy.

Sorry, Yosh, but I can't figure out what you're saying in that first sentence at all. Who's attacking who?

I meant, when Retro fixes the breaks, they're attacking M2K2 to look better to the people who think they're incompetent. At least if I'm talking about the same part you're asking about.

-------------

Speaking of Geo Core, I think that's a really illustrative point. It seems like preventing sequence breaking is less important than preserving the enviroment's integrity. (In fact, I might say that a large part of preventing sequence breaking IS solely for preserving the enviroment's integrity.) They really, really, didn't want to put a random lock on a door that goes away artifically. In fact, I'm not sure the PC version changes were from Retro (or at least the same people who did the others), partly because it's plausible as it's a completely different kind of new version from the localization versions, partly because it took very few elements from the PAL version at all (unlike say the Japanese version), and partly because of the lock.

What locks do we have in Retro Metroids? There's the locking you in with the boss even though we don't think you can get to the doors anyway doors, which are really sort of accepted in video game worlds, and escaping a boss fight is usually pretty rough on the code. There's of course the occasional "beat all the enemies in this room" lock which is another beast entirely.

And then there's Luminoth psychic locks of Echoes. Here's where things get a little hairy. The ones in the big temple are really localized and are clearly U-Mos's way of saying "Hey, come talk to me dipstick!" in an enviroment appropriate way. U-Mos can have influence extending to the temple without raising power concerns. However, there are the psychic locks I've heard happen after you grab the energy for an area. Unfortunately, I don't know much about them, where they are, and how damaging they are to my case. Honestly, they really shouldn't have had to do that, but then again they really should have been able to keep individual tabs on each of the energy controllers when you talk to U-Mos, but they didn't. And doesn't really affect sequence breaking itself, just what happens AFTER you sequence break.

[quote="Chanoire"][quote="Yoshi348"]One thing, is that if you go out of there message boards, you do see people that think Retro is incompetent developer because of all these breaks, so when Retro stops these breaks, they attack this group to try and been seen as a better game maker for another group. At the extreme, you get people out there who see us at whining "how dare Retro make a better quality game?" Of course, the thing is Echoes isn't really less buggy, just differently buggy.[/quote]
Sorry, Yosh, but I can't figure out what you're saying in that first sentence at all.  Who's attacking who?[/quote]

I meant, when Retro fixes the breaks, they're attacking M2K2 to look better to the people who think they're incompetent. At least if I'm talking about the same part you're asking about.

-------------

Speaking of Geo Core, I think that's a really illustrative point. It seems like preventing sequence breaking is less important than preserving the enviroment's integrity. (In fact, I might say that a large part of preventing sequence breaking IS solely for preserving the enviroment's integrity.) They really, really, didn't want to put a random lock on a door that goes away artifically. In fact, I'm not sure the PC version changes were from Retro (or at least the same people who did the others), partly because it's plausible as it's a completely different kind of new version from the localization versions, partly because it took very few elements from the PAL version at all (unlike say the Japanese version), and partly because of the lock.

What locks do we have in Retro Metroids? There's the locking you in with the boss even though we don't think you can get to the doors anyway doors, which are really sort of accepted in video game worlds, and escaping a boss fight is usually pretty rough on the code. There's of course the occasional "beat all the enemies in this room" lock which is another beast entirely.

And then there's Luminoth psychic locks of Echoes. Here's where things get a little hairy. The ones in the big temple are really localized and are clearly  U-Mos's way of saying "Hey, come talk to me dipstick!" in an enviroment appropriate way. U-Mos can have influence extending to the temple without raising power concerns. However, there are the psychic locks I've heard happen after you grab the energy for an area. Unfortunately, I don't know much about them, where they are, and how damaging they are to my case. Honestly, they really shouldn't have had to do that, but then again they really should have been able to keep individual tabs on each of the energy controllers when you talk to U-Mos, but they didn't. And doesn't really affect sequence breaking itself, just what happens AFTER you sequence break.

Andrew Mills

2005-07-13 03:47:24 pm

Strategy Guide Writer

Quote from Yoshi348:

Speaking of Geo Core, I think that's a really illustrative point. It seems like preventing sequence breaking is less important than preserving the enviroment's integrity. (In fact, I might say that a large part of preventing sequence breaking IS solely for preserving the enviroment's integrity.) They really, really, didn't want to put a random lock on a door that goes away artifically. In fact, I'm not sure the PC version changes were from Retro (or at least the same people who did the others), partly because it's plausible as it's a completely different kind of new version from the localization versions, partly because it took very few elements from the PAL version at all (unlike say the Japanese version), and partly because of the lock.

Well, I would have to disagree with you there on that point. Have you noted ALL of the changes made to Geo? Theres a single change that CLEARLY and unequivocally shows that Retro made the changes SOLELY to prevent Plasma Beam before Grapple (and not for the purpose of saving the environments integrity). And that's the removal of the stalicmite in the Japanese version of the game.

WHY would you remove something that is SOLELY used by the SB community to reach the first spinner? Leaving it in would in fact keep the integrity of the room MORE because it was in every version up to that one (including the PC version).

When I originally recieved a SB video from a Japanese player all that time ago, it was one where he dash jumps from a puddle spore to the 1st spinner and I was like: "WOW! Now another way to do it. Cool!". But it was only when I purchased the Japanese copy for myself did I see WHY he used that method. Because it was the ONLY menthod he could use.

And then there's the various ledges that run around the room that have been made unstandable at points (points which only were of any use to SB'ers anyways). The way I see it, Retro saw that we were still beating them with Early Plasma, and with each version tried something different to prevent us from reaching that sole objective. Finally getting it "right" with the grapple beam requiring lock on the door (and if you notice, they put the stalicmite BACK in for that version too)...

[quote="Yoshi348"]Speaking of Geo Core, I think that's a really illustrative point. It seems like preventing sequence breaking is less important than preserving the enviroment's integrity. (In fact, I might say that a large part of preventing sequence breaking IS solely for preserving the enviroment's integrity.) They really, really, didn't want to put a random lock on a door that goes away artifically. In fact, I'm not sure the PC version changes were from Retro (or at least the same people who did the others), partly because it's plausible as it's a completely different kind of new version from the localization versions, partly because it took very few elements from the PAL version at all (unlike say the Japanese version), and partly because of the lock.[/quote]
Well, I would have to disagree with you there on that point. Have you noted ALL of the changes made to Geo? Theres a single change that CLEARLY and unequivocally shows that Retro made the changes SOLELY to prevent Plasma Beam before Grapple (and not for the purpose of saving the environments integrity). And that's the removal of the stalicmite in the Japanese version of the game.

WHY would you remove something that is [b]SOLELY[/b] used by the SB community to reach the first spinner? Leaving it in would in fact keep the integrity of the room MORE because it was in every version up to that one (including the PC version).

When I originally recieved a SB video from a Japanese player all that time ago, it was one where he dash jumps from a puddle spore to the 1st spinner and I was like: "WOW! Now another way to do it. Cool!". But it was only when I purchased the Japanese copy for myself did I see WHY he used that method. Because it was the ONLY menthod he could use.

And then there's the various ledges that run around the room that have been made unstandable at points (points which only were of any use to SB'ers anyways). The way I see it, Retro saw that we were still beating them with Early Plasma, and with each version tried something different to prevent us from reaching that sole objective. Finally getting it "right" with the grapple beam requiring lock on the door (and if you notice, they put the stalicmite BACK in for that version too)...

SABERinBLUE

2005-07-13 04:09:39 pm

Cook of the Sea

Quote from Andrew Mills:

When I originally recieved a SB video from a Japanese player all that time ago, it was one where he dash jumps from a puddle spore to the 1st spinner and I was like: "WOW! Now another way to do it. Cool!". But it was only when I purchased the Japanese copy for myself did I see WHY he used that method. Because it was the ONLY menthod he could use.

Well then what's the ish? Retro made the SBers try harder.