'Speed Breaking'? WTF?

2005-02-28 03:52:25 pm

Go to the Metroid: Zero Mission main page, and look down underneath speed runs. You might want to edit that.

(I can't believe I just noticed that. I have a bit too much free time on my hands.)

Thread title:

nate

2005-02-28 05:57:38 pm

yeah. you'd better hold on to that; it's a valuable commodity around here.

and there is no true sequence breaking in zero mission, so i used tim's alternate term.

Yoshi348

2005-02-28 06:02:49 pm

PAGE BREAKER

Ready and willing.

*obligatory reference to skip zip line, followed by obligatory no one caring*

radu242

2005-02-28 06:03:58 pm

Quote from njahnke:

yeah. you'd better hold on to that; it's a valuable commodity around here.

and there is no true sequence breaking in zero mission, so i used tim's alternate term.

Yes there is: skip acid worm, skip speed booster, skip screw attack,...

Yoshi348

2005-02-28 06:05:27 pm

PAGE BREAKER

Ready and willing.

No... those are optional items. You don't have to truly break anything to get them. Although *points to obligatoriness*

radu242

2005-02-28 06:12:39 pm

Quote from Yoshi348:

No... those are optional items. You don't have to truly break anything to get them. Although *points to obligatoriness*

Well, the standard route isn't skipping anything.

Ziptnf

2005-02-28 07:24:24 pm

That would be why Super Metroid is so much better than everything else.

SABERinBLUE

2005-02-28 08:34:51 pm

Cook of the Sea

Most of the sequence breaks in Zero Mission were specifically programmed in to allow for a 15% game with some open slots for Tanks, some very obviously.

Zeke

2005-03-01 12:28:55 am

Time bomb set get out fast!

It utterly baffles me how much some of you guys resent the intentional sequence breaking in ZM. Here's absolute proof that Nintendo knows we sequence breakers are out there and wants to make us happy, and that's a bad thing?

Chanoire

2005-03-01 12:48:39 am

I don't think the philosophy is quite what you're saying. Near as I can make it, as an outsider, the goal is to try to more or less break the game, doing things the developers never intended. It's a bit of a different mindset from just looking around to discover secret things the programmers put in, like shortcuts; it's seeing what things they overlooked and how those can be used. As an example, which someone else will doubtless correct me on, the walljump is programmed into SM (obviously) and its potential was surely foreseen by the programmers...to a point. But glitches such as using the Crystal Flash to skip Spore Spawn or the blue suit were not. And I suppose when you get in the habit of looking for these little forgotten corners of the game where things happen that aren't supposed to, and you start doing it with a game like ZM, it's rather irritating to discover that you're not really discovering anything, that the programmers were ahead of you and you're just going down their path.

I was thinking about this when Nate said he preferred Fusion to ZM because it seemed that everything to find about ZM had been found. It seems to me that ZM gives the illusion of exploration but not the reality, while Fusion tried so hard to close off everything that any break truly is a break. I had some nice clever phrase for this comparison but seem to have forgotten it in the weeks since that post of Nate's.

(Edit: I think it was along the lines of saying that Fusion gives the reality of sequence breaking, in the form of early power bombs, but is ultimately illusory since they don't do anything. It sounded so much better a month ago.)

It doesn't seem fair to the developers, sometimes. Here they tried to make a more airtight game in Fusion rather than the glitch-ridden SM (not a criticism, but most of the cool stuff is from oversights, unsurprising in a game of its complexity) and people complained. Then they tried to provide alternate paths and give rewards for the low-percent goals that players had been setting for themselves informally and they get pounded again for making the effort. Ulitmately, they and the hardcore are at cross-purposes, because the hardcore don't want a perfectly programmed game -- they want one they can bend and break. The goal becomes outwitting the programmers. ZM running is more about doing what the programmers wanted, because there aren't many places where that's not possible.

I don't think the philosophy is quite what you're saying.  Near as I can make it, as an outsider, the goal is to try to more or less break the [i]game[/i], doing things the developers never intended.  It's a bit of a different mindset from just looking around to discover secret things the programmers put in, like shortcuts; it's seeing what things they overlooked and how those can be used.  As an example, which someone else will doubtless correct me on, the walljump is programmed into SM (obviously) and its potential was surely foreseen by the programmers...to a point.  But glitches such as using the Crystal Flash to skip Spore Spawn or the blue suit were not.  And I suppose when you get in the habit of looking for these little forgotten corners of the game where things happen that aren't supposed to, and you start doing it with a game like ZM, it's rather irritating to discover that you're not really discovering anything, that the programmers were ahead of you and you're just going down their path.

I was thinking about this when Nate said he preferred Fusion to ZM because it seemed that everything to find about ZM had been found.  It seems to me that ZM gives the illusion of exploration but not the reality, while Fusion tried so hard to close off everything that any break truly is a break.  I had some nice clever phrase for this comparison but seem to have forgotten it in the weeks since that post of Nate's.

(Edit: I think it was along the lines of saying that Fusion gives the reality of sequence breaking, in the form of early power bombs, but is ultimately illusory since they don't do anything.  It sounded so much better a month ago.)

It doesn't seem fair to the developers, sometimes.  Here they tried to make a more airtight game in Fusion rather than the glitch-ridden SM (not a criticism, but most of the cool stuff is from oversights, unsurprising in a game of its complexity) and people complained.  Then they tried to provide alternate paths and give rewards for the low-percent goals that players had been setting for themselves informally and they get pounded again for making the effort.  Ulitmately, they and the hardcore are at cross-purposes, because the hardcore don't [i]want[/i] a perfectly programmed game -- they want one they can bend and break.  The goal becomes outwitting the programmers.  ZM running is more about doing what the programmers wanted, because there aren't many places where that's not possible.

SABERinBLUE

2005-03-01 12:50:13 am

Cook of the Sea

I didn't say that, I like the way they worked it in, but it merely declassifies it as sequence breaking. Sequence breaking isn't just doing things out of order, it's beating the programmers. They say "let's put a locked door in this wall, and then make the wall this high so you you have to find the key to get through." and then the sequence breakers find some way to scale the wall. Or go around it. Or through it. Or under it. Get past the wall by any means except by using the key.

EDIT: Simuposted.