Cheating scandals in the shmup community?

[DietSoap]

If a game video mentions in the description that it was not played genuinely then shouldn't it be OK?

Yes. Some people just want to whine and can't let their grudges go.

[Lethe]

The people who aren't invested enough to read video descriptions, let alone able to recognize absurd-looking gameplay intuitively, aren't going to be invested enough to care if the gameplay is cheated or not.
BKR and BIL, to use you as examples for a second, you've both complained about getting nonsensical comments on your own videos about how you're "obviously" cheating. Such people are just going to believe what they want; moreover, they contribute nothing to the scene, their perspective is worthless, and educating them accomplishes nothing as they will never care anyway. It would be totally different if WoL were claiming scores or some other accomplishment.

Re: Using the TAS label, even TASVideos has "playarounds", which are philosophically similar to WoL's Boogie Wings video for instance, using unrealistic play just to show off what's possible in a game with no particular goal.

[ScHlAuChi]

Keeping in mind that tool assistance is definitely possible in Xbox 360 games now that emulators for the system exist, a video with a description that very ambiguously suggests it's likely to be tool assisted is quite the strange link to post as a "gotcha".

Unfortunately there still isnt any Re-Recording tech available for any modern console emulators, otherwise we would use it!
But I´m interested to hear how that magical tool-assist technology worked that I must have used in 2012 to recorded that video

Again, by not marking/categorizing the legitimate runs clearly, you ultimately waste the effort and impact, thus devaluing them.

It devalues those runs for you, but not for our viewers. You are not the target audience, so why are you watching those? To get triggered and have a reason to rage?

Didn't it occur to you this is likely one of the reasons no shmup players want to contribute to your channel (as you claim)? Nobody interested a skillful playthrough is going to come to your channel expecting to find legit Bangai-O footage.

On one hand you say those videos should be removed as they are a disservice. On the other hand you say no one wants to help replace those. You cant have it both ways.
Realize one thing - we and our viewers dont have a problem with those videos - YOU do!
If the shmup community doesnt want to help get it solved, then it wont get solved, as those legit shmup videos have to come from somewhere.

You have rather a low opinion of your Youtube audience considering they've helped popularize your channel, don't you? I'm not sure what's worse, that or the fact that you admit you're too lazy and/or apathetic about it to take even basic steps to educate them.

I do not have a low opinion of our YT audience, I value them more than our critics. My judgement was purely based on YT statistics and our website views.

I don't have any personal beef with the guy other than he's a godawful communicator, which frankly is the root cause of his channel's problems.

I´m a god awful communicator becasue I´m saying things you dont want to hear or dont agree with. But I do not care if you like me or my communication - I want you to accept my viewpoint.
If you cannot accept my viewpoint, regardless of how much you disagree with it, then this discussion is over.
The root cause of our channel problems is people like you hassling other communites because they dont adhere to your values.

It's obvious why worst of longplays won't educate his audience, he wants them to believe his low effort videos are real.
He hides the fact that the videos are cheated in the description, which you have to expand to even see where it says that. Clearly this was done intentionally so that 99% of people watching wont even see the disclaimers.
While not straight up lying like legendary frauds shadowserg and nintendocomplete, he's obfuscating the reality of the situatiin as much as possible. On top of that he craps all over his audience saying they wouldn't even care or understand if they knew what was really going on.
If he wanted to be honest he's just put "tool assisted longplay" in the title of every video. He won't do it because he wants casual viewers to think what they are watching is real.

Your views are very skewed by your own perception within your bubble - not everyone thinks like you do - certainly not 99% of our viewers.
Can you accept that there is other communities out there that have different values and goals than you do? Guess not...
To me your text sounds like it doesnt matter what we do, it will NEVER be enough, unless we completely bend to the will of your community. But I´m sorry, that isnt going to happen!

He considers it hassling to be asked to clarify what, exactly, his videos even are.

That is not what I consider hassling, hassling is when people from another community constantly write things like "WoL and ScHlAuChi are fucking cheaters" without accepting that our views on cheats are different.
There is certain people that are so entrenched within their bubble that they cannot accept outside views and attack anyone who doesnt follow their rules.

He is using tools to record these runs. Maybe they're not the same tools a TAS would use, but he IS using tools. The tools he is using are:
-deliberately slowing down his emulator to half speed or slower
-save stating and then spamming saveloads until he can clear a small segment of the game hitless
-editing software to piece the run together so it looks seemless

The tool is called "Bizhawk" by TASvideos.org - there is barely any need to edit the resulting video.

You can't force audiences not to be ignorant, but you CAN make as much effort as possible upfront to be transparent about exactly how you arrived at your end result.

I think I established earlier that we pretty much do that everywhere, on our site, YT channel info, and each video. When is it ever enough?

Maybe his response would be that his audiences still won't care, but you can't know that until you try it. "Tool assisted longplay" (or a more elegant phrasing) added to the title of every video would let viewers know that tools were used in the creation of the run and that it is not a skill demonstration.

As mentioned in this thread before, please accept that this isnt going to happen:
- Youtube titles are limited in length, we already have problems to fit some titles with our current naming scheme - making it even longer is a bad idea.
- Messing with the titles means messing with the Youtube SEO / algorithm. We arent going to tank ourselves just to make a few people happy that get triggered by our videos.

Finally, you have to understand that those decisions arent just made by me, they are decided within our team of longplayers internally.
If I do something they dont approve of, I´m getting into trouble with my own community, and I have no interest in that.
Some of them already question why I even bother trying to appease people that attack us instead of telling them to fuck off.
But thats becasue I try to be fair and make every side happy, which is impossible of course.
So please try to accept that our views, values and goals differ!

[ScHlAuChi]

BKR and BIL, to use you as examples for a second, you've both complained about getting nonsensical comments on your own videos about how you're "obviously" cheating. Such people are just going to believe what they want; moreover, they contribute nothing to the scene, their perspective is worthless, and educating them accomplishes nothing as they will never care anyway. It would be totally different if WoL were claiming scores or some other accomplishment.

Thanks for this post, this sums it up perfectly.
It doesnt matter how much effort you put into educating your audience if the audience doesnt want to be educated.

For each game there is probably only a small group of hardcore players who can really judge what is going on.
That group is probably less than 0.001% of the people that watch our videos. The casual viewers just want to:
- see some old game again they played as kid
- use it as walkthrough when they are stuck
- listen to the music of the game
- watch a longplay like a movie, as it is less effort than playing it

Those people just do not care about anything we are discussing here!

[BareKnuckleRoo]

But I´m interested to hear how that magical tool-assist technology worked that I must have used in 2012 to recorded that video

Your responses really make me question your reading comprehension skills. Not actually sure it's worth engaging with you further.

I'm quite aware the Bangai-O footage you posted is not actually tool-assisted based on the unusual remark you made when you chose to post it here and based on the mention of the leaderboard in the description, my point is it's not well communicated in the description. In a few decades' time, even centuries if Youtube's around that long, newer viewers will not know off the top of their head when Xbox 360 emulation started, and they may not know what tool assistance was available at the time. Someone may well be confused and think you're saying you used tool assistance to get on the leaderboard. Something like "While most videos on World of Longplays use tool-assistance such as slowdown or save-states to record the entirety of the game and aren't meant as a showcase of actual skill, this run is recorded on an actual console with no tool assistance!" would have been far better, and done a better job of crediting your actual skills in the game! You can claim your viewers don't care, but part of the role of an educator is helping people to care, and understand why they should care.

BKR and BIL, to use you as examples for a second, you've both complained about getting nonsensical comments on your own videos about how you're "obviously" cheating.

Comparing apples to marbles. Anyone can look at a legit run that's marked as "no tool-assistance or cheats were used" and claim the person's lying if they so choose. Can't really stop them from being wrong and claiming it's a fake when it isn't. If that's what they want to believe, they're welcome to do so. Heck, they're paying you a compliment by saying it looks so good it must be fake! :V

Very different from what we're discussing here re: WoL.

[Sima Tuna]

You can't force audiences not to be ignorant, but you CAN make as much effort as possible upfront to be transparent about exactly how you arrived at your end result.

I think I established earlier that we pretty much do that everywhere, on our site, YT channel info, and each video. When is it ever enough?

... When the description of how the video was made matches how the video was made? I don't think it's asking for too much that a one-sentence description of the process used to make the run be included. "Most runs use save states" tells the viewer almost nothing. If you said instead in the description, "for this run, I played the game in Bizhawk at half speed in segments using save states, then compiled the successful attempts together as you see here." Something along those lines would tell people what you did to get the run you uploaded. It would be informative. Viewers might even appreciate having that knowledge so they could create their own longplay runs in similar fashion.

Hell, the only way anybody knows how you make the videos at all is because people had to examine very closely a lot of suspicious play and then make educated guesses about what you were probably doing. I'm glad you've confirmed some of that in this thread.

This is the last post I'll make on this subject. My apologies to those who had to read posts they weren't enjoying.

[pegboy]

If he wanted to be honest he could just put text or a quick voice over at the beginning of the video explaining it was a fake run. He won't do it because he wants people to think it's real.

[ScHlAuChi]

it's not well communicated in the description.[/b] In a few decades' time, even centuries if Youtube's around that long, newer viewers will not know off the top of their head when Xbox 360 emulation started, and they may not know what tool assistance was available at the time.

It isnt well communicated because I do not care! I do not care about the same things you do!
I want them to see the longplay of this amazing game, and if they care enough they can check the description to find out more.
People thinking it is real or fake makes no difference to me!

... When the description of how the video was made matches how the video was made?
I don't think it's asking for too much that a one-sentence description of the process used to make the run be included.

You dont think so, because you dont realize that we have over 30000 videos on our channel - 17000 public, the rest is non public scheduled HD reuploads of older stuff.
Do you have any idea how long it would take to add the info to all those videos? Not that you have to care, you wouldnt be the one doing the work!
Adding the savestate disclaimer a few years ago was no problem, as that was something that could be added to all videos easily.
But asking us to add detailed info on 30000 videos is just not realistic. No one is going to invest the time to do so much work for absolutely zero gain.

If he wanted to be honest he could just put text or a quick voice over at the beginning of the video explaining it was a fake run.

Longplays are showing the games mostly unaltered - a voice over before the game would not be allowed, as we consider that an alteration!
But rgeardless, adding that to over 30000 videos retroactively isnt possible anyway.

He won't do it because he wants people to think it's real.

What is "real"? There is speedrunners out there who can perform speedruns that are identical to that of a TAS.
If you showed those videos to a random YT person like our viewers, would they be able to tell what was human played and what was tool assisted?
If they cant, then the difference between real and fake only matters if the video claims to be something that it isnt - we do not do that!

[maximo310]

Re: Perikles, I don't think my stance has changed all that much. Dude bit off more than he could chew with Tatsujin Ou/Same3!/ F/A among a couple of other examples and basically decided to bounce & delete everything on his channel after a few long responses & a sengoku-blade 2-all promise which never happened afaik. I've played a lot more same3! & F/A since then ( & cleared the former), and its still very hard for me to believe that you can get away with some of the dodges I saw in his replays. Especially for Same3!, his stage 5 route is incredibly dangerous especially on the middle gunboat sections, and most players would take far safer approaches to deal with the constant snipers & enemies popping from the sides (such as using a 10-15hz autofire rate for stages & slowly streaming on certain sections so that you can pick off more enemies & deal with the stupid green items bouncing around). Stage 7/10 are also pretty baffling with the flailing too which was mentioned by other posters ( jaimers/chum iirc), but in general there's many parts of the replay that are at odds with what I usually see with 1st clears (such as late-game recovery via checkpoints in many of the later stages or ways to make certain tough sections more consistent.
I think i sent his gallop 2-all replay to a friend of mine ( who later 2-ALL'd the game with other replays), and he thought that the strategies in his replay were basically useless for learning the game.

Great detailing, cheers for that.

Particularly with his grounding in console titles - something I share - I have to entertain the notion he got in over his head. Since M2 are quiet re: Toaplan atm, I'll probably end up 1ALLing Same3 before the year's out, just so I don't have to read the inevitable next incarnation of this thread feeling quite so uninformed. I was thinking of your old exchanges with him while doing an initial credit feed of F/A's recent ACA release, too. I am especially appreciative of one-loop arcade games, so I'll probably give 1CCing that a go, as well. (these are all games on my bucket list; might as well get some closure while I'm at it)

It's kind of disappointing to have people still defend his actions years later, or blame other people for finding certain replays suspicious because of the social dynamics that were in the original thread & how that somewhat determined where people stood on the issue.

I feel I should reiterate and clarify, given I dislike the Jarpig set, and would hate for that to be misconstrued towards anyone else. I don't blame anyone for finding his replays suspicious, let alone because of what went on in the original thread. The former vigilance is to be encouraged, the latter are irrelevant spackers.

I went over his Gun.Smoke 1CC with a fine-toothed comb, and found one crazy dodge where he ran rings around a bullet travelling downscreen. I was willing to write it off - that happens to me and it seems other 1CCers too occasionally, it's a twitchy game - but it wasn't for a lack of looking.

Given how weak the hitpiece was, and what a casually shit-slinging waste the thread became, my problem is an established pattern from our Jarpig friendos: big claims, ambiguous evidence, and screeching meltdowns with a generous side of pity partying, when challenged. And a long-established history of creeper behaviour underpinning it all, which makes "lol lmao he run away" far less of a slam dunk it would've been.

Here's our old friend "Jarpig Slayer." He popped into the ACA thread ca.2020, to warn us ACA Gradius is to be avoided, due to it running slower than "both the PCB and MAME." (as he equated them) He went on to proclaim nobody should trust Hamster with their money, because if they messed up this massively popular game, they surely did a bunch of others.

Lengthy digression continues

Your being familiar with Metal Hawk via MAME, and its crash woes, you can probably guess how this sounded off, given Hamster's repute for solid performance. And the considerable list of games that are board-perfect in ACA, and either broken or flat-out unplayable in MAME. (no disrespect intended to Haze and company; they are heroes undertaking a herculean task and, to paraphrase new friend Schlauchi/Schlongi, have done much more for arcade games than I have)

But, Hamster's good rep is no reason to dismiss such a claim. Complacency is no good for anybody. So, after requesting basic elaboration out of him - this quickly made him angry, I'm sorry to say - it turned out he was talking absolute nonsense. Anyone with a basic knowledge of how shooting affects the game's speed would've understood, what he claimed to be "extra ACA slowdown" was merely a fully-powered, aggressively attacking player. The PCB guy shoots less, safespots more, and dies frequently, losing his Options.

This revelation finally provoked the kind of seething personal attack that I find very hilarious, in the correct environment, ie an imageboard hellhole full of incipient classroom shooters avidly discussing who lives and works where.

But in this nice polite place, it's just never been allowed. So it was goodbye to interchangeably sociopathic Jarpig Enthusiast #15363. I'm sure the narrative is that I requested it, a popular refrain from this set. I'm sure some members would, and they would be right to; this isn't that kind of joint. But as noted, this stuff cracks me up.

Regardless, I'm not blind to how fucked it was. I have no internet presence outside this forum. I had no idea who our new friend was, and it wouldn't have changed my inquiry of his claim, regardless. He apparently not only knew all about me, but also had a very specific grievance he intended to avenge. My asking him to substantiate his extravagant claim triggered an explosion of vitriol.

I wish I could link the thread where I apologised to chum via PM, because I had no idea the other Jarpig Fan I was playfully antagonising until the whole thread got nuked was a serial doxxer who'd leaked his private correspondences to "better him." The untreated aspergers was absolutely ripe off that one, I actually Waybacked it but sadly no luck.

As I said, Perikles had been telling me of these encounters for almost four years, when the thread happened in late 2019. And as I said, I saw firsthand that he was no good at defending himself from even the most truculently moronic randos. I wish I'd told them to neck themselves, looking back, like I would if they'd been slagging me off. At the time, I thought it'd be patronising towards him.

So I was unsurprised at the paucity and meaningless personal attacks of content, yet very surprised indeed to see it enshrined here. It's a black mark on this forum. And as this thread has continued to show, vanishingly little productive has come out in the half-decade since.

Again, just wanting to clarify. I'm not trying to fence-sit, when I say I get why so many accomplished players, like yourself, believe he cheated. There's some likelihood I'll add my unlettered self to the ranks when this is all over. And it will be over for me pretty soon, once M2 says something about that Ou port.

Yeah I'm pretty familiar with his antics, since he was doing the same thing for a while afterwards in other servers, sometimes with alt accounts to ban evade just to prove his mantra at the time that " we need to take the shmups scene back from all of the horrible jarpigs/ ff14 grinders infecting the scene" alongside a few other people ( gus included lol) before nuking his own replays in the process.

This kind of extended to that gradius thread/ donpachi boss 2 clip in the thread when both examples aren't correct at all in trying to prove the arguments ( mostly that ACA was inaccurate or that the boss clip was cheated), but I guess he felt it was easier to just double down and keep repeating it with different wording because he felt that his viewpoint was the correct one there. The doxxing/harassment stuff is pretty terrible too, its kind of pathetic if you have to resort to personal attacks &/or leaking personal info to think that you've "won" your argument on 30+ year old games.

Gl on the Tatsujin Ou/ Same3! grind btw! I haven't really been itching to play much Ou over the years, but both games have a lot of survival depth with the way you'll have to recover in late game and regain power. There's a couple players I've seen who even prefer Ou over Truxton II because of this and how difficult certain sections in the late game can be at lower power.

[maximo310]

... When the description of how the video was made matches how the video was made?
I don't think it's asking for too much that a one-sentence description of the process used to make the run be included.

You dont think so, because you dont realize that we have over 30000 videos on our channel - 17000 public, the rest is non public scheduled HD reuploads of older stuff.
Do you have any idea how long it would take to add the info to all those videos? Not that you have to care, you wouldnt be the one doing the work!
Adding the savestate disclaimer a few years ago was no problem, as that was something that could be added to all videos easily.
But asking us to add detailed info on 30000 videos is just not realistic. No one is going to invest the time to do so much work for absolutely zero gain.

Batch editing for multiple videos has been available for Youtube Studio for several years now; I really doubt that even just adding info on arcade replays for what MAME version used/ speed would be all that difficult.

[ScHlAuChi]

Batch editing for multiple videos has been available for Youtube Studio for several years now; I really doubt that even just adding info on arcade replays for what MAME version used/ speed would be all that difficult.

Some of those videos are over 15 years old, any info about those videos that isnt on the site is lost to time.
We never expected that a decade later a bunch of angry people with pitchforks would show up on our doorstep and demand reciepts!

[To Far Away Times]

FWIW, I appreciate that the long plays exist. As soon as I saw the "most videos use save states" disclaimer on one video description I just assumed all of them did. If you care enough to chase scores and look over other player's videos, you already know long plays are save stated.

But they still serve a valuable purpose for just seeing game play of classic or obscure games that otherwise not might have any other resources dedicated to them. A case where quantity over quality is appreciated. I would never watch a long play of Super Mario World, but a couple minutes to glance at some unknown indie shmup is always appreciated. I would never "study" routes or strategy of a skill based game from a long play though, since I assume they're always save stated through.

The highlighting is mine, but I think the disclaimer gets the message across.

[iconoclast]

@ScHlAuChi
Your definition of cheating is exclusive to you. In absolutely no universe would anyone else consider slowing the game down and save stating your way through it to be anything but cheating. I assume English isn't your first language, so that may be the issue here. Let me help:

Cheating -- When a player goes outside playing the game to alter, modify or change the experience of the game from the developer's original intent.

cheat (at something) -- to act in a dishonest way in order to gain an advantage, especially in a game, a competition, an exam, etc.

Cheating in video games involves a video game player using various methods to create an advantage beyond normal gameplay, usually in order to make the game easier.

but back then we did not really have standards, like with every community, standards develop over time.

Cheating has never been acceptable by any standard in the history of games, I'm afraid. (Not just video games)

Outside of a handful of elite players, pretty much no one will have the skill to analyze such a video.

As established above, the viewers simply do not care!

random YT viewers dont know what a TAS or even a savestate is

For each game there is probably only a small group of hardcore players who can really judge what is going on.

You keep saying the majority of your viewers are ignorant, which may be true, but you're rumbled because the minority that actually sees what you're doing points it out? What's the problem, is the whole point just to be deceptive?

Adding that in the title is a surefire way to confuse people and the Youtube algorithm.

- Messing with the titles means messing with the Youtube SEO / algorithm. We arent going to tank ourselves just to make a few people happy that get triggered by our videos.

Oh, yeah, it is. It's better to bury this info in places where people can't see it before you get their engagement.

If you think those shmup videos make alot of money, you will be in for a rude awakening, it is such a niche genre that barely anyone cares.

I searched for 'shmup' on WOL, and there are several videos in the 100k view range. They're certainly not making a lot of money, but the return on those is pretty nice for videos that took the bare minimum amount of time, thought, and effort to make.
Regardless, this isn't exclusive to shmups. It applies to every game that can be cheated through, which is presumably 99.9% of the games on the channel.

Several years ago I reached out to the shmup community and offered to remove all my "bad" videos if someone provided me with correctly played ones. No one ever did, probably because helping the "enemy" is a no go and having a common enemy to hate is more useful anyway.

On one hand you say those videos should be removed as they are a disservice. On the other hand you say no one wants to help replace those. You cant have it both ways.

So you want people to just give you quality content to help build your channel with, instead of posting it on their own? Did you offer to pay for it, or do you just expect free handouts?

If I would have known in 2006 that making shmup videos would get me crazy haters several years later, I wouldnt have ever bothered with it.

Just to reiterate, it's not just shmups, it's practically everything on the channel. The shmup videos just attracted attention because they are so laughably bad that they became a meme.

I wonder - what exactly gives YOU or your community the right to constantly hassle me or other WoL members?

Realize one thing - we and our viewers dont have a problem with those videos - YOU do!

You post these videos publicly for the entire world to see. If you don't like the criticism, then post videos that the criticism can't be applied to. Simple as.
If you didn't care about it, you wouldn't be here whining about the mean shmup bullies btw.

But I do not care if you like me or my communication - I want you to accept my viewpoint.

Your viewpoint is that you post videos to document for history and museums or whatever. Okay. Then why are you upset about people pointing out the fact that you cheat your way through them? I don't get it.

Due to my "terrible" videos, people have discovered alot of interesting games in the genre and started to play those.

That could be true, but your videos are so horribly played that it can also trick viewers into thinking you need inhuman reflexes and dexterity to play the games, which could make them never want to try it themselves. Whereas if they watch someone who actually has some understanding of the game play it, they might think it looks fun and doable. Really makes u think!

The casual viewers just want to:
- use it as walkthrough when they are stuck

I pity the poor bastards who try this, lmao.

[BIL]

Gl on the Tatsujin Ou/ Same3! grind btw! I haven't really been itching to play much Ou over the years, but both games have a lot of survival depth with the way you'll have to recover in late game and regain power. There's a couple players I've seen who even prefer Ou over Truxton II because of this and how difficult certain sections in the late game can be at lower power.

Thanks! I'm cautiously hopeful.

[ScHlAuChi]

Your definition of cheating is exclusive to you. In absolutely no universe would anyone else consider slowing the game down and save stating your way through it to be anything but cheating. I assume English isn't your first language, so that may be the issue here.

English not being my first language isnt the issue here, the issue is that you do not want to understand what a longplay is.

Your definition of cheating is way more strict and means absolutely anything that changes the original game behavior.
For us Savestates and Slowdown are not technically cheats as they do not modify the game itself, and we are not the only community that sees it that way!

Cheating has never been acceptable by any standard in the history of games, I'm afraid. (Not just video games)

Weird, for some reason it is perfectly acceptable for the TAS community - they even invented those "cheating" tools like Bizhawk and libTAS and use it way more extreme than us for their "cheated" runs!

TASVideos uses those tools because their goal is to beat a game as fast as possible by all means necessary.
A longplay wants to show a game as complete as possible by all means necessary.
Your goal is to show a game being played as skillful as possible by extensive training.
We all have different goals and we reach them in different ways.
However, it is not up to you to tell us that our way is wrong!
If you want to call it cheating, fine, but stop going on our nerves by demanding that we follow your rules!

I give you another example to make you understand what our point is. A Longplay is a movie of a game.
Would you go to the cinema and start screaming at the screen that the director is cheating by using tricks?
Or would you say, hey its a movie, obviously it isnt real and they cheat by using tricks to entertain us! Duh!
You wouldnt do that, so why treat us different?

And one more final point, why do so many developers, and lets use Rockstar as an example here, add cheats to their games and even reveal them to the public?
Why does CAVE, one of the holy shmup developers sell cheats for their games?
How is any of that acceptable, when it never was in the history of videogames as you claim?

You keep saying the majority of your viewers are ignorant, which may be true, but you're rumbled because the minority that actually sees what you're doing points it out? What's the problem, is the whole point just to be deceptive?

I keep saying that they do not care, wether that is ignorance or another reason is not something I care about.
I´m rumbled because that minority says their interpretation of our work is the only correct one, and our own is wrong.

Oh, yeah, it is. It's better to bury this info in places where people can't see it before you get their engagement.

Every video title says it is a "Longplay" which has a fixed definition.
The info what that means is everywhere, on our channel, on our site, on wikipedia.
Additionally each video has the disclaimer that we use "cheats".
If for you that isnt enough, then let me turn the tables.

There is thousands of 1CC videos on YT, yet not a single video and its description explains what that means!
People are expected to know what 1CC means before they watch those videos.
You would say that 1CC <game> has a fixed definition therefore it is enough to just have that in the title!
But for some reason "Longplay" in the title isnt enough?

I searched for 'shmup' on WOL, and there are several videos in the 100k view range. They're certainly not making a lot of money, but the return on those is pretty nice for videos that took the bare minimum amount of time, thought, and effort to make. Regardless, this isn't exclusive to shmups. It applies to every game that can be cheated through, which is presumably 99.9% of the games on the channel.

100k views in 15 years - so basically roughly 6600 views per year, which translates to something like 4$ per year - amazing return! However with alot of those videos having music claims, the return is exactly 0!

So you want people to just give you quality content to help build your channel with, instead of posting it on their own? Did you offer to pay for it, or do you just expect free handouts?

I do not want you to give me anything - I want you and your community to stop bothering us!
We dont have a problem with those videos, it is YOU who wants us to remove them because they bother YOU!
But when we tell YOU how to fix the problem, YOU are completly unwilling to do ANYTHING about it and just issue more demands.
It just doesnt work that way, we are not your dog!

Just to reiterate, it's not just shmups, it's practically everything on the channel. The shmup videos just attracted attention because they are so laughably bad that they became a meme.

Ok... but if you know that longplays are tool-assaisted and terrible and all that, why do you keep watching them?
Just put us on ignore, problem solved!

You post these videos publicly for the entire world to see. If you don't like the criticism, then post videos that the criticism can't be applied to. Simple as.
If you didn't care about it, you wouldn't be here whining about the mean shmup bullies btw.

Yeah just stop making videos, so that us bullies stop hassling you. Compelling argument!
I´m here becasue I was expecting a fair discussion with reasonable people that can accept different viewpoints.
That is unfortunately not the case, instead this turned into a courtroom where biased judges trial me on rules we do not accept.

Your viewpoint is that you post videos to document for history and museums or whatever. Okay. Then why are you upset about people pointing out the fact that you cheat your way through them? I don't get it.

I´m upset when people get told that our views are different, but they cannot accept that and keep hassling us to accept their viewpoint!

That could be true, but your videos are so horribly played that it can also trick viewers into thinking you need inhuman reflexes and dexterity to play the games, which could make them never want to try it themselves. Whereas if they watch someone who actually has some understanding of the game play it, they might think it looks fun and doable. Really makes u think!

Yeah it really makes me think that this discussion was just a giant waste of time, so thanks for confirming that!
I will continue making horrible videos, and you will continue hating my guts - have fun

[iconoclast]

TAS videos are cheated too. Who the hell is saying they aren't? The draw for a TAS is to see a game pushed to its limit, or how broken it can get with bugs or something. I don't really know because I'm not interested in TAS either. But those videos are clearly labeled, so there's no issue. For example, if someone commented on this video and said hey, you cheated to get that score, I think he'd probably respond with yeah, no shit. I don't think he'd come here and start writing walls of cope about how his community has a different definition of cheating. But maybe I'm wrong.

Longplay isn't even a real word. It conveys nothing to a potential viewer besides maybe the full game is being played in one long video. It doesn't imply cheats are rampantly being used at every possible moment, and nothing you're seeing would be relevant to how the game is actually played. As soon as you see TAS or 1CC in a title, though, it explains exactly what the video will be (provided you know what the acronyms stand for.

I'm not demanding you follow anything, or that you remove anything. I also don't watch WOL videos. Upload whatever you want, it doesn't matter to me one bit. But the fact is that those videos are cheated. If you don't like people saying that, then stop cheating! I seriously don't understand the issue. You cheat, people say you cheat, then you get mad that they say you cheat (because most people watching don't realize it?). ????????? The solution to your frustration is pretty clear, imo.

[MJR]

You cheat, people say you cheat, then you get mad that they say you cheat (because most people watching don't realize it?). ????????? The solution to your frustration is pretty clear, imo.

Does "people" mean everyone in the internet or just a few guys in a shmups forum ?

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

• It's cheating. It doesn't use bugs or modify the game code. So it's just cheating that looks legit (more or less).

• The point you could make is that it being legit or not is irrelevant. Don't try to question the definition of legit though, you are objectively wrong.

• Longplay is not only a vague term but has nothing to do with the use of cheats, people won't assume anything other than there being gameplay from it.

(My stance on what should be done remains lax. Bla bla, tag, intro...but I cannot let such a silly defense go undisputed. Plz don't dig your own hole sch)

[DMC]

You can define cheating in terms of the game's inherent rules or what rules the competetive community/record authority have put forward. For instance, Using external autofire to some old shmup is cheating in the former meaning but not in the second insofar as the competetive community has come to a consensus that using external autofire is okay. Since Schlauchi & others are not part of the competitive community (e.g., do not submit scores to restartsyndrom or this forum, maybe Schlauchi will now that you're here! ) they are not cheaters in this second definition. Youtube is not some official shmups hi-score database either so I think they do not need to care about our rules.

I guess they mainly need to care about the ethical responsibility to their viewers and then I think a single sentence in the video description like they do is pretty sufficient. As soon as "save state" is mentioned you know they did not follow the game's inherent rules or the rules of the competitive community. My suggestion would be something a bit more transparent like:

WoL's mission is to showcase an extensive catalog of video game content. Recognizing that mastering some games can take years of practice, WoL occasionally employs external tools to expedite this process. These tools include save states and slowed-down gameplay, which is sped up again during rendering to present the game at its original frame rate.

I also think asking them to put it in their title is asking a bit much. It's not like our favorite soda drinks are called Coca Cola Extreme Sugar and Coca Cola Aspartame. A line in the video description is sufficient imo, it's just video games and youtube, more entertainment than anything.

Edit: My gripe with these famous longplay youtubers (particularly Shadowserg) is that they sometimes play the games in such poor way that they are somewhat misrepresenting the games' identites and strengths. For example, in Soukyugurentai, Shadowserg seemed to have completely missed the third button, which would have allowed him to use the strongest attack in the game, pinpoint. In fact, Shadowserg does not use the lock-on weapon at all despite it being the central weapon of the game. The game developers so clearly designed the game surrounding this weapon, you can see it highlighted in the demo, the flyer, instructions, and the risk/reward scoring system. Not showing this weapon makes Soukyu look like a more generic, bland shmup than it is. I think as long as these content creators took the time to get the basics of the game, I would not have much of an issue. Slowed-down/sped up reaction dodges has lead to some funny memes on top of that, which I hope they are not too offended by!

Another thought is that our community should have been able to put up a similar channel that could be up there with WoL, Paul Eales, and Shadowserg in terms of the Youtube alghoritm, instead of complaining too much about their channels, but we have failed to so. Like an official system 11 youtube channel with runs submitted to this hi score forum or a restart syndrome youtube channel. Jaimers is getting there on his own though, extremely high quality channel that seems to advance steadily in the alghoritm!

[pegboy]

TAS videos are cheated too. Who the hell is saying they aren't? The draw for a TAS is to see a game pushed to its limit, or how broken it can get with bugs or something. I don't really know because I'm not interested in TAS either. But those videos are clearly labeled, so there's no issue. For example, if someone commented on this video and said hey, you cheated to get that score, I think he'd probably respond with yeah, no shit. I don't think he'd come here and start writing walls of cope about how his community has a different definition of cheating. But maybe I'm wrong.

Longplay isn't even a real word. It conveys nothing to a potential viewer besides maybe the full game is being played in one long video. It doesn't imply cheats are rampantly being used at every possible moment, and nothing you're seeing would be relevant to how the game is actually played. As soon as you see TAS or 1CC in a title, though, it explains exactly what the video will be (provided you know what the acronyms stand for.

I'm not demanding you follow anything, or that you remove anything. I also don't watch WOL videos. Upload whatever you want, it doesn't matter to me one bit. But the fact is that those videos are cheated. If you don't like people saying that, then stop cheating! I seriously don't understand the issue. You cheat, people say you cheat, then you get mad that they say you cheat (because most people watching don't realize it?). ????????? The solution to your frustration is pretty clear, imo.

Yeah what a world he must live in where using the most extreme and powerful cheating tools possible does not constitute cheating.

I know pearl does TAS from time to time and nobody around here is calling him a cheater because he labels all his stuff very clearly. Oh and his TAS videos also take effort and demonstrate an understanding of the game unlike the low effort fakes made by wol.

[Andrey Aritonov]

Use enormous save and loading 199 \ / 16 / \
Any official

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

Use enormous save and loading 199 \ / 16 / \
Any official

Cheating scandals in the shmup forums?!

[Some-Mist]

it's not like he's posting scores and anyone who knows the genre can tell it's not legit
at worst case it's slightly misleading with the only downside being people who are new to the genre might not recognize they're tas runs, but if they are interested in getting started they can always come here to learn how the mechanics work and how to play legit

I'd imagine if you posted "these aren't legit runs" in the comments of his videos, people would probably downvote you or say "who cares?" and you'd look kinda like a jerk lol

[marus]

WoL's mission is to showcase an extensive catalog of video game content. Recognizing that mastering some games can take years of practice, WoL occasionally employs external tools to expedite this process. These tools include save states and slowed-down gameplay, which is sped up again during rendering to present the game at its original frame rate.

If only there was a concise and widely accepted acronym that conveyed that information. Perhaps it could begin with a T, and be only 3 letters so you can fit it in the video title?

[To Far Away Times]

WoL's mission is to showcase an extensive catalog of video game content. Recognizing that mastering some games can take years of practice, WoL occasionally employs external tools to expedite this process. These tools include save states and slowed-down gameplay, which is sped up again during rendering to present the game at its original frame rate.

If only there was a concise and widely accepted acronym that conveyed that information. Perhaps it could begin with a T, and be only 3 letters so you can fit it in the video title?

A TAS is supposed to be an optimal speed run done at or beyond human limits. A demonstration of what’s theoretically possible. They’re often done by some of the best legit speed runners who are looking for optimizations.

Long plays don’t come with a promise of optimized gameplay, just something that is presentable. And they have a disclaimer in the video description that most videos use save states.

[DMC]

WoL's mission is to showcase an extensive catalog of video game content. Recognizing that mastering some games can take years of practice, WoL occasionally employs external tools to expedite this process. These tools include save states and slowed-down gameplay, which is sped up again during rendering to present the game at its original frame rate.

If only there was a concise and widely accepted acronym that conveyed that information. Perhaps it could begin with a T, and be only 3 letters so you can fit it in the video title?

A TAS is supposed to be an optimal speed run done at or beyond human limits. A demonstration of what’s theoretically possible. They’re often done by some of the best legit speed runners who are looking for optimizations.

Long plays don’t come with a promise of optimized gameplay, just something that is presentable. And they have a disclaimer in the video description that most videos use save states.

Tool-assisted longplay (TAL)? I guess WoL is big enough to popularize that acronym if they wanted to by appending "(TAL)" in the title or write "tool-assisted longplay" in the first line of the description---being progressive and leaving Paul Eales and others behind. But I still think a more transparent text anywhere in the text is fine. It's just Youtube.

[Some-Mist]

why does anyone care though? he's not dethroning any of our scores or records, and it shouldn't be discouraging anyone going for a legitimate clear.
i feel like there's a gigantic difference between the perikles scores and longplays. although I understand being upset at the perikles situation, it still doesn't bug me because he's doesn't get the satisfaction of the feeling of actually having achieved those records if he cheated.

I went to garcade near milwaukee last weekend (only for stern pinball), and they had a cab that they hold a weekly tournament on and if you pass one of the top 3 scores you get a free soda. the game they were playing that week was blazing star, and even though I didn't know how the scoring worked, I went at it seeing the 3rd place score was 600k (lmao). I nabbed it on my second try and didn't realize an employee was watching even though it was facing the register with a huge sun glare on the screen, and I got a dr pepper on the house from it. my score sucked, but it still felt good

[marus]

A TAS is supposed to be an optimal speed run done at or beyond human limits. A demonstration of what’s theoretically possible. They’re often done by some of the best legit speed runners who are looking for optimizations.

That just means they're boring TASes.

But I still think a more transparent text anywhere in the text is fine. It's just Youtube.

Yeah I mean ultimately I don't care that much if someone uploads cheated runs to Youtube. I'm just finding the direction this thread took really funny and so I'm poking fun, haha.

[DietSoap]

Calling them "longplay" or "playthrough" is fine.

[Wooph]

I don't really care that much one way or the other, but if someone presents what they call a "longplay" or a "playthrough", the general expectation to me is that the person is just playing the game normally. If artificial slowdown and savestates were used, it makes sense to call them "tool assisted playthroughs" or "tool assisted longplays".