There's been a lot of misunderstanding here. A lot of epithets have been thrown around. A few people tried carefully reading the rules, but the official approach of the site remained unclear to the participants.
First and foremost, we want our content to look impressive, entertaining, superhuman.
Second, in addition to that, we also want our content to be done as fast as possible within the imposed conditions.
Third, we try to make decisions that are solid, consider all the known factors, can be used as a future reference, highlight and clarify our official stance.
Our rules try to fulfill these requirements and to set the direction for the site and for TASers.
Our audience is broader than one might think. Just like there are open-minded and contemporary RTA people who allow internal cheat codes, there are purists who prefer things to be played as legitimately as possible. There are also people who don't really know what TAS is, but happen to find it amusing. On top of that there are tons of ignorant strangers who just want to scream out that TASing
is by definition cheating and must not be respected.
Our duty is to host this hobby and to protect it from unreasonable accusations. Legitimacy is not an absolute scale, you can look legitimate for some people, and not for others. We try to look legitimate to as many people as possible, and upon partial analysis, this legitimacy must persist.
For this reason, we ban cheats that simply make the game easier for the sake of it. There are actually lots of cases when we do allow cheats, it's the absolute opposite of a blanket rule.
We allow codes if they:
- Unlock a harder difficulty mode
- Unlock a level set
- Unlock a character
- Unlock other similar means of playing the game in unusual way
- Unlock something that just has to be unlocked for full completion
- Make the game generally more appealing, as long as parts of the game are not skipped
- Are mentioned in the manual or directly suggested by the game as a means of normal play
But we do not allow blatant cheats that just give you unfair advantage.
[2558] SNES Super Metroid "GT code, game end glitch" by amaurea, Cpadolf, total in 14:52.88 was allowed because it uses GT code to access a game breaking glitch which results in play dramatically harder than in any other SM TAS branch. And in the end, it was extremely entertaining to the general audience.
[1296] SNES Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts by Ferret Warlord in 17:03.00 was allowed because the game consists of 2 loops that are identical, except the second one is harder and is the only way to access the final boss. So in general, it simply unlocks the harder mode (and a boss).
[2059] SNES Mega Man X "password glitch" by FractalFusion in 16:56.88 was allowed because 1) there's no real password that's supposed to be doing this, it's just a glitch in the password system itself, 2) gameplay dramatically changes to something that can't be seen in other MMX branches, 3) the game becomes harder, 4) the result, even though controversial, is still entertaining to the general audience.
[802] SNES Biker Mice from Mars "final round" by Baxter in 05:12.62 was accepted just because it was ridiculously entertaining. It was the old judging system, no Vault existed, rules weren't too strict, because TASing wasn't so popular, and not enough edge cases existed to demand stricter rules. If that movie was submitted today, people would unlikely find it too entertaining. Back then it appeared like a bolt from the blue, and people didn't mind the codes after seeing how cool it looked. Much like
[1572] SNES Top Gear 2 by Dooty in 11:50.62, though that one wasn't as entertaining. The idea about these 2 movies is that they can't serve as precedents. The lack of proper judgment indicates that.
As for this submission, check it against the above and answer the question whether it can be published here or not (and why), by yourself.
