I, too, am for keeping the clones, but not ALL clones. The ones that
are identical shouldn't be included. In that case, I think only the
"main" version should count. A good criterium for determining if two
clones are identical is by creating an inp on one and seeing if it
plays back correctly on the other. Yes, I know that MAME stores the
name of the romset in the inp, but that's easy enough to change when
testing if it plays back on another clone. For instance, although I
haven't tested any of this yet (and forgive me for bringing Crazy Kong
up again, but it's just about the only game I play), I am pretty sure
that the inps created by ckongalc and monkeyd (I'd call this version
"Crazy Kong") are interchangeable, and I am pretty sure the
same holds for ckong, ckonga, ckongjeu, and ckongo (I'd call this
version "Crazy Kong II"). ckongs, dkong, and dkongjp are all distinct
versions. This would at least cut the number of CK/DK variants down
from 9 to 5.
<p>
As for minimum scores/points: Perhaps some script could be written
that is run once a week or so and that purges the system from
submissions with too few points. Obviously, submissions that have 0
points can always be removed, and as long as a submission doesn't take
a top 3 spot, points that are below a certain number (5 or 10 sounds
good to me too), should be removed then too. Sure, people may be very
proud of their achievements, but, as said before, nobody really will
download those, so the proud people should just keep the recordings
for themselves (hey, maybe even put those on their own websites).
<p>
I also agree that games for which a maximum can relatively easily be
reached (so that would not include Pacman) should be excluded. I have
actually changed my scores for those games to 0 on the leaderboard.
Now if only Zwaxy would simply delete the files...
<p>
Pattern games should be kept in. To some extent at least, lots and
lots of games are pattern games. Most people have learnt those
patterns the hard way (using trial and error while spending lots of
time, money, effort, ...), and even if they hadn't, then still it
requires skill to master the patterns. Pacman has been discussed so
often and for so long, and patterns that work are common knowledge.
But it still requires skill, and I think the fact that a perfect score
on Pacman is so rarely achieved is proof of that. The same goes for
those other games. If Steve Krogman scores over 20M points on Galaga,
and his inps are readily available, then why aren't there lots and
lots more of multi-million point Galaga submissions? Because it still
requires skill.
<p>
I think that limiting the number of submissions per individual per day
is not going to work. People can too easily just save the surplus for
a day on which they will not reach the maximum number...
<p>
In addition to the point limit, there could also be a position limit.
Keep only the top 10 scores or something for each game. Let's face it,
nobody is going to download the number 17 recording. BUT... I have
sometimes downloaded a recording that wasn't one of the top scores
because the recordings for the top scores wouldn't play back on my
version of MAME. I know that on my .35 version of MAME32, I can't play
back any inps created on .34 or earlier versions (or even some of the
.35 beta versions). And downloading an earlier version of MAME doesn't
always work either, since lots of the roms have been renamed, and it's
extremely hard to find older romsets. I don't know exactly what the
solution is... as long as the emulation itself hasn't changed, a
conversion tool (that converts older inps to a format that can be
played back on newer versions of MAME) can easily be written. I may
actually do that because there are some recordings created on earlier
versions of MAME that I'd like to see and can't because I don't have
those earlier versions and because my romsets don't work with those
earlier versions. And I'm not even talking about merged romsets.
<p>
Just my thoughts.
Cheers,
Ben Jos.
--
walbeehm@walbeehm.com
) .
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