To milk or not to milk - that is the question

[BeeJay]

Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows..... oops wrong board....
<p>

I see that I'm one of many who have been "pinged" for milking points in Discs of Tron. While I can't comment on the other recordings since I have not watched them I thought I would examine my example of milking. In my case I happened to be lucky enough to stun Sark and then keep stunning him anther 5-8 times. In all it took 25 seconds to dispatch the first Sark of "Stage 1" and a total of 40 seconds to dispatch both Sarks from "Stage 1".

<p>

I guess the real question is was this really milking/points leeching? By our new definitions of this subject it falls well within the bounds of the suggested < 60 seconds and 2 lives. More to the point on some of the later levels where it's desperately frantic trying to even hit Sark you can spend a considerable length of time trying to destroy his disks, chasers etc just to avoid being killed yourself and I would hate for this to also be considered milking.

<p>

In my particular case it really makes no difference to me because it did not alter my position on this game anyway so I'm really just bringing this up for discussion. But as the Judge co-ordinator, Pat does of course have the final say.

<p>

BeeJay.

--
bjohnstone@cardinal.co.nz

[Pat]

This was a subjective call for me, but eventually decided something
had to be done about it. I wouldn't consider what you did leeching,
but you got lucky and milked pointed and knew you were doing so. In
later levels when you split discs it is really self-defense and you
are not really trying to gain easy points. Your milking was different
from 3 others that also got penalized. In the other cases, the player
waited for 15 (!) discs to be tossed and subsequently split. In your
case your gain was 8 stuns * 200 for 1600 pts. The other 3 cases was
15 disc splits * 100 for 1500. I decided to deduct 1000 points from
all 4 recordings. Note that ROUGH's recording of 110700 has been
DQ'ed for points leeching. He purposely did not move the mouse and
used this to his full advantage. Just check his game which is now in
last place with 0 points.

--
laffaye@ibm.net

[Mark Longridge]

I just thought I would add my own 2 cents on point leeching...
<p>

In my opinion, in certain games like Black Tiger, which has a
built-in timer, and an unavoidable ending, I can live with point
leeching. I can also live with it in games like Frogger, Dig Dug,
and most of the Williams games. The programmers for Williams did
a good job of having the game itself discourage point leeching.

<p>

About the only time I would have a big problem with point leeching,
is outrageous leeching like in Ghosts and Ghouls where the timer
has been run around and you are in "negative time". So you kill
zombies all day. This is a major flaw in the game, and it doesn't
take much skill to do. Most games to a decent job of not letting this
happen.

<p>

Another example, when Dwayne Richard set the new Dig Dug world record
on the actual arcade machine, he ate a lot of the dirt on a lot of
screens. Would this be considering point leeching? I think not.

<p>

Mark

--
cubeman@iname.com

[Aquatarkus]

I'd like a better definition on this from Pat and Mark, so I'm going
to describe some quasi-fictional games of Super Mario Brothers to see
what the thoughts are.

<p>

1. Player grabs every availible point possible without stalling, and
finishes the game on his first life. He takes the most point rich
path at every tube, breaks every reasonable brick, grabs all the
bonus items & coins on the way, etc.. He doesn't take any warp zones,
and he doesn't use the "turtle on the stairs" trick.

<p>

2. Player sacrifices each spare life on the last stage (8-4) before
finishing with 1 life left.

<p>

3. Variation of #2, except that the player elects to sacrifice lives
on a more point rich stage instead of getting to 8-4 first.

<p>

4. Player uses the warp zone to head to the "minus world" ( -1). This
stage is an unending loop which, although reasonably challenging,
allows sufficient coins to be gathered to gain an extra life before
the timer runs out. Maximum score is reached before quitting... after
what seems like years of endless swimming

<p>

5. Player uses the "turtle on the stairs" trick. If you stun either
a turtle or a beetle on a staircase, it is possible to bounce on it
repeatedly until the timer runs out. The bounces cycle through 100,
200, 400, 800, 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000, 1UP (extra life) if my memory
serves correctly. There's a real danger of rolling over the lives
counter Maximum score is reached before moving on to inevitably
finish the game.

<p>

Aqua

--
aquatarkus@digicron.com