Rules and why's?

[dskys]

yep, it's a newbie asking loads of inane questions, and yes, I'm too lazy to trawl through hundreds of threads to find the answers

Some of these might be a lil stoopid, so bear with me please

1. How can pausing vastly improve your score in [insert game]... I only play a handful of games regularly, and apart from arkanoid (which is nearly impossible anyway without a proper controller) I can't see a benefit. (I regularly pause, to make food, drinks etc - doesn't mean I'm gonna be cheating )

2. I read in the AlphaMame hacked thread that scores with other Mames are blocked? But there are loads of scores done with other versions uploaded :/

Not loads of questions after all hehe, help appreciated tho

dskys

[Mr. Kelly R. Flewin]

1. How can pausing vastly improve your score in [insert game]... I only play a handful of games regularly, and apart from arkanoid (which is nearly impossible anyway without a proper controller) I can't see a benefit. (I regularly pause, to make food, drinks etc - doesn't mean I'm gonna be cheating )

Wellllllll this is rather obvious... Pausing = Cheating... no way around that. Do you see a pause feature on any game at your local arcade? No... why would there be? [And it's not like it's gonna stop someone from unpausing it the second you're gone and taking over your game, or killing it off] That destroys the spirit of the game. Now if you're just playing around, not recording... well that's a bit different... but still ruins the spirit of the game.. but in that regard it'd be like a console then... If you DO record and use Pause though...

2. I read in the AlphaMame hacked thread that scores with other Mames are blocked? But there are loads of scores done with other versions uploaded :/

Well before this "incident", essentially Alphamame was THE version to use, as with the removal of the pause function and such, it nullified most chances/opportunities or someone to cheat and allowed it to act more like a true Arcade setting. Of course there were a lot of people who either never read the forums [hence didn't know about this policy] or just plain didn't care... [and in some cases there's the language barrier too, which leads to understandable confusion] and just went on as normal. Now that Alphamame's issue has come to where it is... well... anything goes... it's just the hope people use WolfMame now so as to emulate an arcade setting as best as possible and allow their recording to be seen as legitimate as possible... [Not saying that people using other versions aren't doing legit recordings either though... or assuming this either]

Hope that kinda helps...


Kelly

[dskys]

hmmm

kinda see what you mean, but I can't think of an example of how pausing will help you in a game i'm not being funny, just i can't think of one heheh :/

If i need to pee i need to pee; i could end my game or i can pause it and resume, at the same stage and points i was at - every other 'sport' gets a break of some kind - i see no problem, enlighten me

[LN2]

1. How can pausing vastly improve your score in [insert game]...(I regularly pause, to make food, drinks etc - doesn't mean I'm gonna be cheating )

Could you pause the arcade game and go get something to eat and rest your eyes etc. then resume whenever you felt like it? I don't think so.

MARP and also TG both want games in MAME to be played in the spirit of the arcade....which means no pausing.

As far as an advantage....to reach some of these scores, you need to play the game for several hours...so endurance becomes part of the test as well. There are some games where many can play it for 30-60 minutes but then beyond that breakdown and lose their men...where others have just a little more skill so either have more men for later or have it where even as they tire a little bit their playing skill level is still adequate enough to get through levels etc. Players start to make mistakes as time passes. Often not so much physical endurance as it is a mental one.

If you allowed pausing, then you take that aspect of playing away. It allows you to rest and come back fresh...even if that rest was only for 5 minutes. Sure, for many games it likely really doesn't matter...but for many it does. It's easiest to have a policy stating no pausing...period.

Plus, what about the games with time involved? You could pause and take all the time you want to figure things out...then unpause and quickly enter your input to successfully complete it. It destroys the whole challenge of the game which really comes with the timer.

2. I read in the AlphaMame hacked thread that scores with other Mames are blocked? But there are loads of scores done with other versions uploaded :/

The blocking policy was only for mame scores submitted after March 3, 2003. The tons of other mame scores you are seeing are mostly from prior to March 3, 2003. However, with the recent hacking of alphamame I think the blocking is no more. Wolfmame seems to be what PC players are using now.

[dskys]

1. How can pausing vastly improve your score in [insert game]...(I regularly pause, to make food, drinks etc - doesn't mean I'm gonna be cheating )

Could you pause the arcade game and go get something to eat and rest your eyes etc. then resume whenever you felt like it? I don't think so.

MARP and also TG both want games in MAME to be played in the spirit of the arcade....which means no pausing.

As far as an advantage....to reach some of these scores, you need to play the game for several hours...so endurance becomes part of the test as well. There are some games where many can play it for 30-60 minutes but then beyond that breakdown and lose their men...where others have just a little more skill so either have more men for later or have it where even as they tire a little bit their playing skill level is still adequate enough to get through levels etc. Players start to make mistakes as time passes. Often not so much physical endurance as it is a mental one.

If you allowed pausing, then you take that aspect of playing away. It allows you to rest and come back fresh...even if that rest was only for 5 minutes. Sure, for many games it likely really doesn't matter...but for many it does. It's easiest to have a policy stating no pausing...period.

Plus, what about the games with time involved? You could pause and take all the time you want to figure things out...then unpause and quickly enter your input to successfully complete it. It destroys the whole challenge of the game which really comes with the timer.

2. I read in the AlphaMame hacked thread that scores with other Mames are blocked? But there are loads of scores done with other versions uploaded :/

The blocking policy was only for mame scores submitted after March 3, 2003. The tons of other mame scores you are seeing are mostly from prior to March 3, 2003. However, with the recent hacking of alphamame I think the blocking is no more. Wolfmame seems to be what PC players are using now.

Valid points on q1 - my pov was that it doesnt affect all games, but you co vered that

Gues i'll have to strategically time my loo breaks or stop drinking

one day i'll do a worthy score...

another stoooooopid q!

how do i upload (does upload mean email?)

[MJS]

Pause should not be allowed not only for endurance reasons, but also because of puzzle games (try for example logic pro).

[Buttermaker]

another stoooooopid q!

how do i upload (does upload mean email?)

You click on Submit.

[dskys]

another stoooooopid q!

how do i upload (does upload mean email?)

You click on Submit.

:/ wheeere @STUPIDADI

[dskys]

OH GOD!!! ignore last post (i leave it unedited so i look stoopid is ok )

[AL]

Ehh , excuse me , but pausing does not mean cheating . OK , ye can't pause on an arcade machine , thats because you can't .

This however , is MAME . Not arcade .

If I play a game ( at home ) , and the fucking Police decide to raid some geezers down the road ( or whatever ) , and I press pause . That makes me a cheater ? BS

I know pausing can be a help in some games , but not all .

But for Tournaments ( which try to replicate Arcade conditions ) , pausing should not be allowed .

Just don't call people who pause a game " cheaters"

Thank you ,

AL

[LN2]

If I play a game ( at home ) , and the fucking Police decide to raid some geezers down the road ( or whatever ) , and I press pause . That makes me a cheater ? BS

No, it doesn't...but it would be grounds to DQ your score. It's unfortunate...but think it would have to be that way.

Just don't call people who pause a game " cheaters"

I don't think he meant it in that way. He means "cheater" cuz you didn't follow the rules....that simple...nothing personal.

He means if you pause the game, then the score isn't accepted by MARP or TG. This is a competitive site....people competing to set scores. It's not just a showcase of scores. If all it was was a showcase but no records etc. then I would agree pausing is fine....then let someone make a 100 million q*bert run over a few weeks...

I don't think anyone really has an interest in that though.

There would be many games where you could set signficantly higher scores by allowing pausing.

If you allow pausing in scores at all then you have an open door for people to make excuses why they paused. I doubt anyone wants the headache of having to judge each case of that and make a decision.

As I said above...it's easier to just say, no pausing...period. Then there are no judgement calls...or decisions to make. The gamer understands this before they even play.

Unfortunate things happen that can definitely spoil a record attempt...or even DQ a new record. Just consider it a bad rub of the green.

[Q.T.Quazar]

The debate at MARP about pausing has only been connected to cheating because some players were using it to pause games to answer questions, plan moves in drop or puzzle games, etc. etc.

I think there was a big public admission about this over the scores on Gun Dealer, which still haven't been wiped, but now that we don't have a secure AlphaMAME it doesn't really matter anyway.

What most of this thread has been about, pausing vs. spirit of arcade machine, doesn't have anything to do with cheating. We had decided a long time ago that this wasn't a major issue for anyone except the marathon gamers, which are a small percentage of the total .inps here. Those players, who are all fairly well-known, are not the kind that are going to pause during their games anyway, due to personal skill/pride/etc. So this was never really a problem. Nobody will gain an advantage against them anyways, since they'remostly playing against themselves at MARP.

hope this clears things up a bit.

[LN2]

The debate at MARP about pausing has only been connected to cheating because some players were using it to pause games to answer questions, plan moves in drop or puzzle games, etc. etc.

For those types of games I easily would say that's cheating at the game..cuz you have removed the element of the timer....and pressure to do a move etc. in a very limited period of time. The use of pause there has actually changed the gameplay. That is cheating.

However, even for games where that element doesn't really exist...like Tapper or Nibbler, pausing can still benefit the player a lot by giving them a rest period. You can only go so long on games like those before you start to break down physically from finger cramps or mentally from being hungry or tired. I had a great Tapper run going just last week getting 400k on 1 man at 1 stretch and wanted to reach 3 million before stopping but fatigue was already getting to me where my timing was a little off which resulted in losing men and making silly mistakes I wasn't making when fresh...ending my game at 2.7 million.

If I was allowed to pause and take a 15-30 minute break at around 1.8 million when I still had 8 men built-up, I likely could have resumed and repeated that process over and over and gotten 10+ million if I wanted to stretch it out that far.

That's totally not fair to someone that plays the game as designed...no pause..except the little breaks you get for the can game intermission...that you can use as a "break" instead of getting the 3k...that buys you about 20 seconds of breaktime...enough to sip a drink or take bite of sandwich or just quickly stretch.
Endurance is part of the game there. I likely would need to improve my skill at that game a bit more so even when I start getting a little off I'm still able to complete levels without dying very often.

Those players, who are all fairly well-known, are not the kind that are going to pause during their games anyway, due to personal skill/pride/etc. So this was never really a problem.

I generally agree with this....but even stopping for 5-10 minutes during the middle of only a 1-2 hour game can do wonders for keeping you "fresh"....going to bathroom...eating meal...drink...whatever.

That shouldn't be allowed....unless the game just runs and progresses on it's own during your absence of break.

[tmorrow]

Round and round we go ...

I've never liked the argument that pausing is cheating because you couldn't do it in the arcade - it doesn't adequately explain the situtation.

Unless you were playing a cocktail cabinet, you couldn't sit down either, does that mean that all MAME inp's require the player to stand up for the entire game too?

You don't get pushed, distracted by other, have smoke blown in your face, inadequate lighting, sticky chewing gum all over, broken controls, lose all your pocket money, nagged by others to hurry up, have your game turned off in the middle because someone pulled the plug, etc. All these things are part of the "true" arcade experience.

I don't recall using a keyboard and mouse to control my game either in the arcades.

Emulation is not the arcade, though it is as close as you can get without owning a genuine cabinet. The rules on MARP are put in place to ensure fairness wherever possible and to remain as true to the arcade experience as is practical. The only exception to this is the rules regarding leeching, which go against what you could do in the arcades but are put in placed to keep everyone's sanity. Noone wants to watch a 200hr gng leech in stage 3 because life it too short. Trapping a water bubble in stage 98 of bubble bobble and earning 10 million points shooting bubbles against a wall "just because you can" doesn't mean you should.

The entire point of the "no pausing rule" is to set a level playing field so noone has an unfair advantage, simple as that. Clearly the choice was "no pause" as opposed to "pausing allowed" because it is the option that is closer to the "arcade experience".

As expained by others, pausing can be used to advantage to different extents depending on the game. But pausing isn't cheating anymore than sitting down to play your game or using the keyboard is cheating. It's only cheating because we've voted in a rule here on MARP that says you can't.

[mahlemiut]

Noone wants to watch a 200hr gng leech in stage 3 because life it too short. Trapping a water bubble in stage 98 of bubble bobble and earning 10 million points shooting bubbles against a wall "just because you can" doesn't mean you should.

Actually, it's round 97 that has no time limit. And it's too late, someone has already done that. Damn boring to watch too.

To me, pausing on many games just totally defeats the purpose of a time limit.