forums.marpirc.net

I'm also going to make THIS the golden thread to argue the rules. Everyone has the chance to argue the rules, here are some key rules that NEED to be debated. Deadline is October 28th, 2359 GMT
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A. And most importantly... what DIP Settings will we use? A lot of people are saying hardest settings, but I think TG settings except "marathon games"(then hardest settings) would do quite well. What do you think of this latest idea?

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B. What version of mame should we use? Should we just go with the straight latest version of mame, or should we have the appropriate games go to MAME 35 FINAL and the latest games to the latest beta? I'm neutral here... so you decide!

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C. Do you want to keep the scoring system? I still say yes... due to the fact that it can get very close no matter what you do.

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D. Any other rules you wish to argue? Please do!

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The rules page has been updated today - please look it over, then make your opinion - I'm all ears!

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Thanks for reading - C ya!

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goldengameboy@yahoo.com

A. TG settings if they are already availible, hardest otherwise.
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What I'm suggesting is that if there aren't settings already listed
on Mark Longridge's site or on twingalaxies.com for a game that makes
the final cut, that we use the hardest difficulty settings and
suggest they be made the TG Emulated settings for the game.

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B. Must playback in MAME .35 final or .36 final, unless it will only
play back in a version previous to .35 final. This allows Carnival
and some others with problems, but keeps the tournament choices out
of the beta rush.

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C. Yes.

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Aqua

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aquatarkus@digicron.com

I thought of another big issue we should talk about(sorry Aqua )
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D. Is the minimum games requirement too tight or should it be
loosened to say 6 games to qualify / 7 or 8 games to keep voting?
I'm neutral... but I will go no lower than 6 games to qualify / 7
games to keep voting... probably

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goldengameboy@yahoo.com

I think it states in the voting rules that if two clones compete with
each other the one with the highest points wins out. This is good,
but it doesn't state that cloned games should combine points and if
the combined score gets into the tourney, then the highest voted clone
will be the game entered into the tourney. i.e. ghosts+goblins was
voted with 6 pts by david oliver, and ghouls+ghosts was voted 9 by
me. They are clones so does the vote for the clone set get 15 points
and if that is high enough to be in the tourney then the ghouls+ghosts
would be entered as the game?

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I think combining clone games in the score is fair only because we
don't allow one person to vote for more than one clone of a game.

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(the only reason i voted for ghouls instead of gng was because i
didn't think there was a way to points leech, but if gng wins
obviously there would be some need for points leech judging.) If
combining clone scores isn't going to happen then i'd vote for gng
instead.

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churritz@cts.com

One of the rules says:
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"There will be no excessive points leeching in any game. It is to the
judge's discretion to determine wheater [sic] a game is
points leeching or not. However, the Judge Coordinator will have the
right to overrule the judge."

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Can you be a little more specific than just the word "excessive"? For
instance, I used to like the game Kangaroo, until I saw how the 200k
scores on MARP were reached. The first one only made it to round 3,
the second to round 4. I have played regular (no point leeching) games
myself reaching round 4 and had only 60k or so. So... where do you
draw the line? Based on my Kangaroo example, would 70k (10k
leeched) be permitted? Maybe you can express it in a percentage of the
total score?

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Ben Jos.

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walbeehm@walbeehm.com

I like Chad's "combine clones" idea. But if clones are not combined in
the voting, then perhaps the people who see that the clone they voted
for is going to lose to another clone, could change their vote by
replacing the clone they originally voted for by the more popular one
(hint, hint)...

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Ben Jos.

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walbeehm@walbeehm.com

I'll talk about the combining clones idea first. I think that's a
good idea - shoulda put it down. I.E. if somebody mentions a clone,
or a unique game that's actually a clone(i.e. Crazy Kong = Donkey
Kong, and Super Sprint = Championship Sprint), then we'll combine
those votes, infusing them into the main game. Now you can't vote a
game as a 10 pointer, then it's clone as a 9 pointer, then another
clone, 8 points.(we haven't had that problem yet)

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The rule states that if a game is SIMILAR IN GAMEPLAY then the one
with more points passes... this leads to my bad news: Ghouls N'
Ghosts is NOT a clone of Ghosts N' Goblins. Ghouls was made in '88,
Ghosts made in '85. The gameplay is different enough to disqualify
it from clone status. Then again... I guess the players can make an
exception to this ruling if they want... and make ghouls a "clone" of
ghosts... though I bet people will come up and mention the same thing
for regulation competition... I don't know. Do you want to make it
a "clone" chad(you'd have to get more players to back you up though),
or change your vote to Ghosts N' Goblins?

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Heck... maybe the whole rule should be changed and say those that are
very similar in gameplay should be combined... but then again...
hangon and outrun would be combined... they are both "checkpoint"
racing games... it would be really subjective for us to determine.

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As for the points leeching thing... I really couldn't determine how
much points leaching could be over the line at the time I made that
rule. I guess if you start leeching for more than 60 seconds or two
lives or something that's a violation. I'm not too sure of a
concreate number... this is why I said it was the judge's
discretion... anyone want to contribute to this conversation?

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Thanks for reading

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goldengameboy@yahoo.com

I've made an opinion on the version rule - I think we should use the
latest beta period. Why? Nowadays, recordings now have frame-by-
frame playbacks... pause the game, then hit Shift+P to proceed by one
frame. This would be very important to see if autofire was used
especially if they are separated by three frames or less.(or .05
seconds if it was 60 fps)

--
goldengameboy@yahoo.com

Re: Point leeching
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OK, if you say that leeching for more than 60 seconds or 2 lives or
more is a violation, then I don't think it's entirely fair. My example
probably is more or less an exceptional situation (i.e. this situation
would not occur very often at all in point leeching), but it can still
happen:

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In my Donkey Kong (US) MARP submission, I reached L=21 on my first
life. I knew that there was a forced ending to the game at L=22, and I
also knew that if I would just go to L=22 and lose all four of my
lives there, I would not earn many points. So on various levels at
L=21, I lost a life on purpose after leeching some points. The total
of the extra points I got this way was less than 20000 points.

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Or another example: Getting the perfect score on Pacman also violates
both the 60 seconds rule and 2 lives rule...

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The points I am trying to make here:
- If somebody were to get in a similar situation while recording for
the tournament, should he just basically stop playing even though he
had several lives left?
- Yes, I leeched using more than 2 lives and for more than 60 seconds,
but the total number of points I got this way was only around TWO
PERCENT of my total, final, score.
- If TG settings are used, and TG doesn't disallow leeching, and
people want to have a chance of having their tournament submissions be
considered for the next edition of the TG book, then... (fill in the
blank).

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I guess the best of both worlds is my following proposition:
Basically, the 60 seconds / 2 lives (or however it gets finalised)
rule applies, with the exception that, for games that come to a real
(which does not include finishing a "round", however long that round
is; I am talking about a real "Game Over" situation) or forced ending,
point leeching is allowed, but ONLY once the player is "sufficiently
close" (however you wish to define that) to that ending, and ONLY if
the player then continues to actually FINISH that game. So this would
not apply for games that do not come to some kind of ending (for
those, the 60 seconds / 2 lives rule would always apply).

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Ben Jos.

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walbeehm@walbeehm.com

I'll agree with that Ben Jos - I think the point is you need to try
to make progress in the game instead of walk around the same place
all the time. Some do struggle and will pull back in a couple games
to get rid of the trouble, I bet we can detect that. I'll say
leaching next to the end of the game will be permitted. I have
another example for you - Renzo Vignola scored some 2 million in
super pang, leaching a good bit for waiting 30 seconds to score the
100,000 points and all that - I don't see a problem with that... I
consider that a bonus for finishing. Of course, this isn't a final
ruling...

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goldengameboy@yahoo.com

The rules do state that the leeching should be upto the judges
discretion, which will be unique for each game, thus letting you do
the minor leeching in donkey kong and the difficult leeching in pang.
I think the leeching that everyone doesn't want to see is clearly
leeching that doesn't move the game to a new screen/level. With gng
points leeching could be tolerated as long as you don't leech in the
same place with different lives. (if you can points leech and be
out in the next level before the timer ends, i think that's
reasonable.)

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ghouls and gng are different games and are not mame clones, however i
think they share enough similarities in graphics, opponents, and
gameplay to be considered similar. I would prefer ghouls because it
looks cleaner and there are more levels in it to play. Maybe david
who voted for gng, doesnt even know theres a nicer version to play out
there, so i'll have to email him. But if he still likes gng, i want
to submit that ghouls + gng are similiar enough to be combined.

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churritz@cts.com

You know something? I think the "punishment" for not playing the
games when voting is way too harsh... what if they don't like the
games that are selected? Most will usually get at least half the
games that they don't like... so I think it should now be that if you
don't play the nine games, you can't vote for one tournament - if you
don't play five games, you can't vote for two tournaments... that's
it. Anybody have thoughts on this idea?

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goldengameboy@yahoo.com

I really don't care what you do with the voting status of someone who
doesn't play all the games, but I do have this to say about those
players...if they don't play ALL the games, then disqualify them from
the tourney, points, standings, everything. I understand that some
people might not enjoy all of the games in a particular tournament.
If you don't think you'll get into a set of games that are for a
specific tourney, then DON'T BOTHER PLAYING! That is what regular
MARP is for...pick and choose what YOU want to play, problem solved.
I bring this up because we do have a few potential situations in the
current tourney that adversley affect either me or my opponents point-
wise. It makes no sense, whatsoever, to submit only a limited number
of scores for this kind of situation. Like I said before, that is
what MARP is for.

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In conclusion, I'm for an "all or nothing" approach to this problem.
Either play 'em all or you don't get to participate with the other
boys and girls...hmmm, are there any girls in this thing?

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JoustGod

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pinballwiz1@msn.com

I really don't see what the big deal is in having to play all games.
If there are a few games you really don't like, and you're still
required to submit scores on every game, it would only take a few
minutes at most to still "play" the game, but die almost instantly.
In addition, this would guarantee you at least 1 point for that game,
while not playing it at all would not get you any points.

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Anyway, I think the least someone could do is to give a game at least
one serious try. That wouldn't take up that much more time probably.
Like JoustGod said, why sign up for the tournament if you only want
to play certain games? When I signed up, I was well aware that I am
lucky if just one or two of the games from my top 10 will be in the
tournament. Anybody who really thinks they'll get most of their top
10 in the tournament probably shouldn't sign up, because they'll be
in for a big disappointment.

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walbeehm@walbeehm.com

I think anyone who signed up to play in the tourney should do just
that--play everything! It is total B.S. when a non-tourney player
comes in and plays one or two games and no others so they can brag for
top spot. In my book that doesn't mean doo doo. You have to play ALL
the games period. So I'm with JoustGod and Ben Jos on this one...

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It's gotta be 10/10, whether people voted or not doesn't matter.
Afterall, the goal here is participation isn't it???

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Unlike regular MARP, lame scores in the tourney should be welcome!

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laffaye@ibm.net