forums.marpirc.net

This is a little advertisement.....
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I'd like to invite you to HCC's Megaman Cup (aka HCC Cup). Since 1992 - a long time before Mame appeared - we started to held arcade game tournaments. And we are still alive! HCC Cup with 9 years tradition is a game tournament, where players play 10 games on several computers. Currently the 5th tournament is being
held and we play these games:
Axiz (PC)
Klax (ZX Spectrum / Sam Coupe)
Loco-Motion (Mame)
Pnickies (Mame)
Snake Mania (Sam Coupe)
Bomb Jack (Mame)
Rainbow Islands Enhanced (PC / Mame)
Star Force (Mame)
Starquake (ZX Spectrum)
Turrican 3 (Amiga)

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If you'd like to play with us, and try to beat us, don't wait, and either contact me or write to mail-list

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contact me or write to mail-list hcc@dreamersguild.net for more information.

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Here is a brieflist of what's HCC Cup:
* tournaments held since 1992, started on ZX Spectrum
* later expanded to other platforms to make the action more attractive
* currently based mainly on Mame and PC, but there's still some 8bit spirit in the tournament
* 10 games are played, with famous 5+5 system (5 logic + 5 action games)
* games are selected by players' requests, but with regard to wide wariety of game genres
* winner of each game gets 10 points, others get proportional pointes to it (0-9)
* other players have only a limited number of attempts, to avoid "who plays it more often, he gets more points"
* delay between tournaments is approx. 2 years
* usually 5 games are left from previous tournament (voted by players), and 5 games are new
* the winner of HCC's Megaman Cup gets "megaman" title

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Note: Regardless M.A.R.P., we consider Mame's regular .inp files insecure and potential source of cheating and fakements, so we use more progressive system of checking results, whenever possible. We work on enhancing these fair-play ensuring systems everyday, and welcome any comments and suggestions. (Look to http://www.gp3gl.com to see a fairly good fair-play system.)
You can also visit out web pages, where you can find current tournament standings. http://get.to/hcc.

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Join us now! THe competition is still open!

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yours sincerely
Aley Keprt

--
AleyKeprt@bigfoot.com

Smart move... putting down MARP on the MARP board and expecting
MARPers to join your tournament. Even more so considering there are
some security issues you are a lot less equipped to deal with than
MARP is...

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Cheers,
Ben Jos.

--
walbeehm@walbeehm.com

Exactly what I was thinking, BenJos. Why on earth would you start
ripping on the cheating and "fakements" (?) you say go on here, and
then ask MARP'ers to play in YOUR tourney which also makes use of
MAME? You obviously don't know about speed or dip switch checkers,
so...

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-BBH

--
lordbbh@aol.com

I see you understand my efforts terribly wrong.
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I'm really not interested in putting MARP down. It is real fact,
that .inp files are insecure, and it has nothing to do with MARP.
Although TG Mame exists, MARP doesn't require it for all recordings.
In addition .inp files are good for high scores database, but are
insufficient for tournaments.

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If you have read HCC web before you sent flames over me, you'd known
it.

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I started game competitions in 1990, a long time before MARP was
founded. Although I can't say here when exactly I started, because I
haven't any historical materials here, I'm sure Mame didn't exist.

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Since 1992 HCC held HCC's Megaman Cup, and we are still here. We
still play with quite unmodified rules, as we used in 1992. Our
competition is very different to MARP knockout tournaments, we use
very different hardware and software.

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What I really think is that you missed the point when YOU put down
ME. You should instead get more information about HCC. Some former
HCC Cup players have later joined MARP, and some MARP members are now
competing in 5. HCC Cup. What's wrong with it? HCC Cup is not a Mame
tournament, neither it relies based on .inp files. Have you ever
heard about real judges? We use them.

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Also we are concerned in allowing only limited number of attempts for
each player and game. This way our tournaments differs from your pure
high scores hunts. You can also see that our scores are not as high
as yours, because it is not so easy to play 10 games on different
hardware, in limited time with limited number of attempts.

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I hope you will reconsider your thoughts about HCC. We did nothing
wrong to MARP, and aren't going to.

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best regards to all you nervous guys
Aley Keprt

--
AleyKeprt@bigfoot.com

Yes, I had read the HCC page before answering. And, yes, I like the
ideas you use to ensure people not sending in old recordings, and to
ensure they only get 10 attempts once they start recording.

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My point is that your "more progressive system of checking results" is
in some ways far inferior to the system we use during MARP
tournaments. Read my first reply again, read BBH's reply again, then
see that your system lacks in certain, very important, areas,
especially if you consider ".inp files insecure and potential source
of cheating and fakements".

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No, I am not nervous at all. In fact, I think it's good when people
announce non-MARP-related tournaments here. But your note did sound
like you were putting MARP down. I probably would not even have
replied, IF your system had been as good as, or better than, MARP's
in all areas. But it isn't. Some of the flaws have already been
mentioned...

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Cheers,
Ben Jos.

--
walbeehm@walbeehm.com

Actually, there is one more reason I replied...
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Someone alerted me that my favourite game, Pnickies, is part of your
tournament. Here is what you wrote on your pages:

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"This game requires a really fast computer. Use any settings."

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Use any settings? Err... are you aware that there are 8 difficulty
levels in Pnickies? Aren't tournaments supposed to have well-defined
rules as to settings, allowed techniques, etc. etc.? Or were you
trying to hide the fact that you (unlike MARP) don't have a way to
check which settings were used in an .inp?

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I might actually have joined your tournament, but recording 10 games
of Pnickies into one .inp would require me to play for almost 2.5
hours, which shows another flaw of your system: Some people can play
some games for a long time (and much longer than the 13-14 minutes per
Pnickies game). There are plenty of games in which a good player can
play 45 minutes per credit. If that player were really serious about
trying to get a good score, and so use all 10 attempts, that would
require 7.5 hours of playing. In some cases, the cure can be worse
than the illness...

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Cheers,
Ben Jos.

--
walbeehm@walbeehm.com

Firstly, when you talk about flaws: GPL is the main flaw. Mame is not
under GPL, but it's license is de facto the same. We can't publish
binaries without source. So MARP uses TG Mame, HCC Cup uses it too.
We in addition have our own system (SA codes), which is (and will be)
implemented in several software. It is partially available for Mame
already. (not publicly, of course)
Although I look forward to have own Mame version with encrypted .inp
files and full support of SA codes, I currently work on ZX Spectrum
emulation which is wanted by other people for another game tournament
too.

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You also don't know two news:
1. Mame TG is now required for all games at HCC Cup.
2. On-line gaming is required. Player get activation codes, plays the
game and sends the result IMMEDIATELY back to server. Downlaod and
upload times are logged and they are compared to the duration of
submitted .inp. This prevents players from slowing down the emulator.

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We also plan to get rid of these .inp files, and start the real on-
line system, where .inp files will be compressed and send over
network in real time. This way the users neither get any complicated
activation codes, nor they can fiddle with them and try to cheat.

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> Actually, there is one more reason I replied...
>
> Someone alerted me that my favourite game, Pnickies, is part of your
> tournament. Here is what you wrote on your pages:
>
> "This game requires a really fast computer. Use any settings."
>
> Use any settings? Err... are you aware that there are 8 difficulty
> levels in Pnickies? Aren't tournaments supposed to have well-defined
> rules as to settings, allowed techniques, etc. etc.? Or were you
> trying to hide the fact that you (unlike MARP) don't have a way to
> check which settings were used in an .inp?

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I am really happy that you read the rules before you wrote this.
I think our rules are exact. We really preffer playing at the easiest
settings. All Mame games. Period.
Since somebody might be interested in playing a game with different
settings, it is also accepted. I don't hide that *I* personally don't
know how to check which DIP switches were used to record .inp. You
are right, I am absolutely unable to check it. But I don't understand
what you mean when you say it? If you consider that
1. only a few players in HCC Cup uses .inp files!!! The others use
classic judging.
2. I am experienced programmer and I can anytime do the software to
check .inp files, if I will want it, it is not a problem.

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If you don't believe, please go to http://hidden-and-dangerous.com
and see what I do. Or you can see my emulators at http://get.to/aley.

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> I might actually have joined your tournament, but recording 10 games
> of Pnickies into one .inp would require me to play for almost 2.5
> hours, which shows another flaw of your system: Some people can play
> some games for a long time (and much longer than the 13-14 minutes
per
> Pnickies game). There are plenty of games in which a good player can
> play 45 minutes per credit. If that player were really serious about
> trying to get a good score, and so use all 10 attempts, that would
> require 7.5 hours of playing. In some cases, the cure can be worse
> than the illness...

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You are right that some gurus can play Mame games very long, but if
this is the only reason why you don't want to compete in HCC Cup,
there is no problem. The rules neither say that you must play all ten
attempts at once, nor that you must play all 10 attempts. Actually
you can play as little as one single attempt. Usually players play
two or more attempts at once, and then they are forced to record all
attempts into one .inp file.
This way we (the judges) have easier life. That's all.
Since we perform some extra checking of playtime (which you don't
know, since you don't have access to our FTP sever, where more
information on on-line gaming can be found), we preffer playing three
or five attempts at once. But it is absolutely NOT REQUIRED.
Again: not required.

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So it seems you probably misunderstood some part(s?) of the rules of
HCC Cup. If you think there are some wrong formulations (I am not
Englishman), which prevent people from understanding the rules well,
fell free to write me (outside this forum). You know some people
don't understand MARP rules as well, so that's nothing special with
our tournament.

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And please don't think HCC Cup is something against MARP. It's just
something different which may interest MARP memebers. So I am here
with the invitation.

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------------------------------------------------------------------
Bc.Aley [eili] Keprt - games & multimedia programmer
ICQ: 82357182 (evenings) *** phone: +420-68-5387035 (weekends)
private e-mail: AleyKeprt@bigfoot.com *** http://get.to/aley
office: Illusion Softworks, Brno, CZ - keprt@illusionsoftworks.com
------------------------------------------------------------------


--
AleyKeprt@bigfoot.com

Or, for those of you who don't want to bother with things like this
(I'm hesitant to use the word that first comes to mind to describe
it)... 7DBS (Seven Day Battle System) is still open to people who
want to take part in the pairing round. Details are on the main page
(http://peng.demongate.ath.cx/7dbs). Pairing round recordings will
be accepted until April 27, 0000GMT, at which point the Week 1
pairings and game will be announced.

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Note: This first season is being run somewhat like MC2 - there will
be changes made for Season 2, most notably the "game pool" that will
be set up.

--
peng@demongate.ath.cx