Someone (don't know if he wanted me to say who he is) just emailed me:

> I have to question Neil Chapmans Pacman recordings. He's a > fantastic player and his Ms.Pacman recording is incredible. > But the four Pacman files he recently uploaded are actually > the same file, not only has he used the same Pacman file for > Pacplus but also submitted them both for the speedup cheat > versions. Giving him 40 points for one game! Is that legal?

And I don't know the answer. Since I've always made the rules up as I went along, guided by what you guys shouted at me, I thought I'd put this out there, too.

My own feelings on this are that if he's good enough at pacman that he doesn't need to use the cheat then he should be allowed to submit a normal pacman recording as a pacman-fast recording too - he's at a disadvantage doing so, but that doesn't seem to matter. And... since I'm stupid enough to allow 2 identical games with just different graphics, then I don't see how I can disallow identical recordings for them... I guess at the end of the day if the recording scores the points he claims then the job's a good'un.

Non? Whatcha reckon?

-- Zwaxy (zwaxy@bigfoot.com), July 28, 1998

Answers

Neil's Pacman recordings

Well, I've had second thoughts on this. Submitting same INPs for multiple games should be a good things because it can be used to group some of the games. In this particular case, Neil played a stunning game and was clever (and cheeky) enough to submit it four times. Thumbs up and let's see if anyone else can take advantage of any similar loopholes.

Dith

-- Dith (dith@europress.co.uk), July 28, 1998.

multiple games/same recording....

you can do it with heaps of games, especially the old clones, but i dunno about sending in one inp for 4 seperate games. if it was 4 different inp's then it would show that the effort was put in. but this is not the case, and instantly noticable by the same score. its truly a sad way to show 4 games...why not just play them all if he thinks hes so good ? DO IT AGAIN

-- Krool. (kellyq@ihug.co.nz), July 28, 1998.

Ya gotta put in the work!

OK, there is no doubt that Neil will end up as this board's PacMan champ. However, if you are to receive points for the leaderboard, at least make the effort to earn them. No matter how great the score was, the fact remains that it was acheived on only one game...end of story. Yes, Neil appears to be quite capable of running all PacMan/Ms.PacMan originals and clones and he most likely will. Do us a favor and only reward the points for each game that was actually played.

On the same note, fast versions should be played fast! This is the way these versions appeared in the arcades and you had no choice to slow the game down. So do fast games fast and the regular games regular. Post the resulting monster scores from each individual effort and I think everybody will be much more satisfied with this approach. Like I said, Neil will likely rule here, but I don't care how good a player is, 10 pts. per game. Clumping all the other clone games together should not be allowed either. Each game was an individual game on the market in one respect or another and should be treated as such.

Thanks for listening to this rant! JoustGod

-- JoustGod (pinballwiz1@msn.com), July 28, 1998.

He should have to play them all.......

I'm afraid I have to agree with the others. He really should have to play them all to get all the scores - and he no doubt will do just this. We don't mind a person who's good at a game claiming all the clones as long as they put in the time to do so. I had to say that what with my current status on Galaxians now didn't I.... ;-)

So put me in the "it shouldn't be allowed" category.

BeeJay.

-- BeeJay (bjohnstone@cardinal.co.nz), July 28, 1998.

He should have to play each game separately

I was tempted to do something similar as Neil has done, but I refrained, as I felt that it wasn't in the spirit of the Replay page. (Unfortunately, I've since forgotten which game it was). I agree with everyone else, that you should earn each individual score.

Additionally, I think that all scores submitted for the "fast" versions of the games should be played with the speed-up cheat enabled - the idea of adding them as a separate listing is to create an additional game to learn. I realize that Neil can dominate Pacman in it's original mode, but how far can he get using the speed-up cheat?

Just my $.02 -- Angry

-- angry (greggg@ix.netcom.com), July 29, 1998.

Play them ALL!

I agree with everyone else... no matter how impressive the recording is, put the time and effort in and play each version separately. You already have an edge if you can get the highest score in that game, since you can gain more points by playing the bootlegs/alternate versions and dominating those too. But just playing it once should not count multiple times. Is it really fair for someone to get 40 points for playing a single game when a different player gets 40 points for doing 4 different recordings for 4 different games?

-BBH

-- BBH (lordbbh@aol.com), July 29, 1998.

so...the mob has spoken, is it an unwritten law now ?

my point is...what exactly is the difference between 1942 and the alternate set ? i see NO differences, none.

-- Krool. (kellyq@ihug.co.nz), July 30, 1998.

Worms...another can of 'em

Heh, heh, heh. We are certainly opening up another can of worms here, aren't we? I suppose as long as the MAME dev team considers these clones as seperate entities, we will probably just as well go along with the status quo (a good group from the 60's and 70's, I might add...but, I digress).

Hmmm...I'm thinking about making leather jackets with some sort of "MOB" logo on the back to show my unity with my other hopeless game-addicted brothers (any sisters?)...just a thought.

JoustGod

-- JoustGod (pinballwiz1@msn.com), July 30, 1998.

Alternate versions

According to gamelist.txt, it says that sometimes at the end of levels 7, 15, 23, and 31 (boss plane encounters), the boss never shows up and you get stuck forever waiting for it. This hasn't happened to me at all however. And for the record, I haven't found any differences between the regular and alternate sets of Zoo Keeper.

BTW Krool, great job on the 1942 score! I'm going to watch that recording now to figure out how you beat my score by 300,000+ points.

-- BBH (lordbbh@aol.com), July 31, 1998.