He and his scores have vanished!

-- JSW (usagi@beyond.net.au), May 12, 1999

Answers

sheesh! I never took notice, but you're right, Jimmie! Where'd he go? Hopefully our friendly local page maintainer can give us the lowdown on this one...

JoustGod

-- JoustGod (pinballwiz1@msn.com), May 12, 1999.

I suspect that Zwaxy will be able to give you the low-down.....

BeeJay.

-- BeeJay (bjohnstone@cardinal.co.nz), May 13, 1999.

Hmmm.

He left.

He was upset by allegations that he was cheating, when there are no clear rules on the site.

He only writes Spanish and uses an automatic translator to talk to me, so it's not easy to understand exactly what he says, but here's a quote:

"Or you put strict rules, or you give permission to the anarchy."

I think he wants a very clear statement about what is allowed, and what isn't. He's annoyed that some recordings are allowed to stand when they're suspect, but his get criticised.

He has other points, but I don't have his permission to post his messages here, so I won't. I'm not sure if he understood my request to do so. It's all very tricky, with the language barrier.

Basically, I have little time to police MARP and ensure that all the recordings are following the loosly-defined rules, especially when there are so many things that are undetectable.

If I ban a recording because the firing is too fast, on the basis that the player must be using an automatic firing device, the player could just slow down the firing device. If I notice that the firing is too perfectly regular, they could find a way to randomise the auto-fire device. They can get the MAME source and code up their own software-auto-fire routine. Whatever.

It's the same with frame rate. There's no way of telling who is cheating and who isn't.

So what do we do? I'm not good at making decisions at the best of time. I try to be democratic about things, and go with the majority (democracy? or mob rule?)

In summary, Juan's points are:

1) he wants a ruling about using slow machines to make the speed less than 100%

2) he wants a ruling about autofire

3) he wants a ruling about teams of people appearing as a single individual. hey - maybe 'BBH' is actually 3 people (Belinda, Brian and Harold, say?) and *that's* why he's in 1st place...

4) should people be allowed to exploit the galaga bug that stops the aliens from shooting?

5) should people be allowed to exploit the ghosts and goblins bug (to do with 'time'?)?

I think points 1, 2 and 3 are essentially unsolvable. We can ban what we like, but we can't enforce these bans. I hear it's illegal to play MAME if you don't own the ROMs in some places...

Points 4) and 5) can easily be cleared up - I'd have thought that 4) is a 'ban it' offence. I don't know 5), but I'm sue Angry does...

Anyway - that's the story.

It's a shame to lose Juan - I'm hoping he'll come back soon. He wants to start with a score of 0 again, and this time only submit recordings which people won't think are suspicious. I can just imagine him struggling to hold back his twitchy firing finger to stop it moving too fast... Trying not to play too well, in case we accusing him again...

Chris.

-- Zwaxy (zwaxy@bigfoot.com), May 13, 1999.

Hello (I am sorry my English, it is translated by a program of translation) I believe that if it is not possible to check who this making tricks or not, then maybe it would be better to allow them and to not discuss more the topic. the rules would be this way even for all. On the other hand I have seen excellent inp, those which without any place to doubts were made with tricks (automatic fire and slow speed). But I have been able to also see that he that played them was very good and he knew all the facets of the game. Maybe that player 5 or 10 years ago when it played every day that game, he made more points than the one he made in the inp. in that case, this wrong that they have made trip? I cause myself a great emotion to see the end of several games to those that it didn't play 10 or 15 years ago. After the whole M.A.M.E. what looks for is to revive old and forgotten (not forgotten by us) games, so that they don't get lost. I believe that most doesn't make traps, there are only isolated cases, if they exist perhaps if we stop to compete to see who accuses the one who, we can make beautiful recordings of our favorite games. I have seen that there are many games that don't have a good inp, and I am for sure there are people that knows those games very well, but he no longer has the he practices necessary to arrive at the end. this wrong that they have a small help, so much of automatic fire, as of low speed? there are some players that don't have the time and the desires of dedicating him one month or two, maybe to recover the reflections, in some game in particular, and in that way we are losing beautiful recordings. maybe a section should be created that motivated the best recording (the most beautiful) in each game, without caring how it was recorded. Where what is looked for is to show the game in if the best thing possible, only to not make points. I don't know it. I believe that a decision should be made on these topics. it can be that it is mistaken. I wait their comments

-- JGustavo (fogelmanjg@arnet.com.ar), May 13, 1999.

I've sort of accepted as a fact that the lack of a proper referee is the price for the automation. I do wish people would label aided recordings, but I'm not holding my breath while I wait for it.

I understand what you mean about the most beautiful inps, instead of always the highest score. The 1,000,000+ Gaplus inps are great, but the 1,000,000+ Mat Mania inps aren't. Shoulder tackle till dead, pin, repeat. Granted, I may be too much of a WHOOOO pro wrestling fan, but I can't stand to record 2 hours of matches worse than WCW Worldwide. I at least try to let the cpu throw me around a bit :)

-- Aquatarkus (aquatarkus@digicron.com), May 14, 1999.

Haha... no, I am not three people, just one (and I'm named Matt... the BBH alias is a whole different story). The key to 1st place is exploiting those bootlegs/alternate versions and playing a lot of games no one else will touch, like a lot of Neo-Geo games. ;) I suck at most of the "popular" classics like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Frogger, etc.

Anyway, I can see where Juan is coming from... but really, in some games Autofire can be a little too useful, and slower speed? Well, that's a no-brainer. I know that it can be difficult to "get back into the groove" and rule the game you kicked ass at a decade ago, but you get to play the game in the comfort of your own home AND are free to pause whenever you want (which can also make for some huge advantages, especially in puzzle-type games). There's just no way to "police" all the recordings that come in, so I guess it's sort of the "honor system" for anyone uploading recordings. I dunno. This topic has been discussed before and we've never really reached a conclusion.

And while I'm thinking about it, another topic revisited... those Breakers recordings. Dith's does not play back correctly either, whether sound is off or on. I still haven't figured out what exactly needs to be done to get them to playback correctly... something's up with these newer Visco games. And I also don't know why I lowered MY score to 0 when someone else can take the 10 points by UL'ing a recording that doesn't work either.... so what's the solution? What if I recorded another game and just attached a .PCX screenshot of the score? Seems to happen on a lot of other games...

-BBH

-- BBH (lordbbh@aol.com), May 14, 1999.

On the subject of Breakers, I didn't realise that the INPs didn't play back. It's not a game I would normally go for, I was just getting extra points by filling in some of empty spaces. My 524k on Breakers is not really as impressive as it sounds, I played about five or six games but couldn't get anywhere near the high score of 200k. Then I was on a roll, I got a 300k bonus on stage 3 and made it to stage 6, just a lucky game I think.

-- Dith (dith@europress.co.uk), May 14, 1999.

Hello again! I'm back. Just got through collecting 99% of 'whats out there' and building an arcade cabinet!!!! Pics on my homepage soon. Anyway, you all have good points on this subject and it is very unfortunate to lose any competition in this fun race. This topic of FAIRNESS has been the most talked about on the board (at least from what I have read) and the hardest to address. Angry's compilation of our laws concerning shady maneuvers and point exploitation, I feel, is a valid necessicity that helps. But it truly comes down to an honor system. Probably impossible for anyone to police the inps, as Chris said above, with all the variables involved in a recording. We could go to something like; making all recordings use Mame35b* and have autoframeskip on as mandatory, throw in a pcx file after F11 is pressed to sweeten the deal. Is it F11? Oh well, a person could figure out a way around it. As for me, I'm going to continue with the honor system and If the game is one that can bog down on anything less than a p100 then I'll try and write the fps down. I started to do that on my last few recordings before I went on a walkabout:) If it makes you feel any better Juan, just think of this site as a club. Membership is free but it takes a little time to get the look and feel down. I did and this is my favorite site.

Randood - back in the game.

p.s. Stephen, wait till you see the pics of my cab. It's COOOL!

-- Randood (brownrw@worldnet.att.net), May 14, 1999.

What we will do,is get a person,that is familiar with the mame inp recording source. (Preferable the author). We ask if he can compile in some restrictions for recording the inps. How is that ?

Stig

-- Stig Remnes (sremnes@samsen.com), May 15, 1999.

Ehm... my question is: the inp i've recorded for nemesis... i'm not sure if it's illegal or not. that's the story: i recorded that on my cousin's P133 (with sound turned on to make it go slower...), and since he's got a nice transparent joypad, i decided to use it. i soon realized that keeping the fire button pressed caused the ship to fire REALLY fast, a sort of autofire then, but it wasn't because that joypad hasn't any autofire switch. if anyone saw my inp (but nobody does see mine usually)... well you can see how it's gone. so, is my record illegal or not? i want you all to know it's the first and *LAST* recording i made with this system... I can't stand joypads. gimme back my commodore 64, i wanna play Turrican with my red Quickshot II Turbo! Grazie a tutti per l'attenzione. Ciao ciao

-- El Vaz (elvasco@tin.it), May 15, 1999.