Clones, clones, what did the clones do to you recently? All grouping or disallowing clones would do is to diminish the quality and the amount of games recording here, diminishing the experience for all.

-- Chris Parsley (cparsley1@hotmail.com), June 22, 1999

Answers

I think what is diminishing the experience for most is that people who happen to be good at 3 multi clone games will get a much better score than people who happen to be good at 3 non cloned games. When both types of people are equally good at the similar number of games.

Clones get a unnecesary scoring benefit, and that is about to be changed.

-- Chad (churritz@cts.com), June 22, 1999.

It's about to be changed? Gee, thanks POTM! :o)

-- Zwaxy (zwaxy@bigfoot.com), June 22, 1999.

i can only guess what zwaxy (you) will do. it looked like you were anyways from that last comment in the YANL thread :) my mistake again, i ass-u-me d.

-- Chad (churritz@cts.com), June 22, 1999.

I was joking. Now that I've realised what an accomplished programmer you are I was hoping that you were offering to change the script for me... (not that it's a big change)

Do you have a plan view of the route your 'scenic tour' program took through the various maps it was given to work on? I don't find the POV-Ray images very clear at all.

-- Zwaxy (zwaxy@bigfoot.com), June 22, 1999.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not the best on any clones, my scores will more than tell that. I consider MARP like one really huge arcade, with all the games of the world waiting for me without having to put a quarter (or quarters, as the case may be) in. Now, in that light, a clone is nothing more than another beast, sitting and waiting for your coinage and your play. If you diminish the role of the clones, not only do you diminish some very good games, you also diminish the role of games throughout history.

-- Chris Parsley (cparsley1@hotmail.com), June 22, 1999.

I do have that same idea as MAME being one big arcade with clones upon clones awaiting quarters as you see fit to use them. However, the tabular clone scoring method (each score is divided by the number of clones/origonals of that game you are playing), each clone is represented so scores will not diminish, the other clone scoring methods group all clones together some methods excluding clones entirely which is bad because it's political. I am good a few clone games (still making up a good % of my score.) so i have everything to lose by a clone scoring method, but i think it's fairer.

-- Chad (churritz@cts.com), June 22, 1999.

Clones are good, and should be kept in the scoring mix.

Imagine back in the golden age of video games...

Your local arcade would pick up 2, 3, or more cabinets of the same game. As a player attempting to enter my name into the high score list, I found it necessary to get the highest score on ALL of the duplicate machines - not just the first one in the place. This means that I would play as many games as it would take to enter my initials in the top position on that machine.

Granted, my tendancy to do this was focused more on the games that had permanent high score lists.

Secondly, as to equal/max scores being treated equally... I am against this also. As again, on most classic arcade games, if a 2nd player earns a score equal to the previous player - their score is placed into 2nd place (the exception to this was on early Williams Electronics games, where the newest score was placed atop the list).

Another 4 cents, into the pot (up to $48.60 by now, methinks)

=Angry=

-- Angry (greggg@ix.netcom.com), June 22, 1999.

You suggestion re equal scores would be fine were it not for maxed out games like the bowling games.

Why should someone get "bonus" points just because they were the first to upload a perfect score - especially if they happened to be the first person to spot that Zwaxy had updated his board for the new release.

With a games where it's possible to beat the previous high then your argument would be acceptable to me anyway.

BeeJay.

PS: $72.95 but then $NZ aren't worth as much as $US...... ;-)

PPS: I know that's not a multiple of 0.02 but here in NZ we wiped out our 1" and 2" coins some time ago and final prices are now rounded to the nearest 5". ;-)

PPPS: I've now totally swapped sides (again) and want to see the clones stay!!!! ;-)

-- BeeJay (bjohnstone@cardinal.co.nz), June 22, 1999.

Power to Angry, I agree totally. Keep clones alive! Keep clones alive! (Personally, I'm referring to actual made clones, and not to any hacked games by someone who NEVER appeared at the arcades.)

-- Chris Parsley (cparsley1@hotmail.com), June 22, 1999.

I think Angry has made an excellent point here. I was the same as him when it came to topping out any available game in an arcade that I was good at whether it was one game or 3...didn't matter, my ego just wanted to see "JDR" at the top of the board.

Secondly, we are all gathered here my friends, in competition using an emulator called MAME (whadda ya think the "M" in MARP stands for?). The MAME dev team (well, with an exception or two maybe ;)) could probably care less about us MARPers and our debates. Thus, they have developed a wonderful piece of programming that we all use for our competition without regard to how including clones/ re-licensed or any other variation affects MARP. We have chosen this particular emulator as our vehicle to ride in and it's a fine vehicle indeed. If there happens to be a multitude of games with clones that a particular player is good at and gives him a slight advantage (and I emphasis slight...remember, we are past the 1400 game mark and I seriously doubt that a game with 10 clones is going to affect anything that dramatically) then so be it. For those of you familiar with baseball, I offer this analogy. I doubt if Mark Mcgwire sat around and bemoaned the fact that Sammy Sosa had an "advantage" by playing in the home run-friendly Wrigley Field. Instead, he worked with the situation he had and overcame such an "advantage" in winning 1998's baseball home run race. What I'm saying is, let the clones stay as in the past. I'm sure that all of us at some point will find a favorite game that has clones attached to it. If not, then there are 1400+ games to attack! That's more than enough to eliminate any perceived "advantage" that the clone-playing MARPer seems to have.

The thing about MARP that I've always enjoyed is that it has an open, "wild west" feel about it. I'm hoping that it doesn't succumb to being shackled with restrictions. Of course, there has to be some kind of order as far as settings and game play techniques go and that's what Angry's page addresses.

For those who want a more structured type of competition, I believe the upcoming MARP tourney will suit you fine. It is an excellent idea and I hope we have a lot of participation. Also on the structured side, our fellow MARPer, Mark Longridge, does a great job in maintaining the Twin Galaxies MAME high score page. If recognition is what you're looking for, this is certainly an important site to check out. The mission of TG differs from MARP and that's OK by me as I think the two sites complement each other very well.

Well, I've gone on long enough. (I can now see everyone's head nodding in agreement!)

JoustGod

-- JoustGod (pinballwiz1@msn.com), June 22, 1999.

I'm probably a bit out of touch here but anyway:

Why disallow clones? They've always been a part of MARP. If a player is good enough to get a decent score on one particular game, why can't he/she put in the same effort for all the clones?

As for the tourney, well I'd like to vote but I'll be away in the next few weeks (going back to Christchurch, yeah baby!). But I'm sure I'd crush Beejays efforts in Gyruss and Juno First :p

-- JSW (usagi@beyond.net.au), June 23, 1999.

Initially, the trend wasn't to dissalow clones, but to simply make the scores reachable on games with clones more comparable to games with out clones. When this was mentioned, other ideas prospered, injecting that we should only keep the origonal game and/or combine all the clones of one game into a separate game, excluding possibly bootleg or some how "lacking" clones.

I don't think i'd mind keeping the clones in as they were, since there are problems any route you take to adjust scores. I'd definitley like that group all clones togehter as the same game strategy taken out. I will still defend the tabular scoring method for clones would be a fairer prospect with out excluding any clones.

(btw, sosa did had a slight advantage, but it's not like it doubled the number of homeruns he hit compared to mac :)

-- Chad (churritz@cts.com), June 23, 1999.

Hey JSW, good to hear you're going to be back in town sometime soon. You'll have to get Krool to let me know you're in town and if it suits we can meet and put a face to the name.

I met Krool for the first time a few weeks back so it'd be nice to put another face to another fellow MARPer.

BeeJay.

PS: Thrash my Gyruss and Juno First scores....... I think we'd both end up tired and RSI'd before one of us calls it a day... ;-p

-- BeeJay (bjohnstone@cardinal.co.nz), June 23, 1999.

Kill all the freaggin clones Im just a stupid gay casual gamer so I dont know much and I like to critize things, but the fucking point is to kill all I mean all clones and including the fucking kkk if possible.

-- Jose Garza (elite_hacker2003@yahoo.com), March 20, 2003.