1. I thought Stig Remnes officially withdrew from the tournament. If not, great! If so, why is he posting a score that affects every other player in the tournament?

2. I thought the whole point of our scores was the idea of simulating walking up to an arcade machine, depositing a quarter, and seeing how well you could do ON THAT ONE QUARTER--cold. Recording four games consecutively breaks the spirit of that idea. If this is allowed, then I'm going to start submitting some pretty hefty .inp files from playing games back-to-back-to back until I break scores. This point might sound mean-spirited, but in the past, I've had to wait through a LOT of start up screens.

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), August 07, 1999

Answers

I don't think there ever was a real rule. The "one game per recording" thing has been violated before without penalty, but it's usually been totally blown games - not 4 epic quests in a row :)

Maybe Stig was trying to show it wasn't a fluke?

Aqua

-- Aquatarkus (aquatarkus@digicron.com), August 07, 1999.

Gameboy has added some comments in his next question.

Meanwhile, I personally feel that Stig's recording should be disqualified (nothing personal Stig) in this tournament. There are other reasons aside from 'Spirit of the game' that multiple recordings affect games. For example, in Bubble Bobble, every item you get affects the future items to come, by means of counters within the game. I could also set up Bubble Bobble (and I'm curious if some people haven't done so) By entering a certain high score name before I play my second game. Now, unless someone can guarantee me 100% that NOTHING Stig does in combascb affects his next game, I can't see this as a valid tournament recording- because it breaks this rule, and there is possibility of an advantage gained (although unknowingly). As a MARP recording, it is valid by current rules, but I don't think it should count as a tourney entry.

Then again, that's just my opinion. I'd like to hear what PL and the judges have to say about this.

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), August 07, 1999.

There was no such rule. I might be in the tournamet after all. But if this record gets disqualified i am withdrawing from marp. I did this showing to show how easy the game is, as far as i am concerned,there is nobody on marp who can complete the game 3 out of four times.

Lets take an example, if Billy Mitchell did a false move on the early boards on Pacman,shouldnt he be allowed to do another try,this is just like playing the arcade agme a few games in a row.

btw. Billy Mitchell = The only player ever to get a perfect game on PacMan.

regards Stig Remnes 380.410 (Combat School Arcade)

-- Stig Remnes (sremnes@hotmail.com), August 08, 1999.

I said on the board posting that this isn't a personal attack, so I don't see why you would want to leave MARP over a minor dispute like this, nor do I like the fact that you have now placed me in a very unfavorable position with your ultimatum-- all of a sudden I look like a bad guy for bringing this up. As to your statement about completing the game three out of four times--it isn't that hard. I've done a run of four complete games, and was only killed on the fifth by mistiming the knife/fire trap near the end. I'm sure BBH could easily do the same.

Ego stuff out of the way, my problem wasn't with this recording as a regular MARP leaderboard recording either, although it irks me somewhat,and I have already discussed possible changes with gameboy and a few others. My problem is that the whole point of an arcade tournament is you get one go at a machine...and if you blow it, that's it. We aren't playing for demonstration (like Mr. Graham), or for credit, we're playing to see who can do the best on a single credit with the pressure (of an audience of some sort) on--the spirit of which your recording violates. We're playing with TG settings after all, the very governing body that runs these kinds of tournaments. No tournament of any kind that I am aware lets you take three or four back to back stabs at an event. You either get your one chance, or you get a number of chances, interspersed with other competitors. I admire your skill at this game, and I have no reason to desire a good competitor such as yourself to leave MARP, but I can't in good conscience say that I accept your recording as valid for a tournament recording. Nor can I honestly believe that you didn't notice that everyone else was posting single game recordings. I imagine your score will stand; that's fine. But as far as I'm concerned, BBH is still in first place and his will be the score that I aim to beat.

Respectfully, Q.T.Quazar

p.s. I know who Billy Mitchell is. A great Pac-Man player, but judging by his post-match interview, quite an obnoxious person.

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), August 08, 1999.

Well I say this:

Stig did this once - I say let him go this time - now if he does it again, then we'll ask questions.

To make a long story short, I say we'll keep that recording... just don't do it again Stig :)

-- Gameboy9 (goldengameboy@yahoo.com), August 08, 1999.

I agree with gameboy9. You have to let this one in. There was no ruling on this type of recording. It obviously begs for some kind of ruling, but since none are in place at the time of submission...you gotta let it stand. What Stig did is not a monstrous crime by any means, but for the sake of people reviewing games and in some cases server space, I think we should think about allowing only one game at a time for inps being submitted to MARP. Now how about this one for a ruling while we're at it? In the past, I have occasionally played a 2- player game for the sake of convienience on a game that takes forever to boot up. Should this be disallowed in the future also? Whadda ya think?

JoustGod

Oh and BTW, welcome back Stig.

-- JoustGod (pinballwiz1@msn.com), August 08, 1999.

definitley give a break to Stig. I think if the game is easy enough (and combat school is once you figure out the controls/techniques of the various games within) you don't have to prove it with a multigame romp. Sure it's very tiresome to keep clicking alt-F,R,game.inp with windows, or hiting F3,enter in DOS and hitting F10 and/or O,K,enter to get through the boot process. But it's not as much trouble as for the many times people download the recordings and have to F10-wait through 1 or two games to see the "real" recording.

If you ban multi credit multi games (which i agree with), then I would think a two player game should ONLY be acceptable if the 2nd player has a display advantage to display a higher score.

-- Chad (churritz@cts.com), August 08, 1999.

I say thanks. I understand i did somethin questionable, but believe me,i didnt do it just to make a hiscore. I didnt think it would be a problem. And there is no "type in" cheats in the hiscore table that i know of,the reason i type NAX instead of MAX on the first game,is simply because i typed wrong and there is no way to remove the letter once entered. I will compete in the tournament,from now on.

regards, Stig Remnes

-- Stig Remnes (sremnes@hotmail.com), August 08, 1999.

Glad to have you back Stig. I'll accept the decision as it stands. I got the feedback I wanted.

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), August 08, 1999.

Stig, I've reviewed this recording and have allowed it to count. However, I'm putting an end to this crap right now. The issue here deals only with recording etiquitte. I shouldn't have to sit through 4 recordings of Combat School to watch you make Captain. If you want to practice or show off please don't waste my time.

Furthermore, the wrong version was used for tourney recordings. You are lucky it played back with MAME 0.35. You will need to submit some different recordings to make this one count. You haven't played any additional games since 4 July. We will have a minimum number of games for your scores to count (I believe 9 of 12 games are required.)

In the past I've ruled on continues where only the first game would count. Now I strongly feel that the first game is the only one that will count, regardless.

Guys, want to vote on a rule change, or is this a no-brainer???

-- Pat (laffaye@ibm.net), August 08, 1999.

Well, it seems that Stig's Combat School recording will count... while a part of me wants to say "Nooooo, disqualify it!", since he's the better player at the game he deserves to have a higher score if he can get it. But...

So I probably couldn't finish it 3 out of 4 times in a row. I usually screw up at the fire part like Q.T., or after the first firebomb guy since sometimes I can't get over the box fast enough to kick the next knife dude. But I don't play game after game in a row... I push Esc, Up (gotta love good ol' Doskey), Enter, tap the arrow keys, put in a credit and start again. As do so many of the other players

Stig, the question is... if you HADN'T gotten that score on your 4th try, how many more games would you have played in that recording?

-- BBH (lordbbh@aol.com), August 09, 1999.

yep doskey is a winner, though without filename completion it still sucks compared to bash; i only mentioned F3 cause most people might still use bare dos, i hope not though.

-- Chad (churritz@cts.com), August 09, 1999.