What was the final outcome of the 1million+ scores on Ghost and Goblins?

-- Dave Kaupp (info@kaupp.cx), September 02, 1999

Answers

Believe me....cheats ( super lamers ). As a post - script , I will now e-mail some of you guys with an equally lamer-like method for " The New Zealand Story " , which should be added to the banned list. Long live MARP.....

-- Alex Weir (alexweir@indigo.ie), September 02, 1999.

The gng points leeching technique is already on the banned list which is updated by Angry who is indefinitley indesposed (i believe :) I propose we should also add to the banned techniques all the freebee game (someone care to make a complete list of possible freebee games?) and thus for each freebee game we can vote to ban it or not like any other technique on angry's site. Another banned technique that has been in the air recently is using autofire for track+field. I know it seems agreed upon by everyone that autofires should be eliminated, but i think puting it up for a vote would be a fair to legitimatley make it a banned technique not to be uploaded.

Now that we have the list of banned games/techniques, there isn't a method of actually banning/removing or separating the banned techniques from the rest. Should there be a commitee that has the list of banned techniques infront of them and goes through each recording to see if the recording entails a banned technique and if so physically bans it?

After the method for deciding to ban a specific recording is decided, we need to decide How to ban the recording on the site. I think the best way to to it would be to keep a field in the python database for banned or not banned (like we have the confirmed or not confirmed score.) So if a score is banned everyone could still see it, download it, look at the score, but these scores would not count towards the leader board and are sorted below all the non banned scores.

This of course can't be done anytime soon, and at least till zwaxy has some time to think after he knows the site will be in one place for more than a few months, but perhaps this thread get the ball rolling to make democratically banned tecniques really banned.

-- Chad (churritz@cts.com), September 02, 1999.

I don't think someone needs to go through each inp file to see if there using banned technique, but if a player notices a recording using a banned technique or if a recording is suspect like the gng recordngs it should be looked into. By whom, I do not know.

I would go through the gng recordings, but I dont have a working MS OS on any of my machines to try the version of mame that the games where recorded under.

I guess an email to the owner of the recording might also work.

-- Dave Kaupp (info@kaupp.cx), September 03, 1999.

I guess i meant to say " go through each inp of games in question of having a banned technique..." mailing the owner is nice, but i think it puts the point across a lot clearer to punish the leaderboard score.

-- Chad (churritz@cts.com), September 03, 1999.

I just compiled xmame34 and Coruja's inp file plays back. So far its points leaching in the zombie section (I'm at 200K). For some reason the XPM library was not compiled in so I cant take a snapshot, I can screenshot my desktop though.

I'll go through some of the other inp files if they play back. No frameskipping in this version. :(

If I do screenshots I'll put them in ftp://ftp.kaupp.cx/pub/gng/

-- Dave Kaupp (info@kaupp.cx), September 04, 1999.

Ok, I played the top 6 recordings for GNG, not in full.

Summary: The top 5 used the banned technique and the scores should be removed. I did not take any screenshots as there was no way to prove what shots I took related to which playback. So everyone has to take my word for it. :)

IMO the scores to be removed are: Phil Lamat, Renzo Vignola, Krool, Coruja and N. Rodgers.

Phils recording should be saved as he did something odd with the timer, I was not watching at the time of the timer anomaly. But it was at 9 minutes when I got back on that desktop.

Additionally, this is the first I've seen other players point leaching on GNG. There is another spot to point leach at, this spot where these recordings did there leaching is new to me. I did mine on the floor level just before changing to the next level.

Barry has the highest legitimate score, I did not play any recordings below Barry's.

Here are my notes as I was playing the recordings, at times I was off on other tasks...

Coruja crj_gng_1107000_m34b4.inp point leaching at zombies, played until 300K. Addition leaching with vampire dude at first level. Acceptable leaching?

Renzo Vignola rex_gng_1601400_mame34.zip Zombie leaching at first level.. Heh, he got the torch! :) Points leaching at zombie level. Played until 200+K

Phil Lamat phl_gng_6587000_mame34.zip, took phil a few minutes to find the right spot but he has it now. Leaching has comenced at 70K. Hmm, 233000, looks like he put on autofire and left it on a odd spot. Hey the timer is at 9 minutes, how'd that happen. I was web browsin and missed something.

300K Wow, phil did something odd to the timer, need to look at this recording again. Stopped playing.

N.Rodgers nmr_gng_594900_m34b4.zip, 150K Just some generic points leaching. Stoppped at 210K

Krool krl_gng_1412200_m34rc1.zip, 50K commence leaching. Stopped at 80K, dont think I need to see anymore.

Barry Rodewald br_gng_64800_m33b7.zip, ZERO point leaching, even I do a few seconds of leaching as I'm passing through the zombie level.

-- Dave Kaupp (info@kaupp.cx), September 04, 1999.

Haha, phil became a frog when the timer was set to zero. It looks like the timer is now counting down in the ASCII code.

Is this a known exploit in GNG?

-- Dave Kaupp (info@kaupp.cx), September 04, 1999.

Well known. On any stage where a tombstone is involved , you can shoot it 14 times , and time it until your timer is down to 2-3 seconds, and then shoot the tombstone for the 15th time. The " frog " spell will be cast on you just as your time runs out, and you will then have unlimited time. If you do it on the cave scene.....well, do I have to say more...????

ALEX

-- Alex Weir (alexweir@indigo.ie), September 06, 1999.

Since the top 5 GNG recordings are illegal, who does the removal of the recordings?

-- Dave Kaupp (info@kaupp.cx), September 12, 1999.