forums.marpirc.net

I think you should keep the testing line in the search string- it's interesting to see all the scores squished into one... and who's good for one piece of games, like you can see who's winning the a's, the b's etc.
<p>

Thanks for reading my comments

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goldengameboy@geocities.com

Well i very much like the new scoring changes (even though i'm now
much lower than i was, hopefully if i get enough play time i can build


<p>

One comment one clones, gathering all the clones together is a decent
way of reducing multiple clone scores. However this method basically
turns the scoring game into finding the weakest clone to get the
highest score. trog (not trogp), pacman-fast(not pacman) will be the
only scores trying to better themselves since you don't get any
benefit for playing pacman to try to beat a pacman-fast score!

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churritz@cts.com

Chad, this is true, but what can I do about it? It doesn't seem fair to award equal points for lots of identical clones, I don't want to have to judge which clones are identical and which aren't, so I have to either ignore clones, or treat clones as if they are the original game (which they mostly are, trogp and *-fast excepting).
<p>

Chris.

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zwaxy@bigfoot.com

Like i had mentioned a while back, the best way of grouping together
clones with out a jury of allow and deny clones, is to take a
percentage of how many clones there are and only reward the 1rst place
clone the maximum of that clone percentage and not 100. so if there
is three clones and you get 100 on one clone, you get 33.333 pts.

<p>

do you remember? maybe it wasn't such a good idea then, and still
isn't? I still think it's the least of all clone scoring change
evils. It does make the scripting and searching a bit complicated,
each search result will have to know do a search for all clones to get
the correct score, but it looks like you're about to do this anyway...


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churritz@cts.com

Oh no! It's the Return of the Clones!
<p>

This is a really BAD IDEA to lump clones together with the original
game. I'm really anti-clones but if they must count, then they should
count on their own like the original or lumped together with other
clones for the same game. My total score is now less than 1/2 of what
it was 4 days ago!!!! This is because a clone hi score beat out my
score in the original by 33%. Then in another situation, the original
game can be marathoned whilst the clone cannot. That's B.S.!!

<p>

To make things fair: the originals should count by themselves as this
is THE authentic version, and the clones should be lumped together.
If there's four clones, then someone should HAVE to get top score in
all 4 to equal the original 100 pts. In other words, take the score
for a clone game and divide by the number of clones for that game to
arrive at number of leaderboard points. This seems more reasonable!

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laffaye@ibm.net

Again, it is wrong to give any clone/parrent a benefit because what
could be called "the origonal" in one arcade, was not the origonal in
another part of the world. All clones and parrents should be divided
equally. <p>
If you just lost half your score, then you proly aren't playing as
much as you should , since if someone can beat your "origonal" score
on a clone, and you are good enough at the origonal to retain half
your points, then you should be able to beat their score in the clone
version.

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churritz@cts.com

My problem with Chad's suggestion is that if pacman has 10 clones, and
I was great at pacman, I'd have to upload 11 great recordings to get
my 100 points. Whereas somebody who was great at a game without
clones would only have to upload one recording. That seems to me to
be unfair on people who play cloned games in the same way that the
previous system was unfair on people who didn't!

<p>

For the most part, clones are the same as the original games, aren't
they? So trogp and trog are different, and some clones are easier
than the original game - maybe I should make exceptions for some
games? I really don't know what's fairest to do.

<p>

Chris.

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zwaxy@bigfoot.com

darn zwaxy hiding his answer/responses at the top
<p>

yes, i agree the needing to upload 10 recordings to get 100 pts is
bad. Maybe, for some clones with larger number of recordings we can
make the maximum score larger (200) to reward stamina. But, i still
think if you like a game and you are good on it, you should be able to
play all the clones and do well in each of them. I have no trouble
playing bagman clones all day, as does BIL playing galaxian clones

<p>

Also, you usually don't have to make each of the clone recordings your
best effort, just well enough to beat the top score, it seems most
people are somewhat humble in that if they see that Mr.B already place
a very high score in one of the clones, people aren't as likely to
beat a lame Mr.B clone score which is on another clone, since Mr.B
will proly upload another recording to beat it if it is beat.

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churritz@cts.com

Phffffpt!
<p>

I'll make it even simpler.

<p>

Pick one version of each game to be the official version.
Discount the others. Vote on it if there is a controversy.

<p>

Why should Puckman and Pacman count as two games? They are
almost identical. I don't want to play 3 dig dugs which are
all the same, because it is redundant!

<p>

In the case of sf2 it's a bit harder to decide, but you could
allow ONE original sf2, ONE sf2 champion edition and ONE sf2
Hyper Fighting.

<p>

This is the way I do it for Twin Galaxies. I don't think it's fair
for someone to get 3 bites at the apple just because there are
3 clones, and another person only gets one. Dividing the points
among the clones sounds really convoluted.

<p>

Remember the reason there was 3 Joust ROM revisions was because
the game let you scab points big time. Easy solution: Always use the
newest ROM revision!

<p>

My 3 cents

--
cubeman@iname.com

Speaking as someone who lost a shit-load of points due to my
excessive playing of cloned games I think the new system is fine and
dandy.

<p>

Gyruss is Gyruss regardless of which version or even if it was Venus.

<p>

Galaga is Galaga. Yes the turbo firing version is easier, the
gameplay is different but so what. People will soon learn which game
is the easiest to score the big points on and play that one.

<p>

Galaxians - what more can I say. Galaxian, GalMidw, Galap1 are nigh
on identical in gameplay. Yes SuperG and GalTurbo, galapx etc change
the gameplay but if you're good at one, you're generally good at all
of them.

<p>

Why should Bil and me get more points just because Galaxian is one of
our favourite games? Why should the Krogmesiter be gifted points for
every new Galaga clone that gets added (and 2 more recently did)?

<p>

Even though I have lost a truckload of points I still think that
converting all the clones into a single 100 point race is the best
way to stop unfair advantage for those of us who happen to like the
clone games. Yes, even if I didn't suck at Pacman I would still have
this opinion.

<p>

Just in case my sarcasm is not obvious enough, the next paragraph is
typed with tongue firmly planted in cheek: ;-p

<p>

What is the difference between multiple clones of galaxian and
multiple clones of fighting games. Just because they have different
names should someone get 100 points for KOF94, KOF95, ... and all the
rest of the neogeo crap fighting games !!!!!!! After all if you're
good at one crap neogeo fighting game, why should you get bonus
points for being good at all the crap neogeo fighting games. They're
basically all the same - just learn the new moves to use on the new
enemies and then the game is no different to any other of the
fighting clones...... eh BBH.....

<p>

BeeJay.

<p>

PS: Now I wish the next 7 hours of work would hurry up and finish so
I can get back home and back into another Galaxian session because I
see Bil has just reclaimed the scores I took off him last night.

--
bjohnstone@cardinal.co.nz

-- snip --
<p>

"Even though I have lost a truckload of points I still think that
converting all the clones into a single 100 point race is the best
way to stop unfair advantage for those of us who happen to like the
clone games. Yes, even if I didn't suck at Pacman I would still have
this opinion."

<p>

Let me clarify this paragraph in my previous posting. When I said
converting all the clones into a single 100 point race I was
inferring converting all the clones and the original game into a
single 100 point challenge. Nada, zip, end of story. The 'original'
is often not the version that someone cut their teeth on in the
arcades so to use the 'original' as a separate game would give an
unfair advantage to those who had this as the game they cut their
teeth on.

<p>

Welp, I'll get off my soap-box for now and go do some more work.

<p>

BeeJay.

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bjohnstone@cardinal.co.nz

The problem is that is NOT the simple way to do it. does zwaxy want
to store which clones are good, which clones are latest versions,
which clones are excluded? This complicates things when new clones
pop up in each mame version, so we have to have some sort of vote, for
every mame version that comes out to dispute which clone is included
and not? The selective clone system would work but there is too much
controversy involved in keeping track and making a proper vote for
which clones/origonals to be points getters.

<p>

The simple answer is to group clones togehter, in some fashion, there
isn't really a good way to do it, but anyway is better than having a
separate full score for each clone.

<p>

Is MARP a TG site?

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churritz@cts.com

BJ snuck in a reply (so i want to state my rebuttal was to Mark L.s
post) and this one is to BJ.

<p>

I would agree with a grouping of one game as all clones, but what do
you do about pacman and pacman-fast (and similar games)? if you get
100000 on pacman, and then someone comes along and gets 200000 on
pacman-fast (or an easier clone), do they deserve 100 pts and you
deserve 50?

<p>

Also, the fighting games are Seriously different, totally different
combos for the same fighter even on different games, yes they look the
same, but they are different. (I do see where you're coming from, i
was the first to hate the fighting games when they replaced a galaga
machine in my old arcade, boo hoo but i've forgave them since i'm
starting to like them.

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churritz@cts.com

Chad,
<p>

Pacman: Yes, if someone gets 200k on a fast pacman then your 100k on
slow pacman gets only 50 points. The point being, if you're good on
the slow version it won't take long to get good on the fast version
and reclaim your points. If you want to see totally different games
of Galaxian, try Galaxian and GalTurbo. Although the games look the
same the gameplay required to get high-scores on them is considerably
different and once you know how to play it, GalTurbo is the easier
game to play with the least practice. You will possibly always be
able to get more on the Galaxian/GalMidw/Galap1 versions with
practice because GalTurbo is very unforgiving on mistakes.

<p>

As far as the fighting games go, my point was that even though they
are 'totally' different games, the techniques you learn on one are
useful on the other game as soon as you learn the new combos to use.
I was merely trying to infer that they are effectively almost as much
clones as GalTurbo is of Galaxian - yes they look similar but the
gameplay is significantly different until you learn the new moves to
use on GalTurbo.... but you could extrapolate that to any vertical
scrolling shoot-em-up, and horizontal scrolling shoot-em-up, any
platform game, etc..... I am of course being facetious.

<p>

BeeJay.

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bjohnstone@cardinal.co.nz

Ok what about this, you get 100000 on pacman 99999 on pacmanb 999999
pacmanc. you get 100 75 50, 225 pts for pacman, If you're the top
three scorer. you run into the duplicate scores problem, when you're
really only good at "pacman".

<p>

yes, now i see you had mentioned once you know the combos the fighting
games are the same and i was about to say well if you're good at
galaxian might as well merge spaceinvaders/spacefirebird/galaga/galaga
plus all in the same game i still would argue each fighting game
has it's own little differences and differnt ways to jump and beat
opponents that you can't use over and over again.

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churritz@cts.com