LIST: Alphamame Blocked Recordings

Abbe · Post by **Abbe** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 11:59 am

I think Francois's question is interesting and as I see it you miss the point a bit, Rick.

Let's imagine the following scenario:

Rick has a 200 000 point pac man score made with a standard mame version.

When I submit a score of 20 000 with alphamame, Rick's score is blocked to 19 999.

The next day I improve my score to 30 000 points.

The question is if Rick's score should be raised to 29 999, which sounds reasonable, or left at 19 999. Raising the score is the best choice IMHO, but it does mean extra work for the editors as long as the blocking procedure is manual.

Chad · Post by **Chad** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 3:03 pm

then what happens when the 30,000 score is dqued for a slow alphamame speed or pausing, ricks score would go back down to 19,999. I guess rick's point is, there IS a tgmame score at 20,000 that blocks it even though we can't see it... then again i'm biased since i don't want to keep editing up and down

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin · Post by **Mr. Kelly R. Flewin** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 3:05 pm

Abbe wrote:I think Francois's question is interesting and as I see it you miss the point a bit, Rick.

Let's imagine the following scenario:

Rick has a 200 000 point pac man score made with a standard mame version.

When I submit a score of 20 000 with alphamame, Rick's score is blocked to 19 999.

The next day I improve my score to 30 000 points.

The question is if Rick's score should be raised to 29 999, which sounds reasonable, or left at 19 999. Raising the score is the best choice IMHO, but it does mean extra work for the editors as long as the blocking procedure is manual.

A very good scenario, but this is where it fails... so his score is raised... so? What if someone comes along on Day 3 and uploads a legit Alphamame score to the tune of 5000... that means that Rick's upgraded score beats a new Alphamame score.. which means it needs to be blocked... which means it now should be 4999... unless he uploads it via Alphamame, Alphaxmame or Mac...

I'm almost thinking it's easiest to just delete and enforce Alpha or Mac... because otherwise it's gonna be a pain in the ass for editors to keep monitoring scenarios and adjusting.. and they have lives too.

Just my 2 cents..

Kelly

kfx · Post by **kfx** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 4:13 pm

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin wrote:I'm almost thinking it's easiest to just delete and enforce Alpha or Mac... because otherwise it's gonna be a pain in the ass for editors to keep monitoring scenarios and adjusting.. and they have lives too.Kelly

I would like to know of any good reason NOT to do this, this will be the best thing to do.

Chad · Post by **Chad** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 5:15 pm

we dont delete recordings because we still want to archive regular mame recordings, but since we can't prove them to be legitimately played they shouldn't score more.

LN2 · Post by **LN2** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 7:51 pm

Abbe wrote:Let's imagine the following scenario: ....

ahh, if that is what Francois's question was then yes I totally misunderstood it. I thought he was asking what happens to the player that submits a new score. that seemed too obvious. He was asking how the blocking changes if an alphamame score that was blocking was improved ehh?

That is interesting...and likely would totally be overlooked by anyone doing it manually in many cases.

I think that kind of stuff is yet another reason why for most games the versions of mame that would be blocked by alphamame should just totally be disallowed for submitting scores. There would have to be exceptions for certain rom sets as noted above...also the Sega 1 engine games.

If Barry does a 0.36 version of alphamame then most of those will be moot also.

This however is best handled in web cgi/php scripts that handle the submission page. If other than these listed versions used...and all but these certain rom sets used...then reply submission reject cuz use of illegal version of mame for that game..and give link(s) for alphamame etc.

Then you wouldn't have to worry about blocking at all...cuz it all would be handled at the submission level.

Admit it Chad, it's a major pain to go through the scores like you do and find ones to block down.

Chad · Post by **Chad** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 8:54 pm

it's worth it if it prevents someone from trying to cheat $\:D/$ i'm still for separate (multiple?) leaderboards so we can have regular mame archive and a tgmame archive, all cheating tricks whatever allowed in the regular one, tgmame recordings allowed in the other. So blocking wouldn't be needed... but that'll be the day.

Post by **mahlemiut** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 9:01 pm

I think it would be much better if it were just leaderboard points that were affected. Like, a bonus for using AlphaMAME, or a small penalty for not using it. And I'm sure that it could be easily implemented by Zwaxy.

Francois Daniel · Post by **Francois Daniel** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 12:45 am

LN2 wrote: Yes, but it seemed obvious to me that if you had an old regular mame score and uploaded a new alphamame score for that game, your old one is GONE from submitting the new one...as it is for any submission. Thus your question of what happens etc. was confusing. At anytime you can submit a new score and inp...and it will replace the old one if you already had an entry for that game..

Oups you misunderstanding me (sorry for my poor english). It's not in the case where I upgrade my blocked score with an Alpha, but when the guy who blocked me upgrade his score. What's upon my score blocked score ?

LN2 wrote:I made my point there. In versions of mame newer than 0.35 for mbrush, you can not complete the first level. You are stuck in the first level forever. It only properly allows you to complete levels in a really old version of mame like 0.35. In other words all versions since that mbrush isn't emulated properly where it's playable. So either an old version still needs to be allowed for mbrush or the game needs to be archived. No one for example should be able to submit a score for mbrush using alphamame since the game isn't properly emulated in any version of alphamame.

So the MARP editors need to do some considering...if they are going to make regular mame prohibited then a few games will need to be archived. In the case of "mbrush" I say archive it cuz there are numerous other clones of Make Trax/Crush Roller that do work properly in current versions of mame and alphamame etc. so nothing is really lost by archiving mbrush versus making people use such an old version of mame to play the game.

Okay I understood, it's the same case than for many 0.36 games (Hang On...), I hope someday Barry make an Alpha 0.36

Francois

Francois Daniel · Post by **Francois Daniel** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 12:47 am

Abbe wrote: The question is if Rick's score should be raised to 29 999, which sounds reasonable, or left at 19 999. Raising the score is the best choice IMHO, but it does mean extra work for the editors as long as the blocking procedure is manual.

Thanks Abbe, you've understood me

Francois

Francois Daniel · Post by **Francois Daniel** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 12:51 am

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin wrote:
Abbe wrote:A very good scenario, but this is where it fails... so his score is raised... so? What if someone comes along on Day 3 and uploads a legit Alphamame score to the tune of 5000... that means that Rick's upgraded score beats a new Alphamame score.. which means it needs to be blocked... which means it now should be 4999... unless he uploads it via Alphamame, Alphaxmame or Mac...

I'm almost thinking it's easiest to just delete and enforce Alpha or Mac... because otherwise it's gonna be a pain in the ass for editors to keep monitoring scenarios and adjusting.. and they have lives too.

Kelly

Excellent

You're right. It's a big headache for the editors and they have many others more important things to make.

But Chad is a Major Geek

He had no life

Francois

LN2 · Post by **LN2** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 2:34 am

Francois Daniel wrote: It's not in the case where I upgrade my blocked score with an Alpha, but when the guy who blocked me upgrade his score. What's upon my score blocked score ?

No, I got you right this time. I just maybe switched "you" and the "other player". it doesn't matter if it's you with the blocking alphamame scores you improve or if it's someone else...the question of how other regular mame scores blocked down are affected by an upgrade to an alphamame score is the same.

It's a shame cheating is prevalent enough among those on PCs for these actions to occur to start with. Remember odds are 99% were not cheating before alphamame came along...so all that crap is just for the few that do cheat.

Chad · Post by **Chad** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 12:53 pm

hehe you're right about that francois, i actually thought i had less of a life before taking that test, i feel almost normal with that score...and that there were people that could checkbox more questions than me.

mahlemiut wrote:I think it would be much better if it were just leaderboard points that were affected. Like, a bonus for using AlphaMAME, or a small penalty for not using it. And I'm sure that it could be easily implemented by Zwaxy.

well it might be hard because the sorting might be pretty complex to get only some recordings to get leaderboard points. But you've hit it right on the button, we need an area where you can upload any mame game/split that DOESNT get leaderboard points to display any sort of cool trick or cheat or newbie official mame recording, and an area that gets scrutinized (tgmame). i.e. when you submit with tgmame it goes to the real board, you submit with regular mame it goes to the archive area. all recordings are still searchable by game name but there is only one rank with tgmame recs. Only problem is what do we do with the grandfathered recordings do we keep them in the tgmame area or lose them in the regular area, for this blocking works because it keeps the grumpy grandfathers all happy that they don't have to rerecord their recordings.

LordGaz · Post by **LordGaz** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 8:47 pm

* Intentionally removed *

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin · Post by **Mr. Kelly R. Flewin** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 8:55 pm

well it might be hard because the sorting might be pretty complex to get only some recordings to get leaderboard points. But you've hit it right on the button, we need an area where you can upload any mame game/split that DOESNT get leaderboard points to display any sort of cool trick or cheat or newbie official mame recording, and an area that gets scrutinized (tgmame). i.e. when you submit with tgmame it goes to the real board, you submit with regular mame it goes to the archive area. all recordings are still searchable by game name but there is only one rank with tgmame recs. Only problem is what do we do with the grandfathered recordings do we keep them in the tgmame area or lose them in the regular area, for this blocking works because it keeps the grumpy grandfathers all happy that they don't have to rerecord their recordings.

Yeah, but a lot of this relies on Zwaxy having the time to do all of this as well... and you know... I almost want to say [and not intending offense here] that the grandfathered ones should be moved... if you're that good... you can duplicate or pwn the score anyways... a lot of games I thought I'd never do better at and gave up on.. I gave some fresh starts to and BAM! Higher scores... the fresh approach usually works out at times.... but then this is my 2 cents and no insult or slight intended to those who have blown the games out of the water before... I admire your skills and will continue to do so.

Kelly