Rules and why's?

[Mr. Kelly R. Flewin]

Actually, it's round 97 that has no time limit. And it's too late, someone has already done that. Damn boring to watch too.

To me, pausing on many games just totally defeats the purpose of a time limit.

*perk* Why the hell would Taito let something to .. foolish slip by? It seriously has no time limit though...? So there's like some safe spot to hide while 1 monster runs wild.. or is this the screen where it's nothing but endless falling due to no floor?


Kelly

[LN2]

The entire point of the "no pausing rule" is to set a level playing field so noone has an unfair advantage, simple as that. Clearly the choice was "no pause" as opposed to "pausing allowed" because it is the option that is closer to the "arcade experience".

it goes beyond that. it's not like the list of distractions etc. you would have in an arcade. Nothing you listed actually affects how the game is played...it only affects how you can perform and concentrate on the game. There were arcades that had some stools/chairs for upright cabinets. You could go and play right when they opened in the mornings before it was very crowded so you don't get those other distractions.

In most cases the control in the game for the arcade version is BETTER than what you will have in MAME. Funny you didn't mention that.

Pausing isn't allowed not so much cuz it's closer to the arcade experience, but because that actually is influencing the GAME. You are changing the GAME by pausing. Many games are no longer the same challenge etc. if you are using pause.

When you change the way the game is actually played, it's not playing the game as intended. You have bent/broken rules for playing the game.

It's similar to why MARP requires 90+% speed for games and why TG requires 95+% speed. If slower than that then that is deemed too much of an advantage for playing many games where you end up being able to score higher than if the game was running at 100%.

Pausing the game is making the game temporarily run at 0%!!!! That's way below 90% or 95%.

[LordGaz]

For once I agree with you 100% LN2 .

MAME is an emulator, it recreates arcade games as closely as possible so you can play them on your PC. It even uses the original ROMs as images so you are playing the actual arcade game as it were and not just a conversion which someone has written.

My point is that pausing is not part of the emulation, it is a feature external to the emulation added my MAME that allows you to pause any game and the use of it means that you are not playing the original for the duration of the game. By the same argument the use of F10 to speed up intermissions between screens should also not be allowed.

If you're playing for fun by all means use pause when you're suddenly desperate for a piss or something interesting comes up on the telly, but at the end of the game any inp you created is invalid for competition purposes in my view.

Anyway, some games have little tricks or certain places you can rest whereby you can leave the machine for short or even indefinite periods and not lose many or any lives, eg. Mr Do!, Pacman, Defender, Bombjack and probably many more. In my view, freezing Defender by dropping all 10 humaniods at once and continuing the game the next day is a perfectly legitimate technique.

Btw, why is keeping the game running at normal speed called 'speed throttling'? Surely speeding up the game should be called 'speed throttling' because the word 'throttle' means pressing the accelerator pedal on an engine to make it go faster. It just seems they got this the wrong way round .

Gaz

[Buttermaker]

Btw, why is keeping the game running at normal speed called 'speed throttling'?

Because to throttle means to limit. If MAME doesn't limit the speed the game will run as fast as your computer can run it.

[LN2]

I think he understands it...just was asking why the term "throttle" was used.

A throttle regulates the flow of fuel for an engine.

In the case of MAME, the speed throttle is regulating the speed the game plays at.

It would be cool if the speed throttle in mame had a few other settings. If it had 200%, 300% on toggling F10 in addition to 100% and unlimited that would be cool...cuz you could still watch an inp at 200-300%.

For some of these games the playback is so fast at unlimited speed you can't tell what is going on...so then must watch it at regular speed..taking longer to verify.

Maybe the mame devs could be talked into adding a couple more throttle positions for F10.

[Buttermaker]

I think he understands it.

I think so too.

[tmorrow]

*perk* Why the hell would Taito let something to .. foolish slip by? It seriously has no time limit though...? So there's like some safe spot to hide while 1 monster runs wild.. or is this the screen where it's nothing but endless falling due to no floor?
Kelly

It is a bug in the game. The level doesn't end until the water flows out the bottom of the level. Since the water is trapped in a solid wall, it can't escape so the level never ends. You can kill all the enemies and the level still won't end. The white ghosts don't come either because the game thinks the level is over - yes, it's an error in programming logic.

[mahlemiut]

The white ghost doesn't come because there is no time limit in the first place for that round. I'm not sure if it's intentional or not. If it's not, then it's certainly a big oversight.

[QRS]

Pause is not allowed, and it is in the rules page. So whatever the opinions are for us MARPers is is not legal

[LN2]

Pause is not allowed, and it is in the rules page. So whatever the opinions are for us MARPers is is not legal

You paused before giving this reply Anders! Therefore your reply should be zeroed out!