forums.marpirc.net

this was recently fixed (game logic)

Most of the INPs on MAME were recorded when the game was broken, and sometimes blocks wouldn't vanish correctly.

I think a special rule needs to be added requiring the use of a recent version (0.96 or newer or newer), and old scored set to 0.

Not really necessary, as it was a disadvantage really. Or at least, I thought it was.

Well, it may have been a disadvantage to the player, but there is always the possibility it was more of a disadvantage to the AI if it wasn't designed to plan for that to happen... Hard to say.

With both players having the same disadvantage, it really doesn't make so much a difference then

However, human players can plan for the glitch, the AI probably hasn't been programmed to do so and thus any combo moves the AI knows could quite easily fail.

basically i don't see the point in keeping scores for a broken game when the emulation is now correct. the way the game played before did not reflect its behavior in the arcades, and thus the scores obtained on it aren't really scores obtained on that game.

operation wolf is going to be a similar situation soon, Bryan's recent fixes improve the emulation of it (by simulating the protection chip instead of using a bootleg one) its not perfect yet, but it is better than the bootleg chip was.

agreed, that broken scores are pretty much meaningless (unless for archival purposes), but if they are broken and there's more of a disadvantage most players will resubmit with newer versions of mame with better scores. It's possible that removing the scores would make this happen sooner than later, but it'll happen eventually.

Just curious, what gameplay differences are there using the real protection in Operation Wolf? (C-Chip, isn't it?)

It controls many things, difficulty (thats very buggy in the bootleg, doesn't get reset after a game correctly), when bosses appear, random events (not yet working apparently), timers.. see the notes in machine/opwolf.c

14 - dip switch A (written by 68k at start)
15 - dip switch B (written by 68k at start)
1b - Current level number (1-6)
1c - Number of men remaining in level
1e - Number of helicopters remaining in level
1f - Number of tanks remaining in level
20 - Number of boats remaining in level
21 - Hostages in plane (last level)
22 - Hostages remaining (last level)/Hostages saved (2nd last level)#
27 - Set to 1 when final boss is destroyed
32 - Set to 1 by cchip when level complete (no more enemies remaining)
34 - Game state (0=attract mode, 1=intro, 2=in-game, 3=end-screen)
51/52 - Used by cchip to signal change in credit level to 68k
53 - Credit count
75 - Set to 1 to trigger end of game boss
7a - Used to trigger level data select command


Notes on bootleg c-chip:
Bootleg cchip forces english language mode
Bootleg forces round 4 in attract mode
Bootleg doesn't support service switch
If you die after round 6 then the bootleg fails to reset the difficulty
for the next game.