I guess we've progressed to the point of general agreement on wiping some games out of the site, or banning them, or whatever. So I'm posting a final list based on Skito's, Zwaxy's, and other threads. This list includes Zwaxy's 'freebies' page selections as well. If there are corrections or additions, please let me know. I think 1 week will give everyone time to discuss/modify this list, and then I will submit the final list to Zwaxy and we will vote on the games. I spent a good chunk of today scouring the recording listings, but I'm sure that I'm missing a few two player games from the list, so feedback is necessary. PLEASE DO NOT VOTE ON THIS LIST, VOTING WILL TAKE PLACE IN ONE WEEK!!!

Notes:

From Zwaxy's list, I have dropped Neo Turf Masters, since like MPIE, it is not easy to attain 18, but there will probably have to be changes there too (Grand Slam style scoring, perhaps?)

If there are scores, it indicates that there is currently a massive tie for the game.

The parentheses indicate the problem with the game, so you can decide to vote to keep or ban it temporarily, or ban it permanently.

Broken means that the game is broken to the point of being unplayable. Such criteria would be an invisible character, no collision detection, or similar problems.

Games listed as 'does not playback' means that this game does NOT play back in ANY version of MAME.

Finally, I have listed Fax as a single entry--it is really 4 entries that will be voted on (the four categories)

1.alexkidd -- (broken) 2.battlan2 10 (broken) 3.battlan3 10 (broken) 4.battlane 10 (broken) 5.blockade 6 (too easy) 6.bowler-fl 8410 (improper control advantage) 7.bowler-rg 300 (improper control advantage) 8.bowlrama-bj 420 (improper control advantage) 9.bowlrama-br 300 (improper control advantage) 10.bowlrama-fm 9600 (improper control advantage) 11.breakers -- (does not playback) 12.breakrev -- (does not playback) 13.cabal 550 (broken) 14.cabal2 550 (broken) 15.capbowl 300 (improper control advantage) 16.capbowl2 300 (improper control advantage) 17.carnvckt -- (does not playback) 18.checkmat 6 (too easy) 19.clbowl 300 (improper control advantage) 20.comotion 4 (two player game) 21.darkplnt 5000 (broken) 22.dominos 4 (too easy) 23.fax 85300 (repetition) 24.fitter -- (no collision detection) 25.flipshot -- (does not playback) 26.gunfight -- (two player game) 27.headon2 -- (does not playback) 28.lastbld2 -- (does not playback) 29.lazercmd 15 (too easy) 30.lottofun 5000 (repetition) 31.medlanes 300 (improper control advantage) 32.robotbwl 300 (improper control advantage) 33.shuuz 36 (improper control advantage) 34.shuuz2 36 (improper control advantage) 35.sucasino 200 (scoring limit) 36.warrior -- (two player game)

PLEASE DO NOT VOTE ON THIS LIST, VOTING WILL TAKE PLACE IN ONE WEEK!!!

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), September 12, 1999

Answers

I guess I posted just about the same time you did. :)

Does depthcharge playback in the DOS version?

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

Problems with list.. What the heck do you mean with improper control? It may be broken now, but either wasn't earlier or may be fixed later Just because a game has a max, it shouldn't be removed. Two players games, for the most part, can be played as one as well. So, perfectly, I would remove a total of, ZERO GAMES!

-- Chris Parsley (cparsley1@hotmail.com), September 12, 1999.

there is no talk of banning the games themselves but the trimming of the fat of the recordings which are no use to this site or anyone else who comes here to download recordings. Are you really going to download any of those great 1rst place the battlane scores to play them back? So if the games themselves change to be not broken or fix their playbackability, the future recordings would not be banned.

I'm uncertain about the statement "improper control advantage" but i think what QT is trying to state is that these games have the possibility of too many ties at the top i.e. an improper scoring system to differenciate between better and worse uploads.

This is a vote, so you can choose to not want any of these games' recordings banned, but this happens in a week or so, we're in the electorial stage before the voting stage.

-- Chad (churritz@cts.com), September 12, 1999.

Thanks for answering that one Skito. You gave most of the gist of what I would say.

Anyways, to clarify:

IMPROPER CONTROL ADVANTAGE in most cases refers to the fact that these games were meant to be played with a TRACKBALL or similar control, a device which can be very difficult to roll STRAIGHT (instead of point-and-shoot keyboard tactics). If it doesn't refer to that, then it basically refers to the fact that most consoles do not have a keyboard where you can use miniscule movement adjustments to control your shot. Notice that this comment applies to the zillions of bowling and horseshoe games out there. I only listed games where it's blatantly obvious that the differing control methods have a huge impact on the game. Try using your mouse for Capcom Bowling, and see how well you do...

So, that's all I have to say, and I'm not really concerned about the syntax of what I'm saying; it's irrelevant. This is, as I have stated and as Skito just stated, a preliminary test list for people to contribute games to or suggest the removal thereof. The problem does not exist with whether these games can be played--it exists with wether these ames will EVER be downloaded. Right now they are, as was so eloquently termed in Skito's post :P, 'fat'.

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), September 12, 1999.

woah, i was way off about the ICA. well, i might as well argue why i thought it was a scoring issue rather than a physical controling issue :). robotbwl doesn't use analogue controls, a simple key for hooking left and right, so this one can only be banned if it is too easy to get the perfect score.

-- Chad (churritz@cts.com), September 12, 1999.

i post too much. depthch does not playback from m33b5 to m36b4. i'll bet it woulda worked if it was released in m33b4 :)

-- Chad (churritz@cts.com), September 13, 1999.

As far as depthch is concerned, no it has never been able to playback as far as I can remember. The trick to this one is the fact that the only DIP switch settings that are available involve coin-in variables. No difficulty, no timer, nothing. So in this particular case, it has been the honor system and a screenshot. I believe that this is as fair as it's going to get for this game until a fix is served up to us...I won't collect cobwebs on my keyboard waiting for a fix to this one, tho'!

JoustGod

-- JoustGod (pinballwiz1@msn.com), September 13, 1999.

This is one of the issues of banning dispute, playbackability. whether screenshots are good enough to be put in a "action replay" site. I think the honor system is nice if you want to keep score, but i want to download a inp that plays not just see the score that is put up. So i'm voting to ban any recordings which do not playback. I'm encouraging everyone to vote their opinion.

-- Chad (churritz@cts.com), September 13, 1999.

Chad, I would go along with that, as long as: 1) It has never played back in any version of mame. 2) It is a temporary ban, as soon as a working mame that plays back it comes out, it is released from a ban.

-- Chris Parsley (cparsley1@hotmail.com), September 13, 1999.

I think there really isn't an issue of voting wether a game is playbackable or not. The vote should just be if you want to allow recordings that don't playback, so Vote No to the Ban of games that don't playback. And we aren't talking about removing the game from marp, just putting these games up for scruntity to ban individual uploaded recordings IF they don't playback. So, if a game actually plays back, the recording won't be banned because it doesn't playback.

In other words: If you want to accept a recording that doesn't playback (as long as it has a screenshot) If another recording of the same game does playback, Vote No to banning the recordings that don't playback.

However, if you think the playbackability of an inp file matters more than the score that it receieved, Vote Yes to ban games because of their lack of playbackability.

-- Chad (churritz@cts.com), September 13, 1999.

In cases of the inproper controller advantage, the games on driving games should not be allowed if they were not played with a wheel, Crystal castles recordings will be ruled out too. And not to mention the people that can afford a hotrod has a big advantage over us others so those could be voted for banning too :)

This is just to show how stupid this discussion is.

regards Stig Remnes

-- Stig Remnes (stigr@samsen.com), September 14, 1999.