Since it looks like the gambling games will be gone by the end of this beta cycle, I thought now might be an ideal time to list the categories that should be removed from MARP. If anyone has anyhting to add to this list, please respond to the post.

The removals would be:

Gambling Games:

Golden Star (goldstar) Golden Star Blue Version (goldstbl) Super Casino (sucasino) Lotto Fun (lottofun) Champion Skill: Ability, poker, symbols (csk234it) Champion Skill: Ability (csk227it)

Multi Credit/Multi Player Games

Timber-2 players (timber-2p) Reactor-7 lives (reactor-7) Exed Exes-2 players (exedexes-2p) Two Tigers-2 players (twotiger-2p)

Speed Cheat Games

Hangly Man 2 with Speedup Cheat- (hangly2-fast) Junior Pac-Man with Speedup Cheat- (jrpacman-fast) Miss Pac Plus with Speedup Cheat- (mspacatk-fast) Ms. Pac-Man with Speedup Cheat- (mspacman-fast) Pac-Man: Harder? with Speedup Cheat(npacmod-fast) Pac Gal with Speedup Cheat (pacgal-fast) Pac Heart with Speedup Cheat (pacheart-fast) Pac-Man with Speedup Cheat (pacman-fast) Pac-Man (set 2) with Speedup Cheat (pacmanjp-fast) Pac-Man (Midway) with Speedup Cheat (pacmanm-fast) Pac-Man (midway, harder) with Speedup Cheat (pacmod-fast) Piranha with Speedup Cheat (piranha-fast) Puck Man with Speedup Cheat (puckman-fast)

If my understanding of the cheats in Pac-Man is incorrect, and it is a powerup and not a cheat, could someone let me know, and I'll strike them from the list. Thanx.

p.s. My apologies for not having the banned games page up yet. It will come soon. Also, to all those who submitted banned techniques for consideration, there will be a vote starting late this week and lasting for one week that will decide the fate of certain techniques. Again, sorry for the delay with this, I've been busy with exams and essays.

As always, anyone wishing to contact me about the rules or rules page can reach me at qan@home.com

There will be further autofire/slowdown deletions later this week, as Analinp is slowly becoming capable of detecting subspeed games as well as autofiring. Any particular players who want to save face might consider making some deletions within the next few days (especially on games where it would be obviously impossible to any maintain any semblance of linear thought by, oh, say, level 10 or 11. Furthermore, there will be a possible addition to the rules page requiring that players play games with auto frameskip. This is not set in stone yet, but looks like it will be.

Sincerely, Q.T.Quazar

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), February 21, 2000

Answers

QT,

The speed-ups are a legitimate category as these types of alterations did indeed exist in the arcades of the "golden age". The reason for their presence in those days was to generate new interest in old games that were falling off in the earnings category. Some of the machines had the speed-up as default while others gave the player the option to press a button to activate the speed-up. Hope this makes it clearer for you.

I have to agree with you on the banning of the multi-player/ extra lives via extra coin input category even though it might cost me a few points. It is the correct thing to do for sure.

As far as the gambling games go...it's no great loss to see these tossed!

JoustGod

-- JoustGod (pinballwiz1@msn.com), February 21, 2000.

would any of the golden agers care to enlighten those who don't know how to "power up" the mame pacman speed ups?

good riddance to the gambler games. I think there is more behind the logic to remove them, since i would still consider them arcade games even though they would only show up in certain "kinds" of arcades and are also pretty lame.

-- Chad (churritz@cts.com), February 21, 2000.

All right, thanks JoustGod. Scratch the -fast games from the list. I think someone (probably me) needs to build a page detailing secret powerups to games so that everyone at MARP has access to them. I know people have already complained about this in Street Fighter Zero, Bubble Bobble, Pang!3, and others.

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), February 21, 2000.

Chad,

No problem...just use the -cheat in your command line. Launch the game. Go to your DIP switch settings and you'll see the yes/no option for the speed-up cheat.

JoustGod

-- JoustGod (pinballwiz1@msn.com), February 21, 2000.

Ok for removing timber-2p ' twotiger-2p ' exedexes-2p (other 2p games has been already removed) and reactor-7

For gamble games I'm less enthusiast : I know there is a big % of luck in this games but there is also a kind of strategy (especially for goldstar) ; I think there is a % of luck in a lot of games and that it is very arbitrary to decide which game had to be removed and which can be maintained . Take the example of a game we all love : pbobble ... there is strategy in it but also a big part of luck when we're waiting for a colour which never comes (those who ever played this game know what I mean)

Remember than marp is also to be a reference of scores on EACH game that can be played in single

-- phil (plamat@club-internet.fr), February 22, 2000.

QT, I am ashamed at you wanting to scratch games just because of luck? Secondly, you are only removing some??? What about Poker Ladies? If you scratch those, then the Mahjong games would have to go... With those gone, then the Puzzle games are deleted... QT, we are not here deciding which games are worthy of being played, but if they can be.

-- Chris Parsley (cparsley1@hotmail.com), February 22, 2000.

I vote strongly against the list of games that utilize the speed-up option. All the games that use it are slightly modified in a certain way to distinguish the difference between the original and the modified ver. These or most of the pac-man games will be recognized in the TG book of records because they are not considered the same as far as game play and this speed up option does not make the game extremely easier then the original. If that were the case, then everyone in here would have a kill screen including myself which I've done in the arcade several times.

The speed up option is no different then the turbo fire option in Galaga. So does that mean this one will be added to the list as well? The others are find with me, I don't plan on trying to get the world record or high score on Lotto, if you know what I mean.

Just my $1.00

Steve Krogman

-- stephen krogman (skrogman@bellsouth.net), February 22, 2000.

Dear Mr. Chris Parsley,

Please pay attention to the news and to the posts before posting. I am not scratching gambling games because of luck, I am scratching them because Nicola has deemed that they should not be a part of MAME, and I wholeheartedly agree with him. MAME was made to emulate video games, not casino machines. And, as much as I hate to say it, Poker Ladies does have *additional* entertainment value-- that's why it remains one of the most popular submissions at MARP-- whereas you'd be hard-pressed to find many players willing to plunk away at Golden Star for hours. Have a look at Nicola's post about Golden Star over at MAME Testers, and what he considers the *value* of someone's time playing this game.

Besdies, until they're actually removed from MAME, I'm not scratching anything, period (except maybe myself)

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), February 22, 2000.

I agree with everything except the auto frame skip, my machine which runs most of the games smoothly at full speed without AFS tends to flicker a bit when AFS is ticked.

Can't you just encrypt the game time into the inp file and let the cheaters cheat, we all know who the respectable members are here.

-- LordGaz (garyjlee@hotmail.com), February 23, 2000.

The autoframe skip woulnd't be necesary if frameskip 0 runs fine on your machine. Usually you can't tell much difference between 0 and auto, but we'd only require autoframeskip be used for games that you can't get 90% fps on in frameskip 0 mode.

-- Chad (churritz@cts.com), February 23, 2000.

Actually, QT, (and I an not directing this to you to start a flame or anything) I can absolutely see a positive value for the "casino" games currently emulated by mame. Granted while Golden Star might not be the most skill challenging program out there, many of the "classics" would be lost if not for emulation. Question, when was the last time anyone saw a Golden Star machine, or CSkill? Also about the "Funspot" style ticket games, a.k.a. Super Lotto, etc. AND I am very sorry, but if you are scratching "casino" style games because there are a particular type, then Poker Ladies would also go. It is nothing but a glorified video poker machine with nudie. Are you to say while casino is bad, if it has something you really like, aka nudies, then it can stay? We haven't blanked old Sega games, (Carnival, etc.) just because they can't be played/recorded on the current edition of mame anymore, why scratch these? All know I don't have a high in any of these, (ok, Super Lotto, because I watched and learned), but if today we arbitrary remove "casino" style games from MARP, what is next? American Football games? Soccer style games? Fight style games? Puzzle games? Pac-Man clones? It can be endless from here.

-- Chris Parsley (cparsley1@hotmail.com), February 23, 2000.

As i said before, the reasons behind removing the casino games (not being arcade games) are flawed since they kind of seem like arcade games, however lame or great they are in other peoples opinions. But marp is the MAME acction replay page, we'll only do games that are in MAME and if nicola takes them out, they're out, including pong which is not an "emulation." beyond that we should only be allowed to "scratch" recordings when they use a voted on banned technique.

-- Chad (churritz@cts.com), February 24, 2000.

I am sorry, but if they were ever emulated, (which they were) then they should be here at MARP now and forever, regardless if they are scratched in future editions...

-- Chris Parsley (cparsley1@hotmail.com), February 25, 2000.

Well, I'm sorry too, but if MARP is the MAME Action Replay Page, and the game's not in MAME anymore, then we should just wave it a fond "farewell, and thanks for all the fish..."

I thought the idea was to have everything as up to date as possible, and this is why the new versions are added. Using the same flawed logic, do we not add new games "Because they weren't emulated before???"

Crash.

-- Crash (crash@tcp.co.uk), February 25, 2000.

If Nicola drops the games, then they will be dropped from the list. We don't play Raine or Callus games here just because they are or were emulated. As much as I agree with many of the statements made, games which were designed SOLELY for the purpose of gambling have little place in MAME and even less here at MARP.

Furthermore, I disagree that Poker Ladies or Mahjongg are the same as gambling games. Both of these games have a stage progression, whereas Golden Star or Super Casino do not.

Finally, holding onto these games would require players to keep YET ANOTHER version of MAME on their computers to record scores for them. Mine currently has mame34 for old unrecordables, TGMAME3 for tournament play, and MAME32v.36b16 for normal recordings. This is in addition to versions I have to download to confirm recordings (currently final .35win and .36b10win) I'll be damned if I'm keeping another sucker on my hard drive.

I don't think that the vast majority of the MARP community has any qualms about dropping the gambling games. And I'm sorry if it affects people's leaderboard position, but it gets me too.

Sincerely, Q.T.Quazar

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), February 25, 2000.

QT/Crash, thank you for making my point for me, since the game isn't going to be available in the future, we are to forget it was there? If by that logic, old non-recordable games anymore shouldn't be allowed on MARP either as they are not able to be done normally on current version either. The excuse of having another MAME version on your HDD doesn't hold any water, as you already hold one for old Sega recordables. I used Poker Ladies as a reference to the fact that it and something like Champion Skill are virtually the same game, except Champ Skill doesn't have a slut (oh, excuse me, dealers that will get naked) in it. Just because it is dressed up a little more than the others, doesn't mean it's not a gaming game.

I went to mahjong and others as an extension of how insane it is to eliminate a game simply it is of one catagory of game, and how it could be applied to others.

-- Chris Parsley (cparsley1@hotmail.com), February 27, 2000.

This may or may not be like other games have been removed. But Parsley is right, there are a bunch of "clones" and "bootlegs" that get removed and they are still allowed on marp, obviously not recordings of versions of mame that don't support them.

However, there is the support in marp to keep old clones by renaming them to current mame version names. But there is not support for keeping games/clones that no longer have a current mame version game to rename them too. So, it would seem the games that no longer have a current mame name will be stricken because marp just may not be able to support this.

-- Chad (churritz@cts.com), February 27, 2000.

Chad, this I'm glad to hear, as its at least news to me. I thought all romsets simply had their names changed when the rom images were modified. If anyone wants to send me a list of romnames at MARP no longer supported by MAME, I'll make sure they get axed too.

Ciao.

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), February 27, 2000.

There may not be many at the moment, since usually when a game is "removed" from mame, it's simply because it's a name change. i.e. scrambles to scramble or what ever it was... But i think kingofbj is the only one i know of. It's not in current mame but there's recordings of it from older versions. However it just may be that it is the same as one of the ringking, ringkin2, or ringkin3 clones that wasn't renamed yet. I.e. the kingofbj recordings should get moved to the correct game name.

I think this deserves a vote though, to see who wants to keep recordings of old mame versions that are no longer supported in new ones. It may have some merit, to keep old recordings.

-- Chad (churritz@cts.com), February 28, 2000.