Have yourself a seat (as if you weren't sitting already), this could get long.

In light of the recent discussions about doing things with marathonable games and some conversations that took place in #marp, I have to wonder what all this is going towards. We could sit here, quit our jobs, and spend all day every day talking about how to determine who is really the best at game X, or why a high score in game Y doesn't matter because you can play forever. Every game is a different situation, and every person has their own take on just what constitutes skill in a game. Is it getting as far as you can? Milking points all along the way? Playing until you drop dead? Who can say?

What we have here in each case is a granulation of a game (and its clones) into potentially several different variations, one where you're playing on hardest settings possible, one on TG, one on defaults for 'nostalgia's sake', et cetera. What comes of this, really? Do we actually need to add more entries to the big classics just so we can show skill in different ways? What we're accomplishing is stirring up a ~large~ can of worms that's bound to cause a great deal of discussion on what the best way to play a game is, some arguments, and the pointless transformation of MARP from the place it is into a site that praises the weak but prolific, rather than the individual talents of the specialists who excel within their own genres (apologies to those on the leaderboard who are top 10 material and maintain high percentages).

I propose something different entirely. After some thought I feel that the leaderboard is now something that holds MARP back. Yes, it's nice to see your name on a webpage with your percentages totaled up. But it attracts pointsmongers who see that as the end all-be all of their existence on this site. With that in mind, I think the site could do away with the leaderboard with all due respect to the top players, simplifying the process a great deal. The high scores on defaults (or TG, as the case may be) would be untouched, and the long-disused 'interesting' page could be used for games played under different circumstances. Some tweaking would definitely need to be done with that, but it's a workable solution.

Bring on the flames.

Brian McLean

-- Brian McLean (bmclean84@hotmail.com), July 15, 2000

Answers

Brian,

I couldn't have put it better myself. In the early days of MARP (pre leaderboard that is) nobody cared about how many games they submitted on. All they cared about what showing their skills on games they excelled at. I've been accused of being elitist before but that's what MARP was all about. Since the advent of the leaderboard, every Beta release there has been a rush of scores (myself included initially) just to try and maintain leaderboard points.

Today on #marp there were at least 3 of us who haven't been submitting much to MARP recently due to not seeing a point when all anyone is interested in these days is leaderboard points.

As for marathon games, my vote is to keep them. If people want to spend hours just to reclaim a 1st position that is their choice. Will I try to reclaim it if QRS or someone beats my Gyruss score? Probably I will eventually and if today is anything to go by I'll do it on maximum difficulty to boot and to hell with what anyone thinks about it being a waste of time spending 5, 10 or 20 hours doing it or whether it's just a test of stamina rather than skill - you've gotta have the skill before you can do the samina anyways.

BeeJay.

-- BeeJay (mamester@i4free.co.nz), July 15, 2000.

With all due respect to BeeJay and Brian MacLean, two excellent players, I will argue this point on behalf of those of us who do like the leaderboard.

If you don't want to participate, don't participate. Dave Kaupp still exists at MARP, but does not show up on the leaderboard. Just ask Zwaxy to hide your name from it if this is how you feel about its current state. You can still upload your quality recordings, and you don't have to complain about the structure.

The whole point of the TG debate is whether or not to raise the skill level required to post scores on a game. I fail to understand why this debate irks you--it should be doing the contrary. I never disagreed that a marathon takes skill, but I do thikn that there is a time and a place for such gaming, and that time and place is not MARP.

If you don't want the leaderboard, fine, hide yourselves off it, and you don't have to participate or be annoyed by beta rushers. The majority of MARPers do want the leaderboard, and besides, you reach a point on the LB where the higher you rise, the more attention you garner, and the bigger a target your scores are, so beta rushing becomes less and less practical unless you've shut off your e-mail.

I was wrong to bring up charges of elitism last year; I was new to the site and did not fully understand the dynamics of how the old and new players were mixing. But the argument of quality over quantity is irrelevant here. As it stands, the best rise to the top, and the best scores do not go unnoticed. Hisa-Chan is not even top 50, yet has three congratulatory messages (at least) on the msg board.

I guess what I am saying is "What is your point?" People can still make a leaderboard rush and take time to admire good recordings. Saying you don't want to record for a site because all anyone concerned about is LB points is a biased statement and in err--people notice the good scores at MARP, they talk about them every night on IRC and on the msg. board. Meanwhile, a player with ~900 .inps can't make the top 10.

I've reconsidered my position over the year, BeeJay, and you'll notice my average has gone from around 20pts/game to 62pts/game. So I ask you, before you call out for the foundations of MARP to be rebuilt yet again, to reconsider yours.

Sincerely, Q.T.Quazar

MARP Rules Coordinator

addendum: I do, however, agree with Taz's comment that the Interesting page is not beig used to its potential. This is a problem with MARP's hierarchy, however, and requires another person with code access to maintain it.

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), July 15, 2000.

I don't think they were against the TG marathon settings persay. Andy They are not going to stop participating because of the leaderboard. They (and me too) are saying the leaderboard makes people participate half-heartedly simply attempting to beat someone elses score one rung up to gain points for their leaderboard "status". The old marp was about giving your best at the games you could really show off with, not brandishing that you can get 62% average in all the games you upload.

-- Chad (churritz@cts.com), July 15, 2000.

oh, I can see I'm gonna get hit from all angles with this one. The 62% example was to show that I'm putting more effort into my .inps than I was one year ago, chad, not a boast about my overall prowess.

I approach arcade gaming very diferent than the three of you. Agreed, i play a lot of different games, but that is because a lot of different games interest me. I also don't usually enjoy playing games over and over again ad vomitum, T1 being the exception to this, and even then I burned out (among other things) a month early. However, every once and a while, one game crops up that I just have to keep playing. In the past month, that has been Mikie and Oh My God! But by what you are saying, I should therefore leave off all other games, and just play these until I have mastered them and my eyes bleed. Where's the fun in that?

Q.T.Quazar

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), July 15, 2000.