Alright - I'm going to place three motions on the table(the first one split into two), and for each motion, all in favor will signify by saying "aye" - all opposed will signify by saying "no". This vote will expire on February 5, 2001 at 2359 GMT.

a1) If you finish the game, you recieve (100,000 * (8 - lives lost)) points / life left over.

a2) 1,000,000 points instead of 100,000

b) Any extra loops don't count toward the final score. If you beat Lucifer, you get the 10,000 points(right?) for beating Lucifer plus, if A is passed, the extra life bonus.

c) If you repeat more than twice, the score ends there regardless of beating Lucifer and no extra life bonus.

There. Have fun. I vote aye for a1, no for a2, no for b, and aye for c. GB9

-- Gameboy9 (goldengameboy@yahoo.com), January 29, 2002

Answers

Aye on C only.

-- Barry Rodewald (bsr@hnpl.net), January 29, 2002.

I think we should just count the score you have at the end of 2nd loop. It will be just like many other games, spending all but last life leeching points in the best place for that and then finishing the game (seeing 7/8 lifes spent on leeching would be boring, but less than seeing a whole day lasting inp)

Comunque complimenti Michele, anche se non ho il coraggio di guardare il tuo salvataggio ;-))))

-- essekappa (benedetti.franco@tiscalinet.it), January 29, 2002.

OK... then what's your vote, essekappa? C with a variation gets the aye and everyone else gets the no? GB9

-- Gameboy9 (goldengameboy@yahoo.com), January 29, 2002.

My vote is yes for a2 & b ; no for others

-- phil (plamat@club-internet.fr), January 29, 2002.

I think add score for a game isn't in the spirit of any game. Score is the one we made on such or such game. No bonus points at all if they're not in a game yet. It's valuable for Ghouls and any other game.

I vote 'yes' for b and 'no' for the others.

There no extra life bonus at the end of the game ;-)

Also, I think any ranking must be made by stage reach then by score, but its another matter and I'll not impose this rule here.

-- FD (francois-daniel@libertsurf.fr), January 29, 2002.

I vote aye for a2. Not sure about the others yet! Should extra loops count if you still beat lucifer?

-- Steve Fewell (kranser@yahoo.co.uk), January 30, 2002.

I vote "C" only.

-- INNUENDO (funit@bol.com.br), January 30, 2002.

Aye on C only (but there are no extra lives at the end of ghouls & clones)

-- essekappa (benedetti.franco@tiscalinet.it), January 30, 2002.

A1 no, A2 no. B no. C AYE.

-- Mr Bunny (bull444@hotmail.com), January 30, 2002.

vote C

-- Chad (churritz@crash.cts.com), January 30, 2002.

A1, A2: no. B: aye. C: no.

Note that in case only C should pass, then there would be no reason to finish the game anymore, as a couple of loops award more points than going straight to lucifer and beat him... Do you really want this? I thought that finishing a game was an essential and universal prerequisite when it comes to mastering games...

Michele

-- MKL (m_nassivera@yahoo.it), January 30, 2002.

OK, here's how I understand C - if you do two loops then beat lucifer, then you win with the bonus - but if you go to the third loop, then it's an automatic game over after the 2nd stage 5 loop. In other words, you do loop 2 - stage 5 once, you can loop one more time, then you must beat lucifer or your game is over.

Did everyone understand motion C correctly? GB9

-- Gameboy9 (goldengameboy@yahoo.com), January 30, 2002.

I think you're confusing the issue by saying "repeat more than twice." Only 2-5 repeats, so change C) to "if you repeat 2-5, score ends there, no bonus."

-- Tenchi (rpeng@usc.edu), January 30, 2002.

Note that if we avoid A1 or A2 (I mean bonus for a finished game), voting B or C prevents us from leeching on last round, but not for leeching on other rounds ! For example Michele who can finished the game in 1 life could easily almost complete 7 or 8 times a previous level and let himself die at the end of this level before finishing the game on the last life

Just to be sure all voting people is aware about that ...

I'm like Michele ; I'm dreaming of a perfect inp completing this game in 1 life without leeching, that's all ; this experimental search of a good scoring is an interesting debate indeed

-- phil (plamat@club-internet.fr), January 31, 2002.

Phil, the fact is that leeching on the other levels is not a Ghouls- specific problem: there are tons of games you can finish on 1 life with a score that can easily be surpassed by appositedly sacrificing a number of lives on certain fruitful areas. So if we apply the 100k (or 1M)-per-remaining-lives bonus to solve this problem in Ghouls, then we would have to extend the rule to all other games with the same problem, which is not an easy task. Also, this kind of bonus alters and blurs actual scores, which is not a good thing. On the other hand, the kind of leeching you refer to does require skill, for it’s not at all easy to finish the game on your last life. So to me this leeching is tolerable.

I of course agree with you that the best inps are those where player completes the game (any game!) on 1 life, but unfortunately the scoring systems are often unsuitable for this matter.

-- MKL (m_nassivera@yahoo.it), February 01, 2002.

A1/2: Nay. B, C: Aye.

Just being different here...

-- dissolute city (mdenham@coinet.com), February 01, 2002.

Can I propose something?
Like 500k pts for finishing the game LESS the score reached(a la Cadash)?
Plus the C rule only(no repetition of last level)?
Or I'm asking too much???

-- Kale (angelo.salese@tin.it), February 01, 2002.

Ooo, i like, i vote C and K for Kale. that would totally eliminate leeching and provide a whole new escape mindset of game play, of course it might be too backwards for anyone to like it... but it sounds fun.

-- Chad (churritz@crash.cts.com), February 01, 2002.

The difference with Cadash is that in Cadash you gain power with experience, so beating the final boss with low exp is very difficult. Going for a low score on Ghouls seems a bit odd.

-- Tenchi (rpeng@usc.edu), February 01, 2002.

Kale has a legitimate motion, therefore it's a legal vote. All in favor of rule K as Skito called it will signify by saying "aye", all opposed will say "no". This vote will end February 8 at 2359 GMT. The other motions will still end February 5. I will vote aye for rule K. The other votes will remain the same... GB9

-- Gameboy9 (goldengameboy@yahoo.com), February 02, 2002.

Rule K? No way!

According to Kale’s proposal, players should try to kill as few enemies as possible... I can’t imagine a more aberrant rule for this game (which is all about blasting enemies)... Also, I do not see why this rule should not be extended to any other game of this kind...

Let’s face it: some leeching is unavoidable in this as well as in other games, but the real problem of Ghouls is last level leeching: let’s just eliminate that.

-- MKL (m_nassivera@yahoo.it), February 03, 2002.

Kale's idea is not a bad idea : it rewards non dying courses and also completing level the faster you can But not with 500k !! When Michele finished the game with 1 life and 270k, his score would be then 500k-270k=230k, so it was better for him with this scoring to suicide than finish the game ! I would vote yes to K but only with something like 1 million-score when finished

-- phil (plamat@club-internet.fr), February 04, 2002.

Go back to playing through twice, kill Lucifier at the first chance. That's the only way your going to get the game times to reasonable levels. Score is the score at the end of 2nd pass, period.

Track marathon scores separate if you want a stamina category.

I never realized that the game could drag on over 12 hours, so I'm going back to my first idea.

-- Mark Longridge (zero1@look.ca), February 04, 2002.

> I'm like Michele ; I'm dreaming of a perfect inp completing this > game in 1 life without leeching, that's all ; this experimental > search of a good scoring is an interesting debate indeed.

Isn't this outside the range of what MARP is? Having a perfect inp with the game completed in 1 life without leeching would be nice - but it isn't what MARP is for. MARP is for highest scores, isn't it?

Likewise, I'd love a perfect inp of ghouls with the dipswitch difficulty set to 'Hardest', but this will not happen in MARP, as MARP is only interested in 'normal' levels of difficulty.

I say, lets stick with the idea of who can get the highest score - even if stamina does play a part in it.

-- Steve Fewell (kranser@yahoo.co.uk), February 04, 2002.

Fortunatley marp isn't about getting highest scores (you can cheat if you want the highest scores), of course it was origonally put together to be a proving grounds for the mame record and playback functionality, and now i think marp is here for the competition of gamers everywhere. most games have a good scoring systems that allows a wide range of competition to take place by simply comparing the scores the game gives. some games don't score well because the existing scoring systems don't offer unambiguous scoring (racing games where everyone doesn't finish all laps/courses), some scoring modifications are trivial (battles won/routes completed less time or plus ambiguous scorings) some are more difficult (the leechers).

unfortunatley it's taken a year to get a good, agreed upon by all, scoring system for ghouls and ghosts. we're very close with this vote.

-- Chad (churritz@crash.cts.com), February 04, 2002.

I can’t believe “rule K” is being taken seriously...

Let me stress once again that it is SHEER NONSENSE (at least in this kind of game): sure, it would totally eliminate leeching but would also alter the very nature of gameplay: the more enemies you kill, the less points you score: instead of shooting enemies, players will have to dodge them! If this rule is applied to Ghouls, then I expect it to be extended to other games: I’m looking forward to watching all those inps where players worry to shoot as few enemies as possible and dodge as many as they can...

The rise of a new genre... dodge’em up!

-- MKL (m_nassivera@yahoo.it), February 04, 2002.

OK - I'm changing my K vote from aye to nay.

Steve - you have the right to call a vote to change Ghouls N' Ghosts settings if you'd like - maybe all we need is a change to hardest settings anyway... I seriously doubt that will take care of the stamina problem, though. GB9

-- Gameboy9 (goldengameboy@yahoo.com), February 04, 2002.

I completely agreed with Michele. The K rule destroy completely the ghoul's playing spirit. If you like the Dodge'm all, play Pitfall 2. It's a very cool game who haven't shoot, only jump. The score we made must be the one we have on the screen. The problem is the last round, that's all. So, only rules b or c was good rules for Ghouls.

So, I said no for K rule.

>Likewise, I'd love a perfect inp of ghouls with the dipswitch >difficulty set to 'Hardest', but this will not happen in MARP, as >MARP is only interested in 'normal' levels of difficulty

Marp isn't interrested in normal level of difficulty. Marp is interested in Mame Default Settings. Its not the same. They're many games in Mame who haven't the factory settings. Some are in 'Hard' (as Twin Eagle) others are in 'Easy' (as Rygar)...

-- FD (francois-daniel@libertysurf.fr), February 04, 2002.

C only folks, yes I managed to come back ;-)

-- Duh its me LOL (cparsley1@hotmail.com), February 05, 2002.

I don't think that using the 'Hardest' setting will solve the problem - as (to make the scoring competitive) we need to work on the 'repeating of the last round' problem. So, I'll change my vote to aye for c and aye for a2 - maybe with the possibility of at a later date (when the chosen scoring method is proven), adding a rule that the difficulity must be set to 'hardest'.

-- Steve Fewell (kranser@yahoo.co.uk), February 05, 2002.

Vote aye to A1 & B.

-- blost (blost@mail.com), February 05, 2002.