Does FREE PLAY really change anything?

[MasterFygar]

I'd be pretty pissed if I had spend say 3 days on the Defender record back in the 80's and those clowns wiped the slate clean so I have to totally disagree with this. On that note I agree that their reputation is highly questionable.

Well, we should at least have different sections or abide by the old rules. It's unfair to new record holders to have to fight against possibly fraudulent records with a bunch of added hassles and disadvantages. If they're going to keep them, they need to allow people in current day the same restrictions or lack thereof of the scores they're fighting against, or at least set the other records in a different section. It's hilarious that they go to such ridiculous extremes to "keep a level playing field" and yet the record that is to be beat could have been done with the game set to easy and max lives with a speed hack and a monitor glitch that makes a 1 into a 7.

Either be a nazi with everyone or don't be a nazi. It's horribly unfair to make every single attempt go through such recording and verification hell (and make a collector who owns a game have to either buy a new one with an original power supply if they don't qualify) to beat a record that was made with the incredible restriction of having some guy watch you or being recorded on a VHS. It's just not right, and it screws up their "equal playing field" obsession. Want to be a score nazi? Delete shady scores. Want to be fair to the people who got the original records? Lighten up the vicegrip on everyone else. They can't have it both ways and keep with their goal of fairness.

 

[gutsman004]

TG is a joke.There are so many double standards it's pathetic.And all just to get your name on a stupid website....eh,no thanks. I don't need to beat my chest and let everyone know I'm super good at such and such game.

 

[RetroHacker]

Yeah. That makes no sense. For one, there is no way a "non original" power supply is going to matter. It's a power supply. It doesn't matter if Nintendo made it or Peter Chou.

And I love the requirement of zooming in on the ROM chips to verify they're original. Uh... Nintendo never covered the quartz windows on their EPROMs. If you wanted to modify the code it would be downright trivial to erase and reprogram the ROMs onto the original chips, and still have them look 100% original.

For example, something as simple as checking an extra couple of pixels left and right for an obstacle on the jump routine would increase the sensitivity and allow more barrels to score when you jump over them (As it is, it's easy to jump over a barrel and not get points for it). That would increase the scoring of the game, and be unnoticeable when watching a tape. And the ROMs sure as hell wouldn't look any different... or taste any different... you'd have to checksum them.

As for the old, shady scores sticking around... well... it's a slippery slope. Do you just throw everything out and start over? Will that piss off more people than it appeases? I don't know.

Before they had too few regulations. Now they have too many. And none of them can fully verify that the player isn't cheating.

-Ian

 

[demogo]

> Well, we should at least have different sections or abide by the old rules.

Yep, that's the obvious answer.

"Classic" scores from BITD and "modern, verified" scores.

I don't have issues with the modern verified scores but some of the classic ones are laughable.

 

[Mike Doyle]

In the case of DK, the glaring error in verification is the uncovered ROMs and the fact that the game requires capitalizing on randomness of barrels. So in effect, once you obtain a certain degree of skill, it comes down to the randomness of the barrels.

It would be easy enough to erase and modify the code to slightly effect the randomness without ever removing a ROM label, since the windows are wide open. I'm not a proponent of cheating, just pointing out a glaring issue with verification on this particular title.

For a high profile game like DK, Twin Galaxies should really consider offering sealed official ROM sets. <edit> not to run afoul of copyrights, original ROMs could be verified and then sealed and offered for sale using something simple such as the various security tape seals offered with serial numbers registered. Those are cheap and clearly show evidence of tampering when removed.

On the topic, one more idea: establish "Legacy Scores" as a way to preserve historical unverified high scores, and clear the slate for modern verifiable scores. Everyone can draw their own conclusions as to which matters more, but suffice to say keeping scores as World Records that are impossible to obtain and are of questionable authenticity, abates the efforts of current competitors.

 

[MasterFygar]

On the topic, one more idea: establish "Legacy Scores" as a way to preserve historical unverified high scores, and clear the slate for modern verifiable scores. Everyone can draw their own conclusions as to which matters more, but suffice to say keeping scores as World Records that are impossible to obtain and are of questionable authenticity, abates the efforts of current competitors.

That's pretty much what I was suggesting above. It seems like the only way to keep the individuals who worked their asses off in the 80s happy as well as the folks doing the same thing now. It's not a complete fix, but it eliminates their most glaring flaw.

 

[ScumBum]

Some games, yes....

Mark you brought out before that if you wanted to , you could erase the original roms , replace them with hacked roms to cheat , put them back in the original board and no one from TG would even have a clue . That reason right there means I think you should HAVE to play live to get credit for the High Score.

 

[MasterFygar]

Mark you brought out before that if you wanted to , you could erase the original roms , replace them with hacked roms to cheat , put them back in the original board and no one from TG would even have a clue . That reason right there means I think you should HAVE to play live to get credit for the High Score.

How would that be any different? If it's undetectable on a video, it shouldn't show up just from being in person, should it? If you mean the gameplay would be easily monitored live, any changes significant enough to matter should show up on tape as well. Anything that can be seen in person can be seen on video.

 

[ScumBum]

How would that be any different? If it's undetectable on a video, it shouldn't show up just from being in person, should it? If you mean the gameplay would be easily monitored live, any changes significant enough to matter should show up on tape as well. Anything that can be seen in person can be seen on video.

No , the point of doing it live is doing it at Funspot or one of their events . So you'll be using their machine that they will have verified that its all original .

Thats why billy mitchell's latest scores are so undeniable . He did them live on a verified machine in front of everyone . So theres no question about his score being bogus at all .

If you got skill , you should be able to pull it off live .

 

[PrairieDillo]

tg is a joke.there are so many double standards it's pathetic.and all just to get your name on a stupid website....eh,no thanks. I don't need to beat my chest and let everyone know i'm super good at such and such game.

+1 .

 

[HudsonArcade]

+
So, in practice, maybe the non-free-play sequence executes like two more lines of assembly.

For all practical purposes, I don't see this making a difference, but TG is trying to make the apples to apples comparision as close as possible.

But since every game I've ever looked at is interrupt driven, I'd bet if you profiled the code execution, a good chunk of time is *always* spent waiting for the interrupt to occur, so the extra lines of code executed don't really matter (except in the case of Z80 games that use the R register for 'randomness', where extra lines = different random numbers).

 

[HudsonArcade]

Thats why billy mitchell's latest scores are so undeniable . He did them live on a verified machine in front of everyone . So theres no question about his score being bogus at all .

Where was it shown that the machine was 'verified'.. Who verified it? How was it verified? What was verified? DOES FUCKING TG EVEN OWN A FUCKING EPROM READER? -- These are the questions they're not willing to answer...

He certainly didn't play in front of 'everyone', he played in front of some fellow-referee friends.

 

[dmoreland]

The one that defies logic to me is that they allow pretty much any kind of speed up hack you want to set the Asteroids record. The current record was set in 57 hours but if you tried to get that score without the speed up hack, you'd be looking at a 100 hour marathon. TG won't even put a disclaimer noting that the top three scores (this is verified) all used a speed up hack so that a person without knowledge of the game has no idea that these scores weren't set on a standard machine. It just seem hypocritical to me to go through all this trouble to make sure everyone is playing on a level field by requiring all of this other crap and then go and let people use whatever speed up hack they can create and then never inform a potential record breaker that all the scores they are trying to beat used a hack and if you don't, you will be playing at a huge disadvantage.

 

[ScumBum]

Where was it shown that the machine was 'verified'.. Who verified it? How was it verified? What was verified? DOES FUCKING TG EVEN OWN A FUCKING EPROM READER? -- These are the questions they're not willing to answer...

He certainly didn't play in front of 'everyone', he played in front of some fellow-referee friends.

I know what you mean that the machine wasn't "verified" but its still the most legit way right now to set a high score . If people with skills like yours can modify a board so easily undetected , the whole thing is a joke . It should be come down and play on our machine to set a world record .

 

[MasterFygar]

No , the point of doing it live is doing it at Funspot or one of their events . So you'll be using their machine that they will have verified that its all original .

Thats why billy mitchell's latest scores are so undeniable . He did them live on a verified machine in front of everyone . So theres no question about his score being bogus at all .

If you got skill , you should be able to pull it off live .

Ah, I see what you're saying. Sorry, I thought you meant live as in having a local referee come by or bringing your game to one. Funspot conditions would be ideal, yes (and I always seem to play better there anyhow).

 

[demogo]

With some of their ridiculous unrepeatable old scores from 25+ years ago lumped in with the much more stringent modern verification techniques and almost absurd new rules, it reminds me of setting up a bank vault with 20 layers of security, armed guards, guard dogs, and death traps to get the prize, all while leaving a wide open back door with much less stringent security.

I mean, what's the point?

And yes, Mark, I know their modern verification techniques have holes that can be exploited by those with the knowledge. I'm just trying to make a point.

 

[JamBurglar]

Ah, I see what you're saying. Sorry, I thought you meant live as in having a local referee come by or bringing your game to one. Funspot conditions would be ideal, yes (and I always seem to play better there anyhow).

Check your PMs.

 

[MadocOwain]

Fascinating thread here. I looked into the requirements for the Discs of Tron record attempt, and they're nowhere near as restrictive as those for Donkey Kong - no restrictions on power supply for instance. So each game has its own requirements for verification which vary wildly from game to game? Crazy!

 

[CrazyKongFan]

Fascinating thread here. I looked into the requirements for the Discs of Tron record attempt, and they're nowhere near as restrictive as those for Donkey Kong - no restrictions on power supply for instance. So each game has its own requirements for verification which vary wildly from game to game? Crazy!

Only DK has the big crazy requirement list. The rest pretty much just require you to power it up on camera, film the game, then film the board/dip switch settings. Before that, any game over 1 million had to be done in presence of a senior TG ref, so at least this lets people do it at home.

 

[jow]

I dont think any games are allowed to be on FP though...