News & ST2002 FAQ


If you want to go to ST2002 FAQ page, click HERE !

11/7-2002: The vote started.

7/9-2002: Game polling has finished. We are currently working on making proper snapshots and testing them.

We already have 43 players, which is nice :)

30/09/2002: Ended Sign Up time with 55 players.

10/10/2002: Finished poll about replacement for "Raid Over Moscow". Poll lasted one week. Terra Cresta won, but we
didn't get enough (half +1) votes. So we set new rules in order to solve problems in game:
1) If player lose any city, game STOPS!!
i.e. you have to write down your actual score in that moment as your final score; and
2) Set difficulty level to HARD.
 



ST2002 FAQ

Q1:   When you say- "...game is not appropriate for tournaments...", what does it mean?

A1:   We can recognize 4 sorts of problems- points leeching, predictability, patternability and marathooning.
Leeching- this was experienced in Green Beret, Jumping Jack, Eric & Floaters,... the whole idea is to stay on 'safe' place (in game) and easy collect points e.g. stay on the top of vehicle or 'hill' (in Green Beret) and kill enemies (which can come only from one direction). Games without 'time limit' are especially vulnerable to this.
Predictability- due to making Z80 snaps for emulator's recording purposes, some games (where the goal is to 'find something') can become predictible which ruins the original spirit of game. Good example is "Wheelie", where arrangement of tunnels is always same when you start Z80 snap, so player can learn it by heart and beat the game. "Cyclone", nominated for ST2002, was thoroughly tested to this, and disposition of 'target-cubes' was found as unpredictible.
Patternability- due to this, Manic Miner and Hunchback has finished in "HALL OF 'SOLVED' GAMES", i.e. possibility to find 'winning pattern' in some game, which can be easily followed ('reproduced) by other players. This usually leads in 'marathooning' too.
Marathooning- this is problem for tour's confirmers (judges). Its boring to verify loooooong recordings, almost painfull. Patternability is not the only cause for this, game can become very easy for top players ("Buck Rogers" and "Highrise Harry" miss nominies list due to this) or you have too often bonus lives awarded (in arcade machines it was quite common to see: "...bonus ship every ???? points..." e.g. Q-Bert or Bosconian) so the best players become practically immortal.

Q2:   What violations can make my recording invalid?

A2:   In AIR files we have situation very clear. Unlike in 'MAME Tours' where players can 'cheat' in speed (everything under 90% fps is cheating!!) here recording stops if speed falls. Using 'pause' is also forbidden, but 'compo mode' prevents player from this too :-) 'Hoarding Scores' means you made an great score, but you don't submit it to Tour's jury (whitin 48hrs in MAME) on time. This ruins 'fair play' because other competitors deserve to know how good score you have ASAP.

Q3:   Can I use pause command if it exist in an tour's game?

A3:  Only once (...phone rings :-) eventually twice ('nature calls'), but don't make pause longer then 15 minutes. You can't go to lunch, bed... and then continue recording. Also you can't 'chop' games with pauses (e.g. fast games like "Space Harrier").

Q4: Why the hell are lives in Cobra limited to 6?

A4: Because average players would make points with 5 lives and real good ones with 25, and that's not fair. With the limitation though, everybody can show their skills with the same conditions. Beside that, if we didn't limit the game, we would encounter sooner or later players who can play the game undefinitely until they bore, as happened in ST2001 in Manic miner. You can record the whole game unlimited if you wish, but please check the air file after that and send official score. After Tour, we'll make an only database of game recordings, and 2 leaderboards, competition and unlimited will exist for this kind of games. After all, it's all for the honor. :)

Q5: What's wrong with Raid over Moscow?

A5: You can lost all USA-Can cities except last one (no penalty for that!!) and this gives player a chance to leech pts on soviet launch sites (go left and kill planes for 250 pts every second!!). Furthermore, when you hit any tower on launch site, you get bonus life/plane, so this 'routine' is very safe/easy for player. This totally ruins the spirit of game.
Even if we limit game to 9 hits of player's plane/man, player can lost cities until last one (violation of spirit) i.e. can get high score without reaching city of Moscow (there are so little pts to get, even on final, robot's stage :-(

Q6: Lode Runner 'ending' bonus- "...If I reach level 74, I'll get the half points, i.e. 50%. Is that fair?"

A6: Nope, you deserves less... 30 or 40 pts max!! (i.e. you should be happy with 50) When you finish last (75th) level, game stops. There is BIG DIFFERENCE between finishing game with 35 or with 50 remaining lives. (much more then 20/35 or 5/20 difference cases, where of course 20/35 is 'bigger' then 5/20 !!) This mean you lost 45 or 30 lives respectivelly. If someone finish on 74th level, that means he lost all 80 lives. Player who solve the game with 2 remaining lives (lost 78) will have 77pts (75+2) and that's little difference to 74pts. But if you have 60 remaining lives, you'll have 135 pts (75+60) i.e. lost only 20 lives on your way.
So, someone who achieve less with losing 80 lives, wants 74 of 75 (almost 99%) even when compared with player who lose 20 lives achieving 'more'.

For those who want to 'learn' more:
in arcade (MAME) Lode Runner after every level you have bonus, but bonus is separated in 3 zones- normal/ double/ triple. i.e. if you finish level with time left 4800 (6000 'units' you have on start) players gets:
2000 pts for time 0-2000 plus (i.e. 1x2000)
4000 pts for time 2000-4000 plus  (2x2000)
2400 pts for time 4000-4800  (3x800)
---------------------------------------- 8400 pts bonus in 'total'
compare it with player with 2800 time left:
2000+ 1600= 3600 pts bonus in total !!! For me this (non-linear bonus) is justice !!
 
Back to ZX's Lode Runner-
we can similar thing, separate 3 zones among 'remaining lives' !! (just to raise the competition edge!!)
First 25 remaining lives count as 1, another 25 as 2, and every after 50th rem.live as 3 points!!!
e.g. finishing with 60 lives will give 180 (75+25+50+30) pts, while 35 makes 120 pts. (120/180= 67%) or compared with 74 lev. score 41%.

We didn't apply '3 zones' rule: 1.) players don't like complicated rules ;-) and 2.) I don't want to hear comments like "they changed rules in their favour". Please understand we modify rules in some games in order to make Tournament 'better', i.e. to 'patch' some 'holes' in game's scenario/ plot, not in any players favour. Thanks! :-)
 
 

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