Anyone Want A Gp32 Offline Gaming League? Discuss!

[skeezix]

Here's a crazy idea, a variation of some ideas proposed in the past. This is not Pandora specific (include Caanoo, Wiz, Gp2x, even PSP), but I don't want to spam all the sub-boards until we nail it down and if lots of folks think its a groovy idea.

Proposal -- an _offline_ gaming league, where each week or two we have a game selected across the league, with various objectives posted as a method of scoring. At the end of each period, the scores are posted to a thread and the league admin teracks the scoring. At the end of the season, the scoreboard is completed, and perhaps even the top few guys get some recognition or even prixes, if it takes off.

Season length: Maybe a 'quarter' (3 months?)
One game period: Biweekly? (you don't want it too rapid, since that elimintes us folks with kids and jobs and whatnot and favours unemployed folks
Scoring: Varies by game, so the league administrator, when he releases the next game to start a period, publishes the scforing system. ie: The league admin has to do a bit of pre-period work to determine scoring. Coudl just be "the score you got", or could be "in Dungeon Master, for reeaching floor 5, you get 100 points; for reaching floor 7, you get 300 points", that sort of thing.

Themes of any given season (could run multiple, but then oyu divide up our commnity too much to keep critical mass?) -- each season could be themed -- Atari ST season, or Arcade season, or something. Or it could be a total free for all where the emu selected is available across all devices noted as being acceptible.

Dropping in/out: would be 100% fine; if you were on a trip or couldn't make a submission at end of period, fine, we're all in it for fun, who cares!

Scoring and Submissions; I'm thinking we coudl go on an honor system -- people post their score or achievement; we coudl be a little hardcore ands request a screenshot to 'prove' it; really really hardcore would be requiring a savestate upload somewhere, and then other folks in the league or the league admin would have to go through and tally points, but that seems like way too much work, even if only sa half dozen participants.

Prizes; none to start with, do it for bragging rights. Hell, coudl even be somethign simple like a badge on your left-side posting avatar But if it takes off, we coudl toss something in .. hell, I'll throw a TV-out cable or something in, buty you end up getting prizes fir people with the wrong gear, so hard to do

IT seems like if people want to do this, then the hardest part is finding a league admin. Now, I coudl do it, but I'm a pretty busy guy. I'm willing to organize the first couple rounds and kick off games, but you all know I'm going to pick a Atari ST or SNES game But I wouldn't mind finding a league admnin who has _lots of free time_, since I could see this being lots of fun/work - make a website, watch a league forum, tally scores and audit scores, research and select the next game and determine scoring rules for that game, etc. This could be a great opportunity for someone who isn't a coder, say -- someone who really wants to help out in the community but doesn't know what to do. (I'm thinking Blue Protoman here, lol

Hell, we could go nuts, make a emuholic vs gp32x vs wraggster thing if it takes off, make some site-competition

If we can get 10+ people who commit to playing a few games to start with, across emus across platforms, I will start it up and take care of setup!

jeff

 

[skeezix]

As to concerns about game length, my plan for scoring needs to be negotiated with everyone, but I was thinking..

- perhaps emphasis (more often chosen) games that are interesting/fun and short .. ie: coudl be arcade style, or short adventures, or whatever.
- for longer games, the scoring could be slanted towards skill, or perhaps slanted towards getting to an earlier set of objectives, with bonus points for later objectives.

Example -- if Eye of the Beholder is picked, then just for complewting the first couple floors, maybe thats the most points. But with points awarded for later objectives or completion as well .. so its worth it, but you're not going to just destroy everyones scores because you had more free time. ie: (made up randomly) -- 100 points for completing to objective 1 (early); +20 points for completing half-way, and +30 for completing to end. So you get lots of points, but you don't get like 1000 for completing, and totally ruining the league for anyone who missed that week,

Example -- for a game like Civilization or whatsitcalled Ogre Tactics perhaps a savestate could be prepared with a specific setup that everyone has equal starting, or perhaps its for winning in a certain common setup, or getting to a certian tech level, or something that you can achieve withotu spending 25 hours.

ie: The goal is to make it so you can possibly do well in 30-60 mins, but not need to spend 5 hours on per perriod, thats just too much.

jeff

Edit: though remember, scoring system woudl depend on each game (or class of game) -- perhaps shmups would have a common system -- 'beating level such' gets X points, and top player gets +y, second top player gets +z. But RPGs use this system, wargames that, etc. *shrug* TBD

 

[Shaun]

I'd possibly be interested. I own a GP32. I'm still not sure about how it would work though. By offline, do you mean we record videos of our playthroughs and submit them? It's a cool idea, though, and I suppose it would be fair if it was the GP32 being filmed, if that's what you're suggesting.

 

[skeezix]

GP32 tended to have a lot more frameskip so might be sluggish or harder to play games that run great on everything else, but I have no reason why not. It'd just make it harder on you

It'd have to be decided yet by everyone, but I don't much see the nead for 'hard core' -- video taping your plays is just sily, and who wants to watch that, or have time?

I'm saying we'd go honor system -- for whatever scoring system is deined for that period, people would post their game scoer and achievements and show their score tally, and the league admin would just keep a tally. At worst, we could have screenshot at the end, or savestates, but I really think we coudl get by with honor system. (Unless real big prizes are at stake, and then maybe it'd have to be hardcore.) But for no prizes beyond bragging rights or whatever, cheaters are jerks, and no big deal. *Shrug*

GP32 did have great controls imho and one of the best TG16 emus

jeff

Despite your picture .. no pandora?!

 

[skeezix]

Someone should post it to pandorapress as well, ge the word out

jeff

 

[scottm]

great idea skeezix I used to be involved in something similar at http://www.retro-league.co.uk (even did a small website for the 1st few seasons) haven't played for a while though. The games were chosen by everyone having 2 votes, and then the 1 game is picked randomly each week. The games had to have a scoring system to be considered for selection.
We took screenshots to verify scores. top scorer for the week would get 100 points and then everyone else would get a percentage based on their percentage of the score behind the winner and their overall position (the exact formula is listed on the website). Points whoring was not allowed!

Will rule myself out for admin, but might be able to participate (once my Pandora arrives )

 

[skeezix]

Doesn't have to be pandora, could be a lot of things.

Wow, didn't know someone already had a nice league up like that. But at least here we could make it GP32/OP related, so that its more personal/exciting

Anyone want to post to gp32spain too, if they'd be interested? Might be hard to manage that with the language barrier, but could be a cool friendly compo thing, despite the fact they seem to hate us

jeff

 

[Pickle]

There was a group that was doing this already but it kinda puttered out, but i would be interested.

 

[Phawx]

I'm down. I just started on Metroid for NES. But I can switch to something else.

 

[God Ginrai]

Sounds like a great idea. By the way, a good suggestion for 4 of the games would be the separate weeks of BS Zelda: Ancient Stone Tablets. Each week is limited to an hour, and the game automatically shows you your score once the hour is up, IIRC.

-God Ginrai

 

[MonkeyChops]

sounds like fun and a great way to be forced to try out a game that you may never have played otherwise. I'll play but put me in the "kids and a job" category so no time for admin.

screenshots seems like the way to go to me, easy and seems more official that way. Plus it'll give you the "look what I did" kind of satisfaction more imo. But yea, if real prizes were ever on the line then savestates would be the way to go. Admin would really only have to check the top player's savestate, right? unless there was a runners up prize I suppose...

 

[MarkoeZ]

screenshots seems like the way to go to me, easy and seems more official that way. Plus it'll give you the "look what I did" kind of satisfaction more imo. But yea, if real prizes were ever on the line then savestates would be the way to go. Admin would really only have to check the top player's savestate, right? unless there was a runners up prize I suppose...

Sounds good, at least a sreenshot should be posted. People just cannot be trusted if it comes to games
Savestates if real rewards are offered.

Edit: Oh and yeah, i really like the general idea

 

[bourbon]

GP32 tended to have a lot more frameskip so might be sluggish or harder to play games that run great on everything else, but I have no reason why not. It'd just make it harder on you

Pencil mod ftw.

 

[skeezix]

Pencil-mod was the bomb; how ghetto-awesome was that

OKay, I think we've got 25-odd people interested, so I'm going to try to kick it off.

Also check the forum post I made at OPBoards as there might be some other info there.

I will post (and maybe PM folks?) in a bit when I'm set up -- got a game picked, got rules picked, instruction on how to take screenshots or whatever, all that. So obviously you need to go practice, so go play some games and check these threads out for follow-ups very soon

jeff

 

[skeezix]

BTW, the name I came up with for the league is "Retro Offline Tournament", so we can use 'ROT' all over the place

jeff

 

[Wolfsclaw]

Great idea, but i'd like to point out that a) screenshots can be easily shopped and B) even savestates can, in many games, be manipulated via cheating. So you should never! go for real prizes, IMO. The risk is just too high someone will just action-replay/hex-edit/whatever his savestate and get all the goodies.

Other then that it sounds like fun even though i myself will probably not find enough free time for it (we'll see when my panda arrives)

 

[skeezix]

Wolfsclaw -- doesn't have to be panda, maybe you have a machine already usable?
Certainly timeinvestment will be low -- I have no time to breath ie: If we make it a shump for one game, then you coudl play once, to 50 times, up to the players time and skill. And if one game is a little more taxing, just skip that game -- missing a game out of a season shouldn't kill you right out, just probably take you out o fbeing top?

Or maybe we could make it .. at the end, take the top 3 scores out of 5 for the season (or whatever), so that een if you miss a game, you can still be winner by virtue of skill in the other games?

Yes, that sounds perfect, actually

I was figuring a game every 2 weeks (say), or maybe every 3 weeks to give lots of breathing room; but 2 weeks seems a good compromise between 'too fast' and 'enough time to play well and keep people interested'.

If a season is a Quarter (3 months), then we're talking 6 games per season.

So maybe take top 4-5 games out of 6 for a given season to work out someones score.

And score per game is based on achivements and game-score (depending on the game), so thus doesn't have to mean pure highest score.. if we define it one way, it coudl even be .. someone who does cooles tthing, or someone who does the most, or whatever; heck, we could make multiple achievement paths in a game (if it makes sense for that game) so people could play different ways.

I've not nailed down rules yet, but you can see .I'm trying (in my concept anyway) to keep it fun, without killing anyone or being too serious, but still competitive so we can definately see whose winning

jeff

 

[MonkeyChops]

best 4 out of 6 scores sounds like the way to go. heck, even 3 out of 6 would be cool with me. you never know what life will throw at you in 3 months time and you don't want people dropping out because they miss a couple games or just aren't very good at certain types of games.

 

[skeezix]

Wonder if any mods are reading this? I emailed ED, but he's busy; I'm sure he'll just pop into IRC and do it one of these moments, but if any othe rmod is reading.. slap me together..

i) a subforum off Other in gp32x forum here, with title 'Retro Offline Tournament [ROT League]' or something, and
ii) make me a temporary mod for just that forum, so I can put together 3 or 4 threads, pin them up, then disavow all knowledge
iii) ditch my mod permissions after a week, since I dont' want the responsibility

I'll keep bugging poor ED, but Gruso or someone, hook us up eh?

jeff

 

[Pickle]

Wonder if any mods are reading this? I emailed ED, but he's busy; I'm sure he'll just pop into IRC and do it one of these moments, but if any othe rmod is reading.. slap me together..

i) a subforum off Other in gp32x forum here, with title 'Retro Offline Tournament [ROT League]' or something, and
ii) make me a temporary mod for just that forum, so I can put together 3 or 4 threads, pin them up, then disavow all knowledge
iii) ditch my mod permissions after a week, since I dont' want the responsibility

I'll keep bugging poor ED, but Gruso or someone, hook us up eh?

jeff

I have mod rights, but im pretty sure only admins can create forums/sub forums. If you dont want to bother with getting mod rights I will post whatever you want when the time comes