Should games be banned in the Games League?

[Graham Humphrey]

There's been a bit of a debate recently as to whether the banned games rule should stand. As you all know, I decided to do this because of the potential trouble with games that allow score-leeching very easily could cause.

As I've made clear in the past, I only do this to keep the competition fair and enjoyable for everyone - as was proved on Lemon Amiga's compo, it's far too easy for a few people to ruin it for everyone else in certain games, and there's another problem too - how, exactly, do you prove that someone has indeed been score-leeching? It might be easier to prove with some games more than others, but do you start disallowing scores because they're too high? Or do you just trust them? It's a difficult one.

Equally, I can see the other side of the argument too - you want to be able to choose any game you like, and you feel that you're trustworthy enough not to use these tactics, however tempting it may be.

But I've always thought it best to avoid any trouble at all, and indeed, in seven rounds I've not had a single complaint of anyone cheating and it's all been played in a great spirit. Just don't underestimate people's ability to use underhand tactics if they're staring them right in the face.

Interestingly, the whole subject has only come up last week - before that no-one even so much as mentioned it in passing (and the rule has been in place since June). So I've always assumed that everyone was, if not happy, then understanding of the situation. But if you weren't then surely something should have been said before?

No matter. Now's your chance to tell me what you think. Vote one of the options and give me a reason why you've gone for it (and don't say "because I like those games" as I don't consider that to be a valid reason).

I would like this vote to be restricted to people who take part in, or who are interested in, the Games League and I want EVERYONE who votes to give me their views. If you've never shown any interest in the competition at all, please don't vote so I can get a better idea of how everyone feels on this subject. Thank you.

[mailman]

I selected "YES" but if it is going to be used wise. I think that what had been done so far by Graham in that area was done wise and we should stick to it. There are some games in which cheats (not tricks) are so obvious and easy to have that it is just a matter of free time and will if someone uses it to improve the score. I think that it shouldn't be the point in the competition. On the other hand, looking for some things which are deeply hidden in the game and occasionaly occurs should be avoided because probably in each game you may find some ridicolous "bugs" and it just might spoil the fun we have here.

Let's keep it like it is now. Some titles with obvious cheats (Agony) or different scoring systems (Lotus 2) should not be allowed in league if we want to have everything fair. Of course from time to time there might be a round also for these games ;) Just for fun.

[Zetr0]

@GH

Fear not I haven`t voted, as I have not the time to play (wich is a good thing for you lot! :D) I hope to get some time over christmas sooo be warned (get some practice in :D)

This certainly seems a hot potato you have here and i was wondering if within these games there was either a way to substantiate a score ot perhaps have an open non-regulated sub-part to the games league.

Personally I believe that a youToob or other posted video of efforts might be in order but not everyone has the hardware to do all that AND play at the same time..... hmmmmm

I do however see you quandary my friend, by banning a said game, you penalize a decent and honnest player because of it... hardly seems fair does it..... thinking about it now It might be an idea to setup an unregulated zone or highscore hall for these games, it seems the fairest way...... that way cheating fucktards wont win by getting a game banned.... and the decent players will atleast have there say by playing thier game...

which ever you or the games leauge council decide, it will be a tough decision my friend.... good luck with it..... I look forward to gaming with you all over christmas... :)

[Graham Humphrey]

I do however see you quandary my friend, by banning a said game, you penalize a decent and honnest player because of it... hardly seems fair does it..... thinking about it now It might be an idea to setup an unregulated zone or highscore hall for these games, it seems the fairest way...... that way cheating fucktards wont win by getting a game banned.... and the decent players will atleast have there say by playing thier game...

Thanks for your input Zetr0. I know Bippy talked about something similar a while back - having a separate section that isn't really part of the competition but allows people to post their highscores. Nothing really came of it but I think it would be a decent solution.

which ever you or the games leauge council decide, it will be a tough decision my friend.... good luck with it..... I look forward to gaming with you all over christmas... :)

Shame this'll be finished by Xmas and the new Super League won't start until next year :D

[turrican3]

I vote no, and you know my point of view but i will say it again :
the one who want to cheat can cheat to any game it seems to be more easier and less boring to use a cheat code or a cheat menu than stay in front of the boss of agony and shooting during hours on the same screen, there is more easier cheats for the one who want to cheat.
You'll never stop the guy who want to cheat, i think we must accept all games by exemple for agony why not just add a special rule: you can't use the cheat of the first boss (the bug) and that's all for me it's the same than tell don't use cheatcode or don't use cheatmenu or don't use hexeditor or savestates etc... then why banne some games when anyone could cheat to anygame ?
And you will see if we banne games, we will loose such great games like : unreal,brain the lion,flink( i know graham you don't care), just because the amiga games wasn't made to make competitions or leagues, sorry to tell this again but IT'S UNFAIR and you know why there is no problems yet ? it's not a question of rules because i repeat again if a guy want to cheat will do it, the rules are important to control the competition a little,
but there was no problem because everybody is here for fun, want to play amiga games with sane competition and personnaly i don't care if somone want to cheat, shame on him, there is no money to win (there is graham ?) the compettion is just a way to push our limits more far, that's all and it's just a way to replay games that we like, games like (brian the lion, agony , unreal, flink and manymore after thinking about it).
NO BANNE PLEASE ;)

[Zetr0]

.......
Shame this'll be finished by Xmas and the new Super League won't start until next year :D

:crying

your only saying that because my obvious gaming skill scares you!

[Graham Humphrey]

Well, I certainly know your point of view, that's what prompted me to do this poll in the first place ;)

You do make a lot of good points but I would dispute that there are loads of games we could ban for this reason - I don't think there are that many to be honest.

And again, you're right that it is for fun (no money changing hands here), but with some games it's incredibly easy and virtually no effort to rack up a very big score - when all you have to do is press the fire button for a few minutes the temptation is there. I think that while you could say that, yes, this has been played in great spirit by every single person who has taken part, the same could be said of the Lemon Amiga competition and look what happened there. Now I'm not suggesting we do have people like that but there is a lot of potential for trouble.

But hey, I've said all this before, it's all about what everyone else thinks and I'll come to a conclusion based on this.

[Graham Humphrey]

:crying

your only saying that because my obvious gaming skill scares you!

Don't be so ridiculous... me scared? Never! Erm...

:nervous

[turrican3]

when all you have to do is press the fire button for a few minutes the temptation is there.
more easier to click on the mouse one time on a cheat menu

[Graham Humphrey]

By the way, if anyone hasn't seen the banned games thread its here (http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=30192).

Interestingly, of the six games listed, only three of them are due to score-leeching problems...

[turrican3]

you don't find more because you just looked which was banned from the lemonleague.;)

[turrican3]

last exemple , leander (must be banned):
first stage, first barrel (view screenshot), you can shoot the barrel anytime you want and each time
it re-appears and make points each time easy to do, a little bit like in agony or rodland an another score.
You must banned leander

[Graham Humphrey]

So why did you vote for it then if you knew full well that it might be banned (I'll be the judge of that, by the way)?

[turrican3]

i didn't know, i just looked now.;)
i didn't have to look a long time first stage first barrel

[Graham Humphrey]

Right, earlier I had a go at this for the first time. All the enemies respawn (surely you know this) but a couple of points:

You don't get a heck of a lot of points for killing an enemy so it'll take ages to get a decent score if you opt to do that.

There's a lot of going back and forth throughout the game (at least from what I've seen of it) so it's inevitable that you'll come across respawning enemies anyway. There isn't much that can be done about that.

So.... I say no ban on this one.

[turrican3]

Did you try agony yourself to decide too ?

[Graham Humphrey]

Yes I did. I've played it quite a lot in the past (though mostly to just listen to the beautiful title music ;)).

All those games on that list I've played myself.

[turrican3]

and how many times do you take to reach this score 999,999 points with agony first stage boss bug and tell us if it was so easy to slalom between shoots and don't hit the boss and just hit is shoots ?
I think it's a little bit crazy and boring too,i think every player will prefer to explore this beautiful game and if somone make this score 999,999 we will know that he used the big boss bug.
bye ;)

[Graham Humphrey]

Point missed, completely.

1. It IS very easy to do this. I tried it earlier this evening.

2. It's not necessarily about scoring 999,999, though it's very feasible. You can still easily get a score that's higher than what you could normally expect to achieve through completing the game just by doing this for a few minutes.

Also, can I just point out that this thread is called "Should games be banned in the Games League?", a question you answered thoroughly earlier on. It is not called "Why I think Agony should be allowed". So can you please drop this one now, we've been through that often enough.

[turrican3]

i erase all my off topic
last post in this thread
bye (enough of this too)
good vote to everyone

[Graham Humphrey]

You don't have to delete all your posts! I'm just saying that there's not much point in discussing the whole Agony thing currently. Either we'll lift the banned games rule or we won't. It's not about lifting the ban on individual games. I apologise if my reply was a bit... harsh and I didn't intend for it to be taken that way.

[Graham Humphrey]

Right, I've restored all your posts. Deleting them is a bit drastic IMHO.

[VermillioN]

Ok here's what I think, I'll try to keep it simple and straight to the point..

It's a tricky subject lol..
I chose 'other'.

Games that have different scoring systems on alternate versions shouldn't be banned, like with Pang it's just a case of ensuring everyone plays the same version.

Games that are bugged in general need not be banned. Again, provided everyone uses the same version it's still competitive.

IMO the ban on Lotus 2 and PF (Stones n Bones) could be lifted :)

As for leeching, providing people are honest about there scores I think the majority of games should remain eligible. In a lot of cases where you can leech, there's usually other factors to consider like time limit etc.. providing the high-score table cannot be maxed out it can still be competitive!! think of it more like an endurance run lol..

Any game where the score can be maxed out (99,999,999) via leeching or any other dishonourable method is bound to cause trouble and should be banned.

At the end of the day we are are talking about a small amount of games and whilst I agree some should be banned (like agony), the banning system should be a little less strict IMO, otherwise the banned list could grow much larger in due time :)

[blade002]

I see it in a very simple way.

If you choose to not play in the proper way and you cheat, then go ahead and cheat. I say this because at the end of the day, the person will never feel they have truly accomplished something by doing so.

When it comes to myself i normally try my "absolute BEST" to win without cheating, but then even if i come last it doesn't really matter because i can then at least walk away knowing i have done the right thing and i have done it honestly.

Sure, i wouldn't like it if somebody cheated, but you are never really going to know if they have or haven't and like i said, even if they do, all that matters is what "you" do and how honest "you" are.

No-one appreciates a liar and you cant respect yourself if you are.

I sleep well at night. :)

[Graham Humphrey]

IMO the ban on Lotus 2 and PF (Stones n Bones) could be lifted :)

Lotus 2? Perhaps, if we can find one version to settle on (been a while, I'll have to check it out again) and as long as it allows the WHDLoad version to be played too. But the Pinball Fantasies table does have its problems, I don't think it matters what version is played. But someone correct me if I'm wrong please :)

As for leeching, providing people are honest about there scores I think the majority of games should remain eligible. In a lot of cases where you can leech, there's usually other factors to consider like time limit etc.. providing the high-score table cannot be maxed out it can still be competitive!! think of it more like an endurance run lol..

Which is why I don't ban games with a time limit :)

Any game where the score can be maxed out (99,999,999) via leeching or any other dishonourable method is bound to cause trouble and should be banned.

At the end of the day we are are talking about a small amount of games and whilst I agree some should be banned (like agony), the banning system should be a little less strict IMO, otherwise the banned list could grow much larger in due time :)

They are the only games I have banned so far (other than the ones that are bugged). It isn't overly strict IMHO, I do look at each game individually as it's a very tricky area. Of course I don't like banning games and only do it when I really feel it has to be done.

[VermillioN]

Cool.. so all is good :lol

Hmm the poll has changed a bit.. seems a few more have voted for 'no' but not explained why yet :cheese

[turrican3]

blade002 gave explanation but didn't voted yet.

[Graham Humphrey]

Cool.. so all is good :lol

Hmm the poll has changed a bit.. seems a few more have voted for 'no' but not explained why yet :cheese

Well you did almost totally agree with me ;)

Clearly, the people who voted but haven't posted didn't read this bit:

I would like this vote to be restricted to people who take part in, or who are interested in, the Games League and I want EVERYONE who votes to give me their views. If you've never shown any interest in the competition at all, please don't vote so I can get a better idea of how everyone feels on this subject. Thank you.

[pbareges]

Well you did almost totally agree with me ;)

Clearly, the people who voted but haven't posted didn't read this bit:
totally agree with you graham and vermillion (ie yes some games should be banned based on graham appreciation though it may be debated in forums like this one so he can get an idea of each point of view) as far as there's no systematic scheme and every game is given a chance to compete.

i understand the point that every gamer can cheat any game but it is clear choice you cheat or you don't cheat! there's no grey zone...in a game with unfinite scoring abilities without any time constraint where's the limit ? when do you start to cheat ? after 1,2 or 10 abuses ? if you're 10 points short to the first place ? do you trust the first score ? can you fire 2 more shoots at agony boss to make you the first one ? it's really uncomfortable as an honest player to define a clear line and that's why it should be avoided...

[BinoX]

Games shouldn't be banned just like that... Because to be fair, if anyone WAS going to cheat/exploit, they could easily just modify the score screenshot if not use a trainer...

If from the score you can TELL 100% that there's been something going on then you disqualify the person from the current round and the next round as a punishment...

The problem is that a lot of the good, popular games DO have these flaws in. If there were more games that I was any good at then I'd probably join in more...

(Sorry for late response after voting, I was at work when I voted and my boss came in before I could reply so I had to close the window)

[turrican3]

but the line will be hard to determine because like you said pbareges for to be first will i shoot barrels in leander 2,3 or 4 times, with brian will i do again the same easy stage 1,2, or 3 times ? in flink the same than brian, and unreal how many times will i shoot these stupids bees and take lifes 1 or 200 times ?
Where is the line ? will be hard to determine if not impossible or you must banned many many games.
For to be done we should have a special version of winuae like mame has, there is a special version of mame for competitions!!!!

[turrican3]

(Sorry for late response after voting, I was at work when I voted and my boss came in before I could reply so I had to close the window)
Bad boss :evilgrin :mad :lol

[turrican3]

the version of mame is wolfmame :
http://wolfmame.marpirc.net/

[Graham Humphrey]

BinoX, get your priorities right man! :p Thanks for taking the time to reply though. So far you've all made valid arguments and it's given me plenty to think about ;)

turrican3: that's not a bad idea, in an ideal world though I would like to see modified versions of games specifically for compos like this one, so then perhaps we could avoid this thing altogether. Not sure how feasible it would be though :(

[Graham Humphrey]

Right, since you've been so unhelpful (5-5? Tsk ;)), I've decided to run a sort of trial for the final two rounds, so the banned games rule has been dropped (except for the ones which are bugged). See the Round 9 vote thread below:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=32706