Possible Ibara Competition

[Rastan78]

I broke this thread off from another topic found here. The idea is to have a scoring competition lasting about 2-3 months where at the end the winner will get a copy of the upcoming Ibara Lunatic DVD from INH. An entry fee would be required to have a chance to win. The more people who entered, the lower the entry could be since the cost of the prize will be split many ways. There could be second or third prizes if there's enough people to throw in. Overall, the goal here is to promote some heavy-duty competition and sharing of knowledge about the game.

I haven't set the plan in stone yet, but if there's enough interest it'll go down. Post here just to show that you might be interested or to contribute suggestions/ideas.

[DC906270]

just a few thoughts - i dont think that would be a very open contest, and the "sharing of strategies" idea might go out the window since there will be a prize at stake

[freddiebamboo]

All for it.

I won't come close to winning, but it would be nice for a bit of a change of pace.

I miss the weekly hi score things that ramus used to do. Wouldn't have bothered with donpachi or cyvern if it wasn't for them. It might also get more people round here to post scores.

[Rastan78]

Well, if I were rich I'd just buy the prize myself and give it away to the winner as the selfless benefactor of our chosen gaming genre, but that ain't gonna happen.

I'm not too worried about the whole keeping strategies secret thing. Besides everybody has access to the replays that are online.

I know it probably won't be me, but it might be interesting to watch how high the scores will go and who will win.

[Dave_K.]

I would have to agree with DC906270. If the competition was held right when the PS2 port game came out, it would have been a level playing field. And after the comp was over, then we would have a wealth of strategy information to share what we learned. But holding it now would just mean the top 3-4 players currently on the high score thread would dominate as they have already been playing much more than 2-3 months already. IMHO.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

At the "Galaxy of Electronic Games" show held at the San Jose Convetion Center in November 1989, there was an arcade game contest being promoted with the grand prize winner recieving $1,000 USD cash. The three arcade games were: Atari Games' Tempest circa 1981, Atari Games' Star Wars - The Arcade Game circa 1983 and Sega's Altered Beast circa 1988.

I was asked if I wanted to participate in this arcade game contest. I declined because I wasn't good enough at any of the three arcade game anyways. I still wonder who ended up winning the 1G for that particular arcade game contest though. ^_~

Usually, if an arcade game contest promoter puts up a serious cash prize of $1,000 USD or more, then only the serious and skilled arcade game veteran players will attempt to enter such a contest. However, it will be the deciding factor of the 1st place winner and 2nd place winner outcome who ends up winning the "grand prize" by the highest score wins. ^_~

To officiate and authenticate the new World Record(s) on arcade games, Twin Galaxies would have to be present to watch & verify such new WR arcade game scores. I've seen Walter Day in person at the California Extreme shows in 2002 and 2004. I asked Walter if I could attempt to do a WR run on a Klax arcade upright at the 2002 CAX show but he said he would watch me do it but there wasn't such an Klax arcade setup at that year's show. So it was called off. He also told me if I could get ahold of a Mame Rom dump of Klax, he could watch me attempt to do a WR run on Klax on a Virtual Arcade PC cabinet setup from Hana-ho but alas, no Klax Rom was found on that cabinet setup. So no go for Klax WR run that year. Damn. ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Rastan78]

I would have to agree with DC906270. If the competition was held right when the PS2 port game came out, it would have been a level playing field. And after the comp was over, then we would have a wealth of strategy information to share what we learned. But holding it now would just mean the top 3-4 players currently on the high score thread would dominate as they have already been playing much more than 2-3 months already. IMHO.

Hey, I just got the game a few days ago and I'm up for it. You gotta believe.

[zakk]

I broke this thread off from another topic found here. The idea is to have a scoring competition lasting about 2-3 months where at the end the winner will get a copy of the upcoming Ibara Lunatic DVD from INH. An entry fee would be required to have a chance to win. The more people who entered, the lower the entry could be since the cost of the prize will be split many ways. There could be second or third prizes if there's enough people to throw in. Overall, the goal here is to promote some heavy-duty competition and sharing of knowledge about the game.

I haven't set the plan in stone yet, but if there's enough interest it'll go down. Post here just to show that you might be interested or to contribute suggestions/ideas.

I'm not sure I would use the PS2 Ibara port for such a competition. There's no real way to verify scores, and there's absolutely no way to tell if someone used the level restart. While I don't think there's rampant cheating here, when you start giving away real prizes it's always good to have some type of verification.

[Rastan78]

At the end of the day, I think it's gonna come down to the honor system regardless of the game. Even screenshots can be doctored.

Maybe limiting it to established forum members would be a good idea. Odds are most of the people who would really want to enter are probably already members and known to be somewhat decent players.

[gameoverDude]

I'm not sure I would use the PS2 Ibara port for such a competition. There's no real way to verify scores, and there's absolutely no way to tell if someone used the level restart. While I don't think there's rampant cheating here, when you start giving away real prizes it's always good to have some type of verification.

In arcade mode, I don't think it's possible to tell if someone used the level restart. It's a shame that restart scores are not banned from the rankings.

Arrange mode does have a telltale ones figure in your score if you do restart- if you had 10420700 at the start of the stage, you'll rejoin the game with 10420701.

Yagawa & Co. should've made it a full score forfeit if you restart the stage, since IMO this is almost equivalent to a continue. Even though Battle Garegga did it, this was a lousy idea then. There should've been a "Game Restart" listed in the pause menu as well in case you ever feel the need for that and don't want to go back to the main menu.

[sven666]

im up for it too, havent hardly played Ibara at all since i got it

[Icarus]

Even though Battle Garegga did it, this was a lousy idea then. There should've been a "Game Restart" listed in the pause menu as well in case you ever feel the need for that and don't want to go back to the main menu.

Garegga did allow stage and credit restarts, but it always marked your score with a 'chicken' icon in the main Ranking screen if you did so.

[cigsthecat]

Let's do this thing.

We could possibly set up some sort of handicapping system to level things a bit. I'd be willing to contribute towards the DVD as a prize if others are interested. Mostly I'd like to see some serious competition and a group effort focused on a single game.

I think we can trust forum members to be honest about scores, but we could also demand video proof if everyone is antsy about that. Those who don't have fancy capturing methods could just record to vhs and mail the tape to someone with the right tools.

[Plasmo]

how about an ibara HARDER competition? LOL!lets do it!

[Rastan78]

Okay, when I have time I'm going to set up a more official thread in the high scores area where people can sign up. It's just going to have to be an on your honor kind of a thing for forum members only. Yeah, Ibara has the restart function, but any game can be set to lower difficulty or whatever so we'll just have to roll with it.

If anyone lies just to try to get the DVD, either A: it'll be kind of obvious if someone random just magically comes up with way too high of a score or B: the shmup gods will blast them with a giant purple bullet pattern from the sky, striking them down where they stand.

I don't really know if a handicap is necessary, but it would probably be fair to accept only new scores that are not just cut and pasted from the other high score thread. You could post a new score in both places just not carry an old one over to the comp.

The video proof thing might be a good idea, but tougher for anyone playing the PCB.

[Rastan78]

how about an ibara HARDER competition? LOL!lets do it!

I'm toying with the idea of having it be kind of an all around Ibaralympics. We could average highest placings from a variety of things like harder mode, player 2 side, extended mode . . .