How to make Hi-Score Competition more interesting (shared web-folder)?

[torino]

Have we not built our own arcade controls by this day?
Is it not the time we light the lights and start to play?!

The time when we put on makeup, dress up right,
and raise the curtain for the hi-score show tonight?!



Q1.) how convenient, or not, is to share hi-scores via web-folder, and whether there is any point or benefit in implementing this feature if not ALL the people who would like to participate are willing or able to use this option?


Q2.) should competition winner be allowed to choose the next game every time, so to make it possible to attempt "longest winning streak", or not?


Q3.) anything else that would motivate you to participate in this friendly forum competition, where you can prove you are not playing games like a little girl and that those arcade controls you built yourself do not completely suck? ...taunting, for example, do you find it inspiring?

[Donkbaca]

Q1 - interesting idea, but it has to be easy to implement or people won't use it

Q2 - Yes

Q3 - A unique Avatar, like a championship belt, for the reigning winner

[DaveMMR]

I like this idea, actually.  I haven't participated before but I'd be more inclined to do so if I saw other members names on my machine...

[Generic Eric]

Q1.
A1. I try to participate, but my scores haven't been high enough to post. 

Q2.
Sure why not.

Q3.
A1. Leaderboards
A2. It would be cool to have a gamertag that showed icons of the game(s)  that you currently hold the hi score on.

Other thoughts:
I think it would be neat to see this be designed that it could be a plugin for a front end.  I think there would be more participation if it was integrated to a front end.

[AlienInferno]

I like the idea.  And like generic eric I think it would be better if it could be used on a front end.  But if you could create one single batch file (like the one set up for the SkyShark Competition) for all the games it wouldn't be hard to incorporate into the front end I will be using (Maximus).  Just set the batch file to run on startup of the frontend and it could upload/download the hi scores.  Or would that not work?  It would probably have to be one big batch file though.

Either way if someone can make the batch file.  I'll test it.  Would be fun with other's names.

[emphatic]

+1 on Frontend integration. It's like the leaderboards for the XBox 360. But will it work across different MAME versions?

[torino]

Q1 - interesting idea, but it has to be easy to implement or people won't use it

Since people already must submit screenshot, copying .hi file in the same time should not be any more of a problem, and once these files are on the computer with internet connection, if not already, the submission of local records is actually easier than attaching screenshot to your forum post - all you need to do is double-click SYNC.BAT script.

Q3 - A unique Avatar, like a championship belt, for the reigning winner

Yeah, I like that. There is definitely potential for account avatars and quotes to make winners more proud and taunting, but maybe also something can be done in order to make all the losers more ashamed and taunted.

[torino]

I like this idea, actually.  I haven't participated before but I'd be more inclined to do so if I saw other members names on my machine...

Exactly my thoughts.


Attached is "web-sync_skyshark.zip" containing "web-sync" folder. Copy "web-sync" folder inside your MAME folder and run SYNC.BAT script to try it out. The script will merge hi-scores for SKYSHARK ONLY. -- If the script does its job right, the next time you run Sky Shark you should see all the scores from the current competition, like this:




..then after you play and register your own records run SYNC.BAT again to publish those local scores, and in the same time the script will again import if there were any updates on the server scoreboard. Basically you would want to run SYNC.BAT before and after you play the game.

[torino]

A1. I try to participate, but my scores haven't been high enough to post. 

Competition becomes more interesting for everyone when there is more people participating. Being at the bottom gives you something to work for, like attempting not to be the last, which is almost as interesting, plus playing a random game every now and then is always fun even if you are not any good at it.

A1. Leaderboards
A2. It would be cool to have a gamertag that showed icons of the game(s)  that you currently hold the hi score on.

We only need to keep it simple enough so it can be automatized for everyone to do their own submissions.

Can you describe how would you like leaderboards to work?

Maye like this, per competition:

1st = 100pts
2nd = 50pts
3rd = 25pts
4th = 10pts
5th = 5pts

You get 1st place and 100 pts, but if I get all the other top four places I get 90 pts, so that persistence and multiple entries for the each game also counts towards some global ranking?

In any case, the nice thing about shared web-folder is that even after competition for the particular game ends the scoreboard would stay there and everyone could still continue to use it, perhaps to attempt the top record and personally challenge original competition winner in some face-off duel, or simply to try and improve their overall leaderboard ranking.

I think it would be neat to see this be designed that it could be a plugin for a front end.  I think there would be more participation if it was integrated to a front end.

Yes, I believe most front-ends should be able to execute SYNC.BAT when you start some game and also when you exit the game, but your machine would need to be connected to the internet in order to do this in real-time like that. What front-end are you using and do you know if it has ability to run other programs triggered by game start and exit "events"?

[torino]

I like the idea.  And like generic eric I think it would be better if it could be used on a front end.  But if you could create one single batch file (like the one set up for the SkyShark Competition) for all the games it wouldn't be hard to incorporate into the front end I will be using (Maximus).  Just set the batch file to run on startup of the frontend and it could upload/download the hi scores.  Or would that not work?  It would probably have to be one big batch file though.

Yes, it should work exactly like that. Go ahead and try it out. -- I can modify the script to support all the other games compatible with HiToText, and the script will still stay small and simple, but I think we should for now just stick with this one game (skyshark) while we are testing.

Either way if someone can make the batch file.  I'll test it.  Would be fun with other's names.

You already tested this existing one for skyshark, and feel free to test it some more.

You're talking about script for OTHER games, or how to integrate it with some front-end?

[torino]

+1 on Frontend integration. It's like the leaderboards for the XBox 360. But will it work across different MAME versions?

Some games have pretty small internal scoreboard list, or none at all, so you must be talking about expanding those or creating some more global ranking list to include all the previous competitions? -- How would you like leaderboards to work? What data should they keep and how (where) would you like to actually see (browse) all that info?


I don't see why would different "hiscore.dat" or mame version produce different .hi file format for the same game, and as far as my own test showed it works fine across many versions, but I also would not be too surprised if we encounter problems. We have to test it some more in order to figure out the problem in your case, so just let me know when you're ready and we will make more strict setup in order to narrow it down.

[Donkbaca]

I think front end integration would be sweet.  I think the best thing would be to integrate it with Headkaze's CP wizard.  It would be sweet since it launches before every game on a lot of front ends, and you can have it be a menu option to view global high scores.

[torino]

The important thing is that front-end is able to pass game name as argument, eg. "SYNC.BAT skyshark". We do not want to updated all the games all the time, so SYNC.BAT script needs to know what game is about to start, or what game did user just exit from, and import/export just those scores for that particular game. -- I'm not using any popular front-end, but if anyone wants to try this out and is not sure how, just let me know what front-end it is and I'll see if I can figure it out.

[Raitsa]

There is a suggestion made in the GameEx forum to include this feature as a "GameEx specific score board", but will it materialize, lets hope; its up to to the GameEx developer to decide.

[torino]

There is a suggestion made in the GameEx forum to include this feature as a "GameEx specific score board", but will it materialize, lets hope; its up to to the GameEx developer to decide.

The first thing they should do is to survey how many people would actually use it, then divide that number by two and then see if it is worth doing at all. Embedding this feature in front-end certainly has its advantages, like better control over submissions to monitoring cheating. However, we can not gather 10 people here even if everyone can use whatever front-end they want. People are simply not that into it and half of them don't have network connection on their cabinet computer at all. -- In any case, and unfortunately, that does not help our friendly forum competition as we would hardly ever be able to get everyone to use the same front-end.


By the way, I think I can make our "poor man" solution to work with any front-end, by making SYNC.BAT as impostor for "MAME", so whatever front-end you use it would do its business as usual and unknowingly execute our SYNC.BAT script as if it was MAME itself, and then the script can do the rest, which is to update scoreboard before it start the game and also after game ends.

[AlienInferno]

You already tested this existing one for skyshark, and feel free to test it some more.

You're talking about script for OTHER games, or how to integrate it with some front-end?

When I was talking about testing I was refering more toward other games.  I'll keep playing with the SkyShark one though.  Need to try to do alittle better before tommorrow.

[torino]

You already tested this existing one for skyshark, and feel free to test it some more.

You're talking about script for OTHER games, or how to integrate it with some front-end?

When I was talking about testing I was refering more toward other games.  I'll keep playing with the SkyShark one though.  Need to try to do alittle better before tommorrow.

Ok, that should not be hard. So, the computer you are playing on has internet connection and you want to integrate this script in your front-end where it will automatically import & exports scores whenever you start/exit some game?

I saw you made few more entries in Sky Shark, but I am still in front of you