STGT '12 Hype & Recruitment Thread - Let's Try This Again

Jul 8, 2012 at 6:18 PM
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Read This Properly
One year after the last painfully disorganized but somehow not too bad attempt, it's time to see if it's worth trying this out again. I was going to wait until the reg thread was up, but it's already later than last year and neither it nor the regular Speed Demos Archive recruitment thread have started yet so I don't even know.

Brief Intro
Last years' hype thread
Last years' team thread, now with 100% more broken code boxes
(Probably a good idea to look through these first if you have any questions at the end.)
This will be a reasonably serious shoot-em-up tournament, taking part on another forum and starting probably late July, that I would like to bring a CS Tribute Site team to participate in. Each game is played for a week, usually on the arcade emulator MAME, and ranked by score. Up to seven people can join one team, and the top three for each week make up the team score.
Last years' final results
As you can see, we just scraped by into a respectable 14th, and this year we should aim to improve on that. The main objective is still to have fun, so if you're interested and willing to put in a little hard work, you may be just who I'm looking for! :D

Level of Input
I will expect team members to play something in the order of at least an hour per day on average. Starting early each week and making stepwise improvements is the key to solid results, and an extra dig on the last day is always appreciated :debug: If I'm to go through with this and not go back to SDA or another team, I want a few more people who are certain they'll play every week they can and have at least some experience playing hard games if not shmups. This is partly to get a better result and mostly to lower my stress levels so I don't spend all week fingernail-biting while I wait for the third team result to come in :koron: Even if you don't think you want to bother that much or lack confidence, there may still be an opening for you (read below), so speak up!

What Has Changed
I have (hopefully) improved my own playing skills somewhat, and now also have a proper stream channel from which I will provide as much help and info as I can possibly manage, in addition to the team discussion thread. I usually stream at 10am-ish my time for American folks, but if you're in another timezone I'll have no trouble streaming again to help you out.

As for the tournament, this year the organisers are bringing back voting for each week's game, which hasn't happened since before I even started participating. Unless you're very familiar with the genre, you won't have to concern yourselves with this; however, if there is enough interest (read: twelve whole people at least), we might be able to put together a second, less-serious/-experienced team as a tactical move to double our voting power :orangebell: The week themes haven't been announced yet, but I can tell you there will almost certainly be a week featuring developer Cave and one of their fancy-pantsy bullets-everywhere games (sort of like Touhou but with higher production values). To last years' team, I can also say that there's a 90% chance we won't have to play anything as shitty as Gokujou Parodius again, especially in week 1.

How to Get Involved
Post in this thread to start, obviously - don't worry about registering for the tournament yet, I'll explain that at a later stage to any total newcomers. If you are new, I'd like a resume of your finest gaming achievements and how much time you think you can devote. Currently, team strongman Crankenstein will be returning to ease the pressure over the first couple of weeks, which are always the hardest; after that, you should find a steady playing groove, and maybe even impress yourself :chin:

To avoid going in dry, some practice might be in order, and naturally, our official practice game is Guxt. If you do to play it, please hit up the high score thread! Some familiarity with MAME, the arcade emulator, will also help. There are several different frontends you can choose from, and here is my experience with a number of them (use Google):
MAMEUI - The default and usually most up-to-date frontend, which means most games work better. It's simply not feasible for some shmups though, because it lacks autofire and some other useful features. It also takes forever to update its games directory, to the point that it's better to simply dump them in the "roms" folder and manual search for them every time.
MAME Plus! - Has autofire and is updated regularly but not immediately. Main problem is certain games crashing whenever you try to load a savestate, but on the ones that it doesn't it's good for anyone.
ShmupMAME - Probably the best for ease of use, but it's based on an older version of MAME so some games won't work on it. For some reason, it also won't load games on my computer anymore, so I can't use it :droll:
ThunderMAME - Similar to ShmupMAME without the lag improvements. Useful mostly for playing certain games with sound that aren't working in base MAME yet.
Both of the older frontends may run into problems on 64-bit OS's, or with romsets that have been renamed since they last updated. Games are loaded into MAME by placing them into the "roms" folder and hitting F5 to load them into the "Available" category, or setting the directory under Options -> Directories.... In-game, you can open the main menu with Tab, can check the default MAME controls under "Input" and adjust them as desired. It shouldn't be too hard to get the hang of.

As for what to try out, there is a decent chance that the week I mentioned earlier will feature a game called ESPGaluda, which runs on the newer versions of MAME (if you still have MAME Plus! from last year that should be fine) and will be worth practicing. If ESPGaluda isn't chosen, the week is going to suck anyway, so don't worry about playing the wrong thing :pignon: If you have any troubles getting MAME working, or want some more reccomendations, please let me know.

Last Important Stuffs
I mentioned savestates earlier; it's perfectly okay to practice with these, but of course to get submittable scores you will have to play a clean credit each time. Practicing is important, but again I'd like everyone to make proper runs more consistently to help the team stay on the curve, if not ahead of it. A top 10 finish last year and some of the scoring targets I set were a bit over-ambitious, but now I have a lot more experience both captaining and with shmups in general. As long as you keep trying to improve your scores, I'll be happy :mahin:

If it's okay with everyone, I'd also like to try a little... shake-up of the team theme this year. I don't know how many of you remember, but a long time ago somebody made a mod called Dave Story. Here's a quick synopsis for those unfamiliar:
DAVE STORY

INSTEAD OF HERMIT GUNSMITH, A HERMIT CALLED DAVE SMITH

OPEN THE DAVE

IT'S A DAVE

YOU CAN DAVE LITERALLY EVERY DAVE
You can probably tell where this is going :awesomeface:
diph.php

Jack didn't shrink very well but it's not meant to be 'good'; if someone else wants to dave up a better banner they are welcome. In addition, we shall all have Dave-themed team names and coordinate avatars of people or characters named Dave; I fancy flying as Australian funnyman Dave Hughes.

Provided it's okay with all of you, of course.
Finally, there will probably be a conflict with CaveCon during week 4 or 5; last year it only went for a couple of days, so it might not matter. I'll worry about it when it approaches.

If there is anything more you want to know, please post and ask, unless it's something I've already answered in which case I will deliver shame upon your mortal soul
 
Jul 8, 2012 at 8:08 PM
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Overall I'd say I had fun with this last year, so count me in again. Although if the last weeks do occur during CC12, obviously I am not going to take time out from that to participate. It's going to be the week of the 19th-25th of August, and I'm pretty sure that date's pretty stable at this point.
 
Jul 8, 2012 at 9:22 PM
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I'll join if there are spaces near the end, mostly because I haven't played a schmup in several months but with enough determination it shouldn't take that long to get back on track, right?
Also I had some interest to join last year but couldn't because of obvious reasons
 
Jul 9, 2012 at 1:24 AM
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Jul 9, 2012 at 1:32 AM
Been here way too long...
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I'd be interested in doing this if there's room for me. I'm not the best, which is why I say that. If there is room though then I'd love to be part of the team!
 
Jul 9, 2012 at 3:16 PM
graters gonna grate
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Pretty much the same as what Dunc said, for me.

edit: geeze, can somebody just like explainlikeimfive how to simply download and play a game? It seems to be about as intuitive as quantum mechanics.
 
Jul 10, 2012 at 12:30 AM
meep
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Sure, I'll join again. I like Cave games.
Although it's pretty much the same deal with me as Noxid regarding CaveCon.
 
Jul 10, 2012 at 3:35 AM
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Jul 10, 2012 at 8:44 AM
meep
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Well, pardon me for not wanting to spend hours playing computer games by myself during the one week we've all set aside to meet up.
:/ k
 
Jul 10, 2012 at 10:38 AM
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It doesn't have to be hours, I'd just like to know that I'd still be able to ask someone to throw a few credits together if we desperately needed it like last year. That was part of the reason I suggested playing ESPGaluda now, but Cave week is generally the final week and at the rate this is going I don't even know how that's going to line up.
 
Jul 11, 2012 at 2:44 AM
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I spake of the dovul and it apparated :koron:

The reg thread is up; looks like CaveCon is going to cut mostly into week 4, with a day or two free at the end, so that's okay. I'm going to try letting everyone sign up on their own this year but don't do it yet, the team(s) isn't finalised and I still need some info from everyone about participation. To be precise, I need to know how busy everyone is going to be during August and which weeks they think they won't be able to make (aside from what's already been discussed). If you're certain you can play every week that will be The Best :J

There's still space for newcomers too, so if you're interested don't hesitate to say so! Please! :toroko2:
 
Jul 11, 2012 at 3:05 AM
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I can put in a pretty good amt. of time.. I just have work, and I am usually too beat in the evenings to do much but play games anyway so I might as well focus it somewhere. Of course I might not be able to do late streams because I have to get up early due to circumstance. No other obligations come to mind.
 
Jul 11, 2012 at 7:03 AM
meep
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It doesn't have to be hours, I'd just like to know that I'd still be able to ask someone to throw a few credits together if we desperately needed it like last year. That was part of the reason I suggested playing ESPGaluda now, but Cave week is generally the final week and at the rate this is going I don't even know how that's going to line up.
I can surely throw a few credits in and see where that takes me, I'm just sayin' I won't be able to put the same amount of time in as I can at home when I have literally nothing on my schedule.
 
Jul 11, 2012 at 1:33 PM
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What do I do to join?

I'm a Wiz at shooting games.
 
Jul 11, 2012 at 4:30 PM
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For the time being, express interest. Most questions should be answered in the OP and my first post on this page.

I can surely throw a few credits in and see where that takes me, I'm just sayin' I won't be able to put the same amount of time in as I can at home when I have literally nothing on my schedule.
Okay sweet

This is starting to look quite promising :mahin:
 
Jul 11, 2012 at 5:47 PM
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August is pretty much empty for me, so I'll participate then.
Although, since August is almost a month away, I can't really guarantee that I'll be available for every day though.
I'll practice with Guxt and MSRS Delta today (and probably more), and set up MAME + find some roms on another computer tomorrow.
Speaking of which what was that game that you recommended to me yesterday DT? Also, do you have more?
 
Jul 11, 2012 at 9:10 PM
graters gonna grate
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Other than cavecon, I have nothing special planned that would stop me participating.
 
Jul 16, 2012 at 4:36 AM
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Alright, our current Daves are looking something like this:
Me
Noxid
Yakkers
SEBTi
Wedge
Dunc
Crankenterran?
MMXPERT?
(This has to be cut down to seven)

I want to start the team thread tomorrow and begin the registration process, so there's a day left for discussion here before this gets set in stone. I can say by looking at the reg thread there's going to be some tough competition this year for the top spots, but we don't need to worry about that :mahin: Top 10 on the other hand would be fantabulous.
 
Jul 16, 2012 at 5:35 AM
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That depends on how busy both of them are. '?' means I don't know their status. It's possible that neither of them will have the time and I'll need to find a third party to fill the last slot :koron:
 
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