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Billy Mitchell TG Banned, Scores Removed


VectorGamer

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Grown men, and their entire self-identities are wrapped up in who has the high score in what 80s video game, and who cheated how many years ago. At some point you have to cut the mullet, dress like a normal human being, and find something actually worth living for. Nothing wrong with letting your freak flag fly, but these people are obsessed and fucking nuts.

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Wearing a suit and tie makes you a freak?

 

When it's worn as an inextricably-ingrained part of a deeply self-promoting persona, yes.

 

Wearing one because it's appropriate to a given situation or simply because one wants to... Perfectly fine.

Edited by x=usr(1536)
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No but wearing a suit and tie, lying to the media and public, gaining any fame or fortune and being able to sleep at night, taking from real champions and notoriety makes you a Freak, an evil person and someone that losses their right to breathe the same air we do.....

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This is interesting and it describes the original dispute and what the contention was, without weighing one way or the other:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEKYlZbaQPE&feature=youtu.be

 

Great video. Well done and well thought out. This is like a Perry Mason trial. It's that well thought out.

 

However, there are some issues there.

1) As mentioned in the video the 30fps progressive rate is 'suspicious". I don't think so and don't see that an issue at all. (I do have several tellys and emmy for editing BTW).

2) He mentions some things that people claim in the video. Who are these people? There are no sources for these.

3) When ever you do a high score video, you have to have to put a watch on the corner of the screen and preferably you name there to. Even better, is to have glare on the screen to show you. I remember maybe 15-20 year ago people saying that. So why doesn't twin galaxies require that?

 

It's very clear that Billy Mitchell is a cheater. I've been saying this for years. But the thing is this: do you allow his live scores to stand????? The answer is NO! If you get caught cheating at poker (and I've dealth dozens of televised tournaments), the kick you out of the casino, you forfeit your entry fees, they ban you from all of their properties and call the police. That is what you do to cheaters. Billy can set up his own web site and have his own scores, whatever. However, Twin galaxies is a private business. They should do what other businesses do and ban him for life. What a duthbag.

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... I don't care if Billy's initial million + score was taken down, because he did it again, legitimately.

The first of Billy M's 1M+ DK scores (2004/2005) was a video submission proven to be mame with evidence of skewing the game in his favour.

Forgive me, I meant to say "Steve" in the above post you quoted, but it came out wrong. That Steve Wiebe's initial million plus high score posting, IMHO, was in fact legitimate, even if Twin Galaxies took it down, and that ALL of Billy Mitchel's million plus high scores were later proven to be fraudulent.

 

It came out wrong, I typed "Billy" in my post instead of "Steve" (and corrected it above, perk of being a subscriber), rookie mistake. :dunce:

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Wearing a suit and tie makes you a freak?

Donkey Kong wears a tie (well he did starting in the 16-bit era), and he's pretty much a freak. Come on, 400 pound gorilla who loves to throw barrels? That meets my definition of "freak" at least, even if he didn't start wearing ties until the 90s. :lol:
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The Missile Command trackball/cursor switch should be set to the manufacturer's default setting. It's only there to accomodate the different trackball hardware.

Hmm, I wonder how slow it's supposed to be. I was just playing that and Centipede last night on MAME, and the default sensitivity of 50% felt way too slow, so I had to crank it up to 100%.

 

I'm just using a Microsoft Trackball Explorer though, so obviously the ball isn't going to keep rolling like the real deal, but just compared to the joystick-based home ports, it felt much too slow.

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Forgive me, I meant to say "Steve" in the above post you quoted, but it came out wrong. That Steve Wiebe's initial million plus high score posting, IMHO, was in fact legitimate, even if Twin Galaxies took it down, and that ALL of Billy Mitchel's million plus high scores were later proven to be fraudulent.

 

It came out wrong, I typed "Billy" in my post instead of "Steve" (and corrected it above, perk of being a subscriber), rookie mistake. :dunce:

Is there any evidence the roms in that first ever 1M+ DK score by Steve Wiebe are not authentic. My understanding is that the only reason the score was rejected is because the board, which was authentic Donkey Kong, was provided by Roy Shildt. Their claims that the board could have been tampered with after the fact means that no score submitted by video by anyone can really be accepted.

 

Regarding Billy M's third 1M+ score, I'm not sure if there is enough data available, like the other two, to prove anything either way.

 

Hmm, I wonder how slow it's supposed to be. I was just playing that and Centipede last night on MAME, and the default sensitivity of 50% felt way too slow, so I had to crank it up to 100%.

 

I'm just using a Microsoft Trackball Explorer though, so obviously the ball isn't going to keep rolling like the real deal, but just compared to the joystick-based home ports, it felt much too slow.

Atari 800 and 5200 Missile Command support trackballs nicely, I can't stand playing MC with single speed 8-way control. I play mame MC with a mouse and default settings and it feels fast. You have to compare to an arcade machine (set to factory default cursor) and it's been a long time since I've played one of those. Edited by mr_me
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Great video. Well done and well thought out. This is like a Perry Mason trial. It's that well thought out.

 

However, there are some issues there.

 

 

Yeah, there are some minor issues and inaccuracies, but he does explain the actual premise of the dispute rather well. Regarding the myths, those are all the assertions made by Carlos Pineiro, and the rest of the Billy supporters in all those videos and interviews and posts they did during the dispute.

 

It was a rather bizarre response from the supporters: the DKF community first asserts that the "finger girder" could not be reproduced in an original arcade in any tests performed, under any circumstance; but could be reproduced faithfully and easily in any number of versions of MAME. This was considered a critical piece of incriminating evidence at the time.

 

Then Pineiro makes a video saying "They say MAME recordings can never look like the arcade; but here's an example of a transition that looks similar." It's a total straw-man!

 

That's why I thought listing the myths in that video was very important and well done, in order to constrain the conversation and funnel it specifically into the points of the dispute, not all the rest of the noise being talked about online.

 

-dZ.

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Steve was also caught using an 8 way joystick at one point which nullified one of his scores. You can control the barrels different with an 8 way vs the normal 4 way.

 

Regardless this thing is a mess - anything in the 90's/2K's should be tossed.

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Steve was also caught using an 8 way joystick at one point which nullified one of his scores. You can control the barrels different with an 8 way vs the normal 4 way.

 

Regardless this thing is a mess - anything in the 90's/2K's should be tossed.

Seems like usage of an 8-way joystick will only sabotage the player. For instance, when I round the corner going from the girder to the ladder, hitting that diagonal causes me to miss the ladder and continue walking right instead of climbing up, because the L/R directions take priority over U/D. Likewise climbing off the ladder at the top and hitting a diagonal can cause Mario to stop climbing right before the girder, causing death, especially if I'm one pixel below the top and trying to jump a barrel doesn't work.

 

I have some cigar box sticks with switchable 4-way/8-way sticks, and using 8-way on games like Donkey Kong or Pacman will throw me off my game.

 

Are they gonna start demanding that all competitors use a specific vintage brand of leaf switch joystick depending on what the arcade game came with stock in the 80s? Will Twin Galaxies care if the game originally came with leaf switches and the competitor installed micros in his cab instead?

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Steve Wiebe's scores by video up to his first 1M+ in July 2004 were all rejected by TG. People have analysed video to look for 8-way indicators. But his record scores, by video, in 2006 and 2010 were accepted. I've read these two scores were with a 4-way joystick.

 

When I play mame DK I can get stuck on ladders while accidentally pressing diagonals. Not sure if the real machine is different but apparantly it can be used as an advantage.

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Steve Wiebe's scores by video up to his first 1M+ in July 2004 were all rejected by TG. People have analysed video to look for 8-way indicators. But his record scores, by video, in 2006 and 2010 were accepted. I've read these two scores were with a 4-way joystick.

 

When I play mame DK I can get stuck on ladders while accidentally pressing diagonals. Not sure if the real machine is different but apparantly it can be used as an advantage.

Getting stuck on ladders is a great way to die. I press jump and nothing happens as I'm one pixel beneath the top. Barrel hits me like a sitting duck. Happens in MAME as well as DK Pokey for 7800. When I switch my cigar box from 8-way to 4-way, no issues.

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Steve was also caught using an 8 way joystick at one point which nullified one of his scores. You can control the barrels different with an 8 way vs the normal 4 way.

 

Regardless this thing is a mess - anything in the 90's/2K's should be tossed.

 

My understanding is that he did that, was told it was not accepted, and he did it again without. Then they accused him of using a "DDK" (some double-board thingy) because they found some of them in his garage, and they told him to do it again. Then they demanded that he do it in public.

 

He did all of it and still beat the 1M+ mark -- in public, with witnesses. What else is there?

 

Sounds less like deliberate cheating and more like trying to accommodate stricter and stricter rules applied to a usurper.

 

In any case, yes, it's all a mess.

 

-dZ.

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Steve Wiebe's high score, live in public, is 985K. Maybe it was the first DK kill screen in public.

 

A double donkey kong board may not be cheating at all. Is there any evidence it gives a player an advantage. I understand it's a different machine and not acceptable for that reason.

 

If using an 8-way joystick was, at that time, against the rules then he cheated; but if it's not than why wouldn't a player use it to their advantage.

 

In the end his machine in his garage followed the rules and his later video scores were accepted. Is there any evidence that Twin Galaxies changed the rules after Steve Wiebe submitted a score. If the rules simply say an authentic unmodified donkey kong machine must be used than he was in violation.

Edited by mr_me
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I agree there must be a penalty, but I see removing all his scores as going too far. I'm more concerned with the records being accurate than with any punishment for bad actors.

I suppose I see the records as history in-and-of-themselves; deleting a fraudulent record would be a correction; deleting a legitimate record would be an attempt to change what really happened. You can't change do that; if someone gets a score, & it's verifiable, it should be recorded.

What to do about folks who commit fraud is another matter, one which I don't really know how to solve... Maybe require more proof for someone who has committed fraud in the past. Maybe ban serial offenders entirely. But only because there would be no real way to know if a serial offender had legit records, not as a punishment.

 

Actually, I probably wouldn't remove any score. I'd just record the challenge to it. That way someone could run a query on my database using whatever standard of proof they decided was good enough.

GET SCORE AND NAME WHERE PROOF = VIDEO AND GAME = DONKEY KONG AND CHALLENGE = NONE

I might be taking the word "record" too literally; as more of an historic document than an achievement. Something to be kept for analysis even if it's proven false by any reasonable standard.

I guess I don't want a video sport's authority; I want something more academic. Hope that's not too weird. :)

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Steve did it in public for a fake doc, there is NO proof it was an entire game or real!!!!

I seen him play live in 2006-07-08 many failures...

 

Point is he cheated once it should have ended there and Walter pushed it in

True that the movie was not a documentary and parts are made-up. Are you saying his 985k score on june 3 2005 was faked. There were lots of witnesses. It was at the 7th Annual American Classic Arcade Museum Tournament, held at Funspot in Weirs Beach, New Hampshire from June 2nd through 5th, 2005. Are you saying the lack of witness testimony is proof that it is fake. How do you do a partial game with a high score on an authentic donkey kong machine? Do you know something about that machine that we don't. I don't doubt that he also had many failures.

 

Using a double donkey kong board is not valid but it's not necessarily cheating either. Using an 8-way joystick is cheating depending on the rules at the time. Maybe it should have ended there but it didn't; why invalidate a legitimate score?

Edited by mr_me
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Atari 800 and 5200 Missile Command support trackballs nicely...

I would love to have an Atari Trakball controller, but I don't really want to pay what they're going for.

 

Steve did it in public for a fake doc, there is NO proof it was an entire game or real!!!!

I seen him play live in 2006-07-08 many failures...

They had plenty of footage of him failing in the film, and I'm sure they had plenty more that didn't make the cut.

 

Not everyone can 100% a game on their first try, every try.

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