2004 ATARILYMPICS - Closing Ceremonies

[128bytes]

Congratulations to everyone -- and to Teams Activision, USA, and Xype for all their great medal-winning performances.

 

 

I had a lot of fun...Even though I didn't get a medal, I sure came close. (sorry, other Lime Smiley team members...).

Also, I'm glad that I didn't break any joysticks, though my slik stik sure got a workout. I resisted the temptation to switch to an emulator.

 

Now that the competition is over, I would like to find out some tips -- for instance, how did you all score 10.0's in Hot Dog? What moves got you to the highest level in Skateboarding? What is your pumping technique in Bobsled? Do you get the lowest score in Slalom by deliberately missing a gate or 2?

 

Thanks again, Ze_ro.

 

-128bytes.

[keilbaca]

I can answer the skateboarding one, every single trick was a perfect handstand.

[jedijeff]

Not that it changes the standings, but I think our medal count is supposed to be 26 (11-Gold, 12-Silver, 3 Bronze.)

 

California Games - 1

Summer Games - 5

Winter Games - 7

Decathlon - 9

Track and Field - 4

 

Jeff

[jedijeff]

For skateboarding the handstand worked best it seemed. It gets pretty boring though and I always missed at least 1 each time.

 

I just started flailing on the HotDog event and somehow managed a 10, took a pic and was glad I never had to try it again.

 

Someone else can probably verify it, but I think you start Foot Bag with side kicks until you reach 1000 (which happens after 4 or 5 kicks) and then do the head bounce for the rest of the time. Another one that I always managed to mess up at some point.

 

And how anyone scored over 6000 on surfing I have no idea.

 

The Slalom was a matter of slowing down at the right spots, which was quite difficult most of the time. And talk about spot on control.

NOT!

 

Jeff

[keilbaca]

Foot bag, this is how i did it. From serve, kick, knee stall, foot stall. from there, back up, knee stall, foot stall. Repeat until maxed.

 

Surfing, 6k is easy. from the start, hold the fire button, turn down and go under the wave. then turn back and go out of the wave. repeat until you don't score anymore. that's 4k. then do the jumps, and turn in the air to land. that'll get you past 6k.

 

 

I found a glitch in hot dog, when you pass the flag, if you mash the button, you just sit there in circles and the more you mash the button, the higher the score.

[Goochman]

What,

 

No one wants Swimming Tips? :lolblue:

 

Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh

[Brad2600]

I thought it was fun but unfortunately, the other members of Team USSR weren't as able to play the games as I was.

 

We shall prevail next year, fellow komrades.

[Jeffy Arensmeyer]

What, No one wants Swimming Tips?   :lolblue:    

Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh

I've got one. Have a good, clear television. Both swimming events essentially came down to two things... pressing right as soon after "Ready" as possible without faulting and watching that tiny hand every time it touched the water.

 

My small television isn't that clear, so I was about to go blind on the Swimming events, then you came in and pushed the time down very late in the evening. After my last post for the Relay, I couldn't see straight.

 

ò¿ó   

[sku_u]

 

 

And there is a small problem by Skeet Shooting where the 5th ghost & sku_u are in one Team. Not sure if I have count both for Gold there.

 

He didn't. My only gold was in the Hot Dog event.

[Goochman]

What, No one wants Swimming Tips?   :lolblue:    

Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh

I've got one. Have a good, clear television. Both swimming events essentially came down to two things... pressing right as soon after "Ready" as possible without faulting and watching that tiny hand every time it touched the water.

 

My small television isn't that clear, so I was about to go blind on the Swimming events, then you came in and pushed the time down very late in the evening. After my last post for the Relay, I couldn't see straight.

 

ò¿ó   

 

Agreed - I found 4 things that pushed me back into contention last night:

 

1. Get the start down - that can cost you 0.2

2. Forget the hand, there is a 'sound' you can listen for when to hit the button - the first 2 strokes are hand based, then its sound based for me

3. its 12 strokes up and 14 1/2 strokes back when swimming perfectly

4. You can start your returns when you see the edge of the pool appear (bottom right on first leg and upper left on return)

 

Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh

[sku_u]

I don't think that it was a good idea to offer the $10 gift certificate. I like free money as much as anyone else, but I think that it really hurt what this competition was supposed to stand for.

Unfortunatey I have to agree here.

 

Maybe any price money should be announced and awarded after a competition and only if there is no doubt about any of the results. That should drive away most of those who don't care to ruin the fun for everybody (see my sig! ).

 

Or simply no monetary price at all.

 

You guys are making too big a deal of the prize. A $10.00 credit in the AA store can't buy you much of anything, so all it really does is give a few people some incentive to buy some more homebrews at a discounted price in the store if they won.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Surfing, 6k is easy. from the start, hold the fire button, turn down and go under the wave. then turn back and go out of the wave. repeat until you don't score anymore. that's 4k. then do the jumps, and turn in the air to land. that'll get you past 6k.

Actually you should stop before you can't score anymore. When you get less than ~200 points for an action, you are wasting your time. When done right, the high jumps should give you about 3k before you stop.

 

Finally add about 8 "hang 10s" and you get over 10k.

 

Gymnastics:

Accelerate, move down, accelerate, move up, repeat (and don't waste any time or make bad moves). That's all.

 

I suppose with a good joystick you may be able to do it simultaneously. The 10 points should be possible.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

You guys are making too big a deal of the prize.  A $10.00 credit in the AA store can't buy you much of anything, so all it really does is give a few people some incentive to buy some more homebrews at a discounted price in the store if they won.

True, but it was still enough money for Rocko.

[Numan]

Thank you to Ze_ro for organizing all of this; he is the best thing that's happened to these message boards.

 

Thank you to jedijeff, for being the MVP hands-down of this event; I'm sorry I wasn't able to equal your feats of greatness.

 

Thank you to joshua and Larcen for being teammates.

 

My main suggestion for next time (and there should be one) is two-fold:

 

1) Remove California Games or have it be used in an X-games type format

 

2) Two divisions: emulator and console, too many differences there.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

1) Remove California Games or have it be used in an X-games type format

What's your problem here?

 

2) Two divisions: emulator and console, too many differences there.

Better: make some very strict rules for using emulators (no pause, running at full speed, no hacks, no outdated emulators etc.)

[keilbaca]

1) Remove California Games or have it be used in an X-games type format

What's your problem here?

 

2) Two divisions: emulator and console, too many differences there.

Better: make some very strict rules for using emulators (no pause, running at full speed, no hacks, no outdated emulators etc.)

 

you can slow down an emulator? news to me...

[Jeffy Arensmeyer]

...its 12 strokes up and 14 1/2 strokes back when swimming perfectly... You can start your returns when you see the edge of the pool appear...

Yup, but on the twelfth stroke, I would hit left then. And I was pushing right (on the relay) on the fifteenth return stroke.

...no outdated emulators etc...

That could possibly suck for some people. PCAE 2.6 is all I can get to run at home. I'm battling an un-updated version of Win98 with a registry that looks like a dictionary exploded. I've tried Stella, PCAE and z26, old and new versions, with only PCAE 2.6 actually working for any period of time.

And Track & Field is about 10 times more fun than Activision Decathlon. It seems that T&F scales the running speed versus the event. I could get 1300 cm/s on just about every event, except the 100m Dash. I tired and tried, but all I did was waste energy I could use for other events. And I pulled my index card from 15 years ago on my Decathlon scores, and couldn't even get close, much less have something to post.

 

ò¿ó   

[Numan]

Regarding California Games, those events aren't "Olympic" events; they are more X-games events.

 

2) Two divisions: emulator and console, too many differences there.

Better: make some very strict rules for using emulators (no pause, running at full speed, no hacks, no outdated emulators etc.)

 

Good thoughts, but how do you enforce that?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

you can slow down an emulator? news to me...

Actually there are many ways:

1. use a generally too slow computer (this shouldn't be a problem anymore, e.g. z26 (DOS) ran almost at full speed on my old P120 using Win95, except for some notorious games like SP Frogger)

2. use windowed mode on slower computers (this may affect PCs with up to ~500Mhz and/or GPUs)

3. use commandline for a lower refresh rate (z26: -rXX)

4. run you monitor at e.g. 50Hz and let the emulator framerate sync to it (z26: -r)

5. use the trace mode of z26 (-t)

6. etc. pp.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I've tried Stella, PCAE and z26, old and new versions, with only PCAE 2.6 actually working for any period of time.

What exactly happens when you run z26, z26Win or the latest XStella? Win98 should work just fine with all of them.

[Ze_ro]

Well, I went back and entered everything into a spreadsheet to verify my counts, and I did indeed find some mistakes that I had made. I've updated the counts in the top post, and hopefully they're 100% correct now. If I've made any mistakes with them, please let me know!

 

I'll try to get individual stats added in later on today, as well as some other stuff. I haven't done it yet, but I'll also add the gold/silver/bronze fuji icons to the appropriate scores now that they're (hopefully) finalized. This should make it easier to figure out what went where.

 

Better: make some very strict rules for using emulators (no pause, running at full speed, no hacks, no outdated emulators etc.)

The problem here is that there is no economical way to enforce all this. A screenshot from a slow emulator is identical, and we have no way of telling if someone used a save state or anything like that. Pretty much the only way I could think of would be to do a whole referee thing like on Twin Galaxies, but that's obviously overkill.

 

--Zero

[Jeffy Arensmeyer]

...exactly happens...

Page Faults and General Exceptions on all of them. My computer is a mess. I've got to load XP, but I don't have an entire day to waste doing it.

And it's a mystery to me how a windowed screen runs slower than a full screen. Not at work, but at home, a full screen equals very slow play or a "blue screen o' death".

ò¿ó   

[Jeffy Arensmeyer]

...hopefully...100% correct...

If an event had a tie for Silver or Bronze, did all get a medal or just some?

 

And we (Team Japan.

 

ò¿ó   

[MattyXB]

Now that the competition is over, I would like to find out some tips -- for instance, how did you all score 10.0's in Hot Dog?  

What is your pumping technique in Bobsled?  Do you get the lowest score in Slalom by deliberately missing a gate or 2?

 

Thanks again, Ze_ro.

 

-128bytes.

 

Hot Dog: Jump as high as possible, then 1x right or left, 4x up, 1x left or right & button for landing = 10.0

This is the easiest way I think, and this without the Standing Duffy or how this calls.

 

Bob: Right Hand Keyboard Up & Down, Left Hand Left & Right Joypad.

 

Slalom: 37.0 miss no Gate and stop never. This was a perfect run for me. But only for the 3. place.

 

 

Questions from me:

How does anyone swim under 1:10.0 by Swimming Relay. How many strokes you have always. Mine was 12 to the right, then Push Left & 14 strokes to the left. Then Push right.

 

How do you get under 22.9 by Rowing. I have done it near perfect and see no error. I have Fullspeed by ca. 25m and till the end I am at Full Speed.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

The problem here is that there is no economical way to enforce all this. A screenshot from a slow emulator is identical, and we have no way of telling if someone used a save state or anything like that. Pretty much the only way I could think of would be to do a whole referee thing like on Twin Galaxies, but that's obviously overkill.

Right. There might be some ways the emulator authors could help help here, e.g. by storing some additional informations (game was paused, average framerate etc.) and a checksum into the screenshot.

 

But I don't think we should enforce anything at all. When we don't trust each other anymore, then there wouldn't be any fun in this. No, we still should assume everybody is honest. At least there are some chances to catch those who try too fool us.

 

And we should give everybody some good instructions, so that he doesn't unintentionally has an advantage (or even disadvantage). I suppose some people who really tried hard in the Atarilympics are not sure anymore, if their scores are really good or bad. Maybe their emulator was not running at full speed or maybe others had this advantage.