California Extreme / Classic Arcade Live Chat Transcript
[
[16:01] [Xfire] matteox: We have some
special guests with us today, so they will introduce themselves
[16:01] [Xfire] matteox: and then start Answering questions!
[16:01] [Xfire] matteox: We have 1 hour...ready go..
[16:01]
[16:02]
[16:02]
[
[
[16:04]
Answer: ->Tom: Most of
us are collectors reliving our youth. We can actually afford to own the machines
now.
[
Answer: I started playing
games in about 1980 on the Atari 2600. Over the course of a few years my family
collected 50+ games, and I played many hours on all of them. I also played
arcade games as much as I could at local stores. I got into computer
programming in order to be able to make games like the ones I loved to play. (cont)
[16:04]
Answer: All of them!! J
[
Answer: I got into the
video games industry by co-creating
Bazman: I started over 10 years ago, as a phone rep, and worked my way up from
there!
[
Answer: Currently, about 20
but it's been as many as 30 at times :D It always seems to depend on how much space I
have!!
->Tom: I only have 30
standup machines.
->Mark: I have 28
pinball machines and
four vids
->Ken/TJ: Lost count
after 300
[16:07] California Extreme: Question:
XX/SoD Gamble Solanius: Ok,
Arcade is a falling business, why do you continue to try to bring them back,
only a small percentage of gamers who like them. Im
personally one who does, but is it worth it. And if so, could we bring a new revolutionary
type of arcade systen to the
Answer: We are not trying
to bring them back, but celebrate the good old days!
[16:07] [Xfire]Frederic: Hi, this is
Frederic from Xfire. I would like to
thank you all for being here today. We
have FANTASTIC guests, who are experts at classic arcade gaming and we hope you
enjoy chatting with them! If you are in
[
Answer: The very first
arcade game was called Computer Space, which was not too popular. Pong was the
first very popular one. MAME only emulates games with a CPU, which started
around 1976.
[
[
Answer: We have a cover
charge at the door
[
Answer: My favorite classic
game is Robotron... the game play is just as
addictive as ever, even 20+ years later
->Tom: Tron!
->Mark: Black knight
2000 (pinball)
[
Tron, Star Wars, and almost anything vector based :D
[16:08] [Xfire]Frederic: Make sure you
check all the details about California Extreme at
[
Answer: The whole goal of
MAME is to preserve for all time the details about how arcade games function.
MAME32's niche is to be a nice interface into using MAME to actually play games
on your PC. For the future, we plan to track MAME development and continue to
be an easy to use interface.
[16:10] Xƒire: Question: [Xfire]Frederic:
Who is the best at Mrs. PacMan? CK
or Matt?
I'm the Xfire company champion at Ms. Pac-Man
[
Answer: It brings back our
long lost youth. :)
[
Answer: Probably not much
:). They are two pretty different programs, but we are in the process of making
some nice infoviews for MAME inside of Xfire, so that
your Xfire friends can see more data about the arcade game you are currently
playing
[16:11]
Answer: I am dancing as I
type! Yes, this is a kooky game.
[
Answer: Each classic game
was typically made by 1 person or a very small team of people, so the game play
is usually very "pure" in some direction. Many of the games were
horrible, but the exceptional ones were amazing. These days, with teams of 100+
people developing a game, it's hard to create a great game that is very, very
different from all other games out there.
[16:13] Bazman: Question:
[Xfire] matteox: What is the biggest restoration job
you have ever done on a game
Answer: I've been working
on a Star Trek Cockpit restoration project for over 2 years now!
->tom:
a gorund up Centipede resto. The cabinet was waterlogged and I needed almost
every part. I did it though......
->Mark: Firepower (pin) It need help everywhere! New playfield, cabinet floor,
circuit boards....pratically starting over!
[16:14] Xƒire: Question: [IronChef]Chinese:
With the evolution of arcade games going from strictly ROM-based to Hard
Drive/CD-ROM based games, how much more difficult is it to continue including
"new" classics to the existing set of ROMs?
Answer: It is certainly
more difficult, because the MAME team needs to make new file formats to capture
all the data in the game, plus it is harder to read all the data from the
arcade game in the first place. However, emulation of CD and Hard-Disk-based
games does work fine in MAME.
[
Answer: We expect 400 games
this year
[16:15] Bazman: Question: googleplexdude: when and how was pinball created?
Answer: Some of the Extreme
team could Answer this a bit better,
but it evolved from table top 'shaker' boxes to its current form over the past
60-70 years!
->Mark: It started from
Bagatelle in the early part of the 20th Century. For the first Pinballs, they had actual pins in the playfield. You shot
the ball and tried to aim to the best spot. No flippers in sight either.
Flippers showed up in 1947 on Humpty Dumpty.
[
Answer: The most important
thing is to play and pay for these games to make them profitable, particularly
in arcades. For MAME, buy roms when they are legally
available (for example, from StarRoms when they were
alive), or other classic collections. You can also donate money to The Dumping
Project, which buys unemulated games in order to
reverse engineer how they work.
[16:17]
Answer: ->Tron. But there would be no power to play it. :(
[
Answer: There are some very
weird games... some of which were good. Off the top of my head, I'd say Reactor
was a weird but great game, timber was a weird game, and the irritating maze
was a weird game.
Bazman: Even though I'm not Chris....Irritating maze was so weird I had to buy
it a few years ago at the show! I also am trying to find another bizarre game
called
Some of the newer games out
of
[
Answer: No, it was created
in
->Tom: I am pretty sure
it was someones garage on the West coast
[
Answer: MAME32 is devoted
to being a nice interface on top of MAME, and MAME's
goal is arcade game preservation and documentation, so the direct Answer is "no". However, other people can make
derivatives of MAME32 that do support online play; there was an effort a few
years back to do this, but it was abandoned even though it was pretty close to
working.
[
Answer: CPS3 has a very
difficult encryption system. I'm confident that every arcade game will be
emulated eventually, but this system is very hard to figure out so far.
[
Answer: Watch out for water
damaged cabinets, or machines that have had a 'hard life' (Unless you really
know what you're doing), and be sure to 'test' the machine well, to be sure
that all the different components are working well (controls, power supply,
monitor, PCB's etc) What is most helpful is having a friend who knows a bit to
help you 'kick the tires' when buying your first game!
[16:22]
Answer: LOL. No, I
personally havent.
[
Answer:
[16:24]
->Tom: Street Fighter II
->Ken: RUSH 2049, Blitz
Xƒire: I think that's a fantastic question, and I don't know where I'd draw
the line. When MAME started, I would
have said anything pre-68000 (around 1986). However, it's now 9 years later,
and I would probably consider anything before Virtua
Fighter (the first real hardware-accelerated 3D arcade game, in 1996) a
"classic"
[16:25] Bazman: Question: XX/SoD Gamble Solanius: Tom, In accordance with current games, what games besides the obvious, do you think that classic video games have influenced any current or newer video games?
Answer: I do know that many
of the people designing current games definitely played and loved them growing
up, but I'm not sure how much of that really carries over into design. The
reason that so many of the older games held up, other than nostalgia, was the gameplay. With limited technical
capabilities..........
->Ken: Gauntlet series,
Karate champ and possibly Computer space
Bazman: With limited capabilities in the hardware, the game
designers/engineers had to have amazing gameplay as
well as cool control gimmicks to make a game unique and able to stand the test
of time
[
Answer: We happen to have a
few of Bazman's machine at the office, so we play
those the most. If they're not vs. then we compete on scores, particularly Ms.
Pac-Man, Pac-Man Plus, and Joust.
[16:25]
->Tom: Zero Wing <all your base...>
Answer: I'd have to say I
think Bubble Bobble's music is among the best.
[16:27]
->Ken: FPS games did not
come from arcades; they actually started from PC games. Ultima
Underworld and Wolfenstein 3D were the first ones, being
released within weeks of each other.
[16:27]
->Tom: Yes, when you die
Bazman: :D
Xƒire: I have not gotten far enough on Donkey Kong to know, though I do love
that game and play it regularly.
[
Answer: Well, some games
don't end, but instead repeat; some games repeat a short level over and over
until the machine hangs, like Pac-Man.
[
Answer: If you have a
2-joystick setup, then Robotron... otherwise Galaga, another of my favorites.
[16:30] Xƒire: Question: popeyito2000: So, since u consider
anything before virtua fighter to be considered
classic, how long do u think u have
before you are DONE emulating games for MAME?
Answer: Well, MAME's goal is to emulate
[16:30]
->Tom: Only when I have
arcade parties.
Bazman: All the time! My last random arcade drop in was last Sunday :-D I
currently have 11 arcades and 4 pinballs running at
my house
[
Answer: Well, some games
are massive, massive quarter sucks such as Contra, but I don't believe that any
are actually impossible.
[
Answer: The Bubble Bobble
theme. "Doo doo doo, do doo doo
doo, do doo doo doo doo
doo"
->Ken: Rastsbilly Skank
->Tom: anything without
commercials on the radio
Bazman: Rock,Classic Rock,
Blues, and just about anything other than polka and opera!
[16:32] Xƒire: Question: Dimarus: What
Answer: Zaxxon...
the semi-3d view has always been really difficult for me to deal with, but I
always want to say I've figured it out!
->John: Defender
Bazman: Robotron, Defender!
[
Answer: We are not actually
a company...just a bunch of crazy people volunteering for this show.
[16:34]
[16:34] Xƒire:
Question: XX/SoD Gamble Solanius:
In the ways that Classic Arcade games came up, what do you think the Video Game
industry has changed?
Answer: It's changed a ton.
In the old days, 1-2 people could make a game in a few months. These days, a
typical game has over 100 people working to build it over the course of 18
months.
[16:35]
->Ken: Lord of the Rings
pinball, Time Crisis
Bazman:
[
Answer: There are plenty of
"cheats". For example, if you don't kill the bees in Galaga for something like 15 minutes and survive then they
never fire at you again the rest of the game.
[16:35]
Answer: No, not at all. You
cant get sticky carpet playing online!
Xƒire: I think Gametap
is a really neat product and I really hope they are successful.
[
Answer: It's doing so right
now.
[16:36]
Answer: Chiller and Deathrace
[16:36]
Answer: Not really. I
personally have an Xbox and PS2....I am ashamed to say that they are caked with
dust.
16:37] Bazman: I constantly have
a problem figuring out where to spend my gaming time. I have most all consoles,
an arcade in my house, and of course several gaming PC's on the LAN. It usually
is decided by how much gaming time I have ;-)
[
Answer: I assumed they were
very nutritious mushrooms.
[ [16:37]
Answer: Depends on if the
game is in storage. I have all of my games set up like an "arcade" in
my basement. So anytime really.
Bazman: Daily. I have a few here at Xfire in our 'lounge' room, and I have
quite a few set up at home. I mostly play pinball unless I have more than a few
minutes ;-)
[
Answer: Yes, it is possible
to beat with just one life; you just need to practice a lot.
[
Answer: I have never
discovered any cheats, but a lot of the way Bubble Bobble's bonuses work was
figured out for the first time by a MAME programmer looking through Bubble
Bobble's binary code!
[16:39]
Answer: Probably R360
Bazman: Definitely R360, the thing flips you upside down lol!
[16:39] [
Answer: What do you mean? African or European?
[16:40] California Extreme: Question: <-=PAG=->Sparky:
Chris, what is the most irritating game that you quit playing, but then go back
and play it in 5 minutes?
Answer: Defender!!
[16:40]
Answer: Warrior
[
Answer: I played video
games since I was 6 years old and I have not killed everybody.
More seriously,
"violent" media has existed since the written word has existed. With
good parenting, it can be a useful and fun outlet for kids to safely explore
their world. With bad parenting, it might even still be a good and fun outlet
for kids to explore their world.
[16:41]
Answer: Too many to
list....
[16:42]
Answer: Come on down! Check
our website for volunteer info
[
Answer: I think that in the
early 1980s, arcade games had much more advanced graphics and gameplay compared to home consoles. Compare Pac-Man in the
arcade vs. the Atari 2600 to see this. As home consoles could deliver games as
good as the arcades, people went to arcades less.
Bazman: I think that it had a lot to do with the tech in home consoles
catching up to the arcade 'experience'. After the 32bit days, the
[16:42]
Answer: I loved it!! I have
one in my arcade
Bazman: Loved them! I actually never
played Empire Strikes Back in the arcade, but I certainly lost many dollars on
the original Star Wars. It was one of the machines I wanted to own the most
(and now I do).
[
Answer: I think Battlezone would be near the top of my list.
[16:42] [Xfire] Artaxs:
Question: popeyito2000: If a cosmic ray from another dimension fell upon you
and took you to an alternate universe, and that alternate universe was a video
game, what video game would that be for you???
Answer: I don't know, but
hopefully it would be a bonus level so I wouldn't die in just a few seconds!
->Tom: Tron
->Ken: Fish Tales
(pinball)
->Mark:
??
->John: Asteroids
[16:43] [
Answer: House of the Dead.
Maybe Mortal Kombat
Bazman: That would have to be 'chiller' or 'deathrace'
by exidy. Mortal Kombat is
the one most people think of, but these were more shocking considering when
they were released!
Xƒire: A large number of classic arcade games were about shooting or getting
shot, or eating and getting eaten... some games certainly tried to portray this
more realistically than others.
[16:45]
Answer: Sounds fine to us.
[16:46]
Answer: Large Interactive
games seem to do very well (DDR, etc...)
[
Answer: We've discussed
that on the MAME developer list. Nicola Salmoria
started MAME, and he defined 1.0 as a classical programmer
would--feature-complete. In this case, that means all arcade games have been
emulated, which we will never reach as long as more games get released.
[
Answer: I don't think I
ever had nightmares about games, perhaps about never getting to play them
again, but not about the games themselves!
Xƒire: I never had a nightmare about a video game as a kid, but I did about
the movie Gremlins...
->Tom: Sinistar...I Hunger!!!!!
[
Answer: I don't have a
favorite genre of arcade games... I think they have been so diverse that most
of them are hard to even define as members of genres.
[
Answer: On a PC? Doom 1.
[16:48]
Answer: the
closest thing we have to "making a game" are our special
Modified Pinball Machines. We will have the World Famous Pinball Rodeo and we
have added a few of our own.
[
->Tom: Doom!
[
Answer: I have had some
weird dreams after playing Tetris and Columns for too many hours straight
before going to bed.
Extreme: We volunteer for
this show.....thats got to
tell you something!
Bazman: Never play the burnout console
games shortly before taking a drive..... rotfl.
[16:49]
->Tom: I hate Zaxxon. Mine is for sale!!
Bazman: Nothing that I specifically 'hate', if I don't like a game, I just
don't play it ;-)
[
->Tom: Atari 2600
Bazman: Pong, Odysee, and an Atari 2600 were the firsts
for me
[16:51] [
Answer: The ESRB was
created to give game buyers (particularly parents) a better idea of the level
of potentially offensive content in a game. As a parent myself, I can see a
benefit in an industry-wide initiative like this. However, I don't see any
benefit in the recent trend of politicians bashing videogames for society's
problems.
[16:52] [
Answer: Double Dragon
maybe?
[
[16:54]
Answer: Whatever the market
will bear. Generally, maybe twice the cost?
Bazman: That really depends on who you intend to sell to.
[16:55]
Answer: In general, most
games have a plot
[16:55] [
Answer: Yes, when we can
find them.
[
Answer: 104k at Ms.
Pac-Man, without any special techniques to coerce the monster behavior
[
Answer: There's no Answer to that! I love classic 2D arcade games, but I also
love lots of modern RPG and RTS games.
[16:57]
Answer: Not sure
[16:57] [
Answer: In the past few
years my preferred games have been Starcraft, Dawn of
War, C&C Red Alert, and Guild Wars.
[16:57] Bazman: Question: cooldrew: Bazman, or Xfire: What's the most expensive game you guys own?
Answer: Probably some of my
pinballs.
[
Answer: Cut the Cheese
(Sega Redemption Game)
[16:59] Bazman: Question: cooldrew:
Given the chance to go back in time and meeting the developers of one game,
what ould it be?
Answer: Dave Theurer, the guy who wrote Tempest!
Xƒire: I was lucky enough to trade a few emails with Warren Robinett, the developer of Adventure for the Atari 2600 and
the creator of the first known Easter Egg.
[16:59]
Answer: This is not a job,
it's an adventure. We all have real world jobs. We're just volunteers.
Xƒire: Leading Xfire's development from the initial idea through today has
been a dream job, yes. Difficult, but I can't imagine loving anything else
more.
Bazman: For me, yes! Working in the video game industry is truly awesome! You
really have to be passionate about it though ;-)
[
->Ken: You can focus
more on gameplay rather than technology.
[16:59] [
Answer: You can't beat Robotron, but every bit of progress I get through it does
make me want to get even further.
[
[17:01] [Xfire] matteox:
Thank you to all the participants!
[17:01]
[17:01] Bazman: Thanks for all the
great questions!!
[17:01] [Xfire] matteox: We will give out
a few free tickets here in a second
[17:01] [Xfire] matteox: Please visit http://www.caextreme.org
[17:01] Bazman: Go to the show
this weekend if you're local, We'll be there :D
[17:01] [Xfire] matteox: That is where you
will find everything you need to know about the show!
[
[17:02] [Xfire] matteox:
Ok, if you want a ticket and you live in the
area and can actually attend the show, type "ME" in the Question room
[17:03] [Xfire] matteox:
ok, i have 3 pairs
of tickets....
[17:03] [Xfire] matteox: #1 goess to Kingcold19
[17:03] [Xfire] matteox: Winners pm me
[17:04] [Xfire] matteox: #2: (pure} star
wars
[17:04] [Xfire] matteox:
#3 popeyito2000:
[17:04] [Xfire] matteox:
OK thanks everybody!