Alright guys here we go!!!
Heres the 2010 rules!
Thanks Dr. Robbie for makin this out!

Rules for Nesruler's 2010 Score Contest

Posting Scores

- In order to be entered into the contest, take a picture of your score with your name in the picture. The name MUST be in the picture or the score is invalid. Certain exceptions may apply.

- When posting a new score, please begin your post by typing out your score. Larger font (18pt) preferred.

- If you are posting an updated score, please edit your initial post with the new photo and score. You can still create a seperate new post as a bump to notify you edited your score if desired.


Emulators

- Emulators ARE allowed to be used in competition. However, nothing that may give a player an advantage in an emulator over playing on the system is allowed. This includes, but is not limited to, save states, Game Genie codes, altered ROMS, and turbo controls.

PowerPak

- A PowerPak IS allowed to be used in the competition with the same regulations as with the emulators. You may not use save states, Game Genies codes, altered ROMs or anything else that would give you an advantage over playing with the regular cartridge.

Points

- Each week the top 5 players who submitted acceptable scores will earn points as follows:

     1st – 10 points
     2nd – 8 points
     3rd – 6 points
     4th – 4 points
     5th – 2 points
     Participation – 1 point

- To earn a participation point, the player must submit an acceptable score that meets or exceeds a predetermined minimum score.

- The contest will be broken down into four quarters throughout the year. The winner of each of these quarters will be awarded an additional 10 points towards the yearly competition.

Controllers

- Turbo Controllers are NOT allowed to be used. Neither are any controllers that give you any advantage over regular controllers such as slow motion or turbo ability.

Cheating

- Cheating will NOT be tolerated in any form. This contest is based on trust and honor. Anyone found cheating will be banned from the competition.

- If there is suspicion of a member cheating, Nesruler will review the case and the member may be asked to present further evidence of their score.

Are we deciding on an emulator. If we are not, I would like to use the one on my Wii. FCE Ultra GX. If this is acceptable, and a decent emulator, please let me know.

Well, I think Brian said Nestopia was solid, accuracy-wise, and was cross platform for all computers (PC, Mac, Linux), so I think it's the "official" emulator for that format.

Is FCE Ultra GX the only one on the Wii?

Can we get some feedback from the PS3/XBox360/DS/PSP guys as well? I have no problem with people emulating on those systems, as long as there are no significant flaws in the emulators available to them.

Can I use pocketNES?

I only trust stuff from the Wii Brew community, and it's the only one I see.

http://wiibrew.org/wiki/List_of_h...

well, I guess the "official emulator" question was mildly ambiguous.

I don't want to make a ruling without letting robbie and a few others weigh in, but I think we all agree that we want as many participants as possible.

Personally, my take would be that we COULD have a designated emulator for each platform, since on-console emulator options are pretty limited (with Nestopia being the one chosen for ALL computer platforms).

from a game-interface standpoint, people emulating on consoles is probably better, anyway, since you're using a real controller (of sorts).

Anyway, let's see what the others think.

Im with you on that. If I ever get the cash in hand, I will be heading over to retrousb, to get me an NES Wii controller.

Another thing came to mind. If we ever decide to do a light gun game, I think emulators should not be allowed for those particular events. That totally changes the game, when your using a completely different input. On the Wii, you use the Wiimote with a crosshair. I would assume on PC you use the mouse? Of course the PowerPak would still be ok, since nothing is changed from regular console play there.

I really don't think we should include any games in the contest that require a peripheral.

Light gun games only work on CRTs, so even with my real NES, I can no longer use the Zapper on a modern TV.

Any versions/variants of FCE should be fine. Nintendulator is another good choice. Mainly you want to avoid the old horrid emulators like Nesticle.

i really don't have an opinion on an "official" emulator. i don't believe changing the particular emulator is going to change the playing field at all. if people believe an official emulator needs to be designated, we could add it to the rules, but i thought we would only be doing that if we could find a cheat free or no save state emulator.

we have done some light gun games in the past and they were fun. didn't seem to be any issues with those as well, but guess we'll see.

Lets stay on topic haha
Jeremy

Nice. The rules look solid.

Well, the "official" thing has to do with how I worded the question in the poll.  Emulation eeked out a pretty thin win, and I don't want to piss people off that voted with some specific expectation.

I guess we'll call it a "pool" of official emulators that you can choose from, that will only include "accurate" emulators.

So "official" emulators:

Nintendulator

FCE Ultra

Nestopia

If your system can play some variant of those, you're golden.

On the light gun/peripheral topic...from the standpoint of participation, I really don't think we should do any game that requires the light gun this year.  People who don't have a CRT would have to emulate...and at that point they might as well be playing a different game, due to the differences in input methods.

There is a deep enough library of non-zapper games that there is really no need to pick from them (and we played the only "good" ones last year anyway )

are we doing the one life rule? If its only for some games, will it be for 1943?

^With the one-life rule, I assumed it was simply going to be - yes, unless told otherwise.

With 1943, you only get one life. If you die, you can continue, but the score resets, you are better off starting over anyway.

Nesrulers original post in this thread says nothing about one-life, so I hope he edits it to clarify. Maybe it depends on the Game?

Also can we use a GBA with the pocketnes emulator? I am looking to buy one.

We Decide each week if 1 life rule applys, i have the rules for this week and they will be posted at 9 PM central
Jeremy

One little small thing I'd like for people to do.
If people would write their score in the beginning of their post it would help me out a lot.  Copying and pasting scores instead of typing them out would be great, and also more importantly it will make digging through the thread to see who got what scores much easier.
Now that we have 5 places and an unlimited # of particpation points, the task of score keeping is a lot more daunting.
So, the rule should state something to the effect of;
- When posting a new score, please begin your post by typing out your score. Larger font (18pt) preferred.
EX: If I'm about to post my pic of 5000, I start the post by typing 5000, hit return, then I can type or post the pic w/e.
That sound reasonable?

Sounds like a good idea.


It might also be a good idea for people to devote themselves to ONE post that has a picture in it.
People can still post as much as they want to discuss the game and stuff, but each person only keeping a SINGLE picture posted will declutter immensely.

I'm really glad emulators are being allowed. I actually picked up a retroport from bunnyboy last fall, so I'll be able to still test my mettle with a classic controller .

Was an offical emulator ever decided on? I wasn't sure since the first post didn't say one way or another. I was wanting to us the one on my phone call nesoid.