Q1: When you say- "...game is not appropriate for tournaments...", what does it mean?
A1: We can recognize 4 sorts of problems- points leeching,
predictability, patternability and maraahooning. Leeching- this was
experienced in Green Beret, Jumping Jack, Eric & Floaters,... the
whole idea is to stay on 'safe' place (in game) and easy collect
points e.g. stay on the top of vehicle or 'hill' (in Green Beret) and
kill enemies (which can come only from one direction). Games without
'time limit' are especially vulnerable to this.
Predictability-
due to making Z80 snaps for emulator's recording purposes, some games
(where the goal is to 'find something') can become predictible which
ruins the original spirit of game. Good example is "Wheelie",
where arrangement of tunnels is always same when you start Z80 snap,
so player can learn it by heart and beat the game. "Cyclone",
nominated for ST2002, was thoroughly tested to this, and disposition
of 'target-cubes' was found as unpredictible.
Patternability- due
to this, Manic Miner and Hunchback has finished in "HALL OF
'SOLVED' GAMES", i.e. possibility to find 'winning pattern' in
some game, which can be easily followed ('reproduced) by other
players. This usually leads in 'marathooning' too.
Marathooning-
this is problem for tour's confirmers (judges). Its boring to verify
loooooong recordings, almost painfull. Patternability is not the only
cause for this, game can become very easy for top players ("Buck
Rogers" and "Highrise Harry" miss nominies list due to
this) or you have too often bonus lives awarded (in arcade machines
it was quite common to see: "...bonus ship every ???? points..."
e.g. Q-Bert or Bosconian) so the best players become practically
immortal.
Q2: What violations can make my recording invalid?
A2: In AIR files we have situation very clear. Unlike in 'MAME Tours' where players can 'cheat' in speed (everything under 90% fps is cheating!!) here recording stops if speed falls. Using 'pause' is also forbidden, but 'compo mode' prevents player from this too :-) 'Hoarding Scores' means you made an great score, but you don't submit it to Tour's jury (whitin 48hrs in MAME) on time. This ruins 'fair play' because other competitors deserve to know how good score you have ASAP.
Q3: Can I use pause command if it exist in an tour's game?
A3: Only once (...phone rings :-) eventually twice ('nature calls'), but don't make pause longer then 15 minutes. You can't go to lunch, bed... and then continue recording. Also you can't 'chop' games with pauses (e.g. fast games like "Space Harrier").
Q4: Hey, I'm a linux user, can I eventually join Speccy Tour?
A4: Yes, you can use FUSE in order to join Speccy Tour! See the rules section
Q5: Why all this features like Compo modes, RZX digital signing etc?
Because we want to play in the same conditions as we were playing on a real Speccy. That is to say, 100% Speed and not slower/faster, being able to pause the game only if the game allows it (not artificially) etc. RZX signing bridges the gap of having a faithfull recording under an emulator of open source code. It prevents from cheating by changing up a few lines in the code and provides a reasonable security. We do really hope that no body would use this sad tactics anyway :). Playing conditions are important though, specially if we want to have an official and faithfull scores chart.
Q6: Wouldn't it be much simpler if you just relied on players' good will rather than using recordings with compo mode?
A6: Well, we don't think any Specchum would care about losing time trying to defeat RZX signing in order to make good scores. But in the other hand if you provided a player too many emulator facilities like being able to save snapshots and send snapshots as proof of the score, it's very likely that after 2 months of competition he won't feel like going through the easy levels of the game again and will eventually use this facilities. It's not quite the same playing manic miner for 4 hours or resuming the game after a good rest, so all this facts, made us think that we really need those features in order to have a fair compo. We might have some games of the first Speccy Tour (when no game recording was supported and snapshots were used) this year if they are selected, it would be a good chance to contrast how all this things have influence in the final scores, or to see if we are real security paranoids :)
Q7: Will be the Speccy Tour site be available for other languages? ¿Y los que hablamos Castellano qué?
A7. Kak is preparing an automatization in order to do this. When he finishes it we'll just have to have the translation on a text file to extend the languages available as much as we wish. If you want to tranlate this web (or at least the relevant parts of it) to your own language please contact us at tour@jaivan.net in order we provide you the text files. I assume that our English isn't good, so if any British wanted to point out what it's not proper english, please, do so.
Sabemos que son muchos los participantes que hablan Castellano y queremos incluir la opción de seguir la página del tour en Castellano, pero no nos sobra el tiempo. Si hay algún voluntario para esta labor (traducir las partes del site más importantes (como las noticias) o todo) que se ponga en contacto en tour@jaivan.net. En cuanto Kak termine la automatización para hacer esto y tengamos la traducción, la publicaremos. A parte de esto se ha currado toda la web, así que sed pacientes con él :)