2014 Together Retro Calendar

[BoneSnapDeez]

I did not mean to bring up the emulation argument again. I am just sharing my opinion that I don't think the multi port idea is important. If someone wants to play a game they will play it however they want to play it.
If we took up the sarcastic idea of having a N-Gage game, I would not join that month. It would be my choice. I don't think we have to conform to the masses, if we did this site would be like the gamefaq forums. We are a quality forums and I think we should pick quality games, quality games that we feel really should be played. If we vote in this thread about the TR games, I don't think those who don't have an N-Gage would vote for games on that system.
Anyway, the point of my post was not to debate emulation, but instead discuss in a respectful manner the idea of multi port games.

To me Together Retro is more for good games that are easily obtainable and may have "flown under the radar", not for super obscure and exclusive titles.

Which is why I recommended games like The Lost Vikings, Shadow of the Beast, etc...

I think Dawn of Ys is one of the most overlooked and greatest games of all time, yet I recognize that something like that would be a terrible TR choice.

[SpaceBooger]

I did not mean to bring up the emulation argument again. I am just sharing my opinion that I don't think the multi port idea is important. If someone wants to play a game they will play it however they want to play it.
If we took up the sarcastic idea of having a N-Gage game, I would not join that month. It would be my choice. I don't think we have to conform to the masses, if we did this site would be like the gamefaq forums. We are a quality forums and I think we should pick quality games, quality games that we feel really should be played. If we vote in this thread about the TR games, I don't think those who don't have an N-Gage would vote for games on that system.
Anyway, the point of my post was not to debate emulation, but instead discuss in a respectful manner the idea of multi port games.

To me Together Retro is more for good games that are easily obtainable and may have "flown under the radar", not for super obscure and exclusive titles.

Which is why I recommended games like The Lost Vikings, Shadow of the Beast, etc...

I think Dawn of Ys is one of the most overlooked and greatest games of all time, yet I recognize that something like that would be a terrible TR choice.

I understand, and agree to some point. I do not have the super obscure games, but what about ones that are unique to one system: Castlevania III & IV to name an example.
Again, I think that most games we want to play are on multiple systems - especially with the virtual console and plethora of compilation discs but I think that if we want to play Castlevania III or IV because it's a great game then it shouldn't stop us. If I want to play a game I will get it.

edit - I just realized that all of the NES and SNES Castlevanias are on the Wii VC and Crash is downloadable on PSN. Maybe by argument is flawed... unless you consider Castlevania Bloodlines.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Castlevania III is also on the PC.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/561575-konam ... and-contra

Honestly I think there's plenty of multi-plat games to go around. Sure there are also plenty of classic exclusives, but I think it helps to cater to as many folks as possible.

What's funny is that I was hesitant to recommend Shadow of the Beast even though it's available on ten(!!!) platforms, mainly because:
- very few people on here own an Amiga, Lynx, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Turbo CD or FM Towns.
- the Commodore 64 version is PAL only, and will likely have some minor issues running on an American system.
- SMS version is also PAL only.
- American Genesis version is famous for being a bit of a botched port.
It's a moot point anyway as it seems that no one else likes this game.

[AppleQueso]

As for emulation, sure, we don't have to mention them. But then someone else will complain that we are picking something which they cannot access. Management of these kinds of programs generally starts as trying to offer a program that the masses can enjoy, but end up regulating around how much people are complaining. If we pick titles with limited release, some of you will complain and some will likely tout methods that are legally questionable. So to avoid this, we try to focus on games that are easier to access over mulrltiple platforms and regions. The end result? You're complaining that we don't pick games with limited(and potentially illegal) accessibility.!

How many will complain about not having access to a Super Nintendo game?

I mean I can understand if we're talking about a TG16 game or something, but I'd like to think that any game exclusive to any of the "big 3" (NES, SNES, Genesis) should be fair game at least. Those consoles are ubiquitous, nearly everyone on this site owns those systems.

This forum has a lot of open discussion about emulation, roms, and even openly discusses specific rom sites and services. Heck we have people openly telling you which Dreamcast iso releases you should go for over which others.

The Racketboy forums are by far have some of the most lax rules regarding emulation discussion of any gaming forum I've ever personally spent time on. I just kinda find it a weird discrepancy that it's suddenly out of the question to even vaguely suggest it here.

I understand wanting to walk a more careful line with front page, main site content, but I think if we were going to get in trouble for it, the forum would've gotten us in trouble a long time ago.

[ZeroAX]

There's a difference between discussion of emulation (freedom of speech and whatall) and the site actively promoting download links though. Let's just accept that no matter how much sense it makes, Racketboy can't be officialy promoting it.

It can have guides about emulator useage with the disclaimers saying "only do this if you own the original software/hardware", but it can't flat out say "don't worry about Conker's Bad Fur Day being expensive. Here's a link to download the rom"

[AppleQueso]

There's a difference between discussion of emulation (freedom of speech and whatall) and the site actively promoting download links though. Let's just accept that no matter how much sense it makes, Racketboy can't be officialy promoting it.

It can have guides about emulator useage with the disclaimers saying "only do this if you own the original software/hardware", but it can't flat out say "don't worry about Conker's Bad Fur Day being expensive. Here's a link to download the rom"

But nobody's suggesting that the site explicitly say "here, download the rom."

There's no reason for any of the TR articles for example to even mention it.

[Menegrothx]

It's a moot point anyway as it seems that no one else likes this game.

It's graphically amazing for its time (and it has some awesome artwork on the cover) but the gameplay is nothing special. I think Another World would be a better game, another game that originated on Amiga and got ported to many different systems that's more about the look than gameplay, but that one had a bigger impact on the gaming world than Shadow of the Beast.

[fastbilly1]

The multiple port rule was put in place for two reasons:
1. Many people do not like to emulate
2. It lets more people play the chosen game

Personally, I love emulation, on my phone I have every NES game I wanted when I was a kid, but many people do not emulate at all. So that is a conversation that will just go around in a circle. However the second point is the important one. Back in May of 2009 we chose a highly requested title for Together Retro. Anyone remember the name? Fair enough, it was four years ago, it was Konami's brilliant title Snatcher. Snatcher is a great game that everyone should play, but it was only released on the Sega CD in English, and half a dozen platforms in Japanese. This was the first title like it for Together Retro and many people complained. The best comment was something like "why are we playing an $200 English exclusive on a console attachment that was not a huge seller?" Which was emailed to racket and myself (I just dont have access to it right now). Heck even in the topic on the forums multiple members mentioned they would love to play it but do not have a way to - Ack and Radarscope being the two that stick out to me. To mitigate these issues we decided to try to only pick games that have multiple ports. And if you look at our past lists, we have done pretty good at that. So while it is kinda antiquated, well it has served us well thus far.

As for the PSO question, yes we can play multiplayer on one server cross console. Gamecube, Dreamcast, and PC players can all play on a Schthack Server care of:
http://www.schtserv.com/
However that is not an easy proposition, any third party server software has technical issues that we have no real way of trouble shooting. Dont get me wrong Schthack is a solid setup, I have ran lan servers of it before for my friends, but we were all on pcs with the same install and in the same room so I could figure out the issues. With people nullmodeming their Dreamcast with their PC then bridging connections with their NIC, well things get iffy and my telephony diagnosis skills are not that great over the internet. PSOBB and PSOv2 GC are the two most played on their main servers last time I checked. And you do have to contact them before hand to get access. It works well, but will require pre-month work to make sure everyone gets accounts setup. If I was in my old office I could have setup another server for everyone to join, but this one has far stricter rules.

[Ack]

I mean I can understand if we're talking about a TG16 game or something, but I'd like to think that any game exclusive to any of the "big 3" (NES, SNES, Genesis) should be fair game at least. Those consoles are ubiquitous, nearly everyone on this site owns those systems.

I don't have all three of those. I have a SNES. I have an NES that does not work. I do not have a Genesis. I have no experience with Genesis emulators and don't even know their names.

We know many active members have these, but we have no idea how many nor whether these particular consoles are actually that popular. But it is easier to enable members without those consoles to access these games by picking games that have appeared on a multitude of consoles, on computers, and on downloadable services like Virtual Console. Sure, we may miss out on a few games, but there are many, many more that we can play and haven't even begun to consider.

Here's an example: Castlevania: Bloodlines only appears on Genesis, so I have no access and no knowledge on gaining access beyond dropping a larger chunk of change than I would like to pick it up. But what about Castlevania: Rondo of Blood instead? It appered on PC Engine in Japan but in all three regions on Virtual Console, has a similar release for the SNES in Dracula X that can be compared, and has a PSP remake called Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles. We can even tie in Castlevania: Bloodlines as a follow-up suggestion and point out its similar Item Crash features.

Crash Bandicoot? Appears in all three regions on PlayStation, on the PlayStation Network for PS3, and in North America on the PSP, so it is considerably more accessible than some of us may realize. We can also suggest follow ups with the rest of the series(also across PlayStation and PlayStation Network in all regions) and the numerous spin-offs.

But in the case of something like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Fighting Edition, it appears on the SNES in NTSC-U and PAL regions, and that's it. Even though I think it's wonderful, I understand that this is far too limited of a suggestion for mass appeal, even if it appears on what is potentially the most popular console here(again, I have no idea. We don't have any statistics on what members own).

So, with thousands of video games out there, many of which that have been released, re-released, ported, enhanced, remade, demade, so on and so forth, it is easiest when making decisions to pick that which more users are likely going to be able to access.

That said, I was thinking about this issue earlier today, and I think a possibility is to do a similar feature on the console subforums. We have genre-based clubs currently in SotM and the Together RPG group formed by regular members, so why not do something similar based for platforms? A Together SNES or Genesis Monthly club would work to show these single platform games while allowing the main group to continue showcasing the hundreds of other games that were widely released but haven't gotten much love by us.

And for the record, I still have never played Snatcher.

[Hatta]

Geeze, you'd think we'd have all this figured out by now.