I talked to Pat briefly about Alex Weirs statement in a regular Board thread saying something to the effect "Pausing is allowed in regular marp, but not in tournaments." Pat said this was allowed.

So, can someone just upload a bunch of games recorded in non-tg regular mame and use pause and say they used pause and those recordings would be accepted? I'm confused...

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001

Answers

My understanding was that pausing while being strongly frowned upon was something we couldn't detect and therefore because we couldn't detect it we couldn't make it illegal.

That said, while I personally avoid pausing in all my recordings so long as it does not give an unfair advantage I can't see too much harm.

eg: 1 pause in an 8 hour schmup game for a comfort stop while not being possible on a regular arcade machine is far more acceptable than pausing 1000+ times on a puzzle game to get the best possible score.

Cheers, BeeJay.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2001

yep we can't detect. it but does that mean we have say it's allowed? no biggie i guess, the point should be mute in a few months...

Yeah i don't mind it used sparingly but there are too many puzzle games minor pausing could help dramatically. I just disagree about stating it's "allowed", but frowned upon. and wanted to hear what others thought.

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2001