Any interest in starting back up the Monday morning MAME club?

[GrandAmChandler]

Anyone interested? Don't know what it is? Here are some examples:

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/search.php?searchid=78835

Looks like it's been about a year since we did this.... Just post here if you are interested.

-GAC-

[agbulls]

I wasn't really active when this last was going on. But, I think its a fantastic idea and would love to participate. Since we're all playing tons of different things all the time--this can guarantee a cohesive discussion on one game. And, everyone can use MAME. I'm in!!!

[Cryomancer]

Sure.

[scooterb23]

I'd be for it. I haven't played with MAME in a long time, it'd be good to get back into I think :D

[neuropolitique]

so long as you people don't cry as I stomp all over your puny skills, I'm in.

[turbosage]

sounds fun! I would enjoy it.

[Hardcore]

As long as Neuro doesn't shed a tear over my teabagging of him, sure.

[Flack]

The MAME Club was a lot of fun both to run and to participate in. That being said, here were the downsides:

01. Participation. If you look at the last pick (Major Havoc), not including myself and the Ze_ro (who picked the game), 7 people participated. For most of 2005 that was about average; some weeks had less, and a few (really popular games) had more.

02. Picking Schedule. When the MAME club was retired, there were close to 100 "members." All you had to do to become a member was to send me a PM, which got your name added to the list of "game pickers." At one game per week, that meant that it would take almost two years before a new member got to pick a game. I eventually modified that system to say that to be eligible to pick, you had to participate the week before. That drastically reduced the number of pickers.

03. Work. While running the club wasn't a lot of work, there were a lot of steps that had to be performed each week. First, you had to PM the next person on the list and have them choose a game (this often took several days). Once they picked a game you would have to download that ROM from the web, put it somewhere (your own hosting), write up the new post, find a picture, add the game to the picked list, and post all that Monday morning. This may not sound like a lot of work but week after week it gets a little old.

04. Competition. Some people simply enjoy playing games and talking about them. Other people wanted a competition. This split led to Jibbajaba's MAME League. With half the people competing in one and half the people doing the other, the MAME Club kind of fell apart. At the time I did not want to turn the MAME Club into an official competition, but looking back I can see that Jibba did have some good ideas and the competition idea did have some merit. Maybe ideas from both could be combined. The problem I saw with it was, committment. Like I said, with the MAME Club we had a list of 100 people and each week we had less than 10 participating, so I didn't want to start a competition that relied on people playing each week and then getting stuck when people inevitably dropped out. One problem I saw with the MAME Competition League was that it required screenshots. A lot of people in the MAME Club play MAME on MAME Cabinets or consoles (XBox, etc), which makes providing screenshots impractical. I think if we put our heads together we could probably take parts from both "clubs" and make one great one.

05. Visibility. Before there was an Arcade Alley, the MAME Club posts went into Classic Gaming. After the Arcade Alley was created, they were moved here. The Arcade Alley doesn't get a lot of "foot traffic," so a lot of people ended up forgetting about the club. Maybe if we could get all the members to add banners to their signatures or something it might help visibility. I always felt that more people would have played along if they had just known about the club.

There were positives, of course. It was great to get to talk about games with fellow gamers, and the club is free to run. If Chris or someone else wants to revive the club, let's kick around some ways we can improve it. I'll be glad to provide the text files I used last time (posting templates and whatnot). One other thing I did was create a mailing list from my own personal e-mail account. I had several people who wanted to be e-mailed when a new MMMC was posted. I would say altogether whoever picks up the club will need to plan on spending around 60 minutes a week on it. That includes e-mailing people for picks, downloading roms, hosting the rom and a screenshot somewhere, and drafting and posting the official post.

[dcescott]

I tried to play to last year. Did well through 3 rounds and got pummel'd by a few vets of the mame, geez. Flack MacMame okay just like last year?
I'm in. Time Pilot was a good one. Now that I got my macbook pro, I can pursue it a little easier.
Daniel

[Gapporin]

I'd be down for this as well.

And since I co-ran the MAME League with Jibbajaba, I can also participate in the technical aspects as well. Although I don't know if I have the time at present to head up a new league again, I can certainly help out wherever needed.

[kevates]

I'd like to see this happen again and would be willing to volunteer to help run it. what's the next step...

[IronBuddha]

Anyone interested? Don't know what it is? Here are some examples:

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/search.php?searchid=78835

Looks like it's been about a year since we did this.... Just post here if you are interested.

-GAC-

The link just says sorry no matches? What exactly is it? Do we play against each other online?

[InsaneDavid]

I'm up for it, guess I need to dig out my trophy from Jibbajaba's tourney in 2005 and the unused banner I made from it...

http://www.classicplastic.net/digitalpress/DP%203rd%20Place%20Banner.jpg

Some updated links for Monday Morning MAME Club are here (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=63963) and here (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=79620) (can just search for the rest).

As for the MAME League...
2005 League main thread (17th Annual Digital Press MAME League World Championships) (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=58715).
2005 League discussion thread (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=58814).

2006 League main opening thread (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81613).
2006 League (2nd leg) SHMUPS Tournament thread (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=82774).
2006 League (3rd leg) Puzzle Tournament thread (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=84206).
2006 League discussion thread (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81818).

ALL SHOULD BE TREATED AS DEFUNCT, LOCKED OR NOT.

If I remember correctly the 2006 MAME League went on hiatus and never resumed, I was ranked second in the world standings at the time if I remember correctly.

[IronBuddha]

After reading about it, it sounds like fun! I'm definitely in if it gets going.