It's time to turn an idea into reality with the first season of the Mame streaming league. This has the potential to be a fun experience for everyone as we learn how to turn our online streaming into a fun and competitive experience. Without further ado here is the latest info:

Player Gaming Requirements

There are no requirements on skill levels or proficiency at any of the games. Players just need to be willing to play games, compete fairly and have fun.

Player Technical Requirements

Players must:

1. Be able to run Mame 0.106. This isn't the latest version of Mame but it seems to be the lowest common denominator and something that most people run due to TG using it.
2. Be able to stream live on Justin.tv or UStream. You can use either screen casting or using a web camera but the score should be visible to anyone watching the stream if at all possible since we want this to be an event that is fun and exciting to watch. Screen casting provides the clearest view of the screen but I understand this maybe not be possible for everyone.
3. Be able to load and use Mame save states. A number of games will utilize save states to set the game to a given level/settings. You will need to be able to receive a set of game states and be able to use them during the competition.
4. Have an account on Aurcade that includes their streaming channel. We will be utilizing Aurcade for broadcasts and this will allow us to use the shared streaming page.

Player Availability Requirements

The current planned game times are as follows:

Week 1: Saturday July 2nd, 7:30pm Pacific / 10:30pm Eastern
Week 2: Saturday July 16th, 7:30pm Pacific / 10:30pm Eastern
Week 3: Saturday July 23rd, 7:30pm Pacific / 10:30pm Eastern
Week 4: Saturday August 13th, 7:30pm Pacific / 10:30pm Eastern

EDIT: Dates edited to remove conflict with Richie Knucklez Invitational

Players must be able to commit to attending at least 3 of the 4 weeks. Things do come up but we're looking for people willing to do their best to show up. This time is also not ideal for either west coast or east coast players (let alone anyone from Europe) but it's an attempt to find a middle ground that will hopefully work for most. If there is a big outcry against these dates/times and everyone can magically agree on something new I will look into changing them but I don't want to start a big thread/debate where people argue about dates but still can't come to an agreement. If you can't make these times there will hopefully be other seasons in the future that you can play in.

The Teams

To help build comradery and to ensure we don't get into East vs West or X vs Y battles I will be setting the teams pseudo randomly. That means I will do my best to pick random teams with people of similar skills on both sides. This gives a chance for everyone to meet new people and hopefully have some close competitions.

The Games

So what games will you be playing? Once the teams are set I will send out a list of 24 games complete with romset names and settings. From those 24 games 3 games will be picked for each week which means 12 of the 24 games will eventually be used. You can practice the whole time but you'll never know which 12 to practice :) The 24 games will be picked almost exclusively from classic era greats. We can look into themed seasons in the future but to start off we're going to be playing classics!

Controllers

Players are allowed to use any form of control panel of their choosing/making. If you can find a way to arrange controls such that it gives you an advantage at a game then all the power to you. Since mame records are verified by INP no one really knows what controller people use. As long as you're not using Mame cheats it's all good.

How do I join?

If you're still interested after reading this message then email me at (mamestreaming at gmail dot com) before Saturday, June 18th. As long as we have more than 6 players then we'll be a go for the first season of the league. At that point I'll send out the pool of 24 games along with some more information.

This is an absolutely brilliant idea!

I allready signed up but now seeing these choice games I would like sign up again

This should be fun. I dont HAVE to play on MAME if I have a machine right?

-Ken

I got your 5.1v hangin

I'd rather play on my machines if I can. If there is any saved state requirements I'm sure I can fire that up on the mame cab or the PC with the XArcade, but t&f is much better on the cab!

Week 1 went as well as could be expected. It took us a little while to work through some technical issues along with waiting for one competitor to take something outside but once we got into the games things ran fairly smoothly. We had 4 competitors making up the teams:

Zerst and Billhouse

vs

Redelf and MarkyD

All three games were close and ended in 1-1 ties so we had to resolve everything in a tiebreaker game of Zoo Keeper.

Rally X
Zerst over Redelf (49270 - 33560)
MarkyD over Billhouse (40500 - 3100)

Space Invaders
Redelf over Billhouse (3180 - 2240)
Zerst over MarkyD (3740 - 2700)

Zoo Keeper
MarkyD over Billhouse (358380+ - 128520)
Zerst over Redelf (80000+ - 30000)

Tie Breaker (Zoo Keeper)
Zerst over Markyd (944130 - 282150)

Observations from week 1:
- There is a big difference between head to head live play versus having a million restarts by yourself. Bill had a horrible game of Rally-X but easily put up 10x that score in a second game after it was too late. In the tie breaker game both competitors had early deaths that maybe wouldn't have happen had the pressure not been on.
- Making sure you have a working setup for all the games in key. Johnny Mac had problems with Zoo Keeper because he was playing on an 8 way joystick which is nearly impossible for that game.
- TeamSpeak is necessary for all competitors. It really helps to be able to talk to get things setup on synchronize things.

All in all not a bad first run. We were really late getting started and didn't start gaming until well after 8 but were done by 9:30. Hopefully we'll be able to speed that up even more.

I don't have time for gaming anymore :(
All I do now is work at my new job :(
Leave at 6:15am return home at 7:00 or so, eat dinner
relax and then go to bed.

Not sure if I will be able to play this Friday.

A really great place I think,
Argens 84 Main St. Downtown Seattle

Tomorrow should work for me. Rally the troops!