the_wizard_666

2 hours ago, FireHazard51 said:

....I failed the participation score my first time playing

So did I, multiple times.  I'm slowly improving, but it's a hard ass game, especially if shooters aren't your forte.  You've done better than I did my first dozen attempts

Spot: The Video Game is done.

And a much easier game of New Chessmaster later, and that one's off the list as well.  Too bad I don't have the regular one or I'd knock that off too.

Took most of a bloody day, but Solitaire Funpak is done.  I even did a round of Poker just for the hell of it.

5 hours ago, jonebone said:

Well yes, there's a retail and rental version of the Beast Wars box and we've known about both for at least a decade...

I would even go so far as to argue that it was known since it was released, what with it being printed in Nintendo Power when it happened

2 hours ago, NESfiend said:

My two cents on unlicensed may be best of both worlds. Goal is still licensed only and do the count that way. Collectively thats the main goal. Keeping it a big milestone that isnt out of reach with current participation. 

But, still award points for unlicensed and keep a tab of who beat them in a separate section. Maybe award a chunk of points to the top 3-5 finishers additionally as a bonus. If this works and it gets to the point that it looks mildly achievable after a given year, reincorporate them in all the way 

@the_wizard_666, curious if youd be ok with that middle ground

The years Scary included them, that's pretty much what he did.  The games were listed separately, and the leaderboards were listed in a way that showed the full total, as well as the licensed/unlicensed split.  Had no problem with it that way at all.  And if that's how it was done, I would've still been here plugging away every New Year's and beyond.  But still, I like the idea of the community being polled on it, especially if it's yearly (either in December or shortly after completion, whichever comes first) to decide the following year.  If nothing else, it'll seem less arbitrary, especially to those of us old timers that will never understand how unlicensed games suddenly stopped counting for the majority of newcomers

2 hours ago, nerdynebraskan said:

@the_wizard_666

Your memory is faulty.

I blame concussions

Honestly, I'm not surprised.  And yeah, the last few years probably would've been rough with the whole NA going bye bye and all.  I'm just glad to see it still going strong after all these years.  I don't remember if it was two or three years that I ran it initially, but either way, it's over a decade and still going strong.

8 hours ago, GPX said:

You guys are a bunch of liars. The real reasons are:

- you started collecting for the love and nostalgia, and if you’re still with it today, it’s because you’ve become masochists! (The pain when you part money from wallet/card; and the pain you’d get if the partner finds out how much you truly spent!)

- y’all want to become millionaires! (And go on Pawn Stars)

But I started collecting when I was a teenager, and games were cheaper than dirt back then.  I actually remember buying games at garage sales for 50 cents, and taking a literal jar of pennies to Gold Video to buy up a bunch of games when they went out of business for a quarter apiece.  So neither nostalgia nor monetary gain were motivations for me.  And frankly, if every game I owned was still worth a buck or less, I'd still have my collection.  Hell, it'd probably be a LOT bigger

@KhromakThat's actually a perfect idea.  Especially with how it goes.  Maybe even do the poll yearly, every December, so that new participants can weigh in, and people that have moved on no longer have their vote swaying the decision.  I'd honestly feel better personally about it if it was a community decision as opposed to the arbitrary decision of the guy running it.  And I'll even concede a "No Active Enterprises" option to eliminate the broken Action 52 and the similarly broken Cheetahmen II.  I just feel that there are a ton of quality unlicensed games that people forget about, because they mentally picture the worst of the worst.  Giving the participants a voice for the following year's inclusions is probably the perfect outcome.  And if the community voted against it, I'll probably rejoin, as again, it would be the decision of those who are actually playing as opposed to a one man ruling.

9 hours ago, jonebone said:

Have you tried buying anything decent CIB in collector condition lately?  You won't pocket nearly as much as you think.  Or, you'll be left with something in pretty rough shape.  

You know I've been out of the CIB game for years Boner But even a small premium is still money in his pocket, which would be an overall win, even if it wouldn't normally be worth the price.  It'd be different if he were doing more than one or two titles to see if he likes having them like that, but given the situation, my statement is still valid - if he makes $20 more for his graded copy than he pays for a non-graded one, should he decide he'd rather have it ungraded, then it wasn't a complete waste.  I do agree that it's not a great idea overall - grading a collection to make a few peanuts is a lot of hassle for a comparable pittance.  My statement was simply with regard to his current situation.

Also of note, Bronty purchased his sealed Stadium Events only a couple years prior, for the then asinine price of $3000 (carts were only around $500-600 or so at the time).  Ah, the good ol' days.

13 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

No, a few trickled out to a second hand charity store and were bought by early collectors/game hunters, such that when I started collecting, 5 to 10% of the cartridges that showed up on eBay were still in loose form, having never been boxed.  The rest were posted for sale on rgvn by Sean Roche, where Etler picked them up.  Here's the original ad:

 

Still, it's a huge conflict of interest, but thanks for the clarification.  That's bloody awesome too...if only I owned an internet capable computer before 2003

2 minutes ago, Code Monkey said:

I wish you'd have let me know a few months ago before dumping your boxes.

I dumped them in like 2011.  What went to VGT was just the same boxes that got picked over for 10 years since then.  You weren't missing much.  Although I may still have a few of Jeff's rejects around...but yeah, all the good shit was long gone before you even started collecting

EDIT: Also, I didn't even know you until last week

4 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Man, that brings back memoires!  Though I'd forgotten that you once had hair...

And that box still looks good on my shelf to this day...

Thanks for paying me more than I paid for the sealed one Although I do wish I'd hung on as a CIB collector for a couple more years before parting everything out...

12 minutes ago, DarkTone said:

Actually it was from a conversation with a friend. She wanted every NTSC PS2 game. I wanted to pursue a set, but had to think what console would be good enough to chase. Not too easy, not too hard. 

You're collecting PS2?  Damn dude, that's a HUGE challenge!  Not in terms of cash mind you, just sheer quantity!  How far along are you?  I've only dabbled, but I'm still over 400 personally (I'm an "everything" collector myself).  Any highlights?

1 minute ago, DarkTone said:

Whats Etler's list?

Mike Etler was the first guy to compile a list of NES games and graded their rarity.  There were a slew of inaccuracies, including the aforementioned Asterix blunder, but other major ones were listing Stadium Events as a B rarity (it was a couple years after the list was compiled when it was found to be much, much rarer, in fairness to it); the listing of Cheetahmen II as a top rarity when in fact it was an unreleased game that was purchased by Mike Etler from a warehouse that was clearing out it's trash through an auction, where he got every known copy and the boxes, packaged it all up, and sold on Digital Press and in the game shop he owned - a clear conflict of interest who's ramifications are still felt to this very day; and listing the Aladdin Deck Enhancer games as top rares in much the same way - a conflict of interest as he was the sole source at the time.  Ever wonder why Cheetahmen II has no manual? Now ya do.  And if you doubt me, go to Google and look up NES rarity list.  Two of the links on the front page go to his list - one to an updated version from 2002 that someone else did to fix a few errors, and the other to v.4 of the list, which includes all those blunders and more! 

1 minute ago, DarkTone said:

Wanted to challenge myself by going for a complete set. 

I feel like that can't be your sole motivation, at least at first.  If all you wanted was a complete set, you'd have selected something like the Virtual Boy, or another tiny library.  I'm assuming that the motivation for completing the set was driven by a love of the system when you first started collecting, otherwise the drive for completion wouldn't be powerful enough to keep you going.

13 minutes ago, DefaultGen said:

A bunch of "common knowledge" things in this hobby seem to be baseless or just guesses.

Or the truth is discovered, but most people aren't aware of it, and nobody knows where to find it anymore.  Think how many people STILL reference Etler's NES list and go on a futile search for an NTSC copy of Asterix, for example.  In this case, the wiki is actually accurate to what is known, and stated in the image the OP posted - it was a rental exclusive for a few months prior to it's general release.  What's more, the tactic seems to have backfired on them, as few people bought it on release after playing it on a rental, because it wasn't very good.

Partly for the love of gaming, partly for the thrill of the hunt, and partly from a scholarly feel of learning things about something I enjoy.  And partly for the joy I get when my nieces come and play them

Well, the worst that happens is you decide you don't like them being graded, you sell them for a premium, buy another CIB to replace it, and pocket the difference.  Doesn't hurt to experiment I suppose.

Let's be real here  too - in two of the three years unlicensed games were in, I was the one running the show, and I would frequently be absent from NA for months at a time, which hampered interest.  It's why I handed it off to Scary in the first place.  The one year it was run with someone who kept up with the thread for an entire year was the one year it was actually accomplished.  So the argument that it was only achieved in one of three years is irrelevant, because the two years I ran it there wasn't a hell of a lot of interest due to my lack of maintenance.  Scary put them in once, and they were achieved once.  Why bury that accomplishment to make the list achievable when the achievement was already done.  And then the year the licensed list was pretty much completed in the first few months should've been a sign that maybe the amount of interest the thread brought in made what is essentially two completions a day a bit too easy to achieve.

1 minute ago, Gloves said:

According to the rules it can only happen once, you're overthinking it. 

The MOMENT your lives reaches 1, you're done. 

I understood it that way too, but it's still a good point to bring it up, if only in the interest of clarity.

2 minutes ago, Strikezone1 said:

@the_wizard_666 

I see your point about unlicensed. I personally don’t collect or have interest in unlicensed (outside of the half dozen Tengen carts I’ve had since the 90s) so needless to say I’m good with omitting them. But I at least see your point if they used to be in the list.

Homebrews seems like it might be tough. Aren’t there hundreds by now? Are the ROMs for all of them easily available for people who don’t have physical carts of them? I don’t follow homebrews much so I genuinely don’t know.

If anything I’d be for adding the few fully completed but cancelled games like California Raisins, Titan Warriors, Time Dover: Eon Man, Robocop vs Terminator, etc.

And I understand that not everyone wants to play them, but that's kind of the point too.  I'm not the only one that likes playing them, I'm just the most vocal about it.  And yeah, they were there initially when I ran the show, as were the PAL releases.  Scary took over and dropped the unlicensed and PAL.  Okay, first year, that's cool.  That year the goal was accomplished.  The year after he put the unlicensed back in, and it was accomplished too.  Then he inexplicably removed them and added in PAL and a few random Famicom games (which imo made no sense, but whatever).  I never understood the logic of making the challenge EASIER after it was completed.

I do agree that homebrew is a huge can of worms, and the line really has to be drawn somewhere.  And with so many being limited releases, or flat out unavailable because the ROM hasn't been released, I would say that leaving them off, or only adding in the widely available ones that can be found easily, would do.  Having every NES Maker filler demo being part of the list wouldn't be a good solution, but having full games like the Battle Kid games, or the Candelabra games, I wouldn't mind seeing that happen. 

Also, I dig that idea.  Completed (or near-complete fully playable) cancelled games would be a neat addition.  I think with those (or the homebrew releases for that matter), the caveat that anything released after the start would not make the cut until the following year would be a necessary dividing line...I'd hate to have the list be done, and then all of a sudden a couple games get released in December and Scary has to drum up interest to scratch them off at the end of the year 

If he's a mutual friend, and she went to him as a friend in confidence, then there is absolutely no obligation for him to tell you ANYTHING about that discussion, as it would be a betrayal of HER confidence.  If anything, he should be pissed at YOU for making him out to be the bad guy here.  The relationship is done, and it sounds like he did nothing to facilitate it's end.  In my humble opinion, you deciding to cut him loose over him being a good friend to your ex is silly and childish.  Not trying to rag on you man, but this situation reeks of petty jealousy.

12 hours ago, a3quit4s said:

That could be misleading though, perhaps you could only by it from blockbuster after it was used?

Negative.  While it started as a rental exclusive, it was indeed later released at retail.  I remember seeing it a few times when I was browsing looking for games.  Wish I'd picked it up then, but I went with Conker instead.  But yeah, most "rental exclusive" titles were eventually released either through stores or mail order, and Beast Wars was no exception.  Frankly, it wouldn't be financially feasible to handicap your market exposure like that in the long term, as even in the late 90s, development wasn't cheap.