FAQ

A place to play pickup games for one of the best games ever made, RBI Baseball. It was inspired by the TPC (Tecmo Players Circuit). I felt that this game needed to have a presence in the online gaming world, so I set out to create a home to help promote that very idea. With the ability to track your RBI career, you are also able to see how you rank against the other RBI players of the world. The more people that play, the better the site will become, and RBI Baseball will continue to live!

A few things...a high speed Internet connection, and a computer. A gamepad will make your experience more enjoyable, but isn't required. If you are going for authenticity, you can head on over to RetroZone to purchase an adapter or ready-made NES or SNES controller that will plug into your computer. I use the SNES version, and there's nothing like it!

Using Nestopia 1.39, you can emulate the NES on your computer by loading different ROMs (digital copies of the old gray cartridges we know and love). Using Nestopia, you connect to your opponent over the Internet and play RBI (or any other game for that matter). When the game is complete, you take a save state at the end-of-game newspaper screen and the game will generate a stat file which you can then upload to the RPC website, and the site will track your game, team stats, overall record, feedback, records, etc.

Most likely you have compression turned on in Nestopia (it is on by default). To turn that off, go to options | paths | uncheck "use internal compression." From that point on, your state files should work. If you need to uncompress a statefile, first (before turning off compression) load up the ROM and then load the save state. You should see the newspaper screen where you last left off. Go into options and turn off compression and re-save the state file. Now you should be able to upload.

The original 10-team ROM in any format should work, although the official one from the downloads section is your best choice because it allows for player 2 to pause the game for subbing players (something the original unhacked game couldn't do. It plays the same, just offers the 2P pausing. Also supported is the NES Arcade port (also supports 2P pausing, available in the downloads section). Plans to support my nearly completed 2010 ROM and the 1987 26-Team ROM are also in the works. For the time being, if you want to use any other RBI ROM that isn't the original or the arcade version, just choose the "other" option when uploading your save state and the site will see it as a generic RBI ROM. It'll still track your stats, it just won't have the teams available for display.

This is perhaps the biggest sticking point for most new players. Basically one person hosts the game, and the other player (called the client) connects to the host. To be able to host, you need to have your router/firewall configured correctly. These routers/firewalls are commonly provided by high-speed Internet providers, and you probably have one. Please note that software/anti-virus programs like Norton Internet Security or McAffee Internet Security have been known to cause problems. On some occasions, even the XP firewall can block your connection. There is another option if you can't configure your firewall, but we'll burn that bridge when we get there. If you need help setting up your router, please contact me on AIM at "travisjansen" and I'll help you get setup. Also, a netplay guide will be coming soon!

For the time being, I'm going to try out an ELO system similar to what's used in chess. It's a good system for gauging 2-player contests that rewards people for beating better teams, and doesn't reward players for beating up on lower-skilled players. The rankings will eventually be updated daily and might even adjust to only include recent games to promote people to keep playing to keep their ranking up. For now, it will be cumulative, but I'm not 100% locked in stone that this system will stay. Time will tell.

A few things...keeping the game alive, giving it a purpose again, sharing our love for the game with online friends...and best of all, I will invite people with a good reputation and proven ability to get their games in to be part of the official league, whenever I decide to kick that off. Lastly, just for a good ol' fashioned fun time.

Good sportsmanship. I know losing these games really pisses people off, but try to remember it's just a game and we're here to have fun. Be a good sport, don't quit games (or risk being banned), etc. You know what's right and what's wrong. Have some fun with it!