Re: NGC & Battles

From: Bob McLain <mclain@ibcco.com>

Date: Sun, 01 Oct 1995 00:00:00 +0000

DEMSRAN@minna.acc.iit.edu (Demsetz, Randy) wrote:
>Someone said that sending out battles to be played out by real
>people is ridiculous. If the turn around time for the game
>stays at 2 weeks, what is the big deal. I am in two PBM
>games that use this kinda system to play out battles, andthe
>battle results you get back are MUCH more interesting to read.
>Please EXPLAIN why it is so ridiculous?

I said it's ridiculous, and I'll explain.

It's ridiculous because it's not professional.  If you're running an
amateur game, it doesn't matter who resolves battles.  When you charge
money for turns it begins to matter.  You can't guarantee that the
players resolving battles will do so promptly, efficiently, correctly, or
even resolve them at all.

There is a great difference between running PBM games for fun and running
them for a livelihood.  I'm mainly involved with people who run PBM games
for a livelihood.  These people do the work themselves.  It would be
incredibly poor business to ask players to resolve any part of a turn.
In over 15 years of playing PBM games and writing about them, I've never
come across a 'distributed processing' system like yours.  That doesn't
mean it won't work. I don't think it will work as a business solution,
but then it doesn't seem that you're running NGC as a business venture.

Bob McLain

References

NGC & Battles
DEMSRAN@minna.acc.iit.edu (Demsetz, Randy)
Fri, 29 Sep 1995 00:00:00 +0000