Re: NGC & Battles

From: echack@crl.com (Edmund C. Hack)

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

In article <44hn2c$fr5@iitmax.acc.iit.edu>,
Demsetz, Randy <DEMSRAN@minna.acc.iit.edu> 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.

O.K. Let's play analogies.

Crime Lab:
Someone said sending out blood samples to have DNA analysis to be done by
college students is ridiculous, If the turn around time for the samples
stays at 2 weeks, what is the big deal? ...the results are much more
interesting to read.

Bakery:
Someone said sending out wedding cakes to be baked by home ec. students
is ridiculous. The results are much more interesting to eat.

Car repair:
Someone said having brake drums sent out to be ground by our customers is
ridiculous. The brakes are much more interesting to stop with.

It is the difference between a professional operation that charges money
and expects to make a profit and an amateur operation. A professional
operation will need to do everything in-house (or by contract with other
professional operations). The issue is timeliness ("if the turnaround
time stays at two weeks") what happens when two or three of the gamers
that are doing your results get real busy at work/school/home and don't
have time to do the battles? Will you? (I notice that you are at a .edu
site - are you a student? What happens if several of these battles happen
to not get run during your finals? Will you flunk a history exam to
process your customers' turns?)

What happens if your game is the toast of the PBM world and you have 50,
100, 200 battles per week to play out? How will you get that many people
to do the playing?

>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.

What games are these? Are they professionally moderated? In my 20 years
of playing PBM, I've found that the only games that get run on time are
from companies that have full-time staff that does nothing else.
(Examples that I have dealt with: Flying Buffalo, Deltax, CIA) Even
Adventures By Mail, one of the largest (at least at one time) PBM
companies has had serious problems with turn-around time because they
got involved with selling Magic:The Gathering cards.

I also notice that you intend to have the most difficult part of PBM
programming farmed out - battle resolution. This does not speak well for
the programming team you have. (Yes, I know, you are a top CS student.
Well, CS is not what you need to know to be a good programmer. Software
engineering in the real world is a lot different from what you learn in
college. I know - I interview, hire and supervise programmers.)

BTW, do you have permission to use, for commercial purposes, the miniatures
rules you have your eye on?

>Please EXPLAIN why it is so ridiculous?

I think I've done so.

--
Edmund Hack  \  "Woodrow Wilson has his fourteen points, but
echack@crl.com \  Clemenceau turns to Lloyd George and says
Houston, TX      \  'You know that God himself had only ten.'" - Al Stewart

References

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

Referenced By

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