Re: ARENA: More initial comments

From: srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner)

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1993 18:35:22 +0000

troyer@socrates.ucsf.edu (John M. Troyer %IDK) writes:
>'description' command: this is in examples, but not in command list. No
>	documentation for it.

Huh?  There's no "description" in the rules document.  Where do you
see a description command in the examples?

>jaguar style: in examples, but no documentation.

This is fixed; there is no jaguar style.

>there is no 'exhausted' battle situation, but there is an 'o-exhausted'
>	not parallel

Originally there was.  But when you're exhausted, you can't do
anything anyway.  So what's the point of specifying a strategy?  As
soon as you become unexhausted the strategy will change back to
whatever you specified for that round.

>several times the 'new' command is mentioned, but it is not needed.

Thanks, fixed in the documentation.

>can you sell items? Give them to other players?

No.  no.

>Note that the very short turn-around time and newness of the game leads
>to itchy fingers. The temptation to submit multiple characters for
>multiple fights right now is very high. What counts as abuse?

At the moment, very little. "js138@cus.cam.ac.uk" has submitted 39
orders in about 6 hours and I haven't banned him yet.  Although I'm
thinking about it.

>turn report comments:

>perhaps the insult lines could all be slurped before giving current list?
>Giving 10 insults gives you 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10 lines of
>confirmation.

Good point.  I'll fix this.

>Giving a complete roster after each fight could become . . . quite large
>after a while. Perhaps a 'roster' command to print current roster, with
>an abbreviated roster given otherwise. (maybe the top fighter, you,
>and people around you, so you know who to challenge?)

I know.  I've been thinking about this.  A roster command is probably
a reasonable idea.  I may change the format a bit too to compress the
list.

>The armor and and weapons of each opponent were not shown on the turn sheet.
>I have no idea what my opponent was using. Apparent woundedness/exhaustion at
>the beginning of each round would be nice to know, too.

Both reasonable.

>from my fight:
>'Hrothgar the Unlucky keels over from the stroke.'
>I did no such thing.  I won, too. I must have gotten up quickly :-).

Exactly...

>general comments:
>There are obviously many ways to make this game more complicated. And I
>was about to suggest them, but it occurs to me that you really don't want
>a whole lot more complexity to this. At least not visible complexity.
>But I'll still throw out the following, since it's in the grand free game
>tradition of demanding more poorly thought-out features before you even
>understand the game.

Hey, that's what I pay the playtesters for.  I'll keep track of your
ideas.  Thanks for your comments and feedback.

-- Scott T.

References

ARENA: More initial comments
troyer@socrates.ucsf.edu (John M. Troyer %IDK)
Thu, 26 Aug 1993 17:19:06 +0000