Re: When do games become boring? (ARENA)

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

Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1993 20:40:06 +0000

Mitch Gunzler writes:
>Absolutely.  Some kind of minimal time passage is essential.  I think
>ultimately one fight per day would work fine, but if we want to allow
>a bunch of experimentation while ironing out the model, how about an
>hour between matches?

I think it is interesting that almost everyone wants a time delay on
Arena -- but if it isn't there, everyone plays as fast as they can.

>So give the poor bastards a realistic cost-of-living, say, 2% of lifetime
>earnings every day.  And if you can't pay your debts, well, let's just
>say players won't have to worry about how to dispose of losing
>fighters.

Interesting.

>Also, I would recommend that some kind of classification ("level")
>system be enforced.  You can challenge up (and accept challenges from
>below), but won't be randomly matched with anybody with, to pick an
>obvious criterion, fewer promotions (bonus points) than you.

This is already in place.  The open challenge system will become more
sophisticated in the next version of Arena.

>I would allow a player multiple characters, with some kind of
>restriction.

Currently you are allowed three characters.

>Consider interspersing regular play with "tournaments" run
>automatically by the host.

Several people have suggested this, and it is under consideration.

>In addition to tournament schemes, I would suggest having several
>different cities with Arenas, each with a genuinely different
>character.

This is in the highly secret Arena internal design document.  Whether
it will be implemented I can't say.  I did like your suggestions for
arenas.

>Ditto.  I've even been running genetic algorithms to see if the
>different rules sets I've played with have relatively easy "good
>strategies" (they generally do, nothing quite as disgusting as
>a mindless algorithm coming up with a MegaFighter in your oh-so-subtle
>system).

Interesting.

>Thank you, Scott, for sitting down and putting this thing together!

I'm glad you like it.

-- Scott T.

References

When do games become boring?
troyer@cgl.ucsf.edu (John M. Troyer)
Fri, 27 Aug 1993 01:05:48 +0000
Re: When do games become boring?
gunzler@netcom.com (Mitch Gunzler)
Fri, 27 Aug 1993 09:01:51 +0000

Referenced By

When do games become boring?
troyer@cgl.ucsf.edu (John M. Troyer)
Fri, 27 Aug 1993 01:05:48 +0000
Re: When do games become boring?
gunzler@netcom.com (Mitch Gunzler)
Fri, 27 Aug 1993 09:01:51 +0000