Re: PBM design and formulae - a fresh start

From: gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 11:36:32 +0000

gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews) writes:
> >Sure I am not going to be able to model the player's (not the
> >character's) actual physical abilities, but instead I am going to do
> >something like give them 1000 points to spend and they can spend i
> >on quality of backhand, forehand, volleys, ... physical fitness. So
> >they set up an imaginary character and play him/her.
russw@cs.utexas.edu (Russ Williams) writes:
> Ok, I understand what you mean now.  Fair enough, that sounds like
> a reasonable description of a pbm tennis game.
>
> On further reflection, I think my problem with the whole concept of
> such a thing is that tennis already IS a game, and setting up rules
> to simulate someone playing it seems too meta to me.  It would be
> like playing a pbm game of chess -- NOT exchanging chess moves
> directly with your opponent, but rather, each of you having designed
> a character, rating him for his various chess abilities, and then
> setting these simulated players at each other.  It all seems so
> indirect and vicarious, when you could instead be playing the game
> yourself!  Still, perhaps such a game could be interesting, and I
> confess my initial negative reaction to this genre of "games
> simulating games you could play directly" is a personal bias with
> no obvious logical basis pro or con.

The reason I would have a PBM game for tennis is threefold :-

a) there are friends of mine who couldn't hit a tennis ball to save
their life :-) But they can play a reasonable game of abstract
tennis. So I get some of the pleasure of tennis by playing them in
the abstract, and they don't get squished like in normal tennis.

b) a lot of my friends are in other countries. A game of PBM tennis
is a way of having some fun with people elsewhere

c) its hard to find real tennis players of a decent standard on
a regular basis!

russw@cs.utexas.edu (Russ Williams) writes:
> A thought: imagine someone creates this pbm simulation of 2
> characters playing tennis, so that 2 real humans can pretend
> they are playing tennis.  Let's call this pbm game simtennis.
> Then by induction, if simtennis catches on in popularity, one
> could design simsimtennis, which simulates 2 humans playing
> simtennis: the players of simsimtennis each design a character
> with various ratings for their abilities in designing a
> simtennis player, and then those characters go at it...
>
> ... well, maybe it's not such a great game idea! :-)

Actually this already happens in a way. Games where you play a
football manager or coach are getting like this. Beyond that point
it becomes a little wierd!

graham

--
Graham Matthews                   Go west, go west
Dept Comp Sci, Univ Edinburgh     Where there's work so I'm told
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk                  California's never cold

References

Re: PBM design and formulae - a fresh start
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)
Tue, 06 Jul 1993 11:48:17 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a fresh start
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)
Tue, 13 Jul 1993 11:05:08 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a fresh start
russw@cs.utexas.edu (Russ Williams)
Wed, 14 Jul 1993 07:28:50 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a fresh start
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)
Wed, 14 Jul 1993 09:45:42 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a fresh start
russw@cs.utexas.edu (Russ Williams)
Wed, 14 Jul 1993 23:34:58 +0000