Re: Ongoing Strategy Games.

From: desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 19:53:21 +0000

Rich Skrenta <skrenta@usl.com> writes:
>So let's sketch the ideal David DesJardins game:
>
>	Each turn, each player has an equal probability for
>	success, regardless of what he does (or perhaps, what
>	the other players do.)
>
>	Players have little influence over one another's positions.

I don't understand where Rich got this "sketch" from.  Of course, Rich
knows that I don't think either of these things are "ideal," so he is
attempting to make some sort of rhetorical point.  But since I don't
know how he could have gotten these ideas from my previous posting, I
don't know how to respond to this without just repeating myself.

Fortunately, Andrew Markiel has posted a very lucid response which
exactly represents my point of view.  So I refer readers to that as a
further explanation of my thoughts.

>	Investment in positions is minimal, so players feel
>	little loss simply walking away from the game.

This is basically accurate.  I think players should want to play the
game because they enjoy playing it, not because they are blackmailed
into doing so.

I've been subjected to enough threats of, "If you quit now, you'll lose
the position that you spent hundreds of hours building up, and never be
able to catch up again," to last me a lifetime.  Usually techniques like
this are only applied in commercial PBM games, in which I always assumed
that they were just a ploy to squeeze the last drop of cash out of the
players.  (In that case the "investment" is real money, and players tend
to get caught in an increasing spiral of having to pump in more money to
"protect" their investment.)

>	The expert has little advantage over the new player.

This is also basically accurate.  Games in which an experienced player
has a big advantage over an inexperienced one, tend to be uninteresting
because either you are inexperienced, in which case you get beat up, or
you are experienced, in which case the inexperienced players don't
provide a challenge.

The only way such games can be kept interesting is to carefully match
players of similar skill levels.  This usually doesn't happen in PBM
games, which involve a large number of players assigned more or less
randomly.

David desJardins

References

Re: Ongoing Strategy Games.
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Fri, 09 Jul 1993 03:35:06 +0000
Re: Ongoing Strategy Games.
skrenta@usl.com (Rich Skrenta)
Fri, 09 Jul 1993 12:30:28 +0000

Referenced By

Re: Ongoing Strategy Games.
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Fri, 09 Jul 1993 03:35:06 +0000
Re: Ongoing Strategy Games.
skrenta@usl.com (Rich Skrenta)
Fri, 09 Jul 1993 12:30:28 +0000