PBM design and formulae - a fresh start

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

Date: Fri, 02 Jul 1993 12:01:01 +0000

In an effort to take some heat out of this debate I am going to make
a fresh start on this thread. I am going to spell everything out in
detail and use some examples to get some specifics.

First an appeal to Russel and David. Please no strawman extremes.
An example of this was as follows: I said "there should be some
imprecision in orders that are given". You both immediately replied
that I was advocating "no control". Now "some imprecision" does
not imply "no control". We do not live in a binary world guys!
Also please no statements of the form "you said X so Y" without
any explanation of the causal link between X and Y. An example of
this was: I said "players should not know the exact formulas" and
you both replied "oh so the game is random". Not knowing the
exact formulas does not imply a random game - you can know the
general rules without knowing the exact formula (how do you manage
to walk for example!?!?!). Whenever I see such a strawman I will
label it STRAWMAN and then explain why. In your reply could you please
either agree thats its a strawman or say why it is not.

One other thing - please read an entire article before replying to
it. Often one sentence will bring up a question which is answered
later in the article.

Ok to the debate at hand.

Assumptions :-

a) we are talking about simulation games.
b) the type of game could be anything (eg: boardgame, PBM, ...)

My position: games, being simulations of something, should be as
realistic as possible up to the level of the simulation. Players
should be told the general rules of play, the scenario etc, but beyond
that they should only be allowed to learn things about the game and
how to play etc through the actions of the entity they represent in
the game. As a corrolary therefore I do not think exact formulas
should be published. The reasons I take this position are twofold :-

a) it adds to the realism of the game. In the real world people
don't know exact equations for things and yet seem to do ok.
A simulation should therefore capture this imprecision - if it does
not, then it is not a good simulation.(even the formulas themselves
are only approximations to the reality!).

b) it makes the "playing field" as level as possible. People who
are not math or CS majors are not disadvantaged too badly by not
understanding the formulas. Moreover everyone has the same basic
learning mechanism, namely the actions of the entity in the game
that they represent.

Now there are caveats in this position, namely the caveats of :-

a) experience. The more players play the more experienced they get
and hence the better they get. This is inevitable - publishing
the formulas would not solve this problem because the non math
people would not be helped by knowing the formulas for example.
The only way to counter this is to let the players treat experience
equitably by helping newbies or by playing with people of the same
experience.

b) statistical analysis. Again there does not seem to be all that
much that can be done about this. Sure lots of statistical analysis
will help you gain approximations to the formulas that are being used.
But sufficiently complex formulas, random walk, and many aspects of
the game that don't depend on numbers (eg. alliance making), together
with sensible relationships between things (eg. food growth depending
on season and not on the colour of the king's hair) will tend to
reduce the advantages of the statistical analysis.

Now to an example. I will stick to one example for the moment.
We are to simulate a game of tennis. Now one immediately notes
three things :-

a) the ball obeys some equations, parameterized by court speed,
air pressure, spin, racquet speed etc.
b) practically no players know the equations and yet still manage
to play somehow.
c) knowing the eqautions would not help a player play better because
by the time he/she had solved the equations the ball would have
gone past them.

So if we are to write a good simulation of tennis we should not
make it equation based, or rather we might have the ball obey
equations, but the interface with the human would not be through
equations. We would not ask tell the player - oh the ball is coming
at you with the following parameters ... what parameters would you
like to reply with. What we would do instead is say have a small
picture of the racquet showing its tilt etc (no figures just the
picture). Through practice the players would get to know how to
position the picture to hit certain shots.

Now you will note that this is imprecise. The players don't know
exaclty the formulas for the ball motion, and even if they did it
would not help them as they don't interact with the game through
figures. But its also realistic!

I will await some comment before moving onto another example.

graham

PS: when you agree with something please say so as it makes the
ground a little firmer for both of us.
--
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 summary
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Tue, 29 Jun 1993 21:24:09 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)
Wed, 30 Jun 1993 10:33:28 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Wed, 30 Jun 1993 23:25:42 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)
Thu, 01 Jul 1993 11:40:27 +0000
PBM design and formulae - a summary
rob@ccc.govt.nz (Rob McNeur)
Mon, 28 Jun 1993 09:53:02 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Mon, 28 Jun 1993 20:30:42 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)
Tue, 29 Jun 1993 11:55:07 +0000

Referenced By

Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Tue, 29 Jun 1993 21:24:09 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)
Wed, 30 Jun 1993 10:33:28 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Wed, 30 Jun 1993 23:25:42 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)
Thu, 01 Jul 1993 11:40:27 +0000
PBM design and formulae - a summary
rob@ccc.govt.nz (Rob McNeur)
Mon, 28 Jun 1993 09:53:02 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Mon, 28 Jun 1993 20:30:42 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)
Tue, 29 Jun 1993 11:55:07 +0000