February 2003
- Announcing Game Programming Gems 4 Andrew Kirmse
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Brian Hook
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Paul Schwanz
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Sasha Hart
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Brian Hook
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Koster, Raph
- Secondary characters as a mechanic adam
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Ted L. Chen
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Brian Hook
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Rayzam
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Sasha Hart
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Michael Tresca
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Serafina Pechan
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Damion Schubert
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Sasha Hart
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Secondary characters as a mechanic John Buehler
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Edward Glowacki
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Brian Hook
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Wes Connell
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Harrok
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Brian Hook
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Richard Aihoshi aka Jonric
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Brian Hook
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Sasha Hart
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Adam
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Russ Whiteman
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Valerio Santinelli
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Adam Burr
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Valerio Santinelli
- Secondary characters as a mechanic Adam Burr
- Limited character lifespans Dan Shiovitz
- Limited character lifespans Richard Krush
- Limited character lifespans Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Limited character lifespans Peter "Pietro" Rossmann
- Limited character lifespans shren
- Limited character lifespans Paul Cobb
- Limited character lifespans Rayzam
- Limited character lifespans Sasha Hart
- Limited character lifespans Paul Schwanz
- Limited character lifespans Damion Schubert
- Limited character lifespans David H. Loeser Jr.
- How to Find a VC Michael Tresca
- How to Find a VC Koster, Raph
- How to Find a VC Amanda Walker
- How to Find a VC Marc Fielding
- Re:Secondary characters as a mechanic Thiago Moraes
- AP Wire story on activism in MMOG games Marc Fielding
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? Chris
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? Paul Schwanz
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? Dave Rickey
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? John Buehler
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? Damion Schubert
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? John Buehler
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? ceo
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? Marian Griffith
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? Dave Rickey
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? Lee Sheldon
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? J C Lawrence
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? Paul Schwanz
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? J C Lawrence
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? Lee Sheldon
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? J C Lawrence
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? Ron Gabbard
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? Damion Schubert
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? Paul Schwanz
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? Zach Collins {Siege}
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? Amanda Walker
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? Amanda Walker
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? J C Lawrence
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? Chris Holko
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? Dave Rickey
- MMORPG, buildings, is it bad to be just props? Koster, Raph
- Predictive models for churn in subscription based games Scott A. Farley
- Predictive models for churn in subscription based games Damion Schubert
- Mud Servers on RedHat Linux 7.2 Coyote
- Protecting the Player's Suspension of Disbelief Ron Gabbard
- Protecting the Player's Suspension of Disbelief Sasha Hart
- Protecting the Player's Suspension of Disbelief Paul Schwanz
- Protecting the Player's Suspension of Disbelief Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Protecting the Player's Suspension of Disbelief Damion Schubert
- Protecting the Player's Suspension of Disbelief Ron Gabbard
- Protecting the Player's Suspension of Disbelief Marc Fielding
- Protecting the Player's Suspension of Disbelief Serafina Pechan
- Asian markets research question Dr. Cat
- MUD-Dev conference J C Lawrence
- MUD-Dev conference J C Lawrence
- Re:Secondary characters as a mechanic Thiago Moraes
- Re:Secondary characters as a mechanic Sasha Hart
- Gaming 'is good for you' Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Gaming 'is good for you' Daniel
- Skill vs Knowledge (was: Brand Loyalty) ceo
Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
> From: "adam" <ceo@grexengine.com>
>> Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
>> If you examine the behaviour of a Quake (just because its so well
>> documented, in terms of skill etc) player, the most "skillful"
>> players use "player knowledge" as their main tool.
> That's not skill. Skill is the ability to jump through a window,
> fire three shotgun shells accurately at a moving target while you
> fall, then run off through a nearby door.
> If you take the player who memorised respawn order and weapon
> locations, and the player who can reliably jump-fire-and-run, and
> you drop them into a level neither of them has ever seen
> before... who do you think will win?
But if you go and meet some top Quake players, you'll find that the
ones who merely have great co-ordination are stuck forever in
second-place (figuratively speaking), no matter what level they
play. They are NOT the champions; they compete at the top level, but
don't win against the best.
c.f. sirlin.net - I believe I've posted the URL before, but here it
is again:
http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_PlayToWinPart1.htm
(author is a world-champion games player; the articles he writes are
insightful and quite amusing). Not intended as being directly
applicable to this conversation, but a related viewpoint (quoted
from above link):
"...The scrub has still more crutches. He talks a great deal
about 'skill' and how he has skill whereas other players'very
much including the ones who beat him flat out'do not have
skill. The confusion here is what 'skill' actually is. In Street
Fighter, ... movement must be completed within a fraction of a
second, and though there is leeway, it must be executed fairly
accurately. Ask any scrub and they will tell you that a dragon
punch is a 'skill move.'
Just last week I played a scrub who was actually quite
good. That is, he knew the rules of the game well, he knew the
character matchups well, and he knew what to do in most
situations. ... He cried cheap as I beat him with 'no skill
moves' while he performed many difficult dragon punches. He
cried cheap when I threw him 5 times in a row asking, 'is that
all you know how to do? throw?"
(another one of the Sirlin articles details how the author won
the East Coast Championship against a player with better
hand-eye skills - see the excerpt at the bottom of this email).
In the example you give, whenever I've had the opportunity to see it
played out in real life (by two otherwise approximately equally
skilled players), during the first few minutes its generally blind
luck who does best at any given moment: the player in the lead swaps
frequently (without any level knowledge, even the person with the
best reactions in the world gets shot in the back, dropped down an
invisible hole, etc).
Five minutes later, the player used to using knowledge and tactical
reasoning is whipping their opponent - although there is a gradual
handover from "random frags" to "skill-induced frags". You can
quantify this by the way the "frag ratio" gradually becomes more and
more consistent and stable. Indeed, it often appears that one player
"accelerates" away from the other in terms of score - all that is
really happening is that the effectiveness of knowledge doesn't
become a stable quantity for as much as ten minutes (the better the
player is at using knowledge, the less time it takes for their
knowledge to reach a plateau of effectiveness).
> Skill works in *every* level. Knowledge works in one.
I fear you over-simplify; knowledge most definitely works in every
level - it just takes a while to "acclimatise" to the level. What
you say makes perfect sense, if you believe that the Knowledge of
every other level ever played has no beneficial effect on playing a
new one.
If that were the case, it would take the knowledgeable player hours
to really start winning, not minutes. In fact, most good players
have a library of environment-based tactics, and whilst playing a
new level they will look out for patterns in the layout that give
them ideas for which of their library of tactics to try in this
situation.
The acclimatisation time is mostly spent discovering which of those
patterns were faux-amis, and modifying them to suit the
peculiarities unique to this level.
Adam M
From:
http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_AoW1-SheathedSword.htm
The article is about Sun Tzu's theories applied to winning games;
but towards the end contains this excerpt:
--<cut>--
"...The tournament was called the East Coast Championships 4, or
ECC4. I had won the Street Fighter Alpha2 portion of the ECC3
tournament, so I felt a lot of pressure to win again. I made it to
the finals where I faced veteran player Thao Duong. Thao plays
only one character (Chun Li), and he's incredibly robotic, meaning
he executes moves perfectly and rarely makes mistakes.
I was undefeated in the tournament so far, and Thao had one loss
(it was double elimination). This means Thao had to beat me 4 out
of 7 games to be even with me, and another set of 4 out of 7 to
win. I only had to win one set of 4 out of 7 to win.
I started by playing Zangief, my secret counter to Chun Li. Since
it's widely believed Chun Li totally destroys Zangief (but not
mine!), it would be a flashy way to win. Whether it was my year of
no practice or Thao's playing or Chun Li's dominance of the game I
can't be sure - but Zangief was not up to the task that day. No
problem, since I would switch to my standard Chun Li killer:
Ryu. I scraped together a win or two, but again my lack of
practice was showing and Thao won by greater and greater
margins. I then realized the horror of what I would have to do,
and what I would become somewhat famous for in the Street Fighter
community. I realized that the only remaining character I could
reasonably play in a tournament was Rose, and furthermore that
Rose, though very good against most characters, really only has
one move against Chun Li: low strong. Rose (left) does "low
strong" to Chun Li (right). In the Street Fighter world, "low
strong" and "Sirlin" are synonyms.
And this is where Sun Tzu comes in. My use of Rose's low strong
move is both a method of winning before fighting and of
waiting. The low strong is an uninspiring little punch that
doesn't have all that much range, but it has amazing priority to
beat other attacks. It's also incredibly fast, allowing Rose to do
multiple low strongs in a row with only the tiniest of gaps.
The low strong was my brick wall - my first test. The only problem
is that there was no second test. And worse yet, there really
wasn't much 'actual fighting' in store for Thao should he get past
my 'trick.' I could only hope that he'd fumble in trying to get
around it, and even become frustrated enough to make mistakes. In
retrospect, this is not the best approach to take against the
robotic master of move execution himself, but it's still
preferable to no strategy at all, which was my alternative.
I low stronged my little heart out. Probably over 90% of my moves
were low strong, done at a very particular range, and with a
particular pattern of timing that I dare not reveal. (Ha!) I had
infinite patience to low strong forever, forcing Thao to defeat
this trick. If he could beat it, we would then have to actually
play, and at that point surely he would win. But fortunately, he
never did beat it: he fought it head on. At times, he would decide
not to attack, not to beat against a brick wall. I used that
opportunity to get at the optimal range (which is one pixel
farther from him than the range of my low strong). From this
range, I continued to low strong forever. I wasn't winning by
that, but I wasn't losing. Even the robotic Thao would eventually
tire and attack, even if at the wrong times, out of annoyance or
desperation. Spectators reported that I did an amazing 18
consecutive low strongs without either myself or Thao doing any
other moves...."
--<cut>-- - Skill vs Knowledge (was: Brand Loyalty) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- FW: Cultural impact on Muds (was: Star Wars Galaxies) Damion Schubert
- Cultural impact on Muds Matt Mihaly
- Justification for audit trails in guilds? Rudy Fink
- Justification for audit trails in guilds? Damion Schubert
- Justification for audit trails in guilds? Matt Mihaly
- Justification for audit trails in guilds? Marc Fielding
- Justification for audit trails in guilds? Matt Mihaly
- Justification for audit trails in guilds? eric
- Justification for audit trails in guilds? J C Lawrence
- Justification for audit trails in guilds? Matt Mihaly
- Justification for audit trails in guilds? eric
- Justification for audit trails in guilds? Matt Mihaly
- Justification for audit trails in guilds? Zach Collins {Siege}
- Justification for audit trails in guilds? eric
- Justification for audit trails in guilds? Matt Mihaly
- Justification for audit trails in guilds? Steven J. Owens
- Justification for audit trails in guilds? chrep@hotmail.com
- New issue of the Daedalus Project Koster, Raph
- New issue of the Daedalus Project Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Movie-Making Games (Was Spam: Star Wars Galaxies: 1 character per server) Damion Schubert
- Movie-Making Games (Was Spam: Star Wars Galaxies: 1 character per server) Damion Schubert
- Threading and Queues (What Fun) Ben Chambers
- Threading and Queues (What Fun) Sean Miller
- Threading and Queues (What Fun) szii@sziisoft.com
- Threading and Queues (What Fun) lynx@lynx.purrsia.com
- A new game paradigm (was: Star Wars Galaxies) Marian Griffith
- A new game paradigm (was: Star Wars Galaxies) Scott Miller - Intelligent Life Games
- A new game paradigm (was: Star Wars Galaxies) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- A new game paradigm (was: Star Wars Galaxies) Thomas Tomiczek
- A new game paradigm (was: Star Wars Galaxies) J C Lawrence
- A new game paradigm (was: Star Wars Galaxies) Scott Miller - Intelligent Life Games
- A new game paradigm (was: Star Wars Galaxies) Travis Casey
- A new game paradigm (was: Star Wars Galaxies) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Weston Fryatt
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Edward Glowacki
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design J C Lawrence
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Edward Glowacki
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design J C Lawrence
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Thomas Tomiczek
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design J C Lawrence
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Bruce Mitchener
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Thomas Tomiczek
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design J C Lawrence
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design ceo
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Damion Schubert
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Jeremy Noetzelman
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Weston Fryatt
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Jeremy Noetzelman
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Weston Fryatt
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design J C Lawrence
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Weston Fryatt
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design J C Lawrence
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Damion Schubert
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Derek Licciardi
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design J C Lawrence
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design ceo
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design J C Lawrence
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Sean Kelly
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design John Buehler
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Sean Kelly
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Thomas Tomiczek
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Keith Brewer
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design J C Lawrence
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Mike Shaver
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Keith Brewer
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Crosbie Fitch
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Mike Shaver
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design lynx@lynx.purrsia.com
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design Ted L. Chen
- Movie-Making Games (Was Spam: Star Wars Scott Jennings
- Movie-Making Games (Was Spam: Star Wars ceo
- Multithreading: AI, Sockets, Brains, Bodies, and Storage Brian Lindahl
- Multithreading: AI, Sockets, Brains, Bodies, and Storage J C Lawrence
- Multithreading: AI, Sockets, Brains, Bodies, and Storage J C Lawrence
- Multithreading: AI, Sockets, Brains, Bodies, and Storage Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Perl - SOAP/XML - Slow? Tom Sullivan
- Perl - SOAP/XML - Slow? J C Lawrence
- Perl - SOAP/XML - Slow? Tom Sullivan
- Perl - SOAP/XML - Slow? J C Lawrence
- Perl - SOAP/XML - Slow? Mark Cheverton
- Perl - SOAP/XML - Slow? Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Perl - SOAP/XML - Slow? Stephane Boisjoli
- Perl - SOAP/XML - Slow? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Hourly usage Peter Tyson
- Hourly usage lynx@lynx.purrsia.com
- Hourly usage Michael Tresca
- In this corner.representing SCS.The Tyrant! F. Randall Farmer
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Crosbie Fitch
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Mike Shaver
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Crosbie Fitch
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Felix A. Croes
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Crosbie Fitch
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Travis Nixon
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Crosbie Fitch
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Felix A. Croes
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Crosbie Fitch
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Felix A. Croes
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Crosbie Fitch
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Felix A. Croes
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Crosbie Fitch
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Amanda Walker
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Ted L. Chen
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Ben Hoyt
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Derek Licciardi
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Crosbie Fitch
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Ben Hoyt
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Felix A. Croes
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Crosbie Fitch
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Ben Hoyt
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Ben Hoyt
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design lynx@lynx.purrsia.com
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Crosbie Fitch
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design lynx@lynx.purrsia.com
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Crosbie Fitch
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design lynx@lynx.purrsia.com
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Crosbie Fitch
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design lynx@lynx.purrsia.com
- MMORPG/MMOG P2P design Crosbie Fitch
- workload simulation (was: MMORPG/MMOG Server design) Mike Shaver
- MMORPG/MMOG Server design - intel-ligent choices of hardware ; ) ceo
- workload simulation (was: MMORPG/MMOG Server design) ceo
- Team management Peter Harkins
- Team management Tom Sullivan
- Team management Sanvean
- Team management Michael Tresca
- Virtual worlds meet LARPs Richard A. Bartle
- Virtual worlds meet LARPs Mark Cheverton
- Virtual worlds meet LARPs Richard A. Bartle
- Virtual worlds meet LARPs Lee Sheldon
- Skotos Kicks Off Associate Program Shannon Appelcline
- Infrastructure kat-Zygfryd