August 2004
- What is an MMOG? ceo
- MEDIA: .hack//SIGN Japanise animated series Mike Rozak
- MEDIA: .hack//SIGN Japanise animated series
- MEDIA: .hack//SIGN Japanise animated series Otis Viles
- MEDIA: .hack//SIGN Japanise animated series Richard A. Bartle
- MEDIA: .hack//SIGN Japanise animated series Scott Tengelin
- MEDIA: .hack//SIGN Japanise animated series Dana V. Baldwin
- MEDIA: .hack//SIGN Japanise animated series David Kennerly
- MEDIA: .hack//SIGN Japanise animated series Ghilardi Filippo
- MEDIA: .hack//SIGN Japanise animated series Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- MEDIA: .hack//SIGN Japanise animated series zgj22@drexel.edu
- Books on Virtual Worlds Matt Cruikshank
- DGN: Requesting feedback on a "concept document" (somewhat related to Better Combat) Craig Huber
- The Casual-Player Killer: Time? (was MMO Communities) Will Jennings
- The Casual-Player Killer: Time? (was MMO Communities) Amanda Walker
- The Casual-Player Killer: Time? (was MMO Communities) Michael Sellers
- [BIZ] CoH subscribers numbers Ghilardi Filippo
- [DGN] Socialization against the fun [was: MMO Communities] HRose
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) Paolo Piselli
- Fwd: Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) kennerly@finegamedesign.com
- Time debt Stephen McDonald
- Fwd: Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) kennerly@finegamedesign.com
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) Paolo Piselli
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) David Kennerly
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) Paolo Piselli
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) Paolo Piselli
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) David Kennerly
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) Paolo Piselli
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) David Kennerly
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) Paolo Piselli
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) Paul Schwanz
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) Paolo Piselli
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) Paolo Piselli
--- kennerly@finegamedesign.com wrote:
> Perhaps you can encourage the knowledgeable reader by providing an
> example CTA for YPP swordfighting. Until then I'll make
Although I don't have an active character on Puzzle Pirates, I did
dig out my Playstation and Puzzle Fighter for some quick analysis :)
Here is my quick impression of the "Puzzle Fighter task":
Memory load is kept very small because the entire game state is
visible on the screen. At a novice level of play, this is
sufficient, but at a higher level a player will benefit from
maintaining the opponent's block-drop pattern in working memory.
Even so, maintaining one working-memory-element is a very light
load, considering that humans can handle somewhere between three and
seven WMEs in their heads at once.
ASIDE: For those unfamiliar with this stuff, a
working-memory-element, or WME, is a "chunk" of abstracted
information. A WME can contain a whole sub-network of information,
but it remains unexpanded while in working memory (aka: what you are
actively thinking about). Over time, a person chunks together
related mental constructs into simpler ones, which reduces the load
on their working memory. Eventually we can "proceduralize"
information to the point that it is used reflexively. For instance,
as I type this message I do not need to actively remember where any
of the keys are on the keyboard are - their positions never enter my
conscious brain, having been internalized to the point where my
fingers find whole sequences of them reflexively, and the load on my
working memory is much less inhibited than it was when I was first
learning to type.
I'm going to abbreviate here, and forego explicit goal-setting and
WME-matching, but a model of the Puzzle Fighter "task" at a novice
level might be something like: the player repeats the following
sequence of sub-goals until the match is over:
1. Identify the next block to be placed
2. Find a good place to put the block
3. Move the block into position
Where goal 1 is fairly trivial (but still takes a non-zero amount of
time), step 2 is the really interesting part (discussed below), and
step 3 requires the manual dexterity of manipulating the controller
within a limited amount of time.
Note that just because we have a repeating sequence of the same
three goals does not mean that Puzzle Fighter is "solved" or boring.
Most games will play out in a unique way due to the constant
presence of unknowns: what block will come next for each player, and
what each player will decide to do with it. Thus each run-through
of the simple three steps will be different - no specific sequence
can be memorized and repeated. The player must maintain their
attention and actively think about what is going on.
And now some abbreviated production-rules for a novice player.
These are not meant to be an exact model, just a rough estimate to
give us an idea of how complex the game might be. The saliences
would probably be dependant upon how strongly the preconditions
match. An intermediate player would have more rules governing
big-block formation and positioning falling blocks for multiple
reasons, and an player would have even more rules governing a
higher-level strategy such as setting up multipe-breaks ans such.
DROP-BLOCK: (salience: very low, kind of like a default)
if we are trying to place a block
then position it over the lowest column on the board
BREAK-BLOCK: (salience: low)
if part of the block to be placed is a "breaker" block, and if
there is an exposed block of the same color on our board
then position the "breaker" block over the exposed block
GROUP-BLOCKS: (salience: medium)
if part of the block to be placed is a regular block, and if
there is an exposed block of the same color on our board
then position the block so that the regular block will land
adjacent to the exposed block
BREAK-BLOCKS: (salience: high)
if part of the block to be placed is a "breaker" block, and if
there is an exposed block of the same color on our board that is
connected to several other blocks of the same color
then position the "breaker" block over the exposed group of
connected blocks
BREAK-BIG-BLOCKS: (salience: very high, note that "big" blocks are
blocks that have been arranged in a rectangular shape and have
merged - breaking them gives extra attack power against the
opponent)
if part of the block to be placed is a "breaker" block, and if
there is an exposed block of the same color on our board that is
connected to several other blocks of the same color, some of
which are "big" blocks
then position the "breaker" block over the exposed group of
blocks containing the "big" block
Even from this quick-and-dirty-and-incomplete analysis of Puzzle
Fighter, we can see that it has quite a number of conditional rules
that may be applied at any given time, even at a novice level.
These decisions need to be made over and over again during the
course of one "combat" because the conditions have changed for each
iteration of the high-level goal-loop. The combination of
uncertainty and decision-making means that Puzzle Fighter can never
be "solved" by a discovering a single, optimal procedure, even
though the game has incredibly simple mechanics and memory
footprint.
-Paolo
====Paolo Piselli
ppiselli@yahoo.com
www.piselli.com , www.bestcoastswing.com - Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) Paolo Piselli
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) cruise
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) ceo
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) ceo
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) cruise
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) ceo
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) cruise
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) Paul Schwanz
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat) KaVir@t-online.de (Richard Woolcock)
- Cognitively Interesting Combat Derek Larson
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (keyword: archetypes) Eric Random
- Cognitively Interesting Combat (keyword: archetypes) Paolo Piselli
- ADMIN: Effective progress methods for MUD-Dev (was Better Combat (long)) J C Lawrence
- FW: Deriving Self Esteem from one's MMORPGavatar[was:Long-Term Rewards] vladimir cole
- Asynchronous Event Execution & Localizing Brian Lindahl
- database design Lazarus
- database design Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- database design Lazarus
- database design
- [DGN] database design Steven King
- database design Erik Bethke
- database design Sean Kelly
- database design Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- PVP and perma-death Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- PVP and perma-death Artur Biesiadowski
- PVP and perma-death Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- PVP and perma-death Vladimir Cole
- PVP and perma-death Vladimir Cole
- PVP and perma-death Artur Biesiadowski
- PVP and perma-death Steven King
- PVP and perma-death Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- PVP and perma-death Steven King
- PVP and perma-death Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- PVP and perma-death Douglas Goodall
- PVP and perma-death HRose
- PVP and perma-death [NEW THEME] After Deployment Tiago Carita
- PVP and perma-death Paul Schwanz
- PVP and perma-death J C Lawrence
- PVP and perma-death Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- PVP and perma-death HRose
- PVP and perma-death Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- PVP and perma-death HRose
- PVP and perma-death Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- PVP and perma-death HRose
- PVP and perma-death Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- PVP and perma-death HRose
- PVP and perma-death Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- PVP and perma-death Koster, Raph
- PVP and perma-death HRose
- PVP and perma-death ceo
- PVP and perma-death Michael Sellers
- PVP and perma-death Matt Mihaly
- PVP and perma-death Douglas Goodall
- PVP and perma-death HRose
- PVP and perma-death Derek Licciardi
- PVP and perma-death HRose
- PVP and perma-death Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- PVP and perma-death J C Lawrence
- PVP and perma-death Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- PVP and perma-death HRose
- PVP and perma-death Michael Sellers
- PVP and perma-death Byron Ellacott
- PVP and perma-death J C Lawrence
- PVP and perma-death Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Casual Crowd vs.Time Rich Crowd [was: Time Debt] William Leader
- Casual Crowd vs.Time Rich Crowd [was: Time Debt] Stephen McDonald
- Casual Crowd vs.Time Rich Crowd [was: Time Debt] David Kennerly
- Casual Crowd vs.Time Rich Crowd [was: Time Debt] J C Lawrence
- Casual Crowd vs.Time Rich Crowd [was: Time Debt] David Kennerly
- Casual Crowd vs.Time Rich Crowd [was: Time Debt] Koster, Raph
- Casual Crowd vs.Time Rich Crowd [was: Time Debt] J C Lawrence
- ADMIN: Effective progress methods for MUD-Dev Jim Purbrick
- The Great Scam J C Lawrence
- [MEDIA] Finding an Interesting Middle Path in the RPG J C Lawrence
- [MEDIA] Finding an Interesting Middle Path in the RPG Koster, Raph
- [MEDIA] Finding an Interesting Middle Path in the RPG Douglas Goodall
- [MEDIA] Finding an Interesting Middle Path in the RPG J C Lawrence
- [MEDIA] Finding an Interesting Middle Path in the RPG David Kennerly
- [MEDIA] Finding an Interesting Middle Path in the RPG Megan Fox
- SOC DGN - Spawn locations Matthew Rick
- SOC DGN - Spawn locations Brian Hook
- SOC DGN - Spawn locations ceo
- SOC DGN - Spawn locations Sean Middleditch
- SOC DGN - Spawn locations Paul Schwanz
- SOC DGN - Spawn locations Jason Lai
- SOC DGN - Spawn locations J C Lawrence
- SOC DGN - Spawn locations HRose
- SOC DGN - Spawn locations J C Lawrence
- SOC DGN - Spawn locations Megan Fox
- SOC DGN - Spawn locations J C Lawrence
- SOC DGN - Spawn locations Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- SOC DGN - Spawn locations HRose
- SOC DGN - Spawn locations Brian Miller
- SOC DGN - Spawn locations Michael Sellers
- SOC DGN - Spawn locations Michael Hartman
- SOC DGN - Spawn locations Brian Miller
- SOC DGN - Spawn locations Chris Duesing
- SOC DGN - Spawn locations Douglas Goodall
- SOC DGN - Spawn locations J C Lawrence
- Casual Crowd vs.Time Rich Crowd [was: Time Debt] William Leader
- On balance and reality Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- On balance and reality William Leader
- On balance and reality Koster, Raph
- On balance and reality Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- On balance and reality HRose
- On balance and reality Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- On balance and reality Vladimir Cole
- On balance and reality William Leader
- On balance and reality William Leader
- Casual Crowd vs.Time Rich Crowd [was: Time Debt] Koster, Raph
- Casual Crowd vs.Time Rich Crowd [was: Time Debt] Gedanken
- Casual Crowd vs.Time Rich Crowd [was: Time Debt] Koster, Raph
- Casual Crowd vs.Time Rich Crowd [was: Time Debt] HRose
- Casual Crowd vs.Time Rich Crowd [was: Time Debt] Koster, Raph
- Casual Crowd vs.Time Rich Crowd [was: Time Debt] Matthew Dobervich
- Casual Crowd vs.Time Rich Crowd [was: Time Debt] Mike Rozak
- text based MUD Codebases, which one to pick? mirjam.eladhari@interactiveinstitute.se
- Casual Crowd vs.Time Rich Crowd [was: Time Debt] Douglas Goodall
- Casual Crowd vs.Time Rich Crowd [was: Time Debt] Steven King
- Casual Crowd vs.Time Rich Crowd [was: Time Debt] Michael Hartman
- Complexity and Accessibility (was: Better Combat (long)) Will Jennings
- SOC DGN: AC like alligiance system Matthew Rick
- SOC DGN: AC like alligiance system Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- SOC DGN: AC like alligiance system cruise
- SOC DGN: AC like alligiance system Artur Biesiadowski
- SOC DGN: AC like alligiance system HRose
- "a nicer species" (from today's Chronicle) (fwd) J C Lawrence
- Distributed State Systems Michael Tindal
- Distributed State Systems Davion Kalhen
- Distributed State Systems Michael Tindal
- Distributed State Systems Alex Arnon
- Distributed State Systems Davion Kalhen
- Distributed State Systems Michael Tindal
- Distributed State Systems Alex Arnon
- Distributed State Systems Alex Arnon
- Distributed State Systems Michael Tindal
- Distributed State Systems Bruce Mitchener
- Distributed State Systems Michael Hartman
- Distributed State Systems Michael Tindal
- Distributed State Systems Thomas Tomiczek
- Distributed State Systems Brian Lindahl
- Complexity and Accessibility Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- wherefor in-game artists? Paolo Piselli
- wherefor in-game artists? Richard A. Bartle
- wherefor in-game artists? Sean Howard
- wherefor in-game artists? David Kennerly
- wherefor in-game artists? ceo
- wherefor in-game artists? David Kennerly
- wherefor in-game artists? Richard A. Bartle
- wherefor in-game artists? Paolo Piselli
- wherefor in-game artists? Richard A. Bartle
- wherefor in-game artists? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- wherefor in-game artists? Richard A. Bartle
- wherefor in-game artists? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- wherefor in-game artists? Robert Zubek
- wherefor in-game artists? Matt Mihaly
- wherefor in-game artists? Christopher Allen
- wherefor in-game artists? Matt Mihaly
- wherefor in-game artists? Christopher Allen
- wherefor in-game artists? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- wherefor in-game artists? Douglas Goodall
- wherefor in-game artists? Christopher Allen
- wherefor in-game artists? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- wherefor in-game artists? Christopher Allen
- wherefor in-game artists? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- wherefor in-game artists? Koster, Raph
- wherefor in-game artists? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- wherefor in-game artists? Koster, Raph
- wherefor in-game artists? Douglas Goodall