Bughunting vs. AI development

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

Hi all,
for months I've been reading the various newsgroups about vga planets.
What striked me was that actually everyone is complaining about
- old bugs
- new bugs
- the delay in the release of new races that are finished (especially
the creator of these races, which is more that understandable)
- unknown rules
- outdated guides

The comments from Tim has been for some time now that he is busy with
the AI.
Actually I have not read a single complain about a missing AI or
whether this is worthwhile.

Now every experienced member in this group will state that this is part
of vga planets and has always been like this.

But why ?

People got so much used to it that they spend long evening doing
research and discussing formulas..

Is this really the main fun in vga-planets ?
And is the focus on AI instead of bug hunting and new races really the
dear wish of the majority of the community that spend $ 30 or so on the
game and years of dedicated playing ?

Cheers

Andreas

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

Hey, are you leaving the community?! That would be most sad!

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

What you say is most true. Actually I believe the AI will be pretty
useless. This game is simply to complex to have any workingt AI
covering it, unless you reduce it to single races. like e.g. the Feds.
To my best knoweldge Tim wants players to be able to play their first
turns without need to go out and search for other players. That is a
valid approach, but I think the price for it is too high. It would be
easier to provide some links to hosting sites, were the players will
see how the
game is played and have others to help overcome the first problems.

You should be aware that this is Tims game. He listens to the community
and ideas he likes will get implemented. That way the game has grown.
Surely sometimes the wrong path has been choosen and instead of going
back, an even more awkward fix got implemented. That is normal for a
game which has not been completely designed from A-Z right from the
start. This natural growth puts us sometimes in a difficult position,
where the game contradicts itself (e.g. crime and contra).

In a perfect world we would have everything well documented and be able
to determine ourselves, if a behavior is matching the docs and desired
or not. As we are all aware, this world is everything but perfect.

What I would like to see is a simplification, so that one can
concentrate on the main stuff and doesn't need to spend hours on
micromanagement -and the best players do exactly that!

VGAP is a good game and has an even better community (with some very
few exceptions), it is certainly worth sticking with it - if you have
enough time!

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

VGAP not the real world? Hard to believe. ;-)))

Ok, seriously:
If you think of VGAP like correspondence chess, then you are on the
right track. Games take months, sometimes years until they are
finished. What you describe sounds more like looking for an evening or
a weekend of fun, which VGAP can hardly provide, due to his turn based
setup. In that aspect I would say: Look for another game.
If you want to get in contact with new players, which are mostly
outside travel range, maybe even living in other countries, if you have
a strong stamina and are able to dedicate yourself over a longer
period, then VGAP is the right game for you!

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

Tim has shown to be protective of his work, including the Help Files.
That's fine, but I wish he'd get it done faster.

The best thing people here can do is review the documents when Doc puts
them up for review. Despite how much people complain about inaccurate
help files, few people respond to Doc's requests for reviews.

Scytale

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

Sparrow <e.kueper@gmx.net> writes
>What you say is most true. Actually I believe the AI will be pretty
>useless.

The usefulness of the AI will be, for experienced players, that it will
show us how to write 3rd party add-ons. So I would like to see it
written.

I have seen several requests for an AI from beginners, to help them
learn to play. I think they want a decent one, though.

VGAP3 had its first, awful "CPlayer" written by Tim. He made the source
code public. Four or five AI's were written by other people, all better
than CPlayer, because those people specialised in just their one addon.
I think some of the CPlayers specialised in just playing 2 or 3 races.
That made them quite good (allegedly).
--
Paul Honigmann

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

I think Tim gets oodles of help and does welcome it. Everyone here is a beta
tester, and hopefully we most always report found bugs. Some of us write
guides, some of us even write programs (eg: diplomat, shipcalc, and many
others) that enhance planets and help overall. Imagine where would we be in
the beta process without a combat simulator, Tim didn't write that. I could
certainly be wrong but I think that the AI that Tim is building doesn't
expectto replace peoples, but to just do minor things when players are
unable to play turns and disappear from games. I don't know about anyone
here, buit I have yet to encounter an AI in any modern video game that does
much of anything other than just that. One of the biggest reasons I play
this game is because I'm playing a great strategy game vs. real people and
not a bunch of code written by one or numerous people that can't stand up to
intelligent human thinking.

I of course have my own opinions of what I'd like Tim to work most on as
does everyone here, but it's his game, in many ways it's our game as we all
play it, but he writes it. I agree that the potential is *huge* for this
game to be even far more than it already is. I could be wrong in saying
this, but I think that once this game does go gold, we'll still continue to
see improvements made to it for years to come, some by Tim maybe if he
wishes to continue but many more by others, some of which probably haven't
even started playing this game. I guess, overall what I want to say here is:
hang in there. This is a great game, and its only going to get better, most
all of what we all want will be addressed in time, I'd hate to see someone
leave out of frustration over anything.

Eric

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

"sun_z_eros" <andreaskoehler@gmx.net> wrote in message
news:1118223770.946391.151370@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Hi all,
> for months I've been reading the various newsgroups about vga planets.
> What striked me was that actually everyone is complaining about
> - old bugs
> - new bugs

This is normal. What you need to monitor is the "rate" of "bug" reporting.
This has declined as far as I can tell. You also need to identify "real
bugs" from "requests" for changes. This is significant. Not all things are
real bugs.

This reduction in bugs - or Failure Reports - is a statistical fundamental
with reliability testing of "things". It's assymptotic to zero -but never
gets there. It why we Windoze people have CTL-ALT_DEL.... ho hum. What
windoze doesn't do is "hang around" long enough to get "really close to
zero".
Bum.

> - the delay in the release of new races that are finished (especially
> the creator of these races, which is more that understandable)

These creator guys are actually extremely patient - and it isn't usually the
creators going public asking about this sort of thing, it's players. I'm
*peripherally* involved in several new races. I'm patient. So are they IMO.

> The comments from Tim has been for some time now that he is busy with
> the AI.
> Actually I have not read a single complain about a missing AI or
> whether this is worthwhile.

You haven't read for long enough! 8)
There have been a few complaints about the lack of an AI over the last year
or two. Generally it gets some response but not a massive one. This is
probably indicative of the current "Beta Test environment". The guys here
are all pretty much "expert experts" and as you say below, research formulas
and so on. They don't really need an AI.
New players will.
The lack of this AI is a negative-factor in encouraging new players. I speak
from experience. I tried. I gave up. So I helped write a "Newbies Guide".
But
There's no point creating an AI if the game isn't truly "sorted out". That's
what this group of beta testers has been doing. For years. They've been
doing a truly excellent job too.
The "community" that surrounds this game also supports it in ways that "shop
shelf" games never do. There aren't any "cheats"AFAIK - thankfully - but
there's a wealth of knowledge and experience that even the newest player can
contribute to.
Brilliant.
You don't get that with anything else I've seen in the shops.

> Now every experienced member in this group will state that this is part
> of vga planets and has always been like this.

"Always" is inaccurate. Years is more accurate. It has been a long time I
gather.
"Time is an Illusion, lunchtime, doubly so".
It took 20 years just to *restore* the sistine chapel frescoes. Patience is
truly a virtue.

> But why ?
>
> People got so much used to it that they spend long evening doing
> research and discussing formulas..

This is true. If it wasn't fun, they wouldn't do it... ?
Your point is...?

> Is this really the main fun in vga-planets ?
> And is the focus on AI instead of bug hunting and new races really the
> dear wish of the majority of the community that spend $ 30 or so on the
> game and years of dedicated playing ?

The AI is probably essential to attract new players after the game goes
"gold". During Beta, it is rather redundant.

People keep bringing up the $30 price as if it was expensive! I paid my $30
just because I wanted to be sure the "Newbies Guide" was played at the right
level. $30 is the biggest bargain I ever saw for a game you can play for
years and still enjoy.
I still don't play myself, mind. So I consider myself a sort of "neutral
observer" here?
(I don't play purely because I don't have the time to invest and I'm not
competative in wanting to beat (or lose to) other players. I may well play
as an NPC player some day? TBA!!)

Cheers
--
Olly

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

I agree with all who say that this task is too much for a one man show.
I assume Tim is afraid of loosing control over his game, so he is
sitting there tight. If he would concentrate on the design and remove
himself from the implementation and documentation, then we could have a
much better game much quicker. Of course we would need some dedicated
and reliable people to do and coordinate the taks at hand, but I
honestly believe that there are enough developers around here, who
would match these requirements. It is all about give and gain ...

Just my 0.02$

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

soxee <crooksy9@hotmail.com> writes

>I would say, with all due respect, that this is Tim's major problem. He
>has to learn to share the workload, otherwise he will not get anywhere.

From the V3 newsgroup, talking about V4:
~Several comments along the lines of "V4 is too complex to learn" and
~ "The Help files don't seem too clear, and where can I download a .hlp
file"

I have determined to try to give DoC more input when he posts requests
for feedback on Help file pages.
--
Paul Honigmann

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

Doc wrote:
> Maybe I should get my act together and get back to working on those
> files.

How about not reviewing the files in alphabetic order, but in order of
importance.

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

Doc wrote:
> No Problem.
>
> If I gave you a full list of filenames would you order them for me?
> then I can run on that order.

Problem with this is, that the currently the highest priority do have
the combat related help files, but the combat rules are in discussiion
right now, so fixing the help files is not the most prudent thing to do
right now. Also while in the moment lets say reviewing the base
structures is totally unimportant, this might be different in a month
or two, so deciding in advance which files will be reviewed the next 5
times is also not the way to go.
Also when deciding that it is important to review file x and files y
and z are related y and z should also be reviewed at that time.

And I would look mainly at the newsgroup (and different help forums -
like drewheads game s&q) and decide by seeing about which topics are
asked the most questions (in the current situation we should just
forget about the combat help files) and review that help file and any
to that topic related help files (minus the already reviewed help files
for which there were no changes affecting them during since the last
time it did get reviewed).


So no I will not give you any ordered list of help files if you send me
the list.