Looney Labs Fluxx Mailing list Archive

Re: [Fluxx] Volity Fluxx 3.1 online

  • From"S Mattison" <s.mattison@xxxxxxxxx>
  • DateSun, 14 May 2006 22:42:46 -0700
I see it now...
on http://www.volity.org/wiki/index.cgi?UI_File_Gotchas

*Tempting UI Ideas Which Are Bad*
Putting in delays to allow the players to see what happened

"In many games, there will be a move (or some change of state), and
then the board is cleared or readied for the next move. This leaves
you with the problem of letting the players see what happened, before
the next thing happens.

The bad idea is to have the referee (or, worse, the UI) pause for a
few seconds. Networked games have enough pauses already! And there is
no possible way to get the pause time right. Some players will always
be caught saying "what happened? what happened?" and others will be
shouting "bored now!" and trying to rip your skin off.

The best solution, if you can possibly manage it, is to leave the
previous move displayed as the next player chooses his next move. In
other words, outline or highlight the most recent move.

If it's completely absurd to keep the previous move highlighted --
say, if the whole board has to be wiped and refilled -- then it's best
to wait for all the players. Give everybody a "Continue" button, and
wait until each (seated) player has pressed it."

---

My solution to this; Treat each card played, and each sub-hand as a
different move. When the user, or any bot, plays a "Play 5", that is
one move. Update all. Then let the next card be played, and so on.

The Bot must take time and pretend to think of it's strategy, like a
human opponent would. I've had this debate before, whist thinking of
ways to implement realistic AI. There HAS to be a wait time, or
otherwise the judges will realize that your AI is simply a chat-bot,
because it responds instantly.