[GO] Unrated, Unranked, or No Points Games

[Uncle Death]

For beginner players i think you should have the option for an unrated match like on yahoo games. One of the main reasons for this is for players to try out new maps without gettin squashed by veterans of the maps and their rank being dropped due to an unfair handicap. This may have been posted before and i apologize if it has, but i'm new and didn't feel like scrolling through hundreds of forum pages to see if it was. Of course the vets don't have to play in these games cuz i'm sure they're lookin for points but if they wanna try somethin crazy they can and won't be penalized for it as well. Gives e1 an option that could benefit everybody. Thanks for listenin, thoughts?

I like this idea. It would encourage higher ranked players to play more open games which would give lower ranked players a chance to learn more from better players. I'd be more willing to team up with newer and less experienced players.

[Gamera]

Pretty baller! Definitely worth it for trying out maps you haven't played before and want to try out.

Possible issue: I can see free members using this to just play games with friends at home/school/wherever - just cycle in and out of the hotseat.

[hairy potter]

surely playing as one player against neutrals is better practice than playing as all of the players? not to take away from a fairly decent idea.

[Gamera]

surely playing as one player against neutrals is better practice than playing as all of the players? not to take away from a fairly decent idea.

No strategy needed and impossible to lose. I know it's weird to talk about losing to yourself, but if it's you and neutrals then you just add your three every turn and eliminate the gra/ey armies at a faster rate as you grab territories. If you control all sides, you can do what's best for each "person," and really actually play the strategy. Yeah, you the person will "win," but will Red or Pink win?

[MeDeFe]

Possible issue: I can see free members using this to just play games with friends at home/school/wherever - just cycle in and out of the hotseat.

I don't see this as much of an issue. Firstly, they would all have to get together in front of one computer in order to play the game, making it rather limited in its applicability. Secondly, it would make for great advertisement. Just think about it, one of your friends asks you and maybe some others if you're up for a game of not-Risk, he knows this website, you sit down, play a game over an hour or so. It would do wonders for making the site better known by word-of-mouth.

If you really want to make sure that this feature is not "abused" by 8 people sharing one account and playing games for no points with each logging in from their own computer when it's their turn (and that scenario does sound silly, no?) you could make it so the game automatically ends if your login session ends.

[hairy potter]

No strategy needed and impossible to lose. I know it's weird to talk about losing to yourself, but if it's you and neutrals then you just add your three every turn and eliminate the gra/ey armies at a faster rate as you grab territories. If you control all sides, you can do what's best for each "person," and really actually play the strategy. Yeah, you the person will "win," but will Red or Pink win?

sorry, i didn't mean playing against inactive neutrals. i meant playing against AI bots.

i remember trying to play chess against my self, in order to improve, and if playing risk against yourself is at all similar then it doesn't work brilliantly. you're playing with the knowledge of exactly what the other players are going to try and do at the back of your mind; you also have no real interest in which side wins, as you are all sides.

if you're happy to do that then whatever, i just reckon an AI option would be good as well.

[Gamera]

^Programming an AI is a whole 'nother can of worms, and hard. I don't think CC is like chess, to be honest. Chess is all about thinking ahead, and the permutations are endless. There's not a lot of fakery/trickery going on here, and it's while usually pretty clear what an opponents motive is, things look different when you've got them there in front of you. At any rate, both would be nifty.

^^Touché.

[MeDeFe]

No strategy needed and impossible to lose. I know it's weird to talk about losing to yourself, but if it's you and neutrals then you just add your three every turn and eliminate the gra/ey armies at a faster rate as you grab territories. If you control all sides, you can do what's best for each "person," and really actually play the strategy. Yeah, you the person will "win," but will Red or Pink win?

sorry, i didn't mean playing against inactive neutrals. i meant playing against AI bots.

i remember trying to play chess against my self, in order to improve, and if playing risk against yourself is at all similar then it doesn't work brilliantly. you're playing with the knowledge of exactly what the other players are going to try and do at the back of your mind; you also have no real interest in which side wins, as you are all sides.

if you're happy to do that then whatever, i just reckon an AI option would be good as well.

I think AI has been rejected in the past. Infected neutrals are in the works, but they won't be anything like a real AI.

Besides, this game involves a lot fewer calculations than chess and uses quite different strategies, the comparison doesn't hold up. Furthermore, the main use wouldn't actually be that of getting better at the game, but of understanding how different game settings and map mechanics work and for testing them. Sure, understanding the game mechanics and map settings will make one a better player, but it's nothing like playing chess against oneself.

[TheForgivenOne]

No strategy needed and impossible to lose. I know it's weird to talk about losing to yourself, but if it's you and neutrals then you just add your three every turn and eliminate the gra/ey armies at a faster rate as you grab territories. If you control all sides, you can do what's best for each "person," and really actually play the strategy. Yeah, you the person will "win," but will Red or Pink win?

sorry, i didn't mean playing against inactive neutrals. i meant playing against AI bots.

i remember trying to play chess against my self, in order to improve, and if playing risk against yourself is at all similar then it doesn't work brilliantly. you're playing with the knowledge of exactly what the other players are going to try and do at the back of your mind; you also have no real interest in which side wins, as you are all sides.

if you're happy to do that then whatever, i just reckon an AI option would be good as well.

I think AI has been rejected in the past. Infected neutrals are in the works, but they won't be anything like a real AI.

Correct. lack has stated that he has absolutely no interest in programming an AI into the site. Thus been rejected before.

[perchorin]

As I understood the suggestion, there is nothing to do with AI here. You would be playing with yourself right? I do that all the time!

[ender516]

Possible issue: I can see free members using this to just play games with friends at home/school/wherever - just cycle in and out of the hotseat.

I don't see this as much of an issue. Firstly, they would all have to get together in front of one computer in order to play the game, making it rather limited in its applicability. Secondly, it would make for great advertisement. Just think about it, one of your friends asks you and maybe some others if you're up for a game of not-Risk, he knows this website, you sit down, play a game over an hour or so. It would do wonders for making the site better known by word-of-mouth.

If you really want to make sure that this feature is not "abused" by 8 people sharing one account and playing games for no points with each logging in from their own computer when it's their turn (and that scenario does sound silly, no?) you could make it so the game automatically ends if your login session ends.

A good discussion of possible abuse of the feature. Personally, I don't see the demand to play for no points being that big a driver, and apart from that, why bother sharing a solitaire game? You can already play for free. Controlling things via the login session does sound feasible. Does the site already restrict or at least note simultaneous logins from multiple computers?

Clearly, this feature could be limited to premium members, if it seemed that freemium players were costing the site revenue or excessive load. But I think that, as I said in the original post, letting a noobie play a bit and learn first hand how the site works could be a great way to get that noobie to stick around, and the longer the stay, the better the chance of a premium membership purchase. A compromise position might be a initial bank of a limited number of solitaire games for freemiums, or possibly only one solitaire game at a time for them. Premiums, of course, would have unlimited access. (I doubt that we need to worry about players overloading the site with multiple solitaire games. I play multiple games now because I hope that I won't have to wait too long for my turn to come up in one game or another. Why would I load up multiple solitaire games and complicate my life by switching from one to another?)

[Bruceswar]

Lack has said in the past no point games are out of the question. That alone kills this idea.

[ender516]

That has always been in the context of games between players. This is somewhat different and might elicit a different response.

[greenoaks]

there will not be games for nil points

move along, nothing to suggest here

[ender516]

Thanks for your insight.

[hairy potter]

lack said that there would be no games played for no points

[ender516]

Can you point me to his post? I did a search, so I am fairly sure solitaire games without AI have not been discussed. Games between players for no points are a very different thing. You don't want someone to be able to get a high rank and then stop playing for points to protect that.

[TheForgivenOne]

I think the reasoning was he wanted people to have to risk points to see how a map is. It would make it too easy for people to become experts at maps. Now I can see how it could be good for new players. They could develop the nack of the game, but I could still see High ranks using this to become better at the harder maps without risking points to learn it.

[ender516]

Well, then the answer to that is to make this a limited time offer to new players only. (Oh, I can hear the premiums yelling already.) How much expertise can you gain on a map, when your only competition is someone just as skilled as you, namely, YOU. I would still love to see an actual post by lackattack specifically against no-points games. Better still, a comment directly on this topic.

[TheForgivenOne]

Well, then the answer to that is to make this a limited time offer to new players only. (Oh, I can hear the premiums yelling already.) How much expertise can you gain on a map, when your only competition is someone just as skilled as you, namely, YOU. I would still love to see an actual post by lackattack specifically against no-points games. Better still, a comment directly on this topic.

If I have time, I'll go look. I know he made the post way back in 2006, so it may take me a while to find it.


Edit**

Actually, i have been mistaken.

I will probably never have time to program AI players, but some day I could fathom people having bot accounts.

I suppose you could already write the logic in JavaScript and make a Grease Monkey script to take your moves. Or write a stand-alone program to automatically login and play. It is not against the rules or anything.

[ender516]

A very interesting post, but not particularly germane to the issues at hand, as it says nothing about solitaire games or games where no points are awarded. I am surprised to learn that I would not be breaking any rules if I created a program to play the game.

[TheForgivenOne]

A very interesting post, but not particularly germane to the issues at hand, as it says nothing about solitaire games or games where no points are awarded. I am surprised to learn that I would not be breaking any rules if I created a program to play the game.

Well, remember, this was said back in 2006. He might have changed his mind on whether this was against the rules or not since then.

[ender516]

So, with so many people saying that lack said "no games for no points", can anyone actually find a post that they can point to?

[yeti_c]

I love this idea...

The Yeti has spoken.

C.

[phantomzero]

I love this idea...

The Yeti has spoken.

C.

All Hail the Yeti