GNU the reason for backgammons decline?
lmfback
Ok, I know the subject is very far fetched (but at least eye catching
:). I'll attack this problem from a bottom up approach so bear with me.
Two reasons I've heard a lot the past few years when talking to people
why they don't play as much online anymore are:
1) Too many bots, makes no sense
2) No friendly atmosphere
(no time being the most common one)
Now, number 2 was working very well on TMG when it was introduced but
today you can only find a friendly chat on free servers. It's extremely
rare to chat during money games and many times opponents chat just to
distract you or to make you run out of time. So much for gallantry.
One of the reasons for less chat is the nasty time limits set by many
bg servers. You simply have no time to chat. Never mind the slow/fast
options on some servers, that's not a 3 min toilet break no matter how
you see at it. Why do these time limits exists? To help players so that
they don't have to wait for their opponents too long? To increase
revenue by forcing faster games? Yes, and yes but the main reason is
probably to prevent bot usage (especially manual bots, i.e. friends
with a second computer).
Bots? BOTS? Oh yeah, in the good old days people went out and bought a
real license to analyze their bg games. Mostly that means you are
somewhat serious with your game and your skill level might even be such
that you don't even need to cheat. But after the free GNU appeared any
schmuck can play bg at world class level. The initial investement
needed is neglible compared to spending 400 bucks or so for Snowie or
Jelly.
Also, making Snowie play automatically against some site is probably
not a task any programming schmuck can achieve. How much easier is it
to get GNU to play against a site? A *lot* easier.
Thank you Gnu for destroying backgammon. I know you meant well.
:D
Eskimo
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lmfback
peter.b...@absolutelynos-p-a-m.ericsson.com says...
Ah, one thing I forgot to mention, the reason I'm even thinking along
these lines is that I devised a system designed to virtually eliminate
bots from a bg server. Virtually means the amount of games they can
profit from is so low creating 100 new bots per day might not be worth
the while.
Side effects of what I devised would be that you could skip time
constraints on a game (up to players if they want that or not). Whether
playing speed is a revenue thing is out of scope for these purposes.
Manual bots would basically not be a problem either. I *know* this is
an unbeliavable statement. But we are talking about something 100%
radical here.
Another side effect is that the amount of fun a player would have
compared to today's harsh playing would be considerably higher. i.e.
players would not play once, get fed up and never return. It's much
more likely that they would return by their own free will. What if we
still had all the fish from the beginning of the millenia available?
And happy fish?
The amount of play would increase allowing rakes to be pushed down thus
creating a bit of a snowball effect for oldtimers as well.
Now, the only problem with this is that if I go public with my design
one or more bg sites would/could profit from it and I would get
nothing. If I negotiate with a site it's far too likely I get ripped
off. Creating a site of my own is not an option. So teaming up with a
site is the only real option. That would require some investement from
a site (certain redesign) and certain risk taking (radical can possibly
be too radical for players). The benefit would of course be a huge
amount of the players would move to this site, at least until other
sites manage to copy the approach well enough.
Ok, I can only see three possible actors in the field that could
achieve this (I don't consider "buy crap software and flash us" serious
actors). That's a problem too.
One option would be to go public with this for the benefit of
backgammon. I however don't consider that a very good option as that
also means bot manufacturers get "the specs". If they would know how to
minimize damage to themselves they could come up with a way to make it
profitable "enough" and that's of course one thing we don't want to
happen. Note, I'm not saying I'm omnipotent and can eliminate bots
completely, I'm just saying their profit level will become
unsustainable.
If you see something *new* in backgammon during the next few years,
remember, you heard about it first here.
Piranha
m.ericsson.com> wrote:
> In article <MPG.25785e86767fa17c989...@news.lmf.ericsson.se>,
> peter.backg...@absolutelynos-p-a-m.ericsson.com says...
I believe you´re missing the point(s).
1) Sites like BGM don´t have the slightest interest in eliminating
bots, because they are house bots, installed on purpose.
2) The vast majority of rumors about players using bots comes from
fish, who accuse any halfway good player of using a bot, they don´t
even check error rates, opponent plays well, must be using a bot, no
verification required.
An approach to eliminate bots from a site won´t silence those rumors,
same as nobody can silence rumors about rigged dice.
3) A friendly athmosphere depends on socializing, which requires a
huge server organizing friendly but competitive events, where clubs
and groups of players meet, like former MSN Gaming Zone did.
After zone has closed, there simply is no such server anymore.
Free servers don´t get enough players, there are too many of them,
most have a real bad software, and they can´t afford advertising.
Real money servers don´t want socializing anyway, despite the fact
that all real money servers have a playmoney section, where players
can generate an enormous server load without it costs them a thing,
they all seem to believe that time is money, thus a short time limit
is required to maximize the servers profit.
Sharks even want it the way it is and while all real money servers
except of GE have more sharks than fish, nobody is interested in being
friendly, make money as fast as possible, that´s all what counts.
4) Especially in real money play lots of players can´t keep their
manners under control, any option to chat is heavily abused to insult
other players, that´s another reason why real money servers minimize
chat options and enforce fast gameplay.
lmfback
@m16g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>, eu_pi...@gmx.net says...
> I believe you=3Fre missing the point(s).
Maybe, but I also believe bg sites aren't necessarily generating enough
(if any) profit compared to what they could generate. Maybe not being
profitable = enough money laundry benefits anyway, what do I know.
> 1) Sites like BGM don=3Ft have the slightest interest in eliminating
> bots, because they are house bots, installed on purpose.
But some sites at least seem intent on eliminating bots and have
serious programs in place to do so. I don't think I mentioned BGM as
one of the "valuable actors" :).
> 2) The vast majority of rumors about players using bots comes from
> fish, who accuse any halfway good player of using a bot, they don=3Ft
> even check error rates, opponent plays well, must be using a bot, no
> verification required.
> An approach to eliminate bots from a site won=3Ft silence those rumors,
> same as nobody can silence rumors about rigged dice.
I'm not talking about fish accusations. We have enough of that in rgb.
I'm talking about serious players experienced enough to detect and
verify bot usage (with some accuracy).
> 3) A friendly athmosphere depends on socializing, which requires a
> huge server organizing friendly but competitive events, where clubs
> and groups of players meet, like former MSN Gaming Zone did.
> After zone has closed, there simply is no such server anymore.
> Free servers don=3Ft get enough players, there are too many of them,
> most have a real bad software, and they can=3Ft afford advertising.
> Real money servers don=3Ft want socializing anyway, despite the fact
> that all real money servers have a playmoney section, where players
> can generate an enormous server load without it costs them a thing,
> they all seem to believe that time is money, thus a short time limit
> is required to maximize the servers profit.
> Sharks even want it the way it is and while all real money servers
> except of GE have more sharks than fish, nobody is interested in being
> friendly, make money as fast as possible, that=3Fs all what counts.
This still worked for TMG back when it started. At least I would like
to believe TMG was (quite) profitable for some period of time.
I would think that most people would agree that increasing the baseline
of the pyramid (fish) increases profits for the site (and players
higher up in the ladder).
> 4) Especially in real money play lots of players can=3Ft keep their
> manners under control, any option to chat is heavily abused to insult
> other players, that=3Fs another reason why real money servers minimize
> chat options and enforce fast gameplay.
This is out of scope but can probably be handled better if there are
more options available because time limits wouldn't be so needed
because of other reasons.
Murat Kalinyaprak
up on as though online/gambling backgammon is the only concern.??
First came the influence of the sick gamblers (mostly from USA),
and then the influence of bots that were seen as gambling tools.
Both of which cheat...!
I had joked about playing hopscotch for money but I have an eery
feeling that someday you sick scums may be complaining about the
rigged online hopscotch servers and about your sick scums adversaries
who cheat by using neural-network hopscotch robots.. ;)
Keep it simple and just flip coins, cocksuckers, just flip coins...!
MK
Andrew B.
on my computer. But another thing, this usenet group has less traffic
than it did years ago. I wonder if backgammon is less popular in
general.
Peter Schneider
"Andrew B." <and...@avoidingspam.net> wrote
> this usenet group has less traffic
> than it did years ago. I wonder if backgammon is less popular in
> general.
Dunno, maybe -- lots of people are playing poker these days. Fashions come
and go. That possible decline should be more than offset by the now
ubiquitous internet access. But what's much less popular than a few years
ago is usenet itself. While it could be considered an early form of web 2.0
(after all, its users are generating, sharing and discussing content) it
was quickly swamped by the web 1.0 in it's www incarnation. And now that
the web becomes interactive again and bandwidth and cpu power are abundant
usenet is pretty obsolete. I don't know why I'm writing this, actually.
Best,
Peter aka the juggler
tc...@lsa.umich.edu
Peter Schneider <schneiderp...@gmx.net> wrote:
>And now that the web becomes interactive again and bandwidth and cpu
>power are abundant usenet is pretty obsolete.
USENET is moribund, but I don't think it's really been superseded by
anything. Take rec.games.backgammon for example. What Web 2.0 entity
has superseded its functionality? None, as far as I know. The nice
thing about a USENET group is that it provides a single place for
discussion; you don't have to go poking around the web trying to follow
a million different unrelated blogs, each of which has a limited set of
participants.
I think USENET was killed by the low signal-to-noise ratio. When people
on (say) Stick's forum mention r.g.b., the single most common reason
that they cite for giving up on it is "too many trolls."
--
Tim Chow tchow-at-alum-dot-mit-dot-edu
The range of our projectiles---even ... the artillery---however great, will
never exceed four of those miles of which as many thousand separate us from
the center of the earth. ---Galileo, Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences
Andrew B.
tc...@lsa.umich.edu says...
> I think USENET was killed by the low signal-to-noise ratio. When people
> on (say) Stick's forum mention r.g.b., the single most common reason
> that they cite for giving up on it is "too many trolls."
It hadn't even occurred to me to look for an Internet forum. I just did
a search and found several, but all with very low traffic. FIBS forum
has lots of reads, but not many posts. I'm not saything this to be
critical, btw. Just wondering if I'm overlooking something.
tc...@lsa.umich.edu
Andrew B. <and...@avoidingspam.net> wrote:
>It hadn't even occurred to me to look for an Internet forum. I just did
>a search and found several, but all with very low traffic. FIBS forum
>has lots of reads, but not many posts. I'm not saything this to be
>critical, btw. Just wondering if I'm overlooking something.