Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperNerd256
Wow. If you don't mind, can I steal that quote?  |
Absolutely. I stole it from Poe, who "sampled"/stole it from a lecture given by her father, the tape of which she found some years after he passed away.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperNerd256
I'd say 50-50 for each.
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I'd say that game theory is a lot more complicated than that. Almost all games are permissive, because it's much easier to write a permissive rules set than it is to write a proscriptive one. FIRST has historically been more proscriptive than permissive, but every sport in the world is permissive.
The most interesting (IMNHO) games (mathematically and strategically) are proscriptive, but they don't garner much of a following a lot of the time because they're often hard to follow, hard to predict, hard to manage... As someone who has made some small amount of money doing freelance game design, I can really, truly admire just how well FIRST has skirted the line between a permissive and a proscriptive rules set.
Designing a technical challenge that encourages ingenuity and creativity lends itself strongly toward a proscriptive rules set. Designing a game that's fun to watch for an audience not obsessed with the game requires a strongly permissive rules set. The balance is insanely hard to meet, and I have so very much admiration for the GDC for doing so yearly as well as they have.
In recent years, FIRST rules have tended more toward a permissive rules set. If they want the game to be spectator-friendly, they have to. That said, they have kept the design side of the robot very proscriptive, which is why you see wheel-shooters and catapults and sling-shots, and you see tank drives and drop-center drives and swerve drives and mecanum drives and octocanum drives...
Give credit where credit is due: there are a lot of companies that do nothing but design games for a living. None of them have a single team of a dozen-ish people put out a completely new and innovative product on a yearly basis. The GDC does.
Hats off to the Robonauts for an extremely innovative and interesting solution to an engineering problem. Hats off to the GDC for sticking to the game they designed (and the philosophy behind it) and ruling against them. Ya both done good.