Quote:
Originally Posted by Cory
I see no possible interpretation in which this put them in a difficult situation.
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It's a difficult situation for all game designers who want a game that is both fun to play and to watch. (IMO Warhammer 40K and D&D are both fun to play... not so much fun to watch. Football is fun to watch, but I have no interest in playing.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cory
There is no way the GDC did not understand that teams wanted to know if they could hang from the side of the bridge. They chose the cop out route of answering with a non-answer.
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It's not a cop-out at all. What they did was refuse to get into a cycle where they are forced to define every word in the manual (and then possibly define the words used in the definitions, and then the words in those definitions). These are really smart people, and I'm certain they understand Godel's Incompleteness Theorem as applied to creating rules sets.
They've been using "reasonably astute observer" definitions for years as a way to essentially say, "Look, folks, it's impossible to create a positivist document. Not difficult, not really hard, but actually impossible. So we're not going to try to do that. Be creative, but do so within the spirit of the competition-as-sport that we've set up."
Quote:
Originally Posted by wireties
The engineer's response is to calculate the risk and make a decision.
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And The Robonauts did indeed create an awesome device with minimal risk -- it's not like they can't balance without it.