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Originally Posted by DougHogg
In other words, it's inconsistent with the game as presented. The game as presented in the kickoff to me is the "Constitution" of the game, and that should be held up as the model to follow, with subsequent rules aligning with it.
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Just a quick side-note. Try not to put TOO MUCH emphasis on the game trial run that is shown during the kick-off presentations. You have to recognize one very important fact: at the time that the game is presented, it has never been played even once under actual competitive conditions. The game design team is comprised of a very small number of people. They design the game and run through dozens of test scenarios and trial runs. They develop and test (and eliminate) many game strategies and options. But the reality is that each of their test runs are conducted under controlled conditions that may not accurately reflect what can happen during an actual competition.
The game design team does think of most of the options, problems, loopholes, and quirks of each game. However, given the realities of the schedule and process, they are never going to find all of them. And given that their combined brain power (as impressive as it is
) can never equal the combined brain power of the 20,000 FIRST participants that analyze, scrutinize, dissect, and reflect upon the game when it is unveiled at the kick-off, the teams are always going to find a few things that the game designers missed. Thus, every year there are always a few "Doh!!!" moments for the game designers when the teams see something the designers missed, and updates have to be issued to correct the oversights.
So while the idea that the game presented at the kick-off is perfect and everyone should adhere to that model is ideal, the reality is that we know it will need to be tweaked as things are discovered after the game is actually played "for real." Obviously, a lot of effort is put into minimizing the tweaking, but it will still happen. With that in mind, I would suggest that you might look at the game demos during the kick-off presentations as "very strong suggestions" rather than "bullet-proof cast-in-concrete" definitions of how the game should work.
-dave