Posted by Mike McIntyre at 03/11/2001 11:49 PM EST
Coach on team #1, Juggernaut, from Oakland Technical Center Northeast and 3 Dimensional Services.
In Reply to: 2001 Not a Great Spectator Sport?
Posted by Lora Knepper on 03/11/2001 2:59 PM EST:
What we've got is a game that is challenging to build and design for, fun to play, and very different from Battle'bots. The game is good, but it doesn't inspire the crowd much and would certainly never be made into a TV series. This game definitely lacks the excitement we've seen in recent years but still manages to get pretty intense during the elimination matches(because there is an element of competitiveness built into the format). Listening to Dean speak, I understand his motivation in changing the game and I can appreciate the need to take some risks, but I thought the blend of cooperation and competition that we've seen in recent years is much more "true to life". I have come to know and respect many people from many teams while competing head-to-head against their team, and we could always talk about the matches, strategies...etc. and laugh about it all later; you knew that they would be your ally again some day and it drew people closer. I miss the planning of offensive and defensive strategies, I miss the continuous altering of gameplans as opponents thwarted our moves, and I miss the fun I had as a spectator when my team was not on the field. Dean's distinction using an analogy of BattleBots being the WWF and FIRST being like Olympic wrestling only holds true for me if we're still talking about last year's game. To continue the analogy, this year's game would be more like watching the wrestling team practice their moves over and over. In an elimination match, a good alliance is apt to execute the same exact moves 6 times in a row! I hope Dean and the people at FIRST keep taking risks and hitting us with radical changes each year; while this year's game may not be as good as last year's, the FIRST experience is still better than any other high school science/technology experience that I have encountered.
[...when your team is not on the field, this game is suddenly VERY boring to watch. (In most cases...I'm sure when 71 posted that astronomical score, it was a great match to watch regardless of your team affiliation) There were several of us in the Tigerbolt chatroom discussing the regional as it was played, and the overwhelming feeling seemed to be boredom. I'm not entirely sure if that was from the lower score posted by some less experienced teams, or the nature of the game, but I do know that when I was at UTC, when I didn't have my team, or a friend's team on the field, I wasn't nearly as interested in watching as I have been in the past.
: Soooo...in short, I think this tends to be an interesting game to play, but a rather boring spectator sport...but of course, feel free to post different
)
: ~ lora