What does it mean to be the best player/team/athlete in the world? Would you say The Spanish Football team, the Springboks or Ussain Bolt knows what it means? I'm not sure how to describe it in normal terms, but I am sure it is really hard to truly determine who is the best, and this is somewhat disconcerting.
Take soccer for example: In Europe alone there is UEFA League, Premiership, Bundesliga, Superliga, Ligue 1 and so on. If you take the best team from every league in every country and put them together in a big SUPERLEAGUE and then they all played off and ultimately there was a single winner; this doesn't mean some bunch of highschoolers couldn't beat them in a serious game. I guess what I am saying is that ordinaly ranking teams is really hard. Just because France was ranked so much higher than South Africa didn't seem to give them some huge advantage in their game.
In the world of competitive computer gaming, this is an even harder problem. Teams from around the world don't often compete against one another often enough for a proper ranking system to be established; and even then, there is no FIFA or IRB for Computer Games - it's just a free for all. There are many bodies that claim to represent gamers or host big tournaments yearly (WCG, ESWC, CPL, CAL, SMM, etc) but there is no formalised world wide rankings, no formalised conduct system or regulatory board and this is both a blessing and a curse. Gaming is still in its infancy, so too much regulation and control will lead to slower growth of it worldwide.
This situation is clearly solved by implementing a system called Elo, named after the man who created it Arpad Elo, initially for chess rankings. How the system works is it assumes that all teams or players (depending on the sport) have some true skill, but to start it assigns everyone an equal 'rating'. Because a players (or teams) performance can't be intrinsically measured, the system only looks at wins, loses and draws. As games occur, ratings go up and down based on the difference in rating between the teams or players competing, and their result. An example follows:
If a team has a rating of 1400 compared to a team with a rating of 1000, the team with the rating of 1400 has a 90.9% chance to win (using some maths you work this out) and the team with 1000 obviously has a chance of 9.09% to win. Because one team is favoured (expected) to win, they will only benefit slightly from a win (getting, lets say, +2.88 rating). On the other hand, if the underdogs (the team with rating 1000) win they will get a lot of points for beating our expectations of them (getting, around 28.8 points). The rating of the winning team will go up by the same amount the the losing team's rating will go down, meaning that if the team with 1000 rating won, the new ratings of the teams would be 1028.8 and 1371.2. This is quite a large jump, but due to the fact that the team with the rating of 1400 was so much better on paper that they shouldn't have lost.
So this system is cool; it allows us to compare every team in the world playing; provided they all submit their results to some common data collector. The problem comes in when you have truly disjoint player/team pools. Let's assume that all Asian people were amazing at Starcraft 2, and all South American people were terrible. Using this system we would have the best South American player/team ranked very highly worldwide (because he only plays other South American players/teams), but in reality he is actually putrid and doesn't deserved to be rated above most Asian players.
The solution to this is to ensure that sufficient cross-pool games occur, and only allow people who play sufficient cross-region games to be ranked.
Another concern is importance of games/events. Some teams play games with no intention of winning. They could be trying out new tactics, giving their reserves a chance to compete or just intentionally losing so as to eliminate another team from the tournament (Ehome -> LGD). We can fairly fix this by making international events have a higher importance (weighting) than local games, because where pride and money are on the line, teams are always willing to play their best.
So here is my idea: make an international ranking site. Allow teams and players for any game to submit data via a common portal to allow true rankings of teams. .
Friday, October 29, 2010
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Dynamics of competitive games
Okie dokie. So I'm pretty sure everyone reading this has played a multiplayer game. You and a bunch of your friends conquer a dungeon, or frag each other with rocket jumping imps and hoes across a map filled with pitfalls and disaster. A smaller percentage of you would have played a competitive multiplayer game, a game where you pit you and your friends combined skill, luck and HAX against another bunch of unwashed cretins.
These are the kinds of games I find the most awesome. Gone are the times when a single individual could define a game and enter the times when inter-team interactions can affect every aspect of a game. Some examples of these kinds of games are DotA, SC2 (2v2, 3v3, 5v5), CS, HoN, LoL, etc.
The reason these games are so awesome is that it adds a new dimension to gaming. Your ability to perform as an individual is capped by your teams ability to work with you. Sometimes raw talent allows an individual to shine clearly brighter than his team (these actions are normally made into videos and available from a YouTube near you). Communication is key in multiplayer games, and a teams ability to work together is very apparent.
One of the biggest problems with these games is when social gamer meets hardcore gamer. These games are obviously balanced for competitive play (with SC2's ladder, Icefrog [bless his soul] constantly updating and fixing and balancing DotA and the incarnations of Counter Strike through the ages) and when the two meet, there are obviously problems. As my example, I will use DotA.
DotA, for those who don't know, is a game where you and your team try defend your base whilst trying to kill the enemy base. You have natural computer controlled defenses (towers) as well as computer controlled "creeps" that spawn. You run out with your creeps and kill the enemy creeps, whilst killing the enemy players. You can only see the map where your teammates and your creeps are, meaning that part of the map is obscured in the Fog of War ^^. The enemy players use this fog to ambush your team (and you use it to ambush them), meaning that vision in the fog is paramount to your team winning.
Lo and behold the creators of DotA added something to the game called "wards". These are immovable, invisible items that give you vision of that area as if one of your teammates were there. The advantage of having these in strategic positions around the map is so significant, wards are limited to 4 per 7 minutes. They are so key to the game, that they are the only limited item in the game. Broken, right? Well, when you play a random public game of DotA online, you expect at least some brainpower from your (often) randomly amassed team. You expect that your team should have wards, and that if a player on your team isn't doing so well getting other items, they should think to themself "ok, my items are not that great, let me get some wards to help out my team". The use case for such an item as wards are interesting to look at:
- Option 1 : Do not get wards (Personal benefit: Other team kills you, you lose out ; Team Benefit: Other team kills your teammates and get stronger)
- Option 2: Get wards (Personal benefit: Pay gold ; Team Benefit: Can see map, allowing for safe movement around the map)
Interesting as that is, you will always get some useless retard on your team who, despite being as clever as a rock, cannot see the logic in these dynamics and will blindly run around the map dying. This is the pure definition of a "feeder", and a special part of hell is reserved for them.
Moral of the story: Avoid playing with people who are stupid.
Second moral of the story: If some aspect of a game is limited or blocked or reduced in some way because it is so good or unbalanced, get as much of it as you can.
These are the kinds of games I find the most awesome. Gone are the times when a single individual could define a game and enter the times when inter-team interactions can affect every aspect of a game. Some examples of these kinds of games are DotA, SC2 (2v2, 3v3, 5v5), CS, HoN, LoL, etc.
The reason these games are so awesome is that it adds a new dimension to gaming. Your ability to perform as an individual is capped by your teams ability to work with you. Sometimes raw talent allows an individual to shine clearly brighter than his team (these actions are normally made into videos and available from a YouTube near you). Communication is key in multiplayer games, and a teams ability to work together is very apparent.
One of the biggest problems with these games is when social gamer meets hardcore gamer. These games are obviously balanced for competitive play (with SC2's ladder, Icefrog [bless his soul] constantly updating and fixing and balancing DotA and the incarnations of Counter Strike through the ages) and when the two meet, there are obviously problems. As my example, I will use DotA.
DotA, for those who don't know, is a game where you and your team try defend your base whilst trying to kill the enemy base. You have natural computer controlled defenses (towers) as well as computer controlled "creeps" that spawn. You run out with your creeps and kill the enemy creeps, whilst killing the enemy players. You can only see the map where your teammates and your creeps are, meaning that part of the map is obscured in the Fog of War ^^. The enemy players use this fog to ambush your team (and you use it to ambush them), meaning that vision in the fog is paramount to your team winning.
Lo and behold the creators of DotA added something to the game called "wards". These are immovable, invisible items that give you vision of that area as if one of your teammates were there. The advantage of having these in strategic positions around the map is so significant, wards are limited to 4 per 7 minutes. They are so key to the game, that they are the only limited item in the game. Broken, right? Well, when you play a random public game of DotA online, you expect at least some brainpower from your (often) randomly amassed team. You expect that your team should have wards, and that if a player on your team isn't doing so well getting other items, they should think to themself "ok, my items are not that great, let me get some wards to help out my team". The use case for such an item as wards are interesting to look at:
- Option 1 : Do not get wards (Personal benefit: Other team kills you, you lose out ; Team Benefit: Other team kills your teammates and get stronger)
- Option 2: Get wards (Personal benefit: Pay gold ; Team Benefit: Can see map, allowing for safe movement around the map)
Interesting as that is, you will always get some useless retard on your team who, despite being as clever as a rock, cannot see the logic in these dynamics and will blindly run around the map dying. This is the pure definition of a "feeder", and a special part of hell is reserved for them.
Moral of the story: Avoid playing with people who are stupid.
Second moral of the story: If some aspect of a game is limited or blocked or reduced in some way because it is so good or unbalanced, get as much of it as you can.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
To play a game, once first needs to think like a game.
For players, a game is meant to be fun, some fabricated escape from reality. For developers games are there to make their publishers lots of money (ignore the "passion for games" bull that Will Wright and Sid Meier seems to spew).
Hardware manufacturers gang up with developers to make money. They pay huge fee's for developers to recommend their hardware within their games. At the same time, manufacturers gang up with professional gamers who will recommend their hardware to be "by the best manufacturers, for the best gamers". To me this is really awesome, I get to use a mouse or keyboard or headset or _ANYTHING_ that some professional gamer recommends. Sure, this coolness factor is somewhat dimmed by the fact that he was paid to recommend it, but the real question is: "where does one draw the line?"...
I really enjoy my Logitech MX-518 mouse. With it's cute 1600dpi, it was a leader in the mouse sector for years. It's sexiness is only surpassed by my Razer Deathadder, with its little blue neon light, that sits proudly on my desk. The 518 has relinquished it's throne of my main gaming rig, and sadly it sits by my spare PC. Is this getting a bit much? To me this is no less silly than the iPhone fanboys who queue for days to get their latest fix in the Apple store, and this situation is still reasonable. The problem now comes with bigger, better and technically more modern equipment coming out. 11.2 sound systems, mice with tracking speeds so high you can throw them and track during the throw, keyboards with 200 buttons and so on. What should I pick with all these new trinkets on offer? To me the real answer is: "whatever you are comfortable with", there's no universal appropriate hardware. If you feel comfortable playing Peggle on 50" Plasma using a wireless fluffy penguin then that's totally cool as long as you don't try to force me to do the same or imply I'm a "noob" because I don't match your appeal for newer hardware and peripherals.
I think that soon a point will be reached (if it has not already) where consumers are unwilling to spend huge amounts more for existing technology. Until someone revolutionises the input device market, I'm sticking with my Deathadder. :)
Hardware manufacturers gang up with developers to make money. They pay huge fee's for developers to recommend their hardware within their games. At the same time, manufacturers gang up with professional gamers who will recommend their hardware to be "by the best manufacturers, for the best gamers". To me this is really awesome, I get to use a mouse or keyboard or headset or _ANYTHING_ that some professional gamer recommends. Sure, this coolness factor is somewhat dimmed by the fact that he was paid to recommend it, but the real question is: "where does one draw the line?"...
I really enjoy my Logitech MX-518 mouse. With it's cute 1600dpi, it was a leader in the mouse sector for years. It's sexiness is only surpassed by my Razer Deathadder, with its little blue neon light, that sits proudly on my desk. The 518 has relinquished it's throne of my main gaming rig, and sadly it sits by my spare PC. Is this getting a bit much? To me this is no less silly than the iPhone fanboys who queue for days to get their latest fix in the Apple store, and this situation is still reasonable. The problem now comes with bigger, better and technically more modern equipment coming out. 11.2 sound systems, mice with tracking speeds so high you can throw them and track during the throw, keyboards with 200 buttons and so on. What should I pick with all these new trinkets on offer? To me the real answer is: "whatever you are comfortable with", there's no universal appropriate hardware. If you feel comfortable playing Peggle on 50" Plasma using a wireless fluffy penguin then that's totally cool as long as you don't try to force me to do the same or imply I'm a "noob" because I don't match your appeal for newer hardware and peripherals.
I think that soon a point will be reached (if it has not already) where consumers are unwilling to spend huge amounts more for existing technology. Until someone revolutionises the input device market, I'm sticking with my Deathadder. :)
Monday, October 18, 2010
fp (First Post)
So I opened my Google Reader today and saw that I have 760 unread articles from the last week. I subscribe to mainly gaming related RSS feeds, with some geeky side feeds and some web comics thrown in that seem to brighten up my morning (Read: whenever I wake up), and yet _every_ gaming related feed seemed to churn out the same rubbish. Sure, SK gamer had some exclusive interview with and HLTV has some new videos, but essentially the same news was covered in so many boring ways. At least when Sky News, E-TV and CNN cover the same article they think up an interesting and unique spin and provide some "expert" to give the facts (Read: his opinion) about the news. So this bores me, and as a result I have decided to blog some of my ideas and opinions on gaming, stuff, more stuff, and life; because, obviously, I like to think I am an expert on gaming (sarcasm is probably also relevant).
As the first post, this will have some more general stuff, and hopefully end off with something interesting.
So, I'm a gamer: check.
Favourite games: DotA, CS (1.6), Starcraft 2.
Favourite gamers: Anyone who rages. Ra-ra-raging in gaming makes me laugh (I do it often, with many luls ensuing). So Shaguar (from NoA, 3D, and pretty much every big group) and Idra; as well regular non-raging players: Puppey, f0rest and _obviously_ TheLittleOne.
Favourite gaming clans: SK, followed closely by Fnatic and then DTS
Husky is pretty much the best shoutcaster in the world (http://www.youtube.com/user/HuskyStarcraft) and since I'm watching his Youtube vids right now I think he deserves a mention. Even though he is from Oregan.
Where am I from?
South Africa. No, there are no lions, leopards or elephants in my back yard, nor .... Oh wait, we just held the FIFA World Cup, you know about South Africa. This helps. Ok, so I attend a university in SA, and although gaming isn't terribly big in SA (comparatively), it could be larger. Much larger. South Africa has never featured very much internationally in the gaming scene, despite a Counter Strike team from South Africa taking SK Gaming to overtime during an exhibition match in 2008 (and being raped in a . That's pretty much it. Meagre hey? Well, hopefully this all changes or I will actually end up leaving this country to go to South Korea just so I can turn on my TV and watch pro-gaming.
The name of this blog is (good/bad/undecided)
I tried. I really did. Some awesome names I was sure would be available were SOMEHOW TAKEN FROM MY MIND AND STOLEN. Unless something more witty and cunning appears as a comment, I'm sticking with this name.
Ok, admin aside, now heres for something of substance. Do all good team games have complex (or non-existant) Nash Equilibria within your team? Or, more simply; is every good game filled with choices where your team as a whole will benefit by individuals co-ordinating and potentially sacrificing personally; so that the team will benefit as a whole. Every team multiplayer game I've seen this is true, and this seems to be the difference between good players and great players. The reason I ask this is because in some games, doing something seemingly stupid (from their single perspective) is obviously silly. Suiciding Techies so that your team gets kills in Dota springs to mind. When you actually start looking deeper, you see this altruistic behaviour popping up everywhere. Try picking your favourite team-based multiplayer computer game and prove me wrong.
On a side note, I am happy that Nirvana.my beat Ehome (underdogs always get an upvote), although I haven't watched the game yet.
Any ideas for an article or discussion? Email me. Excuse the format but I dislike friendly neighbourhood Russian Spammers :
( ben-st-ee-n-hui-sen [AT] g--m-a-il [DAWT] -c-o-m ) remove the '-'s.
Arcade Fuhrer, out.
As the first post, this will have some more general stuff, and hopefully end off with something interesting.
So, I'm a gamer: check.
Favourite games: DotA, CS (1.6), Starcraft 2.
Favourite gamers: Anyone who rages. Ra-ra-raging in gaming makes me laugh (I do it often, with many luls ensuing). So Shaguar (from NoA, 3D, and pretty much every big group) and Idra; as well regular non-raging players: Puppey, f0rest and _obviously_ TheLittleOne.
Favourite gaming clans: SK, followed closely by Fnatic and then DTS
Husky is pretty much the best shoutcaster in the world (http://www.youtube.com/user/HuskyStarcraft) and since I'm watching his Youtube vids right now I think he deserves a mention. Even though he is from Oregan.
Where am I from?
South Africa. No, there are no lions, leopards or elephants in my back yard, nor .... Oh wait, we just held the FIFA World Cup, you know about South Africa. This helps. Ok, so I attend a university in SA, and although gaming isn't terribly big in SA (comparatively), it could be larger. Much larger. South Africa has never featured very much internationally in the gaming scene, despite a Counter Strike team from South Africa taking SK Gaming to overtime during an exhibition match in 2008 (and being raped in a . That's pretty much it. Meagre hey? Well, hopefully this all changes or I will actually end up leaving this country to go to South Korea just so I can turn on my TV and watch pro-gaming.
The name of this blog is (good/bad/undecided)
I tried. I really did. Some awesome names I was sure would be available were SOMEHOW TAKEN FROM MY MIND AND STOLEN. Unless something more witty and cunning appears as a comment, I'm sticking with this name.
Ok, admin aside, now heres for something of substance. Do all good team games have complex (or non-existant) Nash Equilibria within your team? Or, more simply; is every good game filled with choices where your team as a whole will benefit by individuals co-ordinating and potentially sacrificing personally; so that the team will benefit as a whole. Every team multiplayer game I've seen this is true, and this seems to be the difference between good players and great players. The reason I ask this is because in some games, doing something seemingly stupid (from their single perspective) is obviously silly. Suiciding Techies so that your team gets kills in Dota springs to mind. When you actually start looking deeper, you see this altruistic behaviour popping up everywhere. Try picking your favourite team-based multiplayer computer game and prove me wrong.
On a side note, I am happy that Nirvana.my beat Ehome (underdogs always get an upvote), although I haven't watched the game yet.
Any ideas for an article or discussion? Email me. Excuse the format but I dislike friendly neighbourhood Russian Spammers :
( ben-st-ee-n-hui-sen [AT] g--m-a-il [DAWT] -c-o-m ) remove the '-'s.
Arcade Fuhrer, out.
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