Playing Games Online

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 03:41:01 GMT

So I saw the announcement on the Messenger blog that people can not play Rock, Paper Scissors in Messenger. Sounds fun sort of. The thing with Rock, Paper, Scissors is that it is not really about chance or luck. Rather it is about reading the other person. What do they do for patterns? What does their body language and/or facial expressions tell you they are going to do? The really good players, and trust me there are some, look into the other person's eyes and they win more often than not. Playing Paper,Rock Scissors in a chat window wouldn't work for me. I imagine that for millions of other people it will work though. There are good reasons I don't work in the division I guess.

Some games don't really rely on looking the other player in the face though. I think of chess for example where it is all about the moves. Oh you can understand the other player and look at things like their preferences, their styles, and other things but you can tell all those things from a list of moves. Checkers the same. I can play those games online and it is the same (almost) as live and in person.

On the other hand, Poker is more like Paper, Rock, Scissors. It is a game where one plays the opponent as much or more than the cards. I love to play poker but playing online is really not the same at all. At least not for me. I know that there are poker players who can get a read on people by looking at how long it takes to respond or by analyzing betting patterns but not me. Maybe that is because I am not that good at playing poker - I don't know. or perhaps it is just because I get something different from playing poker than I do with chess. I need the personal interaction.

Online poker is a poor substitute for me. It's like playing against the computer itself. It is too impersonal. And worse still, there is too little information for me. Poker is a game of dealing with limited information as it is so anything that limits me still more is going to hurt my play. And my enjoyment.

Now most online games allow a chat function and I am a good online chatter. But it's not the same. I need a live game to really enjoy poker. Maybe when I can see the faces of other players online; spot tells; watch for body language; maybe then it will be the same. But we're not there yet.

Technorati tags: games, poker, messenger, chat, IM

When you have to hurt someone to win

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 02:59:36 GMT

My wife has an account on an online game site called Pogo. Sometimes I play on it as well. Each week there are challenges - games to play and goals to reach so that the player gets a "badge." The badge is really just an icon that shows that you have mastered the challenge although it does come with points as well. I'm not completely sure what the points are good for but that is besides the point.

It's fun the get the badges and beat the challenges. Sometimes my wife decides that I'd be a better one to go after some challenges. We have different talents. I do not do well at word games for example. I do well at some other games though. Now there are three different types of winning. One can play against time and try to finish tasks before time runs out. Or there are games that one plays either against another person or against an artificial intelligence program. The thirds type of game requires that you play a real person.

I love playing against time. That way I feel it is all about competing with myself and trying to do better each time. Given a choice between competing with an AI or a person I usually have no real opinion. Sometimes it is easier to play people and sometimes it is easier to play a (poor) AI. But this week I had to play Backgammon and the only option was to play with real people.

What is the problem? Well in Backgammon one sometimes has to make things particularly difficult for ones opponent. There is something painful to me about getting sent back to the bar. It's different from Checkers or Chess (both of which I had to play recently but at least had the opinion of playing an AI most of the time.) There is is about skill and planning ahead and moving forward. In Backgammon one sends people back. Perhaps it is irrational but I hate games like that.

If Backgammon was all about skill and you could win by skillfully moving forward and perhaps preventing your opponent from moving that would probably be ok. But with dice there is this whole luck thing. To combat bad luck on the rolls one has to send people back. I play Backgammon with friends. My wife likes to play from time to time and I play it with her. This seems to work. I can see how people are taking things and adjust my play accordingly. But for some reason this is harder for me to do when the person is out there on the Internet somewhere. Now you'd think that since they are unknown people in unknown places it would be easy to just play as if they were some dumb AI. But no. I really understand that there are people on the other end of the wire and that they have feelings.

I played with a couple of people who clearly had no idea how to play Backgammon. They were probably playing to get their badge just as I was. But for me to get my badge they had to lose. And for them to lose sometimes, too often, I had to send them back to the bar. Again and again. And sometimes, because I do know something about the game (though not a lot) once they got to the bar they had no chance. Almost no amount of skill or luck could possibly bring them a win. And they didn't seem to know it. And I felt awful.

I've decided that I will have to turn down some challenges in the future. Perhaps the people I was playing with were fine. Perhaps they felt like they were getting what they wanted out of the game. But I can't know that. I can know that had I been in their shoes I would not have been getting what I wanted. I would not have been having fun. And that just spoils it for me. I really need more win-win opportunities.

Alfred Thompson the Cyberspace People Watcher: Games

Playing Games Online

When you have to hurt someone to win