Doomtown Plugin

[AnarchistsXe]

Just getting the game mechanics going. Getting the draw hands, the play hands, etc. If someone who plays the game would wanna play one against me I'm sure that would help

[db0]

I see that my reply informing people of the improved plugin for Doomtown on OCTGN was deleted without any reason or notice by the mods. Am I to assume that such information is forbidden here? For shame.

[Dosmodious BlackJack]

Perhaps it's akin to saying in a Pepsi forum, "Try new Coke." I'm not saying I'm right, but I understand. Doomtown works perfectly well on Lackey.

[db0]

I had a huge post explaining the differences between Doomtown on OCTGN and Lackey, and this is why I'm upset that it got deleted without any notice.

Yes, it works fine on Lackey, but there are a lot of errors on the cards and there's no scripting. I've developed a plugin that actually scripts a lot of the menial things in the game, such as keeping track of your influence, GR and Control, or automating upkeep and lowball, or holding actual card memory. I also explained how those who prefer lackey can use my work to imrove the plugin of Lackey. I'm loathe to rewrite all this again after having it deleted.

I also understand that it might not be a good netiquette posting about OCTGN, but I've seen other posts mentioning it here, and these are not exactly competing corporations. There's no money involved. I merely wanted to inform fans here of the alternative and let them choose, and perhaps allow us all to have a few good games.

[AdLit]

Its hard for me to comment specifically as I never saw the original post, however I personally feel that Trevor has always been interested in discussing ways to improve upon Lackey as far as the engine and interface is concerned.  I dont think he or another mod would delete a post because it mentioned "competition."  Without seeing the original posting I cant comment as to any other issues that may or may not have been.  If you think you had some constructive opinions on the plugin, perhaps send a PM to the caretaker of the Doomtown plugin.  He/she may be a receptive collaborator for your ideas.  In general I find the Lackey community to be very interested in the program and the plugins.

[Trevor]

If certain functionality is missing in a plugin, let me know and I will support it.

[db0]

Can you please stop deleting my replies? Jeez.

If you want to see the functionality that is missing from the plugin, you can take a look at the Doomtown plugin for OCTGN. More to the point and as I said in the reply that you deleted: scripting with python. Can you support this?

[Trevor]

If you want to see the functionality that is missing from the plugin, you can take a look at the Doomtown plugin for OCTGN. More to the point and as I said in the reply that you deleted: scripting with python. Can you support this?

What specifically can you not do now that is needed to play doomtown? I don't know how to play that game, so please explain relevant game terms.

[db0]

It's not about "needing" it to play Doomtown, it's about making playing Doomtown as easy as possible.

Can you go through all the cards a player has in the table and count how much of specific values they have (influence, control) and set a players counters to the sum of those values?

Can you place played cards to specific locations on the table according to their type?

Can you reduce a players money according to the cost of a card they just played while at the same time increasing their influence and control counters?

Can you compare poker hand ranks (5 values of 5 different cards) and find which of the players has the best one and by how much hand rank difference?

Can you go through all the cards in the table, count their upkeep and automatically take if from a player's bank?

None of these things are "needed" to play the game. The players may do them themselves manually, but allowing the game engine to do this automatically greatly increases the speed of the game and allows players to concentrate on the fun stuff - Tactics.

[AdLit]

It's not about "needing" it to play Doomtown, it's about making playing Doomtown as easy as possible.

Can you go through all the cards a player has in the table and count how much of specific values they have (influence, control) and set a players counters to the sum of those values?

Can you place played cards to specific locations on the table according to their type?

Can you reduce a players money according to the cost of a card they just played while at the same time increasing their influence and control counters?

Can you compare poker hand ranks (5 values of 5 different cards) and find which of the players has the best one and by how much hand rank difference?

Can you go through all the cards in the table, count their upkeep and automatically take if from a player's bank?

None of these things are "needed" to play the game. The players may do them themselves manually, but allowing the game engine to do this automatically greatly increases the speed of the game and allows players to concentrate on the fun stuff - Tactics.

From what I understand, the purpose of Lackey is to allow you to virtually play a CCG, with the computer version being played essentially in the same manner as the real-life game - meaning counting money, power values, levels, etc, have to be tracked manually.  There is functionality built into Lackey to handle all of the elements you mentioned.  However, it sounds like the issue here is that by using python scripting you can automate all of it, while in Lackey it is manually updated.

db - let me know if i'm off
Trevor - let me know if i'm off

-A

[db0]

With scripting you can automate the most tedious things and also help the player so that they don't make mistakes and don't miss something. This is especially useful for new players and in my experience quite relaxing for veteran players.

[TheBuck]

With scripting you can automate the most tedious things and also help the player so that they don't make mistakes and don't miss something. This is especially useful for new players and in my experience quite relaxing for veteran players.

Thats one reason why Glating was so good;didnt have to worry about people cheating and not catching it.

[Trevor]

I think this sort of scripting is actually a lot less helpful than it seems as far as playing a game. People get into the mindset of "if you can have a computer do things for you, you should have a computer do things for you".

Consider one specific example of the computer automatically putting a card onto the table at a certain position based on the card's type. You totally don't need a computer to do this, since you can easily drag and drop a card to exactly where you want it, in exactly the state you want it, exactly when you want to. A computer on the other hand, will have to guess using AI. Even if a computer sends the card to an adequate position 95% of the time, the 5% of the time it doesn't can be very annoying. AI will never be able to play exactly as a person would. AI will do things how it thinks it should do them, which may or may not be how you want them done. When you leave things to a computer, it generally reduces your options. For example, as it is now, you can play cards where you want them. You can move things around as the table gets more cluttered. You can zoom out, or in, depending on preference. You can use various table playmats, which may or may not indicate where cards should go (and your playmat may be different than your opponent's). If you were letting a computer play cards for you, it would be a lot less versatile and flexible. You lose more than you gain is what I'm saying.

Also, some would argue that all these sorts of little choices (e.g., about where exactly you play cards) is a part of playing the game, and some people enjoy doing them. Have you ever played the game ProgressQuest? (http://progressquest.com/play/) If you do, I think you'll see exactly the point I'm making.

If people really want scripting, I can add it, but this I think will not make playing games actually better.

Also, automation makes things much more daunting to implement as a plugin maker. Sure, scripting could (and would) be optional, but I think lots of plugin makers would get it in their minds that "because you can do something, you should do something". I have tried really hard to make creating plugins extremely easy. Besides managing one text file (plugininfo.txt), all you pretty much need to do is get card images and card text (in an easy to manage spreadsheet format), and even the latter is mostly optional. And I will be automating the creation of plugininfo.txt as soon as I get the time.

[AdLit]

For what it's worth, I agree with Trevor.  For the plugin I manage, I could name at least five instances where automation may enhance gameplay - even something as simple as counting a player's power/effective level based upon the cards in play.  That being said, I don't think I would actually implement it for 2 reasons:
- 1: My plugin works well now, and I'm not sure the added effort in the automation would bring about a change valuable   
       enough to offset that effort
- 2: As Trevor already noted, these things are part of the game.  Keeping track of stats and moving cards is one way, at
       least to me, that players keep each other in check during the game and make sure everything is being played as it 
       should.  I think automation has the potential to be a double-edged sword; it can greatly enhance some aspects while
       leaving others open to error and unintentional misuse. 

I'm in no way making an argument against adding automation to lackey as much as saying i think its utility will be limited to certain situational elements or aspects.

[db0]

I wholeheartedly disagree. The point of automation is not to overrule the player but to help them avoid the less interesting parts of play, which are made slower via a computer engine. If a card is not put in the right location, the player can still move it afterwards, but if you can "play" a card and have the game automatically take the cost off the bank, increase any values it provides and put it in an appropriate location, it makes the game faster and avoid mistakes or cheats.

Consider other scenarios, like not being sure what your value totals are. I've implemented a function to recount all your totals, where the game goes through your cards, counts specific values and updates your totals with the sum of those values. Or consider the function where the game draws five cards, bets 1 "coin" from your bank to a common pot, evaluates that poker hand of those cards, reveals it, compares it with the other player's poker hand, determines and announces the winner, who receives the pot. Given that you need to do this every turn, in "manual" play involving typing your rank, squinting to see the other player's hand and so on can take a bit of time, much more than actual IRL gameplay, automating this procedure can quickly go through this task and allow the players to go quickly to the more exciting parts of the gameplay.

This kind of thing saves a lot of time and helps the players avoid mistakes.

The kind of arguments you're making here are indicative of someone who has not seen exactly how scripting can improve gameplay, rather than take it over. I would wholeheartedly suggest that you experience it before you dismiss it. I can give you a sample play where you will see the kind of scripting available and then have an educated opinion if this is detrimental or not.

Finally if a player prefers to do things manually, this is always still an option in a plugin that provides scripting. People can still drag&drop and modify totals manually. But from all the people I've played with, I have seen none that prefer this method.