RE: Tempest Multigame (behaviour)

> Just because the first player walks away, doesn't make the high-score
> list a bad metric of a player's skill. It just means he walked away!
        [...]
> Take my challenge, start at any level and tell us the highest score
> you could acheive, you'll see what I mean.
>
I think we just have a philosophical difference here. It's the old
"elegance" vs. "brute force" problem. I just have it engrained in my
head that someone that can walk up to the machine, play a single game
and get 19,500 points is a better player than someone that gets 20,000
points after playing it 20 times.

I will agree that if both players are willing to play to the point where
it takes "30 or 40 games to finally make it through a level once" you'd
probably find the better player. What I don't agree with is that in a
setting where there are many players on the machine that the high-score
shows who's better.

Give a "good" player one quarter and let him play one game. Give an
"average" player 100 quarters and let him play and continue. I think at
least some of the time the average player will be able to oust the good
player's score. That leads me to believe that at some point the
high-score list will have an "average" player that's willing to spend
$25 ranked above a "good" player than only needed $.25 for the same
feat.

Looks like the high-score list doesn't equate to a high-skill list to
me. ;-)

-Clay
Received on Wed May 26 18:47:23 1999