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Behind the Moralgorithm

Posted by Zonk on from the go-little-man-go dept.

LA Weekly has up an editorial about quantifying the intangible in video games. He discusses NBA Live's attmempt to incorporate the ineffable something that makes winning teams win. From the article: "...I'd occasionally seen the moralgorithm needle hit the red; that every so often the game goes supernatural. Like one matchup, where I was playing the Sonics against the Heat on Xbox Live, and I could tell something really clicked for me when Jerome James, my oafish center, hit two three-pointers. Then Vladimir Radmanovic, whose little polygonal computer face seemed to look as surprised as I was, stole the ball from 10 feet away and passed to Antonio Daniels on a fast break that drew so much moralgorithmic momentum, I swear Ray Allen levitated up court for the most improbable alley-oop of all time."

3 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. The word for today is 'moralgorithm'... by TripMaster+Monkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

    From TFA:
    There must be some kind of algorithm that generates morale, I suggested, a moralgorithm -- and my team's was off.
    Setting aside for a moment the sheer loser-ness of this statement....right up there with 'my controller isn't working' and 'I wasn't ready', it seems that Josh is attempting to coin a new term for the gaming lexicon. It's a pretty heavy-handed attempt...the word 'moralgorithm' shows up seven times in the article (including the title).

    Please, do your part for the gaming community and never use this 'word'...let's try to give this thing a clean, quick death.
    --
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    ~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey

    1. Re:The word for today is 'moralgorithm'... by mausmalone · · Score: 3, Insightful

      When I saw this title show up in my RSS reader, I thought it would be an aritlce about morals in AI programming. What it is is something much dumber.

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      -=-=-=-=-=
      I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
  2. Re:Better than catch-up AI by kryogen1x · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I recall playing NBA Jam on the Genesis. My brother and I were pretty good, but the computer would always seem to be able to keep up no matter what. Near the end of the 4th quarter, it was a tie game so we held the ball until there was like one second left, shot, then hit a two pointer to give us a 94-92 lead. Then, with the remaining time, the computer inbounds, heaves a full court three pointer and swishes to win the game. Now, it wouldn't have been so bad if the computer hadn't done the same thing at the end of first half AND the last three games we played.

    /me hates AI handicap.