Re:I don't understand the question.
on
Solving Chess?
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· Score: 1
The number of moves of the shortest white win/black win/stalemate is actually irrelevant. For example, it's known that it's possiblt for white to win after three moves. There are certainly no draws or black wins that quick. But this doesn't mean the game is solved, because black won't necessarily make the moves that allow this quick win to happen.
It's not the number of moves to win that count - it's which player always has an answer for every possible opponent's move which guarantees victory. (If neither player does, then a perfectly-played game is a draw.)
Re:What would happen if we changed the rules?
on
Solving Chess?
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· Score: 1
Well, the king-queen switch is easy; it definitely favours the computer. A human might be disoriented by a board which is the mirror of what they're used to, but it would be trivial to modify a computer's algorithm to accomodate this.
The other switches pose a more interesting question.
OK, OK, it's not really fair to harp on spelling errors... Goodness knows, I'm at fault at least as often as anyone else. But... did anyone else find it hilarious that this poster confused the word "vulnerability" with "venerability". The latter, I assume, would mean "capable of being venerated", defined by MW Online (http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm) as " to honor (as an icon or a relic) with a ritual act of devotion".
In the common parlance, "venerable" actually means "old", though as the root word suggests it's a very respectful way of saying "old".
And yes, with no disrespect intended to the original poster, it was one of the more amusing errors I've seen lately.
Open Sourcing of Weakest system in Roleplaying (Score:4) by sugarman on Wednesday March 22, @01:12PM EDT (#97) (User Info) This is a shame. TSR has long been the M$ of roleplaying, extending their roleplaying system into any and all genres, including some that where is obviously didn't fit. The reason there have been so many additions (patches) is that for anything beyond a quick dungeon crawl, AD&D breaks down quickly in being able to handle the complexities of the rules. AD&D has largely been a cludge, a hack, since its inception. It has since been surpassed by most other systems that are out there. WhiteWolf, FASA, SJG, and GamesWorkshop all had much more workable systems, that scaled much better. AD&D has just always had more money, more marketing, and a larger installed user base to allow it to maintian it's market dominance, despite the system being crap.
True. Even Dancey acknowledges this in the interview.
The reality of the weaknesses in TSR's strategy was revealed once they faced a true open paradigm from the CCG's. It was small, lightweight, and portable, usable on a variety of hardware, and was able to cross a number of language and cultural boundaries by dealing with differng sytems iconically. The wooshing sound that was heard was the rush of players moving to the open CCG style. Of course we saw an incredible influx of different distributions, and there were those that were advocates of one or the other, but in the end it all came down to the same thing: playing cards.
Ummm... huh? Sorry if that's less than a cogent objection, but I simply have no idea what you're talking about here. CCGs are more "open" than RPGs? How? Because they use physically smaller equipment (questionable) and are non-verbal?
White Wolf has always been a crap system. Simple, maybe, but it throws realism and common sense right out the door as bad as anything TSR has ever made. Well, a simple unrealistic system is probably better than a complex unrealistic system like D&D. But I agree that the Storyteller system is no great shakes mechanically... as an Ars Magica spinoff it does share some of Ars' elegance, but the decision to include a Shadowrun-style dice pool baffles me completely.
You, as an obvious repeat AC, know of something called the "Slashdot Effect", it's the strange phenomenon of 100,000 info-crazy quadrapeds stressing the laws of physics and the capabilities of silicon based counting machines. Hey wait... you know the number of quadrapeds (as opposed to bipeds)??? I thought on the internet, no one could tell that you were a dog...
Slashdot Mirror
The number of moves of the shortest white win/black win/stalemate is actually irrelevant. For example, it's known that it's possiblt for white to win after three moves. There are certainly no draws or black wins that quick. But this doesn't mean the game is solved, because black won't necessarily make the moves that allow this quick win to happen.
It's not the number of moves to win that count - it's which player always has an answer for every possible opponent's move which guarantees victory. (If neither player does, then a perfectly-played game is a draw.)
Well, the king-queen switch is easy; it definitely favours the computer. A human might be disoriented by a board which is the mirror of what they're used to, but it would be trivial to modify a computer's algorithm to accomodate this.
The other switches pose a more interesting question.
OK, OK, it's not really fair to harp on spelling errors ... Goodness knows, I'm at fault at least as often as anyone else. But... did anyone else find it hilarious that this poster confused the word "vulnerability" with "venerability". The latter, I assume, would mean "capable of being venerated", defined by MW Online (http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm) as " to honor (as an icon or a relic) with a ritual act of devotion".
In the common parlance, "venerable" actually means "old", though as the root word suggests it's a very respectful way of saying "old".
And yes, with no disrespect intended to the original poster, it was one of the more amusing errors I've seen lately.
Open Sourcing of Weakest system in Roleplaying (Score:4) by sugarman on Wednesday March 22, @01:12PM EDT (#97) (User Info) This is a shame. TSR has long been the M$ of roleplaying, extending their roleplaying system into any and all genres, including some that where is obviously didn't fit. The reason there have been so many additions (patches) is that for anything beyond a quick dungeon crawl, AD&D breaks down quickly in being able to handle the complexities of the rules. AD&D has largely been a cludge, a hack, since its inception. It has since been surpassed by most other systems that are out there. WhiteWolf, FASA, SJG, and GamesWorkshop all had much more workable systems, that scaled much better. AD&D has just always had more money, more marketing, and a larger installed user base to allow it to maintian it's market dominance, despite the system being crap.
True. Even Dancey acknowledges this in the interview.
The reality of the weaknesses in TSR's strategy was revealed once they faced a true open paradigm from the CCG's. It was small, lightweight, and portable, usable on a variety of hardware, and was able to cross a number of language and cultural boundaries by dealing with differng sytems iconically. The wooshing sound that was heard was the rush of players moving to the open CCG style. Of course we saw an incredible influx of different distributions, and there were those that were advocates of one or the other, but in the end it all came down to the same thing: playing cards.
Ummm... huh?
Sorry if that's less than a cogent objection, but I simply have no idea what you're talking about here. CCGs are more "open" than RPGs? How? Because they use physically smaller equipment (questionable) and are non-verbal?
White Wolf has always been a crap system. Simple, maybe, but it throws realism and common sense right out the door as bad as anything TSR has ever made.
Well, a simple unrealistic system is probably better than a complex unrealistic system like D&D. But I agree that the Storyteller system is no great shakes mechanically... as an Ars Magica spinoff it does share some of Ars' elegance, but the decision to include a Shadowrun-style dice pool baffles me completely.
You, as an obvious repeat AC, know of something called the "Slashdot Effect", it's the strange phenomenon of 100,000 info-crazy quadrapeds stressing the laws of physics and the capabilities of silicon based counting machines. Hey wait... you know the number of quadrapeds (as opposed to bipeds)??? I thought on the internet, no one could tell that you were a dog...
> And no-one in Europe would think of Pomp & Circumstance #1 as 'a piece played at graduations'.
Heck... even in North America I thought it was better known as "Macho Man" Randy Savage's ring entrance music.:)