[meta] fishing

[graydoom]

No, Actually I meant this (received in email):

This was voted on: Changes are the spelling and grammar fixes, Named Locations,

This was not: and primitive anticluster (not
style/location/etc based yet sadly).

What is this? No explanation was given in the email about what this is for?

Lady D... have you not been following the threads Rei has made? I know you've posted in them... and he has explained that multiple times in those threads. For a more detailed explanation, just look through those threads.

For a quick explanation, here you go. Due to the random numbers being currently generated somewhat in relation to the system clock, if multiple moves are generated at almost exactly the same time the multiple moves can look very similar. This has become a problem recently because of the Hand generator, which does generate multiple moves at once. Rei changed some of the values to make this clustering less likely to happen, while still keeping the overall percentage of moves that would have a specific chracteristic the same. It still does happen (thus the anti-cluster caled primitive), but Rei is looking for other ways to improve the generator to prevent it. Keep in mind, this is a somewhat simplistic explanation of this. Use it only for information on the basics of what Rei did, not the complete technical details.

 

[reiella]

Err... I've explained anticlustering now at least 2 times to you Lady Diamond, and you've asked me when I'll be able to expand it to styles/locations etc.

It's just a minor behavior that affects no theoritical probability but makes the move gens less likly to be similiar in a burst.

Gray covered most of it, really, and my other posts in those threads explain the points more thoroughly.

[ Hindsight ]

 

[Zappo]

What could be done to make the web generator safe?

An advantage of this game is that the moves are never secret. Which means that, to prevent cheating, it is sufficient to have a secure way to display to the opponent the generated move. So, I can see two solutions:

Some time ago, I suggested that it asked the nick of the user generating a move and logged the nick, the time, and the move, and displayed the log publicly. That would make any form of cheating immediately apparent. Displaying the last 24 hours of moves would be enough. It would be a big file to view, but not excessive. Could be cut by making an option to only view the moves generated by a certain nick. However, that would need write access to the server, and I don't know if that's available. And someone able to write the script, of course.
Alternatively, the generator could have an option to send an email to a given address containing the generated move. A player would check the option and the generator would make the move and also send it to his opponent. That would block cheating, unless one is able to send fake emails that pretend to have been sent by the generator - which is possible, I think, but not common knowledge. It also wouldn't need write access to the server. Again, there's got to be someone who can do it.

 

[Lady Diamond]

Oh, for pete's sake. I've seen "explanations" couched in so much jargon and rhetoric that it's impossible to absorb, I've asked for clarification and I get more jargon.

GD, the posts I direct towards Reiella are for his response, not yours. I don't know why I have to explain this, you seem like an intelligent fellow, if a little belligerent.

Reiella, your email made no mention of what the "primitive anti-clustering" programming was for (I don't read minds), and implied that it was meant for future issues, not present ones. That is what the words "not yet" mean.

Yeah, I read the threads, I also have more going on in my day-to-day life than YB. I'm not going to slog through old threads to try to glean whatever relative information there is, when one line in an email would have described what was going on. We have what appears to be a simple miscommunication that could have been fixed with a couple of simple sentences, rather than the somewhat hostile "double-teamed" outpouring I received. You two must really think I'm "bad" or something, worth trying to intimidate. *chuckles* I think that's really strange that you guys seem insulted by what I said. I Will try to hang onto your every word as if it were golden in the future.

"Reiella, what is this?"

"It keeps the hand generator from having similar styles or other similarities pop up in the moves, it's a current fix."

"Oh, ok. Cool".

See how simple that was?

In any case, I was able to get the information I needed from the two "hey can't you read" responses I received, and I'll update the main generator tomorrow.

 

[Left-handed Hummingbird]

You know, the perfect solution would be to integrate the generator with these boards so when you were in a thread in this forum you could just press a "post a move" or "post a hand" button and the boards would generate a post containing the move or hand. Since the board registers if you edit that move you could be certain that the fighter didn't cheat.

*sigh* That's probably not going to happen though.

 

[Wicht]

Since that would take an Act of Morrus LHH it probably won't happen. And I would hesitate to bring it up to him as I would like him to get the other board problems fixed first

As to the generator discussion (and, ahem, lets keep it civil), I do think the styles and locations and defenses could easily be improved.

First off, the styles should be broken down into families (an old suggestion of Lady Tsins we never followed through on). These families could for example be animals, beasts, plants, weapons and weather with ten members each. (Or ten families with 5 members each).

The locations themselves could be split into types (Water, Fire, Earth, buildings, and Celestial for instance).

The defenses styles could then be arranged to fit into the types (with 5 location and 5 style families, each family would get 5 defenses aimed at it with 1 word that could cover two entries). This would more or less even up the chances of any one defense being useful against any one atack.

 

[Wicht]

Since i got a little time I thought I would give my suggestions for the styles, and relevant defenses - the locations will take a bit more work.

Styles:
Animals: (14) snake, crane, falcon, fox, tiger, jaguar, rabbit, lizard, rat, wolf, spider, scorpion, crab, turtle
Plants: (6) Cherry Blossum, rose-petal, Willow, Oak, vine, lily
Weapons: (14) dagger, sword, needle, spear, hammer, mace, staff, chopstick, kama, scythe, cane, fan, claw, fang
Beasts: (10) wyvern, dragon, unicorn, ki-rin, chimera, manticore, phoenix, angel, demon, ?wraith?
Weather: (6) rain, thunder, westwind, eastwind, Blizzard, Northstar

Defenses
Reptile, bird, canine, cat, rodent, vermin, armor; flower, tree, garden; blade, arrow, iron, wood, sickle, ?nobility?, tooth and nail; wyrm, horse, abomination, light, darkness; storm, breeze, snow;

 

[Jin Chi]

Hmmmmm......wrong thread for this, but yeah Wicht, that was what I was trying to get at as well in the other recent thread about this.

Perhaps "beast" for the defenses as well.....

The random defenses make no sense. They are okay for generating a cool sounding move, but not as appropriate in a game where comparitive strengths are important.

 

[reiella]

Hmm if we're changing those lists may be worthwhile to postpone the gen talk. That and it looks like the suggested changes by wicht will superplant most of the issues people had before.
Also, we will most likly lose a 'fan favorite' of west wind doing this... I honestly can't think of much else that would fit with it... At least in terms defensively. Would probably have to post a list of groups that are attached for judge reference, which I'm not too sure is a good idea. Another grouping suggestion is to further split up animals to 'land' animals, and 'sea' animals (most of the defenses for 'aquatic' locations would probably be the same however...).

Could keep it in the noun table as a semi-unique defense Hopefully we can have some 'unique' defenses that are independant of the different groupings. the noun table does not and currently is not 50 sized like the styles/locations tables.

For locations, I'm just at a lose for the celestial places (heavens,hell)....

Oh... Another question.
How will antiquated styles,locations be handled?


current tables

/* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- */
/* Chart 02 -- Styles */
/* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- */
var xmtab02 = new Array(
"blizzard", "cherry blossom", "chopstick", "chimera", "claw",
"crab", "crane", "dagger", "dragon", "falcon",
"fan", "fang", "fist", "fox", "frog",
"hammer", "jaguar", "kama", "ki-rin", "lizard",
"lotus blossom", "manta ray", "manticore", "mantis", "mongoose",
"monkey", "needle", "northstar", "owl", "panther",
"phoenix", "rabbit", "rat", "raven", "rose petal",
"scorpion", "snake", "spear", "spider", "staff",
"sword", "thorn", "thunder", "tiger", "toad",
"tree", "turtle", "vine", "west wind", "wolf");


/* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- */
/* Chart 07 -- Turf Names */
/* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- */
var xmtab07 = new Array(
"badlands", "canyon", "castle", "caves", "cemetery",
"city", "coast", "delta", "desert", "dungeon",
"foothills", "forest", "fountain", "garden", "gate",
"glade", "grotto", "heavens", "hells", "island",
"knoll", "lake", "madlands", "marsh", "mesa",
"mountain", "palace", "pillars", "plain", "pond",
"prairie", "ravine", "ricefield", "river", "ruins",
"savanna", "spring", "steppes", "swamp", "temple",
"tower", "tundra", "vale", "valley", "village",
"vineyard", "volcano", "wastelands", "well", "wetlands");

/* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- */
/* Chart 09 -- Nouns */
/* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- */
var xmtab09 = new Array(
"battlements", "body", "chi", "clouds", "dark sunbeam",
"eyes", "fell dagger", "flame", "fortress", "heart",
"invisible blade", "ki", "moon", "rain", "rainbow",
"snow", "soul", "spirit", "stone", "stars",
"steel", "sun", "plant", "comet", "ember",
"foul", "four winds", "lightning", "root", "void",
"willow", "wyrm", "air", "armor", "arrow",
"bamboo", "earth", "fire", "honor", "lava",
"leaf", "lightbeam", "mist", "scythe", "shadow",
"shield", "mind", "steam", "teardrop", "water",
"weapon", "amphibian", "ape", "bird", "canine",
"cat", "reptile", "rodent", "vermin", "lily",
"orchid", "rosewood", "sunflower", "willow");

[ Elaborated on West Winds ]

 

[Darkness]

Bump so Meowth gets an answer on the antiquities, etc.