From: tom@soda.berkeley.edu (Tom Holub)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: GB at LAR
Date: 18 Nov 1992 04:29:21 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley, CS Undergraduate Association
NNTP-Posting-Host: soda.berkeley.edu

In article <2B09366B.29264@ics.uci.edu> hadley@codes.ics.uci.edu (Tedd Hadley) writes:
)In <1e9slvINNgfr@agate.berkeley.edu> tom@soda.berkeley.edu (Tom Holub) writes:
)
)>          I think LA Riot deserved most of the acrimonious
)>comments; to play a game on calvin when other servers are available
)>is intentionally taking unfair advantage of the home field.
)> -Tom
)
)   Whoa, wait a minute.  If this is going to be the general attitude
)   towards teams with lagged home servers, we have a problem.  First
)   of all, we're going to have to redefine some terms.
)
)   home server: the server that the away team finds the most agreeable.

This is not what I said.  If I wanted to, I could find many machines
on the Cal campus that would have horrible connections to the outside;
we don't play games on these machines because it's not fair to our
opponents.  'Fairness' is not an easily legislatable concept, but that's
how I feel; I don't feel that we would have a right to reject calvin
as a server choice, but I certainly feel we were justified in complaining
about it.

)   fair home field advantage: a measure of network response-time
)   experienced by the home team that is somewhat less then that
)   experienced by the away team, but not by too much.

Ideally, yes.

)   There's no question calvin's response time is very poor, but there are
)   other points to consider before accusing LAR of unfairness:
)
)   1) Last INL season, all home games were played on calvin without
)      apparent network problems.  (Perhaps I should put it another
)      way: SC _lost_ most home games last INL season.)  The seeming
)      conclusion?  Lag - no big deal.

I don't know if Team Darkhorse would agree with this.


)   4) Since when is a team morally required to  forfeit a home advantage?
)      Last season, games were described where the away team had to tradeoff
)      updates between players.   Games were described where practically the
)      whole team spent most of the game ghostbusted.  At no time was it ever
)      suggested that the home team was _at fault_ for not giving up their
)      home server!  (And yet, right after the GB-LAR game, Rob Hill
)      (apparently speaking as an unbiased observer) blamed LAR for just that.)

I have never claimed that you were 'morally required' to forfeit your
home-field advantage.  But if the point of being in the INL is to play
high-quality games, calvin is not the place to play them.  If the point
of being in the INL is to beat teams by killing people flying in 
straight lines, then sure, play at calvin.

)   In the last game, the larger USC part of LAR went to a great deal of
)   trouble to play at a server with more reasonable delay for GB.  Accounts
)   were set up at UCLA, arrangments made for transportation, etc..  The
)   attitude of GB as expressed above?  "Gosh, guys, thanks.  You didn't have
)   to go to all that trouble just on our account."  *NOT*.  How about:
)   "Well _that's_ what you shoulda done in the first game, cheaters."

I am grateful that you did this, and I do think it's what you shoulda
done in the first game.

)   There are two ways we can handle network problems in INL games: just play
)   the game (and then, justification notwithstanding, complain/gripe/moan
)   about it on r.g.n for the next few months), or get an official ruling from
)   the INL council.  Both Rob and Tom seem to have reached an informal
)   conclusion of some sort -- at least with respect to calvin and LAR -- but
)   I think we'd like to see a more generally worded rule if possible.

There was a lot of discussion on this issue but no real conclusion.
One concept we had was having the Council test out all possible server
machine for net load and machine load, and accept or reject servers
based on our findings.  We didn't do this, partly because it would be
a lot of work, and partly because the results wouldn't necessarily
mean anything (since lag comes and goes, except at Calvin).  I'm sure
there will be more discussion, anyway.
 -Tom