HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
Subject: Axis&Allies PBEM/PB IRC Forming!!!
From: oberland@vax.sonoma.edu
Date: 29 Aug 92 13:35:33 -0800
Organization: Sonoma State University

Well, I'm back in net-land(actually back for the Fall session), and 
wondered if anyone would like to start a game of A&A by Email.

The only problem is that it would require a moderator to do the dice rolls.

I played a game earlier this year by Email, and it worked fine.  It 
WAS a bit slow, though, so we came up with the following ideas to 
speed up the game from 2-3 months to 1-2 weeks:

1:Get on a MUD where they wil allow you to make 3 rooms.  One for the 
game, and one each for each side to conference turns/strategy.

2:Do the Windows/Multiple logons routine and TALK to each other.
Problem: this requires a VERY good record-keeping system "upstairs", 
or a LARGGGE monitor.

3:Best solution:  Do it VIA IRC.  Create a conference, and away you/we go.

The game, while open to all, would work best if we all had IRC access 
or a MUD to hold it in. (I sort of enjoyed the suspense of doing it 
by mail-but it was a BIT(heh) slow)
**NOTE** This means one WEEK per turn for Mail or one NIGHT per turn 
for IRC.  I DO prefer the faster version, but can play the other.

I cannot be the moderator, due to time requirements(namely, 11 
Upper-Division CORE units this semester PLUS the regular load of 
projects, etc.)  I would greatly appreciate it if a moderator could 
be found.

If we do it via IRC, then an hour or so every/every other/whatever 
night would be all the moderator would have to do.(Dice ONLY)

Yes, it works, and yes, I think it is more fun than live, due to the 
suspense of strategy and planning, not knowing/overhearing what the 
other side plans, and most of all, playing with different people than 
the same, PREDICTABLE crowd you always play with.

I am in California(PST), and though it did work when we played last 
time, it would help if people from Europe, etc(outside N./S. America) 
would not sign up unless they are really UP at 8-2 or so PST.
-I have one player, also from California, so I feel the need for 
staying within a few hours of each other is necessary.(figure 2-3 
hours either way MAX)-Hawaii, and Alaska are O.K. , and possibly 
Australia/NZ/etc, as well.
-The moderator should be from the US., since resolving combat has to 
be done live with him/her.

Next time, I'll do mail, but I want to try IRC this time, if possible.

HOPE TO SEE YOU SOON,
Joe
From: desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
Subject: Re: Galaxy:Planet Reports
Date: 29 Aug 92 22:52:52 GMT
Organization: IDA Center for Communications Research, Princeton

Tom Finn <finn@convex.com> writes:
>I'd like to see the calculated numbers for speed, attack strength and shield
>value (at the 50% point) listed in the groups section rather than the tech
>levels.  I only use tech levels to calculate those numbers, anyway.

This is a very good point!  It must be more useful to list the weapons
strength, shield strength, and cargo bay size than to list the
corresponding techs.  The only question concerns speed.  It's hard to
compute the speed of a group ship when unloaded from its speed when
loaded, and vice versa.  Listing both the "empty speed" and "full speed"
would solve this problem as well.  (Speeds for partially loaded ships
are occasionally needed, but can if necessary be derived from these
numbers by harmonic interpolation.  If the ship is a fraction F full,
then 1/SPEED = F/(FULL SPEED) + (1-F)/(EMPTY SPEED).)

                                        David desJardins
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: greg@Quotron.COM (Greg "Maddog" Knauss)
Subject: Re: Pacman Ghost logic
Organization: Quotron System, Inc.
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 16:41:54 GMT

odlin@reed.edu (Iain Odlin) writes:


>  Greg Knauss writes that he has doubts that you'll see GAs put in anything
>  useful.

Anytime soon.  I think GA will be a force, but not for a long, long time.
Heck, someday we could be breeding our computers, and genetics will HAVE
to play a role in that.

>  I suggest you ("you" being anyone interested in practical GA applications on
>  a PC) check out the April 1991 issue of "Doctor Dobb's Journal."
>
>  It isn't the be-all and end-all of GA, but it'll sure as Hell point you in 
>  the right direction.

Thanks for the tip.
--
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Greg "Maddog" Knauss               "Aieee!"              greg@duke.quotron.com
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: greg@Quotron.COM (Greg "Maddog" Knauss)
Subject: Re: Pacman Ghost logic
Organization: Quotron System, Inc.
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 15:44:49 GMT

dmb@rice-chex.ai.mit.edu (David Baggett) writes:

>Actually, rice-chex is just a general-purpose server.  If you want a
>challenge, try finding a breakfast cereal (with approprite hyphenation)
>that *doesn't* work when you say "ping <cereal>.ai.mit.edu"  :-)

"captain-crunch" should not count as "Cap'n Crunch".  Plus, pinging it
didn't leave the roof of my mouth all sore.

>That's very much an assumption, and one based on the current state of
>the art.  There are possibly ways of simulating generalized thought
>without using the conventional GA and NN methods.  I don't think the
>information overload is inherent in the problem, but rather a
>side-effect of the solution methods we currently have.

Well, of course.  But quantum advances -- things that are going to make
AI possible -- by definition can't be predicted.  I'm talking about
current methods: with the tools we have right now, the only way GAs or
NNs are going to be used in games on home computers is when home
computers get powerful enough to handle them.  Not any time soon.
This might not be the case when you finish your graduate work.  (Not to
put any pressure on you, Dave...  Heh.)

>That still sort of seems like "faking it" to me.  The character is
>still chosing from a predetermined set of choices.  It only becomes
>interesting, IMHO, when the algorithm (method) starts producing
>patterns of behavior that were not programmed in at the outset.  GA's,
>at least, provide a straightforward way to make this happen, though
>it's unclear (to me at least) that they have anything at all to do
>with independent thought.

Yep.  Faking it big-time.  But even that level of intelligence, even
faked, is much better than 95% of the games out there, which just
blindly throw a billion enemies at you hoping you ram into one.  And
if you break up various methods of attack into smaller "action atoms,"
the game could re-combine them into a mammoth number of different
stratagies.  Things the programmer never imagined.
	No, it's not intelligence by any meaning of the word, but it is
useful for "smarter" enemies.  Games aren't labs and they don't need to
be theoretically pure.  (Good thing, too, 'cause I'd never be allowed to
ever do another one...)
--
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Greg "Maddog" Knauss               "Aieee!"              greg@duke.quotron.com
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: pychen@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Peter Y. Chen)
Subject: Re: Computer-Controlled Players - simulated evolution
Organization: University of California, at Berkeley
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 20:45:55 GMT

In article <1992Sep2.102320.3857@desire.wright.edu> jbatka@desire.wright.edu writes:

>My general concept involves assigning weighted values to a parameter.
>In this case say the parameter is your spacecrafts optimal engagement
>range to an opponent.  The parameter would have some equation describing
>average damage received / average damage given versus range.  The
>CCP would try to minimize this parameter.  The weighting would be a
>addition or subtraction to the range value.  I would give the CCP
>equations similar to the one above for other parameters too.  In this
>way I would have a string of weighted values (e.g. 10, 1, .1, 100, etc).
>this would be my gene string for the GA.
>

But can the CCP invent new genes all by itself?  I think that's the
essence of GA.  If you only have a pre-set number of parameter for
the CCP to determine which combination of settings is best, then it
sounds more like an optimation scheme than a GA.

-- Peter
From: mcuddy@fensende.Rational.COM (Mike Cuddy)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Bitmap->Polygon mapping
Summary: I thought that I had saved the Bitmap mapping code...
Keywords: texture mapping, graphics, fast
Date: 26 Aug 92 09:28:49 GMT

Could someone please send me (or re-post) the bitmap perspective scaling
(texture mapping) code?

I thought I had saved it, but I can't seem to find it now *SIGH*

Thanx in advance.
--Mike Cuddy (mcuddy@rational.com, fensende!mcuddy@apple.com)
"...He's a UNIX hack and he's okay, he works all night and he sleeps all day..."
Well, where I come from, we have a saying: "If you're not going to grab the 
bull by the horns while the iron is in the fire, then get off the pot." 
(There are a lot of chemicals in the water where I come from.) -- Dave Barry
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: veikko@vipunen.hut.fi (Vesa J Pyyluoma)
Subject: Re: Tile Map Animation
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Date: 1 Sep 92 11:13:43

In article <8190@dirac.physics.purdue.edu> saxena@maxwell.physics.purdue.edu (Virendra K. Saxena) writes:

 > 	I know people don't want IBM-graphics questions posted here, but 
 > 	there's no other group to post to right now, so for those of 
 > 	you who want to flame me, sorry :-)

Huh?!  Where should they be posted then, provided they have to do with
games-specific topics (like sprites, scrolling or whatever)??

Vesa Pyyluoma		veikko@vipunen.hut.fi		Irti arjesta!
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: pychen@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Peter Y. Chen)
Subject: Re: Computer-Controlled Players - simulated evolution
Organization: University of California, at Berkeley
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 20:34:58 GMT

In article <1992Sep2.182709.19045@news.media.mit.edu> tsmaster@media.mit.edu (David LeCompte) writes:
>In article <Btx892.1yD@acsu.buffalo.edu> goetz@acsu.buffalo.edu (Phil Goetz) writes:
>I started playing around with an old game that I had written that used
>programmed players and I used GAs on their code. Now, at first I said
>that since I was dealing with machine language and not genes, I would
>get only garbage out. And indeed, I seeded the initial population with
>some robots that I had written. Within 5 generations, my population was
>uniform, and nearly identical to one of my seed robots.
>
>However, I tried again (on a 486, this time :) and I have got some
>interesting behaviors quite randomly. I think that I am going to have to
>add a little bit more randomness into the brew, because things are
>beginning to look too uniform again.
>

Sounds interesting.  Care to share your code with us?

-- Peter
From: odlin@reed.edu (Iain Odlin)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Pacman Ghost logic
Date: 27 Aug 92 05:09:24 GMT
Article-I.D.: reed.1992Aug27.050924.2104
Organization: The Stuffed Animal Trauma Team  (We're Trained Professionals)


  Greg Knauss writes that he has doubts that you'll see GAs put in anything
  useful.

  I suggest you ("you" being anyone interested in practical GA applications on
  a PC) check out the April 1991 issue of "Doctor Dobb's Journal."

  It isn't the be-all and end-all of GA, but it'll sure as Hell point you in 
  the right direction.

  And if you get the chance, I recommend Steven Levy's new book "Artificial
  Life."  I just read through it and it's chock full of neat stuff.  No code
  to speak of ;), but great ideas.

  Enjoy.
-- 
 --------------------------------- Iain Odlin ---------------------------------
                  10 Crosby Street, Level 3, Portland ME 04103
                                 odlin@reed.edu
 -------- A long way back to sunset, and ten thousand miles on to dawn --------
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: librik@cory.Berkeley.EDU (David Librik)
Subject: Re: Adventure Game Compiler
Organization: University of California, at Berkeley
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 10:18:59 GMT

hamrick@milton.u.washington.edu (Mike Hamrick) writes:

>I am looking for an adventure game compiler.  A while back I read parts
>of a discussion concerning a fellow named Josh, and how he couldn't have
>possibly made an adventure game compiler that was as good as mumblemumble.

I don't know about mumblemumble, but I'll take this moment to point out that
TADS -- The Adventure Development System -- is the best darn adventure system
I've ever seen (and I think I've seen all of 'em).  It's shareware, and is
available from wuarchive, in (I think) /msdos/mirrors/games/textadv.  Unlike
most adventure-development systems, whose authors seem permanently stuck in
the 64K age of limitations, TADS is a full-fledged C/Pascal-like object
oriented language, which has a source-code #include file (ADV.T) that defines
everything having to do with adventures, so you can change everything.  You
could even skip ADV.T altogether and go write a database system in the TADS
language (well, almost).  It produces games indistinguishable from Infocom's.

If anyone knows of any new adventure systems, let me know -- I'm always glad
to check them out and see if they are even better.  Maybe someday I'll actually
get around to writing a game.

- David Librik
  librik@cory.Berkeley.edu
From: lyn@columbia.ksu.ksu.edu (Myself)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Network Interactions
Keywords: network, novell
Date: 25 Aug 92 17:55:36 GMT
Article-I.D.: columbia.17ds6oINN23b
Organization: Kansas State University
NNTP-Posting-Host: columbia.ksu.ksu.edu


  Does anyone have ANY information on how to allow multiple-player interaction
on a Novell (tm) Network? Or anything for multi-line BBS games, anything of the
sort will help. Source code for Turbo Pascal(tm) is OK. Actually, ANYTHING is
ok. The rambling, desperate programmer,

-- 
This was brought to you by Myself(lyn@matt.ksu.ksu.edu) who is all things here.
Head of Synergy Systems, a non-official group of aspiring hackers creating and
distributing software for the common good. Head office:Terra, Sol system. We
Flames accepted-and returned with interest and intelligence compounded.
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: ricki@rwthi3.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Richard Breuer)
Subject: WANTED: Card Image Bitmaps
Keywords: card image bitmap
Organization: Rechnerbetrieb Informatik  /  RWTH Aachen
Date:  4 Sep 92 07:25:07 GMT

Does anybody know where to get bitmaps of card images for a card game I
want to program on my PC?

Ricki

--

e-mail: ricki@rwthi3.informatik.rwth-aachen.de            | E.vil N.ever D.ies
mail  : R. Breuer, Brunssumstr. 6, 5100 Aachen, Germany   |     (Overkill)
From: tsmaster@media.mit.edu (David LeCompte)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Computer-Controlled Players - simulated evolution
Date: 2 Sep 92 18:27:09 GMT
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory

In article <Btx892.1yD@acsu.buffalo.edu> goetz@acsu.buffalo.edu (Phil Goetz) writes:
>On the contrary - the bot languages are too powerful for genetic algorithms.
>
>To use genetic improvement of algorithms, you have to be able to change the
>algorithm randomly.  A bot language is rather complex, and changing (say)
>a GOTO to a LET A = B would probably not improve performance.  You would have
>to sort through a lot of mutants before you found a viable one.
>
>The key to using genetic algorithms is to formalize the behavior/construction
>you wish to improve in a way such that a random change still produces something
>plausible.  I don't think that computer-controlled players can be generated
>using genetic algorithms.

Ok, maybe I'm off in left field, but in Steven Levy's _Artificial Life_
book, he talks about an experiment where programs fought to reproduce
themselves. I guess that I don't remember GAs mentioned there. However,
I started playing around with an old game that I had written that used
programmed players and I used GAs on their code. Now, at first I said
that since I was dealing with machine language and not genes, I would
get only garbage out. And indeed, I seeded the initial population with
some robots that I had written. Within 5 generations, my population was
uniform, and nearly identical to one of my seed robots.

However, I tried again (on a 486, this time :) and I have got some
interesting behaviors quite randomly. I think that I am going to have to
add a little bit more randomness into the brew, because things are
beginning to look too uniform again.

Ok, so to reply to the claim above, computer-controlled players CAN be
generated using genetic algorithms. I've been through 22 generations so
far, and haven't seen anything terrific (I guess that I'm still matching
the computer-generated 'bots to my own, and mine are better... now) but
these things are forming pretty much on their own.

>
>I am aware that a network can theoretically do any computable task.  However,
>if your function is not modularized well, the network will function
>inefficiently, to the point that it will not work.
>

Neural Nets cannot, to my understanding, compute multiplication of two
numbers. Perhaps you are not talking about NNs, or perhaps the
multiplication needs to be done differently than I had approached it. It
seems to me that NNs work fine when the outputs are a linear combination
of the inputs.


Just the $/50 of someone who's spent some spare time toying with this
stuff.

-- 
Your Mom!       The Carburator!         |I'm not paid to HAVE opinions.
Your Shoes!     A gardenhose!           |
You got to got to got to got to ...     |This sig can be yours; send $15 to
SCUD MISSILE!!!	-"Scud Missile", Grunge |tsmaster@athena.mit.edu
From: jcrowley@leotech.mv.com (Jon Crowley)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Console games
Date: 26 Aug 92 16:27:00 GMT

To:  cat@wixer.cactus.org

DC>   Well, I've worked on a couple of cartridge titles, one for the
NES, one
DC>for the Gameboy (the latter should be hitting the stores any day
now).

What is the name of the Gameboy one?

 ~ SLMR 2.1a ~ Shoplifters with the runs take Clepto Bismol.


 * Origin: Leo Technology (603)432-2517/432-0922 (HST/V32)
(1:132/189)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: jas37876@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (John A. Slagel)
Subject: Re: Real-Time animation
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 20:01:52 GMT

rahmanqi@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Rahman Qazi Ibadur) writes:

>  I know that there are a lot of games that are Rael-Time but what makes real time diffrent from normal animation?

   I'm not too sure about this, but...

   I *THINK* that real-time animation means that the computer is actually
   redrawing everything as it goes, depending on the your move. The opposite
   of this would be a bunch of pre-drawn scenes, and each move you make
   would select what the next scene was. Real-time basically means that
   it makes a decision based on CURRENT events and does something. 

   For instance, Silicon Graphics Workstations can do 3D shading and 
   hidden surface removal in real-time animation. Most other computers
   (PC's) need to pre-calculate and shade each frame, and then display 
   them. 

   Of course, these are my opinions, not facts.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 John A. Slagel     "My old man used to tell me, before he left this
 j-slagel1@uiuc.edu  shitty world, never chase buses or women- you
                     always get left behind." -The Marlboro Man
From: dmb@rice-chex.ai.mit.edu (David Baggett)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Pacman Ghost logic
Date: 26 Aug 92 15:05:15 GMT
Article-I.D.: life.27230
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

James Hague <exuhag@exu.ericsson.se> writes:
>Jerry Shekhel writes:
>>
>>I got away with a really fast and really dumb technique in my Chomp game.
>
>"Dumb" is the way to go.  To connect this with the computer-controller
>players thread, I find all the talk about genetic algorithms and neural
>networks to be a major overestimation of what is necessary to create
>a formidable opponent (for action games anyway).

But wouldn't it be interesting to have a computer player that only made
decisions as often as a human player?  (Say, 5 times a second or so.)
Also, regardless of how easy it is to make an overly difficult game, it's
still hard to make computer opponents that aren't very predictable.  If
you play any current Pac-Man game long enough you'll get very good
at anticipating the ghosts' "decisions," because when it comes down to
it they're all canned.  Throwing in some randomness doesn't help a
whole lot either; a ghost whose movements are random enough to be
unanticipateable is usually (in my experience) too "dumb" to be a
threat in practice.

>Just the fact that a computer is making accurate decisions 20-60 times
>a second gives a human player a disadvantage.

This may even be an underestimation (in general).  In my Pac-Man game
the ghosts get to make a decision any time they move a pixel.  They
typically move between 2 and 7 pixels per turn, so that's up to a
couple hundred decisions a second.  (Gee, I never thought about that
'til now.)

>The computer will always know which of two paths is shorter, for
>example, while to the player they both look "about three inches long."

Yes, but what would be more interesting would be a computer opponent
that looked at the board and thought to itself, "I dunno, both those
paths look about three inches long.  But I bet he's trying to snag that
pill over there, so I'll turn left."  Perhaps that's part of the recent
fondness for GA's and NN's in this group.

When you think about it, video games are good test beds for generalized
thinking algorithms (or at least the current approximations that
exist).  One of the video game designer's main tasks is to create a
game world with its own physics.  These rules can be made simple enough
to allow GA's and similar approaches to (potentially) have reasonable
results where similar real-world problems are much, much harder.
(Compare making a robot that follows the white line down the middle of
a highway to an intelligent Pac-Man that motors about the maze.
Pac-Man's sensory input is much more limited and easier to connect to
the "thinking" software.)

Dave Baggett
--
dmb@ai.mit.edu           MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory                  
ADVENTIONS: interactive fiction (text adventures) for the 90's!
dmb@ai.mit.edu *** Compu$erve: 76440,2671 *** GEnie: ADVENTIONS
From: sspst8+@pitt.edu (Sanjay S Patel)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Soundblaster Programming?
Date: 4 Sep 92 19:02:47 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh

There was a Soundblaster Programming manual of sorts (Really just a description
of the hardware registers) a while back.  The guy's name was Jeffrey Lee I think. Somebody here might still have the article.
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: teo@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Patrick ChengSan Teo)
Subject: Collision Detection
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 17:48:11 GMT


I'm going to write a game and was wondering if anyone knows of a 
C library of routines to define objects and test if they collide (intersect)
with each other.  If I can't find it, I'd probably have to write them
myself and it'll probably be in 2D.  I was hoping to find a suite
of functions for 3D.  They have to be fast as the animation will be
in real time.

Thanks
Patrick



Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer