[billw55]

lol thread.

Look around your club. Seriously. What portion of the players do expect to be willing or able to play with little screens and buttons, or technologies they don't understand or like. What do you think your attendance will be at such games?

Bridge is a card game. People come to club to play with cards.

[hrothgar]

billw55, on Aug 11 2010, 08:31 PM, said:

lol thread.

Look around your club. Seriously. What portion of the players do expect to be willing or able to play with little screens and buttons, or technologies they don't understand or like. What do you think your attendance will be at such games?

Bridge is a card game. People come to club to play with cards.

D+D used to be a game played with dice, paper, and pencils...
Indeed, it still exists in this form.

I'm willing to bet that its more popular in the form of Massively Multiplayer Online Games like World of Warcraft.

FWIW, I agree that many of today's players aren't gonna make the leap to a computerized playing environment. Then again, I'm not sure how long many of them are gonna be doing much of anything...

[mgoetze]

hrothgar, on Aug 11 2010, 06:40 PM, said:

D+D used to be a game played with dice, paper, and pencils...
Indeed, it still exists in this form.

I'm willing to bet that its more popular in the form of Massively Multiplayer Online Games like World of Warcraft.

I strongly disagree with the implication that these games are even in the same genre.

[blackshoe]

WoW is called a MMORPG, where the last 3 letters stand for "role playing game", but the playing of roles in WoW is rare enough that Blizzard has provided specific servers for it — and there are significantly fewer "RP" servers than there are "normal" or "PvP" (Player vs. Player) servers.

[TimG]

mgoetze, on Aug 11 2010, 02:09 PM, said:

hrothgar, on Aug 11 2010, 06:40 PM, said:

D+D used to be a game played with dice, paper, and pencils...
Indeed, it still exists in this form.

I'm willing to bet that its more popular in the form of Massively Multiplayer Online Games like World of Warcraft.

I strongly disagree with the implication that these games are even in the same genre.

When I played D&D in the early 80s, a GM took time to provide descriptions of things, there was lots of time spent rolling dice and consulting tables, things moved along slowly in general. In the online versions of D&D no time taken rolling dice and consulting tables, GMs don't have to take time to provide descriptions of things, that sort of thing. There are similar benefits to electronic bridge -- no shuffling and dealing, no keeping score, no physical move to the next table. no revokes. So, even if we don't need a graphic display of a bloodthirsty King capturing a shrieking Queen, there are still benefits. And, those benefits are somewhat similar to some of the benefits that online gamers enjoy.

[hrothgar]

blackshoe, on Aug 11 2010, 10:38 PM, said:

WoW is called a MMORPG, where the last 3 letters stand for "role playing game", but the playing of roles in WoW is rare enough that Blizzard has provided specific servers for it — and there are significantly fewer "RP" servers than there are "normal" or "PvP" (Player vs. Player) servers.

And D+D evolved into "Munchkin"

[tim_delane]

billw55, on Aug 11 2010, 05:31 PM, said:

lol thread.

Look around your club.  Seriously.  What portion of the players do expect to be willing or able to play with little screens and buttons, or technologies they don't understand or like.  What do you think your attendance will be at such games?

Bridge is a card game.  People come to club to play with cards.

People used to bid by voice; now the use bid boxes without a qualm. I don't expect my vision to happen next year.

[eyhung]

TimG, on Aug 11 2010, 12:58 PM, said:

So, even if we don't need a graphic display of a bloodthirsty King capturing a shrieking Queen, there are still benefits.

Personally, I think playing a game with graphic displays of a bloodthirsty King capturing a shrieking Queen, or Jacks uppercutting Kings, would be fun marketing. Anyone remember Battle Chess in the 1980s, the computer program that had the chess pieces come alive and fight?

[NickRW]

eyhung, on Aug 12 2010, 11:12 PM, said:

TimG, on Aug 11 2010, 12:58 PM, said:

So, even if we don't need a graphic display of a bloodthirsty King capturing a shrieking Queen, there are still benefits.

Personally, I think playing a game with graphic displays of a bloodthirsty King capturing a shrieking Queen, or Jacks uppercutting Kings, would be fun marketing. Anyone remember Battle Chess in the 1980s, the computer program that had the chess pieces come alive and fight?

It would maybe interest some of the younger generation. I remember battle chess and I was quite a bit younger then - but it already looked cheesy.

Nick

[eyhung]

I'd rather market to the younger generation than to the older generation. Longer retention. Even now we're still reaping the benefits of marketing to youth in the 1940s.

Put in tie-ins to popular media franchises like Lord of the Rings -- Orcs for Clubs with Saruman as the Ace, or Elves for Hearts, and then have the cards fight when they win, and you may get some more people to give it a try. Purists may howl, but if we don't try to capture more players, in 25 years there may not be enough people left playing.

[NickRW]

eyhung, on Aug 13 2010, 12:41 AM, said:

I'd rather market to the younger generation than to the older generation. Longer retention. Even now we're still reaping the benefits of marketing to youth in the 1940s.

Put in tie-ins to popular media franchises like Lord of the Rings -- Orcs for Clubs with Saruman as the Ace, or Elves for Hearts, and then have the cards fight when they win, and you may get some more people to give it a try. Purists may howl, but if we don't try to capture more players, in 25 years there may not be enough people left playing.

Yuh, I wasn't disagreeing with you - so longer as these extras graphics have a 'switch it off' option for those of us less attracted to that sort of stuff

[Gerben42]

Quote

And D+D evolved into "Munchkin"

I ♥ Munchkin!

Back to topic, what is the big advantage of not having cards? If any advancement is made to avoid the duplicating before the game, it will be electronic playing cards that can be reset to play the next board.

[TimG]

Gerben42, on Aug 13 2010, 10:41 AM, said:

Back to topic, what is the big advantage of not having cards? If any advancement is made to avoid the duplicating before the game, it will be electronic playing cards that can be reset to play the next board.

One advantage is that all bidding and play would be recorded.

[sathyab]

My $0.02. After a fairly successful Spring Nationals in Reno I was totally buried in work the following four months. Being seriously rusty, I started playing some on-line Bridge a week before the New Orleans Nationals . Since time was at a premium, I played a lot against GIBs, I didn't care how they played, I just wanted to get back to the game. I discovered much to my chagrin that on-line Bridge is hopelessly inadequate to prepare you serious F2F bridge.

[benlessard]

Imo electronic poker machines are simply great yet most people dont like them because they dont feel real.

The future of games in general is the machine doing the menial work and still lets people having all what there used to.

4 touch screen on a table =

automatic shuffle and keeping score, self alert, being able to ask for the meaning of a bid without alerting the opps. more hands in an hour no revoke, insufficiant bid or card played out of turn.

Once people will get used to it real card will be a thing of the past.

[billw55]

benlessard, on Aug 18 2010, 08:16 PM, said:

Imo electronic poker machines are simply great yet most people dont like them because they dont feel real.

The future of games in general is the machine doing the menial work and still lets people having all what there used to.

4 touch screen on a table =

automatic shuffle and keeping score, self alert, being able to ask for the meaning of a bid without alerting the opps. more hands in an hour no revoke, insufficiant bid or card played out of turn.

Once people will get used to it real card will be a thing of the past.

ummm ... right ...

And the same for chess? No illegal moves, no touch move controversy, no clock errors, full record for draw claims, etc .. perfect right? And maybe we can say the same for Go: no pesky stone drops that disturb the board. Oh and don't forget Scrabble and Monopoly. Pinochle and euchre too, and throw in Uno for good measure. Yes I can see it, eventually all games will be video games and everyone will love it! No need for boards or cards or dice ever again. How could anyone possibly prefer real equipment when they can have nice little screens and buttons?

mehhhh

[benlessard]

The difference is that in ,go,scrabble shogi, there is no big time upside for the electronic version. While for poker and bridge the upside (time) is really there. For poker we are talking 80 hands per hours instead of 20 + lower cost wich should translate in lower rake (but rarely does).

For bridge we are reducing possible cheating and playing more in the spirit of the laws of bridge (less UI, self explanation of the bids).

Ive played a lot of boardgames in my life and many of them are available on the web at
BSW brettspiel. Sure some of the boardgames are better live because seeing your opponnent is fun but many of the games are already more popular on the web because of greatly increased speed, rules that are easiers to learn, no game preparation , no sorting of pieces etc.

In the future we can assume that people will have IPAD like device that will allow them to play FTF games will all the fun of FTF but without the inconvenience of menial work

[billw55]

benlessard, on Aug 19 2010, 10:32 AM, said:

For poker we are talking 80 hands per hours instead of 20 + lower cost wich should translate in lower rake (but rarely does).

80 hands per hour? That's 45 seconds per hand, which is hard to believe even without shuffling and dealing. All the players can evaluate their hands, make all their decisions, all their bets, over 4 rounds of betting, in 45 seconds per hand on average? If they are, they must be speed gamblers, playing for a fast fix and not focusing on skill at all. Much like slot machines.

Quote

Ive played a lot of boardgames in my life and many of them are available on the web at BSW brettspiel. Sure some of the boardgames are better live because seeing your opponnent is fun but many of the games are already more popular on the web because of greatly increased speed, rules that are easiers to learn, no game preparation , no sorting of pieces etc.

I disagree. The primary reason people play their favorite games online is not for improved mechanics, but for ease of finding opponents. Pretty much everyone I know or talk to prefers a live game with real people given the choice. How many people stay at home on club night to play on BBO for 3-4 hours, because they just can't stand shuffling or the occasional revoke? I bet none. Rather, people play on BBO for the convenience of getting an hour or so of hands in at odd times, or maybe for longer sessions when a club game/tournament is not available within reasonable travel. BBO is not a substitute for real clubs, and will not ever be in my opinion.

Quote

In the future we can assume that people will have IPAD like device that will allow them to play FTF games will all the fun of FTF but without the inconvenience of menial work

I think we will find that people just plain like playing with cards, and just plain don't like playing everything with ipads. And I think this will continue to be true for the forseeable future. Am I wrong? Only time will tell

[TimG]

billw55, on Aug 19 2010, 10:53 AM, said:

How many people stay at home on club night to play on BBO for 3-4 hours, because they just can't stand shuffling or the occasional revoke? I bet none. Rather, people play on BBO for the convenience of getting an hour or so of hands in at odd times, or maybe for longer sessions when a club game/tournament is not available within reasonable travel. BBO is not a substitute for real clubs, and will not ever be in my opinion.

There are lots of factors which go into the choice between BBO and live clubs.

If I could walk across the street to play a club game so that convenience was negligible (I'll ignore the benefits of pajamas, music and food and beverages of my choice), I would often choose to play online because of the quicker pace of play. I can play 3 speedballs (36 boards) in the time it takes to complete a normal live club game (24-27 boards). And, it even costs less.

Now, if I could take the few bucks I saved by playing online and use if for a post-game drink or two (or better yet, a snack) at the bar while discussing hands with friends...

There is a social difference between live clubs and online games. But, just as people have gotten used to computer scoring, bidding boxes and duplimates, people would get used to playing their cards on an iPad type device while they are sitting at a table with their partner and opponents.

[billw55]

Quote

There are lots of factors which go into the choice between BBO and live clubs.

If I could walk across the street to play a club game so that convenience was negligible (I'll ignore the benefits of pajamas, music and food and beverages of my choice), I would often choose to play online because of the quicker pace of play.  I can play 3 speedballs (36 boards) in the time it takes to complete a normal live club game (24-27 boards).  And, it even costs less.

Now, if I could take the few bucks I saved by playing online and use if for a post-game drink or two (or better yet, a snack) at the bar while discussing hands with friends...

There is a social difference between live clubs and online games.  But, just as people have gotten used to computer scoring, bidding boxes and duplimates, people would get used to playing their cards on an iPad type device while they are sitting at a table with their partner and opponents.

I understand what you are saying. And yes, there are other reasons people play on BBO.

But the last bit in green - I simply don't believe it. And like I said, only time will tell.