Saturday, August 13, 2011

Proposal: Suspicious Package

Reached quorum 6 votes to 2. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 15 Aug 2011 16:53:29 UTC

The historical gamestate shall be altered such that this wiki update of creating a Crate performed by Blacky was a legal game action.

Per the previous proposal - Blacky spawned an illegal crate a while ago, and used it to create an Acid Pool. A few days later I pushed someone into it, without having combed through the GNDT history to make sure it was a legal Pool, earning Blacky and myself a Frag. Clearly I’d have spent my AP doing something else if I’d realised that the Pool wasn’t there (and would have played slightly differently since then if I knew I had less of a lead). And other players would have done different things as a result of that death not occurring - Kitty wouldn’t have respawned the next day to pick up their own Acid Barrel, for a start.

Allowing the gained Frags to stay and simply declaring the Crate to be legal seems like the cleanest and fairest solution; anything else seems like a glum precedent to set (giving a big incentive to make small, illegal gamestate updates, then call them out weeks later - even during a DoV - when it can be shown to invalidate someone’s critical action). I think we probably just need an “any game action more than a week old is considered legal” blanket (possibly with an “intentionally invalidating the gamestate is frowned upon” fair play rule to rule out any blatant “lol, actually I gave you some extra points illegally, six days ago” DoV kills), but won’t bundle that up with this fix.

posted by Kevan at 13 Aug 2011 21:04:28 UTC Comments (13)

Comments

Josh: Observer he/they

13-08-2011 21:22:20 UTC

against The frags are easily enough tracked back, and you have after all been unfailingly scrupulous about ensuring the accuracy of the statistics of others.

If you voluntarily lower yours and Blacky’s frags, though, I will switch my vote and self-kill my own proposal.

Kevan: he/him

13-08-2011 21:38:07 UTC

The frags are easy enough to track back, but the rest of the gamestate isn’t. (From my own perspective, I’d gladly rewind the game and replay it from where we were, as I was holding onto the Cup at the time and would have put my AP to better use if I knew that the Pool wasn’t there.)

It seems a bit unfair to focus on removing the two Frags that came from the illegal Pool, and to ignore the rest of its impact. To resolve it fairly, I think we either need to say that the Crate was illegal and really try to scrupulously rewind every possible knock-on effect of it, or we say it was legal and play on.

Bucky:

13-08-2011 23:54:07 UTC

for

Doctor29:

14-08-2011 01:27:38 UTC

for

scshunt:

14-08-2011 07:35:01 UTC

Moreover, actions have been taken since them, many but not necessarily all of them illegal. We may have had Gladiators walking into acid pits and the like, or just getting stuck. Also, how do you interpret a step? Is it a step left or a step to a specific square? The distinction is crucial!

Ever played RoboRally? It’s like that.

Prince Anduril:

14-08-2011 11:14:39 UTC

against I’m not sure we should set a precedent of rolling things back. I think Josh’s proposal was a good one.

Kevan: he/him

14-08-2011 11:54:15 UTC

This proposal rolls nothing back, it simply proposes that we carry on playing exactly as we are. (The current Arena and GNDT reflect the fact that everyone mistakenly thought that Blacky created a legal crate two weeks ago.) It’s Josh’s proposal that suggests rolling back two players’ scores.

Prince Anduril:

14-08-2011 13:55:49 UTC

CoV for

redtara: they/them

14-08-2011 16:05:34 UTC

against Not a fan of hand-waving away things whenever it suits us.

Ely:

14-08-2011 16:49:16 UTC

against per Ienpw.

Kevan: he/him

14-08-2011 19:00:46 UTC

So what’s your preferred solution? To comb back through the gamestate and work out what it would look like today if all the same actions were attempted over the past two weeks (and most would fail, because one blocked move will invalidate pretty much all later moves from that player), but without the crate being there? Are you volunteering to calculate this?

Blacky:

14-08-2011 21:26:01 UTC

for Normally I’m in favor of reverting illegal steps. However, in this case so much time has passed that we just should legalize the move. As one would also have to rewind the rule changes. Different gamestate—> different proposals. I still should get a Foul for the illegal action. Setting up a proposal right now.

Ely:

14-08-2011 21:32:24 UTC

I’d revert anything, for the sake of legality. But it’s just my mood today. :)
imperial