SpielByWeb

[HappyProle]

The way Reef is currently implemented, you can pretty easily mine the gamelog to determine what is in everyone's parrotfish, except for initial tiles. It seems some people feel this is acceptable while others think it's against the spirit of the game.

[freduk]

In my view, it's OK to mine the gamelog for any information that was publicly available during the game. In a normal face 2 face game, you would (probably) remember information like this, and in this format, some people will write it down, so why not ? I don't see the problem; after all, that's exactly why we start with a hidden tile.

[jbluestein]

I think it's a necessary concession to online play, much as the running money count in Amun-Re is (money is normally private). Since we're not all sitting around the table, we can't keep track in our heads as easily -- it ought to be reasonably easy to track, considering that a game can last for days or even weeks.

[HappyProle]

The follow-up question then is: If it's OK to mine the gamelog, why not put the tilecounts front and center in the game interface?

[nearsider]

[quote]The follow-up question then is: If it's OK to mine the gamelog, why not put the tilecounts front and center in the game interface?[/quote]

I believe this would go against the spirit of the game. I think it's analogous to "It's OK to think and keep track of what's been done, but you shouldn't outright look in someone's fish/behind their screen."

Similarly, you can keep track of which tiles and cubes people have, excepting their original amount. But it wouldn't be right to say "x number of cubes of y color, z polyp tiles of w color, q polyp tiles of unknown color," even though this information is public as well.

I think that information that is "publicly available, not viewable" should be able to be accessed in the log. There are a lot of games that have this feature, and I think it's OK to do it as you've done it here. It would be like VP chips in Puerto Rico. You keep them private, but if you have a good memory you can know how many people have. You woudln't want that in a display, but it'd be OK to have it in the log how many they got.

By this standard, I'd argue for the money count in Amun-Re to be hidden, if that's how the game is supposed to be, but able to be accessed through the log.

However, I think Amun-Re is a better game when you know how much money people have. It allows you to make more tactical bid decisions, purchasing decisions, and offering decisions. Because of this, I'd argue for it to remain public knowledge.

[Golux13]

I think it is especially important to be able to "mine" the gamelog in this setting because we are not sitting around taking consecutive turns. It may be hours between two turns for me, and there is no way I would be able to remember everybody's positions. I could tell that Joe Blow dropped tiles on his last turn, and I might remember what color they were, but I wouldn't know how many -- especially if there was a chance someone else consumed some of them before Joe's parrotfish got the nod. The gamelog lets me catch up on what happened while I was gone; it's an aid to memory.

I'm curious to hear from some of the people who voted that it's not OK. Why do you think it is a no-no?

[Wernazuma]

Personally I use the game log sometimes to check the last turn of players since there is often relevant information available in a f-t-f game (which cube did the other grab?)
And I use it after I'm done with my final turn to calculate scores roughly before the others have made their final turn which doesn't influence the game.

[jarratt]

I'm in the opinion that it's not okay. Primarily because there are 2 reasons to mine the GL.
1) To know what it in the other players parrotfishes
2) To know what is behind their screens

In the first instance, during a game it is acceptable to remember that someone has eaten a big reef of Orange or a small reef of White. Some players are good at even remembering the entire amount the whole way through the game.

In the 2nd instance however I think it is virtually impossible to remember the changing amounts of cubes and polyp behind someone's screen. Yes a select few people will be able to do this but if my face to face gaming groups are any indication then the number of people that can is pretty small.

While knowledge of what tiles people have consumed is okay and playing towards that is part of the game, knowing what is behind someone's screen can allow you to do some really sneaky moves, knowing that other players won't be able to effect an unsafe reef for example at the end of the game.

Those moves are risky, and they should be. Playing them with knowledge that makes them safe spoils the game a little.

All that said, this is an online variation of Reef Encounter and as such perhaps it should be treated differently. If the knowledge is there people will use it to their advantage, regardless of how many people agree or disagree with mining the gamelog.

[Golux13]

I have tried to mine the gamelog to track what is behind everyone's screens, and I have determined that the costs -- the time and effort involved -- far outweigh the benefits. If I need to have some idea of whether someone will be able to screw me up completely, I may go and look at his last couple of larva cube pickups -- pretty analogous to my memory in a ftf game -- but it's just not worth the effort of trying to capture all the behind-the-screen info.

Checking what everyone has eaten is a necessary part of the endgame in this online, interrupted format (unlike ftf, where it's all relatively fresh in my mind).

[gische]

I think it's perfectly reasonable to mine the gamelogs for what tiles your opponents have taken, for pretty much the same reason everyone else does. It's impossible to track that (normally trackable) information in a pbw game, because the time is too spread out, and it's likely that any given player is playing multiple games at one time.

Given that, I see no reason to not just show that information on the screen at all times. I think it's a reasonable adjustment to make for a pbw implementation, just like we make that similar allowance for money in Amun Re.

I do not, however, think it reasonable to show everyone's behind-the-screen tile and larva cube makeups. That information is pretty difficult for anyone to track in the real game. So the question then becomes, is it reasonable for someone to mine the log for that information. In this case, I think it's not proper, but the only way to really stop it would be to have gamelogs for only the past round or two available at any given time, with the full logs available again only at the end of the game. I'm just not sure that it's even worth making that change.

[Mabi]

[Llama]

[gische]

[Mabi]

I know people that playing Tigris & Euphrates at BGG keep track of how many tiles of each color are still in the game. I have tried once and I gave up after a few turns: too much work for what is worth, and, even more important, all that wearisome log-mining was removing my enjoyment of the game.
Now I know that I will never bother to mine a gamelog: if I feel that the missing information is not essential, fine, otherwise I will just avoid to play that game (for example, I would not play T&E with hidden scoring, or Amun-Re with hidden money).

[Würfel]

I am not someone who can keep track of all that information in my head in real life. Therefore I don't mine the logs in web games. If you're someone who keeps track of that stuff when you're playing face-to-face then I have no issues with you mining the gamelog.
By me not checking and you checking we make the online experience closer to the in-person one we would have had. If the info were made public (so I'd have to know it when I wouldn't playing face-to-face) we would no longer be playing the game as intended, making the online experience further from when playing the game in-person.