Prince EWS
Global Moderator
The fact that I have my mic set up permanently now makes me vaguely keen to join in, but there's no cricket to talk about. What are you even going to talk about?
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CW Member interviews
- Thread starter Adders
- Start date
Howe_zat
Well-known member
get on discord and find out
zorax
likes this
you don't really need to watch cricket to talk about cricket
Covid's impact on cricket around the world is actually a fun topic. Can talk about how it's affected domestic and club cricket, international schedule, what it's like watching games in empty stadiums, etc. Pick an ATG XI of players that no one would want to watch play live anyways. Possibilities are endless.
nightprowler10
Global Moderator
Great stuff Howe.
Magrat Garlick
Global Moderator
was worth the rewrite after laptop failure and the near sleep agony, 10/10 would read again
Howe_zat
Well-known member
Seriously haven't written that much about anything since my PGCE. Brought back some unwelcome vibes
Similar boat here tbh
Uppercut
Well-known member
I'll do it.
stephen
Well-known member
Top stuff Howe. The part about starting creative projects is so true. It's easy to do, just start. Do *something*. You'll be **** at it for five years anyway. Just keep doing it and you'll get better and eventually start producing something of substance.
I'm an amateur board game designer and I've done a lot of prototyping and play testing over the last few years. I've made a number of friends with other designers through it and the key to being successful is persistence. The best designer I know has been doing it for years and basically his secret is to just keep doing it.
The alphabet and reverse alphabet draft was basically me applying board game design principles to drafting. Sports based games are a lot of fun and fantasy sports has been around for a while now. I find them really addictive and they're inspiring my board game designs right now. The main difference between a (modern) board game and a sports draft is the knowledge aspect of it and the time the game takes to play. Sports drafts take weeks with days between choices, so each choice carries massive weight. Other spots games (like, for example, NRL SuperCoach) follow a similar pattern. I could talk for days on different forms of gaming, luck and strategy and how they interact. The differences between deterministic and predictable and all sorts of contexts. Even rules are such a huge topic.
When I created the alphabetic draft many players expressed that they didn't even really get the turn order rule up front, and that's something which is hard to explain in text but was well worth the overhead because it added a whole new dimension to the draft. Decisions like these need to be made constantly with game design. Does this rule add more to the game than it takes away by increasing complexity? It's stuff like that which keeps game designers up at night. Tic tac toe is very simple to play because we learned it as a kid, but if you try and explain how to play using only text to someone who does not know how to play it becomes a lot harder. Most of the time rules should be simple and should not need exceptions to make them work (unfortunately with most drafting games you must make an exception for Bradman because he is hax).
I've digressed. Back to my earlier point. I've become a believer in the 10000 hours principle myself and I could see from my time in competitive cricket circles that the most successful players were usually the ones who practiced hardest. I think the same is true for every area in life. If you want to be good at something, you need to practice. A lot.
I'm an amateur board game designer and I've done a lot of prototyping and play testing over the last few years. I've made a number of friends with other designers through it and the key to being successful is persistence. The best designer I know has been doing it for years and basically his secret is to just keep doing it.
The alphabet and reverse alphabet draft was basically me applying board game design principles to drafting. Sports based games are a lot of fun and fantasy sports has been around for a while now. I find them really addictive and they're inspiring my board game designs right now. The main difference between a (modern) board game and a sports draft is the knowledge aspect of it and the time the game takes to play. Sports drafts take weeks with days between choices, so each choice carries massive weight. Other spots games (like, for example, NRL SuperCoach) follow a similar pattern. I could talk for days on different forms of gaming, luck and strategy and how they interact. The differences between deterministic and predictable and all sorts of contexts. Even rules are such a huge topic.
When I created the alphabetic draft many players expressed that they didn't even really get the turn order rule up front, and that's something which is hard to explain in text but was well worth the overhead because it added a whole new dimension to the draft. Decisions like these need to be made constantly with game design. Does this rule add more to the game than it takes away by increasing complexity? It's stuff like that which keeps game designers up at night. Tic tac toe is very simple to play because we learned it as a kid, but if you try and explain how to play using only text to someone who does not know how to play it becomes a lot harder. Most of the time rules should be simple and should not need exceptions to make them work (unfortunately with most drafting games you must make an exception for Bradman because he is hax).
I've digressed. Back to my earlier point. I've become a believer in the 10000 hours principle myself and I could see from my time in competitive cricket circles that the most successful players were usually the ones who practiced hardest. I think the same is true for every area in life. If you want to be good at something, you need to practice. A lot.
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Line and Length
Well-known member
CW Member Interviews continues to be my favourite thread in OT. This great Q & A session with Howe is added proof that this is a great concept. Thanks Teja and Howe for a wonderful contribution.
Uppercut
Well-known member
Questions for Teja:
1. Age/location/occupation?
2. What brought you to CW, and why have you stuck around?
3. You tend to go through phases where you post a lot, and phases where you don’t post much at all. Why? When you’re not posting much, what do you do with all the extra time?
4. What do you like about cricket?
5. Who is your favourite-ever cricketer, and why?
6. Have you played much cricket, and if so, what type of player were you?
7. You posted a while back about having recently overcome a substance abuse problem, and the ongoing fight against some associated mental health issues. How are you getting on now?
8. What are your favourite/least favourite aspects of working in law?
9. What would be your dream job?
10. Something about your personality makes me think that you would have been seen as an incredibly gifted child when growing up. Is this accurate? If so/if not, how has that affected your life?
11. Like a few members of the forum, you’ve previously played poker to a professional level. How would you describe that experience? AFAIK you don’t play seriously any more - why did you stop?
12.One of your One of the best posts on CW was on the historical origins of the “untouchable” castes. Do you think India is moving in the right direction with regards to caste-based discrimination, or is the general population becoming more like Sunil Gavaskar?
13. Do you think India is moving in the right direction generally?
14. One of the reasons I found that post so interesting was that it suggested that a society of a billion people was structured in a very specific way because of small and somewhat trivial decisions taken thousands of years ago. Yet over time, that society developed reams of incredibly rich narrative that rationalised that structure as having emerged for deep and meaningful reasons. Do you think most widely-respected social institutions actually exist for reasons that are complete bullshit?
15. One of the many things we have in common is a tendency to find games hopelessly addictive. What are the key ingredients of a good game?
16. When you want to improve at something – a game, an aspect of your job, another hobby – what do you do?
17. What have you achieved in your life so far that makes you most proud?
18. What’s the most insightful thing you’ve ever read?
19. Are you:
a. A sociopath?
b. Clueless?
c. A loser?
20. Finally, if you were stuck on a desert island, choose one of the following to take:
a. Book
b. Album
c. CW member
d. Movie
e. TV show
1. Age/location/occupation?
2. What brought you to CW, and why have you stuck around?
3. You tend to go through phases where you post a lot, and phases where you don’t post much at all. Why? When you’re not posting much, what do you do with all the extra time?
4. What do you like about cricket?
5. Who is your favourite-ever cricketer, and why?
6. Have you played much cricket, and if so, what type of player were you?
7. You posted a while back about having recently overcome a substance abuse problem, and the ongoing fight against some associated mental health issues. How are you getting on now?
8. What are your favourite/least favourite aspects of working in law?
9. What would be your dream job?
10. Something about your personality makes me think that you would have been seen as an incredibly gifted child when growing up. Is this accurate? If so/if not, how has that affected your life?
11. Like a few members of the forum, you’ve previously played poker to a professional level. How would you describe that experience? AFAIK you don’t play seriously any more - why did you stop?
12.
13. Do you think India is moving in the right direction generally?
14. One of the reasons I found that post so interesting was that it suggested that a society of a billion people was structured in a very specific way because of small and somewhat trivial decisions taken thousands of years ago. Yet over time, that society developed reams of incredibly rich narrative that rationalised that structure as having emerged for deep and meaningful reasons. Do you think most widely-respected social institutions actually exist for reasons that are complete bullshit?
15. One of the many things we have in common is a tendency to find games hopelessly addictive. What are the key ingredients of a good game?
16. When you want to improve at something – a game, an aspect of your job, another hobby – what do you do?
17. What have you achieved in your life so far that makes you most proud?
18. What’s the most insightful thing you’ve ever read?
19. Are you:
a. A sociopath?
b. Clueless?
c. A loser?
20. Finally, if you were stuck on a desert island, choose one of the following to take:
a. Book
b. Album
c. CW member
d. Movie
e. TV show
I thought I ran that one? Am I getting my years mixed up in my old age?
Howe_zat
Well-known member
yes. you ran 2012 and got banned halfway through it