Other bot ideas

[alef]

Here are a few bot ideas to add to the ChouetteBot and LadderBot possibilities...

AnalysisBot?

What if a bot watches players upon request and then later gives back ratings and analysis based on gnubg rollouts? Already we have LittleSister (ls_one) recording the highest rated, but it'd be nice if it were possible to make requests to it. Perhaps have a minimum experience level requirement and a limit of watches/analyses per month.

TutorBot?

It watches you and immediately gives feedback after you've made a large blunder!

HelpBot?

It keeps a list of players willing to help newbies and what languages they speak. Players connecting for the first time then get a message from HelpBot asking if they need any help, unless they say "no" then currently connected helpers are alerted.

NewsBot?

Could be a side option of any existing bot. It simply alerts players who've signed up for news alerts. You could sign up for news options: client updates, parties, tournament results....

[MadMatt]

Bots are cool, especially since they seem to be the only way to improve the server since it's been abandoned by the creator, but there are problems that come with them, too.

Some people find them difficult to use, they have to be hosted elsewhere which introduces hosting expenses, if their connection drops then their functionality is not provided to the FIBS etc.

I like alef's bot ideas (except for the tutor one, because that one could affect your decisions while you're playing and that's a big no-no), but adding bot upon bot to introduce this functionality can only be a temporary solution.

A better way to go into it would be to integrate this stuff into a telnet proxy, as it was already discussed some in the ImproveFIBS group. True, that would be an enormous and difficult project, perhaps not much fun, but the rewards would be great.

[burper]

This issue of people on fibs finding it hard to communicate with bots could be mitigated with the addition of a moderator-only command that would initiate contact. Most GUI clients make it easy to reply to someone else who initiates contact, but befuddle users who wish to initiate contact with a bot that does not show up in the who's-ready list.

moderator types:
tell tourneybot hello someuser

someuser gets:
tourneybot says: hello

[jinnate]

This issue of people on fibs finding it hard to communicate with bots could be mitigated with the addition of a moderator-only command that would initiate contact. Most GUI clients make it easy to reply to someone else who initiates contact, but befuddle users who wish to initiate contact with a bot that does not show up in the who's-ready list.

moderator types:
tell tourneybot hello someuser

someuser gets:
tourneybot says: hello

*in the voice of meg ryan in when harry met sally* YES! YES! YES!

because if i have to tell one more blanking newbie to go find tourneybot in the list of non-ready players, ... i really am going limit the exp level of tourney players to 4,000!

*taking a deep breath* actually, i think this solves a LOT of problems.

[burper]

jinnate, we really must get together sometime