I’ve been meaning to write about this for some time, ever since a fight or two past the mid-way point of the season when I became aware of the real possibility I could go the entire season undefeated. It was at that point that I thought it might be a good idea if this was my last season as a Pit player.
First a little history. I created Pit and was quite content to watch the action and dealings from the strict game master role. I thoroughly enjoyed knowing what was going on behind the scenes as stables negotiated and plotted with one another. As the rudderless factor began to creep into the hearts of many stables, the regular players began calling for me to join in the fun. Maybe against my better judgment, I took over the worst ownerless stable in the league. I figured maybe looking at things from the player side would give me insight on additions the game would benefit from. I made it strict practice that when I scheduled the goings on in my stable that I would only use the tools available to the other stablemasters: news, past fight broadcasts, the roster page, etc. I never looked at any secret pages, other than my own, when trying to figure out who to schedule. The only time I would look at other’s secret pages was when looking into bugs, confirming a default fighter, etc, and trust me, I can’t hardly remember my own fighter stats so I’m pretty unaffected by the background knowledge. Of course, having written the formulas in the game, even ones I haven’t touched for years, probably does give a bit of advantage. But I’ve minimized as much as possible.
That first season, Zion’s Hope managed only 3 wins. My biggest shame was losing to Rasoli in both our fights! I stunk. My money situation made it very hard to improve my fighters when training was available. I did have a pretty kicking Farm club that won the Farm playoffs.
My second season started out much the same, losing my first 3 fights out of the gate, starting 1-7 before things started clicking, finally beating Rasoli once, and narrowly missing the playoffs with a 9-9 record. The Farm continued to be strong, convincingly sweeping the Farm playoffs.
Last season, Zion’s Hope finally started getting noticed. Unfortunately, we dropped from the 2nd seed to the 4th on the last day, but we did advance to the Finals. If Overlord could have beat Unibrow once (which I know he could’ve, contrary to common belief) or I would have had the “ca hones” to trade for Unibrow earlier, the championship would have been mine.
Going into this season I felt I had a legitimate shot at winning it all. At that time, I figured that if I did, I would retire from being a player. Over the course of this season, I’ve started to notice stables scheduling around me. This is something I made heavy use of in previous seasons, trying to avoid scheduling my best against stables that could hurt me, basically conceding defeat. It was eye opening.
So now I’m thinking I should retire from being a player regardless of what happens in the playoffs, win or lose. I feel that the season I had can’t help but make people wonder. I know that everything was done above board, season schedule randomly created, fights impartially ran, etc. But I don’t want my integrity to be questioned. I know this is just a crappy little game, but I don’t cheat in anything, and I don’t want anyone to wonder.
Of course, if I do drop out, it may put future Pit seasons in doubt. We’re pretty low on live players that pay attention so any drop could lower the fun and competition level. So I don’t know what to do. I’d miss my little stable that could.
But then again, maybe I’ve proven Pit to be a solved game, since I went undefeated. What more can I do? (Sorry, just had to brag a little. 
I will be rubbing the nephews’ noses in this.)
I’ve got some ideas to put a different spin on Pit if it even continues. Most changes any more are dependent on how much programming is required. I’ve had my hands in so many other things that I haven’t had the time to really dig into the old Pit code for in depth changes. I’d like to keep Pit alive. It still gives the stat-whore in me some joy. One thing I’d like to do is program a strength of schedule type statistic that I’ve been tumbling around in my head. Just to see some comparisons between the stables during this season.
On this day…
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