From: D.den Otter (neosapient@geocities.com)
Date: Sat Mar 18 2000 - 16:35:00 MST
See
http://www.robotwars.com/
http://www.robotwars.co.uk/
The idea is great, and the show is certainly fun to
watch, but it's not realizing its full potential.
I mean, just look at some of the rules (and there
are lots more of 'em, which is usually bad news for
the entertainment value):
The following is a list of materials and practices that are prohibited:
[...]
2. All electronic weaponry, stun-guns, Tesla coils, heat guns or irons,
etc.
3. All liquid and gaseous weaponry such as water, glue (including tape),
expandable foam, halon, etc.
[...]
6. Flying Robots are not permitted (anything that makes use of an
airfoil for lift). However, Floating Robots utilizing electric motors
are permitted.
===
Now, wouldn't it be much more fun if those robots, instead
of just pushing eachother around as they usually do, save
for the occasional attack with a spike, axe or saw blade,
would (also) be blasting eachother with guns, arrows,
tasers, rockets, flame throwers etc. None of those stupid
pits or time limits either; the robots fight until only
one is left operational. To make things more interesting the
battle should be fought in a fairly large arena with all
sorts of obstacles (low walls, barrels etc.) which
can be used to take cover behind, or launch an ambush
from. Preferably more than 2 robots would do battle
at once, either in teams or in a free-for-all
deathmatch.
Flying robots, which are prohibited in the
current Robot Wars show, could have their own
competitions (aerial combat with real bullets,
rockets etc.), or be pitted against ground robots.
You could also have floating bots, which would try
to sink eachother or fight land/air bots.
All vehicles would be required have at least one on-board
camera, for more spectacular action shots and as a
means to (help) navigate for the controllers. Because
of all the projectiles flying around there would be
no audience as in the original show, but all action
would be either fed onto the net (for free or via a
pay-for-access site) and/or put on tape and sold,
possibly to some interested tv network (I'm sure
*someone* would want to buy it) or else as a video
series.
The location would probably have to be somewhere
in the US (some place with relaxed gun laws), in a
remote (desert?) area or on some private island,
for example.
Some additional ideas: apart from radio-controlled
bots you could also let AIs (if that's what you can
call 'em) fight eachother in separate or mixed
matches. Human vs machine (the shape of things to
come) ;) Also, you could let people control bots via
the net, and hold mass Doom-style battles or smaller,
private matches. The robots would obviously have to
be standard models which would be "rented" by the players
for the duration of the game, or perhaps more permanently.
I suppose a similar setup could also be used to hunt
rats or some other animals within a certain designated
area (old warehouse, for example), or humans (with paintball
bullets or stun guns, presumably). A game show where human
players have to fight remote-controlled or AI bots -and
perhaps eachother- with various nonlethal weaponry could
be a lot of fun. Even with relatively modest cash
prizes it shouldn't be hard to find players for this
sort of thing, and the audience would no doubt love it.
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