(Begins May 27 - June 3)
Read Ender's Game, Chapters 11 and 12, and respond to these questions:
Chapter 11
1) In this chapter, we see how the game masters at the battle school intend to make the game “unfair” for Ender. How, then, do they make the game “unfair”? How does Ender respond?
2)Ender once again turns to study the strategy of the “enemy”. What enemy becomes his concern in this chapter?
3)What is Bean’s new role? Should every team have a team member like Bean? Why?
Chapter 12
1) What do the adults want Ender to think and feel about danger and escape? Does Ender eventually have the desired realization? Have you ever had this realization – in real life, or in a game scenario? Would you want to? How would this effect the way you play a game?
2) How neccesary is it to “win” a game? What is the point of winning? Why is winning a part of games?
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Posting early. Part 1/2 (long responses again):
ReplyDeleteChapter 111) In this chapter, we see how the game masters at the battle school intend to make the game “unfair” for Ender. How, then, do they make the game “unfair”? How does Ender respond?The school “game masters” challenged Ender by breaking all precedents. To begin with, they re-introduced a retired army, Dragon. They made Ender a captain at a very young age, and recruited a lot of non-veteran soldiers into it. Then, they barred Ender from trading soldiers – something else that was largely unheard of. On top of that, they didn’t even give Ender the traditional training period with his army and launched him prematurely into battles with other armies, then gave Ender’s army less time between battles than ever reported in Battle School history – only a day. This escalated to the point where Ender’s Dragon army fought multiple battles in a single day and against stacked odds, culminating in a final battle in which Dragon was pitched against two armies in a very unfair playing field. Ender responds at first by executing new and inventive techniques to gain victory, and maintaining his commander’s attitude, but with the last battle he loses it. He orders a last-stand technique with no real hope of winning, but because of the quality of his soldiers, they pulled a miraculous ending out anyway.
2)Ender once again turns to study the strategy of the “enemy”. What enemy becomes his concern in this chapter?Ender gets to the point where studying the other armies doesn’t yield any positive information, so he starts studying the propaganda videos and the bugger attack strategies for new insights.
3)What is Bean’s new role? Should every team have a team member like Bean? Why?Bean becomes the next Ender, in a sense. Bean is the underdog who just so happens to be the team’s best man. Ender sets him up as a special ops director of sorts, making him a Toon leader for a toon that only comes into play under special circumstances and exists simultaneously with Ender’s regular five toons of eight. A member like Bean is critical to a group because they are an ice breaker and a peer leader – a bridge between the main leader and the soldiers.
End of reply (part 2/2)
ReplyDeleteChapter 121)What do the adults want Ender to think and feel about danger and escape? Does Ender eventually have the desired realization? Have you ever had this realization – in real life, or in a game scenario? Would you want to? How would this effect the way you play a game?The adults are bent on making Ender convinced that he is the only person he can rely on to get him out of unsavory situations. They refuse to ever come to his aid and frequently force him into situations in which he must save himself, despite the usual moral obligation for the adults to step in. After his fight with Bonzo, Ender realizes this. I personally learned this lesson a long time ago. “The only hope for me – is me.” I’m often the only person I can rely on to get anything accomplished, whether or not I want to. A lot of people can rely on their parents, even in college, for things like insurance and care packages, cars, gas, insurance, even visits home for a meal, and I don’t have that. Relatives usually are there to rely on, but not in my case. The adults in my life are not the sort to be relied on to solve my problems, regardless of the severity of the situation, and that has heavily influenced the way I think and live. It applies to games, as well. Frequently, when I play any game, I like to solo things. I’m not much of a team player because I’m so disinclined to rely on others. This makes MMORPGs less appealing to me (because of how little you can accomplish as a solo player) and platform RPGs much more to my taste. I also like competitive games over collaborative ones.
2) How necessary is it to “win” a game? What is the point of winning? Why is winning a part of games?“Winning” a game, for Ender, is survival. Because of the delicate nature of his situation (having been thrust into a position of favor from the start) it is crucial that he remain at the top, or else suffer more than a loss of status. The point of winning is to prove, both to the adults and to himself, that he is what they want him to be. In general, winning is a way to coherently end a competition, or to decisively determine the best candidate in a competition. Winning is necessarily a part of games because games are typically based around competition, and in a competition there must be a winner. Winning is the objective. Without an objective, no one knows why to play a game, and without a reason why, no one will play.
Chapter 11
ReplyDelete1) In this chapter, we see how the game masters at the battle school intend to make the game “unfair” for Ender. How, then, do they make the game “unfair”? How does Ender respond?
They throw out a series of battles one after another, tiring out his team, surprising them with unexpected challenges and yet all of this is making them stronger, faster and more capable of handling things. Ender doesn’t seem to mind at all, in fact it seems that he takes this as an opportunity to become a better commander and keep his team on their toes, teaching them new tricks.
2)Ender once again turns to study the strategy of the “enemy”. What enemy becomes his concern in this chapter?
Hes most concerned with the bugger attacks, he wants to learn new tricks to defeat them in battle, but doesn’t know how. He turns to the old videos with the buggers and the humans and studies them to see if there might be anything. He learns that the buggers work well as a team, discipline gets them far.
3)What is Bean’s new role? Should every team have a team member like Bean? Why?
To finally be able to command his own toon. There are better soldiers then Bean, some better like Ender said, but Bean thinks faster and better then any of them, that’s why it is beneficial to have a team member like Bean.
Chapter 12
1) What do the adults want Ender to think and feel about danger and escape? Does Ender eventually have the desired realization? Have you ever had this realization – in real life, or in a game scenario? Would you want to? How would this effect the way you play a game?
They want him to truly believe that danger will come when you least expect it, or even if you do expect it no one will be there to save you. They want him to believe in himself and use his skills to escape any dangerous situation. If the adults are there to help him all the time, he wont be on a high level like they want him to. Ender realizes this right after his fight with Bonzo. In real life yes, I have experienced this, many times. Its different then a game, in a game you expect no one to help you, you have to rely on yourself to win or to go further. I realize that, most of my family isn’t always there when I need help. Actually most of my family isn’t there at all when I need them, I’ve come to learn this and accept this fact. The same goes with friends, only your true friends will shine in the hard times.
2) How necessary is it to “win” a game? What is the point of winning? Why is winning a part of games?
Winning isn’t necessary at all. The point would be to give hope to the people that need it, to make them feel more superior or show off how much skill you really have, a conclusion, a way to keep going, if there is no win then why keep going on? I think winning is a part of games to have some sort of conclusion, an end. If there is a game where you don’t win, then how is that a game at all? Though with some games there seem to be no win or lose, like Harvest Moon. I don’t really enjoy this game---it bores me to tears of its repetitiveness and I don’t think there really is a win or a lose to it. You either have good crops or bad.
1 - they7 start "changing the rules." more battles more often, and later disadvantagous formations of stars, and even multiple opponents. ender responds by ignoring the preconcieved rules and innovating, albeit at a gamble.
ReplyDelete2 - his enemy is the "adults," the teachers. he studies their actions, trying to discern their motives.
3 - bean became the new Special Platoon leader. almost like Dragon's own "special forces" unit.his job was to think up problems that hadn't been seen, and solve them in ways nobody could fathom.
4 - to quote ender's thoughts at the moment when he realized escape was impossible, the fight was inevitable, "If I'm to walk away from here, I'll have to win quickly, and perminantly." when the odds are bad and confrontation is imminant, and defeat or death is probable, nobody will ever be there to help you. the teachers didn't come to help when he fought bonzo, or stilson. he realized he'd have to do it himself, and do it well.
winning the game is important for various reasons. pride, honor, bragging rights, prizes, and survival, in some games. winning (and conversely, losing) are integral parts of a game. I don't know of many games that don't have some quantitative form of success and failure. it's part of what makes a game a game. determining a victor, a champion to stand above the rest.
Ch 11
ReplyDelete1. They're making it "interesting" as Ender says
by making him do battles with little to practically no time to prepare or multiple battles in one day. He responded by winning kicking ass heavily
2. He focuses his concern on the biggers. He starts studying the buggers tactics from old propaganda vids to come up with new strategies
3. Ender is making bean somewhat of a Toon leader but in a different way. He's trying to to make him his thinker of the squad meaning thinking of strategies and new tactics because Ender is wearing out. It would be good if they were ecause new strategies would come up but i don't think they can mentally do it.
Ch12
1 They want him to realize he COULD be in danger with the other kids wanting him hurt. At the beginning he didnt because he thought the adults would help but after the fight he figured out they werent going to help. I have realizd this at one point in a game.It makes you take a different approach to how u play th egame.
2 a game usually has a winner. It needs it in order to make it competitive
Ch 11
ReplyDelete1. First they made them start battles before the normal time, then they would make them have battles everyday, and then more than one a day, and then more than one team a battle.
2. The Buggers on the propaganda videos.
3. He wants him to come up with new strategies by experimenting with even the most random ideas.
Ch 12
1. They want him to realize that there's no one there to help him. That way he can't know that they're interfering with his life. He realizes this when only after the fight was over did teachers come. Probably without the same seriousness, but my parents were kind of like that. If they teach me not to rely on them I can grow up to be more independent.
2. I don't think it's that important but in general but I guess it depends on the game. If it's a game for life or death, winning would be pretty important - w-
11-1. The game masters intend to make the game “unfair” for Ender in the way they push him and his army. Enders army has fought seven straight battles in a week and he goes to speak to Anderson and Graff Ender challenges them to give him a good battle. So they tell him he has a fight in ten minutes. This is his army’s second fight of the day. Ender is upset, even though he won, that the fight was unfair. In the process he realizes that he shames Bonzo.
ReplyDelete11-2. Ender once again turns to study the strategy of the “enemy”. What enemy becomes his concern in this chapter?
I would say that Enders main enemy in this chapter are the buggers but that Bonzo also plays a role. However ender is concerned with learning from videos of the first and second bugger invasions and learning new modes of attack to counter them.
11-3. Beans new role is as Enders support man and subordinate commander in a way. Ender is becoming worn out and run thin and is placing Bean in charge of picking one (the best) solider from each toon to be a part of a special unit that Bean will train separately. He will come up with new strategies and practice risky maneuvers with these troops.
I believe “helpers” are necessary for every team. Every team needs a leader and every leader needs assistants under him to help lead a broad base of individuals.
12-1. I believe that the adults want Ender to realize that danger is ever present and can come at a time when you least expect it. There will be many situations where you are not able to rely on anyone for help; just as Ender was unable to rely on the “adults” to prevent the fight with Bonzo. Ender does eventually realize this fact that he will have to protect himself and fight even when he would desire not to. However this discovery and his action on it takes a part of him that he doesn’t feel like he can replace.
I have definitely had this realization in life and I would say in games too. In fact I think that many great games utilize this “on your own” scenario. You have to fight to survive and fight against the odds (as Ender did when he was forced to fight both armies at once). It effects the way you play the game by making you more appreciative of the little things you do get along the way to help you out and by making you a stronger player when you have to fight against the danger or enemy and stand up for yourself to win.
12-2. Winning really depends on the stakes of a game. If you are playing for fun than really you are only playing to win for bragging rights and to say you are the best. If you are playing for a few dollars or for a good amount of cash the stakes go up. You have something substantial to loose now. If you are playing a game for the ultimate stakes, say… life or death. The necessity of “winning” (presumably to survive) takes precedence over everything else. Really though winning is only as important as you make it out to be. Winning is just there to be a necessary end for a game. So some outcome is realized and the game does not continue indefinably.
1-1. The game is made unfair for Ender by giving him matches each day or more than one in a day, which left his army little time to recover or prepare. He found out about a battle later than his opponent which gave the enemy time to get prepared and settled before he even arrived. The battle environment was even made unfair with unevenly spread out stars and different amounts of light. Ender plays the game and finds a way to win each battle, being a good sport afterwards, and continues to teach his soldiers how to improve.
ReplyDelete1-2. Ender begins watching old war footage and learns strategy from the buggers.
1-3. Bean is giving the role of a leader of a special squad to learn new moves that no one else wants to try and to be ready for action if Ender needs him, because he thinks better and faster than the others. Not every team needs a someone like Bean, but it would be advantageous to.
2-1. The adults want Ender to feel the danger is real and he must deal with it without relying on anyone else. Ender does finally realize this after his fight with Bonzo. I've had this realization in life and in some games. Some games when you die it is frustrating because time is wasted and progress is lost, though many games have been countering this and they feel less intense.
2-2. Winning is achieving the goal of a game. Winning shows the player he or she has overcome the challenge. Winning is the reaching the goal and without a reachable goal there is no reason to play the game.
Chapter 11
ReplyDelete1) In the previous chapter the game masters had already made the game unfair just by putting Ender in command of a team as such a novice, but the unfairness was multiplied in this chapter. They denied the Dragon team proper time to train and prepare by forcing them into a match quickly, and then kept the team tired and on-edge by changing the rules anymore, forcing the team into even more battle games, one every day, and even more, each change in the rules making it more and more unfair for Ender, culminating in a battle with multiple teams. Ender is upset, but does take this as an opportunity by practicing new and innovative strategies to win, and working well with his teammates.
2)Despite being pitted against an unfair amount of enemies in this chapter, Ender goes out of his way to find more enemies to study and learn from. He does this by watching old war videos containing the buggers, and he studies them and their strategies closely. This will probably benefit Ender greatly for strategizing against other battle teams, but perhaps more importantly, against the buggers, if ever they should return.
3)Bean has played the role of a kind of reflection of Ender, when he was younger in the teams. Ender sees his potential though, and sets him up as a leader and special strategist, to shake things up in ways enemies may not see coming, and to strategize in ways perhaps Ender hasn't even thought of. It is a good idea for every team to have a kind of 'second in command' another thinker behind the main leader, to offer support, and make strategies less predictable than if only one person were doing the thinking.
Chapter 12
1) The adults try to convince Ender in a manner of ways that danger is ever-present, and there won't always be someone to help out. Ender does have a realization after his fight with Bonzo that there is much danger out there, and that he should be in charge of himself and not rely on too much on others. I have come to similar realizations in both real life and games. In games, I often realize teammates in the AI are so poor that they are not worth relying on, but for the most part in games, I know there's danger and only rely on myself to begin with. In real life, it's the same way, I'm not too trusting, and always prefer to get things done myself, because I always have confidence that i can complete whatever I am tasked to do on my own, perhaps even if I can't. I cannot pinpoint the time of the realization when I developed this attitude, though.
2) I don't think it's 'necessary' to win games, but I believe it is necessary for most games to have a goal to complete that does result in someone winning. In a single or multiplayer game, there is always a goal, and when you complete that goal, you have won. Beating goals, especially the main goal that deems you 'the winner', fulfills a fundamental role in games, and that is to give the player a sense of accomplishment. The acknowledgment of success and accomplishment that comes from it is, I think, one of the primary reasons people play games, although it is still fun to play games even without this accomplishment, so even if you are on the losing side, the game shouldn't be miserable for you. Every game must have a goal in order to even be defined as a game, and therefore games must have some form of victory or winning that occur when the player completes this goal.
1.] The game masters began to make the rules inconsistent and make odds turn in favor of the opposing team. They also made Ender command a team of what they thought were incompetant soldiers, but Ender proved them wrong by training them to the best of his abilities and creating skilled warriors. Finally they started forcing Ender into multiple battles a day, trying to push him to the brink and wear him and his army thin.
ReplyDelete2.] Ender finds that the enemy's strategies are predictable and unlike real, true battle, and so spends his time studying archive footage that people never thought could help.
3.] Bean takes over a portion of the army, as a spec ops leader that can act on it's own independently of the rest of the army. i think it's a good strategy to have a seperate and smaller specialized team in case things go wrong; in essence they can become the finishing blow or the backup if needed.
1.] Ender realizes that he can rely on no one except himself and that he's the only one who can save himself from any situation. The adults were definitely successful in making him feel this way. Yes, I've had this realization multiple times in games and real life. I thinkt his can culture a sense of independence and strength at a decent and controlled level, however, if it was felt to an ectreme, may cause depression and unwillingness to continue.
2.] I don't tihnk it's always necessary to win. To win is to prove your skill, but also to lose in a good fight is to prove your skill. Winning is to prove you are the best. Playing a game is what matters, and not necessarily what the outcome is.
1)The game masters have always isolated ender. They've pushed him. Now they resurrect dragon army and put ender in charge. even worse they force dragon army into battle without sufficient time to train. as well as tired them out with constant battles sometimes with uneven teams.
ReplyDelete2)after studying other armies as well as the teachers, when he can, ender begins to find more use out of studying the archives.
3)bean becomes a special ops tune leader that consists of 5 troops, one from each tune.this small tune is meant for strategic or otherwise neccessary operations in battle. i think this is a great idea. a small unexpected group of soldiers would be the perfect flanking.
1) it was the intent of the game masters to make ender feel isolated and have the realzation that only he can take care of himself. he definently had that realization earlier id say in the book. i think when graff said that they werent friends, ender kinda got the hint. i would say that yes ive had that realization. or better, ive come to that understanding. if you mean that the character that the player is controling is put in situations where he must rely on himself entirley then thats good. or at least its part of what the game makers want you the player to feel. the darkness was a good game. and jackie, whome you control, is very much alone and has to do it all himself. well, he has the demon thing. but i dont think thats the best company.
2)winning is a part of games because it is what drives us to play. its what makes it a game. a goal. to win. i think its always neccessary to want to and try to win. but that is the fun. you play a game because their is a risk of losing and the reward of winning. i would say its very much neccessary to lose sometimes. or else what is winning?