Standard Operating Procedures: Preparing and running an experiment with the Rule Game Server

Updated 2021-04-02 for Game Server ver. 2.006

Preparing the experiment control files

The control files

As discussed in the Rule Game server data guide, a number of files need to be prepared in the server's game data directory (/opt/tomcat/game-data) in order to control the players' experience during your experiment. At a minimum, this should include:

Depending on the design of your experiment, you may also need to create or modify other files:

Using a GitHub repository

One should not try to edit the experiment control files directly in the server's game data directory. Instead, one should follow the procedures outlined in the Deployment SOP (in that document, you only need to look at the sections written on yellow background). In a nutshell:

This procedure ensures that at any point in the future we will have a reliable to see, by examining the repository's history, what set of control files was deployed to the server during any particular experiment.

Checking your math

One of the most complicated parts of the syntax of rule set files is the field which specifies the bucket(s) into which a rule allows game pieces to be put. (See the >Bucket expression arithmetic Guide for details). To help you test your arithmetic, we have the Arithmetic test form, which you can use to test your expression, for various values of the built-in variables, before actually using it in a rule.

Validating your plan

Once you have prepared your trial list files, rule set files, and any other data you need, you should validate your experiment plan. Go to the Validate your plan link, and enter the name of your experiment plan. The validation tool will read the trial list files for your experiment, and various other files (rule sets etc) they refer to, and will check them for syntax errors, references to non-existing resources, etc. Please review the validator's report; if any deficiencies are reported, try to correct them, clear the server tables, and validate your plan again.

Testing your plan

One can do this with the GUI client or with the HTML play interface.

If you realize that your rules need to be corrected, and edit your trial list files or rule set files, you should clear the server tables before playing again (with another player ID). This will ensure that the server will remove the earlier version of the rule sets from its memory.

Keeping track of what was done

For any later analysis to be valid, it is important that complete information were kept about the experimental environment, which includes both the control files and the software version.

Data processing

See the section on exporting data from the Game Srever's SQL tables, and the section on files saved by the Game Server in the Data Guide for guidance on what data are recorded during the experiment, and how they can be extracted from the server.


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