Another loss in Translation.

[Panda]

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[Mason11987]

I don't think "bottle neck gaming" is a term. With respect to BTW "bottlenecks" are a reference to this:

http://www.hospitalnews.com/wp-content/ ... leneck.jpg

Basically, before the "neck" of the bottom, there are some options, at the neck there are very few, after the neck there are a lot.

A "Bottleneck" in BTW is the anvil. Before it you can do some things but you MUST go through the anvil to do a lot of other things.

[Panda]

I don't think "bottle neck gaming" is a term. With respect to BTW "bottlenecks" are a reference to this:

http://www.hospitalnews.com/wp-content/ ... leneck.jpg

Basically, before the "neck" of the bottom, there are some options, at the neck there are very few, after the neck there are a lot.

A "Bottleneck" in BTW is the anvil. Before it you can do some things but you MUST go through the anvil to do a lot of other things.

....:D ...... .....what? as in you have to do one thing befor another?

[PatrickSJ]

Can link to an example? The only thing I can think of is パソコンの性能ボトルネック.

A bottleneck is a limitation of throughput for a downstream activity.

Example:
If you can only make 10 Widget A an hour, and 20 Widget B an hours.

Each Widget B requires 1 Widget A. This means the max Widget B production rate is 10 since you can't get more than 10 Widget A per hour.

In gaming this might refer to the limitations of the hardware & software in running a game.

[Panda]

........................

[Sarudak]

A bottleneck can also refer to the piece in the process that is limiting an in game production process. For example on my server currently the bottleneck for mining charge production is nitre production since we have plenty of everything else. Before the fuse change the bottle neck was tallow production. Generally it refers to the idea that when you are pouring from a bottle you can only get so much liquid out and that is determined by how wide the neck of the bottle is so the bottle's neck is the limiting factor to how much you can get out regardless of the amount of liquid in the bottle.

[DaveYanakov]

It may be easier to visualize it as a crowd of a thousand people trying to cram through a single door all at once. That door is a bottleneck. Anything that forces a slowdown in throughput is a bottleneck and as such the term is very rarely a positive one.

[ExpHP]

I think you guys are being a bit too technical here.

The "bottleneck" of a process is the slowest part of it. Which means that everything after it is slow, too.

Like, if you can cook 100 peeled potatoes in 1 day, but you can only peel 5 potatoes a day, then the peeling is a bottleneck; it means that you are only able to cook 5 peeled potatoes a day.

[Battosay]

So it's like a limiting factor in biology ?
As in Liebig's law ?

[DaveYanakov]

And let us not forget the example anyone who has ever been stuck in construction traffic knows all too well. When the miles leading up to a zone with one or more lanes closed are a parking lot but the point after the merge goes smoothly. That merge point where the lanes are forced together is the bottleneck.

[PatrickSJ]

But to get back to the term bottleneck gaming... Google search indicates that it likely means a performance bottleneck. What is limiting factor in your ability to play a game such as CPU, video card, internet connection, hard drive, et cetera. One of those is the bottleneck for the games you play and limits what you can play.

My gaming bottleneck is my mouse & video card since I primarily play on a laptop.

[FlowerChild]

When I refer to a bottle-neck these days, it's usually in strategic or tactical terms.

For example, if you can cause enemy troops to go through a valley, the valley forms a natural "bottle neck" where their movement is restricted and you know precisely where they will be, thus it makes an ideal place for an ambush.

So, from recent conversations, if I refer to the strongholds acting as bottle-necks, it's because players can only access the end through three specific points on the map, making them ideal places to lay in wait for someone if you want to kill them. It basically makes them focal-points for conflict, and each of them is a bottle-neck.

You also get bottle-necks in the tech tree where the player is required to do certain very specific things in order to progress. For example, making enough Hemp for a Wind Mill at the beginning of the tree is a bottle-neck. If you want to proceed, there are very few options open to you with regards to what you can do.

Bottle-necks in the tech-tree serve to establish requirements for progress. Basically, at every point in the tech tree beyond that, I *know* as a designer that the player had to go through the process for farming Hemp. There's no way around that. Compare this to more open portions of the tech-tree, like acquiring glue (where you can instead use Slime if you want). I can't really count on the fact that the player has ever made glue.

Basically, a "bottle-neck" in terms of game design is anything that serves to limit the player's options at any given point, more so than they normally are. In general terms, I believe this is a reference to how something like a coke-bottle has a narrower neck than its body. It's a metaphor for how a person's options become more limited in a more abstract bottle-neck.

[Panda]

Ok that makes sénce flower : )

[FlowerChild]

Well, the shorter and more general answer would have been: it's a limiting factor.

Limiting a player's options, limiting enemy options for maneuvering, or limiting the rate of flow of liquid from a physical bottle.

[Ribky]

Which is why I myself prefer to pour my beer into an appropriate glass.

[FlowerChild]

Which is why I myself prefer to pour my beer into an appropriate glass.

Well, then the size of your mouth and absorbancy of your face become the limiting factors.

Beards help there.

[Cuchonchuir]

This is a good concept to understand for any sort of problem-solving or planning operation, be it computing, event organization, or military tactics. Before you can PLAN a bottle-neck (for a tech tree OR a military operation) you have to learn to recognize them.

The most famous military bottleneck I can think of is the Battle of Agincourt. While many people know how the English defeated the French with the long bow, the French were set up for the slaughter by having to cross a narrow neck of ground to reach the English force, where they became bottle-necked and bogged down in the mud, making them easy prey for the arrows.

It's interesting when important concepts like this become lost in translation, I'm sure in every language there's an equivalent expression to convey it. Now that you get the English phrase, Panda, how would one refer to it in Japanese?

Here's a diagram that visually explains it, might help anyone who is still confused:

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This is not relevant, but funny.

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