[MUD-Dev] Expected value and standard deviation.

[Jeff Cole]

I have been playing poker for many years and recently have been
teaching a couple of friends Texas Hold 'Em (due in large part to
ESPN/Travel Channel).  I had to recently explain to them that it is
not as much about maximizing expected value, as it is balancing
expected value with standard deviation.

And that got me to thinking.  In MUDs/MMO* advancement entails
(ridiculously?) increasing the expected value of a player's
performance.  Gameplay would certainly be more complex if, like
poker, advancement required one to balance expected value with
standard deviation--if advancement involved more decreasing of
standard deviation and less increasing of expected value.

My concern, though, would be that players, like my friends, would
have a difficult time recognizing such "advancement."  Dunno.  Such
an approach would necessarily require rethinking other "standard"
gameplay systems.

One of these friends I am teaching has experienced recently modest
(not to her!) success playing on-line and is eager to move up in
stakes.  She is an engineer, but even if intellectually I can
explain her "success" has more to do with standard deviation than
with her skill, she resists "believing" it.

Still, it seems to me that if advancement were primarily based on
decreasing standard deviation rather than increasing expected value,
a designer could provide a much broader gameplay experience.  Also,
if advancement were less obvious, maybe players would focus on
aspects of the game other than advancement.

Yrs. Affcty,
Jeff Cole
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