[MUD-Dev] Casual player socialization & Bertering

[Ted L. Chen]

Adam M wrote:

> a small 2D graph, with "Probablility of selling" along one axis,
> and "Sell price" along another", and a single or double bezier
> curve with endpoints anchored at the top right and bottom left
> corners of the graph.

One thing I've noticed about the general populace is that a lot of
people don't seem to understand probabilties.  In that world, a poll
result of 55/45 +- 6% is a definate victory for the first side.  But
you'd think that with the dice-based lineage of MOGs that the
players would be more understanding.

When's the last time you heard someone complain about so-and-so
weapon/class being too effective, quoting some obscene damage rating
that only happens 0.01% of the time?  This leads me to predict that
the first time a player encounters a sell at $0 which had a low, but
non-zero probability, he's going to throw a fit.  "The game is
bugged!  I want my money back!"  Conversely, that one sale at the
other extreme skews the expectation (unjustly) to a higher value.
If I *was* cynical, I'd also point out that players are greedy and
would naturally inflate all the values.  ;)

The only people who'd actually grok probabilities are the hardcore
min-maxers, who I'm not sure fit under the casual player umbrella.

If anything, it's an interesting idea despite being another
interface to learn.  Just drop the probabilities and make it
deterministic.  Bubba inspects Buffy's curves.  :)

TLC


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