[MUD-Dev] Expected value and standard deviation.

[Daniel Anderson]

From: Raph Koster
> From: Jeff Cole
>> From: Freeman, Jeff

> I don't think it's in the Laws, but I've always treated it as a
> Law:

>    Players will do the boring thing rather than the fun thing, if
>    they advance faster that way.

> As a corollary:

>    There's no way to get rid of the "boring" way to play your
>    game. Players can always choose to play conservatively to
>    maximize return while minimizing risk.

There are ways of course to get players to play in a riskier
situation if the return is great (or greater).  One good example is
in UO where after trammel was implemented, players would not spend
time in fel from fear of being PKed, robbed, etc.  I believe (not
100% positive) but the developers later implemented better rewards
for hunting in fel dungeons than tram dungeons.

-Daniel Anderson
http://www.mmoguru.com
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