[MUD-Dev] Expected value and standard deviation.

[Paul Schwanz]

Koster, Raph wrote:

> I don't think you're going to succeed at rewriting the human brain

> and finding game designs that don't have a boring way to play them
> unless you design games with infinite possibility spaces. There
> aren't many games like that. Some of the ones I can think of:

>   - player vs player activities (assuming a playfield of
>   sufficient complexity. The human body makes for a nicely complex
>   playfield, for example, hence sports--simple games like tennis
>   still having big possibility spaces).

>   - media. Writing, music, and dare I say it, game design.

Which, of course, is why I think (or at least hope) that the future
of online gaming will involve designing means and methods for better
managing player vs. player activities (better handling of shame and
glory, greater ability to select risk vs. reward, stronger team-play
through shared goals, etc.) and player-content generation (finding
solutions for the legal issues, maximizing the impact of art and
minimizing pablum, etc.).

If game design is indeed an infinite possibility space, then it
seems to me that there is yet hope for finding game designs that
don't offer much in the way of boring methods to play them.
G. K. Chesterton said something to the effect that we can't know
enough about the unknown to claim that it is unknowable.  I'm sure
that there is something in that statement that is applicable to game
design and infinite possibility spaces. ;)

--Phin
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