[MUD-Dev] Expected value and standard deviation.

[Oliver Smith]

From: "Koster, Raph" <rkoster at soe.sony.com>

> I must say that the fact that players prefer to play a boring way
> that gives them advancement over a fun way that gives slower
> advancement seems to be well-proven over decades of online games.

I'm shocked.

Please tell me that that is a gross over-simplification and not your
actual thinking!

Can I ask you (it is related ;): Do you intend to turn insurance
back on?

You currently have players out fighting every level of encounter in
your game. Most even forego cloning. People not even into their
first elite class rally together a party fo 20 and fight fearsome
beasties well beyond their intended encounter ranges.

I see people in SWG out and adventuring. I suspect that when you
turn insurance on that will mainly come to a grinding halt.

And if that's the case, then surely what you are seeing is that most
online games have had relatively successful forms of death penalty,
and players dutifully try to avoid paying it.

How many online games in the last few decades have provided players
with a large enough environment to play through their entire gaming
experience without repetition?

Most of them provide constant repetition, be it camping for a
particular item unique to a single mob and fundamental to your
progression or spending your days simply trying to locate creatures
that are meaningful to your level of advancement (exp hunting).

When we're talking about people playing week after week, night after
night, of course they aren't going to want failure to be their
normal experience, and if the penalty for failing is more than just
"no reward", of course they are going to spend their "bridge nights
in a virtual world" matching their abilities evenly.

As Virtual World designers find better ways of presenting failure,
we'll see far more players willing to afford the price of "fun".

One of the most rewarding parts of SWG is potentially the
many-on-many battles. Not least because its hard to lose
absolutely. Its far more sporting(*).

Technically killing 80% of an enemy team and losing is the same as
killing 80% of a dragon and losing. But from a player perspective
having killed 16 of "them" before losing is different than having
killed 0 dragons. Its the same difference as your favorite sports
team losing 21-20 instead of 21-0.

- Oliver



(*Well, it's getting there =)
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