Early Leaving Players

Players that leave the game before an end state has been reached without being forced to do so by the game itself.

Most games make the assumption that all players will continue playing until the game finishes or until they have been eliminated from the game. However, players or the agents controlling them may for extra-game reasons leave a game earlier. These Early Leaving Players can disrupt gameplay or make further gameplay impossible unless the game is designs to support such changes.

How to solve the issue of Early Leaving Players in gambling has been studied already in the 17th century. This problem, called Problem of points or Division of the stakes, was studied by the mathematicians Fermat and Pascal in a mail conversation in the 1650s that besides resulting in the concept of expectation value lay the foundation for both the fields of probability and statistics.

Note: this patterns deals both with agents and players leaving the game before the game system mandates this.

Examples

FIX PRIVATE GAMES SPACES <-> INSTANCES

Anti-Examples

optional

Using the pattern

Player Balance Gambling Proxy Players Unwinnable Games Drop-In/Drop-Out

Early Elimination

Games that in addition to Early Leaving Players support Late Arriving Players do allow for Drop-In/Drop-Out gameplay.

Consequences

As mentioned above, encouraging or supporting Early Leaving Players is likely to cause the presence of Early Elimination and disrupt Player Balance, especially if the leaving player has the possibility of being a Kingmaker and chooses to use this power.

Relations

Interruptibility

Negotiable Play Sessions

Can Instantiate

Early Elimination, Kingmaker

with Late Arriving Players

Drop-In/Drop-Out

Can Be Instantiated By

Multiplayer Games

Unwinnable Games together with Multiplayer Games

Potentially Conflicting With

Player Balance

History

New pattern created in this wiki.

Acknowledgements

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