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[1], was studied by the mathematicians Fermat and Pascal in a mail conversation in the 1650s[2] 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.
Contents
Examples
Gambling games such as Roulette and Blackjack have people coming and going, thereby having Early Leaving Players.
Roleplaying Games of all types have Early Leaving Players since these games have no natural ending points and events outside the game while at one point or another make some players leave.
Anti-Examples
Most games not designed to handle Early Leaving Players instead rely on players following a social contract to not stop playing until the end of the game. For traditional two-player games such as Chess and Go the possibility of resigning does provide a game mechanic for stopping play, but in other games such as Diplomacy, Risk, or Battlestar Galactica, players commit a faux pas by leaving the game early.
Using the pattern
Gambling Proxy Players Unwinnable Games Possibility of Resigning
Designing for Early Leaving Players is most often a case of trying to minimize negative effects associated with this, e.g disrupted Player Balance
Many of the issues which can be seen as problematic with Early Leaving Players also occur in games that have Early Elimination, and can be handled similarly.
Additionally, games may be design to minimize the potential reasons for people to become Early Leaving Players. One solution to this is to support Interruptibility while another is to increase players' ability to modify their game instance to fit the time they have available; the second solution can be designed either through Negotiable Game Instance Duration, Negotiable Game Sessions, or Negotiable Play Sessions.
Games that in addition to Early Leaving Players support Late Arriving Players do allow for Drop-In/Drop-Out gameplay.
Diegetic Aspects
Interface Aspects
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Narrative Aspects
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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 through his or her last game actions and chooses to use this power.
Relations
Can Instantiate
with Late Arriving Players
Can Modulate
Can Be Instantiated By
Unwinnable Games together with Multiplayer Games
Can Be Modulated By
Possible Closure Effects
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Potentially Conflicting With
Interruptibility, Negotiable Game Instance Duration, Negotiable Game Sessions, Negotiable Play Sessions, Player Balance
History
New pattern created in this wiki.
References
- ↑ Wikipedia entry for the problem of points.
- ↑ Sanford, V. (translator). Fermat and Pascal on Probability. In Smith, D.E., 1929. A Source Book in Mathematics, pp. 546-565. McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.
Acknowledgements
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