Hi, I'm André Meadows and this is Crash Course Games. Today, we're going to talk about a new kind of game that appeared in the 1990s and leveraged the new internet technology to connect millions of players in the gaming world where they can talk to each other, work toward completing quests, and compete or co-operate as they please.
These games are called Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games which is too long of a phrase for me to say fourteen more times in this video, so we're just gonna call them MMORPGs https://wildernessdrum.com/. Games like these, usually found on PCs, have been nicknamed "life-games" since they lack a traditional ending. You could literally play them for life. Or at least as long as the servers are up, anyway. Today, we're gonna talk about a few of these fantasy worlds and find out why they bring us together in the real world. So slap on that tier 18 armour and grab your companion pet, make sure your expansion pack is downloaded, and let's go! [Theme Music] In the world of gaming, we have Massively Multiplayer Online Games (or MMO games) and Roleplaying Video Games (or RPGs). MMORPGs are obviously the combination of them both. These games are usually hosted on servers by the game's publishers and are constantly evolving whether the player is online or not. But before we get into that, let's talk about MUD. I don't mean mud like the kind your dog tracks in, but a MUD, or Multi-User Dungeon, which would go on to inspire modern MMORPGs. MUDs are text-based roleplaying games that have no graphics and only involve a few users. Players type in questions or commands and the game responds with written responses. Using your imagination and pretending to see the adventure is a selling point. These games are usually fantasy-based and most were inspired by Dungeons & Dragons. One of the most famous MUDs, called MUD, was created in the late 1970s by Roy Trubshaw on a PDP-10. We mentioned that in an earlier episode because that's the same computer used for the invention of Galaxy Game, the world's first coin-operated video game. MUD was simple, with players typing in N, E, S, or W for the four main directions, and words like "attack" or "defend" to battle enemies. A few years later, those simple commands were replaced with more complex sentences like, "You were eaten by a Grue!" a famous phrase that many players of the game Zork encountered time and time again. This popular MUD sold over 680,000 copies in the first three games in its series in the 1980s. These games emphasised leveling-up, exploration, and monster hunting, which would become a common theme in many future MMORPGs. But text-based games have a limited audience because people like pretty pictures and in 1986, Lucasfilm Games debuted Habitat on the Commodore 64. This game could support up to 10,000 players, but users could only play the game at night and on weekends when the server was running. It's like an old cellphone plan. Also, players had to play by the hour. It's like old long distance charges. In 1991, Quantum Computer Services (which would later be called AOL) debuted Neverwinter Nights, which was the first modern MMORPG. By the time it went offline in 1997, it supported 115,000 players that paid $6 an hour to enter that world. It had fighting, leveling-up, and the ability to create guilds, or like-minded groups within the game. This would become a cornerstone of modern MMORPGs and the communities created within them. In 1997, Ultima Online was the MMORPG that brought this game genre to the mainstream reaching 100,000 subscribers in its first year and a peak user base of 250,000 active accounts in 2003. It helped that the Ultima series had been around since 1981, had 10 titles in its series, and had a huge fanbase. So this brings us to that quintessential modern MMORPG -- World of Warcraft! World of Warcraft, or WoW, has been running since 2004 and, at its height, had over 12 million active players. This game is so widespread that it's played in 244 countries and territories and its players have created over 500 million characters and 9 million social guilds. Today, WoW still has 5.5 million players, which isn't too bad considering those players are still paying Blizzard $15 a month to play the game. And the bonds people form in the game can even spill over into real life. The New York Times ran an article in 2011 documenting multiple couples who met and married thanks to World of Warcraft. And even death is also an accepted part of gaming in WoW communities. In 2006, a World of Warcraft player died of a stroke in real life. Her online friends chose to honour her with an in-game funeral. A huge number of players showed up in formal attire and left their weapons at home out of respect. A line formed so that mourners could pay their last respects to the player's avatar. But since this is a game on the internet, things went horribly wrong when an opposing faction's guild raided the funeral and killed everyone.
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This can "work as a functional ship in the water." TRAVIS: Shut the hell up! Well, we want to stay out, right now.
MATT: "Well then, you seem weary enough. You may have your rest, and rest assured that we'll be to "your destination as soon as this ship can carry us. I'm going to rest myself." He goes down to his quarters and Deshall takes over, who is mid-thirties, grizzled, scruff on his chin, but put together well, hair parted to one side, not a man of many words. He takes over the helm and keeps it going through the night. You guys go ahead and rest for the evening? LIAM: I'm going to meditate for an hour before bed. TRAVIS: Could I take a shot of the sandkheg bottle? I would like to slowly start building up an immunity. MATT: All righty. Make a constitution saving throw, Grog. LIAM: (Grog voice) Meaning I would like to get fucked up on a regular basis. TRAVIS: 29. MATT: You drink it https://oncasinogames.com/the-top-payforit-casinos/. You feel the sparkling numbness begin to spread across your throat. It's strange. It's weird. It's exhilarating. It triggers your adrenaline, and you almost go into a rage from the instinctual reaction of that sort of chemical release in your brain. You hold it in place, and you sit there a second and stare as it slowly goes down your system. You feel the warm, curling burn from inside your belly that fine alcohol gives you, that little shimmer of pins and needles down the back of your neck and your spine. Your vision begins to blur a little bit. It takes you a lot of alcohol to get trashed, but you're a little buzzed. TRAVIS: Sick. Awesome. Well played, sandkheg. I go to sleep. MATT: With your nightcap, you are good to go. Looking under the stars, you finish your meditation. Everyone else, you go to rest fine. Throughout the evening you sleep. The last thing you see before you go to bed is the edge of the mountain range, late into the night, and a small sparkle in a crescent shape. You ask one of the hands to the side. He points over and says, "The "Bay of Gifts." This is the northern side where you see Shamal, the port city. That's the last little bastion of civilization of Marquet as it begins to approach from underneath as you all go to sleep. The continent is behind you. MARISHA: How many hours has it been? MATT: When you come to consciousness after the evening's rest-- LAURA: I want to hold Fenthras in my hand and keep thinking about the things Saundor said. MATT: After a good eight hour rest for all of you to recover yourselves, hit points, everything, spells, you come to. The warmth of the sun is what kicks you into consciousness. It's been about 13 hours since you guys left. Eight hours of rest. You had five hours of travel northward until you began to reach the northern end of the continent on this skyship. TALIESIN: This might be the best sleep that we've gotten in months, at this point. Like babies. SAM: Is it morning time? MATT: Yeah. SAM: You want to do that morning scry? MARISHA: Yeah, morning scry. TALIESIN: I'm going to sit down with a pen and paper, ready to write! MARISHA: Yeah, morning constitutional, here we come. Bust out whatever magazines they have nearby. Cup of coffee, first. MATT: All right. Using the same journal? TALIESIN: Let's use the gun now. Let's go nuts. SAM: Now that it's been de-cursed, will that mess up-- TALIESIN: It's got a lot of her work in it. MATT: All right, are you using the crystal first? MARISHA: Yeah. Didn't they fight Thordak in the ocean? MARISHA: That's what my thought was. Would a dragon's breath? MATT: A dragon's breath would fuse a small chunk of the beach here. MARISHA: What about if a bunch of sorcerers and magic users got together and made a big nuke?
MATT: That's possible. Very little chance there would be any survivors. LIAM: Like a meteor or a comet from the sky. TALIESIN: Even a comet wouldn't be enough. This is big. MARISHA: Keyteor. MATT: As you guys are having this conversation, he goes, "The mountain still stands. The jungle still "stands, though petrified and burnt. I know not the means that brought it to where it is, but it's "been that way for as long as we have history on it. Long ago." MARISHA: How long ago was it? MATT: "I'm assuming the Age of Arcanum if anything." TRAVIS: Right. You said we have quarters on this ship; do you mind if I sleep under the stars? MATT: "Be my guest." TRAVIS: Rocking. Going to commune with nature in my own way. Fart in the wind. TALIESIN: I'm going to be far away from that. TRAVIS: No one wants to join me? Get all hippie up on the deck of the ship? LAURA: I'll do that! I'll sleep out, and Trinket will want to do that as well. LIAM: I actually do, yeah. MATT: (bear noises) LAURA: Stars, Trinket. Beautiful. LIAM: Speaking of heat, make with the bed farts, Trinket. I get cold at night. SAM: Keyleth, make sure you learn your scrying spells for tomorrow. Do we still have that ball, the scry-ball? MATT: Yep. LAURA: We'll have two scrys tomorrow if you learn the spell. MARISHA: I could theoretically do three scrys tomorrow. I could theoretically do five scrys tomorrow. TRAVIS: I pay super close attention, but after we gave them the destination, did they tell us how long it would take? SAM: Two, three days. MATT: Depending on the weather. TRAVIS: What if we pass over the ship in the night? TALIESIN: Then we'll attack them in the night. SAM: How will we see them? Is there someone who stands watch at night? MARISHA: She knows where we're going, so she'll let us know if we get there? SAM: But we're looking for the boat, not the island. TALIESIN: The boat itself. There's work that always needs to be done. There'll be lights, unless they are hiding. LIAM: You can alert one of us if we come upon a ship in the night or day, correct? MATT: "I have to sleep at some point as well." LIAM: Of course, but someone is awake? MATT: "Deshall, who is my second in command, will take over while I'm sleeping. There will be "someone here, along with a few hands, taking shifts as well at all times." MARISHA: I describe the ship to them from what I've seen. LAURA: But it's in the ocean, isn't it? And we're very high above it? TRAVIS: Do we want to go lower? SAM: Yes. TRAVIS: How high off the deck, would you say? SAM: Off the sea? Three, maybe four feet? No. I don't know, couple hundred feet? You're the captain. MATT: "We're okay for now. High is fine. But once we get close to the archipelago we'll want to make "sure that we keep within 100 feet of the surface. I could take it into the ocean. MATT: "Right. The arch-ipelago. Let's see. We have no sundry we're holding, so we're at maximum "speed. I'd say two, maybe three days of travel, depending on weather."
SAM: Just to get in the area. It'll take us another day or two to find this ship. TALIESIN: Well, not necessarily. Every day we scry. Every day we hone in. We keep following where they're going. MARISHA: Ideally, she does the hard work for us. TRAVIS: It's worth noting as well that if we do find this ship, we do not mean her well. MATT: "I can only assume, going to Hespet." MARISHA: You seem very familiar with this place. Do you have more information? LIAM: Or apprehension? MATT: "Hespit is a-- the whole network of islands there is a haven for criminals, fugitives, "pirates, and everyone else who generally keeps away from the large continents. So you go without "guard, stay without threat, you're likely to be bent into slavery, or end up left bleeding "somewhere on the shoreline." TRAVIS: Is that a promise? LAURA: We're super powerful. LIAM: You do the flying. We'll do the fucking shit up. MATT: "We'll have to come in low, most likely. I don't want to try and draw attention to this ship, "because I'm sure it would fetch quite a penny if it were to fall into the hands of--" TRAVIS: I'm sure Keyleth would provide you with some cover as well. MATT: "Well, that would be very much appreciated." MARISHA: I could do that. MATT: "Thankfully Glintshore itself is pretty much useless to most of their standards of business "practices. It's mostly ignored by them, from what I know at least of what they do, but still, just "to be safe and be careful." SAM: Has Teera been around there? Does she know anything of that particular shipwreck? MATT: He's about to talk and Teera pipes up, "I do, actually, and I will be guiding us directly to "it, so don't worry." SAM: To the shipwreck? MATT: "Not to the shipwreck, but to the Glintshore." SAM: Have you heard of that shipwreck? The Shrew? MATT: "I have not. But there are plenty of shipwrecks in the area. I'm sure there's much to "recover, if that's what you're looking for." LAURA: No, we'll stick with the Shrew. MATT: "I'll take you where I can." TRAVIS: The island of glass, is it called that because of a glass production site? (laughter) SAM: Yep. LAURA: Was that hard for you, Grog? TRAVIS: I hurt myself. MATT: Captain Damon says, "I don't know the history, exactly, but at some point in time, "something really bad happened. All the sand of the shores were fused into dark brown and black glass. "It's a jagged landscape, leading all the way up to the mountain. The jungle is petrified and dead. "It's not a welcoming place. I'm surprised why anyone would pay so much to go there. But I'm sure "you have your reasons." MARISHA: Can I do a nature check to see if that sounds familiar? MATT: Sure. MARISHA: Beasts or something that would happen-- Heat, a lot of fucking heat. 26. MATT: To fuse the beaches, or an island its entirety, would require such extreme, fierce heat. This is going through your mind as well, Percy, being a man who understands this science very well. Something very bad had to have happened here a long time ago on a very large scale to render an island pretty much covered in glass. LAURA: Do you think this is where they knocked Thordak down? You never know. You might win big. I just won $.10 See, this is why you wanna come.
Cause you win money here. I hate this game. Why do people do this? He quickly changed his tune after a big win. I won $2.75. I'm cashing out. Oh my god. Hahaha Now it's time for some Costa Rica facts The population is 4.9 million people They host more than 5% of the worlds biodiversity And their major religion is catholicism. Fruit and pancakes fore free. We got iced coffee from Karahe hotel and sat on the beach. Costa Rica is amazing. My favorite part about it is definitely the beach. The waves are incredible this website. I don't miss Maine right now. The beach is like so beautiful. And the locals are really nice. I've never seen anything so beautiful. So, spending all day at the beach What is it? Chicken? Marlin I really wanted to eat it, but I'm vegetarian for real this episode. Just like the local iguanas. And you know what? I got stuck between two iguanas leaving my room this morning. They really are everywhere. But don't worry about it. They're more afraid of you than you are of them. Just steer clear of the big ones with wings that breath fire and you'll be just fine. Time for some grub. I'm quickly learning eating vegetarian isn't cheap. But I'll do my best to find some good deals. No more hot dogs for me. Being healthy Although I definitely stole a few fries when Jira went to the bathroom After lunch we walked around and did some shopping Nothing really caught my eye, but if you're looking for souvenirs, you might want to stop by. They had glasses for $5 and some jewelry as cheap as a $1. And unlike some places in South and Central America They don't really like to haggle here. So just pay what they ask. We got back to the hotel just in time for sunset. It was so beautiful, I'd even consider getting married here but it looks like Johnny and Mary beat me to it. With all the love in the air, we decided it was time to drink and skip down the ocean holding hands with our new friend Cody. Cause, why not? Grabbing dinner down the street and Cantina BBQ You could take a cab from the hostel, but it's a nice walk. The whole restaurant is surrounded by jungle It kind of reminded me of Jurassic Park. Hopefully nothing comes out of the woods. This is the first time I've ever seen a fern that big! Ahhh! Hahaha That was Cody. He really likes dinosaurs. The food here is delicious. Lots of meats to choose from. We got a delicious healthy salad. My mom would be very disappointed in my table manners. I somehow forgot how to chew. After dinner we danced to live music and then we headed over to Salina to drink by their pool. I love Salina! Cody and I told Kai if she went in, we'd go too. And she called our bluff. So in we went. Along with my wallet that I forgot to take out of my pocket. Gonna start off day three with a song called "Love Buzz" from Cody's band Ghost Kitty. Costa Rica. Living entirely on smoothies and local pharmaceuticals. Hey! My name is Chas Bruns. And I travel the world in search of the cheapest food hostels, transportation and tours so you don't have to. Which means you're going to get to find out some of the best places in the world to eat. Some of the best people in the world to meet.
and where to go to have a damn good time. And the best part is I'm gonna show you how to do it all "Dirt Cheap" Looking for a top of the line dugout or one hitter? Look no further than thediggeronehitter.com Sleek and rugged with a one of a kind patented design. It's the best you'll ever use. Costa Rica Land of lush, beautiful and exotic jungles and iguanas Ugly and majestic at the same time. We're flying into San Jose and then driving down to Manuel Antonio National Park. I wish it wasn't so, but to get to Manuel Antonio it's a three and a half our bus ride. And of course there are taxis, but we're going really far I suggest using Costa Rica Driver or Interbus. They range between $50 and $75 depending on your pick up location. It's a beautiful ride and you get to stop for souvenirs and crocodiles. You heard right. There's crocodiles. Big ones. Like 15 to 20 feet long kind of big. I got a banana for lunch for $.17 and decided to share it with the crocs. Who knew Costa Rican crocodiles we're vegetarian? Blew my mind. Just kidding. He totally spit it out. We got into Manuel Antonio just in time for sunset. Beautiful. We're staying at the Beachpacker hostel for $25 a night or $12.50 a person. It comes with a nice little porch two separate beds and a private bathroom. It's only a 60 second walk to the beach and comes with free breakfast. Speaking of the beach I'm heading back to check out the tail end of the sunset. So far, I'm liking Costa Rica. Jira said he was getting hungry, so we headed over to the Karahe restaurant. They had a disco ball and a pool, so I was a fan. And just like the Indonesia episode, I'm totally tagging along on another wedding. Our friend Johnny (the groom) is currently nowhere to be found so I'm having a beer with his dad. Cheers! Cheers! Costa Rica baby! There was a live band and happy hour is buy one get one free. So I'm totally double fisting it. And since my lunch only cost $.17 I splurged on this salad. Costa Ricans like to live healthy, so for this episode, Im going healthy. Jira on the other hand is not. And he's pissed off he didn't get to go to Indonesia with me so he's refusing to let me interview him about his spaghetti. After dinner we headed to the Jolly Roger bar and Casino. They have an adult size set of Jenga blocks. I totally thought Melissa had it in the bag, but apparently Johnny is a Jenga master. Look at that skill. True professional. Against my better judgement, I doubled down on my bet against him. Melissa really let me down. Good thing I only bet $.50 Wow. Speaking of betting, time to go in the casino. If gambling is your thing, swing on by Jolly Roger. - [Announcer] Yellow Productions presents. - Sentosa Island, in Singapore. Sentosa Island was originally a British military fortress until 1972 when it was redeveloped into the adults playground that you see on the video today. The old remains of the fortress remain at Fort Siloso Point, which is now a museum and has Asia's largest collection of big guns, and yes they are very big guns. Sentosa Island has come a long way from its past as a military fortress and for an island that's just five square kilometers it really has quite a few attractions.
You can think of it as Las Vegas combined with a theme park in a rain forest at the beach. The most scenic way to get into Sentosa Island is to take the Jewel Box cable car from the top of Mount Faber. It costs 24 Singapore dollars for a round trip ticket and the views are definitely amazing. As you come into Sentosa Island on the cable car, you pass over the Resorts World Complex, which has a large water park and is also home to Singapore's newest casino. To the left, off in the distance, is Universal Studios. If cable cars aren't really your thing, you can also take these Sentosa Express Monorail into Sentosa Island, it leaves from the VivoCity Shopping Mall and costs four dollars for the trip into Sentosa Island. The return off of Sentosa Island back to the Singapore mainland is free, so you could do what I did and take the cable car into the island and than the monorail back to the mainland. And if you are really adventuresome, you can walk to Sentosa Island along the same bridge that the monorail goes on and that will only cost you one dollar. If you take the cable car onto the island, you will arrive at Imbiah Lookout. The small hill on Sentosa Island is known as Imbiah Lookout. This is where the cable car stops from Mount Faber, this is also where the Luge takes off, there's a number of eateries and other attractions up here as well. If you like butterflies and insects, this is your place to go. I'm not really sure how they decided that the Butterfly Park should be combined with the Insect Kingdom, I'd go to see the butterflies, but not really the big insects, like that huge beetle. If you are a big kid like me, then you oughta check out the Sentosa Luge and Sky Ride. It's part debagon part go kart, but all sorts of fun, or at least that's what the sign says. You got to get a helmet to get on the ride and then they give you some instruction and then down the hill you go. One half of the luge ride is luging down the hill, but than the other half of the ride is taking this ski lift all the way back up to the top of the hill. If you start at the top of the hill, then you take the luge down and the ski lift chair back to the top, or you can start from the bottom at the beach and take the ski lift chair up to the top and then luge down. Every luge ride comes with one skied share ride, it's nice and scenic, but in Singapore it's hot and it's sunny and it's noon and I'm melting, it is hot on this chair. If you are really feeling adventuresome you can do the Mega Zip zip line, I did, you can see I'm in the harness, I just finished, pretty fun ride. The zip line ride starts at the top of Imbiah Lookout and goes down to this little island on the beach. The zip line is 450 meters long, 75 meters high and you reach speeds up to 50 kilometers per hour. When you start at the top, they clip you in, and then off you go down the hill. It was so much fun I had to go a second time. If beach going is your thing, Sentosa Island has a couple of man made beaches, they are nice and pictureus with white sand, but not a lot of waves, just for swimming and waiting. In addition to sand and palm trees, Siloso beach is also fronted by a number of beach clubs and bars. Great if you didn't bring a towel, but you still wanna be able to lounge. Also at Siloso is the Wave House, which is a man made wave, actually by a guy from San Diego, so you can surf, just you gotta surf here at the Wave House. For getting around the island there's also a series of Sentosa buses. They are free to ride and will take you almost anywhere you wanna go in 10 minute intervals. Along the beach instead of a bus they operate an outdoor beach tram, also at 10 minute intervals. And the final attraction I'll mention is the 37 meter tall Merlion, the mascot of Singapore. There are five official merlion statues in Singapore, this one being the largest. So if your travels take you to Singapore, definitely check out Sentosa Island, where there are attractions for the kid in all of us. (soft music) Thanks for watching, click here to subscribe. If it were true, like if this distribution were true that they were choosing play with 80 percent probability in heads and 30 percent probability in tails, then yes, we can apply this reasoning. But the opponent strategy can always change. They can always change adversarially to us. Yes? >> There's one thing that I've always been interested in, when you play the Nash or when you play against the opponent.
It seems like they're not going to shift. Even if you're playing the wrong strategy, they wouldn't exploit it off immediately. They have to learn to exploit it. I guess it's safe to definitely model the Nash, but I am curious about this intermediate space where you'd play against how they've been playing in the past, recognize that you need to shift in some way because they may shift as well Casinoslots SA. >> So, yeah, that's a great question. We actually did not, so one of the interesting things about humans playing poker, is that they're actually really good at exploiting. They are phenomenal at it. Way better than computers are currently. So, we actually did a competition against them in 2015 where we lost, and we would sometimes change the bot that they were playing against between days. Within 50 hands of playing, they could figure out how the bot had changed. So yes, if you can make an AI that could figure out how to do this better than humans, then that that might be valuable. But we're playing against really talented humans and we didn't think that we could beat them at that game, but then also why bother playing that game? Why bother trying to play that mind game if we can just approximate a Nash equilibrium and guarantee that we're going to win. So, I would argue that in the two player zero-sum game, if you want to beat top humans in a two-player zero-sum game, the best approach is to just approximate the Nash equilibrium because now, no matter what they're going to do, you're going to beat them. Now, I would argue that if your objectives are different, so for example, if you really want to beat up on a weak player and exploit them, then yeah, you don't want to necessarily play Nash equilibrium. You want to adapt to their weaknesses. This is challenging to do correctly, because if you try to adapt to a weak players weaknesses, you never know if they're just fooling you. Like if you're playing rock, paper, scissors against somebody and they throw rocks three times in a row, and you say, well, he's clearly an idiot who's throwing rock every single time, I'm going to throw paper next time, they could just throw scissors. So, there's no safe way that, except in special cases, there's no safe way to do that kind of opponent exploitation and still guarantee that you're going to beat top humans expectation. So, I think that is an excellent avenue for future research, but I think that in the two-player zero-sum setting, where we're just trying to beat top humans, I think this is the better way to go about it. So, Unsafe Subgame Solving, is very risky for this reason because if you make an assumption about how the opponent is playing, they can always shift to a different strategy and take advantage of that. Now, that said, it turns out that this actually works, yes, so we must account for the opponent's ability to adapt. Now, that said in practice, Unsafe Subgame Solving works unusually well in poker. It turns out that if you just approximate what the Nash Equilibrium strategy is and then assume that the opponent is playing that, and apply Subgame solving in this way, that actually works really well in this domain. But we have found situations where this does not work well, and I think in more general settings, it would not do well. So, we actually use this in a few situations in Libratus. But in general, I would not recommend doing this. Unless the domain is specially structured that it would work. So, Safe Subgame Solving, the idea is instead that we're just going to estimate what the expected value is for the opponent's Subgames, for the opponent's actions for different Subgames, and use that information to determine the optimal strategy for the Subgame that we're in. Now, this works if your expected values are perfect, but if they're not perfect you're obviously not going to compute an exact Nash equilibrium. So, it turns out that there's room for improvement here. By the way, this idea has been around for awhile. It's was first introduced in 2014. It was never really used in practice because it didn't actually give you good results in practice. Because you don't have perfect estimates. But what we came up with, is a way to dramatically improve the performance without giving up any theoretical guarantees. With this thing called Reach Subgame Solving. So, here's an example of how this works. This is going to get a little tricky, so if you have any questions in the next few slides please let me know. So, let's say that we have this slightly larger game now. It's still basically the same structure, there's a coin flip that only player one observes. Player one takes a sequence of actions, they eventually end up in this choice between selling the coin or playing, choosing play. Now, if they choose play, player two has to guess how the coin landed. Well, let's say your estimates are off in this game. Let's say we estimate that for choosing Sell, they will get an expected value of minus one regardless of which state they're in. Well, the best that we can do is just guess 50-50 between heads and tails and guarantee that they get just an expected value zero, for choosing play. But maybe we can use information about the earlier actions to improve upon this. So, maybe there is this earlier action that player one could have chosen, if the coin landed heads, where they could have gotten expected value of 0.5. Well, that means that in the Nash equilibrium, they would choose that action and get expected value of 0.5, and in the other case, they would come down here and choose play and get it fixed value of zero. So, they're getting an average of 0.25 in this game. But we can now shift our strategy as player two, to ensure we get tails more often, which guarantees that player one now gets negative 0.5 in this case. In the heads case that means they will get to 0.5 for choosing play, but that doesn't really matter because they're already getting 0.5 for this earlier deviate action. So, we're not really giving up anything in this situation, we're just making ourselves better off. Because they would never gets to the situation where they would choose the 0.5 anyway. This seems really intuitive but there's a problem with this, which is really subtle. I'm going to have to go to a bigger game, which is going to get even more complicated to really illustrate it. So, here is this bigger game. It's still pretty similar, that a coin that lands heads or tails with 50-50 probability. Player one in both cases now, let's say has this deviate action. In the heads case, they can get 0.5, and at tails case, they get minus 0.5. Or they can choose to continue, in which case we run into this chance node. This chance node is public. It just leads to two different Subgames, so both players observe the outcome of this chance node. It just leads to see different situations that are strategically identical. It's an irrelevant chance node, but it is a chance node. Then after this chance node, player one let's say, chooses play and we estimate the expected value of them choosing play is now zero. So, let's say, we were player two in this game, we observe player one choose play. Which means that we are in one of these two different situations. Either the coin landed heads, they choose to continue and let's say we observed that the chance node end up going left, and then they chose play. Or the coin landed tails, player one chose to continue. We observe the chance node going left and they choose play. So, we're in either this situation or this situation. Well, we observed that they have this deviate action of where they could've gotten expected value 0.5, if the coin landed heads. So, maybe we would say, we say, okay, well, we can increase the expected value for this action to one and lower it to minus one in this case, for example, by always guessing tails. That is okay because since this situation is only encountered 50 percent of the time, the expected value for this action is now just 0.5, and so that matches the deviant actions, so we're not giving up anything. Does anybody see the problem with this? All right. The problem is, if that chance node had gone the other way, if it had gone right, we would apply this same exact reasoning. We would say, okay, well, we can increase this expected value to one, because we're all encountering the situation half the time, so this expected value goes up to 0.5, and now the opponent is getting expected value zero, we're not giving up anything. But if we apply this reasoning regardless of which way this chance node goes, then what that means is our strategy is to always guess tails in both situations. So, in reality, it means that the expected value in this case is one and in this case is one, which means that the expected value is actually one, it's not 0.5. So, now player one could be better off by choosing to continue instead of choosing this deviate action. So, what this illustrates is that when you are doing this Subgame solving, you're doing this real-time reasoning, you can't look at the expected values of what we call the Blueprint Strategy, the pre-computed strategy. You have to think about what the expected values would have been if we had entered that Subgame and applied Subgame solving there too. So, that makes things that way more complicated. But fortunately, with Reach subgame solving, by the way, two prior papers had actually discussed this idea of, okay, we're encountering this situation, let's just increase the expected value for here, because they could have gotten an expected value earlier on and missed this problem that you have to consider about all the subgames that people could end up in. So, two prior papers published about this and they both got it wrong, and our paper, NIPS 2017 recognized this problem and actually came up with a fix that allows you to do this Reach subgame solving, while still guaranteeing that the points, your exploitability is not going to go up. The basic idea is to just only increase the expected value for both of these situations by 0.5. The actual details get a little bit more complicated, but the aren't too important for this talk. But the idea is you just increase the expected values by less depending on how many subgames they could end up in. If there is any skill that any student would want to acquire, it is how to study well in college. A good – or, better yet, excellent – academic performance can be the stepping stone to better employment opportunities. During these financially-stricken times, having a good education is one of the ways by which a student can secure a bright future for himself/herself.
Although there are many “how to study well tips” being offered both in print media and on the World Wide Web, they will be ineffective if the student does not exert time and effort into making these tips habits, and not just something they do when a test or major exam is coming up. These study strategies and habits are best carried on throughout an individual’s life. After all, learning is a never ending process. Key Factors in Enhancing Learning and Memory If you want to learn how to study well and faster, there are five key factors that you need to address specifically if you are to enhance your memory and learning. These five factors are listed below and will be discussed in full one by one. 1) The amount of STUDY TIME you allot in your daily schedule (this excludes lecture and homework times) and if you are using said time appropriately. 2) Your STUDY PLACE and when you use it. 3) How you enter information into your SHORT-TERM MEMORY (STM) 4) How you encode information from your STM into your LONG-TERM MEMORY (LTM) 5) How to RETRIEVE INFORMATION from your memory, particularly during exams. The Importance of Study Time The most important factor when it comes to know how to study well in college is the proper utilization of study time. Take note, however, that when we say “study time”, we are not talking about those long hours and all-nighters that you pull when cramming for an exam. With essay service you can get everything for succeful exam. Research studies have shown that the best study times are those with a duration of only 30 minutes to 1 hour, with 10 minute breaks in between. The reason for the shorter duration is that studying for longer than an hour leads to diminishing concentration. If you cannot concentrate because your mind is exhausted, learning and information retention is hampered. This is what happens to students who do study regularly but for longer periods. The long duration tires their minds, so that they retain less of what they read in their textbooks, consequently getting poor grades. Psychologists offer a strategy on how to improve concentration while studying. As you are reading your textbook, be very aware of the moments when your mind starts to wander and/or what you are studying stops registering inside your head. Once you notice this happening to you, take a short break. When you go back to your reading, make sure that you read at a faster pace. Much like driving at a faster speed forces your mind to focus on the road, so too will faster reading cause your mind to concentrate more on what you are studying. Students who have slow reading and comprehension are advised to take speed reading classes in order to improve in their study habits. Alternating Study Locations In the past, educators strongly encourage their students to study in quiet locations that are conducive to learning. The study location that always comes highly recommended is the university library. However, recent research studies on learning have shown that not all students can study in somber environments like libraries. In fact, it is more effective alternate study places instead of just sticking to the library. The reason for this lies in the workings of human cognition. Information retention is increased when it is “colored” by the location and the student’s mood. The more the environment is related to the subject matter, the greater will be the amount of facts that he or she will retain inside her mind. As a concrete example, Biochemistry students are encouraged to learn more if they are in a related location, such as a chemistry lab with its many beakers and bottles containing chemical reagents and charts of chemical formulas. Did you know that, in these same studies, researchers have found that students perform better in their exams if they study in a room similar to the place where they will be taking the test? If you have a test coming up, you might want to consider reviewing past lessons in the exam room itself or in a similar-looking lecture hall. A student’s mood can also affect his or her memory retention. For example, bad mood resulting from a quarrel with parents or break up from a boyfriend or girlfriend can hamper study concentration. On the other hand, those who want to know how to study well may find themselves having to read on unpleasant historical events and similar subject matter. This would make it difficult for the student to delve into the deeper details of the study material. To resolve mood difficulties, you must find the best environment which will put you in the mood for studying. Often, authors have the perfect title for a book before they’ve written a single word of the story. Others never name a novel till the very end. I’m guilty of the first. I’m also guilty of changing a title a hundred times while writing the actual novel. I’ve gone through about eight titles for my current manuscript I’m working on.
I’ve been addicted to this thing for several years now, often trying out titles that I think of. I also love to try out titles of books that have already been published by well-known authors. The title of my current book, STEALING WISHES, scores a 79% chance of being a bestseller, while some of the working titles of my next book have only been scoring 26%. Here’s a few I tried just now while writing this… Twilight scores a 35%. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (one of my personal favs) landed a 26%. Fellow reviewer LK Gardner-Griffie’s book, Misfit McCabe, scored a 70%. While I don’t take the results to heart, I usually like to choose a title based on a phrase from the English language that we often over use without knowing it, or I like titles with some sort of hidden meaning. For instance, my first book’s title is The Other Side of What came to me as a result of the phrase, “the grass is always greener on the other side.” Stealing Wishes was the result of seeing a homeless person get arrested on COPS for taking money out of a fountain. I had already added that as an odd habit performed by my main character, and the title just popped into my head after that. Originally, it was to be called 32 and Counting (which only scores 34% on the title scorer). My next book was written under the title For The Most Part. Again, a phrase we use a lot but I’m afraid it may be too vague. I changed it earlier this year to When Our Stories Had Happy Endings but I’m afraid that’s too long and sounds too dreary. Back to the drawing board… So, how DO you choose a title? |
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