Kissing Mortogs for Fun and Profit by scriptfox |  |
MERIDELL - Anyone exploring around the castle in Meridell soon
comes across a whole bunch of Mortogs.
Their owner claims that some are princes (or princesses, depending on the sex
of your current pet), and offers to let you try and change them--for a price.
But just how fair is this price, and how likely are you to win or lose? Before
that can be answered, a quick look at the game itself is in order.
The principle is easy enough to follow. You are given a number
of Mortogs to choose from. Click on the one you want to kiss. If it's a prince,
you get the chance to take your winnings and quit- or the opportunity to try
for a larger stake. The luckier you are (the more you get correct in a row)
the higher your winnings. But lose just once, and you lose it all- right back
down to nothing. Since you put up fifty Neopoints to play, that means that every
time you see a Mortog explode, you just kissed fifty Neopoints goodbye.
Dropping fifty Neopoints at a pop (literally) can get quite expensive,
so before you dive in and start kissing every Mortog in sight, here is the list
of what you might get:
| Round: |
Number
of
Mortogs:
|
Stakes: |
|
1
|
2
|
100
|
|
2
|
3
|
300
|
|
3
|
4
|
1,150
|
|
4
|
5
|
5,900
|
|
5
|
6
|
35,000
|
|
6
|
7
|
250,000
|
|
7
|
8
|
2,000,000
|
"Wow!" you shout, "two million Neopoints! I'll get rich!" Maybe,
maybe not- don't be in such a hurry! Take a closer look at that chart. Note
that as you go through the rounds, there are more and more Mortogs to choose
from. Since only ONE of them is a prince (or princess), that means that you
have a one in eight chance of getting the prince (or princess) on the last
round. That's not the bad news. The bad news is that you only get there AFTER
choosing right in ALL OF THE OTHER rounds! In a row! Now just what are THOSE
odds like? Take a look:
| Round: |
Winning Percentages:
|
Odds as 1 in X |
| Single Round |
Cumulative |
|
1
|
50%
|
50%
|
1 in 2
|
|
2
|
33.33%
|
16.67%
|
1 in 6
|
|
3
|
25%
|
4.17%
|
1 in 24
|
|
4
|
20%
|
0.83%
|
1 in 120
|
|
5
|
16.67%
|
0.139%
|
1 in 720
|
|
6
|
14..29%
|
0.0198%
|
1 in 5,040
|
|
7
|
12.5%
|
0.00248%
|
1 in 40,320
|
At this point it becomes obvious that getting that two million
is not going to be very easy. You start to calculate the cost... fifty Neopoints
times the number of times needed to win it.... uh oh. It's not looking good
at all. The following table shows you the average amount spent to win each
round, and the average number of Neopoints returned per try:
| Round |
Average spent
per win |
Average won
per try |
|
1
|
100
|
50
|
|
2
|
300
|
50
|
|
3
|
1,200
|
47.9
|
|
4
|
6,000
|
49.17
|
|
5
|
36,000
|
48.6
|
|
6
|
252,000
|
49.6
|
|
7
|
2,016,000
|
49.6
|
A word of explanation about that "average won per try." The
formula for that is to take the total payout for that level and divide
by the average number of times it takes to win (expressed in the "1 in
X odds" chart above). For this to apply to you, however, you must play
and NEVER take your winnings until that level and then ALWAYS cash out
at that level. Whatever level you cash out at is the level you are "playing
for." Note that since you spend fifty points per try, getting fifty back
means that on average you will break even. Getting less than fifty back
means that on average you lose more than you win.
At this point in the discussion, you're probably pretty discouraged.
It seems that you'll never be able to make any money at kissing those
Mortogs Indeed, coming up with a winning strategy certainly does seem
hopeless in the long term. But remember, these are average results, not
actual! The odds are that you will come out somewhere NEAR average, but
not that it will be exact. There is a more hopeful way of looking at it.
Let's say that you play twice at level one (and cash out when you win.)
The odds of winning each time are fifty percent. The odds of winning BOTH
times are twenty five percent. This means that you have only a one in
four chance of losing one hundred points. Half the time you'll break even,
and the other fourth of the time you'll win a hundred points! Sure, on
average, you're still faced with the zero sum game- but the actual results
show that the odds favour you not losing, and possibly winning.
All very pretty, but how well does it work out in practice?
In my one marathon "kissing session," it didn't work out well at all.
In order to win level four, and get that 5,900 points, I wound up spending
about 13,000 points. That's 260 tries to win something with odds of 1
in 120. The math says that that result has odds of over seven to one against....
so am I extremely unlucky, is the math bad, or has someone rigged the
game while we weren't looking???
After bemoaning my fate, railing against the uncaring odds,
and other unmentionable targets, I was left with only one superstition
about choosing a "lucky" Mortog I picked the Mortog that corresponded
to the number of round that I was playing on. (The first on level one,
the second on level two, etc...) It seemed to help- I know that I finally
won that way- but after managing to lose so much against the odds, I hardly
feel qualified to tell anyone how to win!
The bottom line is simple. You'd better like kissing Mortogs
for the fun of it, because the profit is more likely than not going to
blow up in your face! |
