No really an MMO, but have any of you played World of Tanks?
The game has a system where players can be reported, and if they accumulate enough, I'm pretty sure they're temporarily suspended. This is all automatic, and can be/is abused. The game also had such a problem with chat being abused that they ended up disabling cross-team chat and eventually adding an option to turn off chat all together (imagine that, in a team based game, lol).
Granted I don't think Pantheon will be anywhere near as bad in terms of toxic players, but this is one example of an automated system in use by a popular game today.
BamBam said:. Young generation have only one thing in mind, them self's and that is parred with no patience and a feeling if instant gratification.
It’s not just the young generation.
Old school player are also self-centered and want everything for them self. That’s why they implemented rules like Boss and farm camp occupation.
If a group kills a boss for more than 3 x 4 times and there are other groups, they will not share it because of the self-made holy etiquette. And on top of that devs will more likely ban player who kill steal, even if it is the only way to get some loot.
So please spare me the self righteous talk about report other players.
Community policing (bulling) is as toxic as people who try to grief other player.
I just wrote up a slightly less abuse able system that requires more work on the player community to set up in the Talking about the Elephant in the Genre thread. I still contend though that a lot of bad behavior still stems from not knowing the expectations. Just like all toddlers need to have boundaries set and rules taught so do gamers.
Despite having all the rules outlined and encouraged there will still be plenty of people who choose to be “Anti-Community” for their own short term personal gain. There are also a surprising number of people that “Just want to watch the world BURN”. Only 1 out of 100 people need to ignore the social customs for it to have a significant impact on the play of nearly the entire server.
The just “Block Them” solution only really works if you can make them effectively phase out of your game, including their effects on the environment. That really just is not feasible and against the spirit of open world games. It’s a simple fact that if you have 100% freedom then what you will get is anarchy. All societies have rules otherwise they are not societies and online societies are no different. If there are no ways to police said rules then the rules are just ignored (you should try driving in Michigan).
Not saying that my idea is the best but if I had a choice to play on a server with my social rating system and one that had nothing I would choose my flawed system. Just reading these boards, and even this thread, I can tell there are a fair number of people that are unkind and lack respect for other community member’s opinions and ideas. Not saying you need to agree with people to be considered respectful just that it is very common for insults and derogatory insinuations to be used as the basis for disagreement. Its perfectly fine just to say that you personally disagree but do not currently have a clear argument against it. This and the Elephant thread are both threads with a lot of emotional responses.
Try looking at all discussions from both sides before posting and be nice to each other.
Mordecai said: Keep in mind this is a special cliche of players for this game. Most of us are from the old mentality of let the community police itself. Why is there such a push to have things implemented beforehand to stop the “what if’s”? I honestly don’t understand it. There’s always going to be a prick that harasses someone else. It’s inevitable. But reputation matters dude. Act a fool be treated as such. Time doesn’t need to be invested into trying to stop problems that may or may not arise. That’s my opinion at least. Which isn’t the best but it’s ky mindset
Rest assured that there are entire communities out there impatiently waiting for Pantheon's release so they can join in big numbers and band together with the sole purpose of building the worst possible reputations, which they will do by kill-stealing, deliberate training and any other fun-preventing behavior the game mechanics allow. Risk vs. reward is not fun if you're constantly punished unfairly by other players' malicious actions.
But reporting tools and GM interventions are not the answers. The game mechanics must be designed to protect against the most damaging behavior. Only then will those idiots leave the rest of us alone.
Jabir said:But reporting tools and GM interventions are not the answers. The game mechanics must be designed to protect against the most damaging behavior. Only then will those idiots leave the rest of us alone.
Then what you get is modern MMO design, which at that point, people like me will have no interest in playing. BoP, BoE, level caps (ie mobs don't drop anything after a certain level), even down to how content is designed by having instancing has produced its own problems and negative effects on games.
I agree, we are likely to have more problems with today's generation of gamers than we did of old, but... destroying the game because others might do so is not the answer in my opinnion.
Honestly, the only solution is to take the power out of the companies hands to manage and give it to the players. That is why I think a complete shift in the market is required for MMOs or they will continue to die. I spoke of this before in another thread, but in my opinion, VR and other companies should sell either the sever product for people to host their own private servers OR provide such services to players to be able to manage their own (ie they still host it, but players are given their own realm which can be completely configured to their own liking).
What this does is allow the players to choose who plays on their servers via their own means and methods. Some servers will be very small, limited to select friends and family to play together. Others will be large open servers designed to fit any play style of direction. There will be cheat servers, extreme casual play servers, hardcore perm death PvP servers, etc.. all with the content tailored to the taste of those who would play on it.
The benefit of this type of model is that dealing with abusers is placed into the players hands and they don't have to follow rules that are concerned about appealing to investors or worrying about losing a subscriber. So, when some guy starts acting like an idiot on a private server, the local GM can instantly ban them as they see fit, or if they like, they can harrass that player (taking their items, killing them over and over, porting to some dungeon where they are killed over and over, etc...). The result is that abusers no longer have the power, the players do and better yet, players all get to choose exactly the servers that fit their play style and l players with like goals and ideals.
There are many ways to approach this by VR. They can sell the product as a box sale (ie you buy the server product and client product separately, to which you now essentially own it and can setup your server as you see fit, such as survival MMO games often do) or they can take the route of licensing to use. That is, they could sell rights to use their server and clients through monthly licensing fees much like companies like Microsoft, Unity, etc.. do with various products and the like under enterprise style licensing.
Not only can they do this to allow people to make their own servers, but they can still have thier own official servers provided so people who just want to play on a VR based server can. This would change VR's focus in content design a bit. Instead of just developing new content to be released on their own servers, they would develop content packs to be sold to server owners/license holders which would allow them to modularly upgrade their servers as content is released (expansions or smaller new content like races, areas, etc..).
Not only that, but they could develop new tools and assets where server owners, could "mod" their server as they see fit (much like how Bethesda allows games like Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim to be fully modded). The result of this focus could actually spur an entire new generation of gaming, where MMOs are brought forth into the future and the reigns to creative development as well as content is placed into the hands of the public.
Imagine how many arguments we have here on HOW the game should be configured? Imagine if you didn't have to compromise, imagine if you got to play on a server EXACTLY as you choose and be able to play with others who also like that type of content? Think about it a bit... That is the future of multiplayer gaming design in my humble opinion.
BamBam said: I would like to see a commend / report system in pantheon. Only showing commends, when inspecting a player. devs will keep track on reports and warnings will be issued if a player hits a certain amount of reports. Commends will be to "show case" towards others. Players will get a limited amounts of commends each moth so it's not spamable. A system like this will provoke players to behave and benefit the players that behave and help ingame. 1 report will only stick to a player for one week unless multiple reports is given week after week after week, then the system will activate and warn or punish the player if needed. 5 reports = warning your account is flagged "play carefully" 5-10 reports timeout locked after gm look through the report reasons. 10-20 reports = long term lockout days or weeks 20+ = could resolve in permanent ip ban after a serious gm talk Players with many reports each week could be warned at start of a week reset "you received 10 reports last 3 weeks, your account is flagged" or "you received 99% more bans than the rest of the community your account is flagged" I know many do not like systems like these, after an entier guild decide to report the same guy and he then get a hard ban. But a gm need to look through the reports before any action is taken against the griefer, that maybe stole a named or trained mobs while others was rading. Gm alone will decide on the length and strength of the "punishment" Another path could be a player with many reports will not be allowed to join or form a grp. So this player will be locked out from a big part of the game like raiding, hard dungeons, and so on. But the player will still be able to progress and play just with limited options.
Just because youre a victum of fear mongering doesnt mean you have to now fear monger.
@Tanix
I believe one of the main reasons that private servers are never acknowledged accept when sent a cease and desist letter is due to copy write protection. Legally if you do not protect and control your IP it falls into public use. There is even some argument that a custom configuration of the game servers would actually give the server operators their own sub set copy write on the mods and configuration if not the base game data. It gets really messy real fast.
I do kind of like the idea of players on a server being the Game Masters. It would be yet another interesting experiment to see how it works. One implementation would be to have players elected to terms as GMs both having access to discipline tools, bug override tools and maybe special even too. With anything player controlled there will still need to be some form of rules and oversite to confirm its not miss used.
It really all depends on the minimum number of players to have a healthy server, the cost/easy to create new server shards controlled by VR and how well they can be increased in resource allocation at peak times. If the server only really needs 300 people online to function and it’s a simple as a new virtual machine that increases its server pipelines for ever x number of connected users then we could have many different servers and rule sets. If on the other hand you really need 3000 players to make the game function across all levels then more than 10 or so servers will likely be hard to keep healthy. Likewise dedicated hardware will really cramp the number of different servers that can be made.
Its even possible to make the game such that you pick a rule set each time you log in and connect to that server with your character with only optional items and effects from other servers disabled. Plenty of ways that could go horribly wrong and things like player housing would only be on one server and would not follow you. Its still an interesting thought.
Years ago I wrote a mod for WoW that would maintain a shared blacklist. Many shared blacklists, really. Once you installed the mod you would add the names of the blacklists you wished to participate in as a user. You could publish your own blacklist, by name, to be shared by anyone who wished to. As the blacklist creator you could set the "voting threshold" for a player to be added to the blacklist. As a user of the list you could nominate someone to be added to the list. Once enough users nominated the same person (blind, nominations were not published until the threshold was reached) then the bad player would be added to that blacklist. Names could also be voted back off of the blacklist so the list itself was a living document. Generally, it was built expecting there to be 1 blacklist per guild and maybe another here and there for groups of friends, etc.
Any player on a blacklist you were "subscribed" to would be blocked in your chats and you would get a warning message if you ever tried to invite them into your group or raid. You would also be warned upon accepting an invite into a group or raid that contained one or more blacklisted people. It made ignoring bad actors a whole lot easier in an environment chock full of bad actors, particularly for pick-up group and raid organizers.
I know we're not going to be able to build mods like this for Pantheon but if we could it would address the issue described without having to involve VR staff. We can do the same thing with pen and paper but that's a lot more effort, much more than those on your list deserve.
Trasak said:@Tanix
I believe one of the main reasons that private servers are never acknowledged accept when sent a cease and desist letter is due to copy write protection. Legally if you do not protect and control your IP it falls into public use. There is even some argument that a custom configuration of the game servers would actually give the server operators their own sub set copy write on the mods and configuration if not the base game data. It gets really messy real fast.
I do kind of like the idea of players on a server being the Game Masters. It would be yet another interesting experiment to see how it works. One implementation would be to have players elected to terms as GMs both having access to discipline tools, bug override tools and maybe special even too. With anything player controlled there will still need to be some form of rules and oversite to confirm its not miss used.
It really all depends on the minimum number of players to have a healthy server, the cost/easy to create new server shards controlled by VR and how well they can be increased in resource allocation at peak times. If the server only really needs 300 people online to function and it’s a simple as a new virtual machine that increases its server pipelines for ever x number of connected users then we could have many different servers and rule sets. If on the other hand you really need 3000 players to make the game function across all levels then more than 10 or so servers will likely be hard to keep healthy. Likewise dedicated hardware will really cramp the number of different servers that can be made.
Its even possible to make the game such that you pick a rule set each time you log in and connect to that server with your character with only optional items and effects from other servers disabled. Plenty of ways that could go horribly wrong and things like player housing would only be on one server and would not follow you. Its still an interesting thought.
With a server hosting fee system, it negates the problem you mention about piracy. That said, piracy is not an issue as statistical studies have shown that those who pirate are not likely to buy the product even if they have no means to pirate it. That is, DRM (ie holding the reigns to the product) really is more cost than it is worth in most situations.
That said, in terms of cost/revenue, the amount of the server as long as it does not increase housing/virtual space costs, is the same regardless if it is 1000 on 3 servers or 3 on 1000 servers each.
The GM solution as you mentioned is not an effective solution in my opinion. Using players (or guides) is not a new thing and was used quite commonly on EQ, but it has limitations and is open for lots of abuse (as happend many times in EQ).
The point of my suggestion is to place development/managment ENTIRELY into the control of the players (ie the server admin). This leads to freedom of choice and better suits the needs of the customer base which is quite obvious in the arguments we have here over design.
stellarmind said:this system can be abused. honestly it's already enough to deal without triggering people just because i was walking by and someone found my avatar offensive.
To which in this day, people are offended at such levels that it is insane. Yeah, I can already see people throwing tantrums and reporting simply because someone "over explained" something and was termed a "mansplainer".
Honestly, in a group centric game, community policing will be fine.
Yes. You may have an entire guild that if fine with toxic behavior... but that guild is a very small part of the overall server. I've been in guilds like this before. When the entire server bands together and is willing to blacklist an entire guild... it makes things very difficult for those who happen to be "caught in the crosshairs". People will start to leave the guild... after a while of only being able to group with your own guild... people get tired. They leave. A guild with a bad reputation has a harder time recruiting. Anyone joining the guild knows the rest of the server will blacklist them. When your pool of potential groupmated goes from 2000 to 50... the game is much harder.
Is it foolproof... no. But it makes a much bigger difference than you would think.
Systems like this dont work in games like WoW because they are very solo oriented. But even in classic wow I can remember instances of people being blacklisted for ninja looting and having a very hard time forming groups for things they actually need to do.
In EQ... this worked great. So good infact that one of my friends was scamming people (he would offer to buy high end items for 120kpp and then offer up 120k copper.. and people would be so excited to sell the item they would hit trade) he did this on a character who was very very similarly named to one of mine... and I ended up on a server blacklist. I had to get everyone I've ever spoken to to come vouch for me in what amounted to 100 or so odd posts in order for the server to actually believe what was happening.
These systems work if the entire server gets behind it. The toxic people will be blacklisted and will either be forced to change or get bled out. The toxic guilds will grow stagnant with roster and recruiting and eventually starve.
Jabir said:But reporting tools and GM interventions are not the answers. The game mechanics must be designed to protect against the most damaging behavior. Only then will those idiots leave the rest of us alone.
This is the exact opposite of how they should do things. I have something like 3 years /played in EQ and this absurd sentiment that killstealing and training and griefing is rampant and therefore other games should be neutered into oblivion is just nonsense. It is the single most grossly exaggerated narrative on these boards.
I would not be in favor of a report system either way as it will be abused and gamed. I am more confident that people that will be greifers will not last long as the game is not going to be free to play and if you get a bad rep, no one will group with you and you will basically get shunend and frozen out as it will not be a solo play friendly game.
With that, I hope that name change items will never be available to be purchased so people have a vested interest in playing nice.
Deathwish
Tanix said:Jabir said:But reporting tools and GM interventions are not the answers. The game mechanics must be designed to protect against the most damaging behavior. Only then will those idiots leave the rest of us alone.
Then what you get is modern MMO design, which at that point, people like me will have no interest in playing. BoP, BoE, level caps (ie mobs don't drop anything after a certain level), even down to how content is designed by having instancing has produced its own problems and negative effects on games.
I agree, we are likely to have more problems with today's generation of gamers than we did of old, but... destroying the game because others might do so is not the answer in my opinnion.
I don't think it's fair to read that into my statement.
Actually, I was thinking along the lines of Vanguard (hardly a "modern MMO design") where encounters were locked to you and your group until you died or prevailed, or /yelled for help. That also meant that trains were only harmful to other players on their way back, typically giving you enough time to take your precautions. It also prevented zerging, which IMO is incompatible with concepts like "risk vs reward" and "challenging encounters".
There's another active thread on these issues, so I suggest we keep it there.
Jabir said:Tanix said:Jabir said:But reporting tools and GM interventions are not the answers. The game mechanics must be designed to protect against the most damaging behavior. Only then will those idiots leave the rest of us alone.
Then what you get is modern MMO design, which at that point, people like me will have no interest in playing. BoP, BoE, level caps (ie mobs don't drop anything after a certain level), even down to how content is designed by having instancing has produced its own problems and negative effects on games.
I agree, we are likely to have more problems with today's generation of gamers than we did of old, but... destroying the game because others might do so is not the answer in my opinnion.
I don't think it's fair to read that into my statement.
Actually, I was thinking along the lines of Vanguard (hardly a "modern MMO design") where encounters were locked to you and your group until you died or prevailed, or /yelled for help. That also meant that trains were only harmful to other players on their way back, typically giving you enough time to take your precautions. It also prevented zerging, which IMO is incompatible with concepts like "risk vs reward" and "challenging encounters".
There's another active thread on these issues, so I suggest we keep it there.
Vanguard (as well as EQ2 ) were the begining of modern MMO design progression though. They were the first steps of trying to "solve" the perceived problems of poor behavior (and force specific approach to play) by players in early generation MMOs. For instance, locked grouping was horrible in EQ 2. It turned the game world into a generic obvious disconnecting feature and it created its own problems in the process. Trains weren't the problem in EQ, nor being trained. In fact, in the 5 years I played EQ from release, there were only a couple instances where someone even tried to use training to a negative means on myself and my group that had any real infringing effect.
All this design did was limit play because of possible abuses. These mechanics were not praised by many of us in EQ, they were considered artificial forced play mechanics that stuck out like a sore thumb similar to "invisible walls" in some games.
I too will support that such commend/report systems will be abused in both directions. People can just circle-jerk commend each other ad infinitum such that it too becomes an irrelevant element. "I have 10,000 likes..I'm a good guy." Yeah..sure you are. And just how did you get 10k likes when there are only 3k real people on this server?
Any final version would likely be commend/report limited per day by account to prevent dog piling or circle-jerking. I would also personally tie in a restriction from using it on someone in the same guild as any of your characters or rather it would only effect your in-guild reputation and not your global reputation. Your global reputation would be across all characters. This way being a jerk on one character will hurt you on your "nice" characters so to encourage you not to have throw away characters. This does not however reveal who your other characters are, just your global reputation. I would even go so far as tying accounts to a unique hardware identifier and all accounts that are tied to the same hardware identifier are also linked in reputation.
Trial characters, if they are not already issolated on their own server, will not be able to give or recieve commendations.
The opinions of people you don't know are worth nothing. This extends to GMs and any form of enforcement also. Nobody in power should take the opinions of strangers into account and should just work off the evidence.
Akilae was on the right track with their blacklist mod concept. You need to actively determine whose opinions you care about. Anything less than that is just garbage noise. I think there is room for a system that shares commendations and reports, but this should only come from sources that you determine to be trustworthy to begin with.
Reporting should only be a function to report botting or other violations. However, there is a way to implement a commendation system that's pretty darn abuse-proof. In FFXIV, you can give out a single commendation at the end of every instance. You cannot give your commendation to people who you were partied with when you queued (to prevent friends from trading comms). There are some rewards for earning commendations (a couple cosmetic crowns, and you have to get a certain number of commendations in order to become a Mentor). I don't have any hard data on whether it had a positive impact on the community, but I can't think of any negative impact it's had.
I'm a supporter of the right-click reporting system. My only reservation though, is how is the reporting handled. In WoW and Wargaming.net games, such as World of Tanks and World of Warships, the reporting system is primarily automated. So it is possible for a group to basically gang up on a player just to get them removed. I've also seen WoW videos where a battleground team intentionally reported the opposing team's healer just to remove him from the BG.
An automated system that dispenses warnings or temporarily mutes players is, IMO, reasonable. However, a ban or any disconnection from the game should be done by a GM.