Having read this: -
Kilsin said:VattoLoco said: @Kilsin Will there be something in place, for say trading the crafting mat to someone else for a combine, to protect both parties in the transaction. I know in many games there have been issues with people saying they will do a combine, get traded the mats and then log out. Essentially will there be something in place to prevent "stealing" or is it just going to come down to this person's reputation is tarnished and the person that traded is just out the money?...Not that I am aware of Vatto, it will most likely come down to being careful and only trading those items with people you know and/or trust, this is why reputations will be very important in Pantheon, a great crafter will have a very good reputation for always coming through, giving great price offers, making quality items etc. so it will most likely be in the players hands to not fall for tricks and trade valuable items with people you don't know very well, such precautions like you take in real life :)
I thought I'd post my related wonderings.
Could/Should there be some in-game player/character rating system? For situations like the above, sure it's a healthy sandboxy community social thing to let people take "precautions like you take in real life", but in real life people have much more severe consequences to stop them swindling someone. Short of in-game police and courts maybe a reputation system of some kind would help with knowing who to trust and even helping direct you to crafters and traders you might want to meet.
Maybe policing it could be guild-centric? If you are a member of a guild with a good reputation that would support your reputation as a trader because, if you swindle someone, you know your guild will "come down on you"?
It's a pretty negative issue so far, but I suppose the positive side is that a good reputation gets you more sales and more guild members.
I know these things are tricky - if you pee off someone their whole guild then down-rate you and trash your reputation *shrug* Too tricky?
I suppose something as simple as just being able to view the number of 'successful' (without complaints) trades a person has made might be enough?
I think word of mouth is fine when you are in a well-established long-term community, but the more successful Pants is, the more 'strangers' will turn up and the harder it will be to have any reliable useful informal system.
I am familiar with EBay and although there is some abuse I think the vendor/seller system is simply essential, but I am no expert on the issues of 'modern' ratings systems - I don't use facebook and hardly ever comment on YouTube let alone press a "Like" "Thumbsup" or whatever ;) I too would be really interested to hear from those who are familiar and whether a system might work in Pants.
Eh, I dunno, you know there's gonne be that jackass that sits there and "thumbs down" you 1,000,000.00 times just to rustle you. I don't think there was necessarily anything wrong with the tried and true method of word of mouth. No need for gimmicks. But that's just me.
-Tralyan
Gadgets said:Let natural selection do it's work imo.
This is how we view it too ;)
We discussed many topics on reputation systems, leaving a + or - against players after grouping, points systems and many other variations and it all came back to player behaviour and reputation, in games like EQ and VG, these typically worked themselves out into a type of community justice system and if someone acted up and was an ass to someone else, that person on the receiving end would call for help and the community would usually unite to fend off the offenders, that is what social interaction and community bonding is all about, we have a much more mature community here and we believe you will all be fine in handling a lot of this stuff yourselves.
Players who act up will find it hard to group/raid/socialise/sell wares etc. to the point of hardly being able to play the game, so they have to adjust their attitude and fit in or risk being tarnished, and for those who just don't learn, we will have GMs and VR staff to deal with them. ;)
Tralyan said:Eh, I dunno, you know there's gonne be that jackass that sits there and "thumbs down" you 1,000,000.00 times just to rustle you. I don't think there was necessarily anything wrong with the tried and true method of word of mouth. No need for gimmicks. But that's just me.
-Tralyan
I think that would be fairly simple to avoid. Lets say if you trade with someone, you get a "rating point" for that person. This allows you to give a single thumbs up/down rating, for that person only. So you can only rate people that you have actually traded with (avoid the "hey guild, please downvote that player" issue). You cannot repeatedly rate the same person. Of course it doesn't prevent the issue of trading with someone successfully, and then still downvoting them...but that would be rare I think :)
That said, I hope the server populations in Pantheon will be not so large that it becomes impossible to build a solid reputation on your server due to anonymity. I'd prefer not relying on rating systems.
EDIT: Kilsin beat me to that idea lol :)
VattoLoco said: @Kilsin Just something I thought of, but wouldn't it just be easy enough for the "ass" to name change (if available) or reroll an alt and then continue doing what they want? If I remember correctly there was talk on the forums about having the account name (not just the PC name) displayed. This could help solve that problem no?
Hopefully, there won't be an option to name change.
As to the other thing, well, I don't see that as a problem.
If "Legolaaassss" wants to act like a D-bag, and is known for acting like a D-bag, and wishes to rehabilitate himself and start fresh, then sure, give "Legolaaasss" a chance to reroll and start fresh. If he remains a D-bag, the same thing will happen. If he fixes his D-bag ways, then there isn't an issue.
The good thing about repuation is that it solves itself.
-Tralyan
VattoLoco said: @Kilsin Just something I thought of, but wouldn't it just be easy enough for the "ass" to name change (if available) or reroll an alt and then continue doing what they want? If I remember correctly there was talk on the forums about having the account name (not just the PC name) displayed. This could help solve that problem no?
I am not sure if we will have a name changing service but I am personally against it for a few reasons, as that is one of the bigger reasons ;)
Kilsin said:Gadgets said:Let natural selection do it's work imo.This is how we view it too ;)
We discussed many topics on reputation systems, leaving a + or - against players after grouping, points systems and many other variations and it all came back to player behaviour and reputation, in games like EQ and VG, these typically worked themselves out into a type of community justice system and if someone acted up and was an ass to someone else, that person on the receiving end would call for help and the community would usually unite to fend off the offenders, that is what social interaction and community bonding is all about, we have a much more mature community here and we believe you will all be fine in handling a lot of this stuff yourselves.
Players who act up will find it hard to group/raid/socialise/sell wares etc. to the point of hardly being able to play the game, so they have to adjust their attitude and fit in or risk being tarnished, and for those who just don't learn, we will have GMs and VR staff to deal with them. ;)
I do admire the optimism, but couldn't a simple rating system compliment that community justice system? A useful first stop? When it was discussed did you come up with negatives for the idea? I'm genuninely curious, not trying to second-guess the wisdom of the dev team!
disposalist said:I do admire the optimism, but couldn't a simple rating system compliment that community justice system? A useful first stop? When it was discussed did you come up with negatives for the idea? I'm genuninely curious, not trying to second-guess the wisdom of the dev team!
I could see people abusing the system, say a guild of trolly people find someone they don't like for whatever reason (not a legitimate reason) and have the whole guild "thumbs down" that player, perminantly giving them a poor reputation because a group of trolls decided to hate on them.
Rachael said:disposalist said:I could see people abusing the system, say a guild of trolly people find someone they don't like for whatever reason (not a legitimate reason) and have the whole guild "thumbs down" that player, perminantly giving them a poor reputation because a group of trolls decided to hate on them.I do admire the optimism, but couldn't a simple rating system compliment that community justice system? A useful first stop? When it was discussed did you come up with negatives for the idea? I'm genuninely curious, not trying to second-guess the wisdom of the dev team!
True, but that would be an easy thing to investigate and fix - there would be an obvious data-trail and a quick and easy investigation resulting in that nasty guild get a black mark themselves from the investigating GM hehe.
With no rating system if you get a whole guild informalling bad-mouthing someone in-game and in forums there's very little way for someone to prove their innocence. But if they had lots of positive rep from unrelated individuals you'd know that slanging guild were full of poop.
It's not a big deal I suppose, but I think it could be done pretty simply and be pretty useful. I'm not saying I expect it to be a common or major issue, just putting the idea out there :)
disposalist said:Rachael said:disposalist said:I could see people abusing the system, say a guild of trolly people find someone they don't like for whatever reason (not a legitimate reason) and have the whole guild "thumbs down" that player, perminantly giving them a poor reputation because a group of trolls decided to hate on them.I do admire the optimism, but couldn't a simple rating system compliment that community justice system? A useful first stop? When it was discussed did you come up with negatives for the idea? I'm genuninely curious, not trying to second-guess the wisdom of the dev team!
True, but that would be an easy thing to investigate and fix - there would be an obvious data-trail and a quick and easy investigation resulting in that nasty guild get a black mark themselves from the investigating GM hehe.
With no rating system if you get a whole guild informalling bad-mouthing someone in-game and in forums there's very little way for someone to prove their innocence. But if they had lots of positive rep from unrelated individuals you'd know that slanging guild were full of poop.
It's not a big deal I suppose, but I think it could be done pretty simply and be pretty useful. I'm not saying I expect it to be a common or major issue, just putting the idea out there :)
I think your intent is good here. Trying to find a way to police the people, to make sure the players don't get suckered into trusting a D-bag. That's admirable.
Sadly, what it comes down to is attempting to fix a problem that isn't necessarily broken. That, and the system you're suggesting just causes more work for the GM's. The idiots that abuse this system, which will surely happen in ways we haven't even conceived yet, only means that's more time the GM's will have to put into solving those issues. I'd rather have GM's running around giving us fun events and helping us if we fall through stairs (VG ANYONE?!?!?!) instead of patching up areas of a system that doesn't need to be in place to begin with.
-Tralyan
I've posted my thoughts on this subject on another thread but I'll repeat it here anyway.
I am absolutely 100% against any sort of rating or reputation system being in the game. The example I used in the other thread was this:
Imagine you are in a group and you start talking about politics (which happens) and you say how much you support Obama but then find out the rest of the group are Donald Trump supporters. What is to stop all the Donald Trump supporters from down voting you just because they disagree with you? Absolutely nothing. Thus you end up with a bad reputation in game even though you haven't done anything wrong other than disagreeing with someone.
Every website I have come across that uses a ratings system it has always been abused in one way or another. In real life you don't Google someone when you first meet them to see if they are worth being friends with. You find it out by yourself or throgh word of mouth. Reputation systems are just a really weak way for people who have an axe to grind to hurt another player for any reason they see fit.
So yeah I absolutely hate this idea and I'm glad Kilsin has said that they are not planning on having a system in place such as this. I hope they stick to that policy.
The first thing that came to my mind was two people trading back and forth and +1 each other to become the ultimate trustworthy traders. I realize parameters can be established to prevent exploiting, but it's far easier just to keep it old school and let people remember you in their own way.
I personally think it's far more memorable being "the guy who randomly gave me some sweet sword as a lowbie," or "the cleric that just never let anyone die when grouping." People won't forget your name and will be genuinely excited when you cross paths with them again. This feels more natural when considering the alternative: Soandso, the +932 trader, is in town! Woopidy-doo.
Talv
In the early days of EQ1, at least on my server, the self policing worked out great. We had a couple of larger well known guilds that when informed of someone doing something outside the acceptable would make that persons life miserable untill they either quit or started over with a different name and a different attitude.
Yes I do mean that the guilds would grief those people right out of the game, but those guilds were the same ones that would host server wide events with prizes and parties after the event. So while they would do something that many would consider unacceptable it was only done to those who had first proved that they weren't going to play nice with the others on the server. Also I should note that it was never a 1 offence type thing, the officers of those guilds would keep lists of people who had been reported for KSing, intentionally traning, ect and after 3 or 4 reports from different people over a period of time the guilds would step in.
In cases of disputes these same guilds would have designated members or officers who could be called apon to mediate issues. All of this left the GMs free to handle the game related issues that couldn't be managed by the community as a whole. Back in those days a GM could be seen running around taking over giants and killing people or attending the guild run events to just socalize with the community.
If VRI goes down the path of community managed servers I would expect to see some of these same types of things happening. The biggest difference now vs then is it's a lot easier for the officers of a guild to communicate. Back in 1999 we didn't have guild forums or google docs where a list of problem people could be kept and shared quickly, all sharing of information had to be passed to a single officer or shared back and forth between officers, belive it or not it took a lot of work to manage the list of who was known to be a problem person on the server and who wasn't but it still worked for years.
Arweena said:Yes I do mean that the guilds would grief those people right out of the game, but those guilds were the same ones that would host server wide events with prizes and parties after the event. So while they would do something that many would consider unacceptable it was only done to those who had first proved that they weren't going to play nice with the others on the server. Also I should note that it was never a 1 offence type thing, the officers of those guilds would keep lists of people who had been reported for KSing, intentionally traning, ect and after 3 or 4 reports from different people over a period of time the guilds would step in.
Wow that sounds like an awesome system. Vigilante systems solve all the worlds problems. Guilty until proven innocent says I!
Cromulent said:Wow that sounds like an awesome system. Vigilante systems solve all the worlds problems. Guilty until proven innocent says I!
Lol yeah. Also sounds a bit like secret police using local militia to dish out the kind of 'law' there's no need to bother the government and judicial system about. Only the people who deserved it got 'disappeared', honest! That kind of power never corrupts anyone, no sir.
An in-game rep system is unnecessary. The scenario described where the player recieves the mats and logs off does not happen often especially in games like EQ and VG.
First off, crafters make money on REPEAT business and will not want to screw you over. Plus, let the community sort this out NOT the game. This is essential for a healthy community. If the game engine safe guards the player from all brands of turmoil then the sense of community is lost. And a big part of why these games are so great is because of the communities that exist within them.
NoobieDoo said:An in-game rep system is unnecessary. The scenario described where the player recieves the mats and logs off does not happen often especially in games like EQ and VG.
First off, crafters make money on REPEAT business and will not want to screw you over. Plus, let the community sort this out NOT the game. This is essential for a healthy community. If the game engine safe guards the player from all brands of turmoil then the sense of community is lost. And a big part of why these games are so great is because of the communities that exist within them.
Right on ! :)
I love an organic, sandboxey in-game reputation system.
But that fails when a game monetizes options like name changes, class changes, sex changes. So any jackass cheater can instantly change their personae.
Additionally if your alts were also able to be seen for any character would help with griefers, hackers and cheaters.
Trusting crafters is why guilds have a nice value, as well as becoming alt-astic.
In VG, myself and 2 buddies always covered all the classes and crafting abilities we needed to do everything self-sufficiently. Three of us could each 2-box, and fill out a group for group harvesting, farming mobs and so forth. We always had a blast.
