dorotea said:I am less concerned with genuine differences of opinion than I am with outright malice and griefing.
Some person, or worse some guild, can with no legitimate reason start a campaign to villify someone's reputation. We all recognize the possibility - to me this is entirely sufficient in and of itself to decide the matter.
This all day long.
Also, if we can control rep what is stopping some entrepreneur actually starting a company to sell rep or destroy rep. Some people would pay for this service. Am I being cynical?
Back to the OP. I did encounter my share of jerks in EQ, I was more than likely a jerk to some people on my Sk who I RPed (obviously badly) I would laugh at their pleas for help on a CR which kind of ties into this derailed post. Someone being a jerk could be RPing and like me are just bad at it. I should take lessons!
I haven't read through all of the responses but it's not time that has made reputation meaningless, it's the types of MMOs that have been made. The importance of reputation increases with the increase in having to depend on your community. You will have to depend on ppl quite early in Pantheon as opposed to other games where you can solo your way to max level as well as do a multitude of other things solo. In Pantheon most of the things you will do will ask you to depend on others. This is where reputation becomes sticky. But something like this mattering at all is also hypothetical but with a game being designed like Pantheon SHOULD hopefully matter.
Granted, most ppl you meet won't have a reputation. But you will occasionally come across someone who you know to be a good person or a prick, someone who is a good healer or a bad healer, a good tank or a bad one. OR you will come across someone where one of your group mates tells you "that is a bad tank" or "that is a good healer" or "I am laughing in tears every time I group with this guy...pick him up".
The thing that loses some of its meaning is 'self-policing'. There will be top tier guilds who won't accept trouble makers but there will be some who do. You might get known around as a d-bag but there are so many ppl that play these games that griefers will almost always found ppl to hang out with. So for the ppl who don't like griefers at all 'reputation' and 'self-policing' should point out a lot of pricks but it's not going to completely wipe them out from the game.
Personally, I don't grief myself (I actually try to help out ppl as much as possible...I'm a bard for Pete's sake :) but I enjoy griefers. They give me a villain to combat. I love puzzles and a good challenge and dealing with griefers often allows me to try to tackle a puzzle that didn't exist already in the game. So a lot of the times it's a matter of your glass being half full or half empty. /shrug
It is slightly worrying when concerns are brought up about "bad" behavior that seems to plague MMOs and the response is "reputation" or "self-policing".
There is a rampant kind of callousness in some games, particularly but not limited to the EQ TLP servers; no shortage of players who will charm your named placeholder, train your camp, move in and DPS race you for every mob you pull, et cetera.
Reputation and policing does nothing to deter this, because there are entire top-end guilds who not only condone this behavior but encourage it. The rationale is that EQ is by design a competitive game and if you can kill it, it's yours, and so on.
It's not that that argument is entirely wrong, and hey it can be fun to kinda-sorta engage in fun semi-pvp shenanigans like dps races and dispel wars, but there almost invariably comes a point where the behavior is toxic and harmful to the zone and the greater community, and you cannot blacklist the most powerful guild on your server. Even if half the server blacklisted a guild like Faceless, I've no doubt they would laugh and consider it publicity.
It's not that that is a "wrong" way to play a game - many are built on PVP and vicious competition, but I hope the staff are not blind to these realities for Pantheon.
Raine said:It is slightly worrying when concerns are brought up about "bad" behavior that seems to plague MMOs and the response is "reputation" or "self-policing".
There is a rampant kind of callousness in some games, particularly but not limited to the EQ TLP servers; no shortage of players who will charm your named placeholder, train your camp, move in and DPS race you for every mob you pull, et cetera.
Reputation and policing does nothing to deter this, because there are entire top-end guilds who not only condone this behavior but encourage it. The rationale is that EQ is by design a competitive game and if you can kill it, it's yours, and so on.
It's not that that argument is entirely wrong, and hey it can be fun to kinda-sorta engage in fun semi-pvp shenanigans like dps races and dispel wars, but there almost invariably comes a point where the behavior is toxic and harmful to the zone and the greater community, and you cannot blacklist the most powerful guild on your server. Even if half the server blacklisted a guild like Faceless, I've no doubt they would laugh and consider it publicity.
It's not that that is a "wrong" way to play a game - many are built on PVP and vicious competition, but I hope the staff are not blind to these realities for Pantheon.
I agree. Reputation and self-policing are helpful, but there is a point when a higher authority has to become involved when things get out of hand. It would be great if there were just a few lone trolls who were quickly ostracized and marginalized by a multitude of decent players whenever they turned toxic, but the reality is that there are often so many of them that self-policing alone just doesn't work to curb the problem. Hopefully there will be some sort of report system in the game, and the Pantheon team will take complaints seriously.
I also have to add my voice to those of others who are against the idea of an official rating system for players. That sort of thing would very quickly turn into a weapon to be used by the very people it was meant to curtail. As far as reputation goes, let the player's actions speak for themselves. Everyone on the server will very quickly learn who the real bad apples are.
With the eq TLPs you have a massive amount of people all banding together on 1 server. So instead of having 1000 scummy people strewn about 20 servers.... you have 1000 on 1 server. Allowing them to find many others who share the same view of the game.
Also the ease of being able to cheat in EQ lends to this behavior as well. Anyone can control 12 mages with little to no effort and do whatever they want to anyone.
Not everyone had guilds of toxic players back before the server merges and even after the merges those players were few and far between. Honestly, I can see 1 guild in particular that might fall into these "ideals" and they can only be on 1 server.
The huge dependence on community in this game will cause most players to act accordingly. The new players who have never dealt with a community based game will learn quickly what it means to "play by the rules"
But us. As the community need to be able to forgive... but not quite forget. If early on someone is known as a jackass... dont alienate that person. Instead. Invite them to your group and let them know that you're giving them a chance, explain to them what you've heard and give them the chance to prove it wrong.
I don't think reputation matters. I've played on PvP servers where guilds were entirely toxic to one another. But me, I would talk to just about anyone or play with anyone so long as they played nice during Exping. If we had problems I would just kill them simple as that. (Although obviously not as simple on a PvE server)
When EQ first started i did server shopping to pick a good one. It came down to server stability, server name, and beginning interactions with people. I could have just as easily picked one over the other. This is how i will treat Pantheon. I will server shop till i find one i will stick with. I won't pregame and pick a guild or team before the game is out. I want that to develop naturally.
eldrun said:I don't think reputation matters. I've played on PvP servers where guilds were entirely toxic to one another. But me, I would talk to just about anyone or play with anyone so long as they played nice during Exping. If we had problems I would just kill them simple as that. (Although obviously not as simple on a PvE server)
Pvp servers are different. You're in direct competition with players around you with the ability to fight back if someone bothers you
That's not the same on a pve server. If someone harasses you on a pve server you dont have many options. That's why reputation matters. If you're known as a guy who ninja loots. You wont be invited to groups. You wont be able to join guilds. It becomes a very lonely place.
Porygon said:eldrun said:I don't think reputation matters. I've played on PvP servers where guilds were entirely toxic to one another. But me, I would talk to just about anyone or play with anyone so long as they played nice during Exping. If we had problems I would just kill them simple as that. (Although obviously not as simple on a PvE server)
Pvp servers are different. You're in direct competition with players around you with the ability to fight back if someone bothers you
That's not the same on a pve server. If someone harasses you on a pve server you dont have many options. That's why reputation matters. If you're known as a guy who ninja loots. You wont be invited to groups. You wont be able to join guilds. It becomes a very lonely place.
Of course, I understand that. I do beleive there are indeed toxic people there to just ruin people’s fun which gives them a kick. But the majority of players are not.
SoWplz said: Just looking for other peoples history on this matter. I always found myself in the family type guild. Not big on raiding, but always helping each other with average play time of a few hours a day. The times I had run ins with jerks in the game they were usally in 1 of the top 3 guilds on server. Or surrounded by other jerks. Many times if we wpuld send tells to other group members they would admit whoever was being a jerk, is a jerk and they would say sorry and move on down the road. I never ran into a guy that had top gear, top level, and knowlede of the game a very friendly person ( unless you were one of his guys ) A good rep would stand out, always know clerica that would spend their night helping you get a rez. The awsome rogue who would risk his ass you drag your group. The bad ass druid that would buff, and just hang to help your group out for an hour or so cause he was bored. But the people that train you, kill steal just to run by your group, to the name you have been hunting for the past 3 hours. These people have a bad rep from you, but they always seems to be surrounded by other like minded players. Anyone run into similar situations?
Yes I've had similar experiences. The worst of it I saw was in Age of Conan. Eventually quit after a few months it got pretty awful. But that wasn't the only reason I quit AoC, just one.
Saw it in EQ I as well but not nearly as bad and I think the communities' overall stance toward that behavior tended to mellow it out some in EQ. So from that perspective, I think reputation does matter. It's not going to be an all or nothing situation though. In other words, bad behaviour will exist in some form. But I do feel that if the behavior becomes acceptable or tolerable (if the community becomes apathetic toward resisting it) then that bad behavior will flourish, so a communities involvement does help to a degree.
Just a few thoughts I had after reading this entire thread:
In responce to the OP who simply asked: Does your reputation really matter? A very valid question.
The effect of a person's reputation in a community greatly depends on the size of that community. A person being rude in a book club of 5 people, huge effect. A person being rude at a dinner party of 40 people, also might have a relatively big effect. But as the size of the gathering becomes larger and larger, there comes a point where being rude to somebody won't even be noticed or known by the large majority of people in that gathering. So while a few people may avoid that person, they can always find other people who know nothing about the offending situation.
So in Pantheon it will often depend on how large a population each server (shard) is allowed to get. The larger a server population gets, the less effect a players reputation will be.
Also, it will depend on how active players get in pro-actively publicising bad actions. In the old days of EQ, word of mouth was the only way reputations got passed around. Even though there were lots of web sites out there for EQ, it was not as common as things are today. People are much more active these days in creating websites and participating in sites that pass info around. While VR will never monitor a players repuation, this does not stop players from creating platforms for calling out bad behaviour.
But again, this depends on a population becoming active in those sites and players actually using said sites, which may depend on how easy they are to use. If you can quickly Alt-Tab to a browser window and type in a players name-server and get a summary of complaints made about that player (perhaps even with links to video's showing the offending action), it might make it much harder for a player to get away with being a douche.
dorotea said: There are many ways to make malicious training harder or even impossible. Please use them VR.I just wanted to respond to this comment because it made me think about some of the info VR has given out about the way things will work in Pantheon.
One feature they talk about is mobs having a disposition that effects the way they react to players behaviour. Chris Perkins in one stream explained how some monsters might be guarding a location and will not be drawn too far away, thus negating the ability for a group to pull them away from that location (essentially a leashing mechanic). Other mobs might get frightened if they are facing too many enemies and will run or teleport away (anti-zerg mechanic). He mentioned there will be other dispositions that we will have to learn as we play.
And this is just one of the features they are talking about. All of this gives me lots of hope that they will have systems in place that will help to combat this kind of 'Training' behaviour.
The primary driver for whether reputation matters or not is going to be directly related to three things:
If there is a bit of "competition" to get groups formed then obviously reputation will matter. As a person who has been forming and leading groups for near 2 decades I can tell you first hand that I did (and do) keep blacklists of people who previously behaved like jerks (e.g. being obnoxious in chat, always needing on everything that drops despite being told to stop, repeatedly leeching exp by going ninja-afk for extended periods, ninja-looting items, attempting to killsteal from others, deliberately training other people or their camps and so on). I have a lot of patience, and I have a lot of understanding and I don't put someone on a blacklist lightly, but once you are on that list you are on it forever.
Being on a blacklist means: I will never invite you to group. I will never invite you to a guild. I will always vote against admitting you to any guild I am a part of. I will refuse to join groups that you are in (yes I have principles).
As for the major guilds they too have a large part in this. I know several guilds back in Everquest would refuse to admit players based on their behaviors in the past. And the larger guilds talked amongst themselves. I might be in one guild, but it was guaranteed that I had friends in other guilds that I talked with frequently. If a player wanted to join a guild it was not uncommon (at least if you didn't know this player) to send a /tell to your other friends in other guilds and check if they knew about him or her. And I can tell you right now that there were numerous cases where it became clear that the same person had been in other guilds before and promptly been booted out of those guildes due to their behavior.
What this really ended up with was those people being barred from the larger guilds and consequently unable to participate in much of the raid content. At least with that character (anyone can of course make an alt and level up, but that is, or was anyhow, very time consuming). Optionally they'd join smaller guilds and hope for those guilds to grow enough to be able to do raid content on their own.
So does reputation matter?
It matters if the game requires you to interact with other players and if the players you interact with have a code of conduct which doesn't tolerate jerks, which in turn means jerks won't be invited to groups or allowed to join guilds.
It's really up to US, the community, to set the standards and to stick to our principles to prevent the jerk-mentality to become so prevalent that entire guilds will adopt such an attitude.
And it is also up to the developer to actively discourage certain behaviors if they want their communities to be friendly, welcoming and for their game to be one that people will want to come back to day after day.
I think it's pretty likely there will be some sort of unofficial forums for each server. And on those forums you will have a thread designated to rude players. What I would like to see is the community taking everything with a grain of salt unless there are screenshots or video involved.
And also remember this style game is new to alot of people that will be playing . It might take a few months for people to become accustomed to how to act (as ridiculous as that seems) and how their actions will impact their reputation.
Ghroznak said:The primary driver for whether reputation matters or not is going to be directly related to three things:
- The availability of groups and inability to solo
- The code and conduct of the major guilds (especially related to raiding)
- How much players will need to interact with other players
If there is a bit of "competition" to get groups formed then obviously reputation will matter. As a person who has been forming and leading groups for near 2 decades I can tell you first hand that I did (and do) keep blacklists of people who previously behaved like jerks (e.g. being obnoxious in chat, always needing on everything that drops despite being told to stop, repeatedly leeching exp by going ninja-afk for extended periods, ninja-looting items, attempting to killsteal from others, deliberately training other people or their camps and so on). I have a lot of patience, and I have a lot of understanding and I don't put someone on a blacklist lightly, but once you are on that list you are on it forever.
Being on a blacklist means: I will never invite you to group. I will never invite you to a guild. I will always vote against admitting you to any guild I am a part of. I will refuse to join groups that you are in (yes I have principles).
As for the major guilds they too have a large part in this. I know several guilds back in Everquest would refuse to admit players based on their behaviors in the past. And the larger guilds talked amongst themselves. I might be in one guild, but it was guaranteed that I had friends in other guilds that I talked with frequently. If a player wanted to join a guild it was not uncommon (at least if you didn't know this player) to send a /tell to your other friends in other guilds and check if they knew about him or her. And I can tell you right now that there were numerous cases where it became clear that the same person had been in other guilds before and promptly been booted out of those guildes due to their behavior.
What this really ended up with was those people being barred from the larger guilds and consequently unable to participate in much of the raid content. At least with that character (anyone can of course make an alt and level up, but that is, or was anyhow, very time consuming). Optionally they'd join smaller guilds and hope for those guilds to grow enough to be able to do raid content on their own.
So does reputation matter?
It matters if the game requires you to interact with other players and if the players you interact with have a code of conduct which doesn't tolerate jerks, which in turn means jerks won't be invited to groups or allowed to join guilds.
It's really up to US, the community, to set the standards and to stick to our principles to prevent the jerk-mentality to become so prevalent that entire guilds will adopt such an attitude.
And it is also up to the developer to actively discourage certain behaviors if they want their communities to be friendly, welcoming and for their game to be one that people will want to come back to day after day.
The guilds of the server have a HUGE impact on how everyone treats each other on that server. If they are cooperative the server generally has an air of cooperation and shuns those that dont play well with others. This is why community outreach with guild leadership is important to set the tone of the game. If two guilds cant play well together ask them if they would like to move to a new server to avoid contention.
