This post repeats and expands upon my comments to Amber Night‘s article, Why Player Rep Will Fail; her response to the third-party player reputation site, Playerep.com.
Rep based on who considers you a friend
Rep systems based on friends lists seem relatively fair. You don’t get to mark anyone down, just up. The people you like may not be the people I like, but it’s a starting point if I like you.
A person who is nobody’s friend has the equivalent of a bad rep. And you can’t run away from having no friends.
Players make their own rep systems
EQ1 had an extensive out of game rep system. People are still living with the reps of things they did four or more years ago. In the end, all these external rep things are a tacit acknowledgement that a game has no strong community.
Community comes on its own with playtime. When you have a game that you can actually finish in a couple of months, like World of Warcraft, there is no chance to form a community. There is a huge churn rate in that game – people leave for other servers to get that same thrill of leveling from nothing, or they quit and come back in a few months — there is no continuity. WoW (like DAoC) displays PvP rankings on its web site; your in-game rep doesn’t matter a bit if you have a good position on the leaderboard. When the character that griefed you today will be gone forever in another month, what is the point of player rep? When all that matters is your position on a standings list, what is the point of player rep?
There is none. It takes time for any player to make enough of an impression on enough people to even get a rep, good or bad, in the first place.
How to make rep mean something
Slow down the pace of the game, and community happens, and suddenly rep matters again. EQ1, which required a year of normal play to get to max level – strong community. FFXI Online, when it came out, demanded you have lots of friends or you simply would not be able to progress. DAoC – semi-slow game, medium sense of community, although the RvR aspect cheapened it somewhat.
Once a game is slowed enough, or hard enough, that reputation actually matters, then it will happen, organically, through player desire. Making it an artificial requirement just adds another game mechanic that will be widely reviled – and rightly so – by the players as a sign the developers are out of touch with the communities in their own games.
Hated by “The Man”
Devs, or third parties, are never going to peg someone as accurately as the players do. Again, if the game is such that reputation means something, then the players of that game will pass the word, whether through a community message board, or through popular chat channels — by some means. In many games, the guild a player joins tells volumes. There, they are self-selecting their reputation to some degree.
The game developers will have their own opinions about reputation. Through complaints from other players, the devs will know who the troublemakers are. It’s also a no-brainer who the leaders of the server are. Right now, black marks are hidden away on some CSR form somewhere. Why not make it a little more fun. Turn their armor into rags. Works the same, just looks like rags. Merchants charge them double for items and repairs. The boatmen won’t carry them anywhere. Griffons will refuse to fly. Public channels won’t work for them. Their name appears on wanted posters. Tiny dogs yip at them. Only by redeeming themselves and pleading to the gods will this curse be lifted.
It’d be easy enough to just boot them from the game if you were sure they were a bad seed. But how much more worth it to put them in a low place from which they can return?
You can’t make players rate someone fairly
If you try to make a system for the players, it will be abused. Check out what they said about two of my former guildleaders in Urbandictionary.com. Rely on the players to make their own, if they care. But these are roleplaying games, after all – the game masters are well in their rights to make people who can’t play well with others hurt a little.
1 thought on “Player Reputation”
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Hello. I saw your post and I wanted to reply:
1) Friends list are a logical start, and your voting list on Playerep really can show other people who you think it is worthwhile to continue to vote for (however you vote). But the reasons I don’t think a friends list or an ignore list alone are sufficient is that:
a) they’re exclusive to you and usually can’t be shared in a game,
b) they’re always exclusive to the one game they’re in and are not portable to other shards or different or new games,
c) they don’t tell you much about your relationship history with someone. They’re effectively only indicators that you have a relationship with someone. And,
d) because they’re private you often you don’t have any means of getting someone new easily recognized. Particularly if that new person is yourself and you’re going into a game already with friends. The only other means is by LFG usually. With a Playerep voting list you can know already who in game is playing and chances are you’d have a better chance of getting time with them if you want, since they’d welcome another person voting for them.
With voting you’re not making any moral statements, you’re just showing other people your opinions of your own experiences with someone on your list. You’re helping that person get known.
2) Players do make their own rep systems, but usually these are again specific to a game. From my experience with EQ1 and SWG, I didn’t think these were very fair. That’s just my own experience and I didn’t have any bad rep. But Playerep isn’t replacing the needed socialization a good game community has, it’s only making it easier for people within that community to identify each other. Between shards even. And good players aren’t restricted to one game. Playerep only gives you some information, not a judgment. And while someone you vote for may be gone from the game you are playing with, their profile remains and so does your history of how you voted as a permanent record. That is, their rep would decay back to neutral if no one votes for them, but at least in your history of voting from that game you can see that one individual. Again, that kind of information may or may not be useful, but at least you have it. And if you are voting with other people, they also would have the same record. Collective memory is great, but all this does is remove the burden of having to remember every person who ever griefed you and instead with Playerep you can have a list you can review in the future should they come back. And of course, you can then share that info if other people need reminding.
3) I agree 100% by having the game be meaningful by moving at a meaningful pace. I spent a lot of time RP’ing and helping build a small guild in SWG, and I know a lot of the emotion (and fun) we had was because the designers gave us the time to make a relationship with the content. Otherwise, you’re just moving on to the next XP feast or shineh. I like MMO’s where I can take my time and learn the lore.
4) you’re right I think that designers will never implement a rep or experience history system that can be shared, because ultimately it will be griefed or won’t be sensitive like the Playerep scoring methods. If providers put in a personal reputation system, it will most probably be seen as another sub-game for people to try and game. And you will have the customary personalities who will try to over-achieve or inflict damage on other people with it. With us, we’ve got a simple, game-neutral voting method that people can use to create a record of their experiences. And we have to add more. But I think right now it’s a good start.
5) Again, you’re correct that you can’t force a value behavior on someone. All you should do is give them the opportunity to make a value record, but then you have to make them justify it by making it necessary for them to repeat that first decision. And if someone wants to continue to hold that opinion they can, but at least everyone else can see their single-mindedness and judge them accordingly. I don’t think comment systems are fair, because then they would end up like so many forums, with people doing drive-by endorsements or flames that ultimately don’t tell you anything else about that person being reviewed. They say more about the person making the comment IMO.
Thanks.