Plan for Kenneth

I believe that games in general do not sufficiently exploit the social dynamics of online gaming communities. Chat windows, extra-game forums and voice comms are merely the coastlines of that uncharted territory. Tubettiworld II, which I am currently prototyping with the Torque Game Engine, will be an exploration into this realm. Here are some thoughts on the matter:

An example - the bane of all online games and communities: 'griefers'.

One way to deal with in-game griefers is to give the players the in-game means to deal with them, without having to appeal to 'admins'. Whatever methods employed have to be carefully crafted so that they cannot themselves be used by griefers (best example - in-game murdering of teammates that are caught cheating. So now the cheaters come back and murder you over, and over, and over ...)

Another example which is not particularily suited to FPS shooters as they currently exist, but could apply to the RPG-style games is a 'social' rank which is used as a base factor in all other rank calculations. Your social standing is determined by the server based upon your interactions with other players.

For instance:

Someone that never communicates with other players, ever, nor performs other 'social' activities in-game would have a social standing of 1. This is applied as a multiplier to all other rankings.

Someone that chats with other players receives a social ranking calculated using factors that may include the number of messages, the length of messages (not too short, not too long) and a 'grading value' returned by other players.

If I send you a message "Hey guy, how ya been ?" - when you receive it, you could first rank the message (if you wanted) 0 = abuse, 1 = spam but not bad, 2 = normal, 3=friendly, 4=best buddy, or you can choose to leave it as default (maybe set to 2). You answer the message, and the grading gets applied as a certain measure of social points to the player that sent you the message.

A default setting would allow you to carry on as normal without the extra step of rating the interchange, and yet when you get a griefer spamming you in chat, you could nail him. The server could be programmed to subtract points if necessary. Now as long as he spams you, he could be losing social rank, and thereby reducing his overall scores in other areas (experience points, combat rating, leadership, whatever they may be). You could also reward those that are being very helpful to you.

Other incentive/disincentive (fancy way of saying carrot & stick) methods could be used to prevent spawn camping, over-looting, route-blocking, etc. The direct, interpersonal methods of controlling player behaviour in-game allows a closer mirroring of real-world relationships and relationship building.

There are many other avenues for exploration, such as support for group organization, meta-groups, and so on. As players join in-game groups, certain benefits accrue: group-specific communications channels, 'spawn' management, resource utilization, and so on.

Then there is the voted-ban or punt. I used to favour this method but not anymore. It invokes too much in the way of politics, and forces people to take sides when they may not wish to - often putting them into contradictory and unsustainable positions.

These concepts pertain to persistent online gaming worlds; they hold less relevance to the 'twitch' games, capture-the-flag styles, where people pop in for a quick 30 minutes of mayhem and destruction.