The Science Behind Shaping Player Behaviour in Online Games
" While it is true people have a right to exert their will over their own property, it still does not apply to the idealism surrounding an open and welcome atmosphere as i am sure poe strives to be. From a universal point of view, they should have no interest in enforcing their own weird wills onto others. I say weird on purpose because what makes us unique is our flaws, or in other words how we are weird(different). In private we influence our things so that it fits our individual weird personalities, but when creating an open and public atmosphere one should always strive to make it best for people in general, and people in general do not share the same weird personality traits. In that sense poe forum is more like the government as it should seek to cultivate an environment that is best for people in general(common individuals). They are in their full right to enforce whatever weird wills they have, but it is not in their own interest if they want people playing their game, whether they see it or not, because they are the central part of the game, they represent the system as a whole. " It may be a good idea to reduce the value of life nodes in order to reduce the impact of not picking all the life nodes, but in the current implementation it does not work. To make it work they need to: Instead of boosting life back up to energy shield levels, they should rather nerf energy shield until they have the balance between amounts of energy shield and life that they want. Then they should reduce all monster damage to the level where it works to play life based builds again. If they do not do this the change to life will be wasted without realizing its full potential because the life nodes with current damage of monsters do not work out very well. They work, but only barely, the balance is way off. Convince them to balance life/es first by reducing es, and then to balance the damage of monster relative to life builds. I am the light of the morning and the shadow on the wall, I am nothing and I am all. Last edited by Crackmonster on Sep 16, 2013, 1:25:50 PM
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" Hi Scrotie Disagree on certain points: 1.) I am not ingratitude. I am also not thankful. This game is not a present to the world, it is the dev´s business and they did it to earn money. They decided to sell MTX instead of P2W and I respect them a lot for that. But they need to sell and make money to keep the game alive. So there is no gratitude or ingratitude, its about buying MTX or not. 2.) In the beginning of OB dev´s have been very communicative, thats true. In the meanwhile they are more communicative on reddit than on their own forums. Yes, I know they got lots of work to do, and I understand fully that they cannot take care of every poops of the community. But if you are dev and see 15 threads about one and the same problem but do not take worthy for at least saying :" Yes, we saw it, we realized it, we will discuss it.." then something is going very wrong. Especially if - in the same time - questions are answered on reddit, that are treated as big secret in their own forum. So happened with the last statements of Chris concerning MF. 3.) I don´t open my mouth here to hurt somebody or to sabotage the game. You will very seldomn see my critics. In fact I am very careful about critics, I am not a profi-player and I leave it to players like you to give statement about mechanis and technical problems. You people know these things a lot better than me. BUT: There is an obvious lack of understanding what concerns the more psychological features. Such as the lacking reaction to many threads about droprates, the lack of feeling rewarded - one of the most important aspects of the game. Ingame you also find features that are not made good, for example the large chests ( spawning too often with poor drops, instead of being very rare with great drops of all kind), the drops of uniques that you rather pull out of a crate instead having a good chance to get it from the bosses, what makes people avoid bosses and avoid bossruns and therefore taken away a big potential to make the player feel rewarded because he deserved it. The whole RNG thing needs to be overthought and overworked again to give this game a real chance to grow. I don´t blame the devs because I don´t like them or because I don´t like the game, in opposite. I just see other things than you, and you should take it the same way I take your critics on the game: As a try to make the devs think about it and help them to make the game better. If I say the devs made psychological mistakes, it is the same as if you say that certain mechanics are broken. Just that people react a whole lot more sensible to psychologics. But nobody should take this as an attack, but as a "Bug-report" |
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I have one major issue many of the arguments I hear or read as it were, is when anyone proclaims that they speak for others. No. You speak for yourself. You may say there are others that agree with you, but as in the early days when pants was the big argument, I read many posts proclaiming a majority for the inclusion of needing pants. It is a falsehood to make such proclamations.
I think it is called The whole as defined by the self. Moonlight33 is guilty of this (mildly). " You make many excellent points, but this one irks me. You know what makes you rant. Please do not speak for others unless they have specifically asked you to. I only can speak for myself and I can point to other examples of people that support my position, but I do not speak for them directly. You may not have meant for it to be taken this way, but I did. Slightly off-topic: Two good books I can recommend. The Joy of Work and Dilbert and the Weasel way. Both are by Scott Adams. The whole as defined by the self is indirectly from one of these very funny, but meaningful books. (They do include many of his strips, but I found them in the business section.) |
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Hi Moonyu
I am not talking about myself or this special community. When I say people are ranting because they loose the object of their love, I am talking about a common principle. Even if a beloved person dies, a part of the mourning as rage and ranting. The same principle if a couple gets divorced. They don´t get divorced without ranting and aggression. The bigger the love, the deeper the disappointment, the higher the aggression. Now look at the principles of online games: The basic of success is being as addictive as possible. That is also a kind of "extreme love". And everybody who is in the gaming psychology will tell you that people don´t give up a game, they get "divorced" of a game. At least the ones who played it for a longer time. My arguments are very valid, as this process of being divorced of the game is accompanied by high aggressivity not only against the game but also against everybody who is still "in love" with it. In every forum you will have trolls and people for whom its fun to cause harms. But if things get out of control and you see ten people on probation every single day, you should really have a good look at what you are doing with your game as a dev, cause these people are just getting divorced from your game. And be thankful for them ranting, there is a lot others who practice the way of " Darling I´m going to get cigarettes..." and have never been seen again. |
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I was discussing this thread yesterday with my friends that I fish with and they too have forums that they spend a lot of time on that are heavy policed and they prefer it. I think what we are experiencing is a swing to a more responsible internet in many places. As in all societies there are troublemakers and there are the quiet majority. What I think maybe happening is a type of revolt against the lawlessness the anonymity had allowed us to ignore the normal social contact.
Anarchy could only last so long. The quiet majority sooner or later will make their presence felt. While this does not point to Moonlight33's argument about the game needing to heed the rising complaints as a possible death spiral for that game, it is about forums at large. I spend time on a sports forum that polices itself strongly. Mods are quick, but the users are too. We want to have meaningful discussions about the topic we love. Not listen to some random asshole rant. Mods can only do so much. The community too has to take an active roll. One of the things I enjoy here is negative posts for the sake of being negative are attacked like white blood cells attacking a virus. I read other forums that are full of rants and name calling mostly as a game. I would never post on them. |
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" The same principle applies in chemistry. It takes energy to shatter a bond, but it also will free up space to form new bonds. One of my all time favorite metaphors :) " I qouted this because i particularly liked it, but i agree with what you have been saying overall including about communication from devs. There are some core issues in particular in regards to making the game rewarding and also other balance issues that appear to be entirely ignored. Most likely, they are not ignored, but you know when they do not actually communicate with the community in a back and forth fashion, then they are bound to draw something else from the mass of posts than they would have if they had been in an open discussion which allows the community to clarify what it wanted to communicate. You have healthy reasoning in your posts, i hope the dev listens to people such as you that have clearsight. " I am the light of the morning and the shadow on the wall, I am nothing and I am all.
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" Punish in this sense means revoke privileges. You're not driving to their house and kicking their dog. Eye for an eye would be going onto their forum and antagonizing their users. It's not about being annoyed and lashing out. It's about recognizing that someone was frustrated and took out their anger on others which broke the rules of the forum and created a hostile environment. The only emotion involved in probating or banning a forum user is the sadness that it didn't have to come to this. The violator could have reflected on his posts and stopped trying to hurt others at any time. Their continued aggression makes them a net negative. If they continue to come back and try to lash out again and again, they will be punished in the same way, again and again. Each time will include why they were punished and what they can do to prevent being punished in the future. --- Regarding "the devs made me do it!", this is morally dishonest in the highest degree. When you don't like something and it makes you mad enough that you want to yell and insult others, be the bigger man and walk away. There are no valid justifications for taking out anger on other people, up to and including the devs themselves. --- Regarding "only intelligent posts allowed", I'm on the fence about the issue. Unlike Magnetic insinuated, it was Scrotie that put forth and supported the idea, not me. I hadn't said I was for or against it. Personally, I would find it almost impossible to enforce, and this is coming from a former moderator. I'm okay with multiple threads on the same issues, and have zero problems with there being a dozen different "RNG is bad" threads. The only thing I care about or have ever cared about is that people be able to restrain themselves from turning arguments of ideas into arguments of people. Moderation is only needed when the emotional shackles are left by the wayside and social rules are violated. Last edited by pneuma on Sep 16, 2013, 10:52:15 PM
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OMG! So many responses to talk about. =)
" This post is so wrong and out of context. You want well-thought out posts but choose to only read half the content. Put it this way... It seems to be that a misdemeanor offense deserves a punishment related to a felony in many of the posts in this thread. I think a misdemeanor offense deserves a misdemeanors punishment. My point is to illustrate that heavily policed establishments can't survive. The evidence of this is in history and even in our present day circumstances. Just look at the Diablo III forums. You can't really criticize the game at all over there. You are bullied and policed if you disagree with the consensus. The community is toxic there and is selfish. " On Nancy Grace While I generally disagree with TYT on many of their broadcasts they actually explained my point very well. " No offense but how does this affect my point that a company that is attempting to draw in fans probably doesn't want them leaving (if at all) angry and spreading that to other potential fans/customers? " This is a misunderstanding on a level of distinction. An argument is not a discussion nor is it a debate. They are different not only on a principle level but on a connotative level as well. it's always good to have a discussion or a debate, and it's good practice to avoid arguments. I rarely argue with anyone. I discuss and debate, but around the time I feel it has degraded to an argument I stop.
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de·bate [dih-beyt] Show IPA noun, verb, de·bat·ed, de·bat·ing.
noun 1. a discussion, as of a public question in an assembly, involving opposing viewpoints: a debate in the Senate on farm price supports.
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dis·cus·sion [dih-skuhsh-uhn] Show IPA
noun an act or instance of discussing; consideration or examination by argument, comment, etc., especially to explore solutions; informal debate.
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ar·gu·ment [ahr-gyuh-muhnt] Show IPA
noun 1. an oral disagreement; verbal opposition; contention; altercation: a violent argument. I highlighted the blurred distinction. People consider it a grey area to act upon. the idea is that if a debate is a discussion and discussions are considerations of "arguments" then they can leave out the second half of the definition to argument. This is an arbitrary and whimsical practice. Widely used, but wrong in my opinion. To clarify I am not saying the three words are completely unrelated. In practice however, blurring distinctions between words like these leads to misbehavior. " I love this. I love it because it addresses the meat of all of our talking points. Every point we both make leads to disagreeing on this fundamental level. I do want to clarify that I don't think they are as "lax" as you say. I more or less take the stance that their efforts are not producing positive results. " I'm not sure if I follow? it's no question that rules are designed to warn and reform misbehavior, but what makes you think that the rule without enforcement makes it's purpose known and realized? Let me say this... Rules are designed to do two things. One, a rule is used to prevent and educate misbehavior. Two, rules are designed to be enforced if broken in order to maintain civility and order. look at parenting for example. An idol threat is nothing to an unruly child, but a firm stance and action on the rule produces positive results. Again, if you could elaborate on what you mean that would be great. I think I am missing your talking point, or we are in agreement? " I want to focus on the specifics of this example more than the point you tried to convey with it. On the idea of macros and the rules against it. I fully understand that some commands are tediously annoying to most people. I dread every time I need to use "ctrl+shift"(?) to post an item to general chat, or type out "/oos" in the middle of combat. However, I am opposed to making exceptions to the rule for such minor inconveniences. I think that GGG should be very clear and rigid when it comes to this subject. Either they support "macros" or they don't and accept the full consequences of either choice. My personal opinion though is that macros shouldn't be supported in any fashion. Mostly because I don't know or rather havn't looked into how this feature could be abused. " blanket rules are far too vague in my opinion. I believe that rules should be literal, clear and concise. under rare circumstances where the rule can be misinterpreted though, a simple warning and explanation should be given. The idea here is that when you design a rule you are setting standards. To do so you should remove doubt or moral ambiguity. From here the communication of the rule should be clear enough to follow within reason. After which the established rule should be enforced with caution and accuracy. " I think this is another deviation or misunderstanding between us. I'm not saying that companies shouldn't be able to refuse service. I am saying that the following statement is understood. A company offers a service that is agreed upon under an unspoken "fair play" understanding. However, this doesn't always prevent intense scrutiny under pressure from a rogue incident. Hopefully that clears up what I mean. Another simplified version of everything I just said can be found below. Call it my TL;DR version.
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Moderation should be firm, not strict. It should be consistent not oppressive.
" This is what I am talking about. A community should never attack any post. Sure, criticize the motives, but to out right attack a poster for the arbitrary idea that he is negative is toxic behavior. Some people actually lead very successful and happy lives by being negative. People need to be more open minded to a cynical attitude. Often times these posts aren't being negative for the sake of just being negative. Most of the time I see people with concerns with a product that they would otherwise praise consistently, and the community defaming him/her for those concerns. here is how i look at most negative posts... Granted I am a problem solver, but I look at these posts as a concern/issue. I then try to determine if I find it a legitimate concern and either add to it or try to reason with the lack of the poster's legitimacy. There is actually no such thing as a nonconstructive post if you use this logic. People often misunderstand that "constructive criticism" needs to be an essay with a solution tacked on to it. When in fact all it needs to be is a form of clear communication between you and the person/s you are criticizing. If the correct message was conveyed it was constructive. Here is my issue with this entire situation. Developers are or feel obligated to use discretion when addressing what is considered constructive or otherwise. Obviously the most common solution to this is to abstain from identifying what you consider constructive, but that allows others to distort what that means. The best thing you could do if you feel something is nonconstructive is to not acknowledge it. If you "attack" then you just promote destructive behavior. This lends to the toxicity levels of communities. Moonlight, I more or less agree with you on more occasions than I care to detail. " You don't see this as fanciful in the slightest? " In my opinion, this is a good example of how moderation can hurt a community. I highlighted the text I felt exuded a lack of knowledge in the human behavioral sciences. There is a lot of emotion involved in receiving disciplinary action and at a level where you are punished without reform. Lets look at a practical example for a moment where moderation may have been needed. Something we can empirically evaluate, not hypothetically dictate. http://www.wave3.com/story/8388558/concealed-tape-recorder-seems-to-confirm-kindergarten-teacher-was-mean The question arises... do you think the teacher was justified and did the right thing by punishing the child for misbehaving in class? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP-k47rIIyA Or this one... Do you believe that repeated punishment for misbehavior resulted in positive changes? There is grief in wisdom, there is sorrow in truth
Yet, the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning And by sad countenance the heart is made stonger in time So, I embrace this burden and weep for the fools that chase the wind |
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" It's a little hyperbolic, but overall, kicking people out of private forums is not some grievous offense. It's extremely similar to bouncers throwing violent drunkards out of bars. " You must understand that there's a huge difference between a private meeting place and a public school. The two are not comparable at all. This is not a public place, this is not a required place. There are no truancy officers corralling posters back onto the forums when they try to leave. Past that, enforcement of school rules requires an understanding of a child's mind. These forums are only available to children (under 18) with adult consent. I fully expect people here to act like adults when they are told that they are breaking the agreed-upon social contracts that they entered into voluntarily. | |
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He's not going to get it. Some people simply refuse to understand that this forum and many others are not public venues, but are expressly here at the discretion of the company that is paying for the servers it resides on.
Terms of service agreements mean nothing to him and He will not understand that we abide these by these rules and understand it is exactly these rules that hold the forum together. Forums that have zero moderation are cesspools that I find amusing the same way I enjoy watching a violent film. I am not violent and would never encourage violence. This is the clear line that he refuses to see. I have seen this before many places not limited to the internet. All police are bad. I should be able to do whatever I want. Bad policy. |
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