The Science Behind Shaping Player Behaviour in Online Games

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pneuma wrote:

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MrSmiley21 wrote:

I think its competition that brings the worst out in gamers. The more competitive a game is will naturally lead to the community becoming more agitated with each other. Competition creates rivalries, and those lead to flaming and smack talking, in which others might step in to catch some of the flack. Something like free for all loot drops is a mechanic that creates competition that isn't really wanted by the player base.

I definitely agree with that sentiment. As for FFA, I thought the best change was to remove player names from things so that nobody got falsely attached to an item before it was in their inventory.

The last time we had a forum etiquette/moderation discussion I took this position -- that competition evokes strong emotions out of otherwise perfectly level people.

IIRC, the common rebuttal is that antisocial behaviour shows up even in non-competitive settings. Or that, at least talking about PoE and not LoL, PvE isn't competitive.

It's not impossible to have a civil forum around a competitive game, but it's extremely rare.

I know for a fact I'm antisocial. I can be aggressively antisocial when provoked. Not even gonna try to dispute it. Another point of mine is you can't take someone who is antisocial and make them function in a normal social environment.

Gamers in general I think have a more antisocial nature than the rest of the population does. Creating competition only intensifies antisocial behavior.

So maintaining a positive community, when a lot of the community is antisocial isn't gonna work out too well. Ban everyone who is antisocial? There would be thousands and thousands of bans.

And one thing about people who are antisocial is they are aggressively non-conformist. Meaning they won't just "Do what they're told", or "Get with the program". So attempts at controlling antisocial behavior through any sort of social engineering will fall flat on its face every single time.

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

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pneuma wrote:

It's not impossible to have a civil forum around a competitive game, but it's extremely rare.

And hard fucking work, as my many nights spent moderating on my phone at 3am with a blissfully unaware partner zonked out beside me can attest.

Amen to that.

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MrSmiley21 wrote:

Gamers in general I think have a more antisocial nature than the rest of the population does.

Unsure about this. Gamers yell at each other which sucks when you're trying to have fun and when moderation has to be involved, but overall I'd say venting in games is better than the alternative.

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EDIT: Replying to edited section.

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MrSmiley21 wrote:

So maintaining a positive community, when a lot of the community is antisocial isn't gonna work out too well. Ban everyone who is antisocial? There would be thousands and thousands of bans.

And one thing about people who are antisocial is they are aggressively non-conformist. Meaning they won't just "Do what they're told", or "Get with the program". So attempts at controlling antisocial behavior through any sort of social engineering will fall flat on its face every single time.

Maintaining a community isn't easy and it does include a lot of stern "talking-to"s, probations and even a few bans. I will definitely say that the percentage of truly horrible posters is a lot smaller than it seems.

For the people that ultimately aren't willing to abide or try to understand the reasons for why the rules exist, there is no happy ending. It's no different than any other obsessive, aggressive act. It's why authority must exist, and it's why it's a constant plight for as long as the forum is deemed worth working for.

Let me break this down from the perspective of someone who is antisocial.

Suppose I read a topic, and I'll think "No way this guy is serious?", so I enter the topic with a flamethrower. When I could be entirely mistaken about the poster's intentions. I'm too arrogant to offer an apology to a specific poster, but maybe I've been a dick a few times where I was mistaken about the situation.

Also when one person shows up to a topic with a flamethrower, it encourages a herd mentality to take over then suddenly you got dozens showing up with flamethrowers, and then you got a flame war.

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pneuma wrote:

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.

Just to clarify, what was talked about was not whether it was okay to probate people who broke the rules, it was about whether it was justified to insult someone that did so. Naturally it is okay to temporarily stop someone from posting if they do not behave well, that does not mean you should also insult them.

I somehow want to deny you guys from useing the "looting"-mechanics how they were in PoE as an example for this.

It was the best way for GGG to manage the situation, in an alternate Universe where the other game would have been a other game, it would have led to different results.
The Pre-Closed-Beta-Community was much more like a Rougelike-Arpg-community, a different audience attracts different tastes, if it would have stayed small the result would have been Short-allocation beeing the prime lootingmechanic for PoE.
And no Way PoE would have attracted more customers if they added Permanent-Allocation, there wouldn´t have been a audience for it.
It should become standard to implement variables that can easily be changed before gamerelease. Its just that it always takes long for indies to implement things.

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Competitive games:
There are games out there that are pure competetive and ragefree.
It shouldn´t become norm to allocate competitive with anger.
And it shouldn´t become norm to say competetive games must be RNG-free.

Sorry, Lachdannan,but you cannot compare CB to OB:

CB had about half of the amount of players we have now. All of you were aware to be somehow special and priviledged, and knew each other better. Plus you had intensive contact with the devs and knew you can influence the game. Furthermore all of you have been aware that all your achievements will be wiped at the end of CB.

All these points together created a kind of "pseudocompetition", where the individuals goals was more directed to be a helpful communitymember helping develop the game, whereas the competitive aspect existed only in a very "kittenish" form.

BTW: Competition is always, without any exception, bound to aggressivity. This has to do with the biological reactions of your body, in which adrenalin plays a mayor role. Without aggression there is no competition.

So if you tell me there is truly competitive games without some people loosing temper and raging I tell you straight away it can´t be, cause it is against biological facts:))

But of course you can censore a forum up to a point that only positive and cute postings are shown, and it is of course not the companies fault if a raging father who´s post has been deleted the 10th time turns around in real life and slaps his 8-year old son for entering the flat with dirty shoes......

Yepp, in a comparison from CB to OB, i agree.

But i made the comparison to Pre-CB, beforeCB, also known of noone played the game yet-alpha.
The Situation back then was way more "Cutthroat" and "Cutfingers" and "Cutcats", like a good old Rougelike is meant to be.
I don´t know why but these "Elders" also infected me with some part of enjoying to cut things ^^

Is chess competetive ? I say yes.
There may be a difference in how we both define the word "competetive".
And i also doubt the resulting communication would belong in here ^^.
So please forgive me when i concede.
I just enjoy spectating the moba-scene, and having played the complete opposite of these games (i hate to say it again:natural-selectionfor8years) i´m somehow attracted to these kind of topics like a moth to the light.

Chess combines the competitive scene with restraint, discipline, patience and the ability to consider the future before you act. That is why there is little aggressiveness in chess, those players tend to not like chess. It does not mean that there is no link between aggresiveness and competition, just that it is one of the those games that attract the types who have little aggression. We all feel the pressure when we play a game of chess we do not want to lose, it is the same pressure that leads people to become aggressive if they are not mentally strong enough to resist it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess-related_deaths

It cannot be thrown aside by saying there are varying understandings of "competitive". Competing means you are in competition with others in order to win, so something that is competitive has the quality of having people competing to win.

It is important to understand what factors can be related and what factors can not as it is probably the most common source of error when arguing, and all progressive arguments end when one side will not adapt to their misunderstandings.