Designing a MMORPG Feedback System

Gamasutra is running one of their highly enjoyable 'soapbox' pieces, looking at possible ways you could implement a feedback or ranking system for Massively Multiplayer Online Game players. From the article: "When playing an MMORPG, I should be able to give a positive, neutral, or negative rating to anyone who has been in my group for more than thirty minutes. Negative ratings could be characterized via a multiple-choice list of common gripes (i.e. 'loot theft', 'abusive language', etc) -- a feature now built into the Xbox Live feedback system. However, it isn't clear that a good feedback system requires this level of depth; there's an argument to be made for simplifying the process as much as possible."

Sliding Scale

[biocute]

Just a Slashdot-style moderation system, where a player can be modded up and down (one vote per person, which can be up/neutral/down) according to that player's action.

These mods will "expire" after a couple of days so that players can start a new leaf.

Didn't we just discuss this?

[AKAImBatman]

Now that you mention it, I do believe we did [slashdot.org].

The result of the conversation was that a rank system could be implemented similar to that of the Military ranks. Rather than working your way up some sort of point system, you'd get your promotions directly from your CO. (That's Commanding Officer for those of you who aren't familiar with the term.) High ranks would be seeded by the "Admiralty" (i.e. The people running the game), thus kicking things off. And if you really don't want to follow the whole rank system, you can always privateer.

At least, it seems to work in the context of Star Trek and military SciFi. YMMV elsewhere. :-)

Violation specific feedback

[Otonotachibana]

One of my gripes with WoW is the inability to quickly flag someone as a gold-seller, user of inappropriate language (sexist, homophobic, racist, etc.), exploiters, etc.

Too often will I receive a whisper from a character trying have me visit a gold for $ site. I will report them but the process is not stream-lined, it takes a few minutes. If multiple people could quickly flag this character as a gold-seller then blizzard reps would be able to investigate and perma-ban the most abusive accounts.

Collaborative Filtering

[santiago]

The key, then is to not give out absolute ratings, but rather relative ones. The rating you personally see for people you haven't rated yourself should be based on how they're rated by people you yourself have rated highly. This goes a long way towards preventing abuse by effectively negating the ratings assigned by people you don't like.

Fable anyone?

[The Rabid Panda]

What about a system like Fable had? Not necessarily changing your appearance, but your fame (or infamy) was automatically calculated by the game, and NPC's react differently based on your deeds. Say the system is based on points; playing all the way through cooperatively in a quest gave so many positive, healing teammates, etc. On the flip-side, ninjalooting etc. would be caught by the game mechanic and weighed accordingly. This "karma" system would be automatic and players could say, view a few stats about a player's reputation, without any necessary player input. And then there would always be the opportunity for a player to redeem their poor reputation.

Re:I doubt it could work.

[jchenx]

No one said that making a non-abusable feedback system was easy. :)

One easy way to prevent the "mob mentality" is to check to see what affiliations/connections people have when they rate a person. If I'm an asshole, I'm probably going to be an asshole to everyone, NOT just one guild. So theoretically, I should be getting negative feedback from a wide, diverse group of people. The same applies if I'm a nice guy.

So, if a guild tries to work together to boost each other's ratings, or tank someone else's, the feedback system should be able to see the correlation. After a while, the Nth feedback from a person of the same guild as the N-1th feedback, doesn't do anything to the person's rating anymore.

The only problem I see is that some people might be an asshole ONLY to a specific guild. The feedback system would break down here. But that's where you now rely on regular group communication. Guilds can establish their own guild specific blacklists or friend lists. Or better yet, have a guild-level feedback/reputation system. "Captain Jack is friendly to everyone, but really hates the PuzzlePirates guild and their members."