positive-reinforcement
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Community Blog Topic Results: Rewarding well-behaved players
Previously in Community Blog Topic, we talked about the punishment of funsuckers. Conversely, last week we talked about rewarding players who are known for good behavior. MrandMrsWoW voiced on their blog what many people in the comments were saying: good behavior is its own reward. They go on to list their reasons why well-behaved players should not be rewarded: WoW is not school, and should be treated as such! Good behaviour is a basic human principal and should be a given (whether it is or not is a separate issue) Rewarding people for being polite will only encourage more scamming of the system I can't think of a fair way to instigate a reward system: for LFR? For LFG? For guildies? Should we vote? How do we vote? What is 'well-behaved'? Not swearing? Saying hello? Not ninja-ing loot? I can't see a fair way to judge it. WE SHOULD NOT BE REWARDING GROWN ADULTS FOR NOT BEING NASTY TO EACH OTHER! The World of Warcraft may not be school, but there are plenty of school-aged players who could use some guidance in the correct direction of becoming well-behaved adults. It's not WoW's job to parent them, but offering positive reinforcement by peers is not necessarily a school-only thing. With employee of the month awards and merit bonuses being used in the working world, rewarding good behavior is a commonplace tactic used by adults for adults.
League of Legends adds player-driven 'Honor' system
While reporting poor sportsmanship and offensive behavior during matches in League of Legends is standard, Riot Games has added a new feature to the game by which positive behaviors will be recognized. This new system, dubbed simply "Honor," will give players the tools to tag folks with a permanent thumbs up for making the gaming experience enjoyable. This new system has four categories that players can be rated on. At the end of a match, participants can indicate whether someone was helpful, was friendly, displayed teamwork, or was just an overall honorable opponent. Each player's Honor is recorded in his or her summoner profile and displayed for all to see. In the future, Riot Games might also reward those summoners with the highest honor.
MMO MMOnkey: The rat Skinner, or negative reinforcement in MMOs
Like the wardens in Everquest 2 or the druids in World of Warcraft, reinforcement in MMOs is not always what it appears to be. In an earlier column we wrote about how positive reinforcement, as defined by behaviorist learning theory, occurs whenever the player receives something beneficial and pointed out a number of the simple ways this kind of reinforcement is used in MMOs. A second column used the bounty and collection quests in EQ2 as examples of how positive reinforcement could be well (the bounty quests) or poorly (the collection quests) implemented. Several Massively readers who enjoy the collection quests took us to task and pointed out some of the ways EQ2's collection quests can be rewarding in terms of gold, experience and loot. They also made the point that bounty quests, like hot elf chicks, are old, tired and overused as staples of MMO play. I mean, really, who wants to kill another 20 rats for Fatboy the quest giver? Not me, and I'm guessing many of you don't either.
MMO MMOnkey: MMOs as conditioned learning engines (Part 2)
In a previous column we looked at some of the many ways that game designers use positive reinforcement and reward in MMOs. Positive reinforcement occurs whenever an action is accompanied by or results in something pleasant or enjoyable. When a person is positively reinforced or rewarded they are more likely to repeat the action that is associated with the reward. The importance of reinforcement for MMOs is obvious; the more the player is rewarded, the more likely she is to play the game. A deeper understanding of how reinforcement works in MMOs can be gained by comparing an example of where it's done well with a case where it's done poorly and Everquest 2 provides just the examples we need.
Fishing and fun (or the lack thereof)
Fishing is probably the strangest implementation of activity in WoW-- there's really nothing like it (well, except everything-- it's basically clicking in a certain place at a certain time, and when aren't you doing that in this game?). But for all its boring qualities, players are still fascinated with it. Blizzard has hit on that weird balance of positive reinforcement-- it's boring, but gives just enough reward to keep you doing it.And so it's not surprising that, once again, players are asking for fishing to be made "more fun." What that means, no one is really sure-- they could add better rewards, or make it a less boring minigame, or just make it require less attention (all other professions don't require any attention to be paid).Lo and behold, Drysc actually acknowledges that there's something wrong with fishing-- something that has to do with the unquantifiable quantity known as "fun." But what it is, even Blizzard doesn't seem to know-- they added nodes to fishing to join a bit of exploration with it, but once you've found a node, it's just back to that same old clicking. Drysc suggests that real fishing is just as boring for some people, and that's why not everyone likes fishing in WoW, either.My personal preference would be to put more into the fishing minigame-- catch different fish at different times of the day, or use different lures to attract various catches. Either that or make the skill involved something other than "waiting"-- maybe a meter where you have to click when the bar reaches a certain point. There's lots of reasons to fish, and that's why people still do it. But there's no question that sitting there waiting for the bobber to bounce needs more cowbell fun.
