Final Blog Post

Hello,

The final experiment was completed and a report was written up for this module's submission. A few things stood out about this project when going over the results, one main issue being the scope of the project it. It works on this level but to fully understand if this system is of use for its purpose then I would have to change it and implement it with a much bigger test group.

At this small scale it works which is promising for the future however with only 15 participants its hard to tell how effective it would be on a larger scale. Another issue that came up was with the release of newer consoles and technology the systems being used today are always updating so further analysis would have to be done.

The system built is very simple as its meant to produce a way to reduce the amount of work/time it takes to find negative players online however with the issue outstanding that most player just tend to ignore the negativity of player online or just don't bother to report the issue of finding these players will still be a difficult thing to complete.

I would like to take this project further however I believe the scale of the project for one person is far too grand. Although at this level my system works it doesn't fully show how impacting this system could be in the real world which is an area that needs work in the future.

Titanfall

Hello,

If you're a PC player who's breaking the rules in Titanfall, you'll still be able play the hit sci-fi FPS. But Respawn's going to put you on a time-out with the other bad kids.

A student on the Mprof forwarded me this link, its a very interesting way to deal with player and just shows that as games progress developers are trying to find new ways to conteract this negativity found in games...

However I don't think this is the best way to do it in my opinion because they are punishing the friends of people who haven't cheated as if they were cheaters also.

(http://kotaku.com/titanfall-cheats-will-be-forced-to-play-with-other-che-1552321337)

...Been a while !

Hello,

Lived up to the fact I never make blogs by ... not posting. However just a quick post to say that my experiment is mostly written up all scenarios are done.

Five scenarios covering situations that arise online In Xbox Live, League of Legends and World of Warcraft. Final step is to type up the report options each player are offered this will be 6 options and will be tailored toward the scenario. Meaning that there will be 18 in total.

Next stop is the experiment itself hopefully will be completed by the end of this week aiming for 10-15 participants then at the end of the month taking this to family members who aren't game players to see how they react in the same scenarios to see if there are any notable differences in results.

Finally onto my most dreaded part (The write up) where my results will be evaluated and put into a report to detail my findings.

On going posts of various results will be posted in the next couple of weeks !!


:D

Misbehaving Players

The following link :

http://www.newsoflegends.com/

Is a very available source for finding the best of the best ... or in the case the worst when it comes to league of legends tribunal cases as they have a section which is updated named "Tribunal case of the week" in which the worst case or most known case of the week is posted up here and has various examples of bad player attitude which is great for investigation but bad for the player involved :(.

Investigation Continued

Hello once again,

*Must remember to do more posts*


Back to the interesting stuff though, after performing my presentation for the module as well as completing my proposal my project has taken down the path of policing in games. This means in a basic sense how different games and services deal with issues in games which may lead to a "Toxic" game environment or game play experience.

For the innovative part of the project I intend to create a system that allows a efficient way of dealing with complaints then discovers them quicker, such as when a player received a number of complaints of a certain severity early on rather than the moderators scanning through their systems and picking up on a person who has had numerous complaints over many games. In a nutshell a way to find out trouble makers early on in game when they act negatively toward a player in say two games rather than a wave of offenses over many games.



So we are trying to catch the bad guys early on so they can be dealt with and not upset other players thus making their game experience a negative one.

Experiment

As for the experiment itself I intend to do further research into the different games chosen by me which are:

1. Riot Games "League of Legends"
2. Microsoft's Xbox Live service
3. Blizzard's "World of Warcraft"

These titles were chosen because not only do i have knowledge of each game in depth they are all easy to access for personal analysis. Each deal with multiple user environments in different ways. Some allow the user to kick an offensive player from game with a majority decision, this can be troublesome if there are 3 out of 5 players friendly with each other meaning they will always have majority.

One thing in common is all games/services chosen allow player to have the ability to report offensive players which may lead to them being banned for repeat offenses which conflict with each of the chosen areas "Code of Conduct"

Code of Conduct:

"a set of conventional principles and expectations that are considered binding on any person who is a member of a particular group"

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/

Back to the experiment...

Back to the experiment, I intend to create a system which breaks each complaint down into three categories, this will be defined using colors RED, GREEN and ORANGE. Each will refer to the severity of the issue raised in the complaint.

To test the system I will analyse different issues raised in each of the online games/services to create some realistic scenarios which can be tested by participants which have not had experience with these games as well as players who have sunk hours into each.

They will be asked a series of questions in initial interviews to allow me to distinguish how they feel the effectiveness of each system is and if they have had any experience with TROLLS or offensive players and how the reacted and felt about the situation.

This will then allow me to build upon each scenario to create the 6 reporting sentences...

These will be the options the participants will be allowed to take to solve their issue, similar to the options the may face when reporting a player. There will be two for each rating of severity and will be analysed to see if its a viable system for reporting players and at the same time collaborating responses to allow a more efficient way to moderate reports received.

MORE TO COME LATER ... STAY TUNED!

Investigation

Hello again ! :)

Well I finally settled on the topic of "Strangers in Games"...

Slightly strange title! However after a meeting with Suzanne Prior I finalized that i was going to review different game communities and see if they had  a positive or negative effect on players new and existing to the game.

Such observation would be:

• Does a negative or bullying community make the player want to leave and never return, or does it in fact spur them on to become better to "Rub it in the face" of those who once put them down for their playstyle or... "Being a noob"
• Does a helpful and powerful guild with many "Perks" make the player want to play as more of a team or are they only in it for the "Perks" and when they get what they need they will quickly run away into the sunset.
• How does a player see insults/praise from friends in comparison to that of a complete stranger?
• Are players more confident to insult a player in an online game rather than to say it in a rel world environment (This on the outset can be seen as a simple yes depending on the player however why is this ?)

I will look into various games which I have had a strong experience with from different genres but mianly focussing on a team built game play.

Such as:

• World of Warcraft
• League of Legends
• Smite
• An FPS game ( such as call of duty ) I wont have access to this game so I will interview a group of gamers who would classify this as "Their type of game"

Well that's all for now... 

Next I will read into more literature around guilds, team speak or chat; the various ways people communicate in games and finally a bit more into each games rules and legislation based on in game conduct such as praise/insults.

Introduction

Hello...

My Name is Charlie Reilly and have as of November 2013 graduated with a Bsc Computer Games Design Degree with Honours. As of the summer I recently worked in a special needs camp in Long Island, New York. This resulted in working from June 15 2013 up until August 31 2013. It led me to working with the disabled community, ages ranging from 12  until 18+.

As part of my four years at university I completed my honours project entitled "An investigation into the effect of narrative on the performance and experience of adults over the age of 50 in games".  I have always had a keen interest in games with a strong narrative which strongly pulls me towards rpgs and mmorpgs.

I have recently been accepted into further study by means of the Mprof Games Development at Abertay Univeristy, hoping to put the skills I have learnt throughout my time studying games design to good use !!!


Thanks for reading ....



Charlie