Cross faction chat?

[Ieyasu]

hasnt Higby already said it was going to be in? Seem to recall him mentioning it back around time of GDC.

[Hamma]

Yes, 90% sure it's in.

[TAA]

Originally Posted by MCYRook

Well for it being "a very basic social engineering principle", it didn't make all too much sense to me in that other thread, and it still doesn't now.

First off, why is trash talk a bad thing per se? Especially in a game genre that breathes competitiveness?

This is an article I have posted before in another thread as well. Here is an interview with the author of that article where he expands a little on what he means. Select quote below:

Originally Posted by Bill Fulton interview

By way of example, WoW has a wealth of excellent social design – -and I personally believe their social design is more responsible for far more of their enviable success than most people realize. Consider just two critical social design choices they made:

• You can’t talk with players of the enemy faction. This is huge. Blizzard made the decision to remove the ability to ‘be social’ with the enemy because the rare upside of opponents who admire each other wasn’t worth the onslaught of ugliness of less sportsman-like behavior it would have unleashed. Just imagine how ugly life would be in WoW if you had to listen to a player of the enemy faction chat annoying things at you while you’re grinding Murlocs.
• You can’t tangibly harm players of your own faction. You can’t steal from or damage players in your own faction. The only harm you can do is indirect–most you can really do is be a jerk in a party, or sneak past someone and engage an enemy they’ve been working towards. Think of how you’d never feel safe in WoW, never able to relax, if people in your own factions could harm you. The only place you’d be safe is in an instance (by yourself or with trusted players) or while flying between flight points.

With this these two design decisions, they eliminated an enormous amount of the bad conflict in the game – -both inter- and intra-faction social annoyances that could have made WoW just horrible to endure.

These concepts are not new. Social engineering in games is very very important, yet it is also overlooked way too often.

But according to you trash talk is not a bad thing. It builds up rivalries and is in the spirit of the game. Really? Here is another article. Read it and try to tell me how positive the gaming experience was for this author, then try to justify to me why this sort of thing is in any way acceptable behaviour. Quote below:

Originally Posted by Patricia Hernadez

Trash talk makes it obvious that the implicit understanding of the language of dominion isn’t just sexualised. It’s gendered. That power struggle is culturally understood to be a man versus woman thing, even though rape doesn’t just happen to women. Most of the slurs of choice point toward the same thing. Someone is a bitch, they’re a ****** — feminine — and if you beat someone, then you raped them. The imagery there for most of us will be the same: a man physically assaulting a woman, not the other way around.

And Figment. When you say:

Originally Posted by Figment

If you can only conceive talking to enemy players as a format for trashtalk, you're a sad, sad being.

What you are doing is saying - it is ok that some people be made to suffer because good can come from having bad social design in games, and besides you can just ignore anything that bothers you anyway. I guess in your world it is ok to run around the streets shouting racial slurs at random people, because those sensitive pansies could just ignore it and it sure is better than banning talking isnt it?

I say to you that there is no excuse for bad game design.




edit: fixed link to first article

[kadrin]

Originally Posted by Figment

Everything Figment said.

I agree with Figment, cross-faction chat is great.

I love all the hatetells, I screenshot them, share them with friends and we laugh.

I also love talking to people about random things, like just a few hours ago, I Drop Podded just south of Anu on Forseral, completely out of the way of all the fighting in a pretty out of the way place to sneak up and see what was going on. Turns out I Drop Podded right in front of an enemy Reaver who was just chilling there, we fought it out a little, I got some good hits in but he kicked my ass. Sent him a tell, and we were laughing about how of all the random places he could be loitering, just happened to be where I dropped.

[FastAndFree]

I'm also pro-whisper. I have so many memorable chats with enemies about the most random topics.

There are tools in game to deal with slurs/abuse but in all my years in Planetside 1 I don't think I ever had to use them.
Granted Planetside 2 will likely be closer to Xbox Live "quality", but I still would hate to see it go. If someone is being a dirtbag put him on ignore. If he is way out of line then optionally report it to the mods and laugh as he gets banned (hopefully support will exist for PS2...)

[Rivenshield]

You mean... you mean I won't be able to tell the driver of the Vanguard I just blew up to STOP MESSING UP MY MINEFIELD any more...?

/woe is me

[DownloadFailed]

I'm all for cross-faction chat. Even if it's in a minimal form, like whispering and/or local chat. Also, a setting where we can chat about the game and its recent events with other players in all factions would be beneficial instead of relying on these forums alone. Like, say, a global chat at the main menu before you jump into the action. This would make it difficult for trolls to relay info on their team's whereabouts to enemy teams because they aren't there taking part in the battle.
Not to mention (because it's already been mentioned previously) it's not like all chat between enemies will be hate tells. Intelligent and meaningful conversations can be had with enemies and it's required for non-conventional gameplay like events and cease fires/truces.

[GuyFawkes]

Originally Posted by TAA

I say to you that there is no excuse for bad game design.

Good game design is having a check option to turn off whispers or even filter them. Good game design is having /ignore as an option.
Cross faction chat is fundamental to planetside.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by TAA

And Figment. When you say:

What you are doing is saying - it is ok that some people be made to suffer because good can come from having bad social design in games, and besides you can just ignore anything that bothers you anyway. I guess in your world it is ok to run around the streets shouting racial slurs at random people, because those sensitive pansies could just ignore it and it sure is better than banning talking isnt it?

Well by THAT defintion of "bad" gameplay design there's only one option: Let's not have a chat system at all, because you know where I found most racial slurs?

ON OWN-EMPIRE BROADCAST AND COMMAND CHAT.

Bad gameplay design is not preventing any and all abuse, because if you do that, you create a shell in which you can't do any of the good things any longer.

You want to BAN SOCIAL PLAY BETWEEN ENEMIES on the basis of less than 5% of the tells I receive from my enemies? That means that 95% of constructive, fun and social engaging gameplay design has to suffer over you not being able to comprehend or communicate the option to: /ignore add [player]

As others said, grow a thicker skin instead of removing our friends from our chat options.

I say to you that there is no excuse for bad game design.

Fully agree: keep chat between empires or it'd be bad game design. The plusses by far trump the bads.

Make a Harris model and compare the plusses with the bads. There's ONE BAD and around 50 plusses for this model and honestly making any decision based on one bad is a bad decision.

[MCYRook]

Who is Bill Fulton anyway? He must have one hell of a reputation, because the face value of what he says in that money quote above is near zero.

For the bit about "Oh noes, if we have cross-faction talk, people might say bad things to one another! THIS IS HUGE!", I refer to what Figment just said. The argument is, quite frankly, idiotic on several levels.

And then he also goes on to say how important it is that you "can't tangibly harm" players on your own faction. Well guess what, there'll be friendly fire in PS2. I guess that must also be bad game design then, because... social engineering!

[TAA]

Originally Posted by MCYRook

For the bit about "Oh noes, if we have cross-faction talk, people might say bad things to one another! THIS IS HUGE!", I refer to what Figment just said. The argument is, quite frankly, idiotic on several levels.

Idiotic?

Forgive me if I choose not to trust your expert opinion on the matter. Instead I provide evidence in the form of a paper.

Originally Posted by Microsoft Research

Table 5
How did you respond to the bad
behavior?
Chose not to respond 27.5%
Could not respond 5.8%
Responded directly to perp 58.8%
Informed administrator 37.6%
Left the game 29.9%

30% of people surveyed respond to bad behavior directed against them by leaving the game. I guess that its just not important to think about ways to minimize this.

The topic of this thread was cross faction chat. Eliminating cross faction chat is just an easy thing to implement when it comes to designing a positive social environment, and it is why I support it. Why the easy solution? Because frankly the developers of PS2 are not going to try anything that might actually work other than maybe outsource some admin work to another company.

The real solutions are hard to implement. The article I linked concludes by suggesting reputation tools, persistent social identity and social ostracism as a potentially useful technique. I have maintained for years that this is the only way to solve the problem. However I am also pragmatic enough to understand that there is absolutely zero chance of that occurring in PS2.

I was going to say that I am happy that you at least read something that was linked about the topic, but I then looked again and realized that you didnt and instead just judged the quote. Oh well. I guess the chances of checking out the paper I just linked above are almost nill. So much for pesky little things such as facts or opinions from people who you know, study psychology and design games and stuff.

[MCYRook]

Originally Posted by TAA

30% of people surveyed respond to bad behavior directed against them by leaving the game.

Good point. But I miss the option "I put the fucker on ignore and carried on". Was the option there? If not, how much would the "I left the game" number been affected if it had?

I was going to say that I am happy that you at least read something that was linked about the topic, but I then looked again and realized that you didnt and instead just judged the quote.

Let's make a deal: I'll consider to read long-ass text you link when you start addressing all arguments directed at you, rather than just the ones you feel you have a response handy for.

[Canaris]

yeah but all the people in that survey paper you linked were from Hello Kitty Island adventure

[TAA]

Originally Posted by MCYRook

Let's make a deal: I'll consider to read long-ass text you link when you start addressing all arguments directed at you, rather than just the ones you feel you have a response handy for.

I dont understand what you are referring to here. Let me quote everything you have said and go through it one by one:

Originally Posted by MCYRook

Well for it being "a very basic social engineering principle", it didn't make all too much sense to me in that other thread, and it still doesn't now.

First off, why is trash talk a bad thing per se? Especially in a game genre that breathes competitiveness?

I explained this. I linked to articles of other people explaining this. I linked to an article of first hand experiences with this.

Originally Posted by MCYRook

You say it isn't "conducive to building a positive social environment" (hear hear!) - and in your next sentence stress how the factions are enemies to each other. Why do we need to build a "positive social environment" again, when it's so important that we're enemies? We may want to mock and taunt our enemies - but "that must never be allowed"?

I thought I had answered this too. The goal is to make an environment that is not threatening to new players. To encourage new players to stay. To ensure the game is successful. Poor social design = lost customers.

Originally Posted by MCYRook

Besides, I have had tons of very respectful talks with players from the opponent factions - probably more than hate tell exchanges. If it wasn't for that (and the forums), these people would've always been "those dirty VS/TR". So talk about a positive social environment - but wait! That must never be allowed! xD

I am happy for your personal experiences. Do I really need to say more than that? Do I think that your personal experiences are representative of all other gamers? No I do not. Again, congratulations.

Originally Posted by MCYRook

Who is Bill Fulton anyway? He must have one hell of a reputation, because the face value of what he says in that money quote above is near zero.

I actually did address this. Follow the links. I quote the articles. The articles and interviews explain who he is.

Originally Posted by MCYRook

For the bit about "Oh noes, if we have cross-faction talk, people might say bad things to one another! THIS IS HUGE!", I refer to what Figment just said. The argument is, quite frankly, idiotic on several levels.

Again I congratulate you on your personal opinion. As to what Figment said, I again would congratulate him on his personal opinion. I think everyone is welcome to have an opinion. I just respect it more when it is backed up by more than hearsay. Also note that Figment has not read or replied to anything I have posted other than one select subsection of one post. Thats ok, I dont expect every single sentence I post to be dissected and replied to.

Originally Posted by MCYRook

And then he also goes on to say how important it is that you "can't tangibly harm" players on your own faction. Well guess what, there'll be friendly fire in PS2. I guess that must also be bad game design then, because... social engineering!

The interview was using WoW as an example, and explaining how two specific design choices in WoW affected that particular game. Intentional friendly fire is probably going to be an issue in PS2, but removing friendly fire is not the solution to that problem. That is another topic.



Looking back on it I think that the only thing I missed was this: I didnt personally acknowledge and congratulate you on your positive, personal, subjective experiences. Congratulations.

Did I miss anything else?


Addendum: I just wanted to point out something else. Planetside around 2006 probably had around 20k subscriptions (see the link for trends over time). Do you think that your game experience with PS1 may be a little different if PS2 had 1+ million players? (optimistic I know)

[FastAndFree]

Well here is a compromise solution (for the sake of having one. I'm all for cross-empire whispers)
Let's have an option: Ignore All Enemies. If this is really such a huge issue then perhaps have it on by default. (Maybe send the player a notification the first few times he recieves a whisper that a whisper was just blocked, so he actually knows cross-faction whispers exist)

Or have it off and show a tooltip when he recieves his first few enemy tells "You can ignore all tells from enemy players in Options"




Of course that would still leave you recieving smack and abuse from dirtbags in YOUR empire. Should we have an Ignore All for them too? I am now starting to be sarcastic.