Fixing Player Toxicity

League of Legends (LoL) has become synonymous with toxic player behavior. From my brief experience, as well as all the chat log people link, there is something about the game that makes players positively inhuman to one another. You may remember that I recently talked about how a poor community is the only true deal-breaker for me, so I was very pleasantly surprised to see that Riot, the makers of LoL, have been paying as much attention as every else.

Jeffrey Lin, lead designer for social systems in LoL, undertook an interesting experiment to see if he and his team could better understand player toxicity, which he defines as "offensive language, obscenity, and displays of negative attitudes." While Lin states that "online gameplay has an inherently toxic element that must simply be accepted," any online gamer knows that there's a line between those annoying 12 year olds looking for trouble, and people who are genuinely awful in their online interactions. I accept that I'll have teammates killing me in hardcore mode of Call of Duty, but I won't accept someone blowing up my chat window with vitriol.

After Lin constructed some player profiles, he found that players who are truly toxic (i.e. acting out without provocation) are rare, but that these few players infect others who then carry that toxicity to their own games. So toxic players are like patient zero in any zombie movie, but how to fix it?

I'm not sure when this experiment was conducted, but when I played LoL years ago the opposing teams could talk openly in a shared chat channel, as well as a private team channel. While my experience had an equal share of rude players on either team, Lin decided to make cross-team chat optional for players. With this option, they noticed a general decrease in toxicity - and when you can't see the other team mocking your team or singling you out, which leads to your team scrutinizing you more, I can understand how this would be beneficial and why many games don't allow it from day 1.

Now this is where LoL goes from being known for its community to being known for how it handles its community. Riot's Tribunal system empowers players by keeping each other accountable. In most games, moderation is handled by a skeleton crew that can't possibly work to keep players in check and help them learn better online social skills (something that really should be taught in school at this point). The Tribunal system instead takes an offending player's actions and displays it for the whole community to see and, most impressively, allows them to decide the player's fate.

I'd heard mentions of this, but I was skeptical. If people are horrible because anonymity allows them to be, then wouldn't giving an entire group of them control over another player's fate be doubly bad? As it turns out, just the opposite happened. An unnamed number of cases have gone before the community, and after 105 million votes, 280,000 players have been punished and returned to the game without causing any further problems.

Now there's a lot to the linked article that's worth reading, but the Tribunal is what has caused some stir in the gaming community. Players are tired of toxic behavior in games, and reporting seems to do no good unless the offense is incredibly offensive and against a game's Terms of Service. I've talked to many players over the years who express discouragement at player behavior, yet shrug their shoulders because they feel like nothing gets done about it.

Yes there is a mute/ignore feature, but that's just a Hello Kitty bandaid placed on a bigger problem. People need to learn to act like human beings, pure and simple. Kids are thrown on to the internet, see people acting like jerks, are allowed to act like jerks without repercussion, and grow in to mostly-functioning adults who are incapable of understanding that the people they're yelling at are, in fact, people. The Tribunal system has its flaws to be sure, but when players know that their behavior can be punished, and especially when it is punished, will eventually make them think about how they're acting.

I would love to see more games implement this across the internet. Sure it would be rough while the problems were ironed out, but imagine an online gaming world where your online reputation was affected by your behavior as much as your real-world one. It would need to tread cautiously so that players weren't punished unfairly, but Riot's cases use bad behavior from several gaming sessions so that a player isn't banned for having one bad game. The system is brilliant because the moderators don't need to dig through mounds of behavioral reports, letting many slip through the cracks because it isn't worth their limited time. Instead they let players decide whether someone deserves to be banned for 24 hours for scatological insults while they spend time dealing with players who need to be banned permanently.

What do you guys think of the Tribunal system? Do you have an online game that would benefit from the players taking an active role in improving their community, or do you think it's just a bad idea? You can read more about it here, but I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts.



See you tomorrow!

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My Top 10 - Video Game Genres

If you've played video games for a few years, you know that there are some types of games that simply need to be average to make you happy. We're all usually pretty open to multiple genres, but we also know that some are simply better than others. Here's my list, what's yours?

10 Simulation
Roller Coaster Tycoon, Sim City, Tropico
I had Roller Coaster Tycoon on my dad's computer, and I would spend hours on this thing. Sometimes I was legitimately making a popular theme park, others I'd play the tyrant by destroying active roller coasters and imprisoning/drowning customers who were complaining.

Sim games are always a good way to wind down by building an economy and watching as it runs its course. It's also probably the only genre where I'll play a "bad guy," because it's the only genre that gives a decent reward and penalty for being a jerk.

9 Real-Time Strategy
Age of Empires, Starcraft
Age of Empires was the only game I had on one of my earlier computers. I knew all the cheat codes for it, I could hold my own online, and I played through the campaigns and AI opponents countless times. I learned strategies without consulting online resources (something I'm practically incapable of today), and I made a few local friends who also happened to play the game.

The games are more fast-paced that I care for anymore, but I still enjoyed playing through some of Starcraft II, and a friend is currently working on talking me in to buying the updated Age of Empires. There's something so thrilling about starting a map with a few workers and growing it in to a juggernaut that crushes all opposition.

8 MMORPG
World of Warcraft, Rift, Warhammer: Age of Reckoning
I've played WoW off and on for 8 years. That's a lot of time to play a single game, but MMOs evolve so much that sometimes only the world stays the same. The games certainly aren't time friendly, often requiring you to spend hours just to reach the real part of the game (content for max-level characters). Still, when I can find a group of friends to play with, it's a great way to get my fix for cooperative gameplay.

7 Shooters
Call of Duty, Left 4 Dead, Borderlands, Earth Defense Force
"Shooters" is a pretty broad term, and often games have something extra tacked on (like how Borderlands is also an RPG). Still, there are some games that exist purely to let you shoot stuff. I enjoy Call of Duty purely for the competitive multiplayer, but games like Earth Defense Force and Borderlands are great for those times when you want to relax and pull a trigger for awhile. I personally prefer my single-player experience to be unrealistic (zombies, mutants, aliens), but when it comes to competitive shooters, give me an SMG and a belt full of grenades and I'm happy.


6 Side-Scrolling Action
Mega Man, Contra, Sonic
I rarely play these anymore, but whenever I do spend time on one I'm never disappointed. There's nothing fancy to these - you walk to the right, kill stuff, go right again, collect stuff, right some more, boss battle. It's pure, it's easy to understand, and it's always a challenge.

5 RPG
Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age, Fallout, Chrono Trigger
I like a good story, I like getting gear and special items, and I like stats. Hence, I will forever love RPGs. However, if you've paid attention to my Rest Time Reviews you know that I don't like games that don't give me a return on my time spent, hence RPGs only being #5. When I was in high school these were hands down my #1 genre - get rid of action bogging down my story. Let me fight enemies, get gear, and save the world! As you'll notice by the end of this list, most of my games need some semblance of character progression and story, I just can't spend another 50 hours running aimlessly through games like Skyrim where it could be 15 minutes before I happen upon something.


4 Action RPG 
Dark Souls, Diablo, Bioshock
The perfect blend of RPG and "always something to do," Action RPGs are quickly climbing this genre list. These games need to include good character progression to be worth anything, and I'm slowly coming around to the idea of a game's story being structured around going from Point A to Point B, rather than setting you loose in a huge world and letting you find the story yourself. The latter is much more rewarding, but the former often has much better gameplay mechanics and memorable boss battles.


3 Card Games  
Magic the Gathering, Ascension
Perhaps more of a niche genre than the rest of these, TCGs and deck-building games in a digital format are still a great way to play the game you want without spending the money you don't have. TCGs like Magic or Pokemon may not give you as much deck-building freedom as you'd find in the real world, it's still a nice way to spend 20 or 30 minutes. Console-based card games are a harder sell, but anything I can play on my iPad will catch my attention because it lets me spend 10 or 15 minutes playing a game I enjoy in almost any location.

As a side note, it's also a great way to enjoy the game if you don't play very often. Before I joined my gaming group the only time I ever played Magic was through Duels of the Planeswalkers. I've also become a bit interested in deck building games where you and your opponent share a card pool and build your decks mid-game. Rather than paying $40 for a game I'm not sure about, I paid $0 and found that I really don't mind them!

2 Action/Adventure
Tomb Raider, The Last of Us (I may buy a PS3 just to play this), Dead Island
I never thought I'd love action games so much, but the ones I've played lately have been astounding. As long as a game isn't so chaotic that I can't track what's happening, I appreciate the adrenaline-fueling excitement an action game can create. Maybe I'm running through a crumbling building in Tomb Raider, getting my vengeance in Darksiders, or saving Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda. Action/Adventures are always sure to please just because there's rarely a time when you're not scaling a wall, fighting a bad guy, or discovering a new item to help you climb a wall to fight a bad guy.


1 Turn-Based Tactics
Final Fantasy Tactics, Advanced Wars, Shining Force, X-COM, Hero Academy
This isn't even close to the previous entries. TBT games have been my favorite games ever since I found Return to Krondor back in 1999. These games always have you snapped to a grid, and you and your opponent take turns moving your characters and attacking one another. It's like an elaborate game of chess, with different weapons, spells, items, potions... all with a hidden dice mechanic to determine hits, misses, and critical hits. The games are always so strategically rewarding, and there's always something to upgrade right until the credits roll.

TBT also work great for short play sessions. A single battle usually takes 5-10 minutes, so all your other time is usually spent upgrading characters or going through cut scenes. There's no needless travel, and even if you have to "grind" levels to get your characters powerful enough to progress, the battles you fight are always enjoyable.

Honestly, it's hard for me to find a tactics game I don't like. And like shooters, TBT usually have something extra added on to them (usually an RPG), but it's that feeling of having a defined battlefield with terrain and varying units that bring the thrill. It can have a huge battlefield like X-COM or Fire Emblem, or be more confined like Final Fantasy Tactics and Hero Academy. When I can plan my strategy, move my pieces, outwit my opponent, and leave just a little bit to chance, I am one happy gamer.


See you tomorrow!

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Farewell, Worthy Painting

I received a rather disheartening news email from MiniWarGaming today. Apparently Worthy Painting, a phenomenal group of commission painters, is having to close the door on their storefront and painting business. While this happens all the time with small businesses, Worthy Painting has been huge in my development as a painter, and seeing them have to close up felt like it was happening to a friend.

When I first started painting, as with all my pursuits I looked at what the pros were doing. One of my friends directed me toward Worthy Painting as a source of inspiration, and I found myself really enjoying how clean and precise their work looked. They use hard lines in addition to shadows to really make each piece of the model stand out.

While I thought it was simple, it turns out that drawing a fine line almost perfectly straight takes a bit of mastery. I got to practice it with a friend's Eldar and did pretty well for being a baby painter, but the precision they put in to bigger things like vehicles is amazing. Go check their gallery and see the precise, high-quality work they do.

Each artist tends to have their own style, and Worthy always strived to be clean but realistic. Their pieces didn't have that "fresh from the factory" look, but there was no muddying in their detail, and every part of a model was eye-catching. You could usually look at a model they did and know it was from their studio because they had an identity - a signature style that set them apart from many other professional painters.

So it's with some sadness that we say goodbye to much of Worthy Painting. They promise they'll still be around on YouTube, but I will miss their constant additions to their Facebook gallery. I hope they can find their way back to commission painting, but for now I wish them the best of luck.


See you tomorrow!

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Comfort in Random Results

If you're anything like me, you enjoy games that use random results in tandem with skill. Whether it's a Warhammer 40k and your perfectly executed strategy falls apart because the dice gods frown on you, a computer RPG where that big number explodes over your enemy's head to signal a critical hit, or even Monopoly where you can strike it rich or go bankrupt based on a single six-sided die. As I've played a variety of games in my life, I've almost always lost interest in games that are based solely on calculation, and you win or lose based 100% on your actions.

Most of us enjoy this because it adds tension to the game. No matter how much of an upper hand your opponent has, you're rarely out of the game. A single attack could devastate a key piece of your opponent's plan, an ability that triggers on a critical hit could give you the edge you need, or you can find yourself in those wonderful do-or-die moments where the perfect dice roll will win you the game. These games aren't only left up to chance - you must play your pieces carefully, cast the right spells, and maintain control of anything not left up to chance. But no matter how much I calculate, nothing in the game is ever certain except that I or my opponent will emerge victorious.

While I love the thrill of the game, there's also something comforting about that randomness. I have never enjoyed fighting games because it requires perfection to do well. There's no room for error, and any slight mistake can end the game for you. To me, that's torturous. While randomness allows a B-rank player to put up a fight against an A-rank player, things like chess, Street Fighter, and even Starcraft set a very hard division between skills. 

Some love that because it demands that they reach their maximum potential and devote themselves to improving. They have to work tirelessly to learn all the nuances until they can play a nearly flawless game. Every victory is earned 100% by them, and any loss is 100% on them.

I don't like that. I like having room to fail, and letting a part of my success or failure not be in my hands. It lets me battle both my opponent and chance, but it also lets me breathe a little easier when I make a mistake because there's room to recover from it.

Let me clarify that I don't think randomness wins games. I could go down to my local shop and play against Keith, a guy who is representing America in a global Warmachine tournament coming up. If we played 10 games together, despite me being a decent Warmachine player, I would count myself lucky to end with a 1-9 record. I might be able to flail about and seem equally matched at the beginning, but even the best dice rolls will only do so much for me.

However, two equals can get together and enjoy the fierceness of skill vs skill as well as the excitement of the unknown. If we've both played our first turns perfectly, then victory goes to the one who can work around and with the dice, not win because of them. It's not about rolling dice randomly and losing because no matter what you did, you just couldn't win because of random results.

Of course sometimes I do lose because of bad results. It's rare that I can look back on a game and say there's nothing I could have done differently, but it happens. When it does, I do my best to accept the loss as my own and not whine about bad dice. After all, that comes with the territory of unpredictable results.

That's my take on randomness in games - what's yours? Do you like the excitement, the way it can smooth over a bad play, or something else entirely?

See you tomorrow!

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Rest Time Reviews - Card Hunter (BETA)

Rest Time Reviews is a series for those with limited time to play video games. While I'll discuss the game as a whole, I also focus on whether or not a game is literally a waste of time. This RTR is all about Card Hunter (BETA).

A few months back I was thumbing through my Game Informer and I landed on the indie games section. I usually just give a quick glance of the pictures to see if I'm interested, and when I saw the image from Card Hunter, a free PC game, I had to find out more. The game is still in Beta, but if this sounds like the game for you (and how could it not be?) then make sure you sign up for the Beta!

Card hunter is a tactics-style game, meaning that you and your opponent take turns moving your pieces around a grid-based battlefield. If you've ever played Dungeons and Dragons with miniatures, you'll feel right at home with this game. It is a lighthearted game with several "in jokes" that most geeks will appreciate, like an ooze named Blpbpbpbqpl, cliche story hooks, class roles, paper stand-up models, and a hilarious Dungeon Master to help tell the story.

Everything in this game will feel immediately familiar to most. You start with a warrior, mage, and warrior priest at first, with more classes likely to come later. Combat is unique in that you draw a series of movement, armor, and action cards each turn. Unlike games like Magic, you don't necessarily choose your cards. Rather, your available attacks, armor, and different movement cards are granted by each piece of equipment on your character.

The game is fairly straight forward, but so far all the battle I've fought have had enough creature variety to make it unique each time. The battlefields are rather bland so far, with black borders around impassable terrain and the occasional difficult terrain that stops movement when you enter it. I haven't found terrain to be terribly important other than letting me create choke points - as a DM I find it disappointing that terrain elements aren't a bit more interactive, but it's a minor complaint that could easily be fixed later.

Card Hunter is free-to-play, which of course means that there's a cash shop that uses "pizzas" in the same way other games use gems.

Blue Manchu has made it a point to eliminate the "cash wall" that may prevent players from seeing content unless they pay. With the exception of adventures and frivolous things like different character tokens, everything in the game is attainable without lightening your wallet. How Manchu will handle this remains to be seen, as many games with a similar model practically strongarm you in to paying lest you spend countless hours acquiring enough gold to buy a single upgrade. For what you can get with Pizzas I do find them to be rather overpriced, but I hope the Beta will serve as a way for them to make it more of a desirable purchase.

There's no real story to speak of, and instead each point on the map is an adventure featuring a series of battles leading up to a "big bad evil guy," with each adventure being repeatable daily. As I said, each adventure feels unique enough, but I can see things becoming dull if Manchu doesn't have more elements to combat than a simple death match.

On the other hand, the game is fantastic in bite-sized chunks. When I would try grinding through several adventures in one sitting, I'd last maybe two adventures (8-10 battles) before I had to be done. But when I'd do 2 or 3 battles for about 15 minutes, the game had just enough strategy and excitement to make the time worthwhile. And since there is no wandering aimlessly through a dungeon, every minute you spend in Card Hunter will have you dealing with equipment or killing baddies so that you can get enough gold to deal with equipment.

Despite being in Beta, I think the game has shown me enough to make it worth recommending. The three characters bring unique abilities to the table, and each one can be customized to fill different roles. The game is fast-paced and enjoyable, with enough whimsy to make it easy to relax to. The lack of story and map creativity is disappointing, but for a game meant to be played a few minutes at a time it's easy to forgive. If Blue Machu handles the cash shop properly, then I think this will be a great game for anyone looking to goof around at work or when they have a few minutes to kill at home.

Remember, it's still in Beta so you can't play it just yet. There's a Beta sign-up on the site if you really want to give it a whirl, otherwise stick around because I'll definitely be letting you know when it goes live.


See you tomorrow!

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Guest Post - Being Married to a Gamer

I'm very excited to feature my first guest post. I'm doubly excited because my wife has secretly been working on this since I first announced guest posting, and I think you will really enjoy it!

Being Married to a Gamer

Being married to a gamer is basically the same as being married to a non-gamer.

 They both build things:

Well, more like these things:

They need their T.V. time:

Although they tend to look more like this during it:

They paint:

But with smaller brushes:

They have recreation time:

Though it is more like this:

They also need the right equipment for it:

But it tends to look more like this:

Ok, so there maybe a few differences, but gamer or non-gamer, you still have to learn new things. Instead of hearing all about statistics and world cups, you learn about strategy and special abilities. Instead of hearing yelling about the “bad call” you hear discussions (maybe arguments) about rules and what allows them to make that move. There are tournaments instead of super bowls, and release dates instead home openers. But you still get to hear about the awesomeness of HD and how the bigger the screen the better! Although in this case it doesn't only apply to TVs.

The lingo also changes. You thought you learned all about letters in elementary, and then you figured about txt talk in middle school, now there is a whole new set of jargon to learn. Like tank (similar action to the military version, yet quite different), codex, noob, and "battlefoam" (now that sounds tough right?). There are acronyms like DMs and GMs, RPGs, PVP, MMOs, D6s 4s 8s 10s 12s & 20s, and AFK. Army will be used frequently, and even though my brother is a Marine, it is never actually used in reference to the United States Military (though that may have something to do with the fact that my brother would be highly offended to be lowered to that level “Oorah!")

There is much more participation when married to a gamer.  Instead of just being the means by which pop and chips make it to the coffee table in front of the game, you are the one that is asked to test drive the new game, or help with making things for tournaments, and talk through layouts. It can be fun at times, others you just have to smile and nod and pretend that you actually know what is going on, though I imagine that can be the same with a non-gamer and a fantasy football game.

Well here is my take from the other side of the game room! :-)

~Amanda Burns, Wife of a Gamer

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See you tomorrow!

Remember to follow me on Facebook. I'm doing a blog post every single day for 2013, and Facebook is a great way to stay up-to-date as well as take part in my monthly giveaways! And now is the perfect time to enter and win a piece of terrain!