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How Riot's Social Scientists Fight League of Legends Trolling
An anonymous reader writes "There's an interesting interview up today with Jeffrey Lin, lead designer of social systems for Riot, the game studio behind League of Legends. Lin has a PhD in cognitive neuroscience. His recognition that most trolls are only trolls because they're having an off day has changed the way that Riot punishes players. 'In other words, you need a carrot and not a stick. Where a punishment would come across as harsh and out-of context, pointing out to players that they're letting their usually-high standards of conduct slide usually results in a change of attitude. Incentivising the good behaviour with an Honour stat which could be affected by conduct in any match also serves to reinforce that good behaviour.' As a result, Lin's seen a noticeable spike in the number of people saying 'GG' (good game) at the end of a match. It leaves you wondering: what if Activision approached Call of Duty griefers on Xbox Live the same way?"
... has done jack and squat.
Whenever my friends are playing LoL while I'm on teamspeak, 95% of what they say has to do with either teammates or the opposition being complete tools intentionally.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
He noticed a spike in people saying GG and takes that as a general sign that the atmosphere is improving. Is it that, or are trolls tone basically unchanged, but they're just saying "GG" to get their honor stat back a little?
I understand that some trolling is bullying: that's when it becomes griefing - but most trolling is just sarcastic fun. I have, on many occasions, made joking jest and played the role (with dripping socratic irony) of the troll to the great delight of myself and others.
If somebody is truly upset, however, I would not, could not, continue to deride them. So that's where the fine line may be drawn.
Those that would are to be called griefers, not trolls.
Griefers are trolls intending harm. Trolls in my opinion and in my definition are merely out for Natalie Portman's hot grits - whatever those may be.
Harsh words on the internet beat shooting up schools.
It leaves you wondering: what if Activision approached Call of Duty griefers on Xbox Live the same way?
No it doesn't, because in my experience, most console trolls/griefers aren't "people having an off day," they're foul-mouthed 14-year-olds with shitty excuses for parents.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Do people have behaviors? yes.
Do people interact socially? yes
Can it be monitored? yes.
Can data be collected form it? Yes
can it be manipulated successfully? Yes
Can predictions be made? yes.
I'm sorry, you don't think it's a science ...why, exactly?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
and:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Ensure that people need each other. If people can treat others like an expendable commodity, they will treat each other as such.
You'll notice that there was virtually no griefing or trolling in old MMOs. Why? Because you didn't survive a day without the aid of anyone else. Ever tried to get anything accomplished alone in old school DAoC? Or, hell, EQ? You were dependent on the rest of the server to get your gear back in case you died in some godforsaken corner. So if Mr. Troll died somewhere and was crying for aid to get his oh so valuable loot back before it despawned for good, at best he was played a very sad song on the smallest violin on earth.
Of course that's not a very troll friendly territory. If antisocial behaviour has consequences, being the asshole is only half as much fun. So if you want people to behave, there's no need for a honor badge system or putting little golden stickers into their textbooks. You simply need to let people sort it out. But of course, that's not what is wanted. Because trolls are not the game makers' problem, it's the players' problem.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Earlier this year I downloaded LoL from their main page, and it installed Pando Media Player as part of the install.
Pando then updated itself, and the update installed a nasty virus payload, including a browser hijacker. This is because Pando closed its doors at the end of last year, and its self-update has sense been hacked and now delivers malware.
All they say on the forums is "just don't install Pando, it isn't actually required, and we plan to remove it someday."
This is totally unacceptable, since they are distributing the virus now as part of their default install package.
I am not at all impressed with their diligence.
You'll notice that there was virtually no griefing or trolling in old MMOs. Why? Because you didn't survive a day without the aid of anyone else.
Quite the opposite. EQ1 fostered such things as deliberately dropping trains on people you were pissed off at. Camping their corpses (in PVP) or training things to a corpse and Feign death / memwipe to leave them there in PVE. They'd also steal your kills, ninja your loot, pull the named after you cleared to him...
People were absolute douchebags on a regular basis.
Ever tried to get anything accomplished alone in old school DAoC? Or, hell, EQ? You were dependent on the rest of the server to get your gear back in case you died in some godforsaken corner.
This part is true, but that just forced the trolls to form into teams of like minded trolls... and that enabled new kinds of team trolling... e.g. having a high level shaman troll heal and buff your low level noobie harrassing troll to make him invincible as he ran around ganking people (in PVP) or make him that much more effective at training etc.
Then they'd log off their troll alts, login their main, and go off and raid with a large group of 'friends' who thought they were just another fine upstanding player.
Because trolls are not the game makers' problem, it's the players' problem.
The players need tools to deal with the trolls though.
Ensure that people need each other. If people can treat others like an expendable commodity, they will treat each other as such.
You've clearly never played MOBA's like LoL/Dota.
Trolling works so well in these games because everybody depends on everybody else. Its a 5v5 game, and if a single person trolls on your team, you are completely screwed. You aren't going to win. That makes trolling very powerful, and the trolls know it, which encourages them to troll all the harder.
In many games where you don't need teammates so much, you can just stick the troll on mute and move on with their life. So the troll is just wasting his own time. Its not much fun to troll if everybody can ignore you and move on with their lives.
But LoL/Dota are notorious for their trolls precisely because the games are set up to ensure that you need teammates. The troll is essentially guaranteed that feedback where he knows that he ruined somebody's time even if they stuck him on mute. Its almost guaranteed success for the trolling due to the game structure.
As an old fart "gamer" I find temper tantrums and trolls in the chat window of most games are relatively easy to ignore but the constant flow of bullshit does get in the way of useful communication between teammates. I like the common gaming feature where you can quickly filter a particular troll/spammer out of the chat window by clicking "ignore" on their name. It's a simple and very effective way to clean up the chat window on the spot. I don't use audio chat but it wouldn't surprise me if it had a similar feature.
Win, lose, or draw, I call 'gg' when I die, a lot of kids don't understand old fashioned "sportsmanship" so it sometimes confuses them and they respond with something like - "How is it gg? We lost!". Problem is, if they are old/sober enough to type coherent comments into a chat window and still don't get the "play nice" thing, they probably never will.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
You'll notice that there was virtually no griefing or trolling in old MMOs.
I call bullshit.
From 2001 till 2004 I played the oldest of the popular online MMOs; Ultima Online. Trolling occurred through excessive player killing, disruption of guild activities and dungeoneering plus people doing some honest mining. It was characteristic celebrated amongst perpetrators and adrenaline junkies but reviled amongst those wanting a less combative, PvE experience.
It was already on the decrease when I joined up thanks to the introduction of a non-combat realm. Nowadays a few thousand people yearning for the lawlessness of the old UO have founded their own free servers replicating the 'Wild West' culture.
Trolling isn't exclusive to new MMOs or modern forums, social media and so on. It was present in the early days of Usenet, the earliest chat rooms and IRC channels, and from the very first online games venturing beyond LAN and Intranet play.
Yes, but a troll can afford to piss off 4 people. It would be very different if HE, and in turn his experience, dependent on those 4 people. To give you an example, in a game I played it was virtually impossible to be a troll, simply because the "top floor" of players was rather limited in numbers and the people who organized the more interesting events were even fewer in numbers. If it became known that you're a nuisance, you were done for.
It took care of troll pretty fucking quickly.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.