Topic

Won't you be my enemy?

There seems to be a problem in the lack of community trust mechanisms in the game.  This, combined with the "no call-outs" rule means that it can be really difficult to warn your friends or other glitches in general that there might be a bad egg out there.  This can lead to a sense that it is dangerous to trust your fellow glitches because who knows if they are trustworthy, which can undermine the community gameplay that this game was designed to engender.

Many people have requested the ability to tag your contacts and sort them into categories.  I would like to propose a similar system that incorporates an idea from game neverending, which was the ability to have not just friends, but acquaintances and enemies.  I believe that it was also possible, though I could be misremembering this part, to somehow have visibility of who had listed a particular player as their friend, or their enemy.

I think it could be really interesting to incorporate this system into glitch.  Say that a good friend has a really bad encounter with Random Bad Glitch - maybe she lets him into her house and valuable property is stolen.  As things stand now, there is nothing that can be done to get the property back, but there is also no way for me to register my lack of trust in Random Bad Glitch.

What I would like to do, if I was moved to do so, would be to add R.B.G. as a contact and categorize him as my Enemy.  This information could be displayed through a link on the player's profile to see their community standing, something like that.  You could then click through and see who has listed this glitch as a friend, an acquaintance or an enemy.  Or maybe an associate, hero, guru, etc.

Perhaps there could be a higher barrier to entry for registering this relationship with the community.  Maybe it would require going to the Bureaucrocs and filling out a form.

There are probably problems with this idea that I haven't thought of.  But I think it could have a positive overall impact on the community trust situation in the game.  Thoughts?

Posted 12 months ago by katlazam Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • It's an interesting idea, but it seems like it would split up the community more than it would bring people together- I already look through any requests' lists to see who their friends are and deny/accept based on whether we have mutual friends or they're friends with anybody I've blocked. That's a personal decision, but it seems like codifying that and making it a "feature" would be really divisive.
    And, if I have bad enough problems with people- harassment, theft, that sort of thing- I tell people I'm closer to who those people are and what they did... I might be misreading it, but I thought the "no-call-outs" rule mostly applied to forums and streams, rather than one-on-one.
    Posted 12 months ago by Djabriil Subscriber! | Permalink
  • But even some sort of marking system, so you remember where/when/why you met a particular Glitchen, would be helpful. Particularly when folks are changing their names or away from the game for a while! I'd imagine any note-system would be attached to a player's account rather than their name, so when you get a "random" IM or smooch you could click Info and double-check whether you ought to be annoyed or pleased.

    I would also think that this system would be entirely private, a personal reminder to yourself rather than a publicly visible indicator of your relationship. Literally just a little text-box that could maybe even be included in the box that pops up when you click Info in-game. You could type a limited amount of notes into it: "Met Jennyanydots at a Nylon Phool party in November. Calls her hat Stanley...a bit strange, talked about sending real currants through the post."

    Now that I'm thinking of it, I'm not even sure how that would work from the TS end. Hrmph. But TS are geniuses! :D
    Posted 12 months ago by Jennyanydots Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Second Life has a system where you click a person's profile to read it and can add notes to the profile that only you (the person that added the notes) can see.

    The next time you see, for instance Jennyanydots (a Glitch year or two later) and they say "Hi do you remember my hat Stanley?"  you can look at their profile and see that Jennyanydots is "...a bit strange" but for the most part harmless and it is probably ok to trust her with your Gnomes.
    Posted 12 months ago by The Cat Face Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like the notes idea in general... I'm a bit ashamed to admit I don't know when or why I became friends with some people, and I'd love to be able to annotate their profiles from my account to fix that (in the future at least). Tagging people as enemies is all well and good if it's only visible to you, I guess, but no, I don't think it's a good idea to do it publicly.
    Posted 12 months ago by Djabriil Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think we have two separate ideas here:

    one, a notes feature for those of us with swiss-cheese memories, and
    two, some kind of reputation feature.

    I support both ideas.
    Posted 12 months ago by Kinkajou Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree with keeping the notes/reminders private.
    Posted 12 months ago by roderick ordonez Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think the rep feature would be ripe for abuse. It wouldn't be all that difficult for someone to inadvertently run afoul of a player, and for that "wronged" player to then get their friends to vote that person down in retaliation. It also seems like the sort of thing that would get targeted by griefers just for the hell of it.
    Posted 12 months ago by Djabriil Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Reputation systems are always ripe for abuse on the same vein as "calling out" a player.

    There was an incident in a local MMOG where someone's reputation was smeared by members of a rival guild using alts so that they could place one of their own at the top of the rankings.
    Posted 12 months ago by Mal'akh Subscriber! | Permalink
  • internal notes to myself would help. i already do that on pen and paper to a small degree- but it is a hassle.
    HOWEVER- i must say that it would be helpful if there was way to implement a system that would let the bad apples be exposed without it being a system that is ripe for abuse. maybe that system just doesnt exist -but it would be nice if it did.
    Posted 12 months ago by serenitycat Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I say being able to color code your friends is likely all that is needed here.  It would be nice to be able to sort out in-game who is bad and good, rather than writing notes out of game. I am with the others on the rep system though, too much potential for abuse.  Word of mouth is far better to let people know who is griefing.
    Posted 12 months ago by Kirnan Subscriber! | Permalink