Curse

Xanthar · Jul 05, 2005, 05:55 PM // 17:55

Proposal: Distributed web of player trust

Purpose

Many players find that it is very hard to avoid grouping with people they disagree with. The system described herein is intended to provide a mechanism for avoiding people one is unlikely to enjoy gaming with, and ease the process of finding players with the same style as oneself.

Feature Overview

* Labeling of players to several levels of trust
* Decay of distrust labels over time in order to allow redemption
* Screening to avoid teaming with strongly untrusted individuals

Use-case Overview

1. Rate a player to a trust level

System Overview

The system is at heart a distributed web of trust, much as the proposal headline would suggest. It works by letting a player assign any other player in the game a "trust level". One might use more complicated systems, but in order to keep it manageable this proposal limits the trust levels to "fully trusted", "trusted", "unknown" and "distrusted". In this way, a single player may mark any other player with a trust level, and have them displayed (for example with an "aura" that is individual to each viewer) accordingly.

Whereas the one-player trust system would be useable, and indeed a good addition in and of itself, the real utility comes from the propagation effect that assigning someone to the "fully trusted" level has. When one does so, players that the other player trusts also become trusted by you, though to a lesser degree. And the ones they in turn trust also aquire some trust with you.

An example:
You mark player Adam as "fully trusted"
Adam marks player Billy as "trusted".
Adam marks player Caesar as "fully trusted".
Billy marks player David as "trusted".
Caear marks player Edmund as "trusted".

When you view Adam, his aura will show 100% trust.
When you view Billy, his aura will show 50% trust.
When you view Caesar, his aura will show 50% trust.
When you view Edmund, his aura will show 25% trust.
When you view David, his aura will show 0% trust.

In this way, trust will propagate along "fully trusted" links (but only one-way) but not along "trusted" links. "Trusted" and "fully trusted" differ only in that "trusted" does not propagate trust levels, the contribution to the total percentage of trust is the same.

In the same way, distrust gives a negative trust score of -100% for a distance in the web of trust of 1, -50% for a distance of two etc.

Propagated trust is additive, with a maximum of +100 and a minimum of -100, so that if several people in your web of trust have rated a person, their trust level would reflect the sum of all contributions.

Negativetrust (distrust) decay over time. An example of trust decay would be 1% of complete distrust disappears every day after the first week, meaning that someone that has earned a bad reputation can redeem himself by good behaviour. A person who many trusts that turn bad will rapidly loose trust anyway, so I deem that no artificial decay is necessary.

Main GUI components

The "aura" that shows the level of trust a player has with you may be a literal aura, like the ones boss mobs have, may be a halo or other symbol that reflects the level of trust for the viewing player.

The trust assignment could be made to look very much like the friends/ignore list. As an added feature, a possibility of adding a note to each name on the trust list with the offence/merit of the player would be good for keeping track of how they earned their trust levels.

Use-Case elaboration

1. Rate a player to a trust level

Purpose: Enables a player to rate another player to a level of trust that is appropriate.

Actors: Player

Main sequence:
1. The rating player selects the player to be rated. Either through right-clicking on his name in the chat or party window, or by using /trust <level> <character name>
2. The composit trust is updated and displayed through the aura manifesting around the rated player.

Additional functionality

In order to avoid grouping with distrusted players, it would be good to add a filter that warns you if a player in the group you are joining is below a certain trust level. For most people, the breakoff might be -10% or 0%, but that can be left to the user to decide. The warning might be by way of a popup window that asks you to confirm that you really want to join with the distrusted player.

Closing words

Please note that this system does not stop a "bad player" from marking you as distrusted, on the contrary. In fact, you as a player will benefit from it. The people who foolishly marked the "bad player" as "fully trusted" are likely to enjoy his style of gaming, and having them shun you will be an added bonus of the system.

Likewise, it is difficult to exploit the system, as you cannot dictate who will mark you as "fully trusted" in any way. Some attempts at griefing might occurr, but, after all, who will mark a griefer as "trusted" a second time, no matter how strong his acting skills? Misplaced trust will decay over time or be revoked.

Those familiar with the PGP model of trust might see slight correlations

arnansnow · Jul 05, 2005, 05:58 PM // 17:58

This could be abused by having everyone in a guild vote everyone fully-trusted and such. But I would love this idea, it is just to easily abused.

smitty-gw · Jul 05, 2005, 05:58 PM // 17:58

I understand your reasoning behind this, and although it is meritorious, it's a bit over the top...no?

kalaris · Jul 05, 2005, 06:01 PM // 18:01

Actually that was a well thought out and done proposal, the only real downside I see is you will see in town : Buyng Trust for 5000g

and you know you will =P

Xanthar · Jul 05, 2005, 06:04 PM // 18:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by kalaris

Actually that was a well thought out and done proposal, the only real downside I see is you will see in town : Buyng Trust for 5000g

and you know you will =P

Ah, yes, but do you trust people who would sell their trust for cold hard cash?

The point of the system is that you only see the trust placed in other players by people you fully trust...

smitty-gw · Jul 05, 2005, 06:04 PM // 18:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by kalaris

Actually that was a well thought out and done proposal, the only real downside I see is you will see in town : Buyng Trust for 5000g

and you know you will =P

LOL. yes you probably will.

I actually liked his process, I was just commenting that it is a bit much to organize and maintain.

arnansnow · Jul 05, 2005, 06:05 PM // 18:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by kalaris

Actually that was a well thought out and done proposal, the only real downside I see is you will see in town : Buyng Trust for 5000g

and you know you will =P

The downside to this is the Moral Scammer. They will sell trust, but will it be good trust? no it will be untrust, as they wouldn't trust anyone who buys trust.

Algren Cole · Jul 05, 2005, 06:06 PM // 18:06

couldn't I simply rate someone with 'distrust' and then run along to all my friends and get them to do the same...just because I wanted to? abuse of this system would be rampant.

drowningfish999 · Jul 05, 2005, 06:07 PM // 18:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xanthar

Ah, yes, but do you trust people who would sell their trust for cold hard cash?

The point of the system is that you only see the trust placed in other players by people you fully trust...

Exaclty. If you see someone selling trust, simply put them as "untrusted" and anyone they trust will be untrusted to you.

IndyCC · Jul 05, 2005, 06:10 PM // 18:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnansnow

This could be abused by having everyone in a guild vote everyone fully-trusted and such. But I would love this idea, it is just to easily abused.

I dont see why this would be a problem, because hopefully evenyone in your guild is fully trustworthy to everyone else in the guild. Also as it deteriorates over time it would mean that the guild would constantly have to rate each other which is silly. But more than that if it is a linking system (which reminds me of 6 degrees of closeness), then if you are outside of said guild and have no link to said guild then they are still shown as unknown to you even if they did give everyone favorable marks.

As for abuse, I dont think there is such a problem. Say a greifer marks you untrusted. Well since you dont like the person anyway chances are you wont team with them again. Also said greifers friends would see you as untrusted, chances are you wouldn't want to team with them either. You see said greifer as untrusted and all griefers friends as untrusted as well, so abuse would work itself out of the system from what I see.

So all in all I think this is a fantastic system that I would like to see as well.

My only question is the following. Say a person plays by themselves or with henchmen till say uh Aurua Glade (I know I missed spelled it I am at work and cant think of actual spelling right now). Then this person decides to get a team, but since he has never teamed he will be unknown to all. He would then find himself in competition to find a team over people who have teamed the whole way along and have built some trust lines.

Boubou · Jul 05, 2005, 06:11 PM // 18:11

Add a kind of timer, if a money transaction was done between both person, the trust rating wouldn't be recorded.

arnansnow · Jul 05, 2005, 06:12 PM // 18:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by IndyCC

I dont see why this would be a problem, because hopefully evenyone in your guild is fully trustworthy to everyone else in the guild. Also as it deteriorates over time it would mean that the guild would constantly have to rate each other which is silly. But more than that if it is a linking system (which reminds me of 6 degrees of closeness), then if you are outside of said guild and have no link to said guild then they are still shown as unknown to you even if they did give everyone favorable marks.

As for abuse, I dont think there is such a problem. Say a greifer marks you untrusted. Well since you dont like the person anyway chances are you wont team with them again. Also said greifers friends would see you as untrusted, chances are you wouldn't want to team with them either. You see said greifer as untrusted and all griefers friends as untrusted as well, so abuse would work itself out of the system from what I see.

So all in all I think this is a fantastic system that I would like to see as well.

My only question is the following. Say a person plays by themselves or with henchmen till say uh Aurua Glade (I know I missed spelled it I am at work and cant think of actual spelling right now). Then this person decides to get a team, but since he has never teamed he will be unknown to all. He would then find himself in competition to find a team over people who have teamed the whole way along and have built some trust lines.

My Example was just that, purely an example.

People who play with henchman the entire game (and have never played guild wars with real people in a party), I would not trust, as they know little group skills.

kleps · Jul 05, 2005, 06:13 PM // 18:13

if you want to elaborate on this plan, what about building guild ambassadors? the person can be a part of two guilds or even being able to build statuses against other guilds: hostile, neutral, allied, etc.

just my 2 cents.

IndyCC · Jul 05, 2005, 06:18 PM // 18:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnansnow

People who play with henchman the entire game (and have never played guild wars with real people in a party), I would not trust, as they know little group skills.

Ah agreed, but it would just makes things difficult perhaps for some people. In a team you always want people who understand teamwork and henchies is hardly teamwork, just wanted to point out little things I guess.

Ah and just thought of this because of your post. This game is designed for the "casual gamer" if they play 2 hours on saturday and earn a decent amount of trust but aren't able to play again until Friday their trust may have worn off, even if they are a fantastic gamer but can only play occasionally. So the time for trust wearing off would become an issue esspecially since Guild Wars uses a lot of energy to market to the "casual gamer."

Edit: but overall I think this system would raise the effectiveness of PUGs and frankly the likability of everyone in the PUG because chances are they will have similar gameplay styles overall adding fun
/me support!

arnansnow · Jul 05, 2005, 06:20 PM // 18:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by IndyCC

Ah agreed, but it would just makes things difficult perhaps for some people. In a team you always want people who understand teamwork and henchies is hardly teamwork, just wanted to point out little things I guess.

Ah and just thought of this because of your post. This game is designed for the "casual gamer" if they play 2 hours on saturday and earn a decent amount of trust but aren't able to play again until Friday their trust may have worn off, even if they are a fantastic gamer but can only play occasionally. So the time for trust wearing off would become an issue esspecially since Guild Wars uses a lot of energy to market to the "casual gamer."

Maybe the trust would only wear away when you are on. but stays in stasis when you are off.

Xanthar · Jul 05, 2005, 06:21 PM // 18:21

Mmmm, it is true, as you say IndyCC. The decay should only apply to distrust - Trust will wear off quickly the "natural" way if undeserved. I'll change the proposal to reflect this.

IndyCC · Jul 05, 2005, 06:25 PM // 18:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnansnow

Maybe the trust would only wear away when you are on. but stays in stasis when you are off.

This is a fantastic idea!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xanthar

Mmmm, it is true, as you say IndyCC. The decay should only apply to distrust - Trust will wear off quickly the "natural" way if undeserved. I'll change the proposal to reflect this.

Don't go and change your proposal just yet. because I do think that trust and distrust both should decay. The rate of decay and how it decays jsut should be considered.

The reason trust should decay is because say you haven't teamed with someone in a really long time, they may have altered their style, maybe becoming more elitist which you dont like or for whatever reason and later dont enjoy playing with them.

As you said distrust should decay to redeem yourself.

However I really like arnansnow's idea that it decays based on time logged not real time. but i am not sure how this would work as say you are a casual gamer and you highly trust a hardcore gamer who also highly trusts you. Since he is logged more than you would his trust some how decay faster than yours?

arnansnow · Jul 05, 2005, 06:28 PM // 18:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by IndyCC

This is a fantastic idea!

Don't go and change your proposal just yet. because I do think that trust and distrust both should decay. The rate of decay and how it decays jsut should be considered.

The reason trust should decay is because say you haven't teamed with someone in a really long time, they may have altered their style, maybe becoming more elitist which you dont like or for whatever reason and later dont enjoy playing with the,

As you said distrust should decay to redeem yourself.

However I really like arnansnow's idea that it decays based on time logged not real time. but i am not sure how this would work as say you are a casual gamer and you highly trust a hardcore gamer who also highly trusts you. Since he is logged more than you would his trust some how decay faster than yours?

Maybe there could also be a number near the trust percent that tells how many people trusted/ fully trusted/ not trusted, so you could see who had lots of trust in the past, but hadn't played for a while, against the person who played a lot and had lots of trust, and so on.

Xanthar · Jul 05, 2005, 06:35 PM // 18:35

I must caution against any system that makes it possible for a player to see which persons have marked them "fully trusted", or infer such information... If one can do that, the (slight) problem of selling trust might escalate. On the other hand, there is nothing that says you can't change you trust setting to "distrusted" after having liberated the poor fool of his money, hehe.

Just a couple of thoughts

Zubrowka · Jul 05, 2005, 07:02 PM // 19:02

I like such a system but I worry what it'd do to the monk profession. We get enough bum rap as it is. A rating system would give people yet another way to abuse monks.

Trust is also a charged word. Players who don't play well aren't dishonest. I would just a more neutral word like reputation.