PK Rant

[Kasreyn]

Hiyaz Occhi, thanks for the reply. ^_^

Kas, it is a game design feature: End of sentence, for better or worse.

Definitely worse. =( It still annoys me that Blizzard has this industry-wide reputation for being responsive to their fans, just because of Bnet and patches, when they more or less openly support grief players.

Here is why I think the boot button would be abused: it is a blatant tool for a griefer, decent folks don't need it.

Huh? You just now said without Hostile good folks would have no way to get rid of lamers like the Pally converting everything, or people setting up stairtraps. Of COURSE there would be! Kick/ban. I think, with the sort of scum infesting Bnet, it's decent folks who need kick/ban capability more than anyone else! And I still think if it's limited to use while in town, perhaps after a time limit after reaching town, it might curb the worst of drop stealing from banning (though it could still be done with an accomplice to watch for drops). What would be cool would be a kick/ban feature that can relay a whisper to the recipient at the same time informing him WHY he was kicked/banned. It might appear like so:

You have entered CHANNELNAME
You have been kicked from MAD MAD COWS HAHAHA NO BEGGARS by MadCowCaptain12; you may re-enter in two minutes.
'dude I said no beggars!'

The idea here is the division between "wild" and "coop" games. Each has a method of lamer eviction available. Hostile in the first one, and ban in the second. Think of wild games as survival of the fittest and most skilled. Someone bugging you? Eject him by force, if he's still around after the 10 second timer. Can't beat him? Go elsewhere. It would be the game of choice for the ruthless and competetive.

Not interested in having to put up with the garbage of someone with twice your combat effectiveness? Find a game creator you trust, and join his game in Coop. This is more of a social type of game. It requires trust in a kind of "government" - the game creator. If the "government" is abusive, people will emigrate to other games. If a game creator is fair and even-handed in applying the kick/ban, he'll gather a playing group around him who'll be able to coop enjoyably together, and be able to take the risk of letting strangers into their games to inject new variety without the fear of griefers ruining it.

Maybe I'm just an idealist, but it seems like a good solution to me. And among the LLers, surely we have material for 30 to 50 good, responsible coop game moderators. Someone could even start a website tracking reports of moderator abuse; players could post their account names and others who've been in their games could rate them on their fairness. Cockamamie idea, maybe, but I hope it gets people thinking.

Of course, it's all moot since Blizzard has always been too arrogant and self-important to take anyone else's advice about game design, even when it's clearly better than their own ideas. =P

-Kasreyn