Theory and Practice of Game Design Class - The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game - page 40

Peer Review
Since these players were scattered among the six guilds, and a large amount of
XP would be awarded both for the final game proposal and guild presentations,
they may have assumed they would get a free ride on the backs of their guild
mates. They seem to have missed that part of the syllabus called Peer Review .It
has been in all of my syllabi before and after implementation of the multiplayer
classroom. I ll repeat the version for this class. As indicated in the syllabus, the

XP awarded would be on the following scale.

'

Peer Review Secret Ballot

1. Guild Leader: 100 pts.
2. Raid Leader: 75 pts.
3. Solid Guild Crafter: 50 pts.
4. Needs Rez: 25 pts.
5. Waste of Rations: 0 pts.

“ was a wonderfully derogatory term I learned from my first

manager in the games industry, François Robillard, a former captain in the
Canadian army. As good as it was in describing someone who contributed
nothing, I

Waste of Rations �

' d missed a better description. I would rectify that in the next class I

taught.

Guild members ranked their fellow member s efforts. I was concerned about two

potential issues with this: First, all guild members might simply agree to give
each other the full 100 XP. Second, a guild member with a gripe against another
might grade that person down simply to get at them.

'

Here was another case, like random dice rolls, where I was surprised. In no
guilds in the class did everyone earn 100 pts. It was clear from participation and
ability that the 100s were earned by those who received them. And when
members were reviewed far lower, including one student who simply vanished a
few weeks into the semester, it was clear they deserved the evaluation.

These low-performing students, every one of them, failed to take advantage of
any of the other extra credit opportunities available, including the easiest one of
all: farming (see Figure 4.4).