Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
such filters by misspelling the words (and of course, profanity filters don't solve the
problem for voice chat). A profanity filter should always be backed up by other
means, such as online customer service representatives to whom players can report
bad behavior.
COMPLAINT AND WARNING SYSTEMS
Some chat systems include complaint mechanisms designed to discourage online
rudeness. Some online games give players a Report button they can push whenever
they receive an offensive message. The offending message is, if it consists of text,
automatically forwarded to someone in authority (usually online customer service
staff), who can then investigate and take appropriate action: warn the offender to
mend his ways, kick him offline, or even ban his account.
The America Online Instant Messenger includes a fully automated system that
allows users to warn each other, either anonymously or openly, when one partici-
pant behaves badly. A user can be warned once per message that he sends; the more
warnings he receives, the less frequently the system permits him to send messages.
If he receives enough complaints, he may be unable to send any further messages
for several hours. The record of the complaints is deleted over time, so a user's bad
behavior is not held against him permanently. If he has behaved himself for a
while, he can resume sending messages.
IGNORING OTHER PLAYERS
Some chat mechanisms allow a player to hide messages from other individuals whose
behavior they find offensive, a practice called
ignoring
. The player simply selects the
name of a person he wants to ignore, and he no longer receives chat messages from
that person, no matter what the person writes. You can permit this to take place
silently (the other player doesn't know she's being ignored) or automatically send a
message telling her that she has been ignored—the online equivalent of deliber-
ately turning your back on someone. This mechanism is both effective—the users
have full control over whom they hear from and whom they don't—and inexpen-
sive because it doesn't require staff intervention. You should also include the ability
to turn chat off entirely if players simply don't want to hear from anyone else.
MODERATED CHAT SPACES
The most effective, but also the most expensive, way of keeping order in a chat space
is to give one person authority to discipline the others at all times. Internet Relay Chat
uses this method; the creator of a chat room exercises the authority to kick people out.
If the enforcer also participates in the game, this method is subject to abuse. When
people set up their own online matches among their friends, you can let them police
themselves; but when they are paying someone to arrange the game for them (as in a
match making service or persistent world), the moderator must be an impartial rep-
resentative of the game's provider—a customer service agent, in effect, whether
paid or unpaid.
