Home Gaming Xbox One’s reputation system will sweep away ‘cheats and jerks’

Xbox One’s reputation system will sweep away ‘cheats and jerks’

4 min read
11

Sweep the rep

In life, the hardest thing to build up is your reputation. It’s also the easiest thing to break, and after that incident back ‘91 with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stunt-men at my local Shoprite, I’m legally not allowed to have a reputation. But I can have one online, and the Xbox One system for building up that e-profile has just released some more details.

Over on the Xbox Wire, Xbox Live program manager Micheal Dunn revealed that the new system will be using a lot more input from the online community in order to shape your online presence. “No question that Xbox Live is a distinct community of passionate gamers,” Dunn said. “We love that. But just like in life, there are all types of people – some shy, some polite, some aggressive, some snarky, some annoying and some that can’t avoid swearing at #$%^ happens to them.

Most Xbox Live players are polite online and know how to socially adjust to people they’re playing with. But not everyone does this. And, it can be challenging to pick up on social cues when you are connected online and not face-to-face in the same room.

With the new community-powered reputation model for Xbox One, we want to help you avoid the players you don’t want to play with. If you don’t want to play with cheats or jerks, you shouldn’t have to. Our new reputation model helps expose people that aren’t fun to be around and creates real consequences for trouble-makers that harass our good players.

One way that this system will be simplifying the feedback process, is that it’ll pass over survey options and go direct, with players being offered options such as blocking or muting other people online, which all feeds back to the Xbox One.

“The new model will take all of the feedback from a player’s online flow, put it in the system with a crazy algorithm we created and validated with an MSR PhD to make sure things are fair for everyone,” Dunn.

Ultimately, your reputation score will determine which category you are assigned: ‘Green = Good Player,’ ‘Yellow = Needs Improvement’ or ‘Red = Avoid Me.

Looking at someone’s gamer card you’ll be able to quickly see their reputation. And, your reputation score is ultimately up to you. The more hours you play online without being a jerk, the better your reputation will be. Most players will have good reputations and be seen as a ‘Good Player’. The algorithm is looking to identify players that are repeatedly disruptive on Xbox Live.

We’ll identify those players with a lower reputation score and in the worse cases they will earn the ‘Avoid Me’ reputation. Before a player ends up with the ‘Avoid Me’ reputation level we will have sent many different alerts to the ‘Needs Improvement’ player reminding them how their social gaming conduct is affecting lots of other gamers.

Still, an idea like that could have a downside, with even one slip of the tongue or playing with a vindictive person resulting in a colour change on your profile, right? According to Dunn though, the algorithm that’ll be profiling your online presence is more “sophisticated” than that and will weigh all the reports you’ve received, good and bad:

We’ll verify if those people actually played in an online game with the person reported – if not, all of those player’s feedback won’t matter as much as a single person who spent 15 minutes playing with the reported person. The system also looks at the reputation of the person reporting and the alleged offender, frequency of reports from a single user and a number of other factors.

Dunn also said that this new system will be an evolving one, as well as being capable of having “more consequences for the jerks.”

“Of course, the system will be as good as you make it, so all you need to do is report the players that are abusive, cheating or causing mayhem and their reputation will reflect that,” Dunn said.

I’m liking the next-gen social environment already. If you’ve got a Wii U and happen to be on that Miiverse, you might have noticed that hanging out in those forums is actually kind of rad, as people behave like people, instead of prepubscent swear-monsters who have just learnt to use your mom’s private parts as an adjective.

And if Sony and Xbox can bring a little bit more civilisation to that untamed online frontier, I’m all for it.

Last Updated: August 1, 2013

11 Comments

  1. NOOB COCK USUX??

    No wonder I don’t play eggsbawks

    Reply

  2. Spathi

    August 1, 2013 at 08:55

    Sounds more like a color coding system for which games a person play. Red = COD obviously 😛

    I like the idea and but I fear that some people may actually get a kick out of being “red”.

    Reply

  3. I am John's smirking revenge

    August 1, 2013 at 09:10

    TMNT stunt incident??

    Reply

    • TiMsTeR1033

      August 1, 2013 at 09:45

      leon shusters take on TMNT, shorty was leonardo and mark lottering was michaelangelo, they had a fight at the local shoprite which they tried to convert into a sewer. It almost worked…. The end

      Reply

  4. Lourens Jordaan

    August 1, 2013 at 09:37

    Do you really need a PhD in MSR to validate the crazy algorithm?

    Reply

  5. DBL_ZA

    August 1, 2013 at 09:39

    Even though I’m against the whole “We are watching you” undertone, the fact that they are using all the info they collect about you for (some degree of) good is rather welcoming. I just hope they include features in the actual online sections of games to block out people who chose the Red ending (see what I did there)

    Reply

  6. Pieter Kruger

    August 1, 2013 at 09:59

    Very good idea! This have the potential to change gameplay for the better! Remember those annoying choppers in BF circling/strafing and insta killing everyone on spawn??!! And gamers bailing out early on a losing round??!! Hopefully this will sort out all those bastards!! ????

    Reply

  7. Jonah Cash

    August 1, 2013 at 13:51

    I said it before, this is going to fail!!!! I have a 88% avoid rating and I don’t even have a headset and don’t send messages unless provoked!!! I find that the guys I played against and beat on Fifa just go the avoid way and 50% of my avoids is for a disruptive voice….. So please, this is going to be one big F’UP!!!!

    Reply

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