One of the very first things I ever wrote about Massively Multiplayer games concerned the lack of accountability players have in-game. Trolls and PKers move from character to character, account to account, making full use of the anonymity of the internet in the rare case that they are brought to task for their actions.

The topic was raised in the comments as it relates to the grouping post I made yesterday. Darniaq mentions the Ebay system, and Alan suggests that something slightly more complicated might be in order. I wholeheartedly agree.

There was a long discussion about player trust at Raph’s site a few months ago, so I won’t open up that can of worms again, and he is even skirting the edge of this topic today over on his site.*

He ends the series of articles on a cliffhanger, with ways to make players feel a part of a community and an exploration of a ‘trust model’ still unfinished. Here’s hoping he finishes that before he enters full-on writing mode for the new book, but in the meantime it’s hard to argue with the idea of some sort of accountability/ranking/feedback system for characters.

Any kind of sense of history would be appreciated when starting a PUG, you know? Even if the system is flawed, even if it becomes standard practice to ‘10′ everyone you group with, anything would be better than nothing. I’ve heard the arguments against accountability systems, that trolls would ‘karma bomb’ perfectly good players into pariahs, but at this point I have to say I’m willing to take the risk.

My own two cents on this topic centers around objectivity. I think the best option would be to at least *strive* for objectivity in rankings. You can lie, of course, but someone can lie just as easily in an objective as subjective system. My thought would be for a very very short mini-survey that would appear after every long-term group. I’ll use the common lexicon of WoW for shorthand.

You finish up your five-man instance (Strat or BRD), and as you return to IronForge a screen pops up. There’s a player name at the top of the form, and five short yes/no questions below. The yes and no are checkboxes, and none of them are pre-filled out. You run down the list really quickly, hit ‘OK’, then jump to the next player. Even with four other players to evaluate, it couldn’t take more than 45 seconds to do this.

Questions could be along the lines of “Was GenericMage334 pleasant to group with?”, “Did GenericWarrior043 follow directions well?”, and “Would you group with GenericShaman34 again?” Perhaps the group leader would have an additional question under his name, such as “Did GroupLeader34 provide adequate guidance for the party?”

The last three paragraphs are terrible ideas, of course. Spending even 45 seconds is far too long in a MMOG on something. The player could be back at the Auction House, damnit! Or Cybering! Or AFK! ‘Nice’ players will click all yes, and Trolls will click all no, and go on their merry way.

There’s got to be something out there, though, right?

*As an aside, I’ve decided one one of my favorite things about the internet is instant access to smart people. Whenever I think something as a result of an article or whatever about massive games, within a day or two Raph’s got something on his blog about it. That guy should print up shirts that say ‘Raph Koster: Thinking Stuff So You Don’t Have To’, or ‘Raph Koster: Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today’.