This post brought to you by the musings of Azuriel.

Back in the day, you had 1, maybe 2 characters in an online game.  Worlds were relatively small.  You couldn’t name change at will.  There were process barriers that limited your ability to be a dink online.  If you had a bad rep in EQ, you never grouped again.  If you had a bad rep in UO, you were camped.

Today’s PvE (and some PvP) games have an /ignore ability that essentially blocks all communication between your character and another.  Rarely does this list work at the account level (I can’t think of one off the top of my head).  Really though, if a person is a dink with one mask, they will be a dink with another.

What are the limitations of ignore?

• only works per character, not account
• only stops chat
• it’s personal, no social reprocussions
• most systems allow name changes, invalidating the ignore

What can be done about it?

• make ignore block the account.
• make it so that after X amounts of ignore, you get put in a penalty box.  Limit the chat ability, trade ability, grouping ability
• make it meta.  LoL has a tribunal for serial trolls.  This system should exist everywhere.
• ignored players cannot group with you, unless manually done (no LFD, LFR, PvP stuff)

All of this is for the negative side.  We could put in some benefits to being nice in game.

• You have enough distinct +1 scores, you get a higher rating in the queue (up to a certain cap).
• At a certain rating, you get mailed costumes for social events.
• Players at a certain rating can run in-game events with in-game resources (weddings, races, etc…)

The social aspect of gaming has had so many barriers broken down that society can’t manage itself.  While it’s great that I can group with a friend from server X (having only 1 server is another story) is great the problem is the butt-heads from that server are also around.

It’s 2012.  We can do better.  We should do better.