Some links on reputation systems.

[charmian]

Why negative karma might be best left invisible: The case of the 'Sims Mafia'

This is from a blog about a book called Building Reputation system. There's also a wiki that has a lot of material about the book, and the blog has excerpts from the book, such as this article on the potential negative effects of leaderboards.

I suppose the Tumblr folks had consulted sources like this when they created Tumblarity. However, honestly, I find that thing annoying. It rewards you too much for reblogging the content of others.

Comments

[sub_divided]

Did you read the thesis linked in the comments? There is an hilarious section of the Sims Mafia:

In many ways they became the law and order in TSO. If you had a complaint you could report it to the mafia and for a sum or for a ‘favour’ they would take care of the problem for you, by griefing. The odd thing with this method is that it actually worked as a structured governmental force.... they were basically protecting the right of other TSO’ers to have fun. Because they couldn’t count on the developers to handle disruptive behaviour within The Sims Online, they used the same disruptive methods of gameplay to ensure the protection of players’ rights

Just like the real Mafia! They're the good guys because they keep the streets clean.

Sims is interesting because just LIVING in the game requires a certain level of skill, all the extra stuff like building fancy houses has to come after basic tasks like eating and showing and hanging out and going to the bathroom, and it doesn't matter what level you advance to, you still have to do these basic things. So this puts a cap on how much trouble players can get up to in their "spare" time, or at least you'd assume so...

[charmian]

Haha, yeah. It also brings up a good point about moderation in general.

I don't know, I found the Sims to be incredibly annoying for just that reason. I would always be like "god, I'm sick of hanging out or cooking" and then I would kill my Sims in a spectacular way. I could never figure out why it was supposed to be fun.

[sub_divided]

Same reason people become librarians? Even my boss at Interlibrary Loan had to emerge from his office and help scan barcodes when traffic was high. Maybe the repetitiveness is soothing for some people.

[charmian]

Eh? A lot of games are repetitive, like WoW. I just find the Sims really boring because the stuff they do is so like RL and also, that it seems pointless to help your avatars bathe or go to the bathroom, etc.

redo

[sub_divided]

So do you like WoW, then? Chrissie keeps trying to get me to play WoW and I keep turning her down because I don't like repetitive tasks.

The people I know who like the Sims are all author-type people who enjoy making up stories about their avatars. Most of them are also amused by how helpless and clueless the Sims characters are, like if you don't make them pee they'll die. I guess for them their Sims are cute dumb pets, like guinea pigs.

Re: redo

[charmian]

Something like WoW is too timeconsuming. I do enjoy console RPGs and hack and slash games like Dynasty Warriors (hey, play that. It's less repetitive than WoW, and you can turn it to ez mode and level up quickly XD).

Yeahhh, but the fun of that is that you can pick them up and cuddle them, and you can't do that with a Sim. Also, I've had fishes and birds, and at least they could pee and eat without my help! I enjoyed playing SimCity and SimAnt, but not the Sims. (The SimTower game was very frustrating, though, because I couldn't figure out how to win. It was simply to the point where I was going "you know, it isn't a good idea to make one big building for everything, yet I want to have all the higher level toys! On the other hand, all my people are turning red and angry because there aren't enough elevators, and the condominium dwellers are angry cause o' the noise. >_>")

[morineko]

The Sims is also good for making elaborate houses and then not playing anything in them.

[charmian]

Hah, so it's really like what, SimHouseBeautiful?

[petronia]

I was always told to just find a cheat code. XD;

[charmian]

Oh yeah, but if you do that, it's just buying a lot of stuff for your DollSimhouse. The game-y (ludic?) dimension disappears. Since I enjoyed taking over the yard as a SimAnt and building a prosperous megalopolis in SimCity, that kind of thing didn't really appeal to me.

[petronia]

Perhaps this reflects the bias of the fandom lens through which I view the thing, but the vast majority of people I've seen talk about playing Sims use it for stuff like simulating what would happen if their fictional OTPs lived in a house together and had babies. XD;