Feature Request: Social XP

Shroud of the Avatar is, in the simplest of terms, a game.

In less simple terms, it's a game where you can seek adventure, craft items, and be social with fellow players. (except for you staunch Single Player folks)

We have adventuring XP and levels.
We have crafting XP and levels.

Why don't we add social XP and levels?


How It Could Work:

Players gain social experience for performing emotes while in the presence of other players. (minimum X amount of players required in a Y radius to give Z(+ or - N) experience) Diminishing returns would of course apply. This would account for basic interactions.

Players gain social experience for being amid a group of other players for a set amount of time in the same geographic area. This would be a smaller, passive amount gained for simply attending events, and would begin to accrue after staying 5-10 minutes in the same geographic region where X or more players are also in attendance. If a player goes AFK for inactivity, their accrual stops at that moment, and they are no longer counted for X.

Certain emotes, when done between players in a proper sequence, would create 'social combos', and bonus XP would be awarded to all players in the chain. Example: Player1 waves to Player2. Player2 waves back to Player1. Both Player1 and Player2 receive the normal social XP plus a bonus for doing a wave combo.


But What Would Be The Point of Social Levels?

There could be a new vendor that appears and sells unique, non-tradable items that are used specifically for social interactions. (see-saws, carousels, swing sets, paddleboats, etc) These items would be per-character, as social xp would not be shared to account.

At various social level plateaus the character could unlock new titles such as "<name> the Tongue-Waggler", "<name> the Braggadocio", "<name> the Dilettante", "<name> the Paramour/Courtesan", "<name> the Jester", "<name> the Statesman/Stateswoman", and the like.

Achievements could be assigned for various actions:
-perform a pratfall (/playdead) with more than 10 players as witness
-make a toast with more than 20 players as witness
-perform the Darkstarr salute while Lord British is in direct line of sight
-pick your nose while targeting Rustic Dragon
etc.

Additional Mechanic

Social XP could also be set up on a 'constantly drains' timer, where you lose social XP after a set time of social inactivity. You would also lose the above titles / items until such time as you were social enough to regain them.

The End Result

In short, this would be a mechanism to encourage players to interact within the player community in-game, and put an additional focus on player interactions. It would also help minimize the subset of players who play a multiplayer game, but only interact with other players by necessity, otherwise they hide from the social light of day.

PRE-FAQ

"But what if I want to play a social outcast / hermit?"
- If you do, then you would have no interest in the rewards for socialization, as they would not be of any use to you whatsoever.

"But what about PvP?????"
- There could be social combos in PvP, geared toward what someone does after they've killed another player. -- There could also be rewards for proper emoting in the context of PvP, such as /flourishweapon, /comehere, and others.

"Will this work in Single Player Online / Offline?"
-No. You're missing the point of the system.

"So you're penalizing players for not being social?"
-No. Those players are penalizing themselves. I'm merely attempting to fix that with this game mechanic.

"I've been diagnosed with severe Social Anxiety Disorder. This system discriminates against me!"
-Enjoy the Single Player Options!

 

The most favorite PvP emote would be the middle finger! Haha.

 

I think social XP may be a good idea. But I think mine is broken, while bartending the numbers kept going up, but now all it says is 'Wody'. Does that mean I reached the highest level?

 

It sounds nice on paper, or monitor, or whatever you use to read the forums... but knowing gaming reality I can see popular locations spammed by emotes making no sense whatsoever... People will grind social xp and unlike othergrinds, they will do so in front of other players...

Well, these players would still interact only by necessity, but way more... It will bring constant spam of emotes...

 

Wouldn't we see (and worse yet, encourage) plenty of people macro waving in chains to each other?

 

That will quickly lead to me turning off emotes in the chat box. If people wanna hang out in bars, that should be its own reward.

 

There would be timers set up, so that any given emote couldn't be used more than once in a given set of time to gain social XP, because obviously the first way to cheat the system is to spam emotes repeatedly.

That is, of course, your choice.

For some folks, regular social events could be planned with the purpose of proper socialization. Social XP item rewards would only serve to further social interactions, not to give players a trophy to display in their front yard. Banquet tables (only placeable in the owner's home, as they're bind-to-character, otherwise stored in the bank), punchbowls, fondue fountains, and other items could also be considered. And before we get a "I don't want social item crap taking up my precious bank space!!!", these items would be stored in a separate tab, which would only contain social items, and be devoid of item/weight limits.

 

I love this idea, and support it 100%.

 

Wouldn't that hamper the social people more than the macro users? I'm sure I'd interact using similar emotes with multiple people at a social event in a very short time, compared to a macro running all night long ('to keep the social level up'). And everything you give players is going to be (abused) as sort of a trophy. Even titles

 

The timer would be to keep people from spamming the same emote endlessly. Also, I'm not saying that people wouldn't macro, but if they're being genuine social, then pre-scripted notions of emotes don't fit the mold, and it will be easy enough to tell who's using a constant macro versus someone who's emoting when it's relevant. Also, as far as "AFK macros" go, it wouldn't work if you were by yourself.

Fast-forward the above to "macro parties", where players gather in a basement in secret, and all target each other using tab and run through a laundry list of emotes, all while AFK. The challenge of this system is not to see who can be the highest social level with the least amount of work, but instead to reward people for doing social activities properly. I'm sure all sorts of punishments could be set, like flagging accounts with an "AFK Macro" flag, which permanently disallows you from ever gaining social XP. Ever.

There's no accounting for taste, of course.

As with most systems in this game, it would go through a period of refinement and updates, until it reaches a stable paradigm. What I'm proposing is not a turnkey ready-to-go mechanism, but an idea that can be forged and reforged until it suits the overall purpose of enhancing the social aspects of the game.

 

social xp denotes fame to me, there should be infamey xp of sorts as well ... not every one wishes to be a goodie tooshooes...

*sings the 'bad' Ash song 'goodie goodie tooshoes' and pokes himself in the eyes three stooges style*

 

This is not a Fame / Infamy mechanic.

Bad guys socialize just as much as good guys.

 

just trying to provide a tie in to something thats already needed, your idea could be easily modified by other actions as well such murder and thievery and vise versa.

 

No, what you're doing is attempting to change the idea in to a feature that you want.

Fame and infamy should be organic, and not a forced game mechanic. If a character is famous/infamous, it should be because they're actually well-known for their actions...not because they performed virtuous / anti-virtuous actions endlessly to gain a title. Also, a person can be simultaneously famous _and_ infamous, depending on the perspectives of the people whom that person interacts with.

My idea is to reward social interactions period. Not to force players to decide if they're going to be a good guy or bad guy.

This is not UO.

 

Well while I am not against the idea of social xp, hmmm well yes I am, it somehow doesn't set well with me.

I think people learning about the emotes is cool and for my experience I feel they add so much fun to a conversation I'm having with another player.

I love the comments that come up when I do an emote like when doing the jumping jacks emote it says ""majoria performs her daily workout for whomever" that is so funny.

Imagine if people are doing their emotes with you because of xp points to earn, would it be as funny then like they are really there with you or would it feel they are off in their own world just trying to get their homework done and barely listening to you and that perhaps

they don't really want to be chatting with you but are just doing it for getting a good grade in social behavior. Also would it feel like someone is just having fun with you or even perhaps irritated with you or impatient with you. I just think the emote system presented above would perhaps make conversations

lose some of their charm and fun if a system like this is put in place. It would be like another something to mindlessly do to get the xp?

Anyway I am not saying my thoughts are correct on this and this is just a something that came up after reading the idea posted for this thread. So after thinking it out and not to invalidate all the good efforts that went into the proposal for this system either, it was wonderfully

thought out and presented I don't agree with doing it.

It just causes me a lot of concern to having interactions with another player if it were under these mechanics.

I want to have the most real heartfelt fun with other players as is possible while playing in Shrouds, and since that is written many times I know it is difficult to know if its real because of voice tone and facial expressions missing, but imagine putting a system like this in place, now we could definitely never know . I just don't like that.

edited**

 

So you're not too pleased with an artificial system to encourage players to use emotes.

That I can understand.

The main cause of this panic is that folks would spam emotes trying to get to the next Social level.

Ok, fine.

What if we made the entire system hidden from the players' view, and tracked it internally, similar to the virtues?

Instead of visiting the Oracle to see how you're doing socially, you'd interact with a different NPC.

Social rewards would appear 'magically', when you achieved various levels, and would disappear just the same way if they lost levels.

Oh, I know, even better...

...to make sure that people did appropriate responses in conversations, rather than spam random emotes, we could
adopt a quick time response system so that they have the most relevant emotes to do during a conversation, based on
context. Would that work?

Spoiler

 

Or how about you stop assuming extraversion is a virtue? Being an introvert is like being left-handed. It is comparatively rare and sometimes inconvenient in a world set up for righties. It can be overcome with work: one can get almost as good using one's nondominant hand as the dominant, and doing so solves the inconvenience of being in the minority, but you shouldn't have to! There is nothing inherently wrong with being a leftie or an introvert, and you're asking for rewards for doing things with your right hand. Easy for most of the population, doable for the minority, but still inherently discriminatory.

 

Chris Rock made a joke about, I ain't never been to jail. Rewarding social aspects in an MMO such as spamming emotes for experience and rewards is similar.

 

I would prefer a like system.