Player Kicking
The extra-game action of removing a player from game instances.
Even if all games have explicit or formalized rules at their core, additional rules govern the actual activities they support. These rules, called gaming rules[1] or implicit rules[2], also need to be followed and can in fact be more important to follow as long as failure to follow the formalized rules are unintentional (see Myers 2008 for an example of how following the official rules but not the social rules of City of Heroes can result in a player being hated [3]). When players do not follow these more important set of rules, either the other players or the game facilitators can enforce that offending players do not play anymore, Player Kicking them, in order to be able to continue with the gaming activity.
Contents
Examples
Many team-based Sports such as Ice Hockey and Soccer have rules for banning players from the current match or future ones if they commit various fouls. Similarly, moderators of team-based First-Person Shooters such as Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, the Battlefield series, and the Team Fortress series, , can ban players but here players can also ban each other through majority votes. This functionality is needed since not all games are supervised and since the players typically do not know each other and are distributed spatially.
Using the pattern
Player Kicking is not so much a pattern concerning gameplay as it is one concerning the game activity as a whole. It is added to games that want to give players or Game Masters the power to police themselves when some player is not behaving. Reasons for these can be cheating, using Exploits, repeatedly engaging in Friendly Fire, or any other activity that is deemed socially unacceptable. Player Kicking does not directly have to do with gameplay progression, and therefore it does not make sense for game systems to perform this type of kicking. This makes the pattern make most sense in Multiplayer Games since cases where players of Single-Player Games - include those with Game Masters - perform in unacceptable ways and are kicked as a result are difficult to distinguish from other cases of Game Over in Single-Player Games.
Implementing the pattern consist either of giving Game Masters or Entitled Players privileges to access functionality to throw players from game servers, or implementing Voting system so players can initiate and enforce the kicking of other players on their own. It does not need to be supported explicitly through design in Self-Facilitated Games since players and Game Masters can there kick players on their own initiative.
Player Kicking be limited in both time and scope. For the time aspect, this may simply mean the ongoing game instance, a predefined minutes or hours, a predefined number of game instances, or permanent bans. Regarding scope, Player Kicking is most often limited to one Game Server but Meta Servers may impose bans from playing globally.
Interface Aspects
The actual act of kicking a player is often preceded by some type of Negotiation. For games that are not played face-to-face, this can be supported by Communication Channels. When the Player Kicking is enforced through Voting, this similarly needs to be supported by Secondary Interface Screens if the game is not one played face-to-face.
Consequences
Player Kicking puts players under a threat that they can suffer Early Elimination in games due to causes besides those specifically inscribed in game rules. When players can kick each other through a Voting system, Player Kicking gives players a Freedom of Choice of whom they need to play with. While this may help create an Exaggerated Perception of Influence, the possibility of being kicked oneself can work against having a feeling Exaggerated Perception of Influence.
The actual act of Player Kicking is an Extra-Game Action that leads to Player Elimination and Game Over for the affected players. Since this is usually something contested by these players, Player Kicking is often preceded by Negotiation.
Although not a positive one, those kicked by other players have been given the Social Role of being banned.
Relations
Can Instantiate
Early Elimination, Exaggerated Perception of Influence, Extra-Game Actions, Game Over, Negotiation, Player Elimination, Social Roles
with Voting
Can Modulate
Game Servers, Meta Servers, Multiplayer Games
Can Be Instantiated By
Entitled Players, Game Masters, Self-Facilitated Games, Voting
Can Be Modulated By
Communication Channels, Secondary Interface Screens
Possible Closure Effects
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Potentially Conflicting With
Exaggerated Perception of Influence
History
New pattern created in this wiki.
References
- ↑ Sjöblom, B. (2008). The Relevance of Rules: Negotiations and Accounts in Co-operative and Co-located Computer Gaming. Proceedings of the [player] conference, IT University of Copenhagen, August 26-29, 2008, pp. 335-378.
- ↑ Salen, K. & Zimmerman, E. (2003). Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. The MIT Press. ISBN 0262240459
- ↑ Myers, D. (2008). Play and punishment: The sad and curious case of Twixt. In The [Player] Conference Proceedings. Copenhagen, Denmark: The Center for Computer Games Research, The IT University of Copenhagen.
