Stack Overflow versus World of Warcraft

I recently had a crazy idea about how to better rank players in competitive multiplayer games which breaks away from the 'grind' of accruing XP by simply playing the game a lot and being good enough to get kills. The idea isn't fully-formed yet, but I think it has promise.

The core of the idea is borrowed from the Stack Overflow model of online collaboration. If you're not familiar with it, SO is an online help forum of sorts for programming. It is structured around questions asked by its users, which then receive answers by other users. Users then upvote or downvote answers, letting the more useful responses bubble to the top. There's a similar provess of voting on the questions themselves, so questions asked in a helpful fashion that show some effort on the part of the asker get seen more often.

But where it becomes interesting is 'reputation' - users have a reputation score that is increased when someone upvotes a comment they made or a question they asked. It's a sort of 'peer-review' process that both encourages and rewards good attitudes and solid questions and responses. What seems obvious about it is that it's not simply about how many questions you ask that makes you reputable (like some forums that show post count, and put users into groups according to that), but their quality, as judged by other users.



So the Stack Ooerflow model of 'experience' is directly linked to what other people think of hat you wrote. This is distinct from how it works in games at the moment, where you get your 'experience' from simply doing. I've mentioned World of Warcraft in the title because to me, WoW embodies the idea of the grind, the accumulating of experience by repetitive tasks. I don't mean to single it out; pretty much all MMOs and, increasingly, games in other genres, do this. I just used it because it's a pretty well-damn-known example.

So what if you were to apply the Stack Overflow model of experience to a game? It sounds dicey, but I'm thinking something along the following lines. Consider a multiplayer shooter, say Gears of War because it's also well-known, and has kinda-tactical gameplay.



Your basic combat scenario involves hiding behind a waist-high wall with your team around you, occasionally popping up to fire at the opposing team who are hunkering behind a waist-heigh wall a few metres yonder. Getting a kill is sometimes a battle of attrition - both of you popping up simultaneously and firing till one of you drops; sometimes it involves manoeuvring across the level to get at your enemies from a side they're not covered on. This, of course, leaves you open to being shot, and more vulnerable than you'd be if you had stated in cover. Depending on the weapons available,sniping is viable; a skilled player can plug an enemy from a fair distance if they stick their head out of cover. Also, there are chainsaws attached to some guns. Because why not.

Instead of awarding players XP for getting a kill, I propose that when you are killed, you have the opportunity to 'upvote' your killer. Which seems absurd, but bear with me. The idea is that you upvote kills that seemed fair to you; kills that were earned, not cheap or lucky. Possibly kills that involved a pretty good fight, or took advantage of some mistake on the part of the deceased (for example, running blindly out of cover). Like Team Fortress 2 allows you to take a photo of your killer, the prompt should be offered in some way that emphasizes the way they managed to do you in; whether a sneaky chainsaw in the back, or a long-range headshot with the Torque Bow.


Remember the grenade spam? That's an example of a kill you wouldn't upvote.
The idea is that, like on Stack Overflow, you reward people who are playing the game well in the eyes of their peers, not just playing it. Of course, the idea of rewarding the person who just killed you seems counter to the point of a competitive game; the important difference between Stack Overflow and the situation I'm describing is that on SO, you upvote people who are trying to help you. However, I reckon the system captures a bit of that camaraderie even between virtual enemies - I've seen many people congratulate good kills, and a system like this might even encourage that sort of spirit, instead of jealous and spiteful interactions.

Of course, you could apply the system to friendly activities - maybe being able to upvote allies who assist you, to sort out the kill-stealers from the ones who genuinely save your bacon or help you take down a tough opponent. But I think the system has the greatest use when applied to competitive behaviour - and aside from anything else, it's just convenient to fit in a 'voting' screen when you're waiting to respawn, rather than interrupting the action in any way.

This score, accumulated as people upvote your kills, could even be entirely separate to an 'experience' score. However, it is no less important - it gives a measure not just of the amount you have played (which is important), but how you have played.

So, I could write a lot more about the uses and abuses of this sort of idea, but I think I'll leave it for now - I want to know what you guys think!