Bungie hopes that clever game design in its new online-only shooter Destiny will encourage positive player interaction and prevent trolls from ruining the fun.

Destiny leads the charge in a new wave of online-persistent shooters that blur the lines between story-driven single-player campaigns and online multiplayer scenarios.

Bungie technical director Chris Butcher has told Edge that the studio wants to "make sure the social experience is one where if the players aren't co-operating or communicating effectively it doesn't ruin anyone's experience."

Butcher elaborated, "If you look back at online multiplayer gaming for the last ten years I think the dominant thread has been adolescent males shooting each other in the face and squatting on each other's corpses.

"And that emerges from design decisions, some of which were intentional, some of which were not, but the community gets attracted towards that, and that is popular to a lot of other people and so it kind of tends to exclude others."

Without going into specifics, Butcher says that Destiny will be designed in a way that the developer hopes with encourage positive behavior and render trolls irrelevant.

"I don't think you can ever design toxic behaviour out, you can't ever stop players from being toxic," Butcher admits, "but what you can do is prevent them being able to ruin other players' experiences."

He goes on, "You give people these tools that encourage them to interact positively with each other and then if someone is interacting negatively with you, well, they can't ruin your experience."

Bungie's publisher Activision is incredibly optimistic of the former Halo studio's latest work. Activision Publishing boss Eric Hirshberg said last week that Destiny has the potential to become Activision's third billion dollar franchise, alongside Call of Duty and Skylanders.

"We strongly believe we are on pace to set the all-time pre-order record for a new IP," said Hirshberg.

The Destiny is due for release in 'early 2014' on PS4, PS3, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

Posted: Aug 06, 2013 5:51 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/422915/destiny-designed-so-that-toxic-players-cant-ruin-your-experience/