Preventing meta communication in a massive multiplayer game

Question

In developing a 4x multiplayer game where players should cooperate to implement any of the four Xs. I am interested in containing all information about the world and characters (players location, local events, map layout and content, any local metric like, for example, some resource amounts in certain places of the world) to be only exchanged between players' characters verbally or through in-game letters, publications, declarations. The idea is to turn information into resource as well as open possibility for players to persuade others and outright lie to them.

As I doubt the effectiveness of any censorship tools in eradicating players' attempts to exchange out-of-game communication channels, the only possible solution I see now, after anonymizing players and assigning them to fractions randomly, is to allow only limited, preset expressions to be employed in communication. However, I am afraid that that will cripple bonding and cooperation between players as a whole.

Are there any solutions on safeguarding against meta communication between players in a massive multiplayer game?

• infinitezero: My usual advice: Don't dictate players how to play your game. That is always a bad choice and will lead to frustration. A player pays money for your game, so they can play however they like. It's like selling a car and telling the customer they can't paint it (cough Ferrari).

Answer 1

You can’t, and trying to do so is likely to throw a lot of false positives that will piss off players. As a trivial example, does streaming gameplay count? Not allowing any streaming of gameplay will effectively exclude an entire group of prospective players, but allowing it trivially allows meta-communication, intentional or not, without the players even having to chat. Any approach that ‘works’ will likely also be more invasive than typical anti-cheat mechanisms, which will further alienate many players.

The best approach I can think of is information as an in-game item, not just something the players know, and make it such that the characters can’t act on things until they have the information from an in-game source.

As a concrete example of that, consider the following arrangement:

• Character can use some kind of skill to search for resources in a given area. It only has a limited chance of succeeding, and can only be used infrequently in any given area (maybe once per in-game week per player).
• When that skill succeeds and a character discovers resources, they get a special key item that they can freely duplicate to other characters by meeting up with those characters in person.
• Anybody who has that item has the location marked on their map and can interact with it to contribute to the process of setting up facilities to extract the resources.
• Anybody who doesn’t have that item would have to search normally until the facilities for resource extraction reach a certain stage in construction (effectively, until there’s a clear indication that something is there, people who don’t have the info still have to search).

In theory you could also add a lockout so that once someone discovers a given resources nobody else can for a longer period than usual, but I would expect that to aggravate players pretty reliably, and it opens up more opportunity for trolling.

The same kind of approach can be taken for mapping, just tie a different skill to how detailed of a map of a given area a player can produce (and maybe make more detailed maps improve the chances of finding any resources in that area). Crafting/production recipes can work in a similar way by making research a skill check that has a chance of succeeding and produces a replicable blueprint/recipe that can be given to other players.

You can also integrate this into the tech tree to make it even more immersive and further drive home the importance of information. Until a given faction is literate, these items can only be copied by meeting up directly. Unlock writing, and you can write down the info and store it in an archive that others can travel to and copy it from, or possibly mail it to other players. Unlock fixed telecommunications (telegram or semaphore for example), and it can be replicated remotely through a communications facility much faster than it could be replicated via paper. And maybe you eventually get something equivalent to satellite phones, and can relay info from any online player to any other online player.

• Vitalii Piatnytskyi: This approach would probably work best for my game, where player just gives actions for characters to perform. But I assume for games with more action oriented controls it would be harder to make smooth user experience with this design in place.
• Vitalii Piatnytskyi: While pondering on your answer, I think it is also possible to expand upon this with penalties on speed of performing actions on unknown things. This might as well work smooth in the context of action oriented controls.
• Cyclops: I can definitely see why you'd want streamers/marketers, for the game, but I wonder if you could require/request, that they put a time-delay on the stream, as a condition of playing? Even a few minutes might work.
• Austin Hemmelgarn: @Cyclops The problem with that approach is that it interferes with real-time engagement, which is a major part of why many people actually watch streamers. Also, it’s really difficult to effectively enforce (you can only do so reactively, not proactively), and I’m not even sure most streaming software would support it in the first place.

Answer 2

I agree with Steven.

Do not try to lock people from communicating, unless you really need it. Most likely, you'll lose.

But I thought about such mechanics for myself, for some specific experience, and I think I found one way to do it.

We can not prohibit communication between players. However, we may limit how they can use information received outside the game.

Here is an example:

• Imagine player A found a planet X with some rare resources.
• Player A can tell player B everything about planet X.
• But to visit planet X, any player should have a specific "key" item, like a plate with coordinates.
• That item must be transferred in-game, and can not be created in any other way besides copying it from another key item.
• => The player B still must communicate (maybe even meet) with player A to get coordinates, even if they already exchanged all information about planet X outside of the game.

In other words, game developers should introduce "in-game only" items that are required to perform actions related to the information they want to restrict.

• Vitalii Piatnytskyi: What will prevent player A from just giving general directions to said planet through meta channel? It makes me wonder if it is a viable solution to implement some kind of character's will metric to do any action based on the information known to them.
• Tiendil: This must be laid down from the basic game implementation/design level. In the context of the example, here are some options: (1) We can go away from a classical 2D or 3D world with directions and implement a kind of cheat: introduce stargates which work only with "key tablets" (so, another player can not just enter the coordinates). (2) We can keep the coordinates, but lock the access to them via another game mechanics like "planet shields" or "cloaking devices" that can be bypassed only with special items.
• Tiendil: So, from these examples, you can see that it is a very demanding approach; it requires designing the whole game from a very special perspective. But it provides some great opportunities, like an information market where players can actually trade pieces of valuable information (coordinates of planets, blueprints, intel on NPCs, etc). Just in case, I don't advocate for this approach, it is very demanding and challenging to implement, but it has the potential to be enjoyable or at least unconventional to lead to a one-of-a-kind game.
• Tiendil: Speaking about "will metric", it may be used to simulate something like that. For example, let a character have an address book and be allowed only to go to addresses from that book. It may be a chart of the galaxy in the context of my example, part of which was charted/known by the character, and part of which is not. Check this for a reference from literature: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_(novel)
• Syndic: @ВіталійП'ятницький one - complex! - workaround for "giving general directions through meta channel" would be to make general directions not work. Each species of alien has their own star drives, and to each of them the directions are different - so effectively, the map locations are not in the same place for different players. That would add a lot of other considerations though, such as enemy fleets seemingly teleporting long distances because what to me looks far away is the neighbouring star to them...

Answer 3

I feel like you should not try to prevent it and rather just notify in-game that the game is better experienced through in-game chat.

Games like Among Us (only allowed to talk during discussion sessions, but never prevented) and Lethal Company (Proximity Voice Chat, prevents talking when dead) also has their reliance on proper communication, where the intended experiënce can be altered if the players always could talk through voice chat. However, both games do not prevent the usage of external voice chat, but rather explained that the game is experienced better without. Both games have limited lobbies with less than 8 players, so the smaller the lobby, the easier it is for a group of players to set and follow the rules with each other.

Though what MMO's have in advantage is that it's unlikely for every player to be in the same external voice channel, as each would have to take extra steps to communicate with each other. It would be easier for them to communicate with each other through an in-game voice chat. Which can have their own set boundaries. (Like Proximity Voice chat, where players can only talk to each other if their characters are nearby) A larger-scale scenario I've seen is in these Minecraft Civilisation experiments. Where many players are randomly divided into selected regions, and have to communicate with each other to make a community.

Answer 4

I agree with Austin's (excellent!) answer: you can't prevent out-of-game communications, and having in-game tokens to represent in-game communication is a solid option.

But, there's another angle: incentives.

Are there any solutions on safeguarding against meta communication between players in a massive multiplayer game?

Yes: make it more expensive to use a side-channel than an in-game method.

Austin's answer talks about using time as the expense: that having an in-game token that represents in-game communication makes things faster. That's a great option in a lot of circumstances, but there are other options that are worth considering; they include:

• Explore: fast-travel mechanics allow more specific targeting (ie., shorter travel times) if you have a good map, and sensors work 5% faster if they've pre-loaded some base data. A false map lands you in the wrong place (possibly a very wrong place), and adds time to the initial sensor scan as the computers try to reconcile the scan data with the pre-loaded data.

• Expand: resources flow 5% faster if you have a pre-arranged contract with the other player. A false contract slows the flow of resources as ships show up to empty docks (or are refused docking, etc.); ships might even return empty.

• Exploit: every minute of mining yields 5% more ore if you have a map of the vein, or the vendor gives a 5% discount to people who wear a certain pin or know the secret handshake. A false map reduces the yield (possibly to 0%), points to a different resource, etc.; a false handshake increases the price as the vendor thinks you're trying to get something over on them.

• Exterminate: your weapons and/or shields are 5% better if you have detailed scans of the target class/type of enemy. False scans decrease the effectiveness of your gear by 5% as your weapons target the hard points instead of the soft ones and your shield harmonics are all wrong.

• Pyramid Scheme: if I give you a map of sector 001, then I get a 0.5% commission on your activity in that sector; if I teach you the secret handshake, I get a 0.5% commission on those trades; etc.. I'm honestly not sure what false information would do in a Pyramid Scheme scenario, but I've only been thinking about it for about half an hour over lunch. But, maybe just wasting the other person's time is sufficient?

Note: the percentages are pulled out of thin air and may be horribly wrong for your particular game.

If I'm trying to get my friend to play the game, it behooves me to give them good maps and scans in-game; doing so gives them a leg up and speeds up their path to being able to help me with in-game stuff. Sure, I can tell them to go to the Iron Ore System's 3rd planet for ore over email, but an in-game map helps them bootstrap just that much faster and might get me a few coins for my trouble.

If I'm a streamer trying to run a community event, I'm definitely interested in the Pyramid Scheme option so I can afford the new shiny just that much faster. The other options are still going to be worth giving out for the event so the event has a better chance of being successful and fun for all involved.

And, the values should be small enough that the in-game hassle of sending maps and scans around the world isn't worth the amount of real-world currency one might be willing to pay to get that slight edge - especially if the buyer can spend some time (and probes?) to get the data themselves.

Social Problems and Technical Solutions

It is almost always impossible to implement a technical solution to a social problem. Technical solutions can help, to be sure, but they can very, very rarely actually solve the problem. And, OP's got a social problem on their hands. Social problems require social solutions. Here, that solution is "don't try to block out-of-band communication, just make it worthwhile to use in-band communication channels".