In an effort to promote better behavior on Xbox Live, Microsoft is planning to give rewards to Xbox One owners who contribute positively through their online interactions. Instead of simply penalizing players for bad behavior, the Xbox maker hopes to "actively encourage them to be better" in future Xbox Live updates, Polygon reported.
During a talk at GDC 2014 aimed at ID@Xbox developers, Frank Savage, partner and development lead at Microsoft, said that rather than just ding players for poor, unsportsmanlike behavior on Xbox Live, players may be rewarded for exhibiting exemplary behavior.
"If your reputation is soaring because you're this amazing player that everyone wants to be with," Xbox Live's reputation algorithm may recognize that and dole out unspecified rewards. It's Microsoft's way of saying, "Thanks for being such a good member of the community, here's a reward," Savage said. The reward system sounds different from Microsoft's Xbox Community Level system, detailed last year, which recognizes actions from the existing Xbox Community Ambassadors initiative.
After the panel, Savage told Polygon that Microsoft hasn't determined what those rewards might be, as that component of Xbox Live's reputation system is still in the "brainstorming" stages.
The current implementation of Microsoft's reputation system for Xbox One, outlined last year by Michael Dunn, program manager for Xbox Live, interprets direct feedback from players to identify which members of the community are more troublesome than others. Players who are frequently blocked or muted, along with other negative feedback from Live users, will see their negative reputation exposed through their gamercard, be grouped with other bad players and could be deprioritized in multiplayer matchmaking. Savage said Microsoft sees about 425,000 feedback submits per week via Xbox Live.
"Our new reputation model helps expose people that aren't fun to be around and creates real consequences for trouble-makers that harass our good players," Dunn said last year.
