In a bid to start clearing negative or abusive behavior off "League of Legends" (LoL) gameplay, Riot Games recently started testing a system that punishes players whom the game developer deem too rude or offensive. The tests officially kick off in European and American servers today, May 26.

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The game's new Player Reform System delivers instantly actionable feedback, as well as the appropriate punishments for players who verbally abuse others in-game. Through the system, gamers can report abusive players. Their feedback will then be verified if the offense was appropriately abusive for a demerit, according to what Riot refers to "community-driven standards of behavior."

When the report gets validated by Riot, the offending player earns a reform card, which will be sent to the subject via email, along with a chat log as evidence of the offensive language used in their LoL gameplay. The reform cards are essentially notifications that link offensive players to the appropriate punishment, which, so far, ranges from two-week to permanent bans. The punishments take effect within fifteen minutes after the game ends.

Riot plans to deputize a player behavior team to monitor the results of the initial wave of the test, and to ensure that everything goes smoothly. The success of this test will help Riot decide whether to roll the system out to LoL players all over the world.

According to a post on the official LoL blog, the system underscores the following offenses: sexism, racism, death threats, racism, homophobia, and a wide array of other forms of offensive or foul use of language.

Like many multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBA) of its generation, "League of Legends" has been a font of players verbally bashing on each other ever since the game's servers have been active. Hopefully, this new system opens up a means to formally punish all sorts of negative behavior, while simultaneously rewarding positive behavior.

Riot games is not the first game manufacturer to adopt a player punishment system. Recently, Blizzard games banned thousands of players who used third-party programs, commonly referred to as bot, to cheat their way out of doing mundane tasks in "World of Warcraft."

TagsRiot Games, League of Legends, verbal abuse, LOL, Ban, lol ban