League of Legends rewards good behavior with free mystery gift

In the ongoing fight against toxic behavior among the online community of League of Legends, Riot Games has devised a new plan. Rather than punishing the a**holes, Riot Games is rewarding those who behaved nicely during the year.

For those of you who displayed positive behavior in League of Legends throughout 2014, Riot Games will reward you with a classic Mystery Gift. To be on the list, you can't have received a chat restriction, ranked restriction, 14-day ban or permanent ban in 2014. You also must be level 5 or higher and have at least a pool of 10 champion skins you still don't own.

This whole concept of rewarding positive behavior in League of Legends, rather than punishing poor behavior may seem a bit foreign to some of you so Riot even took to a Reddit thread to explain the thought process behind it.

"We've always said that our player behavior philosophies include punishment, reform, and positive reinforcement. There's no silver bullet to improving player behavior in online games, and you always need a mix of punishments and rewards," Riot said.

"However, to give more context about this extrinsic reward, the key is that it is a surprise and not deterministic. What I mean by this is that it isn't some kind of achievement system where you are sportsmanlike for your next 10 games, then directly unlock a mystery gift. If you design a system like this, players will simply behave for 10 games, unlock their mystery gift and go back to their normal ways."

"This current design is something we're trying out in 2015 and will surprise players once in awhile for their positive behavior. Because players aren't sure what the next reward is (or when it is), players will strive to be sportsmanlike in a larger range of games to try to get all the surprises. For positive players in the game, this won't really affect them and they'll just get surprises every so often for being awesome. For neutral players, this effort might convince some of them to put in that extra effort in a few more games to get the next surprise. For toxic players, this effort might also encourage a few to change their ways though we expect the biggest impact to be with the neutral players. It's important to note that we did 2 tests of this design before (with Santa Baron icon and IP Boosts), but in future roll-outs it will be possible for players to earn the next surprise if they've been positive since the last surprise was awarded. So, if you were chat restricted and missed a surprise, you will still be eligible for the next surprise if you were positive in the time range between the 2 surprises and are not blacklisted for life," Riot concluded.

Elsewhere in the post, Riot promised that not every surprise will be a mystery gift, adding that each surprise will differ in magnitude and be tailored to different players. For example, the last surprise was an IP Boost that was mostly beneficial to newer players. Other surprises, however, may include unique summoner icons.

I doubt League of Legends will ever be fully clean of di*kish players, but I commend Riot in the steps they take towards promoting a more friendly environment. Let's face it, League of Legends is a competitive game filled with passionate players. Tempers sometimes flair. But there's a big difference between an occasional outburst and completely toxic behavior.