Project Lore

There's many ways to teach a dog, or even a child new tricks.  Most of the psychology behind teaching relies on positive reinforcement.  The idea is simple, whenever the subject does something correctly it is rewarded for its action.  Food, love or a pat on the head, the reward can be almost anything likeable.  It has also been shown that if the positive reinforcement comes somewhat randomly, rather than every time, the subject is more likely to seek perfection later on. 

Positive reinforcement has worked wonders on me.  My parents promoted good grades by granting me fancy dinners for each A.  My teacher gave out Jolly Ranchers for fixing a grammatical error in a paragraph (it's vs. its ftw).  Sports accomplishments lead to WWF/WCW (now WWE) pay-per-view events - I even like cheesy stories!  In college I rewarded my own achievements with video games or a night on the town.  It's a tactic I use on my pets, and will likely repeat when I have my own koopalings.

Perfection is hardly a guaranteed outcome though.  More often than not, these learning stages are filled with hardship.  Carpets are pooped on, valuables are broken, tears are shed (babies are messy).  It's difficult to get angry at babies or young children - and largely pointless due to brain development - but animals react well to a stern voice.  My ferrets get pulled from playtime whenever they are naughty, something they hate more than a warm bath.  Although they have the memory of a goldfish, they eventually make the connection that their act is not acceptable.

Blizzard, and most MMOG creators, follows the idea of positive reinforcement to a T.  We have a chance at a reward, gear, after every boss kill, but it doesn't pan out 100% of the time.  To compensate for the sometimes painful RNG Blizzard added badges to guarantee gear after a set number of successful kills.  But when we fail or get killed?  Nothing.

Okay, fine.  We'll get hollered at by a raid leader and ridiculed by guildies, likely kicked from a PUG raid, but mechanically speaking there's no penalty.  Run back to your body or the instance, lose a single daily's worth of gold and we're back in action.  Not even a slap on the wrist.  The lack of negative feedback, the stern voice or timeout, finally made me think outside the box.  I felt that I had become complacent, dieing was no big deal.  Sometimes I had materials that may have been able to save a life, but didn't bother wasting the gold.  That all changed when I implemented an IRL penalty system.

I've tied the penalty system in to my WoW & Weight Management quest.  Now whenever I die I must pay for my sins in sweat.  15 push-ups per death means that I fear progression nights.  The collection of lactic acid really piles up when I am on my priest.  15 push-ups for her demise are compounded with 25 push-ups for the death of a group members, with a cap of 100 set for an entire wipe.  Making matters worse is doing all of these exercises during the downtime.  Talk about a speed workout.

Does anyone else add additional penalties to in-game failures?  What about in-game achievements?  Does a tough progression kill deserve two scoops of some succulent Breyer's Ice Cream?