Player Karma Reward and Buff system

I’ve encountered a number of helpful/friendly players since rejoining, and obviously a positive community does wonders just as much as people that are dicks can help tank a server.

So the thought occurred to me that why not reward players who actively engage in behavior that will help build the server population and retain players?

Im keeping the idea fairly simple so it can be built on or modified, but how it would work is by creating a tag or flag system for what we could call “Karma Actionable Events”
These are actions such as;

resurrecting a player

trading an item without receiving anything

encountering a player with “young” status

murdering another player

looting a corpse as a criminal action

flagging actions

joining or participating in an event or staff ran event

These are all points of player interaction where something positive or negative may occur.
These counts will rack up over a set period of time and can be accessed by staff to see where these things are occurring.
Next we will assign “community overseers” whether this is a separate staff role, or simply something that GM’s will handle.

When an overseer or GM sees counts on a player, they can teleport to their location to observe them in secret. If a player is witnessed taking actions that are positive, the staff can add “Server Karma” to that player or account and they will see a message “You have good Karma”
If it’s negative they can be assigned a negative point instead to lower it.
This will be a hidden value that only staff can see.

Negative Karma will have no effects, I don’t believe we should punish people just for playing the game, but positive Karma will have benefits depending on how high a player or their account is.

Positive karma will authorize staff to do certain things that normally wouldn’t be done to benefit their gaming experience such as resurrecting a player on occasion if they see their ghost, assign certain “titles” or tags that will take over the normal ones (to avoid creating unique items that could be traded) on clothing or items, and priority on help requests or questions. GM’s may also occasionally or rarely gift players with rares or cosmetic items if they have good karma as a reward.

In addition to this, players with exceptionally high Karma have a small chance for a number of beneficial effects to happen.
The chances may be raised or lowered as needed for balance as well as possibly consuming some karma, but positive effects could include;

5% chance that on taking lethal damage that either the hit is negated, or they are instead healed for a random amount

5% chance that one random unblessed or non-newbies item will remain in their inventory instead of dropping

5% chance to receive a 10% discount when purchasing items from an NPC vendor

0.5% chance to gain a point of durability on an item when it would normally be lost.

These are all benefits intended to be minimal enough not to disrupt gameplay or give a reliable/unfair advantage, but having them occur every once in a while would be a soft reward for players that are doing things that are likely to result in a much larger player base over time.
The stat is hidden, so there are no bragging rights or direct incentive to collect or hoard it, a staff member has to by chance be present to witness your good or bad deed so there is in essence a “be good when no one is watching” mentality that I think will encourage positive gameplay within the server and give it something that will stand out in the game.
 
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