Geekly Articles each Day
📜 ⬆️ ⬇️

Gamification forum on the engine XenForo

image

Introduction and decision choice


Sooner or later, there comes a moment in the life of any forum community when there is an urgent need to use new tools to attract and retain people.

And such a very effective tool is what lies behind the now fashionable word gamification . That is, the use of game-specific techniques and approaches in non-game processes to attract and involve community members in the forum to create an active and powerful information field around our product.

The XenForo forum engine used in our company is currently the most popular and rapidly developing. This default engine has a built-in trophy system based on its own very limited criteria system. The trophy creation system itself also has limited functionality, for example, there is no possibility to create a trophy with a graphic badge, there is no possibility to create hidden trophies, etc. For example, here are screenshots of the default XenForo trophy system for the Addicted trophy (assigned when 1000 posts are reached):


')
The definition of criteria for this trophy is as follows (tab Award This Trophy If ...):



Indeed, it is quite possible to create and use gamification on the basis of built-in tools and criteria, but, ultimately, this does not look attractive and modern. Criteria for getting trophies are also not enough.

The XenForo engine is good in that it has a very serious and active community (there are also Russian-speaking groups), which is constantly working to improve it. A huge database of all kinds of plug-ins, styles, templates, etc. has been created. They are both commercial and free. There are even individual companies involved in the development and sale of solutions for XenForo, for example, Brivium .

Thus, having spent some time searching for a suitable solution and community inquiries, the best solution to date for implementing an advanced system of trophies and achievements on the XenForo platform was identified - a bunch of Master Badge and CTA Criteria plugins. Other popular solutions have been tried, for example, Brivium Extra Trophies Awarded , but their functionality was assessed as insufficient.

But back to the bunch of Master Badge and CTA Criteria . The first plugin is a paid ($ 35) powerful solution for managing the system of achievements and trophies, and the second plugin is a free enlarger of the number of possible criteria for obtaining a trophy. Both plugins are updated infrequently, but in 2016, updates were released. It is easy and simple to contact the developers either in the discussion of the plugin on its page, or in private correspondence.

Configuring Master Badge Plugin


We will understand in more detail with the setting of the Master Badge plugin. The first tab looks like this:



There is an interesting option "Display user's featured badges in Member Card" and the associated "Featured Badges". In the fields below you can specify how many trophies a user can reflect on his Memeber Card, depending on his current level. For example, for the achieved 10th level, the user can show 5 earned trophies on his Member Card. It looks like this:



The following tab settings is as follows:



What is of interest here is how many points you need to score before reaching the next level (Points Per Level) and the points scoring system when moving from one level to the next (Level Up Options). There is even a Level Calculator for calculating the required number of points to achieve a particular level.

And the third tab of settings:



The location of the Progress to Next Level and Top Level users in the sidebar of the forum is determined here.

Creating a trophy system


First you need to say that Master Badge defines two important entities - Badge and Trophy. Badge has its own properties, the most important of which is Badge Mode, and may include trophies (Trophies). Badge Mode can be:





Inside the badge we create trophies. Although trophies can be created without including them in the Badge. There are three tabs in the trophy creation window. For us, the first two are important. The first is the name of the trophy, its value (Trophy Points), its description, its belonging to the Badge, its order, its icon:



The second tab is the most important, the criteria for obtaining trophies are set here, and thanks to the already mentioned CTA Criteria plugin, the number of these criteria is significantly increased, in contrast to the default trophy system XenForo. It did not fit all possible criteria, only one is included - achieving 100 likes:



Criteria for the trophy can be combined, which allows you to create all sorts of exotic and rare trophies. As a result, a certain structure is formed from the Badges and Trophies. An interesting feature is also the possibility of their control - to give a trophy to a specific user out of turn, or to give a special trophy without a specific criterion to a specific user for special merits, you can watch all users who have a trophy, and you can see the trophy icon



Thus, the system allows you to create complex structures for the implementation of gamification on the forum. The question rests only on the fantasy to create trophies, and the corresponding graphic design of trophy icons. It is understood that trophy icons must be kept in the same style and look attractive.

In the image above you can see the following test, draft system:


Additionally, you need to mention the following technical detail. Trophies and their Levels are calculated for users based on the response of the corresponding CronTask, which, if desired, can be started manually:



System by ordinary forum users


After the trophy system is set up and running, from the users of the forum it is visible like this:

The Badges tab appears on the forum’s main menu with its own Leaderboard and Latest Awarded tabs:



In the profile of each user of the forum, a separate tab Badges also appears, where his merits are visible:



At the same time, the user can himself determine which trophies he can place under his avatar in the forum posts:



In threads and posts your merits will be visible like this:



the number of trophies allowed to display is determined by the level of the user (Level Points), and depends on the settings of the Master Badge plugin, as mentioned above. The fact of receiving each new trophy the user will see in the form of the corresponding Alert in the upper right corner of the forum.

About provocation and results


Technical issues of implementation are certainly important, but an equally important part of the system is its content. Create memorable, creative and vivid trophy icons with equally incendiary descriptions is a very nontrivial task. How to cause a keen desire of a user to get a trophy by visualizing and verbalizing it is a topic for a separate study. Let me just say that a fair share of gaming experience, mischief, and even healthy provocation is simply necessary here. At the same time, it is important not to cross a certain line in order to remain within the framework of political correctness, religious and racial tolerance. This is especially important in forums with a multinational and multi-faith community.

As a small example of this approach, I can bring a couple of trophies from our forum:

image When a registered user enters the forum from Google search results, he receives the LMGTFY (Let Me Google This For You) trophy with a description of "You know the forum and the Blitz from Zeropolis.

image If the user has enabled two-factor authentication for himself, he will receive the Better Safe Than Sorry trophy with the description “Enabled two-factor authentication for why not” and the icon of the protecting preventive rubber product.

Such an approach, as a rule, causes a positive reaction from the community, especially when such trophies are hidden and handed to users unexpectedly for them.

It’s too early to talk about the results of the implementation of this implementation of gamification from the point of view of the goals stated at the beginning of the article, but the trend of steady growth in activity at the forum is noticeable. Now, after a couple of months since the launch of the system, it is difficult to estimate the proportion of gamification in this, but as statistical data accumulate, its impact can be tried in more detail.

If you have experience in implementing, evaluating and using gamification systems in specialized communities, please share in the comments.

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/313732/

More articles:


All Articles