The Problem

If you tried playing BIRD Sandbox in the past couple months, chances are you encountered at least one player inserting models that made the game unplayable. We've gotten many complaints about this.

The Ban Hammer is a common example. It permanently bans any player it touches from the server.

Many players find this annoying, but many players also love to use this. The model has an 89% like ratio. BIRD doesn't forbid disruptive models - they can sometimes be fun. However when these models get popular, they show up at the top of our model browser, get inserted by even more players, and prevent more players from actually playing the game.

(Note, the Angel Potion is a similar weapon that can remove players from the game.)

The Solution

We built a system that tracks how many players leave shortly after a model gets inserted. We have enough server session data involving popular models that we can tell which models cause players to leave. Here are some results of analyzing 500+ sessions and 5,000+ insertions. The Churn column shows an estimate of how much more likely players are to leave after that model is inserted.

We're now using this data to show disruptive models lower in our model browser.

Comparing models before and after this sort adjustment checks out. Most benign models are unaffected. The Ban Hammer and Angel Potion show up lower because they specifically break the game for many players.

We will continue adjusting how players leaving affects the models sort to give a better experience to everyone.

For Creators

Want your model to rank well? Make something fun without frustration—don't spam-kill, lag servers, or break the game.

The system rewards models that make players want to keep playing. Create something awesome, and the rankings will reflect it.