The massively popular League of Legends online battle arena game is headed toward its biggest update in many years with a slate of changes coming at the beginning of 2016. Among them, it has now been revealed, will be a new loot and crafting system, which will reward players for completing matches, but only if they conduct themselves appropriately. In an interview with Polygon, developer Riot Games says that "if you're a player who is punished for toxicity or intentional feeding or so on, you can't get loot."

Jeffrey Lin, lead designer of social systems at Riot and a member of the company's dedicated group for dealing with toxic behavior within LoL, describes the upcoming plans as a new way to encourage friendly communications and play. Despite being just a game, League of Legends incites great passions in its players, which can often be channelled negatively and expressed in the form of criticizing teammates, intentionally losing the game, or otherwise sabotaging others' enjoyment. Those who give in to such temptations in the new LoL system will be locked out of the new rewards and loot drops that will be available.

Like League of Legends, Dota 2 also has a chronic problem of inflammatory, occasionally racist, and oftentimes sexist rhetoric filling its in-game chat. Think of it as a number of levels worse than the usual web comments section, but not quite as dire a train wreck as YouTube comments. Neither game has done a particularly good job of quashing bad behavior within its realm, but Riot's new idea seems promising because it ties good conduct directly to meaningful rewards, which will include, for the first time, free hero skins.

"We really want the system to be a reward," Lin tells Polygon. "It's a new carrot for playing with friends and for being a positive player in the game. We've never been able to give skins for free before in League of Legends, so this is our way of saying, 'Hey, if you're a positive player in the game, here's your way of earning something just for playing the game and being awesome.'"