Recent players

This topic describes how interactions with other players are recorded to build player relationships or report feedback. When players interact with each other in a multiplayer activity, titles should record their interaction by using Multiplayer Activity (MPA). If the interaction was positive, players can send friend invites, game invites, and messages. If the interaction was negative, players can report feedback.

Titles should be careful to post only meaningful interactions with players to prevent flooding the recent players list with extraneous players. For instance, a "battle royale"–style game might have 100 players in it. However, the title should only record players who have actually interacted with each other, as opposed to submitting that all 100 players have played with each other.

Unidirectional players vs. bidirectional groups

MPA accepts two concepts of player interaction. In the unidirectional players concept, the title reports that player A has played with one or more players. This should occur for every player who has affected player A. As a result, each of these players appears on player A's recent players list. All players should individually report their own interactions.

Servers are also allowed to report batches of recent players in this way.

In the bidirectional groups concept, all players are known to have interacted with each other. For example, in a four-versus-four shooter game or an eight-player race, the game can detect in advance that all players should appear in each others' players list. They can call an API that has a list of players. MPA ensures that every player has every other player added to their recent players list. Only servers are allowed to submit bidirectional groups.

Encounter types

MPA supports recording the type of encounter that has occurred. Titles can specify an encounterType field. It has the allowed values of Default, Teammate, and Opponent. If unspecified, the field defaults to Default. Specifying this field gives players the opportunity to more easily differentiate between various types of encounters.