The Escapist On: Griefing
The Escapist Staff fesses up about their experiences with griefing.
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The Escapist Staff fesses up about their experiences with griefing.
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The Escapist Presents: The Escapist On: Griefing
- Thread starter Team Hollywood
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*evil laugh*
Our powers extend beyond the internets.
This video is going to make a huge base of griefers grin and cheer. Generally this is the kind of stuff griefers are looking for. Acceptance of defeat. It's even more fun when people refuse to give up, so don't even bother trying.
All I can really say after watching this video: Fucking owned.
Our powers extend beyond the internets.
This video is going to make a huge base of griefers grin and cheer. Generally this is the kind of stuff griefers are looking for. Acceptance of defeat. It's even more fun when people refuse to give up, so don't even bother trying.
All I can really say after watching this video: Fucking owned.
Killing people of the opposing faction on a PvP server is pretty normal, they're enemies after all so you kill them on sight. That's what factions mean.
The Eve ripoff seller, well, isn't the whole point of the game to make money? I wouldn't say that was a trick with no purpose, sounds more like a trick to make a ton of money quickly. Or did the money you pay end up flowing down the drain of the economy instead of going into that player's pockets?
IMO it's not griefing as long as it's done to a valid target, you're allowed to do anything you want to enemies but turning on your own team is where the freedom ends, you do that and you deserve a ban. Many people add stupid extra rules to games, especially RTSes, that ban any strategy they are unable to cope with (often because they plain suck at the game) and, well, sometimes they don't even spell them out. In Spring we have tons of people who complain about comnaps, comdrops, etc, all of which are high risk strategies that can either win the game immediately or lose it just as fast. Some people think those strategies are griefing but they're actually accounted for by the designers of the games.
The Eve ripoff seller, well, isn't the whole point of the game to make money? I wouldn't say that was a trick with no purpose, sounds more like a trick to make a ton of money quickly. Or did the money you pay end up flowing down the drain of the economy instead of going into that player's pockets?
IMO it's not griefing as long as it's done to a valid target, you're allowed to do anything you want to enemies but turning on your own team is where the freedom ends, you do that and you deserve a ban. Many people add stupid extra rules to games, especially RTSes, that ban any strategy they are unable to cope with (often because they plain suck at the game) and, well, sometimes they don't even spell them out. In Spring we have tons of people who complain about comnaps, comdrops, etc, all of which are high risk strategies that can either win the game immediately or lose it just as fast. Some people think those strategies are griefing but they're actually accounted for by the designers of the games.
Nothing to say on Griefing at the moment, but I did want to say that these Escapist On: videos are excellent.
Griefers are really an annoyance that need to be shot. Obviously I have a history with the jerks, so...where do I begin?
Over in World of Warcraft land, I was once ganked (killed by a higher-level player for no apparent reason) and corpsecamped (the person just kept killing me, waiting by my corpse to respawn) the entire length of a zone, once when I was trying to craft an item I was conned out of all my money by a greedy person (the item required me to buy another item from another crafter), the ninja looting is self-explanitory, and it's basically rinse and repeat the first item until I finally changed to a PvE server and eliminated the threat all together.
I don't know what runs through griefer's minds, all I know is I want them dead.
Over in World of Warcraft land, I was once ganked (killed by a higher-level player for no apparent reason) and corpsecamped (the person just kept killing me, waiting by my corpse to respawn) the entire length of a zone, once when I was trying to craft an item I was conned out of all my money by a greedy person (the item required me to buy another item from another crafter), the ninja looting is self-explanitory, and it's basically rinse and repeat the first item until I finally changed to a PvE server and eliminated the threat all together.
I don't know what runs through griefer's minds, all I know is I want them dead.
I don't game online. The more time passes, the more I start to enjoy that decision. At least when my buddy acts like a jerk I can reach over and belt him one if we're playing in the same room.
Strangely I tend to enjoy griefing. Back when I played WoW, a bunch of high level characters summoned an infernal and 'forgot' to control it in that little town outside Darnassus, causing him to wreak havoc. I was more curious than annoyed - I've never seen an actual infernal, after all.
Also I liked engaging on duels with higher lvl characters on the boat, then mind control them and jump off.
What does that say about me as a person?
Also I liked engaging on duels with higher lvl characters on the boat, then mind control them and jump off.
What does that say about me as a person?
If you grief once and you do it in a innovative clever way - fine.
If you endless do something dumb to screw other players endless and then talk in h4xor while doing it - not fine...
If you endless do something dumb to screw other players endless and then talk in h4xor while doing it - not fine...
I don't always see griefing as aiming it at particular player. but just abusing the way a online game works, in a way that isn't against the rules. that alone pisses people off. the character build system in guildwars is great, can make builds which often never take any damage depending on what other team has which is fun seeing the whole other team of 12 odd people trying to kill you and whining. theres also moves such as resurecting your own team, for a limited time, enchanting them to cause AoE damage on death and then causing them to die. theres so many different abilities that you can sometimes come up with some crazy stuff before it gets nerfed.
the eve guy in that video was hilarious, you could tell he was really upset about his money. i've been in simular situations. once in a different mmo someone acidently traded me their life savings, I gave alot of it back haha. but I've been scammed a few times and its anoying at the time but actually quite funny once you get over it.
like the guy mention griefing can just be harmless fun (friendly ribbing?). ie my guild took me to black castle in age of conan, and got me killed several times by stepping off wieghted pads causing me to singe to death each time, and getting hi my rolling bolder down the stairs. it was so funny, anoying but everyone was cackling.
I think griefing is fun, I mean it pisses me off but its all just a game. what I hate is hacking, genuine cheating that is what really "griefs" me.
the eve guy in that video was hilarious, you could tell he was really upset about his money. i've been in simular situations. once in a different mmo someone acidently traded me their life savings, I gave alot of it back haha. but I've been scammed a few times and its anoying at the time but actually quite funny once you get over it.
like the guy mention griefing can just be harmless fun (friendly ribbing?). ie my guild took me to black castle in age of conan, and got me killed several times by stepping off wieghted pads causing me to singe to death each time, and getting hi my rolling bolder down the stairs. it was so funny, anoying but everyone was cackling.
I think griefing is fun, I mean it pisses me off but its all just a game. what I hate is hacking, genuine cheating that is what really "griefs" me.
Griefing is like the Force: There is a dark side and a light side.
The Dark Side is easier, more seductive. It's about having your Spy able to place three traps a second, use other characters guns and turn invisible at will.
The Light Side is knowing the people that do that, burning them at their own game despite all their premium accounts and hacking, and still winning until they rage quit.
There's also reverse griefing, where you're actually nice to the people. That REALLY upsets the griefers. Applaud everytime they kill you. Ask how those hacks make you so awesome. Send them little friend requests.
I don't tend to get griefed so much now
The Dark Side is easier, more seductive. It's about having your Spy able to place three traps a second, use other characters guns and turn invisible at will.
The Light Side is knowing the people that do that, burning them at their own game despite all their premium accounts and hacking, and still winning until they rage quit.
There's also reverse griefing, where you're actually nice to the people. That REALLY upsets the griefers. Applaud everytime they kill you. Ask how those hacks make you so awesome. Send them little friend requests.
I don't tend to get griefed so much now
No, griefing cannot be stopped. Not like the guy said in the video, like just log out, go have a drink or something and when you come back, hopefully the giefer already left. That's cowardice. If you give in to the griefer, he already won, because the ultimate goal of a griefer is to ruin everyone else's fun to his own amusement. And if he manages to aggravate you to the point you quit the game, that's the victory dance for the griefer, because he defeated you, he proved that you are a n00b, you suck and he is the ultimate demigod of [insert game]. You won't ruin his fun by getting angry, and certainly not by (even indirectly) admitting defeat, in fact, you are making him stronger.
Griefer lives off of the...well...grief of their victims, it's in the name. If you take that away from him, he loses interest. The griefer feeds off of the pain, aggravation and misery of other players, but if you don't show any of that, soon he'll lose interest and move on. The best way to make a griefer leave, is to pay absolutely no attention to him. Mute him on voice chat and ignore everything he does. This is good for two reasons. One, you are not enabling him, and two, you won't get angry and ruin your own fun. Sure, you are a level 4 Nobody on the server, and he is a lvl 86 Warrior/Mage/Awesome and he killed you in one hit "kekeke! LOL n00b!"'d you, looted your lifeless corpse and left looking for other prey. Was that unfair? Sure. Was that evil? Yes. Can you do anything about it? No. So why get aggravated? You'll just making him have more fun, if you run around cursing his name. Accept the fact that such bastards exist, ignore the hell out of him, and try to have fun with the other, normal people on the server.
Griefer lives off of the...well...grief of their victims, it's in the name. If you take that away from him, he loses interest. The griefer feeds off of the pain, aggravation and misery of other players, but if you don't show any of that, soon he'll lose interest and move on. The best way to make a griefer leave, is to pay absolutely no attention to him. Mute him on voice chat and ignore everything he does. This is good for two reasons. One, you are not enabling him, and two, you won't get angry and ruin your own fun. Sure, you are a level 4 Nobody on the server, and he is a lvl 86 Warrior/Mage/Awesome and he killed you in one hit "kekeke! LOL n00b!"'d you, looted your lifeless corpse and left looking for other prey. Was that unfair? Sure. Was that evil? Yes. Can you do anything about it? No. So why get aggravated? You'll just making him have more fun, if you run around cursing his name. Accept the fact that such bastards exist, ignore the hell out of him, and try to have fun with the other, normal people on the server.
The problem is that is nigh impossible. For example, on the original CoD, our team was getting wiped out by a aimbot hacker - his gun would literally leap from headshot to head shoot, and it was virtually impossible to kill him. Old example, but I find it normally fits for most griefs in gaming.The_root_of_all_evil said:
Ultimately, (besides making you angry) griefing is stealing your time. Whether you're like the guy in the video who lost two years of his wealth or someone who's FPS or other competitive multiplayer game is being ruined by someone team killing, disrupting or refusing to take their turn, what the griefer is doing is taking away the time you set aside to have fun.
Games are supposed to be fun, or challenging. The griefer takes both away when they start playing with a rule set you're not familiar with. Like others, I'd argue that bullying by high-powered characters isn't really griefing - it's certainly something the devs expect when they built the system. The time-wasters can laugh and say "lighten up", but what they're doing is no different that walking into a restaurant and slapping food out of someone's hand and onto the floor. Hey, lighten up. You can always order more - it's just money. Money = Time.
I actually owe griefers a thank-you when they pissed me off enough to quit Ultima Online and Everquest years ago. In UO, I had played the game for 3 or 4 weeks, when I ran into a bully who just pounded & looted me, setting me back weeks of "effort". I got mad, then I got mad at myself for being upset, for caring about imaginary "gains" so much. The solution was not to "lighten up" but to quit entirely - the point of the game is to care about those imaginary gains, and I didn't want to waste time caring about something I had so little control over. I quit EQ for similar reasons, and decided that MMORPGs were a genre I could do without.
As for the time-wasting griefers, having to "compete" head on with them, who probably spend all their spare time reading forums and exchanging exploits with buddies, when I've spent my limited time just learning how to have fun with the game, is an a-priori losing position for me. Doing something else is the only option. Non-massive games can more or less solve this problem with vote-banning, or by having a non-responsive or voted-out client be taken over by AI.
Ultimately, the best solution is to just play with my friends. Why do I want to play games with strangers anyway, who can't be trusted to honor the implicit covenants of the game? How often does griefing occur in real life? Do you need to worry about your teammates in a pick-up football game deciding that it would be hilarious if the ran the wrong direction, or kept kicking the ball deep into the woods? No, because there are consequences. As long as there are no consequences for online griefers, I'll just stick with people I know.
Games are supposed to be fun, or challenging. The griefer takes both away when they start playing with a rule set you're not familiar with. Like others, I'd argue that bullying by high-powered characters isn't really griefing - it's certainly something the devs expect when they built the system. The time-wasters can laugh and say "lighten up", but what they're doing is no different that walking into a restaurant and slapping food out of someone's hand and onto the floor. Hey, lighten up. You can always order more - it's just money. Money = Time.
I actually owe griefers a thank-you when they pissed me off enough to quit Ultima Online and Everquest years ago. In UO, I had played the game for 3 or 4 weeks, when I ran into a bully who just pounded & looted me, setting me back weeks of "effort". I got mad, then I got mad at myself for being upset, for caring about imaginary "gains" so much. The solution was not to "lighten up" but to quit entirely - the point of the game is to care about those imaginary gains, and I didn't want to waste time caring about something I had so little control over. I quit EQ for similar reasons, and decided that MMORPGs were a genre I could do without.
As for the time-wasting griefers, having to "compete" head on with them, who probably spend all their spare time reading forums and exchanging exploits with buddies, when I've spent my limited time just learning how to have fun with the game, is an a-priori losing position for me. Doing something else is the only option. Non-massive games can more or less solve this problem with vote-banning, or by having a non-responsive or voted-out client be taken over by AI.
Ultimately, the best solution is to just play with my friends. Why do I want to play games with strangers anyway, who can't be trusted to honor the implicit covenants of the game? How often does griefing occur in real life? Do you need to worry about your teammates in a pick-up football game deciding that it would be hilarious if the ran the wrong direction, or kept kicking the ball deep into the woods? No, because there are consequences. As long as there are no consequences for online griefers, I'll just stick with people I know.
wow, I enjoyed watching that, heh. ^_^
Anyway, That was one of the reasons I enjoyed being a Priest in Ragnarok Online when dealing with greifers. If there is one thing you dont do, its mess with a priest. in RO its possible to heal and buff enemies for some odd reason, so If some fool came around with a mob train to kill my friends, I would just follow them around, healing and buffing the enemies they are trying to kill, You wouldnt believe how hard some enemies can be to kill when they are being heal slaved by a pissed off healer. Also, If they tried to use a hiding skill to get away, I can dispel it, and most of all, you NEVER mess with someone who could just send you to the bottom of a dungeon. hehe... I guess that sort of made me a counter-Greifer on occasion back then, though.
So there is at least one game where fighting greifers isnt impossible. even causing some noob greifers to run away with their tails between their legs.
Dont mess with healers. ^_^
Anyway, That was one of the reasons I enjoyed being a Priest in Ragnarok Online when dealing with greifers. If there is one thing you dont do, its mess with a priest. in RO its possible to heal and buff enemies for some odd reason, so If some fool came around with a mob train to kill my friends, I would just follow them around, healing and buffing the enemies they are trying to kill, You wouldnt believe how hard some enemies can be to kill when they are being heal slaved by a pissed off healer. Also, If they tried to use a hiding skill to get away, I can dispel it, and most of all, you NEVER mess with someone who could just send you to the bottom of a dungeon. hehe... I guess that sort of made me a counter-Greifer on occasion back then, though.
So there is at least one game where fighting greifers isnt impossible. even causing some noob greifers to run away with their tails between their legs.
Dont mess with healers. ^_^
These games have weak rule-sets if they permit 'griefing' without some commensurate balance - i.e. betrayal punishment.
e.g. rather than have team-killing as a result of friendly-fire being turned on in an FPS, just have your gun jam (and stay awkwardly jammed for a while thereafter, if you explicitly aim and then try to shoot a member of your own team), running and gunning stray-bullets should just be ignored, but the penetration factor of those that miss your team-mates and hit the enemy should be reduced (to encourage precision).
Obviously, splash-damage from a rocket-launcher can't easily be forgiven so that should lead to an immediate option on the part of those murdered by their team-mate to boot the betrayer (first offense punishment).
An interesting case occurs in Halo MP, where I was in a team-flag game and was followed back to our side as I carried the flag by a cloaked team-mate, who killed me just before I could score the final flag of the match. He was then killed by another, not for revenge (for Griefing), but so that they could score the point, but they were killed by another, etc. We very nearly didn't win as a result. I didn't mind being killed... after all, I am Uncompetative, rather than UltraSuperCompetitive... However, it seemed to me to be fairly lame behaviour. I did note with some interest that this tactic was only employed at the end of the match when I wouldn't get the option to boot them as the game was already over.
Clever eh?
This suggests that the scoring for the game should ideally take note of this sort of behaviour and not award points to people who do this.
i.e. no Flag Capture bonus if you have betrayed a team-mate during the game.
e.g. rather than have team-killing as a result of friendly-fire being turned on in an FPS, just have your gun jam (and stay awkwardly jammed for a while thereafter, if you explicitly aim and then try to shoot a member of your own team), running and gunning stray-bullets should just be ignored, but the penetration factor of those that miss your team-mates and hit the enemy should be reduced (to encourage precision).
Obviously, splash-damage from a rocket-launcher can't easily be forgiven so that should lead to an immediate option on the part of those murdered by their team-mate to boot the betrayer (first offense punishment).
An interesting case occurs in Halo MP, where I was in a team-flag game and was followed back to our side as I carried the flag by a cloaked team-mate, who killed me just before I could score the final flag of the match. He was then killed by another, not for revenge (for Griefing), but so that they could score the point, but they were killed by another, etc. We very nearly didn't win as a result. I didn't mind being killed... after all, I am Uncompetative, rather than UltraSuperCompetitive... However, it seemed to me to be fairly lame behaviour. I did note with some interest that this tactic was only employed at the end of the match when I wouldn't get the option to boot them as the game was already over.
Clever eh?
This suggests that the scoring for the game should ideally take note of this sort of behaviour and not award points to people who do this.
i.e. no Flag Capture bonus if you have betrayed a team-mate during the game.