Will Grief for Laughs

[Lauren Admire]

Will Grief for Laughs

Most people will agree that griefers are just something that must be endured if you want to enjoy a multiplayer game. But have you ever tried talking to one?

We've all run into our fair share of griefers - from corpse camping to World of Warcraft, to level 60's killing level 10 noobs, griefers have been around for as long as there have been multiplayer games. But have you ever talked to one, tried to get in their head and figure out what makes them tick? Shannon Drake, in Jerk on the Internet is a griefer specializing in Team Kills in Counter-Strike. If you ask him what makes his day, he'll reply with:

[blockquote]
"Dropping a grenade into my team's spawn isn't particularly funny, but doing it while blasting "Banana Phone" turned griefing into a multimedia art form. It also increased my urges to screw with people. Angry chat messages just don't hold the thrill of listening to a guy's voice getting higher and higher, quivering with righteous indignation, threatening my mother and myself. I will keep pushing until I get kicked or until I hit tears, tears of pure comedic gold." [/blockquote]

I have to admit that hearing "Banana Phone" is always a cause for a giggle, but then again, I'm not into shooters. Read more about the griefer mindset in Jerk on the Internet [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_19/123-Jerk-on-the-Internet] and discuss the finer points of griefing.

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[ProfessorLayton]

It's funny for you, but not the rest of the team. When someone joins my game of Left 4 Dead, kills all of the team during the finale, says "DON'T BUY LEFT 4 DEAD 2! JOIN THE BOYCOTT!" and then leaves I get pretty pissed off. But I guess if it's for the lulz then I can't complain...

 

[Eric the Orange]

Greifers get pleasure (laughs) out of the pain (anger, annoyance) of others. The real life term for this is sadists, and people don't think that's funny.

 

[Ciarang]

Heh heh, I'd be so good at griefing if I ever wanted to...

 

[Amnestic]

Well I have this habit of talking to myself, so in regards to the question of "Have I talked to one?" I would have to say: Yes, yes I have.

But then again, I played on a PvE server. If it was red, it was dead until it wasn't red anymore. Sorry, if you're foolish enough to be running around the Barrens at level 12 with PvP on I'm not going to take it easy on you.

I recently saw a compilation video of someone on CoD4 using an RPG, Sonic Boom and another perk or two on Hardcore Search and Destroy.

Needless to say, teamkills galore. It was pretty funny at the time. Especially when he deliberately changed his clan tag to get on a specific person's team.

Griefing for me was a way to pass the time. Something to do while I make my way across continents to my destination. All the better if they called on their level 80 friends and I actually got a real fight out of it so I had a challenge. Whenever my PvP turned on, I expected to be jumped be it by one guy or five guys going instancing. When I enter low-sec space in EVE, I expect to get ganked at gates if I don't go alone.

Griefing is a natural part of MMO play. People hate other people and causing others suffering gives us enjoyment. Why go against the flow?

Greifers get pleasure (laughs) out of the pain (anger, annoyance) of others. The real life term for this is sadists, and people don't think that's funny.

MMO Games. Serious business.

 

[sneakypenguin]

Wow thats an old article. That said straight up TKing is lame, if its creative griefing then I'm fine with it.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

It's funny for you, but not the rest of the team. When someone joins my game of Left 4 Dead, kills all of the team during the finale, says "DON'T BUY LEFT 4 DEAD 2! JOIN THE BOYCOTT!" and then leaves I get pretty pissed off. But I guess if it's for the lulz then I can't complain...

that's amazing if that happens, L4D mentalists are actively ruining the L4D1 gaming experience...to... make people stay on L4D1?

What next, PETA outside McDonald with a herd, and saying 'We're going to kill a cow for everyone that goes in there!'

I've experienced WOW groups where some nice item will drop, and someone will need, then run around aggroing a dozen enemies, then shield and leave, killing everyone in the group while stealing the prize.

Personally, I founded a guild on WOW with the intent to help new players and have a friendly, no pressure place to enjoy the game in, and we're still, after 3 years ridiculed for failing at raiding, because we don't. I'm sure they'll also taunt Stephen Hawking for his lousy skills at soccer, despite his talents in other fields. We try to actively instil a feeling of right and wrong, honesty, decency, and politeness in our members, to the point where I hope they're welcomed into raiding guilds when they feel it's time to move on.

After all, gear can always be got, experience in raiding comes with time, but breeding the asshole out of assholes takes far more work, and I'll take an undergeared nice guy over a greedy rude fuckwit in full epics any day.

EDIT: I am aware of the irony in promoting politeness and then using a Prof Stephen Hawking reference and calling people fuckwits, but I think it still stands, and the reference is not making fun, more to make fun of the idiots.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Read more about the griefer mindset in Jerk on the Internet [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_19/123-Jerk-on-the-Internet] and discuss the finer points of griefing.

Colour me curious. Why link to a 4 year old article?

 

[DeadAccountMoveAlong]

It's always fun reading an old article, and the older ones on griefing just reinforce my opinion that it is an immortal form of art.

There are two types of griefers, the hardcore griefers like my cousin who mark their controller every time they make a kid cry, and the casual ones like myself. Those of us who make a sport out of healing enemy spies aren't evil, we're just having fun. Honestly, I think the serious gamers are making more of a bastardization out of gaming than the griefers are.

If a griefer gets team killed, we laugh and brush it off. We're enjoying ourselves, we are playing a game. If a serious gamer gets team killed, even on accident, I've seen many a time where he will hunt down that person to the ends of the earth to return the favor. This is much more sadistic and interruptive than someone who tries to have fun and play a game.

 

[Distorted Stu]

Im the guy who on christmas day, plays all my online games and only goes for the people who just got the game from Santa. Making them hate the game and never want to play again mwhahahaaaa

 

[Nimbus]

A news post about a four year old article?

 

[IrrelevantTangent]

Greifers get pleasure (laughs) out of the pain (anger, annoyance) of others. The real life term for this is sadists, and people don't think that's funny.

You're right, but unfortunately for us, all griefers do whenever they get questioned as to why they do what they do is, "stop taking things so seriously! Lighten up! It's just a game! Why so serious?" I wasn't aware that schadenfreude was supposed to be a healthy human activity. Playing for the sole purpose of ruining other peoples' experiences has a name, and as Eric the Orange said, it's called sadism.

This is also Encyclopedia Dramatica's primary defense whenever they offend people. According to them, you shouldn't take anything seriously on the Internet, so they shouldn't be held accountable for anything they do on the Internet. Makes sense, right?

 

[scotth266]

Griefing all depends on the atmosphere. If it's a "serious" game, I don't even think about it: that's actively being a dick. In a "for the lolz" game, I'll do whatever earns the most lolz, but I don't actively seek to grief.

 

[Katherine Kerensky]

Just reading that article made me hate the person who wrote it.
I can't stand people who do things like that. people are playing the game to have some fun, then... people... like that do what they do.
I suppose it's my intolerance to jerks.
If you're going to fuck with someone, at least do it to their face, instead of hiding behind a computer screen[/rant]
*Fire in heart dies out* uugghhh...

 

[Booze Zombie]

It's funny, griefers like to explain away their actions with psychology majors and other such things that seem to amount to them basically saying "I'm smart, suffer for my pleasure".
Really, it's the same type of mentality that inspires school shootings and suicide bombings.
"I'm smart... I'm bored... HIGHER CAUSE!"

I never see them analyse themselves, I wonder why...

This is also Encyclopedia Dramatica's primary defense whenever they offend people. According to them, you shouldn't take anything seriously on the Internet, so they shouldn't be held accountable for anything they do on the Internet. Makes sense, right?

Of course, it's "just the internet", it's not like it's the biggest advancement in communications ever made to date and that it's an amazingly complex piece of tech with limitless potential for the human species to use.

Fuck it, let's ruin someone else's down time whilst contributing nothing of value to the world.

 

[Chipperz]

This is also Encyclopedia Dramatica's primary defense whenever they offend people. According to them, you shouldn't take anything seriously on the Internet, so they shouldn't be held accountable for anything they do on the Internet. Makes sense, right?

Yup, and yet, when you write a piece on how most of the population of 4Chan is old enough to still remember what it was like to be in their mother's vagina, and go there again as much as possible, suddenly taking everything as a light hearted joke just seems to go away.

Strange but true.

Just reading that article made me hate the person who wrote it.
I can't stand people who do things like that. people are playing the game to have some fun, then... people... like that do what they do.
I suppose it's my intolerance to jerks.
If you're going to fuck with someone, at least do it to their face, instead of hiding behind a computer screen[/rant]
*Fire in heart dies out* uugghhh...

I think that was the entire point of the article. I spent the entire time reading it thinking "wow, he doesn't have man-parts and is projecting his insecurities into games (c'mon! The guy's called Shannon!)!", but I have the feeling I was meant to.

Most importantly, why bring up this again? It's making me wonder what the point of a four-year old article on griefing is doing being pointed out. New influx of trolls forecast?

 

[Getatron]

Wait, finer details about griefing? There's something "fine" about it?

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

Greifers get pleasure (laughs) out of the pain (anger, annoyance) of others. The real life term for this is sadists, and people don't think that's funny.

Complete agreement here. Griefers are sick fucks and I have no sympathy, empathy or understanding for their attitudes at all. Frankly, they can all fuck off and die.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

Oops, double post.

 

[Lauren Admire]

Read more about the griefer mindset in Jerk on the Internet [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_19/123-Jerk-on-the-Internet] and discuss the finer points of griefing.

Colour me curious. Why link to a 4 year old article?

Cause good writing and interesting points never die? Seriously though, some of these articles may be old, but not everyone has read them. It's asking a lot to assume that people will dig through 120 odd issues of The Escapist, so we choose interesting, older articles and bring them back into the limelight.