Griefing - Is it OK?

[rated pg]

You need to redefine "griefing" since griefing in EVE isn't the use or abuse of a game mechanic that was not intended by the game's developers, nor is it the inability of the victim to exact some means of retribution beyond utilizing similar unintended game mechanics. In EVE, griefing is when a player or group of players needlessly harass and attack others for the sole reason of it being enjoyable for them. Piracy and thieving are not griefing in EVE as they are for personal gain. I think griefing in the way you described it is wrong, but griefing like in EVE is not.

You've realy got a boner for big spaceships dont ya?

Um... I was just saying EVE since I don't know much about griefing in any other game.

Some examples of griefing: Counter-Strike: Source: blocking your line of fire or flash bomb spam.

World of Warcraft: Kill healers/tanks while they fighting bosses, waiting for a player to cut his way to a mine/treasure box just get it while he fights the last boss.

That's not hacking or exploiting the game, that's just exploiting others for your own personal gain.

No one ever said griefing couldn't be for personal gain. But basically you are causing misery or annoyance on another player with full knowledge you are being an asshole. PvP in MMOs is a bit different and there's some grey area. But say, camping a guy with 5 friends could definitely be considered that. Stealing someone's ore (or any crafting resource) just before they get to it or taking all their quest kills and tagging them all for no reason as well. In WoW, one of the best ways is using Mind Control...either to kill guys on your faction or to run them off a cliff or whatever.

 

[DancingMonkey]

Its a fine line between receiving personal gain and just being annoying. I rather focus on the intent. Sometimes people on your team are annoying through incompetence, through the inherent flawed structure of the game, etc. Being unintentionally annoying is not griefing.

If your getting paid in some in-game reward, you're using an exploit and perhaps being a greedy jerk.

A griefer is out to cause trouble for other players for the sake of their misery. It is, its own reward.

 

[PhoenixFlame]

On principle/ethics, I have to say no off the top of my head. But, there is something to be said about being warned about something like a more aggressive ruleset or ones that follow the anonymous fuckwad theory made famous by Penny Arcade, and joining it anyway. You reap what you sow.

In MMOs specifically, I was a pre-Trammel UO player and ganked my fair share of newbies for their cash (since it was much easier to take starting money than earn it yourself). I played on PvP servers in other games and camped and ganked and got ganked. I always did it for the enjoyment of player engagement and the occasional spat of revenge, but I never took it to the level that some people do, as in hours upon hours of camping, killing players even with exploits, and just out and out being a jackass.

The people who login to any game with the specific intent of making someone angry enough to log off through griefing disgust me personally. The sad part is that the immediate argument of these people is that people should not be taking a game seriously, when in fact they themselves are doing just that, by being consciously and seriously jerky enough to cause people the biggest amount of anger and grief when they log in. I don't particularly care for people who take advantage of the fact that people just want to have fun playing a game, instead of logging out in frustration.

That being said, like I said, players also need to take responsibility for the conditions they play in, by joining up with groups, playing with people who they like and enjoy, and being careful about the choices they make.

 

[Xivilai87]

On a side note: As for letting the guy in Res evil die so much..should've just kicked him from the game since it apparently harmed your rankings also. No sense in cutting your own nose off just to spite someone.

well thats where i think its wrong. if i cut him from the game, any sort of treasures i've collected for the mission are lost, and i have to go through again to collect them. and he also got these treasures. so he was infact being rewarded for sticking around, but when hes playing stupid, and doesnt understand the coop mechanics of a game, and demands everything that was dropping in my game because i was "good enough as it is and i dont need it". basically acting like a dillhole, why should i bother to help him?

he was rewarded with end mission treasures for staying, but i'm not gonna help him if hes continually cussing me out over nothing. i'm not going to babysit him, and i didnt cuss him out for dying or anything. its my form of non-violent, non-aggressive retaliation. and they entire time, i didnt interfere with the way he plays the game. i didnt handicap him in any way. he could have avoided it if he was playing smarter.

and that is not greifing.

if i had lobbed flashbang grenades at him to make him vulnerable to be grabbed, i would consider it greifing, but thats not how it happened.

so as far as i'm concerned, it wasnt greifing. theres a lot of things i could have done, but i stopped myself, and just played the game.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

A friend and I spent the better part of an hour essentially griefing each other while playing one of the Halo games in co-op mode. Someone accidentally blew up the other person with a grenade and it quickly turned into a "who can kill the other guy fastest" contest. It was tons of fun. However, I would generally not condone griefing in online play because there's a good chance you don't know the person and they probably won't appreciate the humor you might find in the whole thing.

 

[Doug]

No, griefing is just mean to people who want to play games for fun without stress.

Agreed.

Griefs piss me off because they ruin time that I should be having fun in. Basically, they get their kicks out of taking away fun from others. The word for that is 'scum'.

 

[johnman]

Pc gamer did an article on it and some of the ideas they showcased were very creative.
As long as its not constant bug or hack expliotation i do enjoy griefing, especailly when its someone who totaly had it coming.

 

[Hexadecimal16]

Griefing is my anti-drug. Seriously. It's one hell of a stress reliever. Oh and don't think you can just get rid of a griefer on sight. We have ways of keeping ourselves concealed and protected. Personally I use the subtle griefing method. Basically just tampering with things while out of sight that once people notice it, they'll be immediately ticked off and not know who dunnit while I sit chuckling in my chair.

However, I've kicked the habit of being a griefer a while ago, since I'm an admin on a few servers now. Trying to keep my rep up you see? Sometimes I might use an alias if I really just need to piss someone off.


Oh and you can't call yourself a griefer if you've only done it once or twice because you thought it would be funny or were ina bad mood. Nah, real griefers take dedication to their artwork.

Why would you want to be dedicated to griefing?

 

[Mr_spamamam]

no.

Or killing someone in an MMO when they are killing a rare monster, a few seconds before they actually score the kill over and over again.

mate, seriously. thats harsh. that is the kinda thing that makes people think that online games are cunts. if your gonna grief people then why not do it in real life. go out into the street and piss off random strangers. because thats essentially what your doing. just because you cant see the other person doesn't make it ok

 

[Digitaldreamer7]

You need to redefine "griefing" since griefing in EVE isn't the use or abuse of a game mechanic that was not intended by the game's developers, nor is it the inability of the victim to exact some means of retribution beyond utilizing similar unintended game mechanics. In EVE, griefing is when a player or group of players needlessly harass and attack others for the sole reason of it being enjoyable for them. Piracy and thieving are not griefing in EVE as they are for personal gain. I think griefing in the way you described it is wrong, but griefing like in EVE is not.

KK EVE kinda sucks and this is a universal definition, not griefing as defined by eve.

judging griefing should go by a situation-to-situation basis. you cant make a final judgement about it because it varies from game to game, match to match, and person to person.

look at world of warcraft, 2 level 80s could PvP. if one dies, they are forced to respawn with reduced health. the winner of the fight could be waiting for the respawn only to strike again. and if he kills the unfortunate player again, he is still getting honor. he could sit there for hours and keep doing it if he really wanted to.

i dont think this is griefing. but someone else might. my arguement here is that hes not abusing any game mechanics, he is jumping on an advantage in order to gain points, and further his own development.


if this same 80 in the same game were to do this to a level 20 however, hes not gaining anything, and its griefing.


recently, i was playing Resident Evil 5 online in a coop match. the person i was playing with sounded like he was 8-12 years old, screaming through the headset in a high pitched voice at anything and everything. i was hosting the game, and he would get upset every time i picked up gold or treasure before him (anyone who has played knows its shared in online play). he said i have all this upgraded gear, and that i didnt need it. i told him to calm down, explained that its shared, and to just play, or i would be kicking him out of my game.

he continued screaming everytime i picked anything up, so i had enough, and decided to irritate him to give him something to scream about. several times he ran ahead of me, and when an enemy grabbed him, i had the choice to shoot the enemy and save him, or let him die. obviously, i let him die on several occasions. the round ended horrible, with bad rankings because of his high death count, and he was screaming at me the whole time.

is this griefing? i dont consider it to be. it was his actions that led me to this, and he could have just left my game at any time. some might say it was my form of "retiribution", others might say that i was 100% griefing.

griefing is a grey area of gaming. i dont think we can ever truly get a clear black and white answer on it because its never going to be the same.

The correct action was to help him anyway. Did he deserve your help? No. But by not being the bigger man you were simply griefing.
Your WoW example was bullying. The man saw an opportunity to pick on someone who wouldn't have had a fair chance to fight back, and he was exploiting that fact to get honor at the expense of the other person getting up and getting his health back. That person was griefing.

The WoW example is not griefing, that person is playing on a PvP server, they are well aware that this happens on a PvP Based server. The Devs of the game give you a way to escape by taking a spirit rez... If you wanna role play go to a RP or a PvE server. If you didnt know these exist then thats your problem for not reading up on the game you pay to play before choosing a server

 

[Baonec]

Not OK.
It's fun at the expense of other people.

Technically all online games are based about fun at the expense of others, when you kill someone on COD or TF2 while YOU may be enjoying it the person you killed aren't going to have liked it.

 

[MariusLecter]

Greifing is OK!

WoW: Anyone who's played will know this saying... If it's red, it's dead.

DoD Source: People seem to think me ramboing with the MG42 is griefing, so yea there's that.

 

[ElderScribe]

I don't think it's ok but this is also coming from a person who plays a healer role in MMO's.

I haven't had much problems with griefing because i tend to make friends early in whatever game i'm playing, being a back-up healer for a group at the expense of leveling up my own character, giving out free buffs/rez and basically just being an all-around good guy.

So i guess it's a problem if your the one being affected by it.

 

[Ace of Spades]

When I'm a sniper, and someone is standing in front of me just to be an ass, I blow us both to bits with a frag grenade.

 

[MariusLecter]

When I'm a sniper, and someone is standing in front of me just to be an ass, I blow us both to bits with a frag grenade.

I wait till I'm certain I have a shot at a guy on the other side of him... then I shoot him in the back of the head and 90% of the time I get a TWOFER!!!

 

[Eipok Kruden]

No one ever said griefing couldn't be for personal gain. But basically you are causing misery or annoyance on another player with full knowledge you are being an asshole. PvP in MMOs is a bit different and there's some grey area. But say, camping a guy with 5 friends could definitely be considered that. Stealing someone's ore (or any crafting resource) just before they get to it or taking all their quest kills and tagging them all for no reason as well. In WoW, one of the best ways is using Mind Control...either to kill guys on your faction or to run them off a cliff or whatever.

Piracy and thievery aren't griefing. Neither are assassination or trickery. Not all non-consensual PvP is griefing. If you don't like PvP, go to a normal server, or, if you play EVE, stick to high sec.

KK EVE kinda sucks and this is a universal definition, not griefing as defined by eve.

And that's a fact is it? No. What is a fact is that WoW kinda sucks. And the "universal" definition of griefing doesn't apply to EVE, which is why I explained the difference

 

[Digitaldreamer7]

No one ever said griefing couldn't be for personal gain. But basically you are causing misery or annoyance on another player with full knowledge you are being an asshole. PvP in MMOs is a bit different and there's some grey area. But say, camping a guy with 5 friends could definitely be considered that. Stealing someone's ore (or any crafting resource) just before they get to it or taking all their quest kills and tagging them all for no reason as well. In WoW, one of the best ways is using Mind Control...either to kill guys on your faction or to run them off a cliff or whatever.

Piracy and thievery aren't griefing. Neither are assassination or trickery. Not all non-consensual PvP is griefing. If you don't like PvP, go to a normal server, or, if you play EVE, stick to high sec.

KK EVE kinda sucks and this is a universal definition, not griefing as defined by eve.

And that's a fact is it? No. What is a fact is that WoW kinda sucks. And the "universal" definition of griefing doesn't apply to EVE, which is why I explained the difference

well if you want to get technical me saying eve sucks was my OPINION same as you saying WoW Sucks. at least I didn't state that what I said was fact.

As far as griefing goes, unless its a bug, I don't think griefing exists. As someone stated above, if killing the other team is the point of the game then all the fun you have is at the expense of others. If the other team is so aweful that you fight them all the way back to the spawn point and just continue to kill them until the round is over it's not "camping" or "Griefing" it's just the result of an unmatched skill level. In an MMO I can understand when someone lvl 20 is getting stalked by someone who is level 80. if the devs have put in an escape route use it. if the devs have different types of servers you can play on to avoid this, use them. Running up and getting ore that is next to someone else who is killing someone isn't griefing, who am I to know that they can even mine that ore, im just out ore hunting they may be out killing stuff. It may be more polite to ask before taking but that doesnt make it "griefing." If no rule exists against the said action then it can not be considered wrong. If it is a "bug" then hopefully someone is in the process of fixing it. If not, then find something else to play.