Original Comment by: RandomGriefer
I think the author of this article, with all due respect, doesn?t really understand what a griefing truly is, because self admittedly he is not one of us, therefore he cannot understand why we do it as evidenced by the following quote: ?Most of us, myself included, wish it would just go away. But I'm willing to grant that griefing is good because it's evidence that an MMOG is more than the sum of its software, and players are trying to use the platform to do more than just play a game.? To me it sounds like the author would rather us griefers just leave him alone and we can do what we want as long as it doesn?t affect him.
Griefers like to grief because they can, we like to push the envelope as far as game mechanics will go and in game rules go. It?s deeper than simply having a griefer impose their freedoms and choices on you by ganking you in Stranglethorn Vale. Getting ganked in Stranglethorn Vale is an accepted consequence from entering a contested zone on a PvP server. Griefing ss entirely about us forcing our volition on you in a matter, that makes you want to log off the game completely, because we have ruined your gaming experience. We make you plan the game on our terms and on our level, we don?t leave any of the decision making to you, it?s all about us.
This is not an example of griefing: ?It wouldn't be a game without competition, though, and in MMOGs, which only tangentially support direct competition between players, players have found ways to compete over the most important resources of all: choice and control. By going outside the virtual physics of a gaming universe, they can attempt to define not only themselves, but the world.? This is an example of playing the game to win, controlling resources in WoW is part of the game, controlling the outdoor dragon spawns is a conflict the developers intended to implement.
You chose the wrong MMOG(World of Warcraft) for the baseline argument to why griefing is good. WoW does not support the griefer lifestyle in any long lasting fashion. Every faced of WoW that is griefer friendly eventually gets neutered by the developers. Town camping was destroyed by the implementation of honor system and dishonorable kills. There are very few aspects left in WoW that let?s griefers have their way.
I?ve been a griefer for 10 years in MMOG?s, starting in Ultima Online and over time, I have watched all my avenues for griefing go down the tubes. In UO, they implemented stat loss for killing people, they implemented a carbon copy of the evil world(Felucca) and created the good world(Trammel), that didn?t allow players to be killed innocently.
Games today cannot exist when they are run by griefers, MMOG companies look to erase all elements of griefing, because they do not want their client base being chased offline and out of the game by a bunch of out of control griefers. Games that support simply fail, look at Shadowbane for example, that game was a griefers paradise, players controlled every aspect of the world. But what happens when one griefer out-griefs another grifer? A win condition is met and MMOG death, which is exactly happened to Shadowbane.
Back to my original argument, that the author doesn?t understand what griefing is, and if he did, he?d understand my next and final statement: Griefing is Bad.
