The Escapist Presents: The Escapist On: Griefing

[Uncompetative]

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.

So if I'm shooting rockets at someone and some retard runs in front of them, I'm not supposed to get any points?

If you aimed at them first, yes. If the rocket was in-flight for some time and they moved into its path, tough luck for them. They should have heard it coming. This stuff could be programmed.

It's great, in theory, but getting a computer to understand a human's intent is even harder than getting a judge to convict a bad guy with a good lawyer. We humans have a great luxury in our ability to be deceptive. Herein lies the function of the griefer: to force the gaming world to think about solving new problems. Applying a new consequence to a grief tactic will only create a newer, potentially more annoying grief tactic.

I would even go so far as to say a completely grief-proof game would probably be no fun for anyone. In this perfect game, all elements of randomness become useless. A game in any form is a collection of random numbers, and some functions applied to those numbers. Reducing the number of random numbers or increasing the number of functions makes a game turn into a process, which is likely to be as un-fun as it sounds.

So, just relax already. Griefing is a normal part of the world we live in, and in the gaming world too. It isn't as much of a menace as the outspoken whiners would have you think.

You only have to look at Sports like Soccer (i.e. the Offside rule), to see that as players of a game get more expert the game's rules have to be revised and expanded to discourage "gamesmanship". You have a referee handing out yellow and red cards, which affect that player in that game and the next - so the concept of a 'Professional Foul' has to be balanced against the worth of that player being made to sit on the benches in the next match. So many people play Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 Multiplayer (let alone all those MMORPGs) that the issue of balance (or moderation) becomes an issue.

Look at how The Escapist has a 'REPORT' button. Something like this could help the community in an MMORPG, with the game logic only reporting a 'bad' player if many unconnected players all complained and the statistics that had tracked their actions at that time (which may or may not correspond to griefing, as you would obviously get malicious reports), then an analysis could be produced for the moderator to decide upon their behaviour. These moderators may even be elected members of the community (in forced rotation, like jurors).

The thing is the future of entertainment is going comprise a lot more of this multiplayer/social-network/virtual world type of thing and the developers who make a fair and balanced (and relatively griefing-free) MMORPG will gain disaffected users from MMOs that don't bother...

 

[mszv]

I'm amazed at how accepting the people in the interview were to griefing, and how some of them were fine with what one of them called "griefing" another person - as an example, stomping on another low level person after they got to be high level, because "someone did it to them". The interviewees seemed like nice people, but honestly, did they have to conform so much to the stereotype of "20 some year old guys full of testosterone wanting to prove themselves". (Yes, there were a couple of exceptions). Oddly enough, for being people who look at games, they seemed oddly accepting of the game mechanics that let you grief. I didn't see one idea on how game design can be changed to minimize griefing. That tells me something.

What have I learned - well, I've learned that it's good that I never played the original Everquest, and watch out for FPS games, because people think it's fun to not play fair. I've learned, from another post, that there is some amount of griefing in WoW, in the PvE areas. I've learned that, at least from this interview, it never occurs to some people that there are other people out there who want to play online games, but don't want to put up with this garbage. I've learned that, for the most part, the people in this video think that griefing is something online gamers have to put up with - "that's how it is". All I can say - the game companies have a free ride here!

What I'd like to know
- how can game design minimize griefing? I personally think instancing is a good thing, but then you don't get to meet people, except people you already know. So, what else can be done? Is there a way to report a griefer and get it to work? Is there a way to diminish your griefing population over time? Is there a way to make PvE really PvE and not another name for sneaky PvP? If I wanted to PvP that's what I'd do.

- are there MMO games out there where the game population, in general, is not as much into griefing as other game populations? In Guild Wars griefing is not much of an issue, due to the design. How about LOTRO, as an example - I like LOTRO. Is the griefing less in Everquest 2? How about Runes of Magic? What can you do to have a positive playing experience, particularly when you have very low tolerance for that sort of thing - just not play? That's a pretty sad commentary on the state of things.

 

[zoozilla]

Very nice video. Great to be able to attach faces to some of the Escapist guys and get some deeper insight into a topic in a more relaxed way.

Fortunately, I haven't had much experience with griefing - then again, I don't play many online games, and I'm not that great anyway. I do fully support gaming "by the rules", especially online, but I think every gamer has griefed at least once, if you define griefing as not playing by the game's rules.

The Sims is a good example. There's great fun to be had in completely destroying a Sim's life - starving them, having them catch on fire, etc. I think griefers get the same sort of pleasure, just in an online setting.

Oh, and I really dug the music. Whose tunes were used?

 

[whaleswiththumbs]

This is cool, good job Russ. One of my favorite videos

 

[duty nco]

When I played America's Army online I had a 2nd account for the hackers and griefers. He was my enforcer and I would tk them using him. I lost lots of ROE points but it worked most of the time. I would have rather been able to punch or kick them in game or else butt stroke them with my rifle or else pistol whip them but that was not possible.

 

[Rajin Cajun]

I love GRIEFING! xD I used to do it a lot on PvP Muds I even tried it once on WoW which became pretty damn hysterical. Ahh the life of a Griefer is pure win.

 

[Allan Foe]

This suggests that the scoring for the game should ideally take note of this sort of behavior 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.

Hoh hoh hoh! Imagine that the system you propose is somehow implemented. Now imagine me constantly jumping into your line of fire -- totally unproductive, but it would totally ruin your score! A very realistic scenario, no?

Note:
I have never been a target of griefing and never griefed anyone, such a lucky and utterly boring person I am.

 

[Russ Pitts]

Oh, and I really dug the music. Whose tunes were used?

Younnat [http://www.younnat.com/]

 

[Brutos]

I have to strongly disagree that griefers cannot be stopped.

I have a good amount of experience with griefers. From a hl2 mod called Empiresmod. It had some serious griefing problems. There was a game machinsm called 9 mining, basicly you put 9 mines under a tank a HUGE force will push that thing around. No friendly fire, but that force is enough to flip the commander or move it into water where it cannot escape, that is the unit that has to be killed in order to win.

The griefers were abusing 9 mining. For hours the main server was shot down by just 2 of them. 46 other players had to suffer.

The community and the developers put some work against that by:

1. Changing game mechanics. Stuff that was too easy to abuse and did not add anything positive to the game were removed. Mainly 9 Mining in this case.
2. The developers hardcode banned those people from the game. They would need a whole new Steam account in order to continue griefing.
3. The big servers all have a really big amount of trusted and known players as administrators/moderators. If something bad happens its enough for me to type !slay griefername and the problem is solved. There is like always at least one moderator on each server. On full servers we have about 1/3 of the players with administrator/moderator rights.
4. Over powerful units (Commander) can be voted out by the team. And they have to get voted in before the start of the round. This might sound complicated but its really easy.

Just some simple steps and griefing was handled. Especially in a FPS shooter it is not hard to prevent griefing. The biggest Help was from the developers though. Hardcode bans cause people to think twice if they want to ruin a game for 47 other people for several hours.

And another point: Exploiting is not griefing. If someone finds a exploit and reports it to one of our developers. Its fixed in at least 1 or 2 months until the next minor release.
Griefing is playing the game in order to solely ruin the game for others and show no interest in the game itself they are griefers.

Developers shouldn't be so stubborn and players shouldn't enable developers who don't care about their games. I only play games where I know that their devs do listen to the community.

And if you are interested in Empiresmod see empiresmod.com .

 

[Brutos]

// Sorry for me being to stupid to use the reload button.

 

[Brutos]

// Sorry for me being to stupid to use the reload button.

 

[FlakAttack]

Well said Brutos, I play Empires too and I do vaguely remember 9 mining. The Empires community is pretty tight these days, and is open to all kinds of stuff. The heavy punishments are saved for griefers, everyone else gets light and temporary punishments (in a game, there really is NOTHING worse than griefing... so it's only right griefers get the worst punishment).

I have been a long time supporter of "bounty hunter" systems in MMOs. As for FPS, the defense against griefing is in your hands really. I was playing BF2 and some idiot kept shooting people so he could get the helicopter. So I just positioned myself on a hill overlooking the base and sniped him in the head everytime he went in the direction of the air vehicles. He eventually just left the game. On a non-team damage server, you can plant explosives on the vehicles and blow them up until he leaves. It usually works quite well because they think you're a griefer.

Trollin' trolls, as they say.

 

[Tibike77]

"So I was drunk and bought 10k of ammo at 400k a piece instead of the regular 400 a piece and all my money I made in 2 years is now GONE, and the GM only said <lol, newb> to me".

Heh.
Sums up pretty much one of the many things that makes EVE great and horrible at the same time, depending on what end you're on.
That game is pretty much an open invitation to "grief", but only as long as it's FOR YOUR PERSONAL GAIN somehow (getting paid to make somebody so angry they quit roaming around some specific area is pretty much ok, since, hey, you stand to make a personal gain from that).

It's a "love it or hate it" kind of game, there's not much room for anything in the middle

 

[Octoblood]

I didn't know what griefing was as I don't play online , very informative video , cheers.
p.s I like that girl with glasses.

 

[grenravenlock]

I actually registered just to reply to this thread. This video was just a pure whine. So what if you guys got griefed, it happens. I am willing to bet not a single one of you whiners on this video can say that they have never done a single bad thing to someone else. So what if some guy puts something up for sale that is very overpriced just to rip people off, its your own fault for not paying attention. If you cannot handle being griefed I would advise you to never play a game with another person online ever again.

 

[Erana]

More gaming companies should take advantage of their inevitable, "We can do whatever the Hell we want with your account" clause. Pull an Escapist and have a heavy hand and deal with the innocent casualties.

And really, the best way to make a greifer miserable is by being kind.
Happiness is the best revenge.

 

[Leif11234]

While griefing can be particularly annoying by my experience, I did witness one unique experience.

The griefers had taken advantage of a now fixed bug on the Team Fortress 2 map "Well". Using this bug, they could block the door that opened to release players from the spawn and open it again at will. The "victims" were forced to answer various trivia questions among a wide range of topics a la Jeopardy. If correct, they would be released and allowed to play the game normally.

Though this infuriated many, I suppose it was somewhat admirable in its attempt to bring some education to the game.

 

[MorkFromOrk]

The amazing thing about the internet is that it has enabled douchebags to group together and support each other to the point that they actually think THEY are the cool ones.

But you know, one more griefer online playing 3 accounts in some MMO probably means someone isn't spitting in your Big Mac or procreating with their cousin.