Why do people hate griefers?

[Inco]

People hate Griefers because they cause grief, i thought it would be obvious.

Its more of a pain in the ass than anything because as i just pointed out, the objective of a griefer is to get a feeling of satisfaction from the negative reactions of the person that the actions of the griefer directly affect.

So if you get Team killed, and then laugh and join in on it, it is NOT griefing because you are not suffering any sort of negative reaction.

If i act like a dick online, its normally just to my friends who know that we are doing that kinda crap and so it is not griefing.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

ARG YE BE HATIN MA PIRATE MATES, in all seriousness it can be fun if no one else is playing seriously.

If everybody in the game is playing on the same basis - where it is understood that you are playing to a specific end (in this case, either cheat, exploit glitches and bugs or just use tactics that annoy the hell out of everybody), then you are no longer griefing.

This is the thing that I find so fascinating about this thread. If the other people are enjoying your presence in a game, or at least taking no notice of it, then you are not griefing them. In order to grief, you must be a detriment to the experience for others. I'm not sure how this is slipping by people when it's implied in the word itself.

The short version, griefers should be kicked and banned at every opportunity because these people erode the enjoyment wherever they go. I don't want to hear about the people who only grief "when they're bored" or what have you and how they shouldn't be lumped in with the people who do it all the time. I'll consider that a valid defense the first time I hear about someone getting away with a robbery because they only commit crimes on occasion and the rest of the time they're upstanding citizens.

 

[happysock]

I think it's funny, these kids dicked me around so I joined their clan match and killed them all before I got booted lol

 

[Slick Samurai]

They're called "Griefers" for a reason, they get it off on making other people's lives miserable. But mostly, it's just for attention, which is why you ALWAYS ignore trolls and griefers.

 

[oppp7]

Griefers are people who mess around in games and don't do what the main objective is.

In that case I can fully understand why people hate them. That would be like playing a long game of chess then at some random point your opponant starts chucking pieces around the room and making up the rules. That wouldn't be very fun.

I think fun would have been abandoned when you started playing chess. But ya, screwing up something someone worked hard on would be a stupid thing that griefers could do. I'm talking about creative, funny things like Team Roomba's videos.

 

[oppp7]

Because they're no-where near as fun as happyers

What are happyers? People who only heal team mates?

 

[ntw3001]

Well, the entire point of griefing is to make the game less fun for others. People hate them because they're making the game less fun for them. If people don't hate griefers, they're not griefing very well. If I stood in the path of a busy stranger, arms spread wide, and made sure he couldn't get past, it wouldn't matter that what he was doing wasn't important; he'd still be justified in getting angry. Even if I offered the cast-iron excuse 'It's okay, I'm only inconveniencing you because it's funny to me'.

See? I can understand that. People can get angry and flame back at the trolls/griefers. But I'm talking about the people who take it too far and let the griefer get under their skin so much they do extreme things, such as hitting them if they're nearby (as someone above said) or hacking their account to destroy it.

My analogy falls down a little there. In the dude-in-the-street situation I wouldn't begrudge the fellow striking me down after a short while. I don't think he'd be fully justified, but I'd consider it fair enough. In a game, there's really no excuse. If someone is annoying you by griefing, leave the server rather than getting furious. If someone is inconveniencing you in a game, the option always exists to just not be inconvenienced. Sure, it would bug me to be driven from a server by a griefer, but there's no reason to stay if I'm not having fun. Whether I stay and don't enjoy it or leave the server, the griefer gets what he wants, so there's no reason to try and be bloody-minded about it.

It sounds like what you're describing isn't really what I'm thinking of, though. What you seem to enjoy is when other people are also having a laugh. If everyone's enjoying it or finding it funny, I wouldn't call it griefing. It would better be described as unconventional play, which I guess is what I meant with what I said in my earlier post about Mario Kart.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Because they smell.

Actually, most of the primary arguments I would think of against griefers have already been outlined in detail- they ruin the fun for everyone for their sole enjoyment, and are near-impossible to reason with (that TeamRoomba quiz? The average griefer would never, EVER let the door open even if they got all the 'questions' right). If you're trying to play the game in a different, less-accepted way, experiment with bots, NOT with other people who are just trying to enjoy themselves playing the game normally. Of course, this won't happen often. For many griefers it's NOT actually the fun of playing in a different way- it's the thrill of watching/hearing other people get pissed off at them and ragequit. They get off on our tears. Hence the name.

Here's a good idea; try griefing in RL. Next time you get on a bus block the door for other people so it can't close. Cause a traffic jam by stopping in an intersection. 'I'm just bored with life and I'm trying to live it in a different way!' FUN!

 

[oppp7]

My analogy falls down a little there. In the dude-in-the-street situation I wouldn't begrudge the fellow striking me down after a short while. I don't think he'd be fully justified, but I'd consider it fair enough. In a game, there's really no excuse. If someone is annoying you by griefing, leave the server rather than getting furious. If someone is inconveniencing you in a game, the option always exists to just not be inconvenienced. Sure, it would bug me to be driven from a server by a griefer, but there's no reason to stay if I'm not having fun. Whether I stay and don't enjoy it or leave the server, the griefer gets what he wants, so there's no reason to try and be bloody-minded about it.

It sounds like what you're describing isn't really what I'm thinking of, though. What you seem to enjoy is when other people are also having a laugh. If everyone's enjoying it or finding it funny, I wouldn't call it griefing. It would better be described as unconventional play, which I guess is what I meant with what I said in my earlier post about Mario Kart.

I think one of the problems with this thread is that I included all griefers together. There are different levels of griefing, such as team killing/trolling, screwing around and not doing anything, or hacking. Some of these are dangerous and shouldn't be done at all (hacking), some should be done sparingly and are unimaginative (team killing), and some are ok and can make the game fun if you're tired of the same thing where you use the same gun over and over again.

 

[Kuchinawa212]

Just prooving how powerful you are? How big is your ego to go running around smashing little people into tiny bitz

 

[gigastrike]

Because griefers are out to to have fun by messing up everyone elses fun. It's not the team-killing that they like. It's the fact that they're preventing other people from playing the way that they want to.

 

[Namulith]

You've answered your own question.

 

[Caliostro]

I can understand trolls. They're hate based. But griefing is funny sometimes.

Griefing is a form of trolling.

Your argument is incoherent.

/thread.

 

[Johnn Johnston]

For the same reason why it's annoying when someone kicks the ball out of play deliberately every time it goes near them while playing football. I just want to enjoy playing a game, and they're just dicking around and stopping people from being able to enjoy it.

 

[Bob the Average]

people hate griefers because griefers are there to ruin your good time.

 

[Therumancer]

Ummm well, to be a griefer (by the name) entails giving someone grief by whatever method. As a result they are going to be disliked because they annoy people. If you've got a couple of hours to play a given game and some guy follows you around and makes your life miserable for his personal lulz, needless to say that's not a good thing from your perspective.

The flip side to the phenomena is of course that it can be amusing for OTHER people to watch and know about. The whole Schaetenfreud factor. It's also amusing when viewed from the perspective of detachment:

Watch this video (no seriously, watch it) and you'll see what I mean about being amusing when detached from the reality of it happening to you. This video makes the point beautifully, especially the ending:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR7FC-h0Fb8

Well, it's probably a Rickroll, but whatever...
Edit: Nevermind. That was pretty good. I don't think that kind of thing is funny, it just makes people wait or do repetitive stuff over and over again. I try to be creative and do it to as many people as I can, rather than just one guy.

For the record (not nessicarly directed at you) I don't Rickroll. Though I WILL admit I do occasionally link to relevent jokes and such that are a couple of years old (like a recent link to the prison rape rap).

Basically you can follow my links to Youtube without that specific fear, even if you don't nessicarly think what the link leads to is funny (humor can vary from person to person). In this paticular case I simply think Cranius is cool, he's produced some absolutly awesome WoW music videos, and the guy can sing. Summergale is also pretty good.

 

[AVATAR_RAGE]

its a game so play if you dont want to play then dont but saying that dont mess up other peoples games

 

[TheCameraman]

Hmm, why do people get annoyed at others who go out of their way just to destroy other players gaming experience? This is truly a mystery.

I enjoy griefing griefers though, because they are often the ones who rage the most.
I suppose I am a hypocrite for doing that? :<

I have nothing against people who just fool around though. Like going full melee in a FPS game, sometimes I even join them in that, it can be great fun.

 

[FightThePower]

Because they're fucking cunts who deliberately ruin your attempt to have fun just for their own amusement.

 

[AngloDoom]

When Griefers disable a game for any particular person, group of people or team, then I tend to dislike them. Setting up two Level 3 Sentry-Guns inside the Red-Team's spawn-point with a Heavy guarding them and two pissy Engi's in Team Fortress by extorting a glitch does not make anything more fun. I was genuinely enjoying playing with someone on that level in a small match; them some Griefers came along and made it impossible for us to play on that level fairly.

Why should I not hate them at this point? While this is, admittedly, quite a horrid way of Griefing, I think the only thing that holds most Griefers back from ascending to this level isn't some kind of moral compass but a lack of ingenuity. If they could, they would.