Will Grief for Laughs

[zahr]

Griefing is awesome.

In AoC, during the first couple months, I played the two best griefing classes: Herald of Xotli and Necromancer.

HoX was great for appearing out of nowhere and dishing out massive damage, good for ganking a lone enemy. Necromancer's minions could drain enemy stamina and mana, stopping them from running or effectively attacking, and then slowly kill the enemy.

It was fun stuff.

 

[Doug]

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

Cus, you're robbing other people's fun for 5 minutes of your own? Ok, Eve Online is practically built on the principle that you're responsible for your own defense, so thats a fair enough tactic, but spawn camping and team killing just makes you a dickhead.

 

[Amnestic]

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

Cus, you're robbing other people's fun for 5 minutes of your own? Ok, Eve Online is practically built on the principle that you're responsible for your own defense, so thats a fair enough tactic, but spawn camping and team killing just makes you a dickhead.

Uh, why are their five minutes of fun more important than my five minutes of fun?

 

[Doug]

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

Cus, you're robbing other people's fun for 5 minutes of your own? Ok, Eve Online is practically built on the principle that you're responsible for your own defense, so thats a fair enough tactic, but spawn camping and team killing just makes you a dickhead.

Uh, why are their five minutes of fun more important than my five minutes of fun?

Because, they where minding their own business before you came along and started fucking with them; and if its a shooter, and your trolling a wholee team, you're taking an hour or so of other people's fun for your 'lolz'.

 

[Amnestic]

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

Cus, you're robbing other people's fun for 5 minutes of your own? Ok, Eve Online is practically built on the principle that you're responsible for your own defense, so thats a fair enough tactic, but spawn camping and team killing just makes you a dickhead.

Uh, why are their five minutes of fun more important than my five minutes of fun?

Because, they where minding their own business before you came along and started fucking with them; and if its a shooter, and your trolling a wholee team, you're taking an hour or so of other people's fun for your 'lolz'.

Oh, so because they're minding their own business, suddenly their fun is more important than mine? That's interesting.

And I go back to my previous point: Assuming I'm not alone in my griefing, as people often are not (See: EVE, WoW, and that TF2 Team Roomba video linked earlier in the thread) then I'm in the majority. An hour of people's fun? Really? It takes 30 seconds to leave a game and find a new one. If that.

There are plenty of ways to castrate a griefers main source of luls.

 

[GloatingSwine]

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

That'd be awesome. Take butcher knives and cut yourself a steak, go inside and get it grilled with fries.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

We even started griefing people in real life, like driving INSANELY slow on the roads 5 in the morning(where people couldn't pass, we were honked at and flipped of when people passed us). And we would sit in the car when the lights turned green, untill the cars behind us started honking in frustration.

Enjoy being arrested for obstructing traffic.

Welcome to Denmark where nobody gives a crap, and it was 5 in the morning, no people but the ones we were annoying were there.

So, you're an asshole [http://halo.bungie.org/misc/aholemirrors.html]. Yay. Just don't be surprised if one day your misbehaviour catches up with you, and don't come looking for any sympathy when it does.

-- Steve

 

[secretsantaone]

Griefing CS:S is the only reason I play the damn game anymore.

Griefing TF2 is just insane amounts of fun.

 

[7ru7h]

We even started griefing people in real life, like driving INSANELY slow on the roads 5 in the morning(where people couldn't pass, we were honked at and flipped of when people passed us). And we would sit in the car when the lights turned green, untill the cars behind us started honking in frustration.

I guess I'm an asshole.

This.

I do have to say one thing before I start my long ass rant (which I will edit in after my exam): QQ MOAR. Honestly, did you anti-griefers just stop and think that rallying against people who enjoy griefing will stop them? It's like the grade school bully, the more attention you pay to them, the more they enjoy it.

And Booze Zombie, you have described the basis for most of my boredom-induced activities - "I'm smart... I'm bored... HIGHER CAUSE!"

Edit: My promised rant

Stop interfering with others' attempts to enjoy the game, dammit; they paid to play too.)

And then we come to an impasse as the griefer may get their enjoyment from griefing and they too paid to play the game. What then?

The same thing that happens when some howler monkey parks his/her keister in a seat in the theatre; the one disrupting the enjoyment of the rest gets booted. It's not in the management's best interests to value the howler's money above that of the rest of the audience. Just think of it as getting voted off the island for excessive dickishness.

Ah, but then what if you have a group of five (or more) griefers versus one guy getting griefed? It's not unusual for griefers to run in packs, especially in MMOs. To go back to EVE, you might go up against squads of five various size ships camping outside gates watching for people silly enough to travel through low-sec space alone while vulnerable to such things.

What then?

Ban 'em. Once your game gets a reputation as a griefer haven, you're going to lose subscribers who don't want the hassle... and in most cases they'll vastly outnumber those who do, or who join because it's griefer-friendly. I guess EVE is something of an exception, as the entire game concept seems to favour acts that would be considered griefing in other games... and I suppose that's fine if that's the point of the game. (Me, I stay well the heck away from CCP games because of this attitude and I suspect that many other potential players do too.)

Flag-hiding in CTF games (for example) isn't anything like expected or acceptable conduct, though. I've said before that if some dickwad refused to throw a pitch in a game of softball he/she'd be ejected pretty quickly, and I don't see any reason to settle for a lower standard of conduct in a video game.

-- Steve

To start my rant off, I will clarify my personal stance on griefing: it is fun as hell, I do it both in game and IRL (to friends and coworkers), and usually when I grief it is because people deserve it. People that I tend to grief are those like anton. Why? Because to them, GAMEZ IZ SERIOUS BUSINESS!!1!! I can't tell you how many times I have had a perfectly good game going, when one of my own teammates ruins the game by freaking out and whining that we are losing. If anyone deserves to be banned from a game, it's the sort of person who feels they will lose a few inches of ePeen if this one match is lost. [sarcasm]How can I enjoy the game THAT I PAYED TO PLAY, when some asshole can't just play for fun? Instead of me just finding a new game, just ban the f*ckers![/sarcasm] People who take games too seriously really are the bane of my existence, like one guy I had a match with, who decided I had to be TKed 4 times for accidentally shooting at him, all while shouting things like "READ FoF TAGS N00B!!"

And another thing, for the people b*tching about griefers and how they love schadenfreude: you seriously need to take a deep, hard look at yourself, but humanity in general. Schadenfreude is one of the human race's most prevalent features: someone gets into an accident, people stop and watch just to see if anyone died; most any comedy, someone gets hurt physically/emotionally and people laugh; war movies, people watch them and CHEER when the enemies/nazis/what have you get killed/lose; and most importantly, video games - in a DM/CTF game, when you win you are happy. Why? Because you beat the other team, and f*ck those guys.

I could go on, but I wont. Why? Because I don't care to, I have another exam to study for, and the people the rant is directed at (mainly those bitching about a griefer's schadenfreude) will probably bring up BS excuses about how they think that people do the things I talked about for very different reasons (but, we all know down in our hearts, people are dicks)

 

[Doug]

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

Cus, you're robbing other people's fun for 5 minutes of your own? Ok, Eve Online is practically built on the principle that you're responsible for your own defense, so thats a fair enough tactic, but spawn camping and team killing just makes you a dickhead.

Uh, why are their five minutes of fun more important than my five minutes of fun?

Because, they where minding their own business before you came along and started fucking with them; and if its a shooter, and your trolling a wholee team, you're taking an hour or so of other people's fun for your 'lolz'.

Oh, so because they're minding their own business, suddenly their fun is more important than mine? That's interesting.

And I go back to my previous point: Assuming I'm not alone in my griefing, as people often are not (See: EVE, WoW, and that TF2 Team Roomba video linked earlier in the thread) then I'm in the majority. An hour of people's fun? Really? It takes 30 seconds to leave a game and find a new one. If that.

There are plenty of ways to castrate a griefers main source of luls.

There fun is more important because they aren't killing everyone else's fun like you do. And why should other people have to leave the game because YOU want to get you lolz from causing other people problems or irrations? Selfish of them [/sacarsm]

 

[theklng]

I think the reason they don't analyze themselves is because it will force them to dredge up uncomfortable moments of their past.

Most people that I know who have that kind of forceful schadenfreude are people who are abused or have abandonment issues: usually from one parent leaving the other with the kid. It happens most often when the abandoning parent is young and just realizing that they missed out on a part of their life, just realizing they're gay, or has committed some sort of crime and is taken away. SO maybe these attention starved gamers shouldn't be called "Griefers," just "Grievers."

having griefed a fair bit in my younger days, i can say you've got it wrong.

i remember playing matrix online in the beta, and at a point joining a clan of what is today known as griefers. we belonged to the faction with the lowest populace on the (pvp) server, which meant most everyone was against us. we teamed up in gank squads and went around spreading mayhem by killing low levels in low level areas until their friends came by, by which time we would employ tactics to kill them as well. not only was griefing in this case a tactic; a lure to draw higher levels to where we were.

to be able to do this, we'd use a VoIP program for the majority of our sessions, because of the amount of communication used. during this time, and the time off, i realized something: these people, they were everyday people from almost all layers of society. we had a guy that was writing a ph.d., back then a friend and me were still in high school, we had a couple of guys in college and a few stoners. we weren't attention starved, we weren't odd in any way - we just enjoyed taking the fun out of how others played.

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?

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.

it IS only the internet. but what is the internet then? sure it's a piece of advanced technology, but you're forgetting the main reason why it is abused: it is a world with little consequence. you do something in a virtual sphere, you will not get punished for it in life (apart from the newer rules in the UK about cyberbullying - but let's disregard those for now). that is the point of encyclopedia dramatica, that is the point of 4chan, ebaumsworld and all their predecessors.

there is no social structure here other than what people make of themselves, and an individual can have as many faces as they want. those people that frequent 4chan or grief in any mmo may as well be regulars here; and even more so, they may be your classmates, your co-workers - anyone at all. and for as long as there are no constraints or rules to enforce a jurisdiction on the internet, they will stay that way.

as for the psychological aspect, the reasons for doing these things may be more superficial than you think. the internet has become the stress relieving punching bag of the world. your boss yelled at you? take it out on the internet. you've had a shit day at school? take it out on the internet. you're angry with your spouse? ...you get the picture.

personally i think it's funny when people take things too seriously on the internet, and i can see the entire reason for why people would want to exploit it for any reason they see fit. it is one of the best inventions of the world, but if they wanted it differently, they should have waited with releasing it to the public. all of the major events that are happening or have happened on the internet could have been predicted, as could the anarchic virtual social structure.

 

[Amnestic]

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

Cus, you're robbing other people's fun for 5 minutes of your own? Ok, Eve Online is practically built on the principle that you're responsible for your own defense, so thats a fair enough tactic, but spawn camping and team killing just makes you a dickhead.

Uh, why are their five minutes of fun more important than my five minutes of fun?

Because, they where minding their own business before you came along and started fucking with them; and if its a shooter, and your trolling a wholee team, you're taking an hour or so of other people's fun for your 'lolz'.

Oh, so because they're minding their own business, suddenly their fun is more important than mine? That's interesting.

And I go back to my previous point: Assuming I'm not alone in my griefing, as people often are not (See: EVE, WoW, and that TF2 Team Roomba video linked earlier in the thread) then I'm in the majority. An hour of people's fun? Really? It takes 30 seconds to leave a game and find a new one. If that.

There are plenty of ways to castrate a griefers main source of luls.

There fun is more important because they aren't killing everyone else's fun like you do.

No, because my fun is decanted from causing other's suffering, thus by them having THEIR fun, they're effectively killing MY fun. Our 'funs' are at direct odds with each other. Again: If I'm in the majority, why do me and my friends have to defer to those who don't feel like griefing?

And why should other people have to leave the game because YOU want to get you lolz from causing other people problems or irrations? Selfish of them [/sacarsm]

Because they're not having fun? Duh? People should actively seek fun. That's...the point of games?

So, you're an asshole [http://halo.bungie.org/misc/aholemirrors.html]. Yay. Just don't be surprised if one day your misbehaviour catches up with you, and don't come looking for any sympathy when it does.

-- Steve

Wouldn't dream of looking for sympathy. Every action has consequences and I fully recognise the risk I place upon myself and my games when I take actions.

 

[John-Joe]

So, you're an asshole [http://halo.bungie.org/misc/aholemirrors.html]. Yay. Just don't be surprised if one day your misbehaviour catches up with you, and don't come looking for any sympathy when it does.

-- Steve

I don't get why I would want sympathy from people I don't know, or will ever meet again?

And that song pretty much sums it right up. call me bored and pathetic, griefing is fucking hilarious.

 

[Doug]

it IS only the internet. but what is the internet then? sure it's a piece of advanced technology, but you're forgetting the main reason why it is abused: it is a world with little consequence. you do something in a virtual sphere, you will not get punished for it in life (apart from the newer rules in the UK about cyberbullying - but let's disregard those for now). that is the point of encyclopedia dramatica, that is the point of 4chan, ebaumsworld and all their predecessors.

there is no social structure here other than what people make of themselves, and an individual can have as many faces as they want. those people that frequent 4chan or grief in any mmo may as well be regulars here; and even more so, they may be your classmates, your co-workers - anyone at all. and for as long as there are no constraints or rules to enforce a jurisdiction on the internet, they will stay that way.

Which is why the long term future of the internet will eventually kill off anonymity; maybe not day, tomorrow, or even 5 years from now; but eventually, the 95+% of the internet who are sick of being trolled, griefed, and generally having their fun ruined by a group of bullies will prefer services that enforce a fixed identity or set of identities.

Also, you mention "[The internet is a] world with little consequence." Then mention cyberbullying; which has resulted in some people committing sucuide over cyberbullying - yeah, very little consequence given alot of the scum then when on to laugh about what they'd pushed someone too. Griefers are no better than the bullies who, whilst they never hit you, will follow you all the time, spread rumours about you, and generally make your life a living hell. Now, in most online cases, it doesn't matter so much, but in principle, and in cases where griefing turns into a major campaign of bullying and intimidation, it matters.

 

[Kiutu]

If you enjoy it so much, I will wish death on you. That is my form of griefing. I will laugh if it happens too. Im cold when I feel I must. And losers like that make me feel I must.

 

[John-Joe]

If you enjoy it so much, I will wish death on you. That is my form of griefing. I will laugh if it happens too. Im cold when I feel I must. And losers like that make me feel I must.

I guess this is what griefers want; make other people hope the griefers die.

Knowing that somewhere in the world, something I wrote or did in a game, has made a person angry, and this person wants me to die, and all I can do is sit here and laugh hysterically at it.

It's a nice feeling.

 

[GonzoGamer]

I think the reason they don't analyze themselves is because it will force them to dredge up uncomfortable moments of their past.

Most people that I know who have that kind of forceful schadenfreude are people who are abused or have abandonment issues: usually from one parent leaving the other with the kid. It happens most often when the abandoning parent is young and just realizing that they missed out on a part of their life, just realizing they're gay, or has committed some sort of crime and is taken away. SO maybe these attention starved gamers shouldn't be called "Griefers," just "Grievers."

having griefed a fair bit in my younger days, i can say you've got it wrong.

i remember playing matrix online in the beta, and at a point joining a clan of what is today known as griefers. we belonged to the faction with the lowest populace on the (pvp) server, which meant most everyone was against us. we teamed up in gank squads and went around spreading mayhem by killing low levels in low level areas until their friends came by, by which time we would employ tactics to kill them as well. not only was griefing in this case a tactic; a lure to draw higher levels to where we were.

to be able to do this, we'd use a VoIP program for the majority of our sessions, because of the amount of communication used. during this time, and the time off, i realized something: these people, they were everyday people from almost all layers of society. we had a guy that was writing a ph.d., back then a friend and me were still in high school, we had a couple of guys in college and a few stoners. we weren't attention starved, we weren't odd in any way - we just enjoyed taking the fun out of how others played.

I can see why you'd want to think I'm wrong but it's the sad truth.
I suppose you're going to say that you and the other griefers don't have overinflated egos either huh? theking? The internet and online games aren't for your entertainment alone, everyone should be allowed to have fun.

The truth is that no matter what social strata or education level, you can still be attention starved and there are plenty of well off/educated people who still rob and rape. I'm not saying that all (or even any) of the people you played with would've been rapists if they didn't have gamers to harass online, just that they need attention and they don't care what kind of attention they get.

While I agree that people who take games too seriously need to be brought down a peg, people who take themselves too seriously do too.

I just dread to see how they pick up women, pulling their hair?

 

[zahr]

Here's a FANTASTIC tip on avoiding griefers.

Don't play on a bloody Open PvP server.

You're a carebear. Yes, you want to seem tough and hardcore, playing on the open pvp server, but you do not belong there and if you get griefed constantly it's your own fault, because that's the entire point of open pvp.

So carebears: you brought it on yourself. Thank you for the delicious tears.

 

[John-Joe]

I just dread to see how they pick up women, pulling their hair?

haha, when I try to pick up women, all I do is approach them with a mate and start making fun of them, not being harsh, just untill they kinda think you're a dick.

Works quite often actually.

 

[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?

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.

That's cool, it just seemed a strange thing so I thought I'd ask.