Gamers Don't Want Grief 177
An article at the Guardian Gamesblog looks at the frustrations of online griefers. They talk about some of the unpleasant activities online gamers engage in, and briefly discuss the future of dealing with griefers. Scott Jennings and Richard Bartle chime in with ideas on how things might be handled. From the article: "'I expect we'll see more and more self-government,' says Scott Jennings, game developer and author of Massively Multiplayer Games For Dummies. 'The reason is fairly obvious if not particularly noble: it's less expensive for game companies to have their customers police themselves than hire people to do it. The trick, and why you don't see it generally, is to construct self-policing schemes in such a way that they don't enable unscrupulous players to use them as tools of grief.'" Darniaq disagrees, on the basis that players just don't care about immersion.
Art imitates Life (Score:3, Insightful)
From TFA:
Yeah...we have the same problem in real life [alternet.org].
Re:Art imitates Life (Score:2, Funny)
G.I.F.T. [penny-arcade.com] is probably more accurate.
Re:Art imitates Life (Score:2)
True. The NSA doesn't do it for the Schadenfreude [wikipedia.org]. I don't believe they feel much at all.
Re:Art imitates Life (Score:2)
-Rick
Re:Art imitates Life (Score:4, Funny)
Joe Smith the Hobbit Deathmaster
123 Fraud St
New York, New York, 10138
+5% to the Obesity skill
+3% to Yu Gi Oh cards skill
0 points in "Times Laid" stat
Weak against: twinkies, sunlight, chores. Key to back door under the mat.
Re:Art imitates Life (Score:2)
Sometimes players make mistakes, and their actions would be considered griefing, even though they don't know any better.
i.e.
Youre playing a Space Sim, and are dog fighting another pilot. You shot, miss your target, and hit an innocent 3rd party bystander, say like the space station above the planet. Are you delibratin
Exactly (Score:3)
I'd almost always play a pirate and hunt down random players to give them some excitement. Most of the community was into trading, so I added a little spice to their runs.
Sure, some of them would whine, but most of them realized it made the game more fun, because there was no loss of status associated with death, just cargo loss. Sometimes I would be on the short end of the st
Forget it (Score:5, Interesting)
All that I ask is that studios give gamers tools to isolate themselves from having to deal with jerks. You are not going to get rid of them and probably the best that you can do is fence them off where they can't cause as much trouble. Otherwise you will spend far too much trouble on an ineffective solution when that time would have been better spent creating a better game.
Re:Forget it (Score:4, Funny)
Is that like Railroad Tycoon, except the trains run on time?
Re:Forget it (Score:2)
I remember while moo'ing years back being amazed at how people refused to use the ignore commands when they were being griefed. I used it alot and happily.
Re:Forget it (Score:5, Funny)
All of the sudden I have an intense desire to acquire such a game.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Forget it (Score:2, Insightful)
Back in my EQ days I played on a PvP server where such griefing took place regularily. What seemed to have form
Check it! (Score:2, Insightful)
You mean like moderation or meta-moderation is?
Mod parent down! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Check it! (Score:2)
Because no one ever gets scammed on ebay...
Just saying it doesn't entirely work. I don't know the answer either, though.
And in other news: (Score:2, Insightful)
And now, the weather...
Re:And in other news: (Score:2)
Your weather may differ.
Re:And in other news: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, that's not true. Smokers (and alcoholics and other forms of addicts) have a significantly reduced chance of developing Parkinson's in the first place, but there's no studies that suggest that taking up smoking can reduce the symptoms of PD once you've contracted it.
It's a correlation and not a causation. Current suspicions are that addiction and reduced risk of PD have a shared root cause -- elevated dopamine levels in the brain.
At any rate, lighting up t
Re:And in other news: (Score:2)
Sweet!! I always heard that my chian smoking and heroin abuse were bad for me.. well at least i won't be getting Parkinsons!
the weather ... (Score:1)
Back to you, Jim.
He who hosts the server governs (Score:2)
Griefing annoyance (Score:5, Interesting)
They're not there to try and claim territory, they're not there to complete a mission objective. They're there to get easy kills. One guy in particular has been playing since 2003 (meaning, almost all the skills he could ever want are trained to the max, giving him lots of bonuses), and is flying the fastest ship in the game. All he does is look for solo miners and people in shuttles and frigates to gank. He always runs when there's any sort of resistance.
I guess I just don't understand it. I don't get why people would want to do that. Spend all that time in game learning skills and earning money, only to never engage in anything challenging. Only to cause problems for people whom you really have nothing against. It just doesn't make sense, and I can't see how it's fun.
~Wx
Don't "Grief" the Pirate! (Score:3, Insightful)
He is just playing the game by the rules. You don't like the rules, don't play!
Re:Griefing annoyance (Score:5, Interesting)
Game Over - Insert Coin? (Score:3, Funny)
I have never played the game, and Wikipedia's article isn't much to go on, but does that include losing one's account if one performs poorly in the game?
Re:Game Over - Insert Coin? (Score:4, Informative)
Basically (and I'm sure there are some corrections here, I only have about 4 months playing experience) if your ship is destroyed, its destroyed. You need to buy another one. You can buy insurance, but that only pays for slightly less than a new ship; all the cargo, weapons, hardware, ammo that you had is gone.
Better yet, once your ship is destroyed, you end up in a pod. You can be 'podded' (ie, the pod is destroyed, and your character dies) and your character is restored to the skill level you had when you last cloned your character. I've had my ship destroyed twice, and both times it takes minimum a few days to get 'back up and running', and its a HUGE pain in the ass.
WoW has nothing on Eve in terms of the true pvp experience, and guildwars is what many seasoned Eve players would call a 'Carebear' party. A carebear is somebody that sticks to high security space (where pirates generally can't operate because they get hounded by powerful NPC police) and plays the game to avoid as much combat as possible.
Eve is freaking cool
To answer your original post, no, you can't lose your account for playing poorly, but you can essentially fail to progress at all and in some cases lose ALOT of time if you risk too much. Thats a cool concept, and one other games really havn't created a suitable game system to explore in a satisfying manner.
Re:Game Over - Insert Coin? (Score:2)
Re:Game Over - Insert Coin? (Score:2)
Re:Griefing annoyance (Score:2)
See, the thing is you're not being a pirate.
A pirate would hit someone until they're in structure, and then demand payment to be left alone.
You just kill people.
There's games for that - see Counterstrike. In eve, it just ruins it for the rest of us.
Re:Griefing annoyance (Score:2)
Re:Griefing annoyance (Score:2)
Neither do the other 5,999,999,999 people on the planet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil [wikipedia.org]
Re:Griefing annoyance (Score:5, Interesting)
You are in a not-secured zone, it's security rating probably going from 0.1 to 0.4. In a secured zone (security from 0.5 to 1.0) if a player attacked another police would come and kill the griefer (avoiding destruction from police attack is cheating). This does not mean that secure zones are secure, simply that you have lots to lose if you attack.
The pirate loses security rating attacking you, that means he is not able to enter secure zones. There are ways to improve it, though. Zone security 0.0 would mean that no security rating is lost, but these zones are usualy home of aliances.
A three year old character, even if it's the only one trained in that account, does not have all the skills he wants to max, but probably he has enough to fly that ship perfectly, it it's requirements are not much, and for what you say it seems an interceptor, a ship that you can more than confortably fly in 6 months if you are focused. Training for all the skills to the max would mean more than 10 years, in real time, training.
Tech 2 ships are expensive, much more than what they give you when they blow your ship (yes, in EvE you can insure ships). And that is not counting the tech 2 equipment they may have, as equipment is not insured.
So now we have some competent players, with expensive to replace gear, attacking in a PvP zone, easy kills. Why? because a hard kill could mean their destruction, and that's a good reason not to engage what you can't win. But if they got near you you could jam them (ensnare them) so they could not flee, all you need is some basic equipment. Web (slow) them too, unless you want them to go out of your jamming range and flee. So you have options.
What can they win? A miner can leave equipment worth as much as a ship of these they are flying, people in shuttles and frigates could be transporting great treasures that don't use much cargo space.
And they teach you to be alert in a PvP zone, and everywhere too, just in case.
I am a person who spends all his time in secure zones, because I don't like many risks, but I accept them, and learn from my errors. The most exciting time I had in a game was being pursued by a pirate across a system, he in a big but surprisingly fast ship, me in a small but not so fast one. I barely managed to escape, but that adrenaline rush was so great...
A last explanation for non-EvErs, a three year old player can lose to a determined small group of newbies. So it's not like those other games were a level 60 can kill hundreds of level 5. Use what the system offers to you and have fun.
Re:Griefing annoyance (Score:2)
Hrm... Maybe it is something called human nature... *flash back* Lets ask people throughout time why the pick on the little guys.
So guys... Tell us the truth on why you go around killing helpl
Re:Griefing annoyance (Score:2)
Re:Griefing annoyance (Score:2)
Re:Griefing annoyance (Score:2)
Are you in an alliance?
My alliance is nbsi (not blue, shoot it). If you're not friendly (which means a member of ASCN, Loktra Voltera, Veritas Immortals, Ghost, or Knights of the Southern Cross, which admitedly is 1/12 of the people in eve), and you're spotted, you're shot at. So, in a lot of ways, our space is more secure than 0.4 - 0.1 space. In fact, I'd rather be in friendly 0.0 than Jita right now, cause there's a couple of corps that have declared empire-sanctioned war on us.
The problem is this gu
Griefers - who they are and why they do it. (Score:5, Insightful)
The first you can get rid of easily enough by putting in age limits. That will get rid of the large majority, but most children aren't very good at griefing unless they have some sort of script they downloaded to help them along. They're really just annoyances.
It's the ones in the later catagory who are the worst cases, and in many instances their anti-social behavior takes place in real life as well (Any one here know about sibe?) These people do these things online because they know they can cause a fuss, and hopefully even hurt people, without themselves being subject to any penalties or pain. And they gain all sorts of attention and notoriety for it.
How do you deal with it? Well communities -can't- deal with it if they have no clear and easy method to kick the person off the system immediately, or at least eject them from the area of play. There are ways of dealing with this beyond having some sort of game master around keeping an eye on things, but lets be honest: We're paying for the game, the company should have some sort of GM around to deal with these people!
It's like real life, we have police and courts for a reason. Grievers can quickly destroy a game and lose you customers. Part of customer service means dealing with them. Yes these people once ejected can come back, but if it's costing money only the most dysfunctional or vicious will keep returning. Then it does become a legal matter, though in many cases those people are going to end up in jail for real life criminal matters unrelated to the game.
But the sad fact is this problem will never go away, crime is as old as society itself. There are always people who want to steal what you have, hurt you, or just muck everything up for everyone else. When I have to ban these people from the system I deal with it is amazing to me that they often have NO IDEA at all of why they're in trouble, they just can't understand why it's not alright for them to do whatever they want and so what if they hurt and abuse other people in the process. Or worse yet, get pissed at me for having the nerve to stop them. I have also found that if you catch trouble makers when they first show up, and give them a taste of the punishments instore if they continue, that many will toe the line from there on. But that usually only works with the younger players who will still respond to discipline.
In short, there is no easy solution and trying to pan it all off on the players will never work satisfactorily unless you have a method for giving some of those players power and making sure they don't abuse it. I think this is probably the hardest part of MMO game design today.
Re:Griefers - who they are and why they do it. (Score:2)
Re:Griefers - who they are and why they do it. (Score:2)
Re:Griefers - who they are and why they do it. (Score:2)
Re:Griefers - who they are and why they do it. (Score:2, Informative)
Age limits are good (Score:2, Flamebait)
There is a reason society limits the rights of children, and I myself prefer not to deal with someone online who is a child unless I know that upfront. I also do not like to play online games with children
Re:Age limits are good (Score:2)
Though really, it's not hard for a credit card number and start playing the game anyw
Re:Griefers - who they are and why they do it. (Score:2)
sure there is a solution. On-line games should have an ignore list that lets you blacklist players so you can't see, hear, or be affected by someone actions. It's very effective. I am pretty sure Evercack had an ignore list (It's been a few years) that worked quite well. I wish I had an ignore feature IRL sometimes.
Interesting, but my ex was a griefer in Sims (Score:3, Interesting)
She got quite good at it too, to the point where many would just give her what she wanted in hopes she'd go away.
I think that, if it were like the death experience in Sims - where you just die, but people can mourn over you and you just have to win a fiddle contest with the Grim Reap
Re:Griefers - who they are and why they do it. (Score:2)
Yes. He has brief periods of lucidity, though. It's too bad he won't get help, he seems like he'd be a pretty interesting person if he weren't such a dick all the time. Almost like maybe he's NPD or bipolar.
BTW, long time, no see, Banner! Drop by the furry chat on Jabber at furry@conference.ursine.ca sometime!
Griefinator (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Griefinator (Score:2)
Griefing is its own solution (Score:3, Interesting)
This drove me nuts until I finally realized that I was going to get griefed no matter what, and the answer is to make sure I deserve it. I began griefing non-stop. I'd just hang out in lowbie zones and harrass and grief people. Eventually some 60's would show up and put a stop to it and /spit on me a thousand times.
And then when my alts got griefed or ganked or whatever, I laughed at the dancing night elf who was /spitting on me a thousand times because, quite frankly, I knew that I really really had that coming. I gave better than I got.
The fact that I was der uber Shaman only made griefing more satisfying. Run the boards, little boys! Complain that you can't take a shaman 20 levels above you!
So yeah. Solve griefers with more griefing. The problem doesn't go away I guess but you enjoy the game anyhow. Flame away, I don't care, I cancelled months ago. After PvP grinding to get my elite super dooper PvP set I tried some PvE, but when they announced Necropolis I said fuggit. It's just another treadmill. I think I'm done with on-line gaming of that sort.
Re:Griefing is its own solution (Score:2)
Griefing, to me, is more like scamming people out of money, putting up auctions for 50g instead of 50s, stuff like that.
Adman
Re:Griefing is its own solution (Score:2)
Re:Stereotypes and racial hatred (Score:5, Interesting)
Just yesterday I was playing with my cousin (lvl 29 and 30), running around and trying to quest over at Hillsbrad. A pair of NE rogues would be stalking around looking for some easy ganks. After getting ganked and watching them camp us about 7 times, we've decided enough is enough: we logged on our mains, a 60 war and 60 rogue.
So we brought them over to hillsbrad, and at first, I stealthed in and stalked around some fellow horde casters trying to level. Whenever I see some NE rogues sneaking in for the kill, I would take them down in 3 hits. Easiest kills ever. Ganking gankers was about liberation. After a few minutes, it was a clear message that they weren't going to have fun, and they stopped trying and went else where.
Every once in a while some lvl 40s (clearly looking for some easy kills as they are too high for the area to get exp) would be roaming around ganking lowbies. Took them out too. After a while, they got the message as well.
After about 20 mins of that, my 60 warrior buddy was getting bored, and stopped looking for ppl to defend, and decided to have more fun rampaging around downing any alliance he could find. So him and I, we mounted up, and went lowbie hunting. Wiping out parties here and there, we did it enough times where we could clearly see that alliance were getting frustrated, shouting obscenities and whatnot. We didn't care. We were a buncha angry lvl 60's that were all caught up in the moment, when we were just trying to quietly level our way out of hillsbrad an hour before hand in the first place.
Well, about 20 minutes after that, we started seeing some alliance lvl 60's coming on in to help escort the lowbie alliance. They took us down and started camping us. We called in our guild members. We took them down. They called their guild members. And shortly after that it was a grudge match and nobody was getting anything done for about an hour.
I hate Hillsbrad. Wish I joined a pve server.
Re:Stereotypes and racial hatred (Score:3, Informative)
I sometimes wished I had joined a pve server. Especially for the grind from 50-60. I realized at that point that I prefer an environment where I can PVP when I want to, and get away from it when I want to. It was exciting at first, but got old after awhile. I wouldn't mind if PVP servers had safe zones that went all the way to 60, with most of the good content still in PVP zones. Yeah, I know I could have leveled up in instances with a group, but I would us
Re:Stereotypes and racial hatred (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm with you the first two sentences, but I fail to understand how you arrive to your conclusion.
Re:Stereotypes and racial hatred (Score:2)
Exponential progression. The server obviously sucks because eventually everyone on it will be an asshole.
Re:Stereotypes and racial hatred (Score:3, Funny)
It's only a video game - anything goes (Score:2, Insightful)
The players of World of Warcraft were left with a similar conundrum in March, when a group of gamers performed an act whose only purpose was to cause emotional pain. The death of a member of the community inspired her fellow gamers to hold a virtual funeral, which was raided by a malicious mob that made short work of the mourners, all of whom had relinquished their weapon
Re:It's only a video game - anything goes (Score:2)
Re:It's only a video game - anything goes (Score:2)
Games are defined by the rules of that game. If you do not follow those rules... if you cheat... you are no longer playing the game. If you don't want to play the game, go find something else to do.
Having said that - I could do without the idiots who scream "cheater" every time some encounter in a game doesn't go the way they want or expected.
Re:It's only a video game - anything goes (Score:2)
What about the people who killed you 8 - 10 times in an hour? They are playing the same game as you (unless using cheats which is a totally different situation), paid the same money as you, and are entitled to play the game in whatever fashion they enjoy. Just because you suck and they are good doesn't mean there is anything wrong with th
Re:It's only a video game - anything goes (Score:2)
Then maybe the MMORPG in question is not a well-designed, well-programmed game and not worth to play with in the first place? Seriously, if you know people are a level 60 and you are a "n00b" at level 0, then you can expect to get killed. Maybe the game designers need to put a safe-haven in the game. e.g. "Within the K
Re:It's only a video game - anything goes (Score:2)
BTW, Second Life does have actual property and items that cost actual cash
Re:It's only a video game - anything goes (Score:2)
Sure. The mechanics allow you to be a complete ass. Have at it. But don't feign confusion when people point out that you're being an ass.
WoW is an interestin
Re:It's only a video game - anything goes (Score:2)
I have never griefed and it made me want to buy the game, log in and grief them.
You have to ask yourself... WHAT WERE THEY THINKING???
Re:It's only a video game - anything goes (Score:2)
Re:It's only a video game - anything goes (Score:2)
Re:It's only a video game - anything goes (Score:2)
Re:It's only a video game - anything goes (Score:2)
I should imagine that's quite likely, given that in many MMOGs, items that your avatar owns have real-world commercial value.
Re:It's only a video game - anything goes (Score:2)
Re:It's only a video game - anything goes (Score:2)
IANAL, but I'd guess it's more like subletting. The MMOG owner licenses you to access and have control over virtual property, then you go and sell that licence on eBay to someone else, who then has access and control. But that kind of thing, too, is covered by various laws in most places, isn't it?
Re:It's only a video game - anything goes (Score:2)
Re:It's only a video game - anything goes (Score:2)
Re:It's only a video game - anything goes (Score:2)
Re:It's only open source - anything goes (Score:2)
haha, I can see why you posted that AC.
I think it's about control. People want to control others who go against their view of the world, real or virtual. With Open Source, some hold a certain "view" that it should be done in this way for the betterment of humanity, while others think it should be done that way to increase their business revenue, etc. In a video game, some people want to control how everyone else, who also p
Comments from a part-time griefer (Score:5, Interesting)
However, if I play an evil character, I usually have at least a few extremely kind and benevolent alts. I've played MUDs before where I'd strip someone of gear with my evil character but happily re-equip them with better than what they had before as one of my alts. I just don't want to play good characters all the time because it gets boring.
I don't really understand people who'll spend absolutely all their time griefing, however. To me, that's just as boring as spending all your time helping others as a good character, and while it may be fun to gank a lowbie once, I rarely see the point in corpse camping. There's no challenge in it, and one or two kills are enough to convince the guy that you're evil and dangerous.
Re:Comments from a part-time griefer (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd jack traders and take half their stuff, which ment they'd make no profit on the trade run, but they'd also lose no money. All they really lost is 20 minutes of their time and maybe a bit of self esteem.
Other times I'd see dead newbies with loot I could steal and I'd res them and protect them instead of robbing them. It all depended on my m
"Social Disease"? (Score:2)
I do not have much experience with MMORPGs, but from playing Eve Online a bit, I have to wonder sometimes where the "disease" really lies. Do the pirates who go around blowing up miners and new players in low security space have a "social disease"? What about the miners who spend endless hours obsessively and repetitively dragging th
Re:"Social Disease"? (Score:2, Insightful)
Most people do not play PvP all the time. I rarely will play PvP in a MMO. I am not interested in competing or trying to ruin someone else's night.
Sane people do not pay a fee to play a game where they will be locked into the role of "victim". That's what griefers are looking for. Not "villainous roleplay", and DAMNED SURE not a fair fight. They want someone to pick on. They want to see how many people they can make QUIT.
In
Nothing New (Score:1)
Have fun while pla
Since Planetside is free (Score:2)
Re:Since Planetside is free (Score:2)
Re:Since Planetside is free (Score:2)
Re:Since Planetside is free (Score:2)
Re:Since Planetside is free (Score:2)
My system for an MMO (Score:2)
again...
My ideal system would be an MMO with a 'Karma' system, where you could rate other players up or down, and the accumulated rating would be visable to other players, but not exactly who rated who up/down. various systems would expire or cancel ratings, with higher rated people getting more votes, along with long term account holders, or people noted by administrator for being helpful to others.
Combined with a set of G-mail like invitation only servers, to prevent
Re:My system for an MMO (Score:2)
Re:My system for an MMO (Score:2)
but, you still use Google, right?
dosn't have to be perfect to be better.
The big problem with players self-governing... (Score:2)
Until game companies are willing to put their money where their mouths are, self-governing in games will always be ineffectual.
Re:The big problem with players self-governing... (Score:3, Informative)
In ATITD 2 (or maybe it was 1), a high profile player liked to mentor new players. But, he was terrible at it - turned off new players by the dozens (or more). Veteran players passed a law limiting his access to new players via the chat, mentorship, and guild systems. Then, they taught him how to be an effective me
Re:The big problem with players self-governing... (Score:2)
Jail time for griefers in America's Army (Score:2)
In America's Army [americasarmy.com], players who violate the rules are sent to an online prison. "You are in the United States Army Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas..."
Re:Jail time for griefers in America's Army (Score:2)
Re:And I thought (Score:2)
Re:And I thought (Score:2)
Re:And I thought (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Too serious about games? (Score:2)
Coudsong anyone? [google.com]
Re:Too serious about games? (Score:2)
Found on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
That's equivalent to roughly 2% of my country's GDP. Now, this is about griefing, not commerce and theft, but it still sounds pretty serious to me. It's not clear to me why MMOGs haven't already been regulated to death: it surprises me that governments wouldn't want in on the action. (I don't play
Re:Griefing is not a bug, it's a feature. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Griefing is not a bug, it's a feature. (Score:2)