Griefing - A Discussion

[Jonathan Meer]

A griefer is a player in a multiplayer video game that purposely irritates and harasses other players. (Wiki)

What are your thoughts on griefing? Personally, while I've had times where I was quite pissed to be griefed, I've also had times where I've thoroughly enjoyed it, and like, on occasion, hyucking it up myself (particularly on L4D, which seems tailor-made for griefing).

[Super Buu]

Griefing ethics 101:

It's okay if it's funny.

If it's not really funny then it's just lame.

[Vad]

I used to wave to Horde in WoW. If they don't wave they get destroyed.

[Orion]

Depends on the game, really. Griefing in, say, WoW, is pretty much expected and while annoying, can be circumvented. Griefing in a game like LoL, on the other hand ... >=O

[Waffuru]

It's funny when I do and you're a dick if you do it.

Isn't that how it goes?

[Kaden]

It's always fucking retarded. It just pisses me off when people hide behind the anonymity of the internet to ruin otherwise pleasant experiences for other people. Don't get me wrong, I completely expect that of people, but expectations can only prepare a person for so much.

The fact that "griefing in WoW is expected" is an accepted -- and true -- statement is very saddening. It never has been and never will be an acceptable practice, in my eyes, for any reason.

[Tyr]

It really depends on the situation, in my opinion.

[Jesper]

I hate online gaming because of griefers. If you do it, you're an asshole and an idiot, regardless of the situation.

[Tyr]

I think we need to state what griefing here is then. The introduction to the subject was rather vague and by that definition, killing someone in League of Legends is griefing. Even more so, harassing them in lane is irritating and harassing (le duh). To what extent are we talking about here?

[Super Buu]

See my definition of griefing includes this: http://www.somethingawful.com/d/art-of-w...php?page=1

If you can't appreciate that then it's simply agree to disagree for me ... G.

I'll also 'grief people that deserve it' if it's fun. I think that link is a good example of that, too.

Back before honor in WoW, I'd usually just wave to the random alliance I came across. But we'd still 'raid' towns and get into huge fights killing all the NPCs which some people would consider griefing. We considered it like, our prerogative, since it was a PvP server and we came here to start wars. Lots of people came to fight us back and it started rivalries and such. I consider that to be way more fun than fighting mobs, even if it didn't get us any rewards. It's a shame because the later honor system kinda killed it.

It would be interesting to hear what kinda griefing experiences you've had from the people who've said it's all bad.

[John Doe]

Here's a griefing/prank story I'd like to share.

I have a smurf account on LoL called pokefan375. One day I decided to send friend invites to my steam friends that didn't know who pokefan was. It was great. We were all in mumble and I'd hear them say "hey, I got an invite from pokefan375" "who is this guy" etc. So I decide to have some fun with them. It went something like this.

Poke: "Hi, I'm a big fan of shifobrains. I LOVE his videos. You're his friend right?"
Friends: (To me in mumble chat) "Hey shifo, it looks like you have a fanboy."
Me: "O RLY!?"
Friends: "YA"
Me: "What's he like? *snickers*"
Friends: "Hold on."
Friends: (To pokefan on LoL) "Yeah we're his friends"
Poke: "OMG that's so cool, I wish I was his friend. I sent him an invite but he hasn't accepted it yet."
Friends: (Back to me on mumble) "Ha, this guy is so stupid. He's trying to send you invites."
Me: "You don't say... *snicker*"
Poke: (Back to LoL) "I'm really really good at this game, guys, I wanna play with you."
Friends: "The guy is only level 7, hahaha. What a dumbass!"
Me: *laughs to himself*

The best part was when they came up with a "brilliant plan" to use pokefan.

Friends: (On mumble) "Hey guys, let's just play a game with this guy. He's low level, so we can play against low levels and get an easy win."
Me: "Have fun without me, I'm busy *>.>*"
Friends: (To LoL) "Ok pokefan, let's play."
Poke: "WEEEEEEEEEEE~"
*Game happens, pokefan carries the team as Eve*
Friends: "O.o"
Me: *laughing my ass off*

I still haven't told them yet. >=D

Edit: As a side note, yes, I did say "... was super effective" as the game went on.

[Kaden]

I wouldn't call that griefing, shifo. There was no malicious intent. That's what griefing is. Doing something malicious to the detriment of another players experience in the game.

Where I can cut griefing some slack is in a PvP scenario. Leo's counter-argument of playing LoL being griefing -- while ridiculous -- illustrates such a scenario. When the game intentionally pits you against other players, it's not griefing, it's playing the game. By Leo's above logic, Counter-Strike and Team Fortress and Left 4 Dead and many, many others are nothing but griefing. That's not the case for these games.

In Team Fortress, for example, you can grief by setting up structures so your allies can't access a key part of the map. It maliciously infringes on someone else's ability to enjoy the game. Running out and setting an enemy spy on fire, however, is the purpose of the game and anyone playing it knows that. The intent isn't malicious, it's to enhances both players' (the spy and, in this case, the pyro) experience with the game.

Dueling someone on WoW is the same thing. Not malicious: they have to accept. Running up and ganking someone on a PvP server I would still not call ganking, even though it certainly is malicious. It's the TF2 example of "its on the player to understand what's implied with 'PvP' server." Being obscenely more powerful than someone you ganked, though (be it through level, personal experience/skill, or gear) and then camping their corpse and killing them every time they approach, though, is absolutely griefing.

Griefers are assholes. Just talking about this has irritated me.

[Ashe]

Griefing is doing something with the intent to interrupt someone's gameplay. I don't consider actually playing the game of LoL to the extent that its intended to be played as griefing. Now, with that said, it then follows to the WoW example that I often hear. That being that while on a PvP server, your intention is to compete with the other faction for every resource and goal in the game, thus excusing corpse camping and such. I think that's up for argument, as not every person's goal in this game (I understand that not everyone shares the same goal in ANY game, just to get that out there) is expected to be of that nature.

In WoW, one is being competitive with their own faction as well, so should the argument about corpse camping and such apply there? You are competing in different terms in this argument. For example, a former member of this forum was in my guild raiding with me during BC. While I more or less got along with the guy fine, I fully well know that if we interacted under different terms I would have one opinion of him that he completely supported himself - he was a griefing dick. He loved doing it. He was notorious on the server for that shit and WoW wasn't the only game he stated he did it on. He quickly got bored if he couldn't do something to piss someone off, and that's where the difference lay. He wasn't competing with players at the game - he was just trying to get them frustrated and raged enough so that they wouldn't participate back. In other words, just fucking with someone till they left game and therefore had no opposition.

There's a difference between pranking, teasing, etc and griefing. I have a fair number of times gone to a lower level area and seen a group of low levels doing something like grouping to fight yetis and in the middle of their struggle I dive bombed in and hit my aoe fear button and scattered them, which basically wiped the group. It was a moment where the hilarity (to me) justified it, but it doesn't actually excuse it. I was being a dick and fully well knew it. I did it, had my laugh, as we all do occasionally, and then moved on, not doing something dumb like camping them. They went back to what they were doing with no further interruption. I've had my moments where someone went to leap off a high cliff into the water safely and I would (hilariously) throw water walking on them at the last moment on each of them, watching as a number of people splatted into the water and died instantly, completely unaware of their spell. I did this a number of times at random as a bit of an in joke, leaving the guild to pay attention to their buffs. Were people pissed? Not really, though occasionally someone would get annoyed at the couple of silver repair cost, but it was an issue where we just ressed the dead and moved on, getting a small laugh out of it.

This is different from what the other guy did, where he'd get on the largest mount he owned and go stand on top of the mail boxes to keep people from using them, then if someone said something to him about it and how they had to go to the opposite side of the city to use the only other mail (at the time), he would start sending them letters over and over to keep them checking it. He'd repeatedly go to lower level areas and find the most helpless people, watch them as they just barely almost killed some elite they needed for a quest, and at the last moment as they were about to finally succeed, he'd run up and kill them then spit and walk off to wait till they were almost done with a five minute long quest fight again.

I don't even consider ganking to be griefing as that falls under general expectations of game play, but its frustrating nonetheless. In LoL, I wouldn't consider a five man group going around killing weaker players to be griefing as that brings them closer to their goal of winning the game without their intent being to cause the other team to rage and dc, playing a fair but competitive game. I wouldn't consider backdooring to be griefing either, as its an effective strategy that only works against a team that is countercomped or single minded enough to not be able to do a thing about it. I WOULD admit that both situations are quite frustrating to play against, but that's the nature. Actual griefing in LoL would be that Anivia that keeps walling her teammates to interrupt what they are doing, or diving into the enemy towers repeatedly, or announcing to the other team every move their team makes, etc. The guy that nade spams the spawn in Friendly Fire games or team flashes all the damn time in non Friendly Fire games. The guy that stands in the hallway and prevents the team from getting through.

That said, I've laughed my ass off at some (a minor few) specific griefing videos on youtube. I've laughed, but it in no way detracts the asshole component. I also very strongly feel that sportsmanship is a component to games and with that I feel that dcing on your team in a team game or dcing against your opponent in something like Magic Online (to force them to wait ten minutes for the victory that you were one "pass priority" button click from) or raging and screaming "you fucking faggot" over and over or afking, no matter how pissed you are at the game, is just as much griefing as the actions of the person that lead you to respond this way.

[Jonathan Meer]

So the gist I'm getting is 'to an extent, it is allowable' (though some of you made absolute statements, I think you'll agree with what follows). If you're having a healthy prank, where there is no significant loss to another person, then that's ok. If you hack a Runescape player of what amounts to multiple months of 'hard work,' that's not ok (though it can be fucking hilarious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn-tB5HuNlk ).

Which kinda makes a difference depending on the people and the situation. So like, if in TF2, you start dicking with people right from the beginning of a game (mic-spamming Rick Astley, glitch-blocking teammates from important shit), that doesn't seem like a major deal. People might get pissed, but they don't really lose anything. If, on the other hand, you jump into a L4D campaign on Expert and end up killing off your team on the final round just when rescue arrives, that's probably steppin' out-of-bounds.

Being a dick isn't the end of the world, but it's still being a dick. But some being-a-dick's are worse than other being-a-dick's.

[Ashe]

To an extent. I don't deal in absolutes. Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

EDIT: This picture is the type of issues that piss me off, where you have a good long hour game and someone wins and acts like a dick (like this Nidalee we dealt with the other day). http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/...very_game/

Notice the responses in the comments. You'll have to click the title of the link though to see the pic.

[Jonathan Meer]

[John Doe]

EDIT: This picture is the type of issues that piss me off, where you have a good long hour game and someone wins and acts like a dick (like this Nidalee we dealt with the other day). http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/...very_game/

Notice the responses in the comments. You'll have to click the title of the link though to see the pic.

Who's the one griefing? I see Magewich and DPS Zil.

[Tyr]

Meh. I don't get how griefing in games in general is a problem. I can't think of one single game where there is NOTHING you can do about it. Not one. Even as it happens, most gamers have developed a natural thick skin towards this behavior and beyond all: if this game annoys you to the levels of needing anger management - you turn off the game. When a game stops being fun, it's not really a game for me anymore.

Then again, I was a ganking griefig troll on my RP-PvP server. I would often travel to Silvermoon (I was an alliance night elf rogue), sit in their roleplaying inn and lay out bait traps. It could be an RC car back when hitting it would trigger PvP. It was a light little noob trap for the, well, newb, but I taught him something everytime he hit that car. Bitch, don't hit the car.

I came with entire gank squads and patrolled the entire city looking for something to kill. We were two rogues and a disc priest (back when disc priest was an unstoppable healing mountain) and despite many attempts, we would often just sit there as long as we wanted in the name of the Alliance, killing the same horde over again. As Spidey says, "I'll keep dishing it out if you'll keep taking it". I sometimes got whispered from alts of the accounts, asking why we did it. I asked him if he saw his enemies come back to life - would he not strike them down again? Would they still not be enemies?

I got lol'd at and was told I was out of character. Oh well, I never was. Even when I taught myself how to say 'me and you naked' in Orcish (fuck that was hard).
In these endeavours, I would always stay in character. Even the Orcish was roleplayingly taught by an orc back in Booty Bay (may or may not have been my own main, but I played by the rules!) It was the rules of the game. We were allowed to be dicks because our characters were dicks. We would storm in and take over their bar, demand free booze or their throats would be slit. Should guards be warned by a passing by observer of our drunken misbehaviour? His head would roll off the stairs of the top cybor lounge where we would often start our adventures as we discovered two blood elves in heat!

I had fun. They probably didn't. I don't regret anything of it.

Except maybe ganking so many retadins just before they got their buff. God damn those boys could chase. Jesus.

This might be a bit off-topic and actually Meer wrapped this up all nicely, but I guess my roots will never let be.

(I wasn't a troll in game actually, that was more on the forum. I have 5 accounts banned on the realm forums. <_>)

[Ashe]

Who's the one griefing? I see Magewich and DPS Zil.

My opinion of that picture is that a group of people who weren't taking things seriously decided to have a goof off night, probably drinking, and were playing nonviable specs for the lols of it, just as much as the other team was with their Sunfire Cape builds. Then, rather than laugh at the absurdity of it and exchange a good natured laugh, they get serious face, puff up like they actually just "TOTALLY PWNED AND OBLITERATED THOSE NOOBS" (as if they worked for it) and say "gg fags". I don't really view that as the type of attitude I enjoy.

For the record, I have nothing really against generic trolling. I differentiate that from griefing in that trolling is basically an attempt to verbally get under your skin for the sake of a reaction, no matter what type of reaction, just to get acknowledge. Sometimes its fun to go into a WoW chat room and just ask a question that you know people are tired of answering, like how here we are weeks after the portals were removed from Dalaran and people will go "WTF WHERE ARE THE PORTALS? STUPID BLIZZ GG". No matter how many times you've seen this, you have to really try to fight the urge to respond with "READ THE PATCH NOTES FFS." I don't mind someone reverse trolling at all, such as killing that guy who's been gloating about owning your team all game and going "LUCKY MOFO" everytime he dies and making a comment of "Oh man, I got really lucky there, I was so worried that you wouldn't do something stupid and play that badly, but lucky me, you luckily did. How lucky I am." I don't mind the "roleplay" style trolling where people start just tossing some trash back and forth and then "gg, had fun" at the end of the game.

Not a fan of "u fking black nigger go off urself noob" the entire game and at the end of it when everyone says gg, this guy goes "fking raped u nigger faggots, uninstall nubs" and then leaves game immediately. Call me thin skinned all you want (and I fully admit it - I don't have thick skin for this sort of thing, which is why I avoid pugging in any game and don't like to play certain roles for team games unless I have friends involved) but I WILL report the guy of this example.

[Kazuya]

Short and simple: When it comes to WoW, if I see someone rolling along flagged for PvP (especially on a pve server), and I think I can take em, I'll do it and have fun with it. I won't corpse camp or retarded shit like that, that's just being a complete jerk. Hate it when it comes to them killing me, especially those one shots. If its a fair fight, I'm less annoyed. One shots plain and simple suck.