I Am Become Death, Destroyer Of Virtual Worlds

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I Am Become Death, Destroyer Of Virtual Worlds
I was going to save this for the Sunday Papers next week, but after Jim and I have a chat, I figure it deserves to talked about all on its lonesome. Julian Dibbell writes an extensive piece for Wired on Griefing, the communities that support it and similar malarkies.
"Pwnage, zerging, phat lewts - online [...]

Author: Kieron Gillen
Category: RockPaperShotgungoonsjulian dibbellsomething awful
Publish Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 14:22:35 +0000

I was going to save this for the Sunday Papers next week, but after Jim and I have a chat, I figure it deserves to talked about all on its lonesome. Julian Dibbellwrites an extensive piece for Wired on Griefing, the communities that support it and similar malarkies.

"Pwnage, zerging, phat lewts - online gaming has birthed a rich lexicon. But none, perhaps, deserves our attention as much as the notion of the griefer. Broadly speaking, a griefer is an online version of the spoilsport - someone who takes pleasure in shattering the world of play itself. Not that griefers don't like online games. It's just that what they most enjoy about those games is making other players not enjoy them. They are corpse campers, noob baiters, kill stealers, ninja looters. Their work is complete when the victims log off in a huff."

Much is stuff you'll almost certainly know if you've been following online life, but the interest is in the details. Of particular note is the closing vignette with SA-head man Kyanka, expressing how blessedly untouched he is by online vilification. What it made me think of is the old thought that there really are two sorts of people online - those who are capable of empathy (and, indeed, sympathy) through the intermediary of an electronic channel, and those who simply aren't. What the anecdote neatly illustrates is that actually works both ways.


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[Dog Pants]

What it made me think of is the old thought that there really are two sorts of people online - those who are capable of empathy (and, indeed, sympathy) through the intermediary of an electronic channel, and those who simply aren't.

I've always wondered why there's so many griefers in games. Maybe this explains a portion of them, but I think many griefers would do it in real life if they didn't think someone would kick their heads in. It's just an extension of bullying really, largely I expect by people who were (or are) bullied themselves wanting to be the one on top for once.

[Baliame]

I do enjoy griefing in game but I wouldn't take it to an IRL level.

[Dog Pants]

Which strengthens my point.

[Hehulk]

I do enjoy griefing in game but I wouldn't take it to an IRL level.

[HereComesPete]

Bostin!

[buzzmong]

I've always wondered why there's so many griefers in games. Maybe this explains a portion of them, but I think many griefers would do it in real life if they didn't think someone would kick their heads in. It's just an extension of bullying really, largely I expect by people who were (or are) bullied themselves wanting to be the one on top for once.

On the flip side, those who are bullied also know what it's like and would be less inclined to do it as they know what it's like on the recieving end.

Suppose it's down to the individual really.

[Baliame]

Which strengthens my point.

I'm not afraid of a kick in the head, I'm just not an addict enough not to be able to seperate the two worlds.

[Dog Pants]

On the flip side, those who are bullied also know what it's like and would be less inclined to do it as they know what it's like on the recieving end.

Well yeah, true. And people who are bullies in real life would probably be bullies online too. Even so, I think griefers are making up for some inadequacy or other by pissing people off for their own amusement. Incidentally, I don't see most of what we do for laughs as griefing. The stuff in City of Heroes is pretty inoffensive unless you have something against gays or Spartacuses. Mostly we just take games far less seriously than most, and that pisses some people off.

Deliberately ruining another person's game is griefing, doing stupid things for your own amusement that other people sometimes don't like is not.

[Lateralus]

Incidentally, I don't see most of what we do for laughs as griefing. The stuff in City of Heroes is pretty inoffensive unless you have something against gays or Spartacuses. Mostly we just take games far less seriously than most, and that pisses some people off.

Deliberately ruining another person's game is griefing, doing stupid things for your own amusement that other people sometimes don't like is not.

This. The closest we come to griefing is probably all changing our names in COD or stuff like that, and it's generally a reaction to someone being a knobjockey anyway.

[Dog Pants]

This. The closest we come to griefing is probably all changing our names in COD or stuff like that, and it's generally a reaction to someone being a knobjockey anyway.

Yeah, this is kind of the exception. If someone's being a tit then griefing them a bit to get rid of them is, in my eyes, acceptable. As soon as a random says 'cheater' that's like a red rag to a bull to me. Problem is if it's a bit borderline, then other randoms might just think we're twats. Also, I've seen my fair share of undeserved griefing from 5punkers in some games (BEEF and COD4 mainly). I don't like it, and it drives potential members away. In fact I disliked it enough in BEEF to not want to extend our server, because I didn't want to pay money for other members to drive all the randoms away.

[FatherJack]

It's sometimes hard to tell whether our in-game actions reflect favourably or badly upon us. The BeeF thing was mostly admin abuse, which was bad, but sillyness in CoH - provided the chat doesn't get too offensive - is more likely to show people that we're about having a laugh not-taking-it-seriously, rather than the not-taking-it-seriously-but-trying-to-get-a-rise-out-of-those-that-do crowd.

While I might be annoyed if someone kept, say.. blocking their own team - I'd just leave rather than getting into a big argument about it.

However when someone complains about you doing something legitimate (such as using a gun they don't like, rather than bunnyhopping or other potential exploit) on your own server, it's kind of an invitation to shoot them with it as many times as possible.

Game like CoD, which have a democratic kick mechanism can help, assuming you're not outnumbered by the griefers.

[spoodie]

It does really depend upon the "victims" reaction. Constant TKing is a fairly unimaginative form of griefing and that is annoying to anyone I'd have thought. But that video posted recently where someone was blocking the door in Teef and would only let people out if they got a general knowledge question right was funny. Perhaps not so funny for the people involved.

[Dog Pants]

Well on the scale of things I'd say the people who come onto our server and complain about how we run it are idiots, as are the ones who shout cheater or noob. They should be used as an outlet for griefy tendencies that most people feel sometimes. I can put up with those sort of idiots - in fact we sort of rely on them in CoH because they provide half the comedy as they get more and more enraged.

Griefers ruin games though, and I (if you haven't noticed) have a very strong dislike for them. If Warhammer Online fails it will likely be because of griefers. I've never really seen 5punkers griefing, just sometimes not being very friendly.

As for the CoD4 vote thing, I've had that work against me more often than for. Several times I've gone onto our server pre-game and been insta-kicked by a small number of randoms who want it all for themselves. It's enraging, because it's our bloody server.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

I've disabled voting for now to stop that.

[Dog Pants]

Fair enough, I think we're pretty capable of getting rid of unwanted knobheads without it.

[Dog Pants]

It does really depend upon the "victims" reaction. Constant TKing is a fairly unimaginative form of griefing and that is annoying to anyone I'd have thought. But that video posted recently where someone was blocking the door in Teef and would only let people out if they got a general knowledge question right was funny. Perhaps not so funny for the people involved.

True, that did make me laugh. They could have just left the server though, but chose to stay and howl with rage. It's more of a problem in MMONGs I think, not in that it's more common but rather that it's more game-affecting.

[Chickenz]

Several times I've gone onto our server pre-game and been insta-kicked by a small number of randoms who want it all for themselves. It's enraging, because it's our bloody server.

Had that a couple of times myself a few days ago. Went in with the 5punk tags on and still got kicked so I spoke to a certain lovable Berk.

[HereComesPete]

I do recall a while ago when we decided to pwnt a random server, then the numbers turned up and we jumped onto ours and it was inhabited by two randoms who were using auto hax to take turns shooting each other in the head. Not exactly a fun game when you do that, but some people just want the end result of all unlocks so much that the actual game play is secondary to them.


We did spend the other night shooting each other in the back/noob tubing each other, much to the disgust of the rest of the team who were trying to win, but the other team thanked us, so that was alrite.

[Baliame]

And I won with -180.