[MUD-Dev] Griefer repellant (Was Decision making...)

[Damion Schubert]

Corey Cauble wrote:
> Ola Fosheim Gr=F8stad [olag at ifi.uio.no] wrote:

>> How do you define "grief player" and "grief play"?

>> I understand the commercial defintion of "grief player" which
>> simply is "players who cost us profit", but if we view virtual
>> worlds from an aesthetical/ethical perspective then I have
>> trouble with the term... The obvious reason is, of course, that
>> games are spaces that allow us to act-out and causing drama. It
>> is supposed to legal.

> Amen.

> Personally I think that the term is used far too loosely. Grief
> =3D "anything I don't like done to me" for most players. So when
> you PvP in a PvP world and the loser of the fight lose something,
> they are grieved, right? Wrong. It is part of the game you signed
> up for. If you stand in the spawning square of newbies and kill
> them as they spawn are you a "griever", damn straight. What is the
> difference?  One is a planned game mechanic the other is not. More
> time needs to be spent during the design/testing faze to search
> for out of context "grief" points and minimize impact.

Speaking as the current lead designer of Shadowbane: this is a
pretty complicated issue, but I think our competitors would be
surprised at how many of the discussions and debates we have run
very similar to dev teams for non-PvP games.

The long and the short of it is that, in Shadowbane, our line is
drawn in a very different place, largely because we have done a good
job of setting players' expectations - we've said from the outset
that this is a PvP 'ganker' game, and the players expect it coming
in.  More to the point, the fact that we lack roles such as crafters
means that we don't have players whose internal goals for the game
conflicts with that core concept.

All that being said, Shadowbane is (like most MMOs) a never-ending
fight against players who continually find new ways to grief.  Many
times, griefing is easy to recognize.  Other times, there is a
lengthy debate as to whether or not something is griefing or good
tactics.

Some specific thoughts:

  - Simply saying 'it's part of the game' isn't good enough.  If a
  group of 10 people are killing every newbie that attempts to leave
  newbie island to the degree that those newbies leave, that's
  griefing.  It may not be something that your CSRs have to ban for,
  but it is something that your design team needs to respond to.

  - Never understand the importance of a fair fight.  I firmly
  believe that most players are intrigued by the notion of
  player-vs-player conflict, but being killed patently unfairly can
  feel a lot like griefing if you're on the recieving end.  This
  includes one-shot kills, being killed by higher level people,
  being killed while distracted by PvEing or having your guild of 20
  people rolled by an army of 200.

  - Getting people into guilds can reduce cries of griefing.  When a
  newbie is ganked and he's got no friends, there's a high chance he
  quits.  When a guild member is ganked and he quits, he's got a
  social backbone to console him, prop him up, re-equip him and help
  him get vengeance.

> If you want to limit the number of people that want to negatively
> impact your player experience then build a player reputation
> system that allows players to fight back against said
> "grievers". Tie the reputation to the system account not just the
> character and send some grief back their way ;)

While some mileage can be made with this, keep in mind that
different players have different levels of character attachment.
The player that is affronted by the griefer is likely much more
invested in his online persona than the griefer.  Griefers aren't
going to care if they lose a level or some experience, have to roll
a new character, or even have to open a second account - it's just a
game to them, and their character is a tool, not a persona.  They're
likely to be flattered by the title and amused by the attention more
than deterred.

--d
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