[MUD-Dev2] [MUD-Dev] [REPOST] Griefing

[cruise]

Thus spake Nicholas Koranda...
> ********************************************************************
> *  REPOST
> *
> * Original Poster:  Brian "Ayavaron" Ross
> * ayavaron at gmail.com
> *
> * 11/20/05 11:11AM
> *
> ********************************************************************
> 
> I just finished reading an issue of Escapist Magazine
> (http://www.theescapistmagazine.com/) that dealt with the topic of
> griefers.  The topic was thoroughly analyzed and explored throughout the
> article, but it leaves one with the question, "What do you do about it?"

Facing up to the fact it is going to happen and you will never have 
enough GM's to cope is a good start.

Why? Because then you can build your game world with knowledge of these 
events, and thus your game world can respond correctly:

> The magazine suggested in one article that players who grief could be
> red-flagged, making them targets for vigilantes. However, I think we can
> do better than that. I remember the first time I played Elder Scrolls
> III, I went into a shop and tried stealing stuff. I was declared a bad
> guy and suddenly everyone wanted to kill me. This leads me to the idea
> that a similar system could be adopted in MMORPGs where you have a
> griefer rating and people can mark you as a griefer. Once the rating
> becomes high enough, you might be declared WANTED and perhaps even, a
> bounty could be placed on your head. People could gain a lot from
> hunting you down for being a griefer. As your griefer rating increased,
> your bounty could possibly increase too. The justice system wouldn't
> have to break game and could even possibly become a large part of the
> game.

This is very simplistic, but it does as a first pass. Killing 
non-hostile NPCs near a guard in most RPGs, on or off-line tends to make 
you unpopular with other NPCs friendly to the victim. It doesn't seem 
much of a stretch to do the same with player characters.

And, of course, making it part of your gameworld hopefully means players 
will mentally be more aware of such occurrences, and better prepared. 
EVE is again the classic example of this - you enter the gameworld with 
full knowledge it is not a nice place, and that bad things will happen.

Griefing is only a problem in most online worlds because the developers 
do everything they can to prevent it, and thus the times it does are 
shocking and more emotionally damaging.