Games - Griefer

	Games - Griefer

Griefer is the term for a player in an online computer game who deliberately sets out to discomfort other players. A Griefer is a kind of troll.

Overview

A griefer's actions (griefing) include kill stealing, player killing, team killing, stealing dropped items from a kill or during inventory reorganization or a mistake, scamming, and general harassment. Raging is another term that is used.

Motivations for griefing have long been a subject of speculation among "legit" gamers. The typical stereotype is of a teenaged male who escapes a life of social ostracism and perhaps even parental abuse by lashing out at others in the only realm where he has power - the net. However, like all stereotypes, it fails to approach the reality; griefers come from both sexes and all walks of life, and many of them behave as well-adjusted members of society outside of gaming.

What is common amongst griefers is that they are not there to play the game others are playing; rather than playing "PvE" (Player vs. Environment) - which is what the games are typically programmed for - they play a meta-game. In this meta-game, there are no rules of engagement, and the objective is to make someone else miserable. The viewpoint of a griefer is that if he or she can ruin your play experience, or even drive you to log out in frustration, then he or she has won, and you have lost. Therefore becoming angry, verbally abusing, or even counterattacking a griefer cannot discourage them, because it proves that they have been successful in manipulating and disrupting your experience.

For example in MMORPGs (massive(ly) multiplayer online role-playing games), players typically arrive in the virtual world at specific locations. A griefer may lurk nearby and attack the players as they materialise. (spawn camping) Another common tactic is to lurk at the place where one killed a player previously to kill him again as soon as he respawns (corpse camping, which is also a form of bullying).

Combating griefers

Many subscription-based games have taken steps to combat griefers. Since griefers primarily cause anguish through killing other characters, games such as Diablo II have made player-killing more difficult, or less damaging than death at the hands of the game environment. Other games, like RuneScape
, just restrict player-killing to certain areas of the game and make it so that people do not need to visit them. In-game communications can provide a venue for harassment but most games include a way for players to ignore others if needed.

The mere fact that player-killing is impossible in a given game does not mean, however, that griefing is impossible. Griefers may harass other players through skill abuse (for example, healing or buffing a monster which another player is trying to kill, or casting impassable wall-type spells at bottlenecks through which other players must pass) or other methods. For example, in the MMORPG Ragnarok Online (in which direct player-killing is impossible in most areas), griefers often hoard "Dead Branch" items (which, when used, summon a random, hostile monster) and use them to release huge numbers of monsters, ranging from two dozen to fifty to over a hundred, in public areas (often towns or the camps directly outside dungeons, where many players rest and form groups).

Training

"Training" is another tactic that can be consciously used by griefers that involves attracting one or more enemy NPCs to themselves, then proceeding to run from them. The NPCs follow the player in a sort of train, one behind the other. The result of this course of action may be that those enemies come into contact with other players. The enemies may "lose interest" in their primary target and attack another player that is uninvolved with the initial conflict. While this may be an innocent circumstance wherein the initial player has simply gotten in over his head and is blindly running for his life, a higher level player with the ability to handle the "trained" creatures may intentionally train in order to indirectly kill or otherwise inconvenience other players. This a form of Monster Player Killing.

Kill stealing

Kill-stealing, while considered extremely rude and often a punishable offense, is rarely considered griefing.

This statement isn't all that neutral...

Clans

A number of gaming clans exist for the sole purpose of griefing, such as myg0t and Digital Death. These groups have varying levels of formality in their structures and membership requirements, but all promote griefing behavior and the distribution of cheats and other exploits. Some of these groups have become so infamous that simply identifying one's self as a member is grounds for immediate banishment on a number of game servers.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Griefer ]

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