Ekim's Gamer View: Griefing for Dummies
Ekim, 2003-10-03

Players want accountability in their MMORPGs… for some reason some people think that would make it all better. For those that don't know what I mean by player accountability, it's when players are made responsible for their actions by allowing other players to penalize their fellows at fault, those almighty, and ever-present griefers. On paper (and in many people's minds), the idea sounds interesting, but what kind of an impact would a player-police really have on MMORPGs?

I must have revenge!

Admit it. There has been a time or two when you felt like you could just drop your gloves and duke it out with that big Troll guy that thinks he's so much better than everyone else, just to show him how wrong he is. And it probably happened even a lot more that you wanted to show the other person what manners were by giving him the beating of his life after he stepped in front of you to steal that last pull. I certainly felt it before. Most of the time I don't do anything about those instances because, well… what can I do, really? Calling someone names won't do much harm.

What I really wanted to have when that happened was a way to flag that person for the stupid player that he was and let some local policing force (or me!) deal with him accordingly. Sadly, that was never really possible, not in the games I played. And you know what? I'm glad it wasn't. I'm not generally hot blooded for long. I usually cool down pretty quickly, and often times I suddenly realize that this guy that "stole" my pull just did it by mistake.

There are people out there that aren't so cool blooded though. Those who call you names at the first sight of an apparent grief, even when it's really not. And these people are the ones that, even after a heartfelt apology, won't acknowledge that you even live. These people are the ones that would stick a griefer's flag up above your head right away, and point fingers at you to anyone that would be willing to listen.

What is griefing?

Griefing is very abstract. Many people can claim to have been victims of it, but very few of them can really accurately say what griefing REALLY is. And therein lies the problem of having players policing their own. Because we hallucinate greifers everywhere, players being able to flag them isn't such a good idea. And for the same reasons that players are not mature enough to handle perma-death, they certainly wouldn't be able to handle being the police, for the most part.

Besides, think about it. How do you make a player really accountable for his actions? How do you make them think twice before really griefing anyone. Most would argue that perma death is the true solution. If your actions could potentially have people kill you for it, you would think twice before doing anything. But then again so would the police… what if that griefer is really powerful? Who would step up to risk it? Oh yeah, here comes those who will say that this would finally put some kind of honour system back in the game, where you really have to stake your character's life on your actions, where heroics would really exist. Right…I don't believe that for a second. In fact, I think that the griefers would just reign supreme over a terrified world of people unwilling to lose their character over it.

And so we're back to square one. How do you make a player really accountable for his actions? How do you recognize a true griefer from someone who just made a mistake? Maybe punishing the real person behind the character is a solution, but that's a very touchy matter indeed! I read an idea somewhere that suggested that a player could be charged on his credit card for game infractions. Come on! These are games! We're there to have fun, not risk losing more money than we already fork out for the game because some kid thought someone grinned at his pet the wrong way…

Bottom line is that people can't be relied upon to reliably handle policing over the games. It's to the developer that must fall the responsibility of handling that. I know some players out there think that developers aren't doing such a good job of it, which is the reason why they are asking to be able to handle it themselves. But in fact, devs do a pretty good job of it. They just don't have the same definition of griefing as those who complain do.