Griefing: The Hot Button!

To me, griefing is nothing new. It's been called by other names in the past that all boil down to the same concept: anarchy. Griefers remind me of teenagers breaking bottles on someone's front steps, drawing on a sign or standing outside the drug store making witty comments after their peers. Most of the time it's pretty harmless. And some griefing is simply civil disobedience (like the example cited in the link above about parading phallic symbols across a CNN stage) - a way of sticking it to the virtual "man" who is trying to keep them down.


Sure these folks are irritating and sometimes cause major disruptions in games but if MMO's want to be the virtual melting pots that real life is then you can expect that there are going to be some social groups that want to be anti-social.


But on the other side of the coin, if you've worked hard on something, spent good money on a subscription or paid real cash for virtual property and it is somehow compromised that can really suck.


I base my opinions on years of playing Dark Age of Camelot and Ultima Online. When Origins buttoned up the rules and made it harder to grief or be griefed it ruined everything for me. The game lost its wild frontier feel at that point and the worlds became too safe. And though I know what it is like to be harassed in this virtual world, it never bothered me. When somebody would PK me and res kill me i'd find it amusing. More harm was done to me by my own guildmates taking me to some god forsaken place beyond my skillset and then abandoning me... as a ghost .. to wander around until I found a healer. Now those people - they are the ones that really SUCK :)



Anyway read the article, get pissed off or get a life - either way it makes you take a look at the underbelly of the phenomenon that is trouble making.