From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The quality of this article or section may be compromised by weasel words. You can help Wikipedia by removing weasel words.

A griefer is a slang term used to describe a player in an multiplayer video game who plays the game simply to cause grief to other players through harassment. Griefing is a malignant form of emergent gameplay.

Contents 1 History 2 Overview 3 Usage 4 Examples 5 Social aspects of griefing 6 Combating griefers 7 References 8 External links

The term griefer was used around the turn of the twentieth century by American baseball away teams to derisively refer to the home team. For example, immediately following the 189-game Pacific Coast League season, the Pacific Coast League (PCL) and the Southern State League organized a five-game series between the 1907 PCL champion Los Angeles Angels (or Looloos as they were also called) and the San Diego Pickwicks, who were then champions of the Southern State League.^[1] In the Thursday, November 7, 1907 edition of the Los Angeles Times, the local newspaper for the Los Angeles Angels touted the upcoming series under the headline,

SAN DIEGO BASEBALL--LOS ANGELES COAST CHAMPIONS WILL PLAY TODAY IN FIRST GAME OF FIVE WITH GRIEFERS.^[1]

The term was applied to online, multiplayer computer games by at least the year 2000 as illustrated by postings to the rec.games.computer.ultima.online USENET group.^[2]

Griefers differ from typical players in that they do not play the game in order to achieve objectives defined by the game world. Instead, they seek to harass other players, causing grief.^[3] In particular, they may use tools such as stalking, hurling insults, and exploiting unintended game mechanics.^[3] Griefing as a gaming play style is not simply any action that may be considered morally incorrect. Though the staff of each online game defines griefing in a manner that best fits their game, certain criteria must be met for an action to be considered griefing. An act of griefing involves the following three types of actions to be considered grief play:^[4]

• The unfair use or abuse of a game mechanic that was not intended by the game's developers.
• The inability of the victim to exact some means of retribution beyond utilizing similar unintended game mechanics.
• The intended purpose of an act of griefing must be to negatively impact the game play of another person.

An act of griefing usually meets all these types of criteria as well as any game specific criteria set by the developers of the game.^[5]

Generally, for griefing to have occurred, the player in question must meet several, if not all, of the criteria listed above. More open definitions of the term suggest that the curbing of enjoyment in any way to be a form of griefing, whether it meets any of the listed criteria or not. These players will often consider the following actions to constitute griefing: kill stealing, player killing, spamming, team killing (or team wounding), door or path blocking, ninja looting, spawn camping, and corpse camping. These actions often meet one of the criteria but may fail to meet others.

Griefing shares much in common with laming, another term in online gaming, though the former tends to have stronger connotations. Although laming is less well-defined, fulfillment of the first criterion is often enough to classify an act as laming, thus, many of the above listed actions, while not accurately considered griefing, may legitimately fall under the category of laming. Though the two terms are very similar, griefing is typically more specific, particularly in regard to the second and especially the third criteria.

It is important to note that griefing methods differ from game to game depending on that game's mechanics. Changes and upgrades can sometimes prevent or lessen some acts of griefing, though the large player community of such games can sometimes find a way around it.

Griefer is the noun form used to refer to the player causing grief using the previously mentioned methods.^[6]

To grief is the infinitive form. It appears to be ambitransitive; however, no linguistic research has been done on usage variations to date.

Griefing is the noun form used to refer to a griefer's activity. It is the gerund form of to grief.

Training is a popular method of griefing in MMORPGs that do not allow any player vs player combat. The act of attacking another player is prohibited and therefore manipulating game mechanics in an unintended way can make this act constitute griefing. It involves a PC guiding mobs into attacking his/her character, and then moving the character to an area populated by many other PCs. The griefer then utilizes a technique, such as an in-game command or leaving the zone, to lose aggro, or mob interest. The mobs then attack the other PCs, often killing them. This is a form of monster player killing. This example is only true in games that do not permit Player Versus Player combat as it fails to meet all three criteria in a Player Versus Player environment. In some cases, it may meet all three criteria but fail to meet them in others depending on the ruleset that this action takes place in.

While clear examples of griefing exist, much of the difference between griefing and non-griefing activities depends on individual player's understanding of the social norms of the in-game world. Activities one player considers griefing may be understood by another to be part of normal gameplay. While certain behaviors are generally recognized by the majority of players in a game as griefing, the ultimate classification of any single act as griefing rests on the intent of the perpetrator. Griefing may not occur if the perpetrator's intent is not to negatively impact the victims game play or if the victim is capable of exacting retribution at the present or in the future. The perpetrator must have an unfair advantage that was not intended by the developers of the game to exist.

A number of gaming groups are believed to exist for the sole purpose of griefing.^[7] Again, the classification of these groups as griefing groups is subject to individual analysis and the required criterion for actions that can be considered griefing. In some cases the perpetrator may claim to be a griefer but be acting in a completely developer intended manner. The perpetrator's intent may be to grief but if the victim has a clear means of reprisal that was intended by the developers of the game, the offensive acts are not griefing but merely a means of playing the game.

Many subscription-based games have taken steps to combat griefers as they reduce the amount of enjoyment non-griefers take in the game and thus driving away business.^[3] However, the opportunity to grief is present in the functional requirements of multiplayer games in general (spamming is an unavoidable given non-restrictive player to player communication). Also, some griefing activities are easier to curtail than others. While spamming can be prevented with an ignore function, preventing the use of exploits in the FPS genre requires altering game balance issues. This is not impossible, but would remove the strategy aspect of some team-based first-person shooters. Also, since all griefing involves manipulating exploits, only by eliminating all of them can programmers remove those opportunities from Player Versus Player oriented games and Non-Player Versus Player oriented games. Given the scope and complexity of most multiplayer games, preventing griefing in Non-Player Versus Player games can be next to impossible.

In light of this, most games allow either for server admins to reprimand offenders (up to and including banning certain IP address from logging onto a local server) or, as in the case of MMORPGs with persistent worlds, have a reporting process by which the activities of certain players can be brought to the attention of GMs. The GMs or Customer Service Representatives then decide on any disciplinary action (if appropriate). By some accounts, as many as 25% of customer support calls to companies operating online games deal specifically with griefing.^[8] But in some MMOs griefing is reportable only as an abuse or exploitation of unintended game mechanics, which is frustrating to the victim of such acts as the griefer may not be dealt with as the report will go directly to the developers to fix the abused code.

Notably, Guild Wars practically eliminates the major forms of grief in online games by having separate instances for areas between towns and outposts, meaning no one except the player and their party can be found in that area. This means that many aspects of griefing are impossible and a griefer could only grief another player by gaining entry into the party. This comes at the cost of eliminating many of the benefits of the MMOG genre, rendering the game functionally identical to other non-MMOG titles such as Diablo II.

• Globe and Mail: Frontier justice: Can virtual worlds be civilized?
• "Ready, set, game: Learn how to keep video gaming safe and fun."
• "Gamers don't want any more grief", The Guardian.
• Documented incident of griefing during a virtual interview, see also Anshe Chung
• Research Paper on griefing. To view this PDF paper, the host website requires a free registration.
• "Feature: The Griefer Within", GamePro.