griefers
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Outlaws of EVE Online: Miz Cenuij Part 2
How much time will you spend pulling together a confidence scam? And how integral is having a third party to facilitate what you do? It depends upon how much I am enjoying that particular scam. If I am enjoying it then time is never really an issue. I've spent months on individual scams, developing relationships, spending time on voice comms or the phone, whatever was required at the time. Other scams were instant 5-minute wonders. The difference between what I do and what a real life scam artist does is that in real life they are governed by money, how much time is any particular scam worth investing in? In New Eden I am driven by enjoyment and thus the time spent on any particular scam is what I choose it to be.
Griefing as a phenomenon
As new studies and research continues to look into the online aspect of behavior known as griefing (or as cyber-bullying to the mainstream media), it all appears to reinforce the correlation between the online and offline aspects of this all-too-human behavior. You see, griefing didn't start online. In a sense griefing is like one of many sexual kinks, in that it exists in the physical world -- it just wasn't until it went online that we really noticed that it was such a common thing.
Toontown Online makes it harder for griefers
We were swimming in the apartment community pool this weekend and were unfortunate enough to be there when a kid was practicing his griefing skills. He was about 10 years old and was doing the standard stuff: throwing trash in the pool and blaming other kids, stealing the other kids' pool toys, and of course calling everyone "gay" when they left the pool and took their toys with them. We see griefers of all ages in the MMOs we play and the kids games are no exception. We've discussed before how games like Toontown Online take steps to prevent griefing with canned chat phrases and passworded friend features. The worst thing a toon in Toontown can say to you is "You stink!" which is really not very hurtful. But it is rather bothersome when it is spammed at you until you are able to escape the griefer, say by going home and gardening. .
Diablo 3 to emphasize cooperation, PvP to be included
Whether calling it out for being too colorful or even too conservative, Diablo 3 naysayers have certainly not lacked for ammunition to sling at the action RPG since it was made all official like late last month. Now pessimists can add another rock to the pile, with Blizzard poster Bashiok writing on the official World of Warcraft forums that the Diablo 3 devs are working to discourage online skullduggery, and that multiplayer will focus primarily on cooperative play.Explained Bashiok, "We have a large focus on cooperative play for Diablo III, and the mechanics and design decisions related to multiplayer are likely going to be based on supporting and encouraging it as much as possible, and not breaking it down." However, PvP will apparently have its place in the game, as Bashiok baited forumers by adding, "That doesn't mean that PvP won't have its own focus, but those are details and features we aren't yet discussing." So for now it looks like PKers will need to find another outlet for their griefing ways, perhaps by venturing outside into the sunlight for a rousing game of Freeze Tag.
How to hold a scientific conference in Azeroth
John Bohannon has been writing for Science magazine as "The Gonzo Scientist," and his most recent writeup, on a real scientific conference held in the World of Warcraft, is a great read. We reported that the event was happening back in May, and now Bohannon's put together a really honest report (from how the conference was funded to the reasons why it was chosen to be Horde-only) on what its like for these scientists researching virtual worlds to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak, and actually hold a conference ingame.They had to deal with everything from conversation direction (they appointed one person to get whispers on any questions for speakers, though, as anyone who's ever been to a mass ingame event will tell you, you can't really keep people from yelling and screaming) to mobs in the Barrens. And it sounds like they did get something done -- besides the panels, which were only slightly frustrated by griefers, they took expeditions throughout the world, and did do a little thinking about how different meeting in RL and meeting in a virtual existence is.Very good read. The end of the article has a link to a PDF book about the conference, but it's hidden behind Science's membership wall. Still, Bohannon writes clearly and fairly about the game, and it's fun to think of a bunch of scientists actually trying to navigate a virtual world while doing their own research.
Sunwell griefing runs rampant
Patch 2.4, much like most other things in WoW, has managed to bring the worst out of some people. The mask of anonymity strikes again!No, I don't mean the node-stealing, ninja-tapping, mob-training stupidery(which is a word as of right now) you see all over the Isle of Quel'Danas. I refer to the standing-on-NPCs-while-PvP-flagged griefing. If you're lucky and haven't seen this happen on your server, what most servers are seeing is a bunch of Blood Elf and Draenei players standing directly on top of Shattered Sun Offensive NPCs, so players accidentally, unknowingly, right click on them instead of the quest NPC. This results in inadvertently hitting the player, and then getting destroyed by the SSO guards.
The Daily Grind: Will griefers ever evolve?
The MMO industry as we know it today hasn't been around very long, really. Still, we can see definite generational shifts, particularly between the current crop of foul-mouthed, immature children (of all ages) we might label 'griefers', and the older, more stable cadre of players who just want to enjoy their hobby in peace. The generation of kids being raised on MMOs have the dubious honor of receiving input from both of these spheres. What will they become? Respect can be taught, but kids are mimetic; they'll copy behavior they find amusing. Is there a chance that griefers can grow out of their abusive tendencies and learn to behave? What will it take for that behavior to evolve?
Jerks, brats, and griefers can be curbed with good design
According to Bill Fulton, some of the most over-looked aspects of online game development today are design mechanisms to discourage players from acting like jerks. Rather than merely acquiescing to the reality that in any large game communities, there are just going to be a given number of dickwads, Fulton suggests that this accepted reality is nothing more than the result of faulty design. Developers can figure out ways to discourage or circumvent this kind of behavior, Fulton says, if they just put some thought into it.Why does this even matter? According to Fulton, when immaturity and asshattery is allowed to rein supreme, it discourages large swaths of a potential player base from continuing to play, or even from signing up in the first place. Certain demographics, like women or older gamers who get enough childish antics from their kids, are especially resistant to this kind of behavior. If you look at a game like World of Warcraft, which is so eminently successful in these demographics, they've implemented a number of elements (like profanity filters, graveyard rez's, and reactive city guards) to keep the idiots at bay. When you're trying to emulate WoW's success, it's an feature set you'd be remiss not to include.
The Digital Continuum: This year, PvPing is the new raiding
Ever since World of Warcraft hit the scene back in late 2004, it has experienced enormous success that even its creators hadn't foreseen -- with an estimated 2.5 million active player-base in the United States, 5.5 in Asia and around 2 in Europe. I think we can all agree that World of Warcraft's position as king of the hill isn't going to change anytime soon, because change takes time with all things. There is, however, a change that's been coming to a slow boil. For the past three years players have been leveling up in WoW, but when they get to the end most players have only two choices. They can either choose to focus on battlegrounds/arena PvP or they can partake in endgame raiding of various instances.These last few months I've been looking closely at the two hyped-up massively games 2008 has to offer; Age of Conan and Warhammer Online. It has become more and more apparent to me that this year is going to be the year of the PvP endgame focus. A lot of people have played or seen the raid game and found it to be something they had no interest in. Ideally, if a developer can make a PvP endgame experience that's easy to get into and fun for everyone involved they will have something different on their hands that could potentially grab tons of subscribers.
Peering inside - looking back at 2007 [UPDATED]
It's been no less a tumultuous year for Second Life in 2007 this year than any previous year, frankly. There are a few standout items though. This isn't the list that anyone else might make - We might completely skip over one of the things you see as standing out as a huge impact, based solely on that we don't actually think it was that big a deal in the scheme of things.
Instance griefing not against the ToS?
Unless you've experienced it first hand, you may not realize what the term "instance griefing" refers to. In this particular case, it refers to any player or players who are maliciously stealing your guild's raid IDs in order to grief you during raid time. (For non raiders in the audience, high-end raid dungeons have specific reset timers on them, preventing you from constantly farming the dungeon. At some point after zoning into a dungeon -- usually after a boss kill -- you're "saved" to the specific instance and assigned an instance ID that is the same for you and all of your group. Anyone saved with that specific ID will zone into your instance rather than a fresh instance -- at least until the dungeon resets.) Poster Trindade offers some advice on how random players might wind up getting your Karazhan instance ID:Bob is a member of your raid and has your instance ID. Jim is a scumbag griefer in shattrath wanting to steal your ID. Ted is a scumbag griefer outside Karazhan waiting to steal your ID. Jim is in a group with Ted. They have made their group a raid. Jim whispers Bob "Hey Bob, wanna run Shattered Halls?" Bob whispers Jim "sure". Jim invites Bob to join his group. Bob joins the raid group. Bob is now the group leader. Ted enters Karazhan. So what happens next? Read on for the whole story.
