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Original post by Machaira
So you''ve never written a piece of software that had a bug in it? Wow, I''m impressed!

This has to be about the silliest thing I''ve heard in this thread!

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Hmm. Your sarcasm is misplaced.

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Original post by Heaven
If there is an exploit, it''s not a player''s fault who uses it but the programmer''s fault who allowed it. Pure and simple. You''re going to ban somebody for doing something you programmed into the game? And after they''re paying monthly for this same bugged game?

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We''re not talking about a BETA here, but a bugged retail store-bought game that someone is paying a monthly fee for. Although in my mind when UO first came out it was like we were paying to beta test their game, but I digress.

If, as a programmer/game company, I''ve coded/tested/released a game to the public and an exploit is discovered it''s somehow the player''s fault for using it? If that''s what you''re suggesting, then perhaps THAT''s the truly silly thing in this thread.

Fix the exploit in a patch, and possibly do a restart/refresh of the gameworld. Better yet, do a really quick temp patch that flags any users of the exploit, and when you do the refresh only restart THEIR characters. Heh.

Or better yet, beta test the hell out of your game before making someone pay a monthly fee. I have no qualms about a company that releases their game and bans exploiters but which does NOT charge anyone to play until all the bugs are worked out.

It''s just the fact that you''re paying to debug their game, and then they''re gonna'' ban you or something for doing it? That''s just wrong.

Care.

Florida, USA
RTS Engine in Development
http://www.knology.net/~heaven
Jesus is LORD!

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Original post by Heaven
If there is an exploit, it''s not a player''s fault who uses it but the programmer''s fault who allowed it. Pure and simple.

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It sounds like you think programmers leave bugs in games on purpose. Do you do that?

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Original post by Heaven
You''re going to ban somebody for doing something you programmed into the game? And after they''re paying monthly for this same bugged game?

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If it''s in the rules upfront, yes I would ban them in a heartbeat. I don''t remember the EULAs for EQ or DAoC (the two MMORPGs I''ve played) but I would be willing to bet it''s in there that you are not to use any bugs to your advantage. If it''s in the EULA and you click that button that says you agree to it, you should suffer the penalties when you break it. Plain and simple!

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Original post by Heaven
We''re not talking about a BETA here, but a bugged retail store-bought game that someone is paying a monthly fee for. Although in my mind when UO first came out it was like we were paying to beta test their game, but I digress.

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So, no software should be released if there''s a bug in it? Known or unknown? There would never be any games on the shelves.

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Original post by Heaven
If, as a programmer/game company, I''ve coded/tested/released a game to the public and an exploit is discovered it''s somehow the player''s fault for using it? If that''s what you''re suggesting, then perhaps THAT''s the truly silly thing in this thread.

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If exploiting that bug violates the EULA yes, it''s the players fault.

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Original post by Heaven
Fix the exploit in a patch, and possibly do a restart/refresh of the gameworld. Better yet, do a really quick temp patch that flags any users of the exploit, and when you do the refresh only restart THEIR characters. Heh.

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Bugs that are exploitable are usually patched as soon as they can be after being discovered. This still takes days and exploits spread like wildfire so it means people will be able to take advantage of them. The fact that it violates the EULA doesn''t seem to bother them so it shouldn''t bother them when the pay the penalty for doing so.

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Original post by Heaven
Or better yet, beta test the hell out of your game before making someone pay a monthly fee. I have no qualms about a company that releases their game and bans exploiters but which does NOT charge anyone to play until all the bugs are worked out.

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Do you think that games are released without extensive beta tests? There are games that have been out there for over a year and bugs are still discovered. We''re not talking about a simple database app where you can test all possibilities. Gamers will do things that can''t even be imagined.

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Original post by Heaven
It''s just the fact that you''re paying to debug their game, and then they''re gonna'' ban you or something for doing it? That''s just wrong.

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They''re not banning people for debugging a game, they''re banning people for violating the EULA. It''s the companies game so they can make the rules. If a player chooses to break that rule, they should suffer the consequences. No one forces them to buy the game or click the button to accept the EULA. There''s just no excuse.

I just wanted to say that I''m a "greif player"
I do pretty much everything except hacking and cheating, I like to be fair when I kill others. Just as all games have their heros, all game need their villains. Computer controlled villains are kinda weak, limited in their possibilities, they don''t provide major challange to anyone. True villains can only be played by the player. Problems arise in those games that weren''t designed to have strong villains, tho there aren''t many games like that. Most of the time players are just bitching about "greif players" just cause they are so challanging to beat. Nobody likes to overcome hard obstacles, most people want to do things the easy way. When those people complain, it''s not the "greif player''s" fault, it''s the fault of people with weak character. If a "greif player" breaks the game system, it''s not his fault either, it''s the fault of system developer, it''s bad design, and the sooner problems are discovered, the sooner they can be fixed.

I''m kind of jumping in late in this thread but I have seen quite a few interesting points in here.

First off SpittingTrashcan I wouldn''t define all villians as grief players. I think it is perfectly reasonable to be able to RP a villian, but most villians aren''t doing what they do simply to piss people off. They don''t stand somewhere yelling profanities at people. They don''t neccisarily go on newbie murdering sprees, after all what do they gain from it? A villian could be for example an assassin. They take contracts to kill certain PC''s.

I don''t know the outcome of the whole shun player idea but I think it''s simply another way for "grief players" to annoy people. Think if a group of them got together and started to shun innocents.

Just a few thoughts...

This discussion seems to be proceeding apace, but there are a couple items I think I can clarify.

First of all, I do not believe that roleplaying and grief play are at all the same thing. A villain seeks to accumulate wealth and power through unscrupulous means, but the villain player is still "in the game" - he wishes for his character to succeed within the context of the game, and the damage he deals to other characters is an acceptable result rather than an end in itself. He is therefore influenced by in-game risks and rewards: he flees from guards, bounty hunters, and angry mobs, and is careful only to strike when the rewards outweigh the risks. To disguise his evil ambitions, he may even be exceedingly polite in public.

A grief player, on the other hand, is not interested in the rewards of the game. The misery of other players is a goal in itself, and all other aspects of the game are simply tools which he can use to achieve that goal. He will harm people even when there is no conceivable gain from doing so. He is not afraid to lose wealth, power, or even life, as these are only secondary to his actual goal. When he cannot cause actual harm, he settles for being being annoying or abusive in whatever way he can. Killing him doesn''t stop him; he just makes a new character, and faster than you''d like he''s back to pester you again.

Imagine if you knew a person who was immortal, ignored pain, bribes, or any other form of persuasion, and whose only goal was to poke you in the eye as often as possible for as long as you lived. That''s what I mean by grief player.

Second, it is an assumption I make that true grief players, people who really only want to make everyone miserable and don''t care about anything else, are a minority in any game. If this is not true, then it is a sad world we live in. In other words, I believe a solution which relies on the majority of the players acting to uphold the game (regardless of their attitudes toward good or evil, which as I said above is a separate issue) will work.

Hence, I believe the shun system will work with the following changes:
- you can only shun a small finite number of people (say 2)
- a certain fairly large number of people must shun you for you to go to shunland (say 10)
- if you yourself are in shunland, then your shuns do not count.
Then, if a coalition of say 20 griefers decide to shun random people, they can only send 4 people to shunland. On the other hand, being griefers one of them will probably manage to piss off 10 people and go to shunland himself, at which point 2 of those 4 will return from shunland as their shunners go in.

I''m not saying shunland is the best or only solution, only that it will work if you assume that griefers are in the minority.

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-SpittingTrashcan

You can''t have "civilization" without "civil".

and of course, you could use one of the other systems mentioned to prevent knowen greif players from shunning at all (short of registering a totaly new account - even then.. IP matching is there)

Do not meddle in the affairs of moderators, for they are subtle and quick to anger.

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ANDREW RUSSELL STUDIOS
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I still think that true villains don''t have to role play. True villains are.. evil - plain and simple. They aren''t expected to play by the rules or to do anything a "good player" may like. Those people are there to make you hate them. When you hate them, you want to kill them, when you want to kill them, you want to play the game more. When enough people hate somebody, they start forming groups, communities. All that is good for the game in general. The only bad thing is that players don''t always want to role play to the story. But it''s unrealistic to expect everyone to role play, this isn''t a text based fantasy game. Everyone can interpret the game mechanics in any way they want to.

Banning should be reserved only for people who use hacks and cheats. Those who cuss too much can be put on permanent ignore. Everyone else is fine.

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Original post by berserk
I just wanted to say that I''m a "greif player"

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Well, if you are a grief player, should we really be taking your advice on how to handle them? If you don''t see your actions as harmful, of course you don''t think preventative measures are necessary.

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Just as all games have their heros, all game need their villains.

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Agreed. But griefers as I define them aren''t villains within the context of the game. They''re nasty people in real life who use the game as a means to hurt others. Instead of making the game more enjoyable by providing challenging opponents, they make the game less enjoyable by being persistent irritations. They''re not Darth Maul; they''re Jar Jar Binks.

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Most of the time players are just bitching about "greif players" just cause they are so challanging to beat. Nobody likes to overcome hard obstacles, most people want to do things the easy way. When those people complain, it''s not the "greif player''s" fault, it''s the fault of people with weak character.

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As I''m trying to design a game where direct combat strength of a character plays a less central role, I''m trying to avoid systems which treat "weak" characters as second-class citizens. Besides, you can''t "beat" a grief player. Unless they are completely barred from the game, they will return to their old tricks time and time again.

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If a "greif player" breaks the game system, it''s not his fault either, it''s the fault of system developer, it''s bad design, and the sooner problems are discovered, the sooner they can be fixed.

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Although grief players tend to overlap those who look for cheats, cheating and exploiting bugs is a separate issue. If it''s a bug on the side of the developer''s code, then it should be reported so it can be patched. Not reporting a developer-side code error, and exploiting it instead, is definitely quite high on the scale of offenses. If it''s an imbalance in the game system, then that is the developer''s problem and should be rectified. One should not complain when rebalancing of the game makes one''s character weaker! And if it''s a crack created by hacking game code or some such, that''s a get-kicked-forever offense. Period.

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I still think that true villains don''t have to role play. True villains are.. evil - plain and simple.

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Not roleplaying in an RPG is like not talking about game design in the Game Design Forum. If you didn''t want to play the game, why did you come?

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They aren''t expected to play by the rules or to do anything a "good player" may like.

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I assume that people play games because they like the rules. Even in-game villains are played by people who enjoy playing the "villain side". Their actions can and should encompass a wide variety of evil acts which make sense within the context of the game and its world. I don''t think it''s right to take advantage of the fact that "it''s only a game" to take actions that don''t make sense in-game, especially if the only intent of those actions is to cause misery for those who are actually trying to play the game. To continue my forums analogy, certainly "it''s only a forum", but do you appreciate trolls?

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Those people are there to make you hate them. When you hate them, you want to kill them, when you want to kill them, you want to play the game more.

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But when you kill them, they come right back and keep doing all those things that make you hate them. You become frustrated, because they can hurt you, the player, and there''s no way to get rid of them. You want to play the game less.

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But it''s unrealistic to expect everyone to role play, this isn''t a text based fantasy game. Everyone can interpret the game mechanics in any way they want to.

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Why do you assume this isn''t a text-based fantasy game? Griefers are a problem in those games too. And I find it perfectly reasonable to expect that players will at least pay attention to what makes sense within the game, and not ignore those rules in favor of ruining the game for those who want to play it for what it is.

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Banning should be reserved only for people who use hacks and cheats. Those who cuss too much can be put on permanent ignore. Everyone else is fine.

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I''m going to stick my finger in your eye again and again. If you kill me, I''ll be back in about ten minutes and will get right back to poking you in the eye. Are you okay with that? No? Good!

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-SpittingTrashcan

You can''t have "civilization" without "civil".

Years ago, I was an avid player of Ultima Online. In the early days, the game was plagued with PKs, most of them punks, but a few were role-played villans. I once took part in a discussion about PKs and the consenus reached that PKing was alright as long as the PK role-played. As a number of role-playing villans were taking part in the discussion, I asked if any of their victims ever roleplayed back.

Well, unless telling a highwayman to f-off is role-playing, then only a bare minority of victims ever joined in the role-playing.

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But when you kill them, they come right back and keep doing all those things that make you hate them. You become frustrated, because they can hurt you, the player, and there''s no way to get rid of them. You want to play the game less.

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And we''re back to permanent death.
I think it''s safe to assume that that is not the road you want to travel though, right?
Okay, barring permanent death, what other solutions can we come up with that
a) controls griefers
b) can''t hurt non-griefers