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I pose the question to you: how would you, the designer, handle such a problem? The answer is probably not to have an admin keep a 24/7 watch on the chokepoint; nor is it to remove the chokepoint entirely, as legitimate players would miss it. So, what can we do?

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Let players equip their cars with some big guns

Blocking the way is a serious problem that can really only be solved by conflict. Either by admin or by other players. I''d prefer other players taking care of it.

A nice all-around solution would be to have a team of AI engineers check the chokepoint every couple of seconds. Player blocking the way for more than X seconds? Bring in the detonation device.

Silvermyst:

"Let players equip their cars with some big guns "

But this is outside the scope of the game, which was intended to simulate street racing in a modern city, not Car Wars. Besides, PvP would have opened up a whole other can of worms.

"A nice all-around solution would be to have a team of AI engineers check the chokepoint every couple of seconds. Player blocking the way for more than X seconds? Bring in the detonation device. "

Or at least a tow truck. Yes, this would probably work for this particular problem, and would even solve the general problem of parked cars anywhere: if a car sits still for longer than a certain period, in a location not labeled as a parking spot, it will be towed. It then falls on the developers to ensure that no chokepoints are parking spots, which is a reasonable burden.

My point in bringing this example up, though, was not to say that nothing could be done about this particular tactic. It was to point out that stunts such as this cannot be "integrated" into a game, because they run counter to the spirit the game was built around.

msgrey: Thank you for this excellent analysis of the problem and its parameters. I do agree that grief play cannot be removed entirely, but I also think that more can be done in this direction than has been so far. Do you have any ideas in terms of potential solution methods? I''d like to encourage some brainstorming in this area.

-STC

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-SpittingTrashcan

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

How about, when the player makes a new character, they have the choice to check a "PvP" checkbox. A PvP character can be attacked by other PvP characters, as well as attack them. But a PvP character cannot attack a non-PvP character, nor can a non-PvP characer attack a PvP one.

Another approach would be to set up a completely different PvP server for anyone that wants to kill anyone they want.

As for people that take other''s item drops, why not implement it so that when the player kills something, the item reward goes into a queue (not inventory), and the player can pick things from the queue (at a later time) that he wants, and toss things that he doesn''t. Once something is taken out of the queue, it cannot be put back into the queue (just so that the queue cannot be used as a second inventory).

Just a few ideas.

You are correct, I can think of nothing that could possibly increase the other players experience in this situation. Only negative effects to the offending party dealt with ingame.

Perhaps the tow truck comes, they have to pay for towing fines, and inconvience(sp?) as well. They get booted off the track, or possibly banned for life.
Perhaps their car is impounded.
Perhaps they piss off the other cars sponsors or (increasing the cost of their upgrades)
Perhaps someone thinks something is wrong and calls in a paramedic/firefighter/cop, fines come along with this perhaps other problems as well.

Also I did not mean to give the intention that the solution of making griefers part of the game is a possibility in all situations. I simply think it is something that should be considered, and is greatly worth considering.

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Original post by Leshrak
Also I did not mean to give the intention that the solution of making griefers part of the game is a possibility in all situations. I simply think it is something that should be considered, and is greatly worth considering.

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As I said earlier, if you incorporate them into your game, then they aren''t griefers any more.

As to constructive suggestions, my basic assumption is that nothing you can do will prevent there being a hard-core group of petty-minded vandals, whose ideal is to force a given server to shut down due to lack of players. What you can do (and probably should do anyway for other reasons) is address issues that encourage griefing in your game. The first one that springs to my mind is the in-game economy. Think long and hard about what sources of wealth there are in the game, and what systems are in place to try and control inflation and/or hoarding. If it''s possible to make a game-profit off simple griefing, then players will be encouraged to do so. A related issue is the economic power of a newbie character - starting gear represents a fair amount of wealth, and for PKers, it''s probably the best opportunity to grab loot as the character is going to be pretty much at his weakest, the player may well be inexperienced, and the general area is going to be safe from NPC threats and probably one of a very few chokepoints through which characters enter the game.

Another tricky issue is that of player boredom. Bored players are more likely to turn destructive than those who are enjoying themselves playing within the system. The two groups you probably want to consider most carefully are the very low level characters, particularly if character improvement is easier through obnoxious behaviour than otherwise; and the very high level characters who have reached the stage where they''ve reached level 100, got the PUSD, can slay a Super Arch Villain Lord Of The Pit Uber Demon in a single hit without breaking a sweat, and are looking round for something else to hack apart...

Of course, whatever you do, some players are going to get bored because it''s too easy (so try and give them more role-oriented goals rather than just massacring their way through the game) or too hard (not much you can do about this one... maybe encourage your publisher/distributor to offer refunds for a short time after sale), but you can at least think about ways to keep players interested even if they aren''t hacking their way through quests...

rmsgrey,

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What you can do (and probably should do anyway for other reasons) is address issues that encourage griefing in your game.

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Amen to that. Griefers are bad enough when they do what they do despite the fact that it nets them nothing. If griefing provides in game reward, and especially if it provides more reward than nongrief play, then God help you.

A well-thought-out economy would certainly help in this regard. I suspect that many MMORPG designers don''t think too hard about their economic model, because their previous experience is with SPRPGs (Single Player RPGs) where pricing of items is largely an arbitrary means to force the player to stab more critters before their next upgrade. A simple source-sink economy with monsters as the source and shops as the sink is not only unsatisfying in the more complex MMO environment, but can actually lead to detrimental side effects.

The economic power of a new character may be less than you might think. In one of the only MMO games I have ever played (free beta!), Ragnarok Online, the starting character had as the sum total of his possessions one dagger. Worth 10 zeny. Which was less than you could earn by killing a Poring, the weakest monster in the game. Thus, going PvP on a newbie (which was, by the way, not allowed by the game) would have been more trouble for less reward than stabbing the plentiful Porings. Still, in other games where starting character gear is more significant, this might become an issue. Which is why I believe new characters ought to be much tougher than they currently are... but that''s another topic.

Player boredom is of course an issue in griefing, but on the other hand player boredom is an issue in any game. In many mainstream games new players really get the shaft in terms of options. They can''t do anything themselves, and stronger characters won''t help them because they won''t get anything out of it. Again, if new characters started with good stats and useful abilities right out of character creation, this wouldn''t be so much of an issue. "High-level" characters get bored because as they advance in level there gets to be a point where they can do anything. If challenges were more diverse and capability-specific, and characters were encouraged to specialize at higher level, there will always be some things a character can''t do; then he needs to assemble a team of specialists (possibly including newbies!) to get the job done.

To keep things interesting, I would set aside preprogrammed quests in favor of challenges emergent from player interaction and the existence of unique/important objects. For example, the Diamond of Heaven''s Fortune is a unique object said to grant great benefits to any faction who controls it for more than a year. Whichever faction holds the Diamond will of course do everything in their power to keep it, while the other factions will be busily assembling teams to steal it or bargain for it before the minimum holding period has passed. This would get even more interesting under the Karma system, which by its nature would discourage a direct assault.

In summary: discouraging griefing would be more easy to accomplish in a different sort of MMORPG than we are used to seeing.

-STC

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-SpittingTrashcan

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

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Original post by SpittingTrashcan
To keep things interesting, I would set aside preprogrammed quests in favor of challenges emergent from player interaction and the existence of unique/important objects. For example, the Diamond of Heaven''s Fortune is a unique object said to grant great benefits to any faction who controls it for more than a year. Whichever faction holds the Diamond will of course do everything in their power to keep it, while the other factions will be busily assembling teams to steal it or bargain for it before the minimum holding period has passed. This would get even more interesting under the Karma system, which by its nature would discourage a direct assault.

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The biggest problem with relying on player interaction emergence to generate goals is building your initial player base to the point where emergence starts.
Also, I believe that well designed preprogrammed quests/quest opportunities could help to establish the flavour and culture of the online world. For example, having the Diamond of Heaven''s Fortune hidden in a dungeon somewhere at start-up and introducing runours about it could be a better way of putting it in the game than simply letting one faction have it initially, or having it in a well-publicised location with easy access at start-up.

I will say right now that I have no actual experience with any MMO game, so my opinions are based on common sense and anecdotes rather than personal experience. I''m not convinced, for instance, that people would generate quests for each other automatically. At the very least, considerable thought would have to go into ensuring that the raw materials required were available (wandering trolls for example)

I think you will have to accept grief players and find solutions to the problems they cause reather than trying to find means to stop them from playing your game. So why not try to list all the types or at least classes of problems a griefer can cause and then start looking for solutions to each of them? I don''t know if that''s a good approach but it would at least provide a structure for the discussion.

o Verbal harassment. Most people have already suggested an "ignore" option.and this is probably a good solution. I must admit that I haven''t read all the posts in this thread so I don''t know what conclusions you have come to regarding this.

o Physical harassment; standing in the way or blocking limited resources (such as the example with the car blocking a choke point). Say that the bank only has room for five characters, then five griefers will camp there 24-7 and thus block the resource.

o Loot stealing. There''s the obvious solution with "loot rights" which makes sure that only the "killer" gets access to the loot within a limited period of time, however this "right" can be abused by the griefer employing the "kill stealing" technique.

o Kill stealing. The griefer throws the final blow and thus gets the right to the loot. Are there any solutions to this? (Once again, I haven''t read all the posts, so I don''t know if this has been discussed)

o Etc. The list can be made much longer.

Maybe many of these problems could be overcome by expanding the "ignore" function somewhat? What would happen if the person you are ignoring couldn''t see you or interact with you at all and you would be able to treat him like air? Maybe the ignored person wouldn''t even be able to see the results of some of your actions? If you begin to attack an ogre and the griefer is nearby, he wouldn''t even know that you''re attacking it. In the griefer''s world, nothing happens at all.

Now this is a very powerful feature which probably can be exploited in ways far beyond my imagination, so it might be too risky to implement.

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Original post by henrikb
I think you will have to accept grief players and find solutions to the problems they cause reather than trying to find means to stop them from playing your game.


o Verbal harassment. Most people have already suggested an "ignore" option.

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Having played Counter Strike for ages (with built in voice coms and ignore function) it was a shock to play the much newer Medal of Honour AA and find it had no such, what I would consider to be, basic/required options.

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o Physical harassment; standing in the way or blocking limited resources (such as the example with the car blocking a choke point). Say that the bank only has room for five characters, then five griefers will camp there 24-7 and thus block the resource.

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Varies from game to game and almost impossible to prevent. The developer would have to compile a list of every possible grief tactic and then review their map for places where these can be exploited. In some cases the fix would simply spawn a new alternative grief tactic.
- example: Make doors a no stopping area. Griefers can''t stand in the door to doorblock. Instead four or five stand in a line/cordon around the door zone blocking access that way.

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o Loot stealing.

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-This can easily be solved. Kill an monster and a pop up comes up listing the loot. Only the person entitled gets this screen. they select what the want and the rest is discarded for the vultures. Player has 5 minutes to complete this and is invulverable during this time.

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o Kill stealing. The griefer throws the final blow and thus gets the right to the loot. Are there any solutions to this? (Once again, I haven''t read all the posts, so I don''t know if this has been discussed)

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- make this dependant on doing the most damage, not inflicting the final blow.

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Maybe many of these problems could be overcome by expanding the "ignore" function somewhat? What would happen if the person you are ignoring couldn''t see you or interact with you at all and you would be able to treat him like air?

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Then the griefer just spots a newbie, ignores them so the newbie can''t see what they are up to, follow the newbie and at the right time unignore and attack them.

The truth is that griefproofing a game is impossible.
- You can''t design out grief because the player base will always come up with new ideas you didn''t think of.
- You can''t griefproof every feature of the game because it simply isn''t economically viable. The time spent and the code generated would be greater than that simply to implement the feature itself - You would be doing 70% of your work to counteract 1% of the player base.

The only way to counter it is to have live admins all the time that players can *easily* contact when there is a problem. For publishers that can be a cost they don''t want to meet.



Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions

rmsgrey: It''s fine that you have no experience with MMO; in fact, hopefully having never played them allows you to think outside the conventions of the genre.

Of course, it is the duty, right, and privilege of the developer to set the world up initially in an interesting fashion, and keep the pot brewing when things get quiet. But I think that once the player base gets large enough for stories to emerge, the developer should take a back seat and merely provide the stage and props where the players play their characters.

henrikb: Thanks for this helpful if non-exhaustive cataloguing of possible grief issues. Unfortunately, I agree with Obscure that no amount of conditionals on actions will make a game griefproof, but having built-in solutions to the most common forms of griefing should definitely help the situation.

- Verbal harassment: I like the "ignore" option for this one. It works pretty well in real life, and even better in games due to the magic of selective earplugs.

- Physical harassment: The simplest solution I''ve seen for this is to simply make players noclip right through each other. That way no player can hinder another. Another option is to have the characters "flock" so that they preferentially don''t pass through each other, but will if there''s no way around. You could have a "dodge-by" animation where the two character models appear to slip by each other. I think this one is eminently solvable, so long as you''re willing to sacrifice a little realism to get a lot of gameplay.

- Loot stealing: Why are you looting monsters anyway? They''re monsters, not walking bags of cash. They''ve got nothing but the skin on their backs, and unless you''re a tanner that''s useless to you. The only reason to kill monsters is because you''re getting paid for it, and you get paid if the monsters are gone regardless of who did the actual killing - it''s in your contract, see?

- Kill stealing: Experience is awarded based on damage done, and see above for the loot issue.

Obscure:
"The only way to counter it is to have live admins all the time that players can *easily* contact when there is a problem. For publishers that can be a cost they don''t want to meet."

Exactly, which is why we''re finding other ways to counter it. Don''t give up on the problem just because it''s hard. No, you can''t program for every eventuality. But hopefully you can design the game in such a way that the player community can deal with grief behavior without having to call in the admins.

In fact, why don''t I just restate the problem.

How do you allow the PLAYERS to deal with grief players?

-STC

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-SpittingTrashcan

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