Since the Rush thread got a little out of hand and is starting to boarder on insulting, I wanna bring up another subject. In an MMORPG, we distinguish a class of players of enjoy PvP (Player Versus Player) and use any tactics they have at their disposal to harrass other players. Kill their pets or minions, loot corpses that others went through the trouble of killing, etc. In an RTS, Rushing involves harrassing an enemy player and/or overwhelming them to starve them of resources, or take their resources, and kill off part of their force in the process. Now, if you ignore the role-playing emotional aspect of MMORPGs, and the fact that RTSes encourage these tactics; conceptually look at Griefing and Rushing, aren''t these two somewhat similiar? And if its the case that they are connected, is there a similiar way to handle these things? By handle, I mean is there a way to move these two things up from ''Side-Effect'' status to something that is specifically designed into a game, and thus controlled, or at least presented in a form that any player can understand and effectively compensate their gameplay for. Thats probably a lot to deal with, so how about we start with figuring out the pluses and minuses of Grievers and Rushers, and lets try to do it without launching into personal insults and rants about anybody''s skills as a gamer.

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Original post by Inmate2993
...Now, if you ignore the role-playing emotional aspect of MMORPGs, and the fact that RTSes encourage these tactics; conceptually look at Griefing and Rushing, aren''t these two somewhat similiar? And if its the case that they are connected, is there a similiar way to handle these things?...

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No. RTS''s acommidate rushes. They are a part of the design of the game, whereas a grief player in a MMOG is just there to piss people off by ruining their gaming experience. Rushing is part of the RTS game. Getting your character needlessly killed by a grief player in a MMOG is not (MOST OF THE TIME).

While rushes may be part of the design of an RTS, they and grief players in an MMORPG do share some similarities. And I can''t imagine that MMORPG designers are blind to grief players, considering the measures they take to neutralize them, rather than using them in a way that enhances gameplay.

Looking just at grief players in MMORPG''s for a moment, perhaps refining the concept of clans and organizations to include a "preemptive" clan versus an "honor" clan could yield some interesting results.

I noticed this among Jedi Outcast clans. Not an MMORPG, I know, but the concept is similar.

There was the "saberist code" where you bowed before duels, didn''t attack while sabers were off, etc. Of course, soon enough an "anti-saberist code" clan popped up, declared all''s fair in love in war, and began chopping the saberist code folks into little pieces.

SABERS OFF = PEACE!!! *slash whoom*

Yes, whoom.

Anyway, an MMORPG which allows for both styles of play could be interesting. Honor clans couldn''t fight pre-emptive clans, and vice-versa. Anarchy Online has different organization "governments," but those mostly affect the way the leadership of the clan is selected.

critical_waste : I would support your comment if you were talking abour pen&paper roleplaying games, but you see, you are talking about cRPG. And it''s a entirely different world.
The main thing is that a cRPG is mostly based on accumulation of resources, whether you call it experience, artifacts, gold, whatever. The very system of accumulation through competition makes it failry hard to *not* use the best tactic out there in any sort of competitive game : attacking before being attacked.
Look at chess : if you just let the other player attack relentlessly hoping that you can just defend... you lose.
In RTS, although it might seem at first that defense might be a valid tactic, the best you can hope for is a draw (in chess too, BTW. I have done it quite a few times)
In cRPG, same shit. Of course, I see MMORPG like glorified roguelike, which are anything but Roleplaying games. I am sure you can accomodate, in the environment provided by the game, some sort of roleplay, but fundamentally, the game is not *designed* for non-competitive play. Hence the validity, and should I say, optimal value, of aggressive tactics such as Grieving.

To give you a more real world example (and forgive me if you think this is insensitive, but I am trying to make a point here), do you remember the thread about the Americans taunting the Iraqi warriors by insulting them, resulting in their death ?
Well, that''s the same shit. The goal of a warrior is to kill first the guys that could kill him. How you achieve that is a matter of ethics, honour, whatever. So there will be diverging opinions on the validity, "fair play" of whatever tactic. But in the end, the last man standing is the one laughing...

I have another less disturbing that I experienced two weeks ago. I played CS in a LAN party with my mates, and was, for a change, top of the list. One of my team mates, being a really competitive guy (he cant stand losing), decided to use a perfectly valid tactic to hinder my effort : shoot me in the back at the beginning of the round, NOT killing me (and thus not being punished for TKing), but leaving me with pretty much no chance of surviving the level (I am not *that* good). And so it did work. I would hurt some other guy pretty bad, get killed, and he would get the kill... needless to say I voiced my disagreement at this, so it didnt last long.
But my point is, it *was* a valid tactic, whether I liked it or not. Stupid, because CS is a team game, but for someone playing to get the most kills, a perfectly logical thing to do !

Sadly, this is exactly what happens in an MMORPG. Sure you can resepct the rules to the letter, roleplay all day, and tell pretty stories, and sing songs, and write fan fictions, and whatever the mind of a good roleplayer can come up with.
But if the game''s very nature is a *competition*, you efforts at roleplay are just lost in the clamour of the battle...

Change the basic goal of the game, and then maybe, just maybe, you''ll see those tactics (that *some* people will of course complain about) not being used.

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Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

i don''t think the two are anything alike...

grief players in MMORPGs (or any game) are not acting the way they do to gain an edge; they are just enjoying ruining someone else''s fun (preferably a LOT of people''s fun). if they loot something useful it might make them happy, but it is much more important that they stole it from someone else (unfair looting, or PK) than that they have it.

rushing in an RTS is a valid tactic to achieve the game''s goal (to win the war). while it is a somewhat "cheap" tactic IMHO, and can leave a bad taste in your mouth when your perfectly formed and strategically well thought out army is destroyed by a three hundred and fifty unit "mob", it is still a means to achieve the ends, a WIN.

just my 2 cents...

Assuming that a grief player does what he does just to ruin the experience of another gamer is being quite blind to the underlying issues. You have to take into account that he or she may be new or untrained in the game, that they feel like everyone but them has immense power. You are assuming that the grief player is a vicious human being, but he''s just simply trying to enjoy the game. Many of them do not even realize the depths of anger which they generate in others by robbing them. Of course, this isn''t to say that there are NO ignorant fools who thrive on destroying the joy of others, but not everyone does what they do to hurt people. The same halfway applies for rush players. It''s unfair to assume that every rush player does it for a quick, somewhat cheating win. They may feel that this strategy is the only way for them to survive against experienced players, and in some cases it is.

I think it must be said that most of the people against these tactics are "players scorned," whereas those that support the tactics are actual users of said strategy. Also, to say that RTS games accommodate rushes while MMORPGS do not accommodate or endorse theft and player killing is unfair. Have you ever considered that your high level badass is the soul reason this person wants to steal from you? That they feel so weak compared to you and others like you, that it might be the only way to become even worth the number of polygons on screen they take up when in the same room with you? In fact, in many cases it''s veteran players simply EXISTING that causes these players to come about. You make other players feel so inadequate and weak in so many cases, that these cheap victories are often the only way for retribution.

I leave a lot of issues open with this, but I run in time constraints. So I must take my leave.
-Bajiroshi

i guess we just have different opinions about what constitutes a "grief player"... i assume that a "grief player" is a certain type of annoying player, separate from a newbie or an in-character thief; they deliberately ruin the fun for others. that is what makes them grief players.

those who bum rush in an RTS are using a valid tactic to win. those who PK or steal to be dicks may be using valid tactics (if PK or unfair looting is allowed by the game engine) but they definitely aren't trying to win, or even progress.

there were a few huge discussions about grief players here a while back... i don't have the link though.

[edited by - krez on May 9, 2003 6:35:09 PM]

I think the real question that begs to be answered is "why do players feel that they should win at any cost?". But when we ask that question, we are essentially questioning the morality of players, and how they view the ramifications of their actions...not in the game world, but on "what price victory?".

When I first started posting here, a lot of my initial topics were about why balancing and the need to win were such overriding concerns for both the game designers as well as the players. The very notion that a game must be balanced and "fair" inherently limits design choices and also leads to a player mentality that if healthy is honest competion, and if unhealthy borders on tossing out all ethics and morality to "win".

In strategy games, one may think that the ultimate goal is to "win", but what really does that mean? Does it mean to beat your foe into submission? Does it mean to burn his cities to the ground and salt the earth? Sometimes I question the very goals that we are supposedly trying to obtain when we play games. If the end goal of playing games is to have fun, and players equate winning with fun, what happens when they lose?

I''ve always thought that losing was a far better character builder than winning as long as it doesn''t destroy your self-confidence or self-esteem. And yet I get the notion that players NEED to win. It''s almost as if they have less than a 50% percent win ratio, somehow the game is stupid and flawed or that other players cheat or use low-ball tactics. For the only other alternative is to think that perhaps the player isn''t good at that game. Unfortunately, players see the destination as the only thing worthwhile, forgetting that the journey is half the fun.

Perhaps we think that life is full of failure and uncertainty, so we want games as an escape from that, and a chance for us to excel at something. But sometimes the need to win goes too far, and tactics, behavior and strategies are used to get a "win fix". It''s almost as if the old adage, "it''s not if you win or lose that''s important, it''s how you play the game" has been forgotten. I''ve studied martial arts off and on for about 13 years now, and it''s taught me alot about how to see competition. Ultimately, the only person worth competing against is yourself. But trying to teach that to people through a game is very difficult. There''s an old saying, "The greatest enemy you will ever face is your own potential". Maybe the guy you''re playing has a better potential than you do...so what? Do the best you can do, since that''s all you can ever do. In life, there''s two ways to better, one is you can increase your own skills, the other is to make other people worse. Ideally, it''s always better to improve your own skills and situation rather than try to trip up others.

Oh well, my rant is over...almost. Perhaps I''m just older than most here(31), so sometimes I guess my tastes and what I look for in a gaming experience are different than others here. My competitive days are long over and I find more joy in helping people find their own potential rather than trying to beat others down to secure my ego by fueling my need to win. My game designs I think reflect this, as I don''t necessarily believe that balance, fairness, or winning are what contribute to having a good gaming experience. I think ultimately that the best thing is to learn, to overcome our ego (not stoke it), and to constantly improve and strive to be better. Yup...I''m definitely an old fart....

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They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

Grief players aren''t always out to win, though. Rarely are they out to win. They are playing an entirely different game than the one the developers made.

Some people just hop into your game just to see how they can ruin your good time. They focus their efforts on all possible exploits, and they act like it is a simple silly habit and that the ones who care about playing the game are taking it too seriously.

They enflame those parts of us that feel antagonized if we dare show it, and thrive on it. And they use the game to do it.

This is especially true in MMORPGs. You just have to know who they are and learn to expect it from them.

Grief players aren''t about winning at any cost. At least, not winning the same game everyone else is playing at the time.

Rushers are an unavoidable reality in the games that allow it, and if the game is weakened by that, then I attribute that to bad design.

I''ve seen games that put an effort into keeping grief players from goofing up others'' games, but they can hack or otherwise find other ways of making things difficult for people. Lesson there, if you can, password your games and play with people you know you can trust, I guess. Or support an interface that lets you identify a grief player so that when they join, they are flagged as such.

I see no plus or minus to grief players - even though they are a reality of online gaming, they really don''t belong there. They aren''t what the developers intended in the game.

Here is one way that i can see of solving the whole issue.
Multiple systems, multiple rulesets.

Ultima Online is a massively grief oriented game (or at least it was). One of the biggest likes that I hear about it on campus is the fact that it is so true to life. You can go home and find out that you were burgularized. People there like that.

Then you have Everquest which is pretty much against PvP in almost every way. They do allow PvP servers but they almost always end up gimping one or more classes because of the inherant design of the game. Yet, which game has the largest following? EQ.

DAoC has a different take in that PvP is only allowed in certain areas of the game. This gives you the peace of never being robbed and the joy of ganking some occassional foolz. Personally I find it rather boring and odd that I can be safe anywhere except in those selected areas.

I personally like the EQ approach most. Because of the Everquest setup, most people tend to like non-PvP playing more. That''s why there are like 5 nonPvP to every PvP server. The players in the game decided that ratio based on input to dev forums and email complaints/commendations.

If I ever had control of such a game then that is the way I would go. A mixture of all but on different servers. Servers for non-PvP folks and servers for PvP folks. Personally I am more geared to the PvP aspect as I like the idea of being potentially robbed in a game. So long as the game allows me ways to try and deter this act and it isn''t as easy as walking into someones house when they aren''t home and stealing their Flaming Sword of Muckmire. Give me good traps and guards for hire DAMMIT!

Ironically, I''ve spent most of my time playing non PvP in EQ than anywhere else. Mostly because I find that PvP is usually unbalanced when it comes to battles and EQ is essentially an adventure/quest oriented game. DAoC on the other hand. I have a bonedancer that has never lost in a 1 on 1 fight. However, the server I was on happened to consist of 10 parts Albion 5 parts Midgard and 1 part Hibernia. Needless to say, when our Mids finally did anything decent in RvR battles the Albs would just form a massive group and destroy us and retake the keep. That was the only way they could win was by outnumbering us 2 to 1. But that is a game balance issue and all games will have them.

Never the less, IMO there should always be different types of servers. If you have a notion of making a PvP game then be sure to include ways for people to play non-PvP. But make it on differnt servers and nothing stupid like EQs Book of Discord that you turn in IF you want to become PvP on a normal server. That idea was just really lame and poorly implemented. Because I give my book away I can no longer get heals or buffs from anyone non PVP and I am 1 out of 5 guys in 3000 that have red name tags! WTF!!!!

Just design for both types of players in the beginning and when it comes launch time, let the people decide how many PvP and how many nonPvP servers you need to run. If you don''t want to include PvP in your game then that''s easy and only one server type necessary. But if you have an inkling of desire to include PvP, do it in a way that you can still have your casual players.
DAoC kind of does this but they still force players to PvP in order to gain many of the good abilities. There should be ways for non PvPers to gain these abilities as well. Just make it more difficult to achieve or something.

Just my 2 copper covered zinc chips
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