I think what this question ultimately amounts to is really:

"To what extent should we restrict the play with the toys we make?"

Because, when you play with toys with your friends (or non-friends maybe...) you generally agree to some kind of limit on what kind of play you''ll have. Griefers in online games amount to the rude bully types who will knock over your block city or steal your action figure - nobody''s going to stop them, and to them it''s inconsequential how YOU want to play.

Video games, however, try to enforce some kind of rules on the play. Without the proper rules, games may lose a lot of play value: An example I still remember quite well is a version of Chess written in Basic for my Atari 800 on some PD disk. I don''t know how well it played, being about five years old at the time, but I soon discovered that it had one pleasing flaw in it: I was allowed to move my pieces anywhere I wanted on the board. This led to some laughs and games won in one or two moves. After that, there was nothing left in the program cause I didn''t want to try to play by the rules - I didn''t know them well enough at five. But even if I did, the thought of winning by the rules would have been battling with that of cheating and ending it.

It''s the same question when you deal with RTS games and MMORPGs. Does rushing reduce the play value? Does PK reduce the play value? Different designers have come up with different answers and possibilities for solutions, but the concept is the same, if interpreted differently in the two cases. While griefing in MMORPGs can be purely like the imagined "bully bothers you" case, an RTS rusher has a defense, and it''s one much like my rationale for cheating in the Chess game: The game''s set up to allow it (and I might not be able to play any other way - though a tactful rusher would not say something like that ) so why not.

Another comparison would be the FPS "spammer." Spammers in the game sense stock up on explosives and then use them at will, often choking entire corridors up with explosions when nobody''s in them, or using their grenade launchers at point-blank range. This tactic often succeeds in catching other players, but much like with rushing, it produces a group of players that want it out of the game, and they justify it with the same phrases - "It feels unfair," "the designers didn''t intend it to work like that," "that''s not a real strategy."

But really, a lot of critical players get too extreme on their own sides. The question that should always be answered is not necessarily what would appear to please players, but what improves the play of the game - and with rushing, spamming and griefing, I think there are justifiable reasons to control them to some extent, because they shrink the player''s options considerably when left unrestricted.

The RTS Rush and the MMORPG Grief player have little is anything in common. The closest parallel you might draw is in Shadowbane where harassing the other players may slow their building of a town. The fact that SB is part RTS, part RPG accounts for this overlap. Similarly in DAoC you killed those on the enemy frontier to deny their use of leveling grounds.

But grief players are not "rushers." Grief players include and generally require various none essential actions to be labelled as such. Verbal harassment, training mobs, kill stealing/loot stealing, swindling people in game in a NPK environment (no retaliation possible).

Rushers are people executing what by design is a most effective RTS tactic, hit early, hit often, drive the opponent under.

Griefers get enjoyment out of annoying others. Incidentally, if you do not control grief players, they cost you money, because allowed enough latitude they will drive off many other paying customers.

Here are examples of some RTS grief players :

- You and griefer agree to a ''no rush'' game, and griefer does a hard rush.
- Griefer gets beaten and decides to play ''hide the farm'', staying in the game as long as possible simply to annoy you.
- Griefer joins game, then goes and watches TV, occassionally typing "LOL".
- Griefer joins team, builds an army, turns off ally option, and attacks teammates.
- Griefers set up FFA game with one slot open. They then ally during the game to beat the other player.

The overall goal of the grief player is to anger/annoy other people.

Players who rush others in strategy games are simply playing the game. If you *agree* not to rush, then there is an issue yes.

But

"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"

is just good strategy. How exactly are you being negatively affected? Is the goal of the "rusher" to anger/annoy you? No, it is to win the game. If you want to play a longer game, then either alter the game settings or the map, or find people similarly-minded and play no-rush games.

It''s pretty much a no-win situation for the good players. Either they attack early and are "rushers", or attack late and are "peon-pumpers", or outmanoeuvre their opponents with equal forces and are "AI-abusers", or use completely off-the-wall strategies and are just plain "cheap"..

I think that comparing an RTS rush to an MMORPG grief is like comparing apples and oranges.

In an MMORPG, the act of griefing is generally thought of as the act of harming another player for the shear enjoyment of the act. In other words, they get enjoyment out of watching someone else suffer. Some or most grief play has a further side effect - the harmed player may lose an item or items that they have on their character. This alone is the differences between griefing and rushing.

MMO* players invest much time and effort in creating the character(s) that they play and they (usually) have an emotional attachment to their characters. Some UO players (that I know) have characters that they have been playing for five plus years. When the player loses an item or items at the hand of a griefer they suffer an emotional loss – because of the time and energy or because of the attachment... discussing the psychological ramifications are well beyond my expertise but suffice it to say that it is “real” to the player.

On the contrary, players of RTSes do not invest time or energy in the units or bases that they create and I doubt, by the very nature of the duration of the games, that they form an attachment of any kind. I’m not saying the player who is rushed does not feel anything when he loses half of his base and or units; I’m simply stating that the immediacy of the moment and the style of play impede this.

So, IMHO, this comparison lacks the needed parity to be sufficiently debated.

Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser

quote:

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Original post by Inmate2993
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?

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Nope. In RTS games, you''re supposed to be defeating each other. The only thing that people like me and Critical_waste and Argus disagree on is how or when it should be done. However, in an MMORPG, most players are not interested in killing others or in being killed by others. Being hunted down brings them grief because it is forcibly affecting their gameplay on a level that is not comparable to being soundly beaten on an RTS. You can choose a different RTS opponent or set numerous restrictions on the games, but that is not usually possible in a persistent world.

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