I enjoy griefing people sometimes in TF2. It's fun to hear how angry some people get over a game.

I wish real life was more like this.

"a player named Chixxa Lusch straddled his giant eagle mount and flew up to confront the invaders avatar-to-avatar as they hovered high above his lovingly re-created medieval village, blanketing it with bouncing 10-foot high Super Mario figures."

Fucking awesome.

@uranutan: Or you could just leave people alone and let them enjoy whatever it is they were doing. If you were playing chess (perhaps I'm giving too much credit?) in a park, and someone came and flipped over the board, would that be funny? Or if you were watching your favorite television show, and someone came and hit your TV with a sledgehammer, would that be amusing?

It takes no great talent to mess with people that aren't expecting it. If you derive some enjoyment with harrassing innocent people, I would recommend you find better hobbies. You clearly have too much time on your hands.

One side takes it too seriously and the other takes pleasure in mucking up that seriousness. Which side is worse? The side that literally treats it like a second life or the side that treats it like entertainment?

Ahahahahahahha!

Seriously, trolling second life must be one of the most awesome things a human being can do.

It's disturbing how serious some people take these games

I love claiming to do things "for the lulz" as much as the next guy, but if I'm honest, I'm generally just misdirecting my own frustration at some poor sap. I'd suggest that's how most griefing is, or control issues and powerplays. When you get groups together like /b/tards and goons, though, basic mob mentality kick in. Mob mentality works so well because you fade into the crowd and become more Anonymous and your actions are less yours. Couple that with the relative anonymity of the internet and the concerns of culpability go right out the window.

@DGUW: Except that going into a public server and micspamming=/=ruining a game for someone in a way that's impossible to fix.

God bless those griefers. Those princes of the internet. Those heroes of frustration.

Also, the only people I really grief gameplay wise are the people who join the other 5 snipers on your team on 2fort.

as long as someone isnt a total ass about it random attcks of 10 ft marios would be awsome!!

@exeprime: You missed the whole Pokeclipse thing didn't you?

Chixxa Lusch: So awesome I would marry him if only I knew if he was male and not completely hideous!

Cos, I'd prolly hook up with the guy with who has a Bahamut Sin mount next...

My opinion of it depends on the game in Second Life it;s hilarious. Not so much in EVE online, or games that'd i might actually want to play. Although I think I'd get a kick out of giant marios raining down in any game.

@Black-Dog-Howls: It's not necesarily that people treat games extremely seriously that makes them targets. Griefers often go for less serious players just because they are naive, or easier hits. In other words, the desire to have fun in games doesn't mean that you are serious about it, it just means that you want to have fun. As gamers, I think we can appreciate that games are meant to be fun and enjoyable for people, griefers take pleasure in ruining that.

I honestly don't think it's as common in the real world becuase it's more difficult to form that disconnect between your actions and another person's feelings. Some people on the internet forget that there are real people on the other side of the line.

Hey, it's not Super Mario, it's Paper Mario that bounces around.

I mean... what?

@DGUW: seconded!

@Eternal BPM: Insanity's Requiem:

Indeed, if only in real-life, all we have to fear were bouncy Paper Marios...

I've had this conversation with a few people, and they explained that the attraction of griefing someone was to answer something they perceived as a slight against them with the maximum amount of punishment allowed in a game.

Remember, if you're at the top in an actual game MMO (opposed to SL), these games get pretty boring fast. If you're not raiding and your arena team/bg team isn't on, you can't do much except own people in world pvp.

As for Second Life- it isn't a game and some groups that tend to frequent the world (furries) go far beyond the rational realm of tolerance for many people. Whether it's picking on the helpless because you need to feel superior or just wasting some time on people you think are dumb as rocks, griefing can be hillarious and I support it. Because, in the end, you can just turn off the game or go somewhere else and that always satisfied me as "beating the griefers."

You ain't seen griefing until you played Ultima Online before it became care bear land and generally suck, around the first 2 years and right before the time Trammel and Felucca came into existence.

Griefing To Do Checklist -
1. Ask a guild of thieves to camp your house followed by killing you, your whole family, your friends and your dog followed by stealing whatever that is remaining

2.Hunting your sorry ass wherever you go hunting in any dungeon, stealing your rune..kill you, gate your ghost ass to a single tile island and dispelling the gate immediately after you step through so you gotta wait hours for a GM (Game Master) to put you back into town.

3.Repeat Cycle, Rinse , Dry until you quit the game.

Been on the receiving and giving end of this griefing ritual...I miss the old days...

Great article. Well worth reading.

@Blinkman: Furries and Goreans should both be griefed. Without end. Ever. Abominations.

@Black-Dog-Howls: You are lying to yourself and others if you honestly believe that all of the victims are "taking it too seriously".

The vast majority of griefing victims are just your average non-hardcore player.
They get griefed because its easy, or because they don't know how to avoid it. Essentially they are being griefed for the opposite of what you claim ... they are being griefed because they don't take it so seriously.

These are people, who are just treating the game as entertainment.
They are playing to be entertained. Entertainment which is being impeded by the griefer who is not playing the game for entertainment, but ruining other people's fun for entertainment.

@Asper: And an old woman is out there thinking pretty much the same thing about gamers.

Your ignorance, intolerance, and lack of perspective is astounding.

@brent_w: Careful with those rocks in that lovely new glass house of yours!

I think the people who say the innocents are taking the gamer too seriously are missing the point. I wouldn't want someone to turn off my tv at a pivotal moment in a season finale of some show. Who would want their experience messed with? Like a person yelling at the top of their lungs at a movie theatre, I payed to watch a movie and I don't want someone to disrupt and ruin what I came to enjoy.

It's not that they are taking it too seriously, but they are simply wanting to not have someone fuck up an experience they are enjoying. I think anyone can relate to that. Would a griefer be ok or have the same sense of humor if someone came into their hous and sprayed paint over their computer screen? I think not, because its someone fucking with their experience.

SomethingAwful and the /b/tards have been complete lot of idiots as soon as they started taking their own motto seriously.

@Asper: And what glass house would that be?

Plain and simple, you ignorantly justify bullying others because of your intolerance.

@brent_w:

did you just liken gamers to furries?! In any context.. just no..

Griefing is ridiculously stupid on some levels, but relatively harmless, and somewhat enjoyable for both parties if there is a mutual sense of humour. As with all things though, people take it WAY too far.

This is going to sound very Doctor Phil, but I'm willing to blame parenting on this one, and here's why: most parents don't really teach their kids to do the right thing, just to not get caught doing the wrong thing. Give people a sufficient degree of anonymity, and a sufficient lack of repercussions, and suddenly they're back to being 6 years old and burning ants with a magnifying glass for the hell of it.

I submit that you are, in fact, ignorant and lack perspective yourself. You do realize you just proved part of why griefers grief, right?

Troll casually performs inflamatory action and/or statement.

RandomGuy gets all uppity and righteous about himself and/or third party.

Troll laughs.

Honestly. Know thine enemy, dude. No one's impressed or moved by your ability to name-call and make presumptions.

@I Think We're Property: I'd agree with you to a point, although I think we generally discount that griefers tend to have at least one or more other griefer buddies they report their antics to. It creates social acceptance by an ingroup by demonizing the outgroup. No amount of parenting'll change that, because adults are just as prone to it themselves.

Heck there are griefers on Youtube, the commentards i call them. I just dont get the point of being a dick to someone who's minding their own business. I dont play on XBL without it being friends because the number of complete assholes impairs my ability to actually enjoy a game with other people. I guess it's the equivalent to people who like throwing their drinks on fast food cashiers at drive throughs. Its stupid, and in my opinion their is no way that these sorts of things are justifiable.

@Asper: I proved nothing. But you happily exclaimed that you enjoy griefing and trolling. The more you mock me the more you reveal your ignorant and immature nature.

Please ... continue ...

And while you're at it, why don't you tell us how great it is to bully people, and tell us all about how the victims deserve it.

@brent_w: Actually, that was my first attempt at trolling. I'm quite proud of myself. It turned out swimmingly.

@Asper: What I dont get is how it's ok to lack perspective/be ignorant if the other party is as well. Since when was it justifiable to be more of a dick if a guy who has been provoked calls you one? Especially when he wasn't doing anything to you to begin with.

"The avatar, whom witnesses would describe as an African-American male clad head to toe in gleaming red battle armor, detonated a device that instantly filled the air with 30-foot-wide tumbling blue cubes and gaping cartoon mouths."

What made the witnesses think he was an american?

@Asper: Why is that fun for you? I don't get it. Just like the guys in the article, your sense of a good time is totally predicated on others reacting to you being a jerk. I'd really like to know why bothering people is so enjoyable. What have they done to you?

The point of the article seems to be that, because irony is so ironic, the Something Awful guys end up taking the Internet far more seriously than any their targets. They must claim the Internet as a serious-free environment on all corners, and it is their ultimate duty to keep the Internet full of levity and bereft of anything that matters. And in doing so, they invest thousands of hours of time creating online guilds, unique languages, and message bore mores.

The whole thing is so sad.

@Banedon38:

I miss UO. It's the only MMO I spent any real time with. When I hear about non-PvP zones and all these highly-artifical ways to make the game more player friendly, I get turned off.

To me, the whole idea of an MMO is that it's a videogame in which an online society is formed. I remember being new in UO and not being able to go places as they were known PK hang-outs. Players took it upon themselves to be player-killer killers and police the woods and protect new players.

It all seemed very cool despite the complete and total lack of anything remotely friendly to newcomers. It was a great experiment that I'd like to see retried.

I think people who grief are probably mentally unhealthy. That and a combination of being really bored.

@bobeotm: I'll be honest with you, I have no idea what you're trying to get at. It doesn't read very well. However, if you'd be so kind as to rewrite it, I'll be happy to answer your question in the order it was received.

@DGUW: Like I said, I think that's the first time I've ever trolled, but it was intensely amusing how upset he got over a complete stranger saying something that is, apparently, against his beliefs. Perhaps that would make it a matter of control? Not sure. I'm going to have to check some of my psych books because it does interest me.

@GorbyGipper:
Do you think that perhaps the fact that it didn't work made the creators change the mechanics of the game?

@Asper: Just be honest.
Is it right to bully homosexual people because they are different?

@Asper: But no one is actually "so upset" with you. That's something you're projecting. You're finding that people are trying to engage you in dialouge so perhaps you stop being a jerk in the future. I get how you and others might want that to equate into "so upset" -- it's that control thing you mentioned. It's fun to think that some innocuous comment you make means SO MUCH to someone else. But, by and large, it doesn't. Basically, you're (and I mean the collective you) are being gnats. What's so great about that?

I can understand how "greifers" came about, from people who just took their games so seriously, to a level of stupidity and forgetting they actually have a real life. However, I think it goes to far in some aspects. There probably should be a middle ground to it, just enough to remind people that we're just playing a game. But sometimes this gets out of hand and people who are just enjoying the game or the positive sides of say a web forum for people with epilepsy get sucked into it, and suffer at the hands of griefers. A lot of griefers just do it because they have almost a no chance of being caught, unlike in the real world if they did something really bad, they would be hunted down most likely. I think if it gets rampant, and griefers start just taking over everything, and messing up the entire internet, then probably something is going to be done that we don't like, such as government interference in our nets. Just my opinion.

@Asper: What I was trying to say is, How is being a dick to someone justfied by them being angry after you provok them? Its as if you punched a random kid on the street for no reason, and then say your action was justified when they get pissed and want to fight you.

Sometimes, I like to break YouTube's commenting system by making one long hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
And they get all pissed off. It's pretty funny.

As long as you're not doing something that will hurt their stuff or feelings, this kind of tomfoolery should be just fine!

@brent_w: What does homosexuality have to do with anything?

@DGUW: You would have to be blind to not see that brent is fired up. No one is trying to engage a dialogue, they are arguing. Do you suppose that if you convince me that an inflamatory statement I made didn't affect you (and by that, I mean a general "you"), that you can then not be bothered by how it affected you?

I don't buy it. That's not how humans work. Now, defense mechanisms that run slightly deeper than "NUH UH!" I agree with.

@SDreamer: I think your explanation of possible how they came about sound valid, but still wierd. Since when does someone taking a game seriously, but minding their own business, be a reason to fuck up their experience?

I know a person who takes her flower garden very seriously, but does that give me a reason to screw up something she takes a great deal of enjoyment from. And then justify it by saying "its just a patch of dirt, get over it."

@DGUW: You've hit the nail on the head.
Even though he wouldn't believe it if I told him, I'm not upset with asper at all.

I just hope I can get him to reconsider how viable his justifications really are.
Worst case scenario, some random stranger on the internet makes fun of me.

Best case scenario, I get under his skin enough that he gives his words a second look. Maybe this time he will come to come the conclusion:
That no mater what sexual orientation, skin color, or belief system the person on the other end of the internet has, no mater how ridiculous and perverse we might find it, none of us has any place to bully those people. Griefing is simply not justifiable.

They grief in real life too... they're going to try to put out the olympic torch.

@bobeotm: My request came off a little douchey and I didn't really intend it that way, so thanks for not responding in kind. :D

I'd say you have a point, though I'd disagree in that slugging someone is clearly directed at that one person and physical violence would "socially" warrant a response more than yelling "hey asshole!" and seeing who turns around.

I don't think I'm defending griefing. At least I'm not trying to. I'm a little surprised how easy it was to recreate a play I've seen acted out time and time again on forum after forum.

@brent_w: However, there are certain types of griefing that are not only fun, but don't hurt anyone's beliefs. Like logging into Habbo Hotel with a group of friends, blocking off all the ways into the pool, and repeating over and over "The pool has AIDS". Not only will it not offend most people playing, it'll give them a laugh!

@Jaziek: Hate to ruin your fantasy, but just about every furry out there IS a gamer. Thus, to include furries in the gamer community is acceptable. Now, if you don't want to be associated with furries, you better stop playing video games.

@TheCheese33: And how do you know what will and will not hurt their stuff/feelings? These are all subjective measures, and therefore, according to your own standards, the only way to get around this is to not bother others in the first place.

@brent_w: Thanks, because I completely glossed over that earlier. You're making light of bullying by equating it to my initial statement. I've seen people physically and mentally jacked up by bullying over the years, and to compare it to some guy on the internet going "I don't like Goreans and Furries!" is ridiculous.

Damn, if only I had a post count. postcount++;

@GorbyGipper: Hahaha, good point.

I don't really mind griefers that much. I've just accepted that that is part of participating in an online culture. I can handle someone being an asshole on the internet because it doesn't really significantly affect me at all.

@Krytha: Touche. I'll stop hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm on YouTube.

It'll be tougher to get of AIDS Patrol in Habbo, though.