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Griefing, trolling and the nature of online games


HotChops
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Someone on Kotaku's speakup was bitching about online game communities being less tolerant of griefing and trolling and I wanted to punch him through his computer screen.

 

I can't stand griefing or trolling. It completely ruins games for me. It's one thing when it's among friends and it doesn't sabotage the team's chances at winning, but otherwise it just makes me :angry:

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During the era of the Damnation hack on Starcraft, a coder created an anti-hack that would broadcast a message in the game, and if anyone was running the Damnation hack client, their units would become hostile to themselves, and they would destroy themselves. It was programmed by default to broadcast the message 5 minutes into a round, so I would wait until around the four minute mark, and say "I wonder if anyone is hacking..." then thirty seconds later see "WTF IS HAPPENING" or "OMGWTF" followed by a bunch of people leaving the game, even if they were my own teammates.

Couldn't help but trollface while I swept in and finished them off in the chaos, or won the game by having everyone leave.

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What he was complaining about was not necessarily the communities, but that bans of one form or another are more common, implying that those who oversee the communities are less tolerant.

 

I think you really have to distinguish between the two. Trolling? Whatever. Until it reaches the line of hate speech, learn to tune it out. Griefing is pointless, annoying, and can really harm the quality of the game.

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During the era of the Damnation hack on Starcraft, a coder created an anti-hack that would broadcast a message in the game, and if anyone was running the Damnation hack client, their units would become hostile to themselves, and they would destroy themselves. It was programmed by default to broadcast the message 5 minutes into a round, so I would wait until around the four minute mark, and say "I wonder if anyone is hacking..." then thirty seconds later see "WTF IS HAPPENING" or "OMGWTF" followed by a bunch of people leaving the game, even if they were my own teammates.

Couldn't help but trollface while I swept in and finished them off in the chaos, or won the game by having everyone leave.

What, Starcraft used to be that hilariously epic? Looks like I was late to the party... :(

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For anyone interested the comment that sparked this off:

Whats up with all the bans lately in games ? Everyone gets banned, for simply having fun in their own way.

Im seriously not into the whole : we have rules in this game and if u dont respect them we wont respect that you bought it and you will get : Banned for 2 weeeks, banned for 1 month, permabanned.

In the old days nobody was banned. You could troll people in CS and whatever else game you wer playng. Those wer the golden age days.

Now everyone who is bored and wants to do whatever he frets gets banned !

This is about WoW. Dota clone games. Steam, and all the related : we provide a service and you will lose your actual IRL money.

http://kotaku.com/comment/35558284

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I think you really have to distinguish between the two. Trolling? Whatever. Until it reaches the line of hate speech, learn to tune it out. Griefing is pointless, annoying, and can really harm the quality of the game.

I agree with this. Getting banned from a game for trolling seems a little excessive, getting banned for griefing seems reasonable. At least to me.

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Shenanigans in general are fun. But I do agree that griefing just feels like a waste of time, it's not even that fun of a shenanigan when you think about it. When you grief, you're basically wasting your own time, to try to waste someone else's. Meanwhile they either mock you or express sheer annoyance with you or hurl insults at you. It doesn't even make you any more popular...haha even TROLLOLOLOLing will make you more popular than griefing will, because unlike griefing, trolling can actually imply that you have a sense of humor.

 

Honestly, the only good things I've seen ruined by trolling are serious discussions. And personally I believe that especially in gaming, there isn't much of a need for serious discussions between players (LAWL SRS BZNS) with a few exceptions...for example, tournament-level players (when more is at stake than just the game itself: prize money, championship titles, fangirls, etc.) or between players and developers (to improve the games' features for the players.) To us casual gamers, gaming is really just for fun. And as for trolling, while it can be trite and annoying at times instead of funny, it still doesn't hurt casual discussions as much as serious ones.

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Best solution for trolls:

1: Starve it to death

2: Let it get eaten by a bigger troll

 

Agreed on your first. With your second, what do you mean?

I wouldn't recommend the latter unless you have a sharp tongue, but I've successfully fought off failtrolls by trolling back even harder. Or just waiting for someone else to prey on them. Either works.

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Best solution for trolls:

1: Starve it to death

2: Let it get eaten by a bigger troll

 

Agreed on your first. With your second, what do you mean?

I wouldn't recommend the latter unless you have a sharp tongue, but I've successfully fought off failtrolls by trolling back even harder. Or just waiting for someone else to prey on them. Either works.

 

They tend to get pretty territorial when facing off against another troll though. :P

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