I know that most of the community (as I have seen so far) consists of fantastic people. That said, its naive to think that the game won't have at least one group of...well, griefers. Sadly, as I've seen games progress, more and more its the most advanced players with the worst behavior.
I'm hoping hat Pantheon has a plan for this sort of thing, as I have seen it absolutely ruin games for people.
I was also curious as to what the community has seen in the past in terms of dealing with griefers, possible solutions, and penalties, etc.
We all have a slightly different version of what griefing is and as this is mostly a PvE based game ( PvP servers maybe around if there is enough demand for it ) where would you consider the line is for grieifing Vs fair play ?
Based on a PvP sever - If i'm questing / grinding in a area and an enemy player comes along into said area I kill them, if they come back again and again I will still kill them, I won't go out of my way to chase them down but if they are in my general area i see that as fair ? Would you consider this griefing or fair play ?
I consider griefing as High levels camping low level areas for nothing other than to annoy poor low levels.
Chasing down the same person to kill them over and over againfor no other reason then to piss them off and basicly make them log off.
I think griefing is cool on PvP servers, but kind of dumb on PvE servers.
You can't expect a group of randoms to be able to effectively hold a camp or deal with trains against a group of coordinated players, so I'd really like to see staff actively keeping people in check who do this kind of stuff with malicious intent.
On a PvP server, PvP should be restricted to level ranges to begin with (barring certain circumstances), so griefing is effectively pretty difficult as you should be on a similar level of power to the people attempting to grief you. There's nothing competitive or interesting about PvP where it's a free-for-all bloodbath and anyone can pretend they're good by dominating people of significantly lower level with superior gear/stats/abilities, etc.
Things I have seen and consider griefing in PVE:
- dragging mobs into a raid attempting an overland boss
- dragging/mezzing mobs and releasing them in newbie areas
- getting a raid together and hanging out near another raid and casting a lot of spells to slow down frame rates and server ping
I've seen others I can add as I think of them, but there are a lot of ways high-powered characters can generally be jerks.
I'm for community policing of griefing, which is why I want player/server rep to matter (non-identical first names), and if it becomes extreme, community controls are proven inneffective, and players (or groups/guilds) continue to grief - then the GMs/Guides would step in.
Raidan said:I'm for community policing of griefing, which is why I want player/server rep to matter (non-identical first names), and if it becomes extreme, community controls are proven inneffective, and players (or groups/guilds) continue to grief - then the GMs/Guides would step in.
This harkens back to actions having consequences. Through unique names, no server transfers and no name changes the actions of a player follow that player and reputation once again means something.
I am thank fullI never really ran into griefers. If I didnt like them in game- for whatever reason- the world as big enough that I would never see them again. If people didn't like me but I liked them, I would get the hint after the 3rd or 4th tell for a possible group or even a simple " hi, what's up?" and would get no answer.
Raidan said:I'm for community policing of griefing, which is why I want player/server rep to matter (non-identical first names), and if it becomes extreme, community controls are proven inneffective, and players (or groups/guilds) continue to grief - then the GMs/Guides would step in.
This is basically my thoughts as well, the community is stronger than people realise and when in-game, small griefing incidents will definitely be punished by the community by refusing to group with the offenders, spreading the bad rep of that player, "discussing" it in chat etc. and if it gets too much out of hand, a GM, Guide or Team member will always be around to help settle everyone down and act if necessary.
Kilsin said:Raidan said:I'm for community policing of griefing, which is why I want player/server rep to matter (non-identical first names), and if it becomes extreme, community controls are proven inneffective, and players (or groups/guilds) continue to grief - then the GMs/Guides would step in.
This is basically my thoughts as well, the community is stronger than people realise and when in-game, small griefing incidents will definitely be punished by the community by refusing to group with the offenders, spreading the bad rep of that player, "discussing" it in chat etc. and if it gets too much out of hand, a GM, Guide or Team member will always be around to help settle everyone down and act if necessary.
I agree that the GMs should step in Raidan.
This is great to hear Kilsin.
One Character per account.. which means your reputation matters.
There should be no actual POLICY on griefing at all. The community itself will take care of those who are found to be "griefers" and not known to play nice.
Raidan said:I'm for community policing of griefing, which is why I want player/server rep to matter (non-identical first names), and if it becomes extreme, community controls are proven inneffective, and players (or groups/guilds) continue to grief - then the GMs/Guides would step in.
Agreed!!
I think moderation of griefing in terms of PvP should be community focused. Everyone has a different opinion of what griefing actually is and players would simply get frustrated if it seemed that the GM's were helping some but not all players with their grief issues.
The community is stronger than most people thing when it comes to players affecting another players experience. If someone is purposly ruining the gaming experience for someone else then they are pretty much always shunned from the server.
To be frank, and as respectful as possible, I find the idea of community policing to be naive. I have played two MMOs in the past year, and in both, major griefing incidents have made a very large percentage of the population resentful, some to the point of quitting. The thing is, since the griefers themselves belong to a top raiding group, there has been little repercussion.
I have seen this over and over, including in Vanguard and Everquest. Belonging to a second-tier raiding guild (core but not hardcore, and no-spoiler), my guild is often a few mobs behind the leading raiders. That has made us a target on occasion, especially when we get too close to the "Elite" teams. I have seen the community yell and scream until their faces turn blue...when the griefers have a guild that supports them, especially a top tier guild, all of our community anger and shaming are impotent.
Perhaps a combination of community and GM policing would work (via Raidan), but I'd be sure that everyone knows there are real repercussions from the GMs....and that the GMS are willing to follow through, even on top-tier raiding guilds.
@Zorus
It's hardly naive. What's more unrealistic is to expect the GMs/Guides to be able to investigate/police every instance of reported griefing. And, yes, if the GMs had to get involved to settle disputes - they have to follow through on the repercussions. It's no different than any other aspect of life, if the GM (authority) trump card is played and the punishment isn't delivered, people will realize it quickly and realize there are no real consequences to their actions. But, if every encounter rises to the level of GM involvement, then, it's a faliure as well because there's no way they could handle the workload without dedicating a lot more resources. I'd much prefer resources to be allocated elsewhere. And yes, all players should be punished equally.
However, you can't use the example of new-age MMOs and claim naivity for community policing being effective because server reputation doesn't matter. I would agree that community policing doesn't work in today's MMOs. You can't have anonymity on a server allowable - you can't have cross server grouping (especially with random generated ques like WOW). You can't have massive server populations where players can hide. You can't allow soloing to be a viable progression alternative - it has to be grouping. You can't have cash shops that offer progression options. Basically, don't allow players the ability to hide and as Vandraad said, let their actions have true consequences.
When there are no identical first names, no server transfers, no name changes, no cash shop items - basically no way to pay to wipe your character's reputation - the community will police itself as the character will need groups (the community) to advance. I'm not sure what experience you had in EQ, but it did occur there.
If you're talking about top tier guilds locking down/monopolizing/competing for raid content - that did occur in EQ, but that's not griefing and an entirely different discussion.
I think Zorus really hit on something though. It's ALMOST ALWAYS upper crust raiders that are the worst offenders. Not all of them do this of course, but I know for a fact that I had guild mates pulling this kind of crap, and the people outside my guild pulling this crap were members of top tier guilds. It's because very often someone who had the "hurr hurr, imma train this loser plebs and then do a crouching animation and pretend I'm sticking my balls in their face because I r the smartz and funniz" type of personality would very often be the kind of person online 10 hours a day. It was rare to see lower tier griefers, because they lacked the power to pull it off. Top guilds tend to have a good ol' boy "protect your own" mentality, and are more like to defend their member than throw them out (barring some extreme cases). I've seen it happen a lot. I've seen guilds that proudly post pictures of their griefing on their guild site.
I think the game should have a /report feature, and that dealing with reports is the whole point of having GMs and guides. Yes they're there to report bugs to and wave at when they walk by, but 90% of what that job is about is making sure people are able to have a fair and balanced play session. Boss bugged out and dropped no loot? Petition the GM. Douche keeps training your group because his group wants the camp? /report the player AND petition the GM. If the GMs or guides don't respond to problems like this and take action, the community will very quickly lose faith and fall apart/quit.
No one wants to play a game where a few high level players with too much time on their hands spend time making it arbitrarily harder on the up and commers. So quite frankly, they won't.
Bad CS teams kill a game much faster than anything else ever could.
A simple /report will do.
The rest, the community will do and shun those people.. so if too many /report Player X, a GM can follow that individual around invised and watch.. like they did in EQ.
Amsai..
There is a digital world out there and it cost (approx) $19/month to play in it. Since you can only have 1 Character per @ $19/month... why would you want to ruin that character's ability (in game) to group, or join a guild.. because Ones gameplay has given their Character a bad name. In EQ, players like that.. found themselves looking from the outside as they could never find a guild, or a group and fell behind their peers. Most deleted their chars and started over with a more adult like attitude.
Today, in EQ you can just change your name and nobody would know, so there is no personal responsibility for your action. But in Pantheon and newer MMORPG, they won't be offering name changes because of the exact reasons mentioned.
I doubt there will be any server transfers either, for the same reason. Not to mention, if they are your RL friends why would they be starting on a server different from the one you are on??
Hieromonk said:A simple /report will do.
The rest, the community will do and shun those people.. so if too many /report Player X, a GM can follow that individual around invised and watch.. like they did in EQ.
Amsai..
There is a digital world out there and it cost (approx) $19/month to play in it. Since you can only have 1 Character per @ $19/month... why would you want to ruin that character's ability (in game) to group, or join a guild.. because Ones gameplay has given their Character a bad name. In EQ, players like that.. found themselves looking from the outside as they could never find a guild, or a group and fell behind their peers. Most deleted their chars and started over with a more adult like attitude.
Today, in EQ you can just change your name and nobody would know, so there is no personal responsibility for your action. But in Pantheon and newer MMORPG, they won't be offering name changes because of the exact reasons mentioned.
I doubt there will be any server transfers either, for the same reason. Not to mention, if they are your RL friends why would they be starting on a server different from the one you are on??
You seem to have missed this point entirely. The point was that it makes little sense to attempt to make community policing better by locking you from creating alt characters or transfering worlds becuase the cost is too high. Unlike FFXI (the example amasi gave) you are only one job/class for your character, which means under your idea you would only ever be able to play one job/class without deleting your character or buying/subbing a second account which is bad, bad bad. The server transfer thing is less of an issue as it can be worked around to some extent by good planning but it is still possible for example, to have the server you start on fill up completely so your friend cannot join you on that server so you might have a desire to transfer out so that you can play with your real life friend. There are also a number of other reasons why server transfers are important such as diminished population (which would be an even greater problem here than on most modern mmos as community and having people around will be more important) and you may not be able to handle the conditions until the devs act to resolve such a case.
In other words, your proposed solution causes at least as much harm (if not more) than it solves.
I have already spoken on this topic before but I guess I will repeat my sentiments here. I know that community policing has been effective in the past but it is not strong enough on its own. It discourages people to not act bad (which is good) but at the same time it can be ignored. If a community of bad players form up they will not need the support of the community any more (as they have formed their own) and can act without repercussion and this HAS happened before (I have witnessed it myself). This is especially a problem currently where multi-boxing accounts is a well known practice for games like this (you might think the cost is a deterrent but its not as much as you would think... I knew a player in ffxi that was running 18 accounts at once, each costing them about $13 a month) which would be a force multiplier for a community of bad players.
I believe in the community but I also believe in being prepared. While community might work 95% of the time I still think its best to have the safety net there for the other 5%.
Raidan said:@Zorus
It's hardly naive. What's more unrealistic is to expect the GMs/Guides to be able to investigate/police every instance of reported griefing. And, yes, if the GMs had to get involved to settle disputes - they have to follow through on the repercussions. It's no different than any other aspect of life, if the GM (authority) trump card is played and the punishment isn't delivered, people will realize it quickly and realize there are no real consequences to their actions. But, if every encounter rises to the level of GM involvement, then, it's a faliure as well because there's no way they could handle the workload without dedicating a lot more resources. I'd much prefer resources to be allocated elsewhere. And yes, all players should be punished equally.
However, you can't use the example of new-age MMOs and claim naivity for community policing being effective because server reputation doesn't matter. I would agree that community policing doesn't work in today's MMOs. You can't have anonymity on a server allowable - you can't have cross server grouping (especially with random generated ques like WOW). You can't have massive server populations where players can hide. You can't allow soloing to be a viable progression alternative - it has to be grouping. You can't have cash shops that offer progression options. Basically, don't allow players the ability to hide and as Vandraad said, let their actions have true consequences.
When there are no identical first names, no server transfers, no name changes, no cash shop items - basically no way to pay to wipe your character's reputation - the community will police itself as the character will need groups (the community) to advance. I'm not sure what experience you had in EQ, but it did occur there.
If you're talking about top tier guilds locking down/monopolizing/competing for raid content - that did occur in EQ, but that's not griefing and an entirely different discussion.
First of all we agree on some important issues. That the authority must be ready and willing to implement fair and just treatment, and that they must be an outlet.
I respectfully disagree on other parts. First of all it seems to me that the argument that if the GMs get involved with disputes they will be involved with ALL disputes is a classical logical fallacy. The GMs can get involved in some disputes, when they need to, where they need to. My point was not that they should always be involved, but rather that it was unrealistic in todays world of gaming (which, need I remind you, is vastly different then it was when we played EQ and even VG) to expect that community self policing will be sufficient. And when they need to be, they should be. Everyone should know it, everyone should be able to access that support, and everyone should be able to see exactly how it is dealt with. I'm not sure we actually disagree on that, but rather it seems the rub is how often that should happen. I don't have a number or percentage, but the point of this post was that it does happen, now and forever, and it can kill a game. So, I was hoping to generate some conversation on how to approach and deal with that. Which we have hereby done!
I also feel that it is unrealistic to say that you can't compare Pantheon to more recent MMOs. Maybe the game is different, but the playerbase has changed, for better and for worse. If we want this game to succeed, we need to be prepared to have todays players play it, and we need to be ready to deal with todays problems in gaming. One of which, I feel, is the type of griefing I have outlined here. I have seen community policing fail several times. Many, many more times than I have seen it succeed. And many, many times more recently.
Hieromonk said:One Character per account.. which means your reputation matters.
There should be no actual POLICY on griefing at all. The community itself will take care of those who are found to be "griefers" and not known to play nice.
Worst idea I've ever heard, hands down.
I have seen GM's make some good and bad decisions, and one thing I know is that it's virtually impossible for them to get all sides of a story and make a good decision every time, I am for GM intervention for griefing only if the GM visually sees what happens, OR there is some video logging system where they can review the last 30 seconds to 1 minute of gameplay you experienced before you did /report.
I also don't believe the community will handle all circumstances of griefing, so there needs to be some mix of the two. If life in Pantheon is borderline survival, I doubt we'll see many players throwing caution to the wind just to get a few chuckles.
I don't tend to play on PVE servers too often, but I will if thats all Pantheon has, I prefer PVP as my go-to method of moderating disputes.