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PhD Survey - Participants requested for Study about Griefing in MMORPGs
luteleigh
Member UncommonPosts: 23
Thesis Title:
Causes, Magnitude and Implications of Griefing in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games
Causes, Magnitude and Implications of Griefing in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games
Hello,
My name is Leigh Achterbosch and I am a candidate for PhD at the University of Ballarat, Australia. I am inviting you to participate in a study about the act of griefing and its implications in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). This is one of many invitations posted on various MMORPG and online game forums. This research will explore the following questions; what are the causes and implications of griefing in MMORPGs, and what magnitude of griefing exists in this genre? The intention is to contribute new research and knowledge about griefing and its sociological impact.
The study will involve an online survey for participants of the ages 16 and above. This survey will cover your experiences as a player that has performed griefing, been subjected to griefing, or witness to the acts of griefing.
You are invited to participate by following the link and completing the questionnaire that will take approximately 20 minutes of your time (You can save and reload unfinished surveys should you require). You will remain anonymous by completing this survey. The online survey will remain open until an appropriate sample size is collected. I will repost here when the survey has closed. At some point in the future when data has been collated and analyzed I will repost with some preliminary results in this forum thread.
I would like to thank you up front for any time you allocate towards this research endeavor. Feel free to spread this survey link around! 
Comments
Well, one of the largest groups of griefers that I know of are the Goonies (AKA Goon Swarm, Goon Fleet, Goon Squad and various others). They are a multi game group of griefers, who get their jollies from ruining other peoples play experience. You might wish to look in to their antics, as you continue your research.
http://www.eve-wiki.net/index.php?title=GOONSWARM
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/04/28/nowhere-is-safe-in-eve-online-as-goonswarm-suicide-bombs-galactic-trade-hub/
http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/02/04/goonswarm-alliance-disbanded-in-eve-online-political-drama/
http://eveinfo.net/wiki/inde~401.htm
Thanks, I appreciate this.
Interesting study, though I don't think it's complicated... it's the same reasons people bully others in any walk of life.
I added to the survey.
Thank you for taking up this subject for research, i think it would be fascinating to know how this all impacts other people.
PS: Please post results of your research here when it publishes.
I don't know if it can help, but my take on why griefing exists is pretty simple... it's for the same reason "some" people behave like "immature jerks" as soon as they are anonymous on the Internet safe behind a computer screen. Anonymity. You can be sure that 95% if not more of the people who have ever insulted you on the web would never dare to behave like that when facing an adult person in the "real" world.
There is an old penny arcade comic which says it best, and it can be applied to anything online:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/
(I don't include the image because the language may be "off limits" for the forum rules...)
EDIT: I filled your survey - good luck with your PhD
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
I'd actually say that game mechanics have a lot to do with the amount of griefing as well. A fast comparison of what I would think of two extremes in terms of possibility of griefing: Lineage 2 and GW2.
Lineage 2: you only get quest credit if you land the last hit on a mob, no matter who got the mob down to 5% hp in the first place - it's just so much easier to wait for that tank class to weaken the quest mob to near death, and then as a caster land that final hit that one-shots the mob, and get all the credit while the tank did all the work. Leveling up in crowded areas - melee chars need to run to range, and swing a few times before the mob dies. Casters can just stand virtually in one single spot, and one/two-shot the mobs that the melee class is trying to reach, thus robbing the melee class of all xp and loot even if he was in the leveling spot first. Free for all PvP also means that you'll get A/S-grade permared characters outside the lvl20 or so areas just killing anyone that dares to venture outside the safe zone. You know, just because they can. In a normal situation you really don't want to see other players on your piece of leveling turf.
GW2: everyone gets xp and loot and "quest" credit for killing mobs = kill stealing impossible. Can't grief dymanic events either, or one-shot mobs that other people are trying to kill, even as a max level character in low level zone. Can't steal resource nodes. This is all basically because game mechanics make it impossible. In fact, seeing other people around you is almost always a positive thing.
So in addition to what makes bullies bullies in the first place, I'd say that in MMOs game mechanics play a critical role as well.
Its mostly about accountability.
Its not even the anonymity, because you can be anonymous but accountable for your actions.
In most games there is no accountability for the avatars actions.
So called "permadeath" isn't accountability either if it can be circumvented like in EvE.
Imagine if in EVE, one way of dealing with players that are known pirates (i.e. have a low security rating), wouldn't be that a you can "kill" them, but that you can capture and put them up for trial and then in jail, locking them out of play for a given amount of time.
Right now in EVE, they can just come back with superior resources, zero accountability.
That's a fair point as well, and definitely makes sense. Back in the day in Lineage 2, you wouldn't grief Russian Mafia, because Russian Mafia would grief you! (*cough* sorry, bad pun.) But yeah, the reprocussions from your actions definitely play a part if they're done well and meaningful.
In Lineage 2, you'll go chaotic if you kill a person that wasn't flagged for PvP (a player that didn't fight back, essentially), meaning all guards would attack you on sight, all players were free to kill you without any reprocussions, you could drop your gear if you died, and NPCs wouldn't trade with you. To drop the chaotic status, you needed to gain xp from mobs. A fair bit of xp for each PK you had done. But even with all of this, a lot of people still did it, maybe even more people because of the sense of danger it brings?
Probably because for the past 10 years MMO Developers have been continously putting in anti-griefing mechanics so that in most titles it is nigh impossible to grief in the traditional sense.
Sure, there's still a few games out there that permit or even encourage griefing such as EVE, DF or MO, but for the most part many of today's MMO players really haven't experienced griefing in its standard forms, and the closest they can relate is in ninja looting or something.
GW2 Devs Anet have gone so far that they've tried to make as much as possible for one player to be unable to negatively impact another, and have taken it so far as to even make everyone the same level in the PVP zones to remove the opportunity to really grief/gank someone.
So basically it seems to me that you are researching a dying art form at this point in time, since even in the titles that permit griefing, those folks are playing of their own free will, so can one really say they are being griefed?
I'd have recommended you study people griefing others in social media outlets, since apparently they kill each other (or themselves) over comments posted in things like Facebook and what not.
Edit: Oh yeah, another interesting study would involve why online gaming communities are becoming so hostile, (and more importantly, the social implications of the apparent acceptance of this culture) go play a few matches of League of Legends or other such MOBA's and you'll get first hand experience at the hostility you can experience. BBC just did an interesting feature on this, particularly with reference to the hostility/treatment of women in such titles.
(moved my reply since you relocated the thread)
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
This is a very complex subject with a lot of ramifications.I think it goes a lot further than a simple player to player relationship.
I usually don't respond to survey, because some of the early survey/research had a very negative impact in mmo development like the famous Bartle work, that might have been good from a developer point of view but horrible from a player perspective.
But i did responded to your survey because of the 20 minute time that seam to show some deepness in your work.Yet as i'm saying i think you missed the dimension of this particular subject, as it go far beyond the simple player to player relations you are focusing on in your survey, which is just the tip of the iceberg, but you shouldn't ignore the other parts of it, far from that if you want to be serious about your work. It is as wide as including game design and gold farming industry, hacking and coding history related to computer gaming, psychology of players, and many other aspects your survey seam to be unaware of or ignoring.
PS
Naturally don't take this comment as a negative criticism but as an advise for your work.
" SAY WHAT " ?
Sigh, Minners
MAGA
I understand what you are saying, although at this stage the results and analysis will already be so time consuming that the other elements would have to be seperate studies that would also interest me in the future.
Thanks for your time.
I have to say this survey was a lot different. At least they were not like others I taken before that looked like the intake for a psychiatric doctor.
I just cant believe folks let griefers adversely affect their play, if you do you need to get another hobby. I just think folks have thin skins nowadays and let stuff get to them to easy.
I guess I just grew up a lot different being the son of a marine you learned early on to have a thick skin, words never bothered me, just the though of getting a real beet down if I got out of line. However I have to say when you read these forums you can see folks get easly worked up just over words. Sometimes I think some of them need an anger management class.
Oh well just my 2 cents worth, and thats not worth much nowadays.
While I agree that this allows people the freedom of consequence to act Kor, I don't think it is WHY they act in the way that they do.
It is just the enabler, not the cause.
I would say a chronic lack of empathy, general impotency in their wider lives, and low self esteem are usually among the root causes.
Being (e.g.) spawn camped by a player 50 levels higher that you have no chance against and not liking it has nothing to do with being a "marine with thick skin". A video game is NOT a job, it's something people do during their leisure time, for fun. There are several levels of griefing of course, but any mechanic which permits one player to stop another from playing the character he enjoys to play is the worse level, it's a design flaw. Pretty much why all FFA PvP games are total failures and all successful MMORPGs have mechanics (or have added mechanics) to stop such griefing.
You are right of course, most if not all griefers whose pleasure in games is to ruin other people's pleasure are sociopath who need professional help. What I mean is that most are too cowardish to show it face to face in "real" life - they are "assholes inside" - as I said, I'm willing to bet 95% of the people who ever insulted you online would never have talked like that if they were face to face.
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
I would say you guys are getting the enablers confused with the cause.
oh yeah, for sure.
I don't have 20 minutes, but I will point you to someone you ought to communicate with: Paul Clavet. Check out his blog, My Loot, Your Tears. Not only is he a hard-core griefer, he's got argumentation in favor of it that will challenge even the most hardened anti-griefer.
I could tell you what I see there, but I doubt the forum rules authorize it. Just read my previous posts for a clue though
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
I don't propose to get into that, just that if you wanted to do a real psychological sudy of griefing, there ought be interviews with them, and since Paul is one of the few griefers that maintains a consistent public presence, (i.e. we know where he lives so to speak) he seems a good candidate. He's says he is a former police officer. What can I say? It is easy to just call him jerk and sociopath and move on, but my Vulcan curiosity is piqued.
This is all good stuff and these commentaries will help alongside the more statistical data from the survey. Thanks
I don't understand all the fuss about griefing.
There are bad and good people in the world, why would it be any different in a virtual world?
If it's a game world you've created expect to have all kind of people in it.
Being in the police has never meant automatically being a nice person. Actually, it's a job where you have a certain power over other human beings, a door open to those who enjoy to abuse their power.
Not saying that guy is one of those policemen - but his behavior in games and the justifications he gives doesn't give me a very high esteem of him.
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
I didn't intend to suggest that being in the police means you are a nice person. For a serious psychological study however, it is an interesting fact for a profile.
This forms good data also. Maybe I will discover just how little players do care about griefing (or vice versa).