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Blizzard Punishing Griefing On Warcraft III Ladders 85

Posted by simoniker from the on-your-best-behavior dept.
Thanks to RPGDot for pointing to a Battle.net forum post, in which Blizzard indicate they will ban Warcraft III teams for 'griefing'. This requires Blizzard acting on in-game tactics, rather than illicit software mods/hacks - they mention: "We have received reports and observed that certain Warcraft III players have deliberately caused their own teams to lose in team games. This goes against the spirit of fair play on Battle.net, and as such, we will take action on a case-by-case basis. In each case, if we determine that griefing is in fact occurring, the griefer's Battle.net account and access to ladder games will be subject to removal."
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Blizzard Punishing Griefing On Warcraft III Ladders More

Blizzard Punishing Griefing On Warcraft III Ladders

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  • Why ban? (Score:5, Funny)

    by El ( 94934 ) on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @07:14PM (#8119042)
    Couldn't they just force all the griefers to be on the same team?
    • If I had mod points, you'd be modded up for that:) hehehe

      I think it's great Blizzard are doing this. Too many software companies take a "Tough shit, fuck you" attitude toward assholes ruining online games.

      Let the CDKEY banning commence I say:) Still choked at Blizzard using Securom (which my system hates) and not allowing no-cd cracks anymore on Battlenet, but I admire them for doing what they can to buttheads who ruin the online game.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I can't wait to see how this is spun into Blizzard being evil.

    • Re:Uh oh... (Score:1, Troll)

      by Kethinov ( 636034 )

      I can't wait to see how this is spun into Blizzard being evil.

      You need not wait longer! :)

      Okay well sort of. I'm not exactly a Blizzard-hater, and I don't even play the game in discussion here. But I have played games where "grief tactics" were considered a bannable offense, and in every case it was a completely utterly fucking retarded policy. As a game developer, you make the game. If there are bugs, you fix them. If people aren't playing the game the way you'd prefer they play it, you change it. You d

      • YOu don't like it? Go play somewhere else. YOu don't need to use their service. The majority of players of battle.net want to play a certain way, and they don't want to play with assholes. So good for blizzard for making it happen.

      • Re:Uh oh... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by tc ( 93768 ) on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @08:12PM (#8119425)
        Try this analogy for size:

        Imagine you belong to a tennis club where you can play scratch games of doubles. Sometimes your doubles partner just deliberately throws the game. You'd probably try to avoid playing that person, but if he persistently did that he might well be subject to sanction and perhaps ejection from the tennis club for unsporting behaviour.

        Does that mean doubles tennis is a broken game? Or does it just mean that you sometimes need extra social or organisational structures to make games work? On the 'net, those problems can be harder to solve because of the relative anonymity, so your range of solutions is narrower.

        • Try this analogy for size:

          Imagine you belong to a tennis club where you can play scratch games of doubles. Sometimes your doubles partner just deliberately throws the game. You'd probably try to avoid playing that person, but if he persistently did that he might well be subject to sanction and perhaps ejection from the tennis club for unsporting behaviour.

          There's an easy solution to that one, don't make an ally you can't trust.

          Sure it's unsporting and it's griefing. But life, like a game, is not perfec

          • I was responding to the suggestion that because Blizzard have to ban people, their game is broken and somehow they haven't been doing their job.

            My point is that in 'real life' games, the equivalent of being banned by Blizzard exists too. If you regularly griefed in pickup golf or tennis games (you know, where you turn up at the club and get paired with whichever other random member happens to want to play at that time), you might be asked not to renew your club membership. That doesn't mean tennis or golf
            • They're "not doing their job" because there are better ways to handle these kinds of things than banning players. As the second reply to the grandparent pointed out, people are teamed randomly. Well, hello Blizzard! Isn't it obvious that randomized teams is going to cause some people want to throw their game? It's a matter of common sense. I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying it's inevitable. If I were them, I'd be going out of my way to find a solution that didn't involve banning players, which only serve
              • You know, an even easier solution is to take down battlenet, then they wouldn't have to deal with any of these types of problems. They might lose players that way too, but they're losing players right now with the way things are.

                Removing random player matching takes away one of the the great features of the game. Think about what you're saying. Some people are jerks, so the rest of us should not be able to do something we like to accomodate them. Cooperative play with a random partner is a great idea,
              • Erm...if they're griefing, it's not likely they're in it for the points. You DO lose points if you lose.

          • Re:Uh oh... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by August_zero ( 654282 ) on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @09:34PM (#8119918)
            There's an easy solution to that one, don't make an ally you can't trust.

            And here lies the problem: battle.net players are randomly paired with a partner (or 2 or 3 ) for team ladder games.

            There is nothing preventing the little griefers from organizing their own games on open or non league servers, so if they want to throw games there is nothing stopping them. But in league games?

            Blizzard owns the servers, so you play the way Blizzard wants you to or you can go play by yourself. Getting the boot from battle.net does not make Warcraft unplayable, it just denies access to their matching service which I think is fair. Now is this whole thing going to blow up in their face? It could, we shall have to see.
        • Yeah, but your analogy falls down on the virtual level. I haven't played B.net, but most of the other online games I've seen don't easily let you see others' IP addresses.

          Whereas your tennis partner, well, you can just beat the snot out of him with your racket.
      • You have no idea how difficult it is to "just fix it." You're asking developers to write an algorithm that recognizes bad behavior; that recognizes when someone is intentionally playing badly as opposed to unsuccessfully trying to play well.

        Furthermore, you're asking them to do this in a domain where writing an AI to just play the game well is an unsolved problem.

        Definitely blame developers for bugs, but you're way out of your league on this one.

        • Re:Uh oh... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by orthogonal ( 588627 ) on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @08:50PM (#8119672) Journal
          You have no idea how difficult it is to "just fix it." You're asking developers to write an algorithm that recognizes bad behavior; that recognizes when someone is intentionally playing badly as opposed to unsuccessfully trying to play well.

          The Athenians knew how to just fix it. Once a year they'd hold an election; the person getting the most votes -- ostrakons, for the shell or potshard used in voting -- would be ostracized, banished, for a year.

          Do it monthly, and I bet you'd see a lot less griefing.
          • Dear God. So it was the Athenians who started this whole survivor mess....
            • Dear God. So it was the Athenians who started this whole survivor mess....

              If only they hadn't forced Jeff "Anal" Probst to drink hemlock, they'd be around still.

          • Re:Uh oh... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by SandSpider ( 60727 ) on Thursday January 29, 2004 @11:55AM (#8124633) Homepage Journal
            The Athenians knew how to just fix it. Once a year they'd hold an election; the person getting the most votes -- ostrakons, for the shell or potshard used in voting -- would be ostracized, banished, for a year.

            All right, so I used to work for Kesmai, who the people who are in the know realize that means that I have some idea what I'm talking about when it comes to multiplayer online gaming and customer support.

            While your solution sounds hopeful at first, you really have to stop and think about the consequences of the solution in other terms, rather that just the problem at hand. See, you're trying to keep bad players out by making a system that allows for players to rid the system of other players.

            Now, do you have some magic way of ensuring that the troublemaking players don't get to vote? Because here's pretty much what would happen: The troublemaking players would gang up and start a concerted effort to ban proper players. If the troublemakers could get a good head start, then they would quickly be able to outnumber the proper players.

            The quick rule of thumb is to imagine that you want to make life miserable for other players. Then ask yourself how you can abuse the tools in the game. Presume you can find 30 other players who also want to abuse the system, 'cause you will be able to.

            Automatic, player-controlled community tools are a nice idea, but you have to make sure that those tools can't be used to affect a player's experience.

            =Brian

      • Re:Uh oh... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by lpp ( 115405 ) on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @09:25PM (#8119863) Homepage Journal
        I'd bring up two points.

        First, this is how they are "fixing" it. Rather than patching to record the behavior or altering the gameworld so that griefing is somehow no longer fun, they are going to patrol their own gameworld and punish griefers. It's a fix with a meat space touch, but still a fix.

        Second, Blizzard isn't just a game developer in this case. They are also a game host. Here they are not just selling a game, but a game world and a (must control gag reflex) user experience. As a result, it isn't enough for them to merely let their game out into the wild as it were. They have to provide the appropriate environment for most of their clients to enjoy their game.

  • It's about time. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Dolemite_the_Wiz ( 618862 ) on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @07:39PM (#8119214) Journal
    This sort of play has been going on since Starcraft first came out.

    Dolemite
    ____________________

    • Re:It's about time. (Score:3, Informative)

      by cicatrix1 ( 123440 )
      Yeah, the forum post in question is about a month old (Go Slashdot!), but basically the immidiate reason behind it was because this got to be such a problem that clans were formed that did nothing but backstab* teammates. *Backstabbing includes anything from intentionally going to an allies base and attcking it, to more subtle forms of making nothing but farms, doing nothing at all, walling your ally in with buildings, killing all your units, etc... People were actually proud of the new and interesting wa

  • A noble company? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xgamer04 ( 248962 ) <<xgamer04> <at> <yahoo.com>> on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @07:41PM (#8119229)
    Even though a lot of people seem to hate Blizzard, this just proves that they may actually care about their customers. I'm glad there's at least one game company looking out for their user-base.

    • Re:A noble company? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ArmyOfFun ( 652320 )
      I completely agree. Face it people, public online gaming sucks! When there isn't someone on your team killing you and your teammates or making it hard for your side to win, cooperation is still a rare thing. People make comments just to offend and get a rise out of people. Griefing ruins it for everyone but the assholes griefing. People cheat not just to get an edge but to ruin the experience for other people.

      The last thing I want to come in contact with when I'm trying to blow off a little steam after wor

  • Way To Go Blizzard!!! (Score:4, Informative)

    by LordYUK ( 552359 ) <jeffwright821@NOSPAm.gmail.com> on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @08:28PM (#8119507)
    This is actually old news, but hey, whatever...

    I fully support Blizzards decision, in fact, they just recently banned FFA (free for all) griefers... its SOOO easy to get into a ladder FFA with a "friend" if you click on the play game button at about the same time, since there are relatively few FFA's at any given moment.

    Just for clarification, this is your typical griefer:

    game starts, they (depending on race) either destroy all their buildings, or hero rush your base, or build nothing but peons.

    An older trick was the get this one wand that teleported a unit back to your town hall, and right before you finished "creeping" (killing neutral monsters for gold/experience) they'd teleport your hero back to base, get the item and the xp for your kill...

    These arent people that "suck" at the game. These are the asshats that would join your Diablo 2 game with hacked characters and then kill you "because they could".
    • I agree with you totally on that. I had to deal with that today. Some nob didn't like me asking him what units he was going for so he killed his base and mine, in a 3vs3 game. This happened not once but twice in a row by the same guy going by the name of "iamthedaddy". In previous days I've encountered Lossbot, and a few others that just magically dropped for no reason.

      So I am glad that Blizzard takes an active stance against this bs because it ruins a great game.The worse part is when people don't unders

  • I play about a dozen WC III games a week and have encountered griefers on numerous occasions. It doesn't bother me so much when they are on the opposing team, but aggravates me to no end when they are on my team. Blizzard should not have a difficult time identifying the griefers since anyone that wants to report abuse can simply send a replay as evidence.
    Now that I am above level 10, I encounter the griefers much more rarely as I am usually matched up with more serious players. However, in the lower

  • Does Blizzard *have* a marketing department? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Mirkon ( 618432 ) <`mirkon' `at' `gmail.com'> on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @09:05PM (#8119755) Homepage
    I can understand not wanting people to mess up the ladders. So why not have ladder bans? There are systems for this that can work without keeping people off B.net as a whole.

    I can understand wanting good players to be able to play with other good players. Which is why said people catch on and play private games with people they know.

    What I don't understand is how Blizzard can keep doing things like this, just snapping its fingers and banning thousands of people. Do they really think that by getting rid of those who "don't play nice," those who do will spend enough money to make up for the lost customer base? Banning a huge sum of players on the off chance that other players will have a better time is a flawed business model, and no competent business would ever do it.

    And if this trend continues, how long is it until Blizzard EULAs contain rules and guidelines on how you can play the game? How long is it until people who don't play along are just deleted?

    Wouldn't it be nice if there was an alternate Battle.net clone for people who want to play on a huge network but don't want to deal with Blizzard's rules? You know, like bnetd [eff.org].
    Whoops.

    It keeps happening, a few people keep griping, and the mindless Blizzard junkies who have become zealous followers of every game the company makes keep praising Blizz for allowing them to play with less people. It's bound to crash and burn eventually. Right?

    • Re:Does Blizzard *have* a marketing department? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cicatrix1 ( 123440 ) <cicatrix1NO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @09:29PM (#8119883) Homepage
      Do they really think that by getting rid of those who "don't play nice," those who do will spend enough money to make up for the lost customer base?

      Actually, since there is no recurring charge, they lose no business at all. The people who get banned (probably) already bought the game, and depending on how much they care about it, might buy it *again*.

      I can't see how this is flawed in any way. Legitimate players pay to play the game in a legitimate way, cheaters and griefers *should* be thrown out. Why should they expect to get away with being assholes and/or cheating?

      If Blizzard got terribly overzealous with these rules, then I can see why you would complain. But at this point, you are just being paranoid. Banning cheaters and losers is nothing but good for everyone.
    • This isn't rocket science. Outright ban is a deterrant. The goal is not specifically to keep the ladder clean, it's to have a tough face against griefers, map hackers, and other people who make playing on battle.net less enjoyable.

      Enjoyable battle.net play helps sell future blizzard games, i.e. make them money. Even if deterrants don't work, they convinces the non-griefer players that blizzard is trying, as opposed to ignoring the problem. This encourages people to keep buying blizzard games.
    • Actually, I think there are lots of other companies that are more restrictive in their online play of games. From personal experience I can say that these players be SHOULD banned for what they do. You have no idea how aggravating it can be to play a game thinking you have a fair chance only to find that one of your allies is going to throw the game. Blizzard has done as much as it can do to prevent griefing (EG: give allies control of players units if they drop), but at some point they had to start threate

    • Re:Does Blizzard *have* a marketing department? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MMaestro ( 585010 ) on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @09:47PM (#8120025)
      Wouldn't it be nice if there was an alternate Battle.net clone for people who want to play on a huge network but don't want to deal with Blizzard's rules?

      You mean like Diablo 2's Open Battle.net which is run largely by hacked characters? Yeah, I tried it before. It sucks. People either cheat or hack... and then they kill you... repeatedly.

      I can understand not wanting people to mess up the ladders. So why not have ladder bans? There are systems for this that can work without keeping people off B.net as a whole.

      Because its not just the ladders. Have you even played Warcraft III online? All regular melee games are setup so that you're randomly assigned teammates and opponents. YOU DON'T GET TO PICK YOUR TEAMMATES. If you're playing a 4v4 and your teammates decide to be assholes and force attack your base, tough luck you just wasted about 20 minutes of time and lost the game. Its not like Starcraft where everyone gets dropped into a room beforehand and can chat it out before starting.

      Banning a huge sum of players on the off chance that other players will have a better time is a flawed business model, and no competent business would ever do it.

      It WOULD be a flawed business model if you weren't ignorant. In this case; Step one, YOU buy the game. Step two, YOU go on Battle.net and get yourself banned. Step three, YOU are now screwed. Now where does Blizzard get YOUR money? The answer: Step one.

      Battle.net is NOT a pay-to-play model. Once you get past Step one, Blizzard doesn't care if you decide to destroy the CD in a microwave, they already have YOUR money. If it wasn't for the advertisement banners and the low bandwidth necessary to run the servers, Blizzard would be in deep financial trouble considing the fact that people are STILL playing Diablo 1 on Battle.net for FREE.

    • And if this trend continues, how long is it until Blizzard EULAs contain rules and guidelines on how you can play the game? How long is it until people who don't play along are just deleted?

      have you READ the EULA? it basically already states this. copied from another post:

      "harass, threaten, stalk, embarrass, or cause distress, unwanted attention, or discomfort upon another user of Battle.net or other person or entity;"
      "cheat during game play,"
      "carry out any action with a disruptive effect, such as cau

  • old news (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Wow what old news. I was one of the people banned, and my 1-month ban is already over! Anyway, it was an unfair ban!

    I was one of the members of "scbackstab," a group that ran a website (www.scbackstab.com, doesn't exist anymore) where we joined 7v1comp games in starcraft, killed our own teammates, and posted screenshots of the funny reactions we got. I continued this trend in warcraft 3.

    Thing is, blizzard was always FINE with it. Even since those early starcraft days. They even posted saying "it's not

    • Re:old news (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      next time use your real slashdot name, and list your current battle.net IDs as well. I am guessing there are a number of people that would like to discuss this behavior of yours with you. By "discuss" I mean using a board with a couple of nails in it.
    • Yeah - there's a lot of 'funny' reactions to that. Personally, I wouldn't mind pissing on your lunch to see your 'funny' reaction. The only good thing about asshats such as this coward was when you were able to take them down. They'd always slink away, leaving a stain on battlenet.

      I hope you pick up a 2^n++ month ban each time you are banned. Not that you would learn a lesson or anything, but to at least make battlenet more enjoyable.
  • like not knowing which units are good against the enemies units and getting blamed for losing.

  • Heh, an Anti-F*cktard Campaign (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AvantLegion ( 595806 ) on Thursday January 29, 2004 @05:16AM (#8122061) Journal
    Would like to see a similar "moron clensing" of Battlefield 1942.

    I think more games need a simple, easy-to-use "teammates vote moron out" feature like SOCOM 2 on PS2. On some online PC shooter games, I've seen such features, but often they require some typed command at the console that most people never learn.

    • Don't I agree with you. BF1942's eject feature is a bit lame, especially since (a) most average players have no idea what the console even looks like, and (b) it takes so many people to eject, even if it's a tkick instead of kick.

      However, I've seen eject done with lower threshholds in Netrek [netrek.org], with the predictable result that...you can imagine what happens when the twat quotient passes a certain level. Of course, those aren't really games you'd want to be in anyway.

      The thing I don't like about the suprem
    • " Would like to see a similar "moron clensing" of Battlefield 1942. I think more games need a simple, easy-to-use "teammates vote moron out" feature like SOCOM 2 on PS2. On some online PC shooter games, I've seen such features, but often they require some typed command at the console that most people never learn. "

      Ain't that the truth. In the considerable time I've played bf1942, not once have I seen someone been voted out, only kicked/banned by admin. You're right, part of it IS typing the command, it

  • am i missing something here or could these grief players roleplaying an evil character? ok i admit that using a cheat is bad and not good. however using underhanded tactics and killing off your own team is well evil.

    i know a lot of the /. crowd is/was d&d players. i'm not sure how many of them played evil characters. i was one who did and at the risk of getting punched out for killing off our own party we didn't but that didn't stop any of my characters from plotting to do it. if any of you got alo
    • Erm...have you ever played a strategy game?

      Besides, those evil characters are actually playing the game. They're not being nice about it, but they're working within normal parameters. A person who joins a strategy game and just sits there, or worse? No. They aren't playing. They're hurting their own stats, even.

      They're working solely to make the game less fun for others. No more and no less.

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