Player vs. Player Play Examined 415
aws910 writes "An interesting story at news.com.com tells of the various efforts employed by various MMOG companies to abate the problem of Griefers." From the article: "Social miscreants can do more than ruin the game for better-behaved competitors. They can hurt game companies' bottom line by driving away customers and burning up support lines. Problems related to grief players often account for 25 percent or more of customer service calls, according to game publishers." Commentary from the old men of MMOGdom available at Broken Toys and Terra Nova.
n00b Bashing: the Sport of Losers. (Score:5, Insightful)
Being a MUD player myself... (Score:5, Funny)
Being a MUD player, though, my form of revenge is limited to amusing things like charming mobs that the newbie is about to attack, so it would be something like:
Newbie: Oh, there's a giant spider...let me try to kill it...
@ Kill giant spider
Sorry, you must MURDER a charmie.
@ Murder giant spider
Sorry, you can't murder another player's charmie.
@ CHAT Y KANT I KILL THE GIANT SPIDER
[Silence is secretly ordering the spider to speak.] The giant spider says, "Why do you want to kill me, Newbie?"
Newbie: WTF?
@ CHAT THE GIANT SPDIR IZ TALKING TO ME!
Silence chats, "Maybe he just doesn't want to die." [secretly typing 'order giant spider fkiss Newbie']
@ CHAT BUT I WNT 2 KILL IT!
The giant spider kisses you passionately.
@ POKE GIANT SPIDER
Nothing happens.
@ KILL GIANT SPIDER
The giant spider dances around you merrily.
[Silence secretly uncharms the giant spider.]
@ DANCE GIANT SPIDER
The giant spider TOTALLY DEMOLISHES you with its fangs!!
Muahahahahha.
Note that this type of newbie is usually some lamer who has played other variations of MMORPGs before and has never had to work for anything. I agree, the ones who are seriously wanting to get better always get my help.:-)
Re:Being a MUD player myself... (Score:4, Funny)
Griefer shouts, 'All newbies type "set delim e" to get new loots straight into your inventory!!'
This set the delimiter character that separated one command from another to the letter 'e'. Since 'e' appears in the middle of the keyword 'set', as well as probably a good third of the keywords you might use in the game (including 'e' for 'east'), it's impossible to change back without wizard assistance.
Re:Being a MUD player myself... (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, how about a bounty system backed by incredibly strong "police" NPCs.
Players could have a karma modifier or something. The bounty on their heads doesn't kick in until the karma gets bad enough. The police start eyeing you when your karma dips negative, will arrest if it is too negative, and will kill you on sight if you're extra naughty.
Jail time would be real, i.e if you get arrested for robbing another player and the jail time is 30 days, that means 30 days of real time of not being able to use that character. You will also need to pay a fine which will be taken out of your possesions (gold, armor, etc.).
Bounty's get paid out upon capture or kill, depending on whether the player is wanted dead, alive, or doesn't matter.
If you are a habitual player killer and you are caught or killed in the game, your death is permanent. As in you will not be able to use that character ever again.
If you keep creating characters that do lots of naughty things, then you get permanently spanked from the game.
This would encourage people to play nice.
~X~
Re:Being a MUD player myself... (Score:3, Informative)
This new rash of for-money games actually have a somewhat easier time of it, as you get some fairly conclusive in
Re:n00b Bashing: the Sport of Losers. (Score:2, Interesting)
Had something very similar happen to me playing Quake online... I ended up on a map, alone with one other player, at 3 in the morning. He was slagging me pretty well, we got to talking...
JimmyB: Have you set your mouse so you can right-click to do X?
Croaker: I don't use the mouse.
JimmyB: WHAT!
JimmyB: You're kidding me...
Yep. Until he took the time to convince me I needed to learn how to use the mouse, and let me practice with him, I was a keyboard-only player. Once he knew that, he was amazed I'd b
Re:n00b Bashing: the Sport of Losers. (Score:2)
I for one find most video games boring because when you play against the machine it has no intelligence and is therefore more repetition than stimulation. Multiplayer gam
Re:n00b Bashing: the Sport of Losers. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:n00b Bashing: the Sport of Losers. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not like they're taking advantage of a game bug, or using a modern Bo Jackson to be unstoppable. You just have to prevent that gain. I'm quite certain that every NFL coach would go for it on every fourth down if the other team wasn't able to stop them and immediately score. The only way you're going to get the game to model real life is if
They do it because there are no reprecusions. (Score:5, Interesting)
When death isn't permanent and you can always abandon an old account and start a brand new character
The easiest solution I see to this is to limit players to one character, per account, per credit card. If you character does something that would result in jail time in the real world, then jail the character in the game and don't let the player just abandon it and start a new character without getting a new credit card.
I don't see the game designers actually thinking about what the game citizens would logically do if they had to live in a world like that game.
Re:They do it because there are no reprecusions. (Score:2)
1.) Cheaters
2.) TKers
3.) Griefers
4.) Bleeders
5.) Idler / Laggers
6.) Script Modders (people who modify scripts to do ridiculous things at the press of a single button. Example: duck, shoot, reload.)
8.) Recruiters
9.) Spammers
10.) Racist offensive players
Re:They do it because there are no reprecusions. (Score:5, Interesting)
If your typical antisocial player is of legal age and wants to go to the trouble of opening a new charge account once he or she is out of their existing credit cards then that makes it an additional pain in the ass. Sooner or later they're going to run out of options and simply be out of the game.
Hopefully they're so into trying to screw people's game up that they keep applying for new credit cards and closing old ones in order to keep doing it. Eventually they've got so many inquiries on the credit record that they can't get credit anywhere and the interest rate on the cards they do have goes up.
In the case of a juvenile turd they're going to have to keep asking mom and dad for a different card number and copy of the game which might lead to a phone call from the annoyed parent to the people in charge asking why the game they paid so much money for their kid to play has banned him. Then they get to learn that their kids an asshole who doesn't play well with others and they can take it from there if they're so inclined.
Re:They do it because there are no reprecusions. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a nice idea, but replace it with billing name and mailing address rather than CC number - most big CC companies let you generate new numbers at will for online purchases.
Everyone is allowed to. (Score:3, Interesting)
So, you have 5 credit cards which give you 5 characters and all 5 of them are spending time in jail for anti-social crimes
And you're paying $50/month for that privilege.
Re:Everyone is allowed to. (Score:4, Insightful)
That way, just like in the real world, you can have anti-social types, but they're limited in the amount of damage they cause.
Online Games are Raily fun anymore (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Online Games are Raily fun anymore (Score:3, Interesting)
I really detest this social convention. It basically permanently hinders your ability to get better as a player. If you can't stop an early rush, your never going to get good. I'm a pretty occasional Sc/war 3 player. I have never had any trouble defending my base. Early rushes deplete yoru abiltiy to compete later, it's a valid strategy but most new players refuse to play a whole game and prefer to get h
What about this?... (Score:2, Interesting)
In games like Everquest or UO, have some sort of "hero calling" device.
Once a character reaches a certain level, they can choose to be available to be called upon to aid newbies and they would receive a "pager". Newbies, on the other hand start the game with a "distress signal" device that disappears after they reach a certain level (or they've abused it). This device would allow the newbie to send a general call for aid with a short message. Hero's can check their pager periodically to see if there is
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along. (Score:3, Interesting)
Based on what I know about MMOG, I'd imagine a citizen police force might work well. Though I'm sure they'd be subject to the same temptations as real-world police, the idea of a bunch of good guys hunting down and exterminating bad guys is pretty appealing. They could get tips from
Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along. (Score:2)
Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along. (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, you could boot the character without the police force, like the article said X-box live does, but I kind of like the idea of the universe taking care of itself. I think troublemakers tend to learn their lesson better if their peers teach it rather than some megacorp.
TW
So.... (Score:2, Insightful)
-Benjamin Meyer
Wouldn't work (Score:2)
Re:Wouldn't work (Score:2)
if you want a new guy, cancel your account and start a new one
Re:Wouldn't work (Score:2)
What about... (Score:2)
Say, you kill someone, you lose some experience/life/karma/whatever points.
Re:What about... (Score:2)
Not really - you can kill someone, you just have to know there are consequences for doing so.
But what about a modification then - each player can opt to enable/disable the penalty for someone killing them - something that other players can see (so they know.)
Re:So.... (Score:2)
honey pots (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:honey pots (Score:2)
getting angry from getting spanked... now that's stupid - what would be the point in playing then if you couldn't get spanked, why would you bother to improve your character and play if it didn't really improve yo
Doesn't work (Score:2)
Now, just making experience based on a comparison of levels would make sense. You gain more for the bigger kill (think of Warcraft III where your hero levels better for more experienced opponents). It als
Re:Doesn't work (Score:2)
Have the penalty affect only the *aggressor,* defined as he who throws the first (punch/knife/grenade/bullet/spell). In fact, I'd say a lvl30 character who kills a lvl20 character that attacked him in hopes of winning the lottery ought to be awarded extra points, for actions amounting to a community service in killing the uppity lvl20.
OTOH, if the lvl30 attacks the lvl20, I'd say he deserves to be demoted to lvl20 upon attacking, where he
Re:Doesn't work (Score:2)
Re:honey pots (Score:2)
Honey pot (Score:2)
Fansy the Famous Bard (Score:4, Funny)
If I didn't know better, I'd think you must be referring to Fansy the Famous [notacult.com]. But perhaps that's not what you had in mind?
How about moderating players like Slashdot posts? (Score:4, Interesting)
You could go farther, and those with negative karma might be banned from certain areas, like around spawn points.
Re:How about moderating players like Slashdot post (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How about moderating players like Slashdot post (Score:4, Funny)
yeah, but only by people in red shirts...
Re:How about moderating players like Slashdot post (Score:2)
I wrote about it a while back [mmorpgdot.com]. The ideal situation would be for a third party company to create a database where you could have a persistent identity across games. This idendity tag would follow you on all characters made across all games, ensuring that any stupidity on your part had actual repercussions in future online meetings. It would be a boon as well, because much like Ebay feedback good social and or a
Re:How about moderating players like Slashdot post (Score:2)
You can do this for banks, supermarket loyalty cards, local council anyone who holds any data on you whatsoever...
Re:How about moderating players like Slashdot post (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How about moderating players like Slashdot post (Score:2)
Now MUDs were not really "massively" multiplayer wit
Re:How about moderating players like Slashdot post (Score:2)
Welcome to society (Score:5, Interesting)
A virtual police or secuirty force that could 1) recognize "crime" and 2) had the authority to "detain" (perhaps indefinitely, depending on the seriousness of the breach) and even fine "criminals" would solve the problem to a large degree. But like real life, there will always be those who want to break the rules and get away with it.
Re:Welcome to society (Score:5, Insightful)
Another point is, couldn't the virtual police become corrupt (again, as is common in many societies), and wouldn't you need extraordinarily complex systems such as...
a judiciary
lawyers
ombudsmen
investigatory units
a bar association
...etc, etc... to eliminate the possibility of abuse by the "authorities"? How would you like to be "imprisoned" in a MMORPG by some rogue "virtual cop" who decided you were acting improperly? Something to think about.
Re:Welcome to society (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Welcome to society (Score:2)
Basic bullies get temporary boot or warnings from customer service reps.
Repeat offenders may upgrade to permanent ban.
Cheaters usually are put out of their misery for good on the first offense when caught.
Rules of Conduct that you approve when you *subscribe* to the game are pretty watertight. Basically you are presented with the rules you are supposed to play by. If you break the rules, you won't get to play. Simple as that. And the EULA states that if y
Jury duty (Score:2)
Once you're done, step back into the teleporter and resume play. Just hope you don't get deadlocked into the "virtual OJ trial."
Re:Welcome to society (Score:2)
Introduce aging and heirs. Then introduce children as a method to keep player-control of their fortune. Then players are forced to have kids... who are weak and need defending... which means the wealthy and powerful have a vested interest in a system which protects them (can't be logged in all the time!), along with the newbs :-)
Anything which requires "laws" implemented in game logic sucks. It has to be player-driven.
Make everywhere a PVP zone and now in the game logic, you do need to have serious
Re:Welcome to society (Score:2)
it would make them boring too.
Why bring cops into it? (Score:2)
...even virtual cops?
Why not copy other online communities...like eBay? Give any player a way to log a grievance against another player. Feedback. When a player begins to rack up complaints, that's when they get taken to the virtual woodshed for a talking to.
It's not perfect (think Slashdot moderation), but it would probably help in a large variety of noob bashing cases.
Griefers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just like in business and government: we can't get rid of the bad apples because they're composed of the oldest, most well-established, most wealthy individuals.
Re:Griefers? (Score:2)
You mean like... (Score:2, Funny)
Easy (Score:5, Interesting)
Variant: PvP "zones", which, IMHO, are worse, since you can lure people into them. Better to have opt-in PvP and then have PvP-Free zones.
For that 10% where player killing action is the point of the whole game, if the game is properly balanced so that players at equal level are equally good at combat, level limits would seem to work best.
An alternative system for mandatory PvP games where combat is _not_ balanced level for level:
The more a player is killed, the less experience s/he is worth. The more a player kills, the _more_ s/he is worth. This discourages people from getting killed, and encourages people to kill "griefers" (aka, jerks). This works very well in conjunction with no-looting.
IMHO, the griefer syndrome stems from the fact that modern commercial MMORPGs are not RP-enforced. On the best MUDs, this problem is solved to a large extent by administrator judgement ("no assholes on my MUD!" *deletes and sitebans player!*).
-Erwos
Re:Easy (Score:2)
This system does not solve the problem of pure grief kills, where higher-level characters kill newbies just to hear them complain. I had someone do that to me in a mud once. The mud had no real player death, just unconsciousness when you los
Reminds me of a story (Score:3, Interesting)
So one day, a guy invents this autoaim patch which is quite hard to install (near impossibly) and the whole community freaks out in pain, since 99.9% of the players didn't want this kind of mods. Note that this was a very respected modder, he called himself or his mods "sixpack" and was really good stuff otherwise, but nothing that really was cheating.
People on the online servers go nuts, "you use aimbots!", "these people are too good" etc. The comments if you shoot somebody in the head on first sight was almost always "cheater!" etc.
Then of course, after a week or so, the modder said that the whole thing was a hoax and it didn't work at all. Everybody realized people where just that good
Oh the good times.
Albert
Gangs of them are even worse. (Score:2)
In a well designed game griefing is not a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Exploiting of bugs could certainly be termed grief play, but this is essentially a game mechanics issue and should be addressed as such. The bottom line is, the game mechanics define the rules of the game, and if an action is allowed it is a legitimate part of the game. For example: if wildly unbalanced encounters between high-level and low-level characters are not desired, then they should be prevented by game mechanics.
In-game chat, and mechanics exploits are the only real tools of the griefer. An /ignore command, and timely patches in a quality game make this a non-issue.
Re:In a well designed game griefing is not a probl (Score:2, Interesting)
Interesting point (Score:3, Interesting)
Battlefield 1942 has some excellent game features that, when enabled can make this nearly, albeit not quite, a non-issue.
-A "buddy" tracker. By adding a player to your "buddy" list, you can easily locate his position on the map, and his nametag stands out in bold green. Since teamkillers, are invariably players
scale of greifing in MMOs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:scale of greifing in MMOs (Score:2)
Take my ball and go home. (Score:2)
This can commonly be done with FPS style games, but MMORPGS suffer from the fact that there -is- nowhere else to play the game as there's commonly only one world.
In all honesty, I've always avoided paying for MMORPGs [except for puzzle pirates, which promotes a great deal of
easy fix. (Score:3, Interesting)
I person from am i.p. can mod a character for one point.
they can change their moderation of that person to -1, 0 or +1.
You can only be modded 5 times from the same guild.
From what I see, there are three ways to handle the results.
1. base the costs of items on someones mod points.
2. base the items that drop on someones mod points.
3. make them hunted by town guards.
IF it was a few people, you oculd ban them, but it is such a large percentage of suscribers that it wouldn't be cost worthy.
Ways of dealing with this in-game (Score:3, Informative)
1) Religious alignment system (think DandD style with gods/goddesses representing alignments). "Good" players received the protection of their appropriate gods, say protection from corpse looting. "Evil" players received other rewards and protections, but not protection from looting (thus their reign of terror ends when a dozen good characters stand up to them). Changing alignment leads to temporary penalties where nobody wants to protect you. Then, players who play "good" characters can go about their lives with the occasional evil character attack (the rewards for being evil should be good enough to justify it). Evil characters (the pkillers) can spend their time killing each other for the loot. By splitting hairs farther, perhaps Lawful Good characters (who had never attacked another player) would be completely immune to pkilling, which other good players would have to hold their own or hope that they were close enough to town for the town guards to come running.
Won't fly though, people would flip out at the suggestion of religion
2) If the world was heavily magical (ie, everyone was a magician and justified this), everyone could be issed a mostly harmless pet familiar. Who would then be capable of growing into a dragon and hosing down any unwanted invitations to a duel with fire. It could be made so that pk could still be possible, but would widen the xp gap needed for griefing considerably to take on a n00b and their dragon at the same time.
A) Preventing PvP entirely outside of arenas. Easy to implement when everyone is a good guy, but what do you do if you've got a situation where players play on opposing countries/sides/whatever and fighting is expected as part of the story? This path seems to be getting taken a lot by current games.
B) Doing nothing and letting it happen. This seems to be what the other games do. I wonder if I was the only one who was annoyed by the article's advice of "Ignore them and they will go away"? When I was in elementary school, I was bullied regularly for a year while I tried to "ignore it" until I finally snapped and bloodied the bully's nose. That led to a week of peace followed by the bully's friends holding me down while he taught me not to bother fighting back, followed by more of the usual. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
In the end, I think MMO companies will need to come up with creative, true-to-plot solutions to the problem, whether its as simple as a "murderer" flag, or tied to more complex socioeconomic penalties (say, shopkeepers charging you more and more the more bloodthirsty you become, until eventually the same players that you kill are making money off of you by reselling items to you at a hefty markup).
Don't play their game. (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, 99% of griefers jollys are from provoking a response.
When playing Neocron I had the misfortune to get ganked by a couple of muppets. Now in NC when you die high level damage gives you XP (or used to). So rather then whack rats for the next hour or so I respawned (genrep) back to them and let them kill me again, and again, and again.
After about 5 minutes they stopped when they realised they were wasting ammo on me for no loot. I got called various names and told to "fight fair" (they were 30 levels above me). At that point they got annoyed and tried to leave the area only to be gunned down by the cops as they were now a criminal for killing me so often. I picked up their nice custom built gattling cannon (4 slots) from their corpse. This was back when you dropped an item instead of a belt.
Similar incidents in UO. Myself and others got annoyed by a PK'er who liked to come in and kill newbies. So my friends dressed up as shepard NPC's and did the NPC shuffle, while I acted all newbish. Once he started to attack me they ganked him and looted him.
Idiots who ruin the game (Score:2)
What's really disconcerting is such remarks are often directed at team members. It's much easier to blame another as being a "stupid f***ing lamer noob" than accept their own lack of ability. I can take the crap from my opponents, but the game becomes moot when Mr. Lvl5 starts insulting my gameplay (a
Re:Idiots who ruin the game (Score:2)
possible solution (Score:5, Interesting)
The Dynamite Belt.
If you're being grief'ed, detonate. Only works if you're being attacked/looted by someone N levels above your own and/or several players with a combined level of N. Does not work if you attacked first.
Everyone involved is killed and loses all virtual possessions, respawns totally naked.
SWG (Score:3, Interesting)
Basically, the system works like this:
No other player can just haul off and attack you, there are criteria that must be met before you can be attacked. Basically, if you are a member of a civil war faction ("Rebel" or "Imperial") and have listed yourself as "overt" you can be attacked by "overt" members of the opposite faction. If "covert" members of the opposite faction are traveling with an "overt", they can attack you once the "overt" guy does. Once the "coverts" traveling with the "overt" attack, they are fair game to you. All "overt" members of any faction are fair game to any "overt" member of the opposite faction at any time.
Another way is through one on one, or one on many duels. In order to duel, you must be challenged and accept, or challenge and have your challenge accepted. Either way, both players know it's coming.
Finally is a guild war. If your guild is at war with another guild you are always fair game to them, and they are always fair game to you, regardless of overtness or faction. This requires your guild master to "challenge" another guild and for that guild to recriprocate.
These measures really do a lot to ensure that newbies are killed off, and that high level jedi aren't just walking around killing whoever they please. You are never at risk of PvP combat unless you take active measures to put yourself at that risk on purpose.
Of course there are scenarios where a few overt rebel lure a few overt imps into a fight, then group up with a whole lot of covert rebels to gang up on and beat the shit out of the imps, but we call that tactics, not cheating. If the imps weren't looking for a fight, they wouldn't have been overt in the first place.
Devil's Advocate (Score:2)
Newbs have to pay their dues before they can get good. It's better that your Level 1 character gets killed for some stupid reason than your Level 20 character.
Maybe it's the whiny players that are the threat to Player vs. Player games? They are the ones making all the support calls.
I haven't played much MMOGs so I'm sure there are some very reasonable answers.
Community often has to take care of itself (Score:2)
For example take some player called Ceciliantas. Apparently this person has been a jerk to the entire community in several online games. So recently he was caught in a cyber sex session in EQ2 with a character he t
The America's Army solution (Score:2)
-
Also, just as is the case with the Army, the game has a firm grounding in values. For example, the game establishes rules for engagement and imposes significant penalties for violations of these rules. Players who violate these rules or who engage in activities such as team killings, can find themselves in a virtual representation of the Army's jail at Fort Leavenworth or thrown out of the game.
So there.Virtual Lord of the Flies (Score:5, Insightful)
Players who realize that the only real thing at risk is their free time and money will feel a rush from doing questionable things. Their computer becomes their cloak of anonomity. Without some sort of "penality" for being a jerk there is little incentive for some to avoid being jerks. Often times the administrators are overwhelmed or powerless to make rulings let alone enforce penalities so players are left to police themselves.
Games that have large social structures like "guilds" tend to gravitate towards a more stable setup because "player enforced penalities" start to come into play. When leaders start worrying about their group being left out (everyone agrees GuildA55 are jerks and therefore will not share events with them) they are far more likely to be nice and seek comprise than to try and grief and punish everyone against them. Situations like these probably mimic some early human societies and social structures.
Once again technology and MMOGs have shown an interesting side of humanity. I'm sure that there are socialogy majors who could make some interesting thesis out of observed behavior in these virtual worlds.
Different Types of Players (Score:2)
Take a game I used to be heavily involved with, Eve [eve-online.com]. For someone in a corporation, who spends 4+ hours a day playing, losing a cruiser in a battle is no big deal
Lawrence of Arabia? (Score:2)
I would suggest partitioning the mud spatially .. (Score:2)
Re:This looks familiar (Score:2)
Punish everyone? (Score:2, Interesting)
Punish everyone by degrading support? Now, if you only charge for support for the bad guys....
Re:Punish everyone? (Score:2)
It certainly does in the case of support. If a free support line suddenly starts to charge, it has definitely gotten worse.
Re:Is Punkbuster spyware? (Score:2, Informative)
Install it.
Re:Is Punkbuster spyware? (Score:2, Informative)
What it does: scans the harddrive/memory checking for known hacks and cheats. If it detects something, it tells the game server you're connected to, and the server kicks you off. It also updates itself with new cheat definitions (think virus definitions...)
Thats what I know about it
Re:Is Punkbuster spyware? (Score:3, Informative)
I think I used punkbuster a while back. It may be similar to a program called Cheating Death, which was made for Half-life mods.
Basically, it ensures that the game hasn't been tampered with. The game server admin installs a server copy of punkbuster, which queries the copy installed on your computer (client). This happens when you connect and periodically checks while playing the game. If an illegal modification is made to the game, the client will disconnect from the server, thus
Re:Is Punkbuster spyware? (Score:3, Informative)
short answer: no
Long answer:
The description of how the software works sounds like a perfect setup for installing spyware, but I cannot find any documented reports.
perfect setup how? because... its a program?
It's anticheat software. It's approved enough by quite a few major publishers for them to pay evenbalance to implement it. It's used on 99% of servers for most of the biggest MP games out there [evenbalance.com], despite millions of users, you yourself say you cannot find any documented repor
Re:Is Punkbuster spyware? (Score:2)
The only arguement I have against PB is that it sometimes will cause moments of lag as it tests your local machine against random hashes from the PB server.
Re:Is Punkbuster spyware? (Score:2, Informative)
punkbuster keeps away all the lamers that use wallhacks, auto-headshots, and other forms of cheating.
the "matches" they participate in will be of higher quality and generally have less whiners or TKers.
Re:Griefing within the rules (Score:2, Funny)
Call me a paranoid nut but it sounds to me like you've just described my entire life.
Re:Griefing within the rules (Score:2)
As a side note, pvp in level up games is lame and always will
Re:WRONG! (Score:2)
Re:I remember . . . (Score:2)
Re:newsflash (Score:2)
I cannot find any document that states AI ever pushed for a cease fire between the CPN and the government. I did, however, find this:
or (Score:3, Insightful)
Or have a "challenge" system in place. (Score:2)
Griefing only requires a lack of a life. (Score:2)
Hardly. Griefing only requires that the Griefer have no life outside of the game.
That way, the Griefer can learn all the exploits and get the levels needed to grief those who do have a life outside the game.
Re:Confessions of a griefer (Score:5, Insightful)
All bullshit. You are in essence an asshole, nothing more. Nobody appreciates assholes. Nobody ever has and nobody ever will.
Lord of your domain? That's a laugh. Lord of a server somewhere that you don't own and have to pay for the right to use?
The real joy of all of this is that the game makers are slowly moving towards models that will make you completely irrelevent City of Heros was absolutely brilliant in putting up with none of the bullshit people like you create. The games are a business and you and yours have no place in the future business model.
Believe me when I tell you that nobody is going to miss having you around to "appreciate". You'll behave or you'll be gone.
Re:please don't water down onlines games... (Score:2)
Yeah, but there should be consequences for doing that. PvP is fine as long as there are real consequences for killing someone.
If you're caught you definitely should lose anything you looted, and maybe you've got a bounty on your head.
Make being a criminal have some real drawbacks, like constant fear of being caught or lynched.
Re:PK's are not griefers, damn it. (Score:3, Interesting)
1) You are correct, there is a difference between being a PK/PvPer and being a griefer
2) Allow me to paraphrase what you said:
"I am a PvPer but not a griefer. I like to kill new players over and over and over again because its easy. I like to taunt other players before killing them, after killing them the first time, and after killing them the 500th time. I like to pick targets and follow them, killing them every few minutes to guarantee that they do not have any fun. I especially like to