Blog Banter #20 - EVE = Griefing

Welcome to the twentieth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

With the recent completion of the 3rd installment of the Hulkageddon last month, @CyberinEVE, author of Hands Off, My Loots!, asks: "Griefing is a very big part of EVE. Ninja Salvaging, Suicide Ganking, Trolling, and Scamming are all a very large part of the game. What do you think about all these things? You can talk about one, or all...but just let us know your overall opinion on Griefing, and any recommendations you may have to change it if you think it's needed."

Not really understanding what a Griefer is or what Griefing means I, like any other citizen of the web, took a look at wikipedia for the authorative description. In the article there are a list of things that are considered 'Griefing;.

* Intentional friendly fire
* Using third-party hack programs
* Falsely accusing others of griefing behavior
* Written and/or verbal insults
* Exploitation of unintended game mechanics
* Stealing other players' items and/or experience (when done for the purpose of harassment, not self-gain)
* Spamming
* Spawn camping
* Twinking
* Acting out-of-character in a role-play setting
* Saying or doing something just to irritate, upset, or otherwise harass someone
* Creating multiple subscription accounts
* Purposely not assisting the team (e.g. "feeding" (deliberately helping the other team by getting "killed"), wasting key game elements)
* Collusion with the opposition
* Repeatedly trying to steal another player's kills so that their time is wasted.
* Blocking another player's way so they cannot move or get out of a particular area.
* Luring many monsters or one big one to chase the griefer and then rushing to where he wants to unleash them. The line of monsters in pursuit looks like a train, and hence this is sometimes called "Training."

By that description, with the exception of using a Hack, pretty much everything that is considered griefing is a big part of EVE. In a sense EVE as a game has embraced griefing as a part of the game. One example of this has to be the effect that the SomethingAweful forums have had on EVE. These players join MMOs and then try and mess with them through griefing. In most games these players are hated by other players and especially by the developers. However, try as they might, they have failed to break EVE. Instead their CEO gets invited to the headquarters to be a commentator for the alliance tournament. Their spymaster gets invited to speek for CCP at major development conferences. EVE assimilates griefers and makes them EVE players.

Now imagine EVE where griefing wasn't allowed......