What is Frontier's stance on griefing?

[Bill Clement]

How does Frontier view player behaviour? What do they consider 'griefing'? Forum rule 13 specifically forbids it on here, but doesn't give any kind of definition, the implication being that they are very familiar with the term and expect players to be just as familiar.

On camera, various Frontier personalities, including Mr Braben, have spoken in very negative terms about griefers and griefing, but again without going into detail about what they consider the terms to mean.

Their actions seem to imply that they actually approve of it. The latest Update was almost gushing at the spontaneous pirate blockade of HO. On this board numerous Hutton threads were locked and at least one was deleted- but the pirate spokesperson's thread is still up, stating their position in some depth, only locked when it became obvious that he/she was losing every point debated. This was to allow a 'cool down', apparently. A cohort's gleefully condescending tirade is still up, gloating about how organised and skillfull his little band are, to be able to dog pile weaker ships and get away with it. That thread is still open as of 23.13z tonight.

There are good arguments for having real, live pirates in game. The problem of game mechanics currently favouring the pirates doesn't seem to trouble Frontier- and perhaps it shouldn't. But that's another discussion entirely.

The question I'd like answered is when does invoking 'pirate' as a reason and justification for the most egregious acts stop being treated by Frontier as a valid excuse? Where is the line that takes a gamer from 'player' to 'griefer'?

Can we have some clarification, please?

 

[goemon]

"We want to encourage cooperative and competitive player interaction that might legitimately result in player death, whilst protecting against malicious griefing (which we loosely define as actions whose only purpose, outcome and gain is to punish and frustrate other players)."

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=4604

 

[Crazy Jedi]

I fear clarification is unlikely...
I was a fan of the idea of a group of pirates in-game .... Why not? It adds spice fe the game.... However... Recent examples of the actions of a group claiming to be an in-game pirate organisation have totally destroyed the idea that they are playing pirate.
Instead, as one of their kin happily posted on this forum, they decided - off the cuff - to attempt to kill everyone that was participating in a CH for no reason at all.
ganking is cowardly and antisocial but not easy to eradicate for ED

 

[GilliganTX]

ED Community:

>Complain about boring grinds
>Where is the variety? Where is the depth?
>Where is the player generated content?
>Get CG with more grinding
>Player group brings content, attention, and excitement
>Complain about player-generated content interrupting your grind






I'll stand by my statement that tagging people coming into Hutton, after the 90 minute trip, is a jerk move. But the idea of a pirate blockade of a community goal - COOL. Real, actual antagonists, FANTASTIC. They even had their own reasons - which don't have to make sense to or be justifiable by any of us.


And glutton is right, in that a big reason for their success was a lack of organized opposition.




If you don't want to play with them, go to solo or Mobius.






I have been ganked before, running rares around Leesti, something about a Holy Nipple. I had no idea what was going on. happens. It's a video game.

 

[Zieman]

And glutton is right, in that a big reason for their success was a lack of organized opposition.

Success?

So they caused some ruckus in a couple of instances, but vast majority got through without trouble.

Meh.

 

[Cody]

Clarification? No offense, Bill, but I gotta laugh - clarity is a rarity! <grins>

 

[Sandmann]

"actions whose only purpose, outcome and gain is to punish and frustrate other players."

I'd say the recent farce at HO definitley conforms to this definition, however the only response we're getting from FDev is deafening silence. PvE groups just get bigger and open mode more empty every time it happens which can't be seen as anything but general disapproval of this sort of behaviour. Sad to see FDev catering to the lowest common denominator instead of striving for excellence.

 

[Jukelo]

Success?

The forums and reddit are drowning in the tears and spit of white knights.

"We want to encourage cooperative and competitive player interaction that might legitimately result in player death, whilst protecting against malicious griefing (which we loosely define as actions whose only purpose, outcome and gain is to punish and frustrate other players)

This definition would include bounty hunting as griefing. It's pretty obvious why FD aren't implementing it.

 

[GilliganTX]

Success?

So they caused some ruckus in a couple of instances, but vast majority got through without trouble.

Meh.

Depends how you define success- true, the goal was still handily completed, but it was nearly there before they got involved. And actually haulting the goal would have been impossible, as there were plenty of people grinding it in solo and private. They got the attention they were looking for, and upped the difficulty in-game. Isn't that what most antagonists strive for to some extent? Recognition (or infamy)? Isn't the point of a criminal player group, you know, crime?

Their goal was to antagonize, and they were extremely successful.
The goal, IMO, of any "baddie" player group should be to up the difficulty. They did this.


CODE are certainly now infamous in the E: D community.

 

[Ian Skippy]

This definition would include bounty hunting as griefing. It's pretty obvious why FD aren't implementing it.

No, because the purpose, outcome and gain is... the bounty.

 

[Zieman]

Depends how you define success- they got the attention they were looking for, and upped the difficulty in-game. Isn't that what most antagonists strive for to some extent? Recognition (or infamy)? Isn't the point of a criminal player group, you know, crime?


CODE are certainly now infamous in the E community.

Ah, just like screaming children or furniture-trashing dogs - any attention is good.

 

[smiths121]

I agree griefing needs to be defined.

One aspect of greifing that annoys me having been in an area of space promoting a faction is traders coming in not a crea in the world or shields, ignoring your hails and trading at the wrong station, reducing the influence of the faction I am supporting. Day in day out the same traders in open merrily ingore the hails and carry on ruinng my game, when is it going to stop, when are these selfish peoepl going to be called to task? Not responding to hails, so you shoot them and then you are labelled as a griefer on the forums - pathetic I say, these people are ruining my game.

Cheers
Simon

 

[Cradle2Grave]

Can't 'alienate' half their players...

 

[Sandmann]

The forums and reddit are drowning in the tears and spit of white knights.

In other words, most players disapprove of this behaviour, but you intend to attempt to mock them for disagreeing with you.

This definition would include bounty hunting as griefing. It's pretty obvious why FD aren't implementing it.

Because they're too lazy to put in real content or do anything about griefing?

 

[Jukelo]

No, because the purpose, outcome and gain is... the bounty.

The purpose is to cause grief to the player with a bounty by exploiting the fact the game will not punish you for shooting a player who has a bounty.
The outcome is the player with a bounty being punished by losing their ship, creating frustration.
The gain for the attacker is the satisfaction of ruining another player's day.

Daym it's almost like anything can be considered griefing.

 

[Ian Skippy]

The purpose is to cause grief to the player with a bounty by exploiting the fact the game will not punish you for shooting a player who has a bounty.
The outcome is the player with a bounty being punished by losing their ship, creating frustration.
The gain for the attacker is the satisfaction of ruining another player's day.

Daym it's almost like anything can be considered griefing.

There are plenty of examples one can give that make it clear griefing is impossible to define in a way that is objective and applicable. This is not one of them. If you kill someone with a bounty, you get credits. That is a gain. Regardless of ulterior motives, if does not fall under the very broad definition given by FD, as that excludes any gains other than causing grief.

 

[Sandmann]

The purpose is to cause grief to the player with a bounty by exploiting the fact the game will not punish you for shooting a player who has a bounty.
The outcome is the player with a bounty being punished by losing their ship, creating frustration.
The gain for the attacker is the satisfaction of ruining another player's day.

Daym it's almost like anything can be considered griefing.

You're twisting words to justify griefing. The bounty hunters goal is to collect the bounty, which can be done equally from players or nonplayers. The griefer's only goal is to grief, which can only be done to players (which is why "piratez" don't target npc's).

 

[goemon]

The forums and reddit are drowning in the tears and spit of white knights.

if tears have been the ONLY purpose, outcome and gain of it, than - this would be grieving by above given definition from F, i think.

This definition would include bounty hunting as griefing. It's pretty obvious why FD aren't implementing it.

bounty hunting has a gain and purpose. i don't understand, why it would fall under above definition?



what i like about the quote, is that it clearly states

"cooperative and (!) competitive player interaction"

which i think is still one of the best definitions of open mode (in case anybody still wants to claim open for pvp or pve pr pwp only)

 

[smiths121]

I really wish more bounty hunters thought this way. The problem in open is not the trader/pirate dynamic it is the pirate bounty hunter dynamic. The vast majority of traders do rare runs occassionaly, the vast majority of pirates gravitate to where the traders are, the vast majority of bounty hunters are in a Hi Res site resetting 13 times for a Python spawn.

There are a few that help based on elightened self interest, but players are so hard and low bounty compared to the Anaconda in a Hi Res site.
They just moan on the forums about hi res sites, numner of threads about them being nerfed compared to top 5 boutnies is amazing.

Simon

The purpose is to cause grief to the player with a bounty by exploiting the fact the game will not punish you for shooting a player who has a bounty.
The outcome is the player with a bounty being punished by losing their ship, creating frustration.
The gain for the attacker is the satisfaction of ruining another player's day.

Daym it's almost like anything can be considered griefing.

 

[Ian Skippy]

You're twisting words to justify griefing. The bounty hunters goal is to collect the bounty, which can be done equally from players or nonplayers. The griefer's only goal is to grief, which can only be done to players (which is why "piratez" don't target npc's).

While I agree with most, I disagree with the part in bold. I tried a career in pirating NPCs but it is futile. I tried from scratch in a Sidey and it was 1) incredibly hard, 2) very unlucrative, 3) very unsatisfying. NPC traders dont give in to demands, or haggle, or plea. At some point I had a decent cobra but even the most impotent Hauler would attack me till the end. Basically all I could do was open the hold, scoop as much as I could while the trader was shooting me before cops showed up. It was exciting, but nonsensical. Even just basic courier missions pay better than that.

I havent pirated cmdrs yet, am waiting for proper crime consequences to be added. So that is the end of my piracy career: NPC pirating is silly, cmdr pirating is too easy. If either of those change I'll be back pirating, whether it be NPC or cmdrs.