Territorial Control and Griefing.

[Dubanka]

I'm concerned that the griefing policies are 'situational' and that banning is not necessarily going to be something that is deemed in violation of the TOS. ie. it will be a subjective decision.

Primary to my concern is the concept of limted resources and territorial control.

Scenario 1: My Giant JUnk Pile.
- at launch my tribe gets its preferred spot...in the vicinity is a fairly glorious pile or three of junk. Our junk. Becaue of the relative scarcity of trash, and hte fact that it depletes, we decide this is our trash and our trash alone. All interlopers will be dealth with severely. We even post this in a tribe profile in the section below: Come into our self proclaimed area of influence and expect to me met with a high level of hostility.

So in comes the pacificist crafter. we explain to him our territorial policy and advise him to leave. he gives us the bird and says he can do what he wants. We kill him. He comes back. We kill him again. He keeps coming back...eventually we kill him 20-30 times because he is just plain hard headed. Well, he reports us for griefing. Question: are we tagged as griefers and banned for merely enforcing a territorial claim?

Scenario 2: I want your Junk.
So we've depleted our giant junk pile...but alas, no fear, we've spotted another one. So our merry band tromps over there to start a harvestin. We are met with a chilly gaze and a carebear stare! Carebear stare counter: axe between the eyes. So, we go about scroungin'. Alas, our fearless defender and his band of noobs, keep coming at us, attempting to kick us off their junk. Of course we don't let them kick us off and we kill them. Quite a few times. Question: are we tagged as griefers and banned for 'invading' someone elses territory to take their trash?

In both these scenarios, note that the person(s) dying, have a choice...they are choosing to walk into a scenario where they know they are going to meet hostile action and mostly die. What burden does the individual player have avoid being 'griefed'?

thoughts/

[orious13]

All fair.

One can claim and cry to a Guide about griefing, but there is a key component to proving one's side:

1) Keep a cool and clear mind when stating the facts of the present situation.

If you are the killers of the interlopers and you act harshly towards both them and the guide as to proclaim your disgust on their seemingly stupid antics, you might actually hurt your cause. Keep in mind the guide may not see everything.

[darth_vato]

Both scenarios are the same. You're just in a different position. In one you're defending in the other you're attacking.

[fflhktsn]

Unfortunatly it is up to a guide.

When i presented my scenario to a guide, i was told that had it continued long enough, i would have been given a warning.

The situation was a stubborn player, who just kept comming back to the junk pile i was protecting. His theory was, i didnt own shit, and that he had every right to use that junk pile (it was small so no sharing...either way...)

So i kept killing him, he kept respawning on the pile and the process repeated untill the servers crashed.

After seeing a guide post a griefing policy notice in global, i contacted them in private regarding it, laid it out clearly...as i had reason to kill...and was horrified at the response.

Not sure if this is going to play out come launch, however im sure it will be tested fully when we all activly seek to limit and destroy hopi tribe.

I am willing to be banned over this, as i think it is ridiculous. I can understand spawn camping a static rez point as griefing....but that doesnt exist in game.

There is always a way out to griefing, that is my policy. You can always ask in chat for friends to assist you, run far away in ghost form and not return, attempt to bribe, plenty of ways out.

The developer stated in my old thread concerning this that it was at the guides discresion and based on the situation, so i have hopes that the guides are tolerant of RP scenarios, KOS lists, and do not play favortism towards any possibly favord tribes (looking at you hopi).

These limits will be tested as i think the players all deserve a baseline to go off of.

My guess is, if a player cries enough and you dont give them reasonable escape chances, they are going to ban you eventually. I can understand in some rare situations where an insane amount of time and effort are devoted to repeatedly killing someone in a very short amount of time that could warrent a guide diffusing the situation, however i think a magical teleport to bumblefuck would be much better than a ban, as that would diffuse the situation enough to allow the victem to flee and possibly use his damn head and gather a protection force. There should be enough good aligned players out there who would be willing to grief the griefer.

who knows, we will only find out when we test its limits on the hopi tribe, i expect a few of us will not be around much longer after that, as its rumored the tribe is favored...we expect to test both of these possibilities out.

Its my hope that a player based solution is reached, either by force or by bribe. However based on community reactions here, i expect guides to be flooded with tickets that we are not allowing certain people to leave their safe zones...since few here appear to want to use the usual route of defending yourself and using your head, and seem to want to use divine intervention to get their way.

[Dagon]

The scenarios seem silly, since both side have the choice to ignore the other one.
The best form to avoid these situations is that the enviroment is after a while strongly controlled by big tribes (replacing what would be NPC control in other games). These tribes then will make the rules and griefing would in the end be what they deem as such.
The beginning will be like the wild west, and my wild guess is that even the devs dont really know how to deal with it if everybody wants to push their behaviour to the limits.

[Dagon]

double post -.-

[Lerxst]

This sounds like Elementary school-yard bully type of BS. "No, my junk pile! You can't have it." is akin to the crap the new kid gets when they walk on the bus the first day and suddenly they get a face full of "this seat's taken".

If that pile is well within the borders of your homestead... and marked as such, then yeah, I see how the intruder could be at fault. If this is just a random pile in the woods, then exactly how are you different from that bully I mentioned?

People should be able to figure this difference out for themselves, not have to wait for a guide to get involved.

[Silicor]

I personally wouldn't call any of your scenarios griefing, however, what I'm worried about is slightly different. You guys defend your junk pile and that guy runs back and places a totem smack dab in the center of that pile. Now it is 30 vrs a single player with a safe zone. This is using a mechanic in a way that is not intended to get their way. To me, this is much more legitimate griefing. I personally like the concept of a safe zones to rest, chat/relax, etc.. I just find it too easily abusable with the current rule set.

[Odie]

there is lots of ways of avoiding to be griefed.. I doubt it will be a problem.

[Dubanka]

there is lots of ways of avoiding to be griefed.. I doubt it will be a problem.

I guarantee it will be a problem.

you have completely divergent play styles. you have this guy:

If that pile is well within the borders of your homestead... and marked as such, then yeah, I see how the intruder could be at fault. If this is just a random pile in the woods, then exactly how are you different from that bully I mentioned?

vs. what would be our playstyle, which is basically...we'll take what we want, hold what we have, and if you don't like it do something about it. If i want to say that ALL TRASH WITHIN SITE OF MY TOTEM IS MINE. well i can...to the level that i can enforce that claim. until it gets me banned.


You guys defend your junk pile and that guy runs back and places a totem smack dab in the center of that pile.
conversely i could just go the carebear way, make my tribe, then have some alt accounts cover all the territory around me with homesteads. woot good times.

[Destroyer]

kill at will you cant get banned for killing people.

[jumpshot]

In both scenarios you are in the right imo.

That is territory control. A tribes sphere of influence does not end at it's borders, it ends where it can no longer win the fights.

The only exception I could see is if you're trying to engulf the starting spawn points in your sphere.

[jokhul]

The final decision on what constitutes "griefing" will always lie with the GM's/devs, because no game has ever implimented a perfect rule-set that cannot be manipulated in some way.

We have not seen the full effects of the alignment system on the game, because it has not been completely implemented yet. The alignment system and penalties for PK'ers are clearly meant to reduce rampant PK'ing, so the game rules are already "biased" against PK'ers and tribes that choose an evil alignment. The game rules will try and make it "difficult" for them to thrive.

Undoubtedly, both "good" and "evil" players will try to exploit loopholes in the rules to their own advantage. Both sides will push the limits, claiming that they are just doing what the game allows. That's the point where a subjective decision by a GM/dev will be the final call.

[wolfmoonstrike]

In both scenarios you are in the right imo.

That is territory control. A tribes sphere of influence does not end at it's borders, it ends where it can no longer win the fights.


^This I agree with.

In all honesty I don't think fighting over resources should be counted as griefing. This is a game where resources are supposed to be limited, so I think you should be prepared to fight for them if you need them. Griefing to me is going after others repeatedly for no other reason than to seem like the big guy on top.

Don't get me wrong I plan to kill random players here or there but not over and over again. (Unless they are mouthing off and won't leave me alone.)

But fighting over resources seems to me about the only Legitimate reason to engage in PvP right now. In other words the only PvP that has a purpose. Plus if you want to figure out a way to share or be diplomatic with your aggressors then do so. Give up some of your resources, bribe, or hire a mercenary tribe. Offer them a reason to leave you alone. If you are a PvE tribe, good the game needs you, but don't act like just because you're PvE means you should be safe and able to go where you want, hire a PvP tribe and help one another out. Remora and Shark.

[jokhul]

Griefing is mostly subjective, because everyone has a different definition of what constitutes "fun", both in RL and in game.

There's a patch of trees between tribe A and tribe B, but it's closer to tribe A. Does that give tribe A more "rights" ? Both want it, but neither side can harvest it without getting killed by the other. So tribe B chops down the trees one by one (during combat sessions) and just destroys the wood instead of hauling it home, knowing they could never get it safely back due to the longer distance they have to travel.

Has tribe B griefed tribe A ? Or have they just "denied resources to the enemy" ?

Evil tribe X sets up near a junk pile, but the pile is outside their actual tribe border. They don't harvest it, preferring to "save it for later", when resources will be scarce. They kill anyone that comes near it, and they loot the corpses, but instead of keeping the loot, they simply delete it (how many grass pouches does anyone need ?). Are they griefing the victims, or are they "discouraging" them from trying to loot "their" junk pile ? Seems legit, they're just protecting their local resources, aren't they ?

Two months later, tribe X moves their camp site to the other side of the lake, abandoning their precious junk pile without harvesting it. They say it's for political reasons, because they want to join a new alliance. Were they actually just using that junk pile as "bait" so they could grief people ?

Tribe A sets up camp near a very scarce resource (but it's just outside their tribal border). Five other tribes form an alliance to drive tribe A away from the resource. Tribe A is attacked relentlessly for a month. They cannot leave their safe zone without out being killed, because they are always outnumbered 5 to 1. Eventually they run out of resources, they can't make new weapons or armour to replace their losses, so tribe A packs it in and moves to the other side of the lake. Were they griefed, or was it a successfull and legitimate siege ?

There are shades of gray in all these examples.

[Mims44]

I don't see shades of gray with griefing.
The only way to grief is repeatedly killing someone who is actively trying to get away.


The problem with all these scenarios is your making the guy getting killed the victim, when thats not exactly the case.
IE: I run to a junk pile, so does someone else. We fight, I win. Now, I don't want to PK at this point, I just want to gather some resources. The other player continues to spawn right beside me and attack me, I kill him each time, the only problem is I can't gather resources since I'm having to defend myself every 30 seconds.
I am the one doing the killing in the scenario, but i'm the one being hassled as I can't gather resources.
...
It's not griefing!

If I could see him in ghost mode and followed him till he respawned and continually killed him as he tried to get away, then that is griefing. Only that.
If I run into and enemy town and die in the town center, then never mash WASD again and just continue to spawn in the same location for 12 hours and die, I'm not being griefed because I'm not actively trying to escape.

[blackzilla]

I'm concerned that the griefing policies are 'situational' and that banning is not necessarily going to be something that is deemed in violation of the TOS. ie. it will be a subjective decision.

Primary to my concern is the concept of limted resources and territorial control.

Scenario 1: My Giant JUnk Pile.
- at launch my tribe gets its preferred spot...in the vicinity is a fairly glorious pile or three of junk. Our junk. Becaue of the relative scarcity of trash, and hte fact that it depletes, we decide this is our trash and our trash alone. All interlopers will be dealth with severely. We even post this in a tribe profile in the section below: Come into our self proclaimed area of influence and expect to me met with a high level of hostility.

So in comes the pacificist crafter. we explain to him our territorial policy and advise him to leave. he gives us the bird and says he can do what he wants. We kill him. He comes back. We kill him again. He keeps coming back...eventually we kill him 20-30 times because he is just plain hard headed. Well, he reports us for griefing. Question: are we tagged as griefers and banned for merely enforcing a territorial claim?

Scenario 2: I want your Junk.
So we've depleted our giant junk pile...but alas, no fear, we've spotted another one. So our merry band tromps over there to start a harvestin. We are met with a chilly gaze and a carebear stare! Carebear stare counter: axe between the eyes. So, we go about scroungin'. Alas, our fearless defender and his band of noobs, keep coming at us, attempting to kick us off their junk. Of course we don't let them kick us off and we kill them. Quite a few times. Question: are we tagged as griefers and banned for 'invading' someone elses territory to take their trash?

In both these scenarios, note that the person(s) dying, have a choice...they are choosing to walk into a scenario where they know they are going to meet hostile action and mostly die. What burden does the individual player have avoid being 'griefed'?

thoughts/

If some guy keeps running into a brick wall, should the brick wall move or the person stupid enough to continuosly run into it maybe stop? Just sayin...

[BigCountry]

kill at will you cant get banned for killing people.

/this

[Honelith]

A brilliant thread Dubanka and I've always thought about this. In both scenarios 1 and 2, it's simply a part of game mechanics and fits in with tribal warfare and neither of the scenarios imply griefing of anykind. It's simply the gameplay and resources provide the games content, without the resources, you can't do much in the game, so there's going to be alot of killing over these resources, which is a brilliant thing in my eyes.

I hope the griefing policy won't get abused by players who try to avoid PVP but find themselves caught up in it simply because of where they are or the tribe they are with are under constant threat. For a player to recieve a warning or a ban should only because it's something serious, such as name calling, personal threats or using the forums for serious slander.

[BigCountry]

For a player to recieve a warning or a ban should only because it's something serious, such as name calling, personal threats or using the forums for serious slander.

/this

You guys are all over it today.
:D

[outfctrl]

Why cant we all just get along? ;-)
If a wanderer comes by my scrap pile, go for it. We all need to help each other during these times of strife if we are to survive.

[FabricSoftener]

Griefing is mostly subjective, because everyone has a different definition of what constitutes "fun", both in RL and in game.


there are people who find it fun to set small animals on fire. many of them are in jail atm because the society at large doesnt agree that its fun, but they do find it fun and its real

[MrKrueak]

kill at will you cant get banned for killing people.

you can get banned if that kill at will is considered griefing or harassment. There is a difference and a limit to killing at will. for example killing people at a spawn point over and over is considered a griefing tactic as you are not there for any other reason but to kill the new players. That should be fixed though once the safe area around the starting area is working properly.

[mrcalhou]

I'm concerned that the griefing policies are 'situational' and that banning is not necessarily going to be something that is deemed in violation of the TOS. ie. it will be a subjective decision.

Primary to my concern is the concept of limted resources and territorial control.

Scenario 1: My Giant JUnk Pile.
- at launch my tribe gets its preferred spot...in the vicinity is a fairly glorious pile or three of junk. Our junk. Becaue of the relative scarcity of trash, and hte fact that it depletes, we decide this is our trash and our trash alone. All interlopers will be dealth with severely. We even post this in a tribe profile in the section below: Come into our self proclaimed area of influence and expect to me met with a high level of hostility.

So in comes the pacificist crafter. we explain to him our territorial policy and advise him to leave. he gives us the bird and says he can do what he wants. We kill him. He comes back. We kill him again. He keeps coming back...eventually we kill him 20-30 times because he is just plain hard headed. Well, he reports us for griefing. Question: are we tagged as griefers and banned for merely enforcing a territorial claim?

Scenario 2: I want your Junk.
So we've depleted our giant junk pile...but alas, no fear, we've spotted another one. So our merry band tromps over there to start a harvestin. We are met with a chilly gaze and a carebear stare! Carebear stare counter: axe between the eyes. So, we go about scroungin'. Alas, our fearless defender and his band of noobs, keep coming at us, attempting to kick us off their junk. Of course we don't let them kick us off and we kill them. Quite a few times. Question: are we tagged as griefers and banned for 'invading' someone elses territory to take their trash?

In both these scenarios, note that the person(s) dying, have a choice...they are choosing to walk into a scenario where they know they are going to meet hostile action and mostly die. What burden does the individual player have avoid being 'griefed'?

thoughts/

Not only do I think you are not the ones greifing, but in fact I believe the player that is coming back is harresing you, thus being the greifer. It can be spun both ways. And I really think it's silly that there would be rules about this at all. This isn't a silly FPS with static rez points. Like it has been mentioned, either party has a choice to avoid conflict. If niether does, then there is no greifing. Period.

[fflhktsn]

Why cant we all just get along? ;-)
If a wanderer comes by my scrap pile, go for it. We all need to help each other during these times of strife if we are to survive.

you do realize that junk piles dont respawn...right...once its gone its gone

see the need now to fight for your right to scavange?

[MrKrueak]

you do realize that junk piles dont respawn...right...once its gone its gone

see the need now to fight for your right to scavange?

you can scavenge anywhere, doesn't need to be on a scrap pile, but your point is valid as the open scrap piles will deplete but you can still scavenge for items whether it is on dirt, grass, scraps etc.

[shadowlz]

If some guy keeps running into a brick wall, should the brick wall move or the person stupid enough to continuosly run into it maybe stop? Just sayin...

The guy should call a guide to bulldoze the wall, because his playstyle doesnt include brick walls.

Also, if you get banned for PvP this game has gone from 'not just about PvP' to 'PvP is the devils work and how dare you try it!'

[Dubanka]

The responses this has generated are pretty interesting...and actually do a lot to illuminate a lot of the 'discussion' on the boards of late between the pvp epeens (guess im here) and the carebear militia.

ranging from 'KILLEMALL' to 'turn the other cheek can't we all just get along'.

I'd really like to see a dev response in here...since there is such a lack of consensus among the playerbase as to what would be deemed acceptable gameplay.

[mrcalhou]

It really saddens me that a lot of the people on this forum can't understand that both playstyles can be balanced to make them both work. It's not like it hasn't been done before...

[Dontaze_Mebro]

there are people who find it fun to set small animals on fire. many of them are in jail atm because the society at large doesnt agree that its fun, but they do find it fun and its real
i set large and small animals on fire everyday then I eat them. I'm not in jail. It's just semantics as usual.

[Haunt]

This sounds like Elementary school-yard bully type of BS. "No, my junk pile! You can't have it." is akin to the crap the new kid gets when they walk on the bus the first day and suddenly they get a face full of "this seat's taken".

If that pile is well within the borders of your homestead... and marked as such, then yeah, I see how the intruder could be at fault. If this is just a random pile in the woods, then exactly how are you different from that bully I mentioned?

People should be able to figure this difference out for themselves, not have to wait for a guide to get involved.

A guide should never be involved with a claim dispute. If someone decides that they are going to hog an area and defend it with there life, it is up to the person seeking to use the area to either give-up, fight the other guy off, or make a deal of some kind. If said person keeps coming back and the other keeps killing him, well, so be it, he is asking for it. Go find another scrap pile or put on your big boy crafty pants and deal.

[fflhktsn]

A guide should never be involved with a claim dispute. If someone decides that they are going to hog an area and defend it with there life, it is up to the person seeking to use the area to either give-up, fight the other guy off, or make a deal of some kind. If said person keeps coming back and the other keeps killing him, well, so be it, he is asking for it. Go find another scrap pile or put on your big boy crafty pants and deal.

hmm a sandbox solution for a sandbox game...that there is dangerous thinking haunt...

[mrcalhou]

A guide should never be involved with a claim dispute. If someone decides that they are going to hog an area and defend it with there life, it is up to the person seeking to use the area to either give-up, fight the other guy off, or make a deal of some kind. If said person keeps coming back and the other keeps killing him, well, so be it, he is asking for it. Go find another scrap pile or put on your big boy crafty pants and deal.

Excellent post.

[Soulwanderer]

With the exception of verbal harassment, IRL threats, blatant exploiting (meaning something along the lines of 'Devs make a safepoint, a player exploits a way to kill within a safe zone due to a bug), etc... devs should leave players to play the game they make. If they don't want newbies being griefed/killed, then it's up to them to change the game to suit their vision. Arbitrarily interpreting situations from one side complaining and then handing out punishment is a recipe to:

A) Cause your player base to quit in droves.
B) Get a reputation for Dev favoritism across the gaming community and see new memberships swirl down the drain.

If you design your game to allow something to be done, then you can't realistically expect thousands of players to only do it in such a way that you deem appropriate. Aside from being unfair and unprofessional, it's unrealistic for a design team to think they can handle even a fraction of the cases that will be submitted once the game goes live... because people love to whine and you're gonna hear about it endlessly if you accept generic tickets that are widely open to interpretation.