Zombie Griefing

[Alithia]

True, there was a Scourge event yesterday:


... but then we decided to drop the ghould disguise and do a REAL Scourge invasion.



... but then we were tired and fell asleep in the tram.

[gaymer77]

Turn off War-Mode and your problem is instantly solved lol.

I'd just like to point out that you are forced flagged in Org & SW but even when you're out in the world UNflagged you can get zombiefied by your faction or the opposite faction if they explode. I was just in COT by Chromie and unflagged only to get the damn infection. People are griefing those out there too

[T-34]

That's not true, griefing at this point is a well defined action, blizzard is not defining what griefing is, they judge if an action is considered griefing and if they are willing to punish players for that. In fact, it's true that you, me and anybody else collectively made a definition of griefing, this term came from online community (not a specific online community, but from multitude of them) and it was formulated to describe perfectly what griefing is.

Basically, blizzard have an ability to say "no, that's no griefing" or "yes, that's griefing", but they can't redefine the term

I agree and disagree with you.
Let us take pvp for example. Many, and the vast majority here, consider camping low-levels for "griefing". But Blizzard clearly does not consider camping as "griefing", which is clearly stated in the pvp-policy. Blizzard clearly tells the playerbase that it should turn off warmode or, in the case of Classic, transfer to a pve-server if you can't accept playing in a pvp-enviroment, no matter that many consider what happens in pvp for "griefing".

So you are right that some actions are considered "griefing" by the majority of the player-base. But online gaming is not a global democracy, it is a multitude of dictatorships where the the gamecompany solely defines the rules of the game and what is wrong or right

So at the end of the day it is completely irrelevant what the "community" considers griefing or not as the "community" does not make or enforce the rules we play by. In this case what is "griefing" or not or whether such "griefing" should be punished is solely up to Blizzard.

[TheRevenantHero]

Keep trying to redefine what griefing is, it won't make i truth. Try to spam some tickets and have a GM explain that to you, maybe it'll help to convince you.

"Behavior that intentionally detracts from others' enjoyment (such as griefing, throwing, feeding, etc.) is unacceptable. We expect our players to treat each other with respect and promote an enjoyable environment. Acceptable behavior is determined by player reports and Blizzard's decision, and violating these guidelines will result in account and gameplay restrictions." this is directly from the Blizzard code of conduct. Purposely tagging players to prevent them from looting or exploiting the fact that a player will become flagged even when war mode is turned off absolutely qualifies.

[T-34]

True, there was a Scourge event yesterday:


... but then we decided to drop the ghould disguise and do a REAL Scourge invasion.


... but then we were tired and fell asleep in the tram.

I applaud you, sir. Instead of whining on mmo-champion you and your fellow citizens used this event to have a nice in-game experience

[gaymer77]

Spawn camping someone for hours is griefing and can get you banned.

Even before the safe-space world that WoW has turned into where all servers are "normal" servers and there is no such thing as a PvP server, spawn camping someone has NEVER been something that can get you banned. Back when there were PvP servers and you opened a ticket to report being camped, all a GM would do is tell you "sorry try reviving in a different graveyard or get your friends to help you". On normal servers it was the same thing with the added "you didn't have to flag yourself PvP on that server so you only have yourself to blame" added in.

[Yarathir]

Thankfully this is only around for like 4-5 days or something. Well, by now, less than that.

[Charge me Doctor]

I agree and disagree with you.
Let us take pvp for example. Many, and the vast majority here, consider camping low-levels for "griefing". But Blizzard clearly does not consider camping as "griefing", which is clearly stated in the pvp-policy. Blizzard clearly tells the playerbase that it should turn off warmode or, in the case of Classic, transfer to a pve-server if you can't accept playing in a pvp-enviroment, no matter that many consider what happens in pvp for "griefing".

So you are right that some actions are considered "griefing" by the majority of the player-base. But online gaming is not a global democracy, it is a multitude of dictatorships where the the gamecompany solely defines the rules of the game and what is wrong or right

So at the end of the day it is completely irrelevant what the "community" considers griefing or not as the "community" does not make or enforce the rules we play by. In this case what is "griefing" or not or whether such "griefing" should be punished is solely up to Blizzard.

Well it makes sense, because killing a pvp flagged target is literally a game mechanic, it's intended by game design to be able to kill low level targets. Action is considered griefing only when it's unintended by the game.

See for example other videogames - in dota a pudge player can repeatedly hook his allies into trees on on cliffs and that would be considered griefing, even tho it's intended use of this ability ("intended" in a way that you are able to hook friendly targets, as a part of "skill check" as it makes aiming at opponents harder, and as a part of saving allies from danger or repositioning allies for whatever reason) in this case it's intent what matters, not an action itself, because devs literally can't "fix" this griefing issue without breaking this ability completely or throwing a wrench into their balancing system. So dev support team have to step in and look through players activity during the match to see if it's griefing or a chain of unfortunate accidents.

Another example from another popular game - minecraft, blowing shit up that other players built can be considered griefing, but only based on intent of your actions - using tnt blocks to blow up a defensive wall against a zombie horde in a cave after threat is gone is one thing, blowing someone else's 12 hours worth of work is another - even tho you are using gameplay mechanics in an intended way (explosive tnt blocks remove other blocks around it), your intent is to ruin someone else's 12 hours of work.

Back to our favorite game - wow
Zombie invasion even fails this "griefing" check on both cases:
1) no gameplay mechanics are exploited (no further explanation needed here i hope)
2) intent of players using these mechanics correlates with purpose of these mechanics

And in case of camping low levels - there is literally a gameplay mechanic to avoid this sort of things, you can just turn off warmode - so if someone hunts you down with malicious intent you have a tool to fix it right here and it takes just three clicks to use it, so it's hardly can be considered griefing. Unless someone somehow camps you with warmode off and pvp flag off, which then sets the status of "exploiting gameplay mechanics", because you are not supposed to be attacked by other players with warmode off and pvp flag off by game design.

Yeah, i agree that online gaming is not a democracy, but the term came from online communities and describes griefing in a "loose enough" way to fit into all of them - that's the whole point of having terminology

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"Behavior that intentionally detracts from others' enjoyment (such as griefing, throwing, feeding, etc.) is unacceptable. We expect our players to treat each other with respect and promote an enjoyable environment. Acceptable behavior is determined by player reports and Blizzard's decision, and violating these guidelines will result in account and gameplay restrictions." this is directly from the Blizzard code of conduct. Purposely tagging players to prevent them from looting or exploiting the fact that a player will become flagged even when war mode is turned off absolutely qualifies.

Again, your quote doesn't define griefing, it states that griefing is punishable offence, participating in zombie invasion event is still not griefing, and what you stated qualifies for nothing from this quote, because if you wish to go down this slippery slope - someone not handling you out a personal loot item they don't need would also be considered "unacceptable". And THE most important part of this CoC quote is "Acceptable behavior is determined by player reports and Blizzard's decision, and violating these guidelines will result in account and gameplay restrictions", so as i previously told you, write down some tickets and have a GM explain to you why you are wrong, and why it's not griefing

[mysticx]

Well I guess it explains the state of the game, if killing no strat easy random bosses every ten minutes is considerated fun.

More fun than getting ganked by large groups of ghouls in the capital cities Blizz themselves set up as the hub of many useful activities, at any rate...

I don't understand it, Blizz reported getting a lot of first-time players, and what do they do? Stage the single most newbie-offputting event in the history of the game, some first impression, not being able to quest in Northshire because "Ganking is fun lolz!"

[Charge me Doctor]

Even before the safe-space world that WoW has turned into where all servers are "normal" servers and there is no such thing as a PvP server, spawn camping someone has NEVER been something that can get you banned. Back when there were PvP servers and you opened a ticket to report being camped, all a GM would do is tell you "sorry try reviving in a different graveyard or get your friends to help you". On normal servers it was the same thing with the added "you didn't have to flag yourself PvP on that server so you only have yourself to blame" added in.

Yep, you always have an ability to avoid being camped, even without logging off. The only time camping could be considered griefing is when someone goes all balls out on hunting you everywhere in the world. Had an experience with a guild that targeted me and my wife like that, and they were trying (to a various success) to hunt us down everywhere, we filed up tickets and some of these guys got banned for couple of days, because apparently they do this "for living".
Longer story: we were doing pvp chest trinket in gurubashi and darkmoon, some player got upset that they couldn't contest it and he paid this "headhunting" guild in gold (i assume) to stop us from doing that and "ruin our lives" ingame, and they got punished for that, because it affected enough people for reports to pile up on them

[TheRevenantHero]

Well it makes sense, because killing a pvp flagged target is literally a game mechanic, it's intended by game design to be able to kill low level targets. Action is considered griefing only when it's unintended by the game.

See for example other videogames - in dota a pudge player can repeatedly hook his allies into trees on on cliffs and that would be considered griefing, even tho it's intended use of this ability ("intended" in a way that you are able to hook friendly targets, as a part of "skill check" as it makes aiming at opponents harder, and as a part of saving allies from danger or repositioning allies for whatever reason) in this case it's intent what matters, not an action itself, because devs literally can't "fix" this griefing issue without breaking this ability completely or throwing a wrench into their balancing system. So dev support team have to step in and look through players activity during the match to see if it's griefing or a chain of unfortunate accidents.

Another example from another popular game - minecraft, blowing shit up that other players built can be considered griefing, but only based on intent of your actions - using tnt blocks to blow up a defensive wall against a zombie horde in a cave after threat is gone is one thing, blowing someone else's 12 hours worth of work is another - even tho you are using gameplay mechanics in an intended way (explosive tnt blocks remove other blocks around it), your intent is to ruin someone else's 12 hours of work.

Back to our favorite game - wow
Zombie invasion even fails this "griefing" check on both cases:
1) no gameplay mechanics are exploited (no further explanation needed here i hope)
2) intent of players using these mechanics correlates with purpose of these mechanics

And in case of camping low levels - there is literally a gameplay mechanic to avoid this sort of things, you can just turn off warmode - so if someone hunts you down with malicious intent you have a tool to fix it right here and it takes just three clicks to use it, so it's hardly can be considered griefing. Unless someone somehow camps you with warmode off and pvp flag off, which then sets the status of "exploiting gameplay mechanics", because you are not supposed to be attacked by other players with warmode off and pvp flag off by game design.

Yeah, i agree that online gaming is not a democracy, but the term came from online communities and describes griefing in a "loose enough" way to fit into all of them - that's the whole point of having terminology

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Again, your quote doesn't define griefing, it states that griefing is punishable offence, participating in zombie invasion event is still not griefing, and what you stated qualifies for nothing from this quote, because if you wish to go down this slippery slope - someone not handling you out a personal loot item they don't need would also be considered "unacceptable". And THE most important part of this CoC quote is "Acceptable behavior is determined by player reports and Blizzard's decision, and violating these guidelines will result in account and gameplay restrictions", so as i previously told you, write down some tickets and have a GM explain to you why you are wrong, and why it's not griefing

Your loot comment is such a strawman. I'm saying that people are actually purposely infecting people to prevent them from getting ANY loot even if they tagged the world boss or icecrown rares. People are also exploiting the fact that you get flagged for pvp even if you have war mode off in order to get people killed by the opposing faction. If you really can't see how those two examples are griefing then I don't know what to tell you.

[Charge me Doctor]

More fun than getting ganked by large groups of ghouls in the capital cities Blizz themselves set up as the hub of many useful activities, at any rate...

I don't understand it, Blizz reported getting a lot of first-time players, and what do they do? Stage the single most newbie-offputting event in the history of the game, some first impression, not being able to quest in Northshire because "Ganking is fun lolz!"

Frankly, most of people i've got into wow in late TBC were enjoying invasion event, others weren't that concerned about it after explanation that it's just a prepatch event, not a regular state of the game

[T-34]

Yep, you always have an ability to avoid being camped, even without logging off. The only time camping could be considered griefing is when someone goes all balls out on hunting you everywhere in the world. Had an experience with a guild that targeted me and my wife like that, and they were trying (to a various success) to hunt us down everywhere, we filed up tickets and some of these guys got banned for couple of days, because apparently they do this "for living".
Longer story: we were doing pvp chest trinket in gurubashi and darkmoon, some player got upset that they couldn't contest it and he paid this "headhunting" guild in gold (i assume) to stop us from doing that and "ruin our lives" ingame, and they got punished for that, because it affected enough people for reports to pile up on them

I don't believe that anyone got banned for hunting you on a pvp-server. If someone did other things to you apart from killing you, then maybe.
Blizzard has always clearly stated in its policy that you should transfer to a pve-server if you couldn't handle getting killed on a pvp-server.

Killing and camping has never and is still not something that Blizzard considers actionable in any way.
Just look at Classic today. Where one faction is camped out of existence on several servers.

[Charge me Doctor]

Your loot comment is such a strawman. I'm saying that people are actually purposely infecting people to prevent them from getting ANY loot even if they tagged the world boss or icecrown rares. People are also exploiting the fact that you get flagged for pvp even if you have war mode off in order to get people killed by the opposing faction. If you really can't see how those two examples are griefing then I don't know what to tell you.

First - infecting people is a purpose of this event, so it's not even an argument here.
Second - you don't get loot only if world boss dies while you are a zombie, you have to get hit by zombie explosion first, then it takes a whole minute for you to turn (or you can just stand in a pool of death and die to force it), then you press "5" button on your keyboard and after 3 or so seconds cast time you die and you'll get your reward. Bonus points for doing that and not hitting anybody else, otherwise you are part of your self-defined "problem".
Third - with warmode off you still have a pvp flag and it works as intended, so there is no argument here either.

[T-34]

Your loot comment is such a strawman. I'm saying that people are actually purposely infecting people to prevent them from getting ANY loot even if they tagged the world boss or icecrown rares. People are also exploiting the fact that you get flagged for pvp even if you have war mode off in order to get people killed by the opposing faction. If you really can't see how those two examples are griefing then I don't know what to tell you.

They are not exploiting anything.
Blizzard has purposely made an event where your warmode status is irrelevant and where the core mechanic of the event is to infect other people.
These people are playing by the rules made by Blizzard.
And if you play by the rules then you cannot be griefing.

[Charge me Doctor]

I don't believe that anyone got banned for hunting you on a pvp-server. If someone did other things to you apart from killing you, then maybe.
Blizzard has always clearly stated in its policy that you should transfer to a pve-server if you couldn't handle getting killed on a pvp-server.

Killing and camping has never and is still not something that Blizzard considers actionable in any way.
Just look at Classic today. Where one faction is camped out of existence on several servers.

I wasn't expecting anyone to be banned, but i'd guess that RMT were involved, because it's a russian pvp guild and there are always RMT involved in those. My example is not an ordinary example, in general you won't get banned for camping anyone, you'll have to REALLY cheese it to get any kind of infraction this way

[T-34]

Yeah, i agree that online gaming is not a democracy, but the term came from online communities and describes griefing in a "loose enough" way to fit into all of them - that's the whole point of having terminology.

The problem with this terminology - "griefing" - is that we have several people in this thread claiming that what happens in this event is "griefing" even though that the purpose of this event is to become a zombie and make other players into a zombie = it is intended to work this way, like it or not.

[TheRevenantHero]

First - infecting people is a purpose of this event, so it's not even an argument here.
Second - you don't get loot only if world boss dies while you are a zombie, you have to get hit by zombie explosion first, then it takes a whole minute for you to turn (or you can just stand in a pool of death and die to force it), then you press "5" button on your keyboard and after 3 or so seconds cast time you die and you'll get your reward. Bonus points for doing that and not hitting anybody else, otherwise you are part of your self-defined "problem".
Third - with warmode off you still have a pvp flag and it works as intended, so there is no argument here either.

There is no fucking way that the pvp flagging is working as intended especially since your own faction will tag you for pvp as soon as they infect you. It is most certainly a bug and therefore Blizzard really needs to start dishing out suspensions. As for the other issue, you're literally not addressing the fact that people are griefing by purposely infecting people so they don't get loot. Your solution may have been viable if the game didn't slow down to a crawl whenever enough people engage the enemy.

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They are not exploiting anything.
Blizzard has purposely made an event where your warmode status is irrelevant and where the core mechanic of the event is to infect other people.
These people are playing by the rules made by Blizzard.
And if you play by the rules then you cannot be griefing.

They literally never mentioned anything about it and have YET to talk about it. As I just said, your own faction can flag you for pvp when they're a ghoul so it's definitely a bug.

[MCMLXXXII]

There is no fucking way that the pvp flagging is working as intended especially since your own faction will tag you for pvp as soon as they infect you. It is most certainly a bug and therefore Blizzard really needs to start dishing out suspensions. As for the other issue, you're literally not addressing the fact that people are griefing by purposely infecting people so they don't get loot. Your solution may have been viable if the game didn't slow down to a crawl whenever enough people engage the enemy.

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They literally never mentioned anything about it and have YET to talk about it. As I just said, your own faction can flag you for pvp when they're a ghoul so it's definitely a bug.

Nope this is intended. As a zombie you are not aligned with the Alliance or the Horde but with the Scourge. So you can flag both blue and red since they both are not the faction you belong with.

This has been explained to you before but you just are not willing to understand it.
Post a ticket to a GM and I'm 100% positive that he or she will give you the same answer.

Hold on in there, just 38 more hours of this life-altering event for you.

[TheRevenantHero]

Nope this is intended. As a zombie you are not aligned with the Alliance or the Horde but with the Scourge. So you can flag both blue and red since they both are not the faction you belong with.

This has been explained to you before but you just are not willing to understand it.
Post a ticket to a GM and I'm 100% positive that he or she will give you the same answer.

Hold on in there, just 38 more hours of this life-altering event for you.

Wow you really don't get it huh? Ghouls should not be able to flag people for pvp if they have war mode turned off especially if they're on the same faction. Your reasoning is absolutely asinine and there is no way that it was intended. Nobody should be getting involuntarily flagged for pvp especially not by their own damned faction. That's what war mode is for.