What is Griefing?

Cyber bullies (AKA trolls) come in all shapes and sizes. In the fantastical worlds of online gaming, this particular breed of bully is known as a Griefer. This is because the troll causes severe grief and loss, stripping the game of all the enjoyment for other players. Here are a few ways that griefers attack:

• Team Killing: Players intentionally turn on team members during combat to steal their belongings;
• Camping: Ambushing a player and kill them, then waiting at the spawn point for the player to resurrect in order to kill them again … and again … and again.
• Training: Triggering monsters for the sole purpose of luring them to other players to kill them. This is also known as Mob Spawning when the troll triggers a large amount of monsters;
• Kill Stealing: Swooping in at the last second to kill a creature that someone else is trying to kill (and thus stealing the rewards for themselves);
• Blocking: Standing in entryways to prevent other players from entering or leaving certain areas of the game;
• Chat Spamming: Flooding the in-game chat with large amounts of text or, for games that have audio chat, shouting into the mic or making annoying sounds to disrupt communication between players.

Beware: Griefers may use multiple accounts to carry out their attacks.

Some games have griefing specifically for their games. For example, two types of griefing that are specific to Minecraft are:

• Destruction: Destroying work other players have created;
• Creation: Creating offensive structures, such as swastikas or nude pixel art, and building cages around players who are away from their keyboards out of hard material;

This is just a short list of common griefing activity. I'm sure we've all done some of these things by accident, but a true gaming troll does these things on purpose and for "fun". Now that you know what to look for:

Be Aware and Play Safe!