Griefers

* See Also Game_of_this_type_-_Difficulties
* See Also Game_Mechanisms
"Griefers" are MMORPG Players who try to ruin the Gameplay (cause grief) for everyone else playing. Diagnosed as a mental illness which is often activated by boredom, and facilitated a game system where a Player is allowed to 'Act Out' without proper repercussions.
A problem with MMORPG is their Complexity. And with Complexity comes endcase loopholes to be exploited.
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== MMORPGs Can BE Homes For the Anti-Social ==
Handling them Properly IS Important : 
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Game Mechanics - Handling the Exploiters (Cheats/Disrupters/Cranks/The-Mentally-Ill) :
What do you do with Griefer-tards who will try to Sabotage the Whole MMORPG Project ?
First they have to pay for the attempt - YOU PAY TO PLAY THE GAME (I've seen MMORPGs with Free-To-Play options get inundated by Scammers/Griefers/Mentally-ill-troublemakers, and THAT loophole should NOT even exist.
You never let the problematic Players get the upper hand right from the start, and deny them all avenues to do damage/waste time.
A new term "Giving em the Drill" will be created, and there will be a 'Wall of Shame' where fake names are listed so the dimwits will get frustrated in not even being recognized for their 'Failz' ( names of the troublemaking Perps/Twerps do not get posted -- in case THAT is part of their 'mental-illness' Attention-Whoring jollies.)
Use of Logins and Proper Security measures and access, No data online can ever be lost and all (if needed) can be reverted/recovered. ((Doubly for the Web-based Content Creation Community))
Detection of Bad/Improper Behavior In-Game - the misbehavior gets a long boring stay in The Jail
Fake Accusations (by troublemakers) made harder to do with some significant Game Recording features (corroboratory evidence collected with built in Tools). 
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 'Griefer' Handling Systems :
* EULA legally give company right to eject players not adhering to 'rules of conduct' (boilerplate these days)
* How to identify 'valid' Griefer actions and not just mischance/mistakes (discerning patterns of malefeasance)
* How to not let the countering mechanism itself not become a source of 'griefing' abuse (false accusations).
* Appropriate penalties (and escalations for continuing bad behavior)
* How not to let 'freedom' be used against ordinary citizens (without being too heavy handed.. or nerfing the game)
* Bounty hunter systems rarely work (unless greatly assisted by game mechanics and then still dont work if players not  interested).
* Loophole closing (company will make effort to eliminate loophole/exploits as soo as found - unlike certain MMORPGs in  the past that left them open for years)
* Built-in recording system in-game that player can gather evidence for accusations of bad behavior. (must be easy to use  and record enough situational information).
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Collision Anti-Griefing Mechanisms :
* If movement is physically blocked by other NPCs/Players figures then a number of scenarios will exist that players can  use to annoy other players (reason why so many games let you walk right thru players/NPCs and even NPCs thru NPCs)
* NPCs can be made smart enough to avoid/get out of the way, but some dimwit players will try to block the progress of  other players intentionally and some easy mechanism is needed to eliminate that tactic. Probably some button command that  temporarily cancels the blocking physics and allows the player to move thru (works in 'safe' areas).
* Game must handle a Usual endcases of coming out of a "cancel blocking" mode ontop of another object, and not bumping an object  thru a wall (if there is no open space adjacent). Its amazing how creative Players are at finding game mechanism endcases like this (it was a way to Cheat past an otherwise locked door in other games I've seen).
* Activating such a 'cheat' (if unpreventable) could also cause an 'incident' to be recorded, with various data collected about who is involved. Simple database sifting could then look for patterns of a Player constantly doing that cheat behavior.
(Normally Why anyone should do this (bumping) depends what the Player gains, other than moving faster thru crowds).
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The Pneumo Kiosk Rings Twice (Game Cheating/Griefing) :
Q: How can Players Cheat if there is nothing for them to gain (like money) ?
* Intentional Disruptions/Ruining of other Players game experience - "Griefing" covered here - Psychological problem expression of some players ...
* Achieving Prestige and Player advancement without properly completing the requirements - (Loopholes - get closed by programmers as soon as discovered)
Q: What might be gained by 'Cheating' in this MMORPG to encourage it :
* Grabbing/Snatching loot after someone else did all the work in a Mission situation to obtain it. Many important missions are in a Server Bubble (separated from other players not in the mission group)
* Stealing things from Players businesses/residences -- unless you lockdown all the things you own. You KNOW that Players will take things - even worthless things just to see if they can get away with it (or to bother other Players). (Pickpocketing probably won't be an available skill)
Q: External Money is Not Involved in Game? 
* Monthly charge Only. No Micro-transaction bought items to transfer to other Players - or to advance Character by paying money for it. 
* Giving People Money/things In-Game for CASH outside the game really can't be stopped (In-game advertising for such transactions CAN be dissuaded/penalized, and there wouldn't be any FREE-TO-PLAY accounts (nor multiple characters for each account) to make such activity easy. Huge amounts (money or material) might not be easily transferred between Players, by having it be too tedious.
Q: Blocking Movement ?
* Since the game would have correct displacement by objects/bodies, then there would be potential for one Player to intentionally block another Player in semi-realistic restricted spaces.
* "Flipping" endcases (intentionally pushing into same space as another player/object to get past locked doors) would have to be handled by the program.
* Lackeys (NPCs) should move out of way - and not be placeable (bothersomely blocking) by their Team-leader Player.
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Looting Problems (Standard MMORPG 'Griefer" issue) :
How to stop someone from grabbing someone else's hard won stuff, for which they went to a lot of trouble to fight the ruins environment to find and obtain (and an opportunist just waltzes in and just grabs the goodies -- I DON'T THINK SO).
* Certain period of time where obtainable things in the 'ruins' are 'protected' (or the area is 'sealed'), and then after that interim it is free game/salvage (so someone doesn't lock up an area for too long a time).
* Permission to take or a handoff to someone not part of the Players 'Grouping' (Players in their adventuring 'Party')
* If Players have Team NPCs they might intercede (visually) making an excuse for imposition of 'reserved loot' in an area. Team NPCs can be programmed not to use deadly force handling this "Hey, You's gots no right tah dat stuff... Hit the road Mack !!", blocking of the interloping Player's ability to grab stuff - without it being too heavy-handed/obviously-artificial a game mechanic ).
* Loopholes of course will exist and need to be closed in the game system (Players are clever and WILL find them, but NOW we have clever players to FIX them).
* Some MMORPGs have gone as far as INSTA-LOOTING (loot objects automatically transferred to the 'killing' Player - even at a distance). That also negated the need to run over to the 'corpse' - a delay which loot cheaters often take advantage of.
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Creation Community - Idiot/Willful-Tard Supression :
In any community you will have problematic people who will try to destroy the work of others for some reason (someone's idea is shot down and they begin a 'holy war' against the entire system).   So the MMORPG system needs to be able to easily and efficiently handle/have-measures against that, while at the same time NOT being overbearing/tedious to the majority of Players (Via Processes which the non-problematic people will have to adhere to).
If you have played with a WIKI or a Code Repository system, they are set up so that NO submitted information is EVER lost, and they facilitate ways of 'Undoing'/'Reverting' changes (in this case destructive changes, if not mistakes).
The MMORPG's Player Creation Community Project] would have a huge amount of Data - Not just the Assets themselves, but all the documentation that defines the MMORPG BioShock universe (possible to a very fine detail), and the commentaries/critiques used to decide on additions/modifications/clarifications and proposed/in-progress Projects.   This Data all should be easily accessible/referenceable/searchable, and ALSO to be modifiable/correctable to effectively process and publish the work.
Control of Access to many functions (submissions, commenting, ratings, reviews, actual modification/corrections, changing access permissions, extending permission to individual/groups, etc...) is needed and for many subsets of data -- like a single Asset project (that spiffy new 'chair') or one Canon article specifying defining a game (Rapture) personality/history.
Certain 'Trusted' people would have to be delegated privileges to control (have authority over) such things, with the highest(ultimate) level being Company Employees who (per the business model) need to have minimal interactions with the whole system.
Even so, clever people can work around the counter-measures, and it is imperative that any damage done is reversible/limited.
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Task of Eliminating Game Exploits/Griefing :
The Game Programmimg to achieve something like this MMORPG would require alot of associations/expectations  to be well-defined between the groups/individuals (Players/NPCs) and for predictable/proper repercussions to  actions (LOTS and LOTS of scripted logic).   "Planners" (an AI technique) would be used with the significant  difficulty of developing the Evaluator Functions (which decision priorities are based on   --  particularly  in a game with lots of unknowns/incomplete information/uncertainty to deal with.
The scripting for the MMORPG's more detailed/interactive World obviously will be voluminous, not just for  the Player vs Environment interactions, but also for what the NPCs will use and react to them.  PLAYERS  CREATING this volume scripting is what will make it all possible (just a few expert programmers/scripters  can create amazing improvements that can make the game better for the thousands of other Players)
Anti-Griefing measures would have to be in place, first sufficiently restricting combat between Players (you  KNOW that there are the mental-cases who WILL use any loophole/cheat to express their Sociopathy, even if  they are eventually thrown out of the game).  Preventing intentionally done indirect  interference/disruption/cheating (ie- Loot Stealing) may take some creativity and work on the game  Programmers part (as much as the Cheaters who try to find ways of doing it).  The game system I envision  would be one huge 'on-the-fly' built instance, so it may not be too hard to most-of-the-time have  unassociated Players kept apart, without appearing too heavy-handed.  But this IS a multi-player game, and  there WILL be ALOT of inter-player interactions (possibly in more ways than most games), so the problem will  still be significant.   Fortunately, this games overall design makes improvement more likely than you have  in your typical MMORPG.
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 Mayhem - 'Cuz they was bored' : 
SO if we are going to have more realism and freedom of action in the MMORPG, then how do you handle the Players who YOU KNOW are going to try to 'see what happens' when walking around in the nice safe streets of New Rapture ?  "Lets just stab THAT Newspaper Vender to see what happens !!"   First, maybe the NPCs will be better shots and faster reacting than the Player (and bystanders beat the miscreant down before they can pull that weapon at their NPC target and aim it). After a few trips to the Hospital and JAIL,  the sociopathic Players might become a bit enlightened.  After multiple failures the immature Players will leave the game with NO JOY.
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