Amber Night

Terra Nova reports that the upcoming MMO Roma Victor “has come up with a unique punishment for griefing: crucifixion,” and then goes on for an additional 450+ words to say “it's a unique way to handle punishment.”  In short, griefers in Roma Victor can expect to be crucified in-game (and in-public) so that all may see their crimes.

I'll give them that it's unique, but like my grandfather used to say, you can put a dress on a pig, but it's still a pig. (My grandmother sued for divorce shortly thereafter.)  In terms of game design, my friend Mox put it best: “when you develop content for gamers, even if it is to punish them, they will seek out to experience that content.”  In other words, if you make content for griefers, they will grief to experience that content.  The designers of Roma Victor are actively encouraging griefing.

Additionally, the time spent on creating content for griefers could perhaps have been better spent creating content for the vast majority of players who do not grief or otherwise make asshats of themselves.  Why create content for the 1% (made-up statistic) of players who try to ruin your game, when you could be developing content that the other 99% of your players might enjoy?

The punishment for griefing or otherwise playing outside the bounds of the game (i.e. being an asshat) either needs to be out-of-character warnings, or a ban, perma or otherwise.  That's it.  You do not give them the attention they crave, you do not give them content to experience.  You get their ass the fuck out of the game so your other players will continue to enjoy the game.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 23rd, 2006 at 6:13 pm and is filed under Game Design, MMOs, Main Page. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.