Griefing Table Manners

campingGriefing. It is perhaps the biggest bane of an online gamer’s existence. No matter what system or game that you choose to leap into the online mega-verse with, you can not escape its pull. Whether the griefing takes place in the form of an obnoxious brat screaming obscenities or even team-killing, you know that you are going to run into it in some way, shape or form on any given night. But what happens when you are the one accused of griefing? And are all griefing sins really so equal? Let’s discuss.

I’d have to say one of the biggest and most recognized faux pas in the gaming world would have to be that of camping. Whatever you do in a multiplayer match, if you remain in the same spot for more than .5 seconds, then you might as well set up the RV and bust out the s’mores, because you are instantly going to be slammed with the “camper” moniker, and there’s little that you can do to help yourself.

Seriously. Even if you are in an objective-based game like Counter-Strike, and your role is to defend a bomb site or hostages, you will be called a camper because you are playing the game the way it was meant to be played. This has happened to me numerous times. You’ll even find it in Halo, when teams are defending flags from unwanted enemy trespassers, yet labeled as campers because they stayed in one spot. I mean, what the heck are you supposed to do? Leave the base and let them come in?

Personally, I’ve never seen the big deal with camping. Obviously, it’s annoying when someone grabs a powerful weapon and just chills around a corner for the whole game, but really, if you know he’s there, maybe you should stay as far away as you can? Likewise, if I grab a sniper rifle or play as, say, a Sniper in TF2, I’m going to find a great sniping spot and teabag the best place where I can rack up as many kills as possible. It’s a legitimate strategy, people. For me, if I ever get mad at a “camper”, it’s because I knew he was there and couldn’t do anything about it.

gearsofwarSimilar logic can be found online in Gears of War. A team-based game, Gears of War often has one of the more baffling examples of accused griefing: kill stealing. Yes, really. There have been so many occasions in Gears of War when I’ve helped teammates slay our foes, only to be labeled a kill-stealer.

Wtf? I thought we were supposed to help each other win? So I should have stood idly by while you fought both of those guys with your lancer, and your Marcus Fenix avatar rotating more slowly than a high Fat Albert?

This is a complaint that is just so far beyond my realm of understanding that it’s ridiculous. For me, team games are all about helping each other out. If you want to win in deathmatch or even in objective games, you have to help each other wear down targets and reduce the amount of times that your buddies are going to bite the big one, so you can move on to face more enemies or go capture a flag or grab a fat princess together, take your pick. It seems simple enough, but people don’t always understand it.

So what about you guys? Do either of the situations I listed bother you? Have you ever been accused of griefing for something that you felt was totally legitimate? What forms of griefing annoy you the most? Go!

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I write about samurai girls and space marines. Writer for Smooth Few Films. Rooster Teeth Freelancer. Author of Red vs. Blue, The Ultimate Fan Guide, out NOW!

23 thoughts on “Griefing Table Manners”

  1. Well written. Camping is annoying yes, but it’s so satisfying when you actually use your brain to think on your feet and flank said “camper” and kill him. And with the kill stealing thing, it’s annoying when you don’t get credit or the assist for it; not usually a problem in TF2. Although one thing that annoys me a little is in TF2 when I’m half way to killing a nemesis and he kills me, then someone and his partner, say, kill him and get the credit, and I don’t get my revenge. Many a time when this happens will I mutter “you mother fucker” under my breath =D And I only TK when it’s all in good fun. We’ve all been in those screw around games where you’re having a ball just screwing around when everyone agrees. Like when in L4D I held a TPS Report meeting in Dead Air with the survivors as a smoker =D

    “Mr. Smoker, these numbers don’t add up”

    “BWAAAUGH”

  2. When I get killed by a camper, I head back to where I know he is heading, pull the pin on a grenade, write a little message on it, “Dear Camper, please die, love Anthony”, spray it with my favorite cologne and chuck it right at his melon freaking head.

    However, camping is a legit tactic. You don’t like it, stop them. MAKE them move. Same with people complaining about martyrdom (BTW, it’s pronounced mar-ter-dom, not mar-tee-dom). If you are a noob and are not used to this perk, yeah, you will die a lot. But if you have played if for like an hour or so, you should be aware and adjust your style accordingly.

  3. Im not going to deny it my friend and i grief, a lot. We’re seventeen and we mainly do it on halo because alot of people who play ranked act like douche bags and take it way to seriously. However im gonna be nice my name is my gamer tag avoid me if you want

  4. I agree with camping, there isnt really anything wrong with it at all. I think gamers have grown too used to the bust in shoot 50 guys and still defend the base kind of gameplay instead of thinking things out, finding a good defensive position, and owning that way. I havent heard complaints of camping in a long time. I also havent played any other multiplayer game other than TF2 so I havent really had the chance for that.

    As for kill stealing. I completely agree that its stupid people even say this. Team = Team Effort. If you care that much, look at assists (in games such as halo) Everyone wants to be have the most kills.

  5. [quote comment=”8028″]However, camping is a legit tactic. You don’t like it, stop them. MAKE them move. Same with people complaining about martyrdom (BTW, it’s pronounced mar-ter-dom, not mar-tee-dom).[/quote]

    The Martyrdom – Martydom thing KILLS me. And here’s the thing, the devlopers PUT it in the GAME. The bloody AI USES it in Singleplayer! If you can’t handle dying from a grenade you should hate the triple-frag perk too! Matter of fact, no perk that helps you get kills in CoD 4: MW lets you get off easy. I was using the Last Stand perk a few days ago cuz I needed the challenge. I was subseqently spammed by one of the players I killed with messages saying “You F*cking last stand noob!” And don’t even get me started on Juggernaut.

    Okay, now that I mentioned it, I must continue. Nobody likes Juggernaut simply becuase you KNOW when it’s being used! If you knew that when you were being shot at the person who was shooting you was using Stopping Power you would hate them as much as you hate someone with Juggernaut (Which doesn’t really do much IMO.) You only complain about juggernaut because it’s an easy target.

    I also got a few friends who are always b*tchin’ and moaning about people on the defending team on S&D who rush their team and kill them. They say, “C’mon! You’re supposed to DEFEND! You not the attacker!” Well, if the defenders were to defend they’d be branded as campers wouldn’t they? (Camping is a totally legit tactic btw) If you ask me what I think about that, I say that it’s about winning. Not how you win, but if you win. However I would like to clairify that people who do things that mess with network connections, or as my friend calls it ‘Lag-switching’ is totally not cool.

    Oh yeah, and people who use modded guns are the DEVIL! I don’t care if you call it Martydom (although it KILLS me), if you use a modded controller I’d love to stop by your place, take a hammer and smash that controller and your hard drive to tiny shattered pieces.

  6. I don’t really know if you can call it griefing but I hate people who exploit flaws too much. Glitchers in another word, I dont mind people doing a glitch that affects no one and looks funny or even has a negative impact on them. I had a glitcher on Gears 1 (the best one IMO) I kept killing him but my teammates couldn’t so I kicked him. I then got abusive messages saying I was a noob for kicking him and that he glitches to annoy hosts. So I sent him back a message saying well I kick glitchers to annoy them back. He then mesaged me saying that I better not let him back in the game or else he would hump the shit out of me and that I should ‘get good’. I got my lulz at the fact he hadn’t killed me once even while crabwalking.

    Also i was accused of griefing on left 4 dead. No mercy level 4 the bit with the wooden structures, one of our teammates were down I was gonna go back but my other teammate ran ahead, I was faced with a decision and I picked to stick with the runner. He then died and accused me of griefing because I ‘blocked him’ I was just sitting at my desk like wtf? I said ‘you can run through your teammates so how the feck did i block you?’ He then started a votekick and I got kicked.

    The biggest griefers are the whiners who do things which they class as nooby, then when you do it back they rage quit and abuse you.

  7. LOL kill stealing! I agree with you on that, but I do hate it when people take my kill when it is 1) Clearly mine 2) We are not in combat and the downed enemy does not have a chance of revival by other enemies. If the last one is true, then I don’t mind it. Otherwise, damn them.

  8. I think a lot of it is how you deal with it. for example, in gears 2 me and my friend were playing wingman on day one and someone boom shield glitched on top of the arcade machines and killed us both from where we couldn’t see him. my friend started cussing out the mic but i couldn’t keep laughing as people walked into the arcade room and got killed from nowhere. if people relaxed more then they would realize that griefing is actually really funny

  9. I have been accused of griefing a couple times because in CoD4 ill kill someone in last stand. I dont really see how this is griefing, if someone shoots at me, i shoot back. the only perk that makes me mad is the Martydom perk. Noobs use it to get kills.

  10. I admit, I do yell at people for camping lol, but I know it’s a legitmate strategy, it’s just flunking annoying.
    Teamkilling boils my blood, and I unless the game is a highly-realistic war simulator, don’t include team damage. Even if it is a war game, you don’t really need team damage, which is nice about BF43.
    I’m only rarely accused of griefing and it’s never for camping or teamkilling, it’s for the most ridiculous reasons. The best example is when I’m playing CoD4 or WaW, and I whip my Deagle or USP .45 and empty the clip in a second. At the end of the game, they say “Agh, you have a modded controller!!” Um, no I don’t. I just would like to survive this round of S&D, so I “cheat” and use my trigger finger skills. Pardon my winsauce.
    Also, one time when I was playing Bad Company, I ran outta M16 ammo, so I switched to my M203 and blasted the shotgun fool away. He promptly sent me a message – A. Flipping. Message. – accusing me of being a noob. O rly?! Then I switched to using a shotgun like him, and I managed to kill him at least once – I recognized the name – and I’m fairly sure he got pissed.
    Oh, and apparently I’m not allowed to use a Pyro in TF2. But you can uber my Heavy anytime, Doc.
    So basically, if I ever get accused of griefing or noobocity, I lol my bum-bum off.

  11. [quote comment=”8037″]I have been accused of griefing a couple times because in CoD4 ill kill someone in last stand. I dont really see how this is griefing, if someone shoots at me, i shoot back. the only perk that makes me mad is the Martydom perk. Noobs use it to get kills.[/quote]

    Not entirely true. I used it for a bit to beat that one challenge and get EXP, then I switched it out for Extreme Conditioning.

  12. I don’t get AS pissed at martyrdom as I used to. I just hate it when I round a corner and, without prior warning, BAM! t There goes my killstreak! I never really viewed camping as griefing. I mean, campers NEVER learn to change spots so it’s sheep to the slaughter. In Killzone 2 a sniper had found a good spot and was holding our team back so I managed to flank him and waited for him to return. 5 kills on him later and he starts playing as a medic. I suppose you could say I out-camped a camper lol.
    Also, @ Cossack, I too was accused of using a modded controller in W@W. Ma finger skillz are leet.

  13. Yeah, camping and kill-stealing isn’t greifing. Camping is smart strategy, kill-stealing is jus taking care of a problem quicker than the other guy did. For the dudes that still think camping is annoying and grifing, think on the bright side! He would be there at the same place for you to pay him back!

    But as for spamming, hacking, mingebag-ing (via Garry’s mod), thats what grifing is. I’ve jus was in a situation the other day in a gmod RP server, where this mingebag keeps on killing himself right before he gets arrested, and re-wantening (new word) jus make him say it’s a random arrest. Was very annoying.

    The best solution decreasing these greifers, is to have at least one meatloaffudging ADMIN in each server!! If there is no admin around, shut down the server until you get one! That way you can also save $$$ too, lol

  14. My dad played Team Fortress Classic (and still does) and on one server, he was playing defensive Spy on Dustbowl. The attacking team would utterly refuse to watch their backs so he would rack up backstab chain after backstab chain, and then people started calling him a hacker and then he was subsequently banned. For good. Just because people are retarded. I watched it happen as he played, we had a good laugh at their stupidity.

  15. Thank god I’m not the only one that feels that way about “kill stealing”. How in the crud do you kill steal in a FPS??

    I suppose if you would have died, you’d blame me for not helping you, right?

    It’s the glitchers that piss me off. I honestly don’t get the draw of exploiting a bug in a game unless it’s funny and not match-breaking. Also people who think using a shotgun is greifing on account that it’s a noob weapon. Excuse me, mister doesn’t know how to take cover.

    And people wonder why I question the intelligence of FPS players on principle…If only all gamers were like you guys…Man that’d be awesome.

  16. [quote comment=”8028″] Same with people complaining about martyrdom (BTW, it’s pronounced mar-ter-dom, not mar-tee-dom). If you are a noob and are not used to this perk, yeah, you will die a lot. But if you have played if for like an hour or so, you should be aware and adjust your style accordingly.[/quote]

    I remember that. It’s a pain in the ass, but not as much if you’ve got a mouse with buttons on the side (Mouse 4+5) and have them as the keys to toss grenades back. I have to admit, in certain maps, I hoped to kill someone with martyrdom because of how easy it was to pick up the grenade and toss it in the faces of their teammates =D

  17. I generally just ignore the opposing teams text while playing TF2, I enjoy playing Engineer and setting up base defenses to prevent our Intelligence being stolen only to be labeled a camper.

    It’s the halo situation but with another level of nonsense;

    1. What do you expect us to do leave our flag (or in this case intelligence) unguarded?

    2. I will charge you with my wrench and you better pray that I don’t get close enough to hit you.

    When playing TF2 I recommend the following command which when the enemy calls you a camper you should immediately hit “p”

    bind p “say QQ some more”

  18. Camping isn’t much, really. There’s a couple exceptions here and there, but camping is very legit. Though I keep seeing this Martyrdom argument, and I have to say, martyrdom sucks. I get that you have to get used to it, and I have now, but it’s still really annoying that the only way some people seem to be able to get kills is through martyrdom, which is legit, but annoying at the same time. Especially if you’re going for knife kills. But you can get used to it, like some people said, it can take a while though.

    I find it funny everyone seems to hear a lot of griefing complaints on Halo and TF2, 2 of the cartooniest and big-gun warfare games that have ever come out. TF2 is full of classes with very different skills and traits, and in Halo everyone’s a super-soldier with more grenades and big guns than anyone could ever dream of, and people expect you not to do annoying strategies. Suck it up and play the game the way it’s meant to be played.

  19. Martyrdom is annoying on hardcore, were it doesnt tell you were the grenade is, and if you rush a position, guns blazing, only to get killed by someone you killed’s dropped frag.

  20. Me and my buddy grief the toddlers on halo things like driving the flag carrier to the outside of sandbox or driving a warthod full of children into the depts of avalanche we also managed to flip a guys warthog and then drive off in it before he could do anything. thats real griefing though. camping is just what noobs scream when they can’t win.

  21. [quote comment=”8078″]http://assets.roosterteethstore.com/images/rt0065_large2.jpg[/quote]

    lol, I used that image for my CSS spray for a while before XD

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