Blizzard Punishing Griefing On Warcraft III Ladders

Thanks to RPGDot for pointing to a Battle.net forum post, in which Blizzard indicate they will ban Warcraft III teams for 'griefing'. This requires Blizzard acting on in-game tactics, rather than illicit software mods/hacks - they mention: "We have received reports and observed that certain Warcraft III players have deliberately caused their own teams to lose in team games. This goes against the spirit of fair play on Battle.net, and as such, we will take action on a case-by-case basis. In each case, if we determine that griefing is in fact occurring, the griefer's Battle.net account and access to ladder games will be subject to removal."

Comments

Re:WTF?

[Hedonist123]

Sure, griefers are players with names like [jerk]IWILLDROP who go into random team games. As soon as a game starts they usually say something rude or racist or what not and then immediately drop from the game. I am sure Blizzard gets tons of reports about these jerks and is looking for a way for random team people to not get stuck with them. Thus, they are looking to ban accounts of people who routinely do this. I doubt this is a viable solution, since these people will just create new accounts, but at least Blizzard is trying.

Re:WTF?

[Vaevictis666]

This is not banning losing people. This is banning people who join the game to lose on purpose.

Called Greifers, these people usually tend to haunt MMORPGs but can be found in just about any game. They get bored with the "standard" gameplay, and so attempt to ruin the game for other players.

In MMOs, this can be anything from following around a newbie and killing anything close to them, preferably after it gets to about 25% health, to building many small cheap buildings in one area to prevent others from building there (a real example from A Tale in the Desert) - the harder it is for the player to get around the greifing tactics, the better it is for the greifer.

In RTS games, Greifing can range from the passive (disconnecting after 30 seconds (or 2 mins or whatever depending on game), sitting on one's ass not doing _anything_ until someone kills your town center and starting workers) to active (building an army, not attacking with the rest of your allies, then when they're armies are away you force-attack their bases with your anti-building troops) and generally ruin the game for everybody else. The winning team is robbed of a challenge, the losing team robbed of a decent chance.

I can see this policy only being exercised on solid cases, ie. multiple complaints for the account, with replays available. Just having a partner that sucks isn't greifing (though some greifers do intentionally play crappily to get under the greif radar) and I can't imagine any of those cases holding up to a blizzard staff member reviewing the evidence.

Re:Does Blizzard *have* a marketing department?

[cicatrix1]

Do they really think that by getting rid of those who "don't play nice," those who do will spend enough money to make up for the lost customer base?

Actually, since there is no recurring charge, they lose no business at all. The people who get banned (probably) already bought the game, and depending on how much they care about it, might buy it *again*.

I can't see how this is flawed in any way. Legitimate players pay to play the game in a legitimate way, cheaters and griefers *should* be thrown out. Why should they expect to get away with being assholes and/or cheating?

If Blizzard got terribly overzealous with these rules, then I can see why you would complain. But at this point, you are just being paranoid. Banning cheaters and losers is nothing but good for everyone.