Friday, June 01, 2007
Griefing in SL
A few participants in Fielding’s Second Life course have mentioned being “attacked” in SL. I know of griefing in PvP MMOs as a way of messing up a mission or asserting tribe dominance ... but I was wondering what the end result was for griefing in Second Life.
SL avatars don’t die (unless you go to a specific place where you expect to use weapons and participate in battles), I don’t think you can be “robbed” of your $L or inventory, and I haven’t heard of any viruses or other destructive methods of crashing SL or someone’s computer through SL. So I decided to look into it ...
The top Google result was a discussion from 2004 on why griefers grief, and the answers were broad. I also found a commentary on the link between those PvP MMOs where griefing is part of the action and how it is carried over into places like SL where it is not acceptable. So far things look like attacks on newbies for fun.
But then I came across a post about a calculated attack on Anshe Chung, SL real estate tycoon. I find it intriguing that this political/social dissent (reminiscent of the Boston Tea Party 3 years ago, but aimed at an individual rather than the system) is described with the same word as attacks on newbies that are done “just because.”
Since most griefing is aimed at newbies who don’t know how to respond, here are some useful tips from SL on defending your avatar:
