Trolling is not Griefing

[Logan96]

The title says it all. Lately I've been seeing youtube videos on ark with titles like "trolling server whatever" or something similar and when I click on it all I see are people killing passives and destroying important structures like grinders and forges. 

What happened to trolling being funny and creative? Try sneaking up on someones house and painting it a random color, or putting bear traps around their base. Maybe even drop some aggressive dodos into their base.

Long story short I think that players are being overly aggressive to eachother on the ark because some youtube video they watched convinced them that the best way to troll is to grief. thoughts?

[RipRavage]

56 minutes ago, Logan96 said:

The title says it all. Lately I've been seeing youtube videos on ark with titles like "trolling server whatever" or something similar and when I click on it all I see are people killing passives and destroying important structures like grinders and forges. 

What happened to trolling being funny and creative? Try sneaking up on someones house and painting it a random color, or putting bear traps around their base. Maybe even drop some aggressive dodos into their base.

Long story short I think that players are being overly aggressive to eachother on the ark because some youtube video they watched convinced them that the best way to troll is to grief. thoughts?

Online video games perfectly sum up how humans would most likely react in a real life survival / post-apocalyptic scenario.  Most people are pieces of garbage, and when there is no law to tell them otherwise they are going to do some horrible stuff.  They will use the blah blah excuse of "THIS IS WHAT I MUST DO TO STAY ALPHA" or "SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST" but the truth is that most humans are pieces of crap that enjoy taking their angst out on weaker people.  Survival games always foster environments of mistrust since human nature inevitably leads to an act of betrayal, everybody tries to be the first person to either plunge a knife into the others persons back or shoot them right between the eyes.  People blowing up forges or offline griefing are just the angry small fries that couldn't convince a pack of 12 year olds to zerg for them.

[Demigod]

34 minutes ago, RipRavage said:

Online video games perfectly sum up how humans would most likely react in a real life survival / post-apocalyptic scenario.  Most people are pieces of garbage, and when there is no law to tell them otherwise they are going to do some horrible stuff.  They will use the blah blah excuse of "THIS IS WHAT I MUST DO TO STAY ALPHA" or "SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST" but the truth is that most humans are pieces of crap that enjoy taking their angst out on weaker people.  Survival games always foster environments of mistrust since human nature inevitably leads to an act of betrayal, everybody tries to be the first person to either plunge a knife into the others persons back or shoot them right between the eyes.  People blowing up forges or offline griefing are just the angry small fries that couldn't convince a pack of 12 year olds to zerg for them.

i see your point but i don’t think this is in anyway an accurate portrayal of how humans would act. sure there would be a few who stepped out of the norm to cause other people pain for no reason, but the vast majority would want to stay in seclusion.

as much as people may enjoy the excitement of it, it wouldn’t turn out that way. humans value their own lives too much to jeapordize them. ark is a representation of how the castle-and-siege era would portray itself in a video game. fortifying bases, forming alliances, raging wars, establishing dominance in a land...these are all aspects of how life was lived when being a king and having an army and conquering were the primary drivers of life.

if humans had the ability to respawn then yes, i do believe it would turn to the griefing and toxic game style that plagues ark today. it’s because the players do not have fear of the consequences of their actions when the worst thing that happens is them dying and then respawning. i don’t play that style though, my raids consist of trying to be as sneaky as possible. killing no tames and no people, taking what i need, and leaving without a trace is how i play. no need for me to bring unneccessary attention to myself.

[SirPeter]

1 hour ago, Logan96 said:

The title says it all. Lately I've been seeing youtube videos on ark with titles like "trolling server whatever" or something similar and when I click on it all I see are people killing passives and destroying important structures like grinders and forges. 

What happened to trolling being funny and creative? Try sneaking up on someones house and painting it a random color, or putting bear traps around their base. Maybe even drop some aggressive dodos into their base.

Long story short I think that players are being overly aggressive to eachother on the ark because some youtube video they watched convinced them that the best way to troll is to grief. thoughts?

Trolling is not griefing isn't easy to establish as a blanket statement. Because that means different things to different people in different circumstances. Communication is so difficult because many attach their own perceptions/opinions/bias onto a word's meaning. Based purely off definition (which again can make a difference if we both have different definitions of the same word) they could mean different things or entirely the same things. I am certain everyone has done it at least once in their life. For example, what you said about painting someone's house, to me that would be in fact the same as I wouldn't want that done to me. So it all comes down to the context and everyone involved in the case before you can confirm if they are the same or not. To expand on it just a little, I have not seen these videos you have but let us just say for the sake of this example the people's tames were getting killed didn't care about those tames. They actually thought that it was funny. Maybe it was all just trolling to them?

[SirPeter]

36 minutes ago, CowboyAlrite said:

I think trolling is griefing... no matter how you slice it...

Case in point as to what I was saying above. I agree and disagree with the position of it depends on the context and case of the circumstances with the people involved. Just trying to point out that this topic only holds water if we are all using the same definitions for the same words within the same context, otherwise it will be difficult to agree on much and like many other threads could possibly turn into a big argument somewhere down the line, probably on something not even related to the OP. 

[Arkasaurio]

This is like a square is always a rectangle, but a rectangle is not always a square. Griefing is always a type of trolling, but griefing is not the only way to troll.

I agree though, it would be awesome to see messing with people get a little more creative than just blow whats important, kill passive dinos, and dump everything on the ground. That's totally still trolling to me, just really uninspired.

[Logan96]

5 hours ago, SirPeter said:

Case in point as to what I was saying above. I agree and disagree with the position of it depends on the context and case of the circumstances with the people involved. Just trying to point out that this topic only holds water if we are all using the same definitions for the same words within the same context, otherwise it will be difficult to agree on much and like many other threads could possibly turn into a big argument somewhere down the line, probably on something not even related to the OP. 

Fair point, I suppose my mistake is viewing trolling the same way I would a prank. Maybe the real question is why some people require such n extreme method of griefing while others can get off on things that are much light hearted.

[Logan96]

6 hours ago, CowboyAlrite said:

I think trolling is griefing... no matter how you slice it... which is just something that one needs to just come to terms with when playing. I mean the games not called "ark: sunshine and rainbows." .. people who wish to avoid this need to simply stay clear of pvp... problem is... now its gettin so in depth with the glitching and cheating that mega tribes like #NOPANTS are clinging to strategies like undermapping... lets see devs do something about THIS?!?! 

I would agree that people who want to stay clear of this should avoid pvp yes. But wouldnt you say that when pvping there is a method of ethics involved on how far you go to bring down the other player? This is wishfull thinking and i wouldnt dwell on it, but sometimes i cant help but wonder why someone would take the extra step to wipe a base and drop everything, rather than simply taking what they want, especially if it's just a random raid. if their justification is trolling then I would say that they have a poor sense of humor, seeing as how sirPeter made the point that they are one in the same. 

[DaGoodNamesWereTaken]

Trolling is fair game sorry. If your build up on an enemy server guess what?

 

Its called surpressing the enemy. One day that tribe might become something and actually bring worthwile tames and gear to our server. We literally port into enemy servers and if we can get in your base we do.

 

Its not some type of heinous crime or pre planned picking on the little guy. Your literally an enemy on an enemy server with an easily raidable base. Dedi's have areas you can build op on. THen once you are set up you can transistion to a pvp tribe and don't have to worry about this.

 

It is what is sorry. Instead of taking the time to tame 100 egg dinos which are un-protected. Why not strictly focus on the egg dinos for worker tames? Then use those dinos to make a base suitable for protecting your tames. Too often I see stone bases with 1 plant x on top and over 100 kibble tames.

 

10 minutes later, 1 c4 and 5 flamer thrower ammo and you have nothing left. Did you really need kibble to tame a sarco?

[RipRavage]

10 hours ago, Demigod said:

i see your point but i don’t think this is in anyway an accurate portrayal of how humans would act. sure there would be a few who stepped out of the norm to cause other people pain for no reason, but the vast majority would want to stay in seclusion.

as much as people may enjoy the excitement of it, it wouldn’t turn out that way. humans value their own lives too much to jeapordize them. ark is a representation of how the castle-and-siege era would portray itself in a video game. fortifying bases, forming alliances, raging wars, establishing dominance in a land...these are all aspects of how life was lived when being a king and having an army and conquering were the primary drivers of life.

if humans had the ability to respawn then yes, i do believe it would turn to the griefing and toxic game style that plagues ark today. it’s because the players do not have fear of the consequences of their actions when the worst thing that happens is them dying and then respawning. i don’t play that style though, my raids consist of trying to be as sneaky as possible. killing no tames and no people, taking what i need, and leaving without a trace is how i play. no need for me to bring unneccessary attention to myself.

People have historically done terrible things for no other reason other than boredom.  There is next to zero repercussions for a large military force to destroy or kill entire villages in a scenario where the people you are attacking are small unorganized groups.  Ark is much closer to the Roman period of antiquity where one large military empire is surrounded by small tribes that can't defend themselves and a few other large but weaker empires.  Rome would be the alpha tribe and there would be almost no repercussions for roman soldiers destroying a structure in a small Celtic tribe since there is almost no way they could hope to strike back against them.  Alpha Tribes are filled with different players with different ideas of fun just like any army would be, what is there to stop them from harassing small tribes and solos other than other rival Large tribes (who have no reason to stick their neck out for them).  Civilization isn't as safe as it seems to be, there are plenty of times civilizations have crumbled and people were set back hundreds of years.  You seem to forget we still have pirates and raiders to this day in less stable regions of the world, do you put it past them to kill somebody or blow things up just for entertainment, Ark is no different.

[ClanTKC]

2 similar meanings but slightly different. What people make up in their heads as their definition is only valid is if matches with the actual definition of the word. It's like saying there are more than 2 genders. No, there isn't. Just because someone wants to make it so and speak the words, doesn't make it the truth. Just like how little girls believe there are unicorns. There are no unicorns, it doesn't matter if you think there are. With that said, a troll is someone who is trying to create havok by purposely being a douche. It can be a little thing like t-bagging someone or more vindictive actions such as hassling someone so they rage. Griefing is purposely destroying or killing another players/teams property or self because mommy didn't teach them how to deal with their hurt feelings and anger. An example of griefing would be repeatedly seeking out and killing the same person over and over. I usually think of trolling as more humorous where as griefing, the person doing the griefing has lost control, kind of like road rage.

[Buck386]

Fair point, I suppose my mistake is viewing trolling the same way I would a prank. Maybe the real question is why some people require such n extreme method of griefing while others can get off on things that are much light hearted.

Same reason I smoke a joint and some do meth lol people are just different

[Logan96]

2 hours ago, RipRavage said:

People have historically done terrible things for no other reason other than boredom.  There is next to zero repercussions for a large military force to destroy or kill entire villages in a scenario where the people you are attacking are small unorganized groups.  Ark is much closer to the Roman period of antiquity where one large military empire is surrounded by small tribes that can't defend themselves and a few other large but weaker empires.  Rome would be the alpha tribe and there would be almost no repercussions for roman soldiers destroying a structure in a small Celtic tribe since there is almost no way they could hope to strike back against them.  Alpha Tribes are filled with different players with different ideas of fun just like any army would be, what is there to stop them from harassing small tribes and solos other than other rival Large tribes (who have no reason to stick their neck out for them).  Civilization isn't as safe as it seems to be, there are plenty of times civilizations have crumbled and people were set back hundreds of years.  You seem to forget we still have pirates and raiders to this day in less stable regions of the world, do you put it past them to kill somebody or blow things up just for entertainment, Ark is no different.

I really like this analogy because I have also viewed the laws and mechanics of supremacy in Ark as being similar to history. (Ive  actually tried to apply military tactics from the peloponnesian war into the game) This is also why I feel cross transfers should remain in the game as each server resembles a continent with different laws and government. This is relevant because in the end we will see whether the trolls/griefers, mega  tribes or something in the middle will come out as supreme. Of course i'd guess the game will eventually die out before a clear victor is established.

6 hours ago, DaGoodNamesWereTaken said:

Trolling is fair game sorry. If your build up on an enemy server guess what?

 

Its called surpressing the enemy. One day that tribe might become something and actually bring worthwile tames and gear to our server. We literally port into enemy servers and if we can get in your base we do.

 

Its not some type of heinous crime or pre planned picking on the little guy. Your literally an enemy on an enemy server with an easily raidable base. Dedi's have areas you can build op on. THen once you are set up you can transistion to a pvp tribe and don't have to worry about this.

 

It is what is sorry. Instead of taking the time to tame 100 egg dinos which are un-protected. Why not strictly focus on the egg dinos for worker tames? Then use those dinos to make a base suitable for protecting your tames. Too often I see stone bases with 1 plant x on top and over 100 kibble tames.

 

10 minutes later, 1 c4 and 5 flamer thrower ammo and you have nothing left. Did you really need kibble to tame a sarco?

Well I wasnt exactly stating that either should be removed, but just trying to point out that if somebody is trolling to simply have fun, then there are better ways to do it than to kill and destroy everything.

However I also disagree with a portion of what you are stating, especially given the way mechanics on ark work. If somebody attacks me and/or my tribe it does not matter if they kill and destroy everything we have, because we will write down all the info we need and return later to level everything they have, kill all their tames and cage those players until they quit the game for good. If they had simply painted our dino gates or put a bear trap outside our door it would be a good laugh and we might give them a ridiculous haircut someday in exchange. Playing the way you described keeps an alpha in charge of their server, but someday they will be invaded by a group that they "trolled" and it will be the end of everything they owned. But as you said "it is what it is" and the cycle of revenge will continue forever.

 

 

[Atreuss]

18 hours ago, RipRavage said:

Online video games perfectly sum up how humans would most likely react in a real life survival / post-apocalyptic scenario.  Most people are pieces of garbage, and when there is no law to tell them otherwise they are going to do some horrible stuff.  They will use the blah blah excuse of "THIS IS WHAT I MUST DO TO STAY ALPHA" or "SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST" but the truth is that most humans are pieces of crap that enjoy taking their angst out on weaker people.  Survival games always foster environments of mistrust since human nature inevitably leads to an act of betrayal, everybody tries to be the first person to either plunge a knife into the others persons back or shoot them right between the eyes.  People blowing up forges or offline griefing are just the angry small fries that couldn't convince a pack of 12 year olds to zerg for them.

This pretty much sums it up. People are just viscious and hateful anymore. I remember playing mmo's and having great communities but those days are long gone.  Whatever happened to the harmless fun people had when trolling others for laughs? Now people are vindictive, spiteful, vengeful, hateful etc., and will do anything and everything to hurt other people for whatever reason they can think of. Thats why I play with my family on a private server. Official servers are cancer and full of immature, cheating, crybaby kids and will never never go there.  I have peace and quiet in my own little world.

[Ranger1]

A thread about trolling is fine, a thread containing trolling is not. 

I've cleaned things up a bit, from this point on lets not see any personal insults or derogatory statements made while making your points.  Attempts to troll other posters in this thread will irritate me on what should be a glorious Friday, and will be dealt with accordingly. 

[Logan96]

You're right ranger sorry, i get a little ruthless when i'm attacked  back on topic:

5 hours ago, Atreuss said:

This pretty much sums it up. People are just viscious and hateful anymore. I remember playing mmo's and having great communities but those days are long gone.  Whatever happened to the harmless fun people had when trolling others for laughs? Now people are vindictive, spiteful, vengeful, hateful etc., and will do anything and everything to hurt other people for whatever reason they can think of. Thats why I play with my family on a private server. Official servers are cancer and full of immature, cheating, crybaby kids and will never never go there.  I have peace and quiet in my own little world.

I do agree that people are overly hostile in all games, but at least in the world of Ark the player base has its own means of punishing trolls. That's why I still play officials, because what other game do we have where a set of laws can be established and enforced by the players? Every server has a different story and form of government which is really cool. 

 I would like to see more innocent forms of community again, but the more I think about it the more I expect less of it, as the more light hearted players are probably too afraid to tease (or what i would call troll) another stronger tribe. I think that the end product is a game in which players are being hostile not because they want to be, but because you cant really tell who the griefers are until its too late. The ones who are probably willing to step into dangerous territory are the ones who create the danger. 

 

[RipRavage]

18 minutes ago, Logan96 said:

You're right ranger sorry, i get a little ruthless when i'm attacked  back on topic:

I do agree that people are overly hostile in all games, but at least in the world of Ark the player base has its own means of punishing trolls. That's why I still play officials, because what other game do we have where a set of laws can be established and enforced by the players? Every server has a different story and form of government which is really cool. 

 I would like to see more innocent forms of community again, but the more I think about it the more I expect less of it, as the more light hearted players are probably too afraid to tease (or what i would call troll) another stronger tribe. I think that the end product is a game in which players are being hostile not because they want to be, but because you cant really tell who the griefers are until its too late. The ones who are probably willing to step into dangerous territory are the ones who create the danger. 

 

Official PVP really only has one form of government and that is fascism, the strong rule the weak.  Trolls do not get punished for being trolls most the time, they just get wiped with luck of the draw.  Unfortunately for tribes to stay on top they have to be ruthless.  Democracy on official is very rare if not impossible since other rising tribes will capitalize on any form of leniency and dethrone the alpha.

[Logan96]

13 minutes ago, RipRavage said:

Official PVP really only has one form of government and that is fascism, the strong rule the weak.  Trolls do not get punished for being trolls most the time, they just get wiped with luck of the draw.  Unfortunately for tribes to stay on top they have to be ruthless.  Democracy on official is very rare if not impossible since other rising tribes will capitalize on any form of leniency and dethrone the alpha.

Maybe democracy will never exist in the sense that a little guy can leave in peace, but what about a scenario in which A group of large tribes learn to somehow quit fighting eachother and defend their server? i've seen a few instances of this and they did inevitably get wiped by larger tribes coming in, but what if they had managed to hold? I think the idea of democracy may be a dream but a unified server is not a notion that far off, at least in my eyes. 

[RipRavage]

1 minute ago, Logan96 said:

Maybe democracy will never exist in the sense that a little guy can leave in peace, but what about a scenario in which A group of large tribes learn to somehow quit fighting eachother and defend their server? i've seen a few instances of this and they did inevitably get wiped by larger tribes coming in, but what if they had managed to hold? I think the idea of democracy may be a dream but a unified server is not a notion that far off, at least in my eyes. 

That is more an alliance system more than anything, even if they had pushed back the invaders after a few weeks they would have either been back to their bickering with the stronger tribe coming out as alpha or they would have merged into a mega tribe and continued to rule the server.  Once people find out that a PvP alpha tribe goes easy on players others Alphas from other servers move in and try to quietly set up.  Once again it is the distrustful nature of humans that make democracy impossible in a situation like ARK.

[jcoolbaugh]

democracy can will exist in a server if you find the right server in my mind no all alpha tribe are out to get the little guy i know of two server  that stand up  and hold there ground for the little guys ....so there few server you can find it on the other at war you never find it always something to prove and  ppl... either way i not sure many player will ever have compete democracy .. it all depans on your term ... and what you willing to put up with

 

 

[Logan96]

1 minute ago, jcoolbaugh said:

democracy can will exist in a server if you find the right server in my mind no all alpha tribe are out to get the little guy i know of two server  that stand up  and hold there ground for the little guys ....so there few server you can find it on the other at war you never find it always something to prove and  ppl... either way i not sure many player will ever have compete democracy .. it all depans on your term ... and what you willing to put up with

 

 

So on these servers would you say that players are more relaxed and freely do more things like trolling eachother in a good way? or is the day to day gameplay still focused on growing stronger? If some servers have managed to attain a state of peace then the question would be where to go from there. 

[RipRavage]

5 minutes ago, Logan96 said:

So on these servers would you say that players are more relaxed and freely do more things like trolling eachother in a good way? or is the day to day gameplay still focused on growing stronger? If some servers have managed to attain a state of peace then the question would be where to go from there. 

Alpha and large tribes on a official PVP server don’t play this game to take on bosses or to grind, they play for the raids and PVP action.  Keep in mind that no matter how nice an Alpha may seem, when nobody else is left to raid it will be you that is on the menu.

[Logan96]

Just now, RipRavage said:

Alpha and large tribes on a official PVP server don’t play this game to take on bosses or to grind, they play for the raids and PVP action.  Keep in mind that no matter how nice an Alpha may seem, when nobody else is left to raid it will be you that is on the menu.

Sadly I think this is true as well. To be fair when we hit the point where our base has been optimized and we have dinos ready for war we actually want to be attacked. it's a thrill for us and when we have the moral high ground afterwards to counter attack it can be a lot of fun. It's just too bad that most people take the path of least resistance to raid, which often means leaving the alphas or even just larger tribes unchallenged. The foundation for great pvp is in ark but it seems to rarely happen.

[Elliebird]

I disagree with the idea that Ark is any indication of how people will behave in reality. I disagree that video games in general are a good indication of how people will behave, or people's personalities, or anything of the sort.

If I go up to somebody in Ark, shoot them in the face, kill all their dinos, steal their things and destroy their base, that does not mean I'm going to go up to someone in real life, murder them, kill their pets, rob them blind and then burn their house down. I do not equate 1s and 0s to a real person's life. I don't equate dinos to real animals. I don't equate virtual property to real property. As many of you already know, the reason we choose not to do something is often because of that lovely word, consequences.

For instance, shooting someone in the face is bad because it would hurt or kill them. It's not because the action is bad, it's because the result of the action is bad.

I play PvE, so the more destructive aspect of the game isn't something that I touch. But if someone trolls or griefs you in a video game, that's no reason to think that they'd cause you actual harm in the real world, where the consequences DO matter. Are there people out there who would? Absolutely. But they have always been the minority. They have always been the exception, not the rule. We live in a world with over 7 billion people now, if the majority of us were crazy, we'd already be gone.

TL;DR: Don't judge a person on how they act on a video game, 'cause more than likely that's not how they are in real life, where things actually matter.

[Logan96]

6 minutes ago, Elliebird said:

I disagree with the idea that Ark is any indication of how people will behave in reality. I disagree that video games in general are a good indication of how people will behave, or people's personalities, or anything of the sort.

If I go up to somebody in Ark, shoot them in the face, kill all their dinos, steal their things and destroy their base, that does not mean I'm going to go up to someone in real life, murder them, kill their pets, rob them blind and then burn their house down. I do not equate 1s and 0s to a real person's life. I don't equate dinos to real animals. I don't equate virtual property to real property. As many of you already know, the reason we choose not to do something is often because of that lovely word, consequences.

For instance, shooting someone in the face is bad because it would hurt or kill them. It's not because the action is bad, it's because the result of the action is bad.

I play PvE, so the more destructive aspect of the game isn't something that I touch. But if someone trolls or griefs you in a video game, that's no reason to think that they'd cause you actual harm in the real world, where the consequences DO matter. Are there people out there who would? Absolutely. But they have always been the minority. They have always been the exception, not the rule. We live in a world with over 7 billion people now, if the majority of us were crazy, we'd already be gone.

TL;DR: Don't judge a person on how they act on a video game, 'cause more than likely that's not how they are in real life, where things actually matter.

I agree that you cant judge on who they COMPLETELY are but here is an example of why I think you a partially wrong:

Person A walks past my base and i let them in to the visitors section and I feed them, arm them and send them on their way.

Person B comes by and I feed them, arm them and they shoot me in the face with the same gun i gave them, take my own gear, go back outside and kill two of my argys before i respawn and punish them.

Would person B behave this way in real life? Probably not, but their actions have still given me an idea of who they are. RipRavage has also stated that historically entire colonies have done terrible things in the past when their was no consequences. In that regard I think that ark can be seen as not a representation of human behavior in the world today, but as a representation of human nature if we were in the same situation that players are in on the ark. 

This reminds me of another arguement that came up on shows like the walking dead, basically one side arguing that humanity would come together to survive, and the other side arguing that we would destroy each other. In ark we have seen the latter to be more frequent.