#38 - May 1, 2008, 4:41 p.m.
The accepted understanding of what is and what is not "griefing," Warisa, is purposefully vague. Such ambiguity and flexibility disallows any sort of pigeon-holing to occur, as once you clearly define something, you place limitations on its purview.
Does that make sense? Yes, no?
Alright.
Our Harassment policies were created to protect the denizens of Azeroth (and now Outland) from behavior which would completely impede one's intended in-game experience and progression. Stipulations regarding various levels of profanity cover verbal faux-pases and those listed as physical harassment, zone/area disruption, and ongoing
griefing handle the more tangible aspect of game play. While verbal violations are more cut and dry—since what is and what is not profanity is fairly clear-cut or easily contextualized—placing a rather firm label of what's considered "griefing" is a bit more tricky.
Why?
Well, first you have take into account what the reported activity is. Repeatedly skinning corpses after a player has looted its contents? Repeatedly farming mining or herbing nodes within a particular region? Repeatedly killing a player at his or her corpse? Repeatedly blocking in-game NPCs and doodads? Repeatedly killing quest givers or vendors for an inordinate amount of time? Repeatedly attacking mobs in the same area as another player? Repeatedly MCing another player off the chain in Blackrock Mountain?
Playing in an area much lower than one's level? Repeatedly dragging Elite mobs into a zone with the intent to kill as many citizens within as possible?
Out of those, only
four are potential violations. They're quoted below.
Q u o t e:
Repeatedly killing a player at his or her corpse? Repeatedly blocking in-game doodads? Repeatedly killing quest givers or vendors for an inordinate amount of time? Repeatedly dragging Elite mobs into a zone with intent to kill as many citizens within as possible?
From there, you have to review where such an activity occurred. Did the corpse camping occur on a PvP realm? Is the doodad within a highly-populated area? Were the quest givers in a low level zone; were they located in a central quest hub; was it on a PvE realm? Did the Elite get dragged into a highly-populated
lower level city or quest point?
And, moving forward, you then have to know for what length of time such an activity lasted. Since the corpse camping occurred on a PvP realm, for what length of time did it take place? How long did the player block the doodad? For what period of time and at what frequency were the quest givers and vendors killed? How many times was an Elite mob dragged into a low level zone?
Continuing, though perhaps lastly, you have to determine and evaluate ALL remaining mitigating factors. Okay, so if the corpse camping occurred on a PvP realm and only lasted for one hour, was any other form of harassment taking place? Which doodad was blocked, specifically, and was the player asked to move at any point during the duration; did the player actually block the doodad completely? How many players were impeded by these repetitive killings—was a ransom offered? was in the spirit of RP? were players offered a reprieve through their own vices? What level was the Elite mob; was it Hogger?
I'm going to imput my own variables for each hypothetical situation—
Player was corpse-camped by a member of the opposite faction repeatedly for one hour. No other form of communication or interaction occurred.
Tauren on Kodo mount stood atop the mailbox in Orgrimmar for a period of 2 and a half hours. Was asked repeatedly and nicely to move, though continued to block FULL access to the doodad for the length of time previously listed.
Orc Rogue on an RP(PvE) realm decided to repeatedly kill all quest givers within Sentinel Hill for a period of 45 minutes, resulting in over 35 NPC deaths. No clear attempts to roleplay are found. 15 separate reports are received, indicating a large audience. In-game observance clears shows that all NPCs are killed at the moment of their spawn, completely stopping quest progression within the zone.
Player attempted to drag—let's say—Volchan to Goldshire for fun. From a low level player's perspective, it appeared as though this player was purposefully (and repeatedly) attempting to grief the entire quest hub. Several reports are submitted. Further investigation, however, reveals that the player was simply trying to meet his/her friend within Stormwind so they could share the kill. The player was an inexperienced kiter, and lost control of the mob one or two times, but never purposefully let Volchan loose on the city itself. With this, no direct player deaths were caused by the activity.
I've italicized the examples which actually prove to be a violation and fall under the umbrella of "griefing." As you can see, of the nine, only TWO qualify. This is because
what player's deem harassment isn't actually what proves to be true.
Being really quick to grab profession nodes? Absolutely fine. Questing in an area much lower than one's actual level? Perfectly acceptable. Engaging in repetitive world PvP combat? Yes, this is fine, too. Even so, all such things require oodles and oodles of context—context which players cannot always see.
This is why it's always good to bump such matters up to our department if you're concerned. While our policies provide excellent guidelines by which to judge, true assessment is pretty much moot on the player level. As we possess as much omniscience as is really possible, our perception and understanding of whether or not a specific behavior is harassing or benign will carry the most weight.
Hope that helps. :)
