Game Thoughts

A study of Griefers and their activities on MMOs and MUDs

An essay from my degree course in 2003, mildly edited for readability and with a 2015 postscript;

Overview
Islandia MUD – The Black Rose
LamdaMOO – Mr. Bungle
Commerial MMO’s
Conclusions
2015 Postscript
Appendix A : definitions of industry and commonly used gamer slang terms
Appendix B : Bibliography

A note – terms in bold are defined in the appendix, as they are industry or commonly used gamer slang terms which may not be commonly known.


Overview

“Grief Play” is an ongoing problem in many forms in online communities, and it is perhaps in online virtual worlds where the mechanics allow casual disruption of another players time where the problem can be seen most clearly. There are two main forms of virtual worlds, the graphical MMO’s, specifically MMORPG’s – “Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games” games and the text-based MUD’s – “Multi User Dungeons”.

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