Griefing - A History of Annoyance
Griefing has been around ever since games had multiplayer.
From the ealiest MMOs to the current crop of FPS games, griefing is a beloved tradition.
What is griefing? It is the act of intentionally pissing people off ingame.
This can be done easily with flaming and starting fights, but clever trolls do it in creative ways.
Griefing got its start in the 90's.
Technology marches on but the classics always work.
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The Great Cyber Rape
In 1991 LambaMOO was a thing. It was a text-based dungeon crawler.
Someone called Mr. Bungle used a program to cyberrape people.
This program tricked the game into thinking that his actions came from other people.
This way he could make ingame players have sex. Or in this case, rape.
This cyber raping shocked the players.
Remember, this was the early 90's; they haven't been desensitized yet.
This prompted someone to write an article in 1993: A Rape in Cyberspace.
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Ultima Online
In Ultima Online, anything dropped on the ground becomes cleaned of crime.
That means that stolen loot can be made legit and won't summon the guards.
You can also hide portals underneath bridges.
These would teleport unsuspecting people into dangerous PvP zones.
In 1997 Richard Garriott appeared ingame as Lord British to say a few words to the players.
Everyone gathered around him, but there was a griefer in the crowd.
Rainz was a guy that took the opportunity to pickpocket the crowd.
Among the loot he snagged he obtained a fire field scroll.
He cast it at Lord British, who burst into flames and died.
The server had done an update reset. Richard Garriott forgot to flag himself as invulnerable.
He had also removed the guards around him to reduce lag.
Rainz was permabanned for this stunt.
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myg0t, one of the oldest griefing groups, was founded in 1998.
Their mission statement was simple: they are the harassment authority.
Nothing was off-limits: hacking, spamming, hell everything was valid in the quest for rage.
In 2003 myg0t stole the source code for Half Life 2.
This gained myg0t a lot of notoriety.
The changes made to Half Life 2 thereafter delayed it for another year. Worth it though.
In 2003 a popular flash cartoon was released by a g0t member: I Hate Yuo myg0t.
In 2004 he released a sequel and was hosted on its own website, Pwned.nl.
These videos are still viewed and quoted to this day.
myg0t were also the pioneers of making videos showcasing the griefing.
Back in the early days of YouTube there was no automatic flagging due to music use.
Their popularity exploded, influencing countless other griefers.
To get into myg0t you had to bake a cake.
There were many rules and restrictions. Only the best could get in.
In reality this was a troll scheme to get nerds to waste time making cakes, to be mocked and laughed at.
The website, myg0t.com, went down in around 2015 I think.
The founder of myg0t, g0d, died of opiate overdose.
In fact, a lot of myg0t members died or went to jail. It's a rough life being a griefer.
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Habbo Hotel is an online social game of sorts.
In 1997 Richard Garriott appeared ingame as Lord British to say a few words to the players.
Everyone gathered around him, but there was a griefer in the crowd.
Rainz was a guy that took the opportunity to pickpocket the crowd.
Among the loot he snagged he obtained a fire field scroll.
He cast it at Lord British, who burst into flames and died.
The server had done an update reset. Richard Garriott forgot to flag himself as invulnerable.
He had also removed the guards around him to reduce lag.
Rainz was permabanned for this stunt.
#############################################################################
myg0t
myg0t, one of the oldest griefing groups, was founded in 1998.
Their mission statement was simple: they are the harassment authority.
Nothing was off-limits: hacking, spamming, hell everything was valid in the quest for rage.
In 2003 myg0t stole the source code for Half Life 2.
This gained myg0t a lot of notoriety.
The changes made to Half Life 2 thereafter delayed it for another year. Worth it though.
In 2003 a popular flash cartoon was released by a g0t member: I Hate Yuo myg0t.
In 2004 he released a sequel and was hosted on its own website, Pwned.nl.
These videos are still viewed and quoted to this day.
myg0t were also the pioneers of making videos showcasing the griefing.
Back in the early days of YouTube there was no automatic flagging due to music use.
Their popularity exploded, influencing countless other griefers.
To get into myg0t you had to bake a cake.
There were many rules and restrictions. Only the best could get in.
In reality this was a troll scheme to get nerds to waste time making cakes, to be mocked and laughed at.
The website, myg0t.com, went down in around 2015 I think.
The founder of myg0t, g0d, died of opiate overdose.
In fact, a lot of myg0t members died or went to jail. It's a rough life being a griefer.
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Habbo Hotel Raids
Habbo Hotel is an online social game of sorts.
You basically spend real money on furniture and then cyber sex with men pretending to be female.
In 2006, 4chan raided Habbo Hotel.
Blackup arrived. The pool was closed.
Racist admins began banning the black avatars on sight, even the innocents.
These raids would occur every so often, with dwindling enthusiasm year by year.
It just wasn't the same anymore.
Not only that but the ladder could no longer be blocked off. The pool has AIDS but cannot be closed.
In 2006, 4chan raided Habbo Hotel.
Blackup arrived. The pool was closed.
Racist admins began banning the black avatars on sight, even the innocents.
These raids would occur every so often, with dwindling enthusiasm year by year.
It just wasn't the same anymore.
Not only that but the ladder could no longer be blocked off. The pool has AIDS but cannot be closed.
UPDATE: the pool room itself has been removed along with other classic rooms.
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Goron City were one of the many griefing groups to pop up in the mid-2000s.
They were founded near the very end of 2006.
They mainly hung around Counter Strike 1.6 and other Source games.
Every tactic in the book was used.
Team flashing, team killing, mic spam, impersonations, roasting, it was all done here.
The ESEA, or E-Sports Entertainment Association League, got raped hard by the Gorons.
So much so that anything, from names to IRC, anything that had the name 'Goron' in it was banned.
Unlike other griefing groups in this list, Goron City has the life cycle of a phoenix.
It dies and then gets revived and then it dies and then it is resurrected, and then it dies.
In 2013 Goron City was revived as Red Army.
In 2016 Red Army came back as ArdRemy.
z0mby, the main force behind Goron City, has currently quit griefing.
He might come back, and when he does, Goron City might be coming back too.
UPDATE: z0mby had seemingly died IRL but I've heard he's still alive. Big if true.
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The Patriotic Nigras was a griefing group that existed to piss off Second Life players.
It was created from 7chan in 2006.
They repeatedly hit furry clubs, raiding them, spreading the word of mudkipz.
Every public event, from promotions of real life events to funerals, were hit hard by the nigras.
Politician John Edwards had a Second Life headquarters, which were raided constantly.
The developers of Second Life took action by cracking down on the nigras.
Throughout its life Patriotic Nigras also had to contend with shifting leadership.
This is in stark contract to other griefing groups that don't really have leaders.
2011 was the peak for the Patriotic Nigras.
Since then they are on the decline.
Have they fully dissolved? Maybe. Maybe the Nigras are still lurking, planning, waiting...
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Team Roomba was a griefing group that messed with Team Fortress 2 back in 2007.
They weren't as edgy as the other griefing groups, which perhaps worked to their benefit.
Rather than hacking and flaming, they had a few sneaky tactics to rile up the servers.
For example, glitching into the spawn door to prevent it from opening.
Then the griefer hosted a quiz and only allowed release when questions are correctly answered.
The few videos they made got them millions of views and inspired many to play TF2.
No such thing as bad publicity, eh Valve?
These videos show what TF2 was like back in 2007.
No cosmetics, no unusuals, no painted items, just vanilla default everything.
In 2008 they started a website - 2fort2furious.com - for the fans.
This contained a forum and a link to their servers.
Around December 2012 the website got replaced by a Department of Justice takedown image.
It's a fake image as the (inactive) forums are still there.
Apparently there was an internal disagreement and everyone went their separate ways.
#############################################################################
Goron City
They were founded near the very end of 2006.
They mainly hung around Counter Strike 1.6 and other Source games.
Every tactic in the book was used.
Team flashing, team killing, mic spam, impersonations, roasting, it was all done here.
The ESEA, or E-Sports Entertainment Association League, got raped hard by the Gorons.
So much so that anything, from names to IRC, anything that had the name 'Goron' in it was banned.
Unlike other griefing groups in this list, Goron City has the life cycle of a phoenix.
It dies and then gets revived and then it dies and then it is resurrected, and then it dies.
In 2013 Goron City was revived as Red Army.
In 2016 Red Army came back as ArdRemy.
z0mby, the main force behind Goron City, has currently quit griefing.
He might come back, and when he does, Goron City might be coming back too.
UPDATE: z0mby had seemingly died IRL but I've heard he's still alive. Big if true.
#############################################################################
Patriotic Nigras
The Patriotic Nigras was a griefing group that existed to piss off Second Life players.
It was created from 7chan in 2006.
They repeatedly hit furry clubs, raiding them, spreading the word of mudkipz.
Every public event, from promotions of real life events to funerals, were hit hard by the nigras.
Politician John Edwards had a Second Life headquarters, which were raided constantly.
The developers of Second Life took action by cracking down on the nigras.
Throughout its life Patriotic Nigras also had to contend with shifting leadership.
This is in stark contract to other griefing groups that don't really have leaders.
2011 was the peak for the Patriotic Nigras.
Since then they are on the decline.
Have they fully dissolved? Maybe. Maybe the Nigras are still lurking, planning, waiting...
#############################################################################
Team Roomba
Team Roomba was a griefing group that messed with Team Fortress 2 back in 2007.
They weren't as edgy as the other griefing groups, which perhaps worked to their benefit.
Rather than hacking and flaming, they had a few sneaky tactics to rile up the servers.
For example, glitching into the spawn door to prevent it from opening.
Then the griefer hosted a quiz and only allowed release when questions are correctly answered.
The few videos they made got them millions of views and inspired many to play TF2.
No such thing as bad publicity, eh Valve?
These videos show what TF2 was like back in 2007.
No cosmetics, no unusuals, no painted items, just vanilla default everything.
In 2008 they started a website - 2fort2furious.com - for the fans.
This contained a forum and a link to their servers.
Around December 2012 the website got replaced by a Department of Justice takedown image.
It's a fake image as the (inactive) forums are still there.
Apparently there was an internal disagreement and everyone went their separate ways.
Update: in 2018 the original 2fort2furious server came back online with the same admin at the helm.
The servers are still up it seems but the admin nowadays plays Minecraft.
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Team Infoslash is one of the more well known griefing groups.
This is due to their high quality videos: decent music and not recorded on a potato.
Founded by myg0t members in 2007, they brought with them the tenants of griefing.
Hacking, trash talk, glitch exploits, and good ol' social engineering.
The games they played ranged from every Source game to the more obscure.
It went on to doubtlessly inspire many other griefers.
In 2014 they went beyond games and began stream sniping Twitch gamers.
Tactics included making the streamer crush a can on their head.
Sometimes they would call their personal phone on stream for a wholesome prank call.
This activity of harassment beyond the game got stgggs in trouble.
His account went down. In 2015 he brought it back, though he didn't reupload everything.
Several other griefing groups would form from Team Infoslash.
Examples include Ownzone (stgggs), Team Powergaming (Appleball), and probably more.
Team Infoslash rarely uploads new videos, but it just proves they're not defunct.
#############################################################################
Good Griefing was a griefing group that focused on the consoles, especially the Xbox 360.
Yeah, now we've gone from PC to console. It's infectious.
The content tended to range from trash talking to silly shit.
Honestly, the best contributor was RandyTheRobot.
Good Griefing wasn't popular among the OGs of griefing.
The reason? Machinima.
Having a paid partner meant they had to play by the rules and keep things PG-13.
Seriously, griefers from Machinima aren't that good.
They're the kind of guys to troll softly and then apologise afterwards.
Griefing should be raping hard and then pissing on the corpses.
Good Griefing had a website - goodgriefing.net - which got started around August 2010.
Around July 2011 the website was blanked with black and then later went defunct.
I guess they figured they didn't need to pay for a website; YouTube was good enough.
In a video update for October 2010 (now deleted) they explained the state of the channel.
End result: the channel was no more.
Everyone else has gone on to do other things, such as podcasts and PAX conventions.
#############################################################################
Team Avolition are a friendly bunch of lads that cause destruction and mayhem for fun.
Founded in 2011, they were mainly focused on Minecraft but lately they've been branching out.
Minecraft is a hotbed ripe for griefing.
It's so easy to be mistaken as griefing due to the autism of the average Minecraft player.
Looking at the ground as you walk? Banned. Breaking the wrong blocks? Banned.
Although Team Avolition hit every server that moved, they liked to target the assholes.
These are the servers with abusive mods, and players with big egos.
Or, sometimes, servers that called them out.
Team Avolition would suit up with their custom clients and fuck shit up.
I like the variety in the episodes. It's not just the same tricks over and over.
Their antics won them many fans, but also many critics.
Their enemies would DDoS them and attempt to dox them.
Such as cowards do.
Team Avolition is undergoing droughts of inactivity.
This is due to the guys needing to be available, but that pesky real life keeps them busy.
They're still making videos to this day.
#############################################################################
Team Gamerfood are a throwback to the myg0t days of hacking and trash talking.
Enough of this PG-13 soft trolling. The kid gloves are off.
Founded in around 2014, their griefing knew no bounds.
This griefing group presented itself as a legit business, complete with faux products.
It is indeed based on the real Gamerfood products. Quite an old meme, yes.
Revitalising the old ways of griefing beamed a hopeful light.
Can old school griefing return with full force?
Long answer: yes, with a no.
Lately content updates have been slow.
Too slow, maybe.
Fun fact: Team Gamerfood trolled ParkourDude91 for two years.
Then ParkourDude91 revealed himself to have been an elaborate hoax the entire time.
Team Gamerfood got so butthurt, so bumfurious, that they lost their shit.
#############################################################################
Sad as it is to say, griefing is almost dead.
Individuals carry on the tradition but the age of griefing groups is gone.
If they do exist then its probably confined mainly to Minecraft or CS:GO.
Individual griefers, like DanielFromSL, show that elaborate griefing can be art.
A lot of times these solo griefers do collab stuff but aren't organised in a group.
Other griefing groups, like Rigatoni Family, die to griefing no longer being 'in'.
What was once fertile grounds for lulz is now a barren cringe fest.
As for the future for griefing, the outlook is bleak.
Game developers are getting less and less tolerant of griefers.
Not only that but the wealth of griefing content has desensitised the casual player.
#############################################################################
Here are my theories on why griefing has dropped on in recent times.
It can be easy to assume that most griefers are no-life losers with nothing better to do but grief.
Some griefers are normal people that just happen to get their jollies from griefing and trolling.
Some of these griefers have got jobs or careers, or relationships or families, and are thus retired.
If not then they probably outgrew griefing; it's now considered childish, not worth recording anymore.
This leads into reason #2.
Some griefers have inspired others to grief as well.
What happens when those inspirational griefers stop griefing? The inspiration stops.
Sometimes an inspired griefer goes on to inspire others, thus forming a network of griefers.
Once the big names go away, that may inspire others to quit as well.
The griefers that make videos of their work often have to make the griefing happen.
As time has gone on, there have been better uses of one's time, like Let's Plays or streaming.
I wouldn't be surprised if some griefers went into streaming or work that actually paid.
Games back in the golden ages of griefing, like Counter Strike 1.6, are griefer-friendly.
Nowadays, games are increasingly zero-tolerant towards griefing.
Take for example Overwatch; Blizzard will ban your copy of the game and your computer.
This forces you to buy another copy of the game and play it on another computer. Not worth it.
Another example is Minecraft. It's incredibly easy to grief.
These kids will ban you for the slightest reasons. One thing wrong and you're gone.
This is probably the most significant of the reasons as it prevents a new age of griefing from forming.
Big names, like those on Machinima, have taken to griefing.
This is often watered-down, PG-13 levels of griefing.
Such actions have made griefing decidedly uncool.
All is not lost however: for as long as angry nerds exist, griefers will be there to make some magic.
#############################################################################
Want some examples of griefing? I've making a playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpuNrVRKPLThKnzr4A79szJplA7wMUlJn
(Now that I've linked it I might as well get to updating it... one day)
#############################################################################
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Team Infoslash
Team Infoslash is one of the more well known griefing groups.
This is due to their high quality videos: decent music and not recorded on a potato.
Founded by myg0t members in 2007, they brought with them the tenants of griefing.
Hacking, trash talk, glitch exploits, and good ol' social engineering.
The games they played ranged from every Source game to the more obscure.
It went on to doubtlessly inspire many other griefers.
In 2014 they went beyond games and began stream sniping Twitch gamers.
Tactics included making the streamer crush a can on their head.
Sometimes they would call their personal phone on stream for a wholesome prank call.
This activity of harassment beyond the game got stgggs in trouble.
His account went down. In 2015 he brought it back, though he didn't reupload everything.
Several other griefing groups would form from Team Infoslash.
Examples include Ownzone (stgggs), Team Powergaming (Appleball), and probably more.
Team Infoslash rarely uploads new videos, but it just proves they're not defunct.
#############################################################################
Good Griefing
Good Griefing was a griefing group that focused on the consoles, especially the Xbox 360.
Yeah, now we've gone from PC to console. It's infectious.
The content tended to range from trash talking to silly shit.
Honestly, the best contributor was RandyTheRobot.
Good Griefing wasn't popular among the OGs of griefing.
The reason? Machinima.
Having a paid partner meant they had to play by the rules and keep things PG-13.
Seriously, griefers from Machinima aren't that good.
They're the kind of guys to troll softly and then apologise afterwards.
Griefing should be raping hard and then pissing on the corpses.
Good Griefing had a website - goodgriefing.net - which got started around August 2010.
Around July 2011 the website was blanked with black and then later went defunct.
I guess they figured they didn't need to pay for a website; YouTube was good enough.
In a video update for October 2010 (now deleted) they explained the state of the channel.
End result: the channel was no more.
Everyone else has gone on to do other things, such as podcasts and PAX conventions.
#############################################################################
Team Avolition
Team Avolition are a friendly bunch of lads that cause destruction and mayhem for fun.
Founded in 2011, they were mainly focused on Minecraft but lately they've been branching out.
Minecraft is a hotbed ripe for griefing.
It's so easy to be mistaken as griefing due to the autism of the average Minecraft player.
Looking at the ground as you walk? Banned. Breaking the wrong blocks? Banned.
Although Team Avolition hit every server that moved, they liked to target the assholes.
These are the servers with abusive mods, and players with big egos.
Or, sometimes, servers that called them out.
Team Avolition would suit up with their custom clients and fuck shit up.
I like the variety in the episodes. It's not just the same tricks over and over.
Their antics won them many fans, but also many critics.
Their enemies would DDoS them and attempt to dox them.
Such as cowards do.
Team Avolition is undergoing droughts of inactivity.
This is due to the guys needing to be available, but that pesky real life keeps them busy.
They're still making videos to this day.
#############################################################################
Team Gamerfood
Team Gamerfood are a throwback to the myg0t days of hacking and trash talking.
Enough of this PG-13 soft trolling. The kid gloves are off.
Founded in around 2014, their griefing knew no bounds.
This griefing group presented itself as a legit business, complete with faux products.
It is indeed based on the real Gamerfood products. Quite an old meme, yes.
Revitalising the old ways of griefing beamed a hopeful light.
Can old school griefing return with full force?
Long answer: yes, with a no.
Lately content updates have been slow.
Too slow, maybe.
Fun fact: Team Gamerfood trolled ParkourDude91 for two years.
Then ParkourDude91 revealed himself to have been an elaborate hoax the entire time.
Team Gamerfood got so butthurt, so bumfurious, that they lost their shit.
#############################################################################
Current griefers
Sad as it is to say, griefing is almost dead.
Individuals carry on the tradition but the age of griefing groups is gone.
If they do exist then its probably confined mainly to Minecraft or CS:GO.
Individual griefers, like DanielFromSL, show that elaborate griefing can be art.
A lot of times these solo griefers do collab stuff but aren't organised in a group.
Other griefing groups, like Rigatoni Family, die to griefing no longer being 'in'.
What was once fertile grounds for lulz is now a barren cringe fest.
As for the future for griefing, the outlook is bleak.
Game developers are getting less and less tolerant of griefers.
Not only that but the wealth of griefing content has desensitised the casual player.
#############################################################################
Why the decay?
Here are my theories on why griefing has dropped on in recent times.
1) The griefers grew up
It can be easy to assume that most griefers are no-life losers with nothing better to do but grief.
Some griefers are normal people that just happen to get their jollies from griefing and trolling.
Some of these griefers have got jobs or careers, or relationships or families, and are thus retired.
If not then they probably outgrew griefing; it's now considered childish, not worth recording anymore.
This leads into reason #2.
2) Influential griefers have quit
Some griefers have inspired others to grief as well.
What happens when those inspirational griefers stop griefing? The inspiration stops.
Sometimes an inspired griefer goes on to inspire others, thus forming a network of griefers.
Once the big names go away, that may inspire others to quit as well.
3) Better uses of time
The griefers that make videos of their work often have to make the griefing happen.
As time has gone on, there have been better uses of one's time, like Let's Plays or streaming.
I wouldn't be surprised if some griefers went into streaming or work that actually paid.
4) Increasing zero-tolerance
Nowadays, games are increasingly zero-tolerant towards griefing.
Take for example Overwatch; Blizzard will ban your copy of the game and your computer.
This forces you to buy another copy of the game and play it on another computer. Not worth it.
Another example is Minecraft. It's incredibly easy to grief.
These kids will ban you for the slightest reasons. One thing wrong and you're gone.
5) Normies ruined griefing
This is probably the most significant of the reasons as it prevents a new age of griefing from forming.
Big names, like those on Machinima, have taken to griefing.
This is often watered-down, PG-13 levels of griefing.
Such actions have made griefing decidedly uncool.
All is not lost however: for as long as angry nerds exist, griefers will be there to make some magic.
#############################################################################
Want some examples of griefing? I've making a playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpuNrVRKPLThKnzr4A79szJplA7wMUlJn
(Now that I've linked it I might as well get to updating it... one day)
#############################################################################
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