an interesting piece the guardian about griefers.

Griefer is the term for a player in an online computer game who deliberately sets out to discomfort other players. A Griefer is a kind of troll.

i must confess that i too was abused.

it was about a year ago (maybe more). and i was playing Final Fantasy Online. i invested several weeks in building up my avatar. i was building up my skills, weapons, armors and treasure. it was then that i met up with a group of fellow adventurers. we chatted for a while, when one of them suggested that we go out for a short hunting trip.

i was excited about the opportunity to go on this hunt, as i was a newbie to this world. on our first encounter with a few monsters i was literally placed in the front of the group. before i realized it my character was dead, beaten to death by the monsters and i suspect my hunting "friends". the group then jumped on the loot, all my belonging that i gathered over the past several weeks were divided among my "friends".

i learned several lessons:

• if i want to be able to play in these MMORPGs i must invest *much* more time in building my character
• get to know your partners before you trust them with your virtual life
• i'll have to wait till i either retire/be unemployed before i can get serious about playing in these worlds..

my experience was relatively harmless (beside my hurt emotions), but for people who invest much more time in their characters, or in cases like second-life, where virtual assets are starting to have real dollar value the harm could be much greater. 

letting the community police itself is probably the best way to handle the griefers. it seems to have worked well for Xbox Live and some other online services. not only it gives players a sense of ownership, but it also saves real dollars for the company offering the game.