The 13 Greatest Moments in Video Game Griefing History By Benjamin Dunn [34 more lists]

Griefing:deliberately irritating and harrassing other players in an online multiplayer game. From Second Life to Modern Warfare, Team Fortress 2 to Left 4 Dead, wherever there's a large group of people playing an online game together, there's a smaller group that just wants to make everyone else miserable. Call them "griefers" or "trolls", but they're all out for the same thing: making your life a living hell. Be it exit blocking in MW3, creating a steady stream of Tanks in L4D or sending flying genitalia through your Second Life, these jerks will do anything and everything.

While there are special things that can be done in almost any game, there are a few standard griefing moves in almost every game. These consist of exit blocking (when a person stands in the way of the only exit from the spawn room), team killing (killing your own teammates) or just plain being annoying over the coms.

This list has gathered some of the best moments in griefing history from some of the top games on the market as well as some great historical moments. If these give you ideas all I ask is that you stay off of my game’s server. Thanks.

*Please note: The language contained in some of the following videos can be considered rude, racist and just plain not nice.

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1

Team Fortress 2: Bait and Switch

I think it was Sun Tzu (or maybe it was Shang Tsung) that said the best way to beat your enemy, is to know your enemy. These guys really used this in the best way possible.

The person involved in this strategy really got into the enemy's head. Let's think through their logic.

Who am I playing against? Mostly dudes.
What do dudes like more than killing? Babes.
What is the best way to distract dudes? Put pictures of hot babes everywhere and knife them in the back when they aren't paying attention.

Brilliant. Just flat out, absolutely brilliant.

(A special mention has to go out to poor individuals that fell for this cheap trick, but let's face it, you kind of deserved it.)
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2

Battlefield 3: Crime and Punishment

This little bit of game exploitation was brought to my attention by the fine folks over at Kotaku. While the video isn't any sort of griefing in the traditional sense, it did show people how to exploit a part of the game that allowed players to level up extremely fast... which is where the griefing began.

The guy who made the video came back with a response later, expressing his sorrow at giving away such a cheap, horrible trick.

To make ammends he is now going around to different game servers, finding people using the cheat, and systematically destroying them.

He's cleaning up his own mess and looking like a jerk in the process. In a way, he's the MW2 player that the servers deserve *Dark Knight music*.

Read more about the story here.
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3

Second Life: Attack of the Flying Dongs

Second Life is a popular Massively Multiplayer Online world. Not really a game, but a place where people go and, well, live a second life (which means that they're not really doing the best in living their first one).

Since people spend so much time (re: most of it) in this virtual world, it becomes ripe for the griefing.

Whenever something actually starts mattering to anyone... this is when it becomes ripe for the griefing.

From ""hand of god"" attacks (where a person runs a tool that repeats a word or phrase over and over in a person's conversation screen forcing them to reboot) to changing a person's home to look like a pedophile play land, it seems that there are just some people that can't be happy without making others miserable.

The attack that happened in the video above occurred in 2006 during an interview by CNET(click here to see the full story).

Right before the interview with the person took place a flock of flying 3D phallus' took out the whole thing. What's even crazier, is that in 2008 someone took the concept of that attack and made it happen in real life using remote controlled planes and adult sex toys.

Read more about it http://kotaku.com/5009821/second-life-flying-wang-attack-goes-irl"" rel=""nofollow"" target=""_blank"">here.
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4

Team Fortress 2: Team Roomba

Team Fortress 2 is a colorful send up to all the first person shooter multiplayer games out there. Instead of dealing with gritty surroundings and dull camo, you get to be in ultra-fun bright colors, playing as cartoon versions of FPS characters. All the classes are represented. You have the Spy, the Heavy, the Engineer, the Sniper, the Medic and the Pyro. You can even choose to have balloons come out of your bullet riddled corpse instead of blood. Yay!

All fun aside though, this is still a serious team game. People spend days on the servers trying to defend their intel and bases. Of course, anytime that people start taking a game seriously, that's when it is ripe time for THE griefing.

Team Roomba is what one would consider a "professional" griefing team. And by that I mean that they're sponsored and everything. They go around TF2 and record themselves causing havoc. Though they can be seen performing team kills, their specialty seems to be creating amazing teleport traps that force opponents into automatic deaths. Frustratingly brilliant.

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5

Black Ops: Protecting the Door

In a special DLC package for Call of Duty: Black Ops, you get to play as soldiers trying to save themselves from wave after wave of viscous Nazi zombies. The main way of protecting yourself is to maintain a boarded up perimeter, avoiding zombies and demon dogs at all costs. That becomes quite difficult, though, when one or two of the people on your team will not allow you to get near the door to board it up, thus letting the flood of zombies come at a dizzying, impossible 28 Days Later pace.

I'm just going to say it. Most of the people that get griefed bring it on themselves. Sometimes you just want to play a game and another player just can't keep their mouths shut. When you add some not-so-subtle racism being blasted into your ears (and sometimes from your screen -- my neighbors probably think I'm a KKK Grand Wizard at this point), sometimes that person just needs to be shut up in the worst way possible.
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6

Gary's Mod: Buried Alive

A brief description to shed some light on what is happening in the above video: Gary's Mod is a game that is made using the Half Life 2 engine. Not a "game" per se, but it allows players to just fool around with the engine and make some amazing environments to play in.

Once any thing is accessible to everyone on such a wide scale, though, pretty damn annoying interactions start happening almost instantly.

The only way to negate an extremely vocal 9 year-old*? Box him in anyway possible.

*He's the shadowy figure that has been rightfully placed in a time out, not the person "filming" it.
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7

Xbox 360 Kinect: Griefing the Next Generation

When the Kinect came out it was being touted as the next generation of family entertainment. What they should have said was that it would be a new way to torment your younger brother.

It would've sold a lot better, that'd for damn sure. And then maybe then we'd have something a little better than dancing games and stuff that makes you look like you have vertigo while you're playing it.

For those of you that have not had the opportunity to play with a Kinect, let me give you a run down. The way the sensor works is that it bathes the room in infra-red dots that the camera on the machine picks up and uses to create an in-game model of yourself.

If it's a two player game, each player has to stand shoulder length apart or else it will mold you together and get really confused.

So when the Weasley family here all gather behind little Ron, it causes the game to go haywire. Granted, the view of them griefing their little brother is probably more entertaining than seeing what is actually happening in the game, but that's true about most games on the Kinect in general.
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8

Modern Warfare 2: Knife Party

Ah war. Fighting day after day.

Not knowing when you are going to meet the person who has the bullet with your name on it. It can get intense. Sometimes it gets so intense that there is nothing you can do but go a little crazy and start knifing anyone in your way.

Going on a knifing spree is what people do when they're drunk and about to ADD-quit a round of multiplayer.

This is a simple, yet effective, and ultimately hilarious way to grief/troll that's pretty funny on video, but absolutely nerve-wracking and horrific if you're subject to it.

It takes kind of a bit of skill to not get killed with this tactic too.

Tip of that hat to this asshole.
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9

Team Fortress 2: Communications Error

One of the best things about multiplayer games is getting to be on a team and running through combat strategies on the fly. Having your team leader assign tasks and sectors. Responding to distress calls from fallen teammates. Hollering in victory when you win.

Of course, that becomes difficult when the enemy decides that they are going to just keep forcing the game to notify that they are taking your base. Over and over and over and over and over again.
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10

Modern Warfare 3: Trolling Edition

This video demonstrates one of the most highly utilized forms of griefing performed in games today: The In-Team Kill.

Pretty much exactly how it sounds, team killing is, surprise surprise, when you kill members of your own team.

It's the ultimate betrayal an the way that complete assholes get their rocks off. It's never fun for anyone and, after you've been waiting for a while in the lobby, it makes you want to actually kill whoever thinks this is fun. It ruins the game.

And if you think this you're 100% in the right. There's nothing that says that you're wrong. But it's impossible to complain about someone doing this without sounding like a 7 year old saying "but mo-o-o-o-m... he's ruining the ga-a-a-a-a-ame!".

In the Modern Warfare series, the best way to go about that is to either take out your team members before the clock is done counting down, or just shoot your RPG into the group, wiping everyone out and getting booted from that game.

... worth it?
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11

Modern Warfare 2: Survival of the Fittest

It's really great that this guy took it upon himself to point out that there is only one proper place for girls, and that it's not trying to take out your buddies with well-placed headshots.

This butthurt dweller goes nuts. It's both sad and kind of funny.

And just to be safe: Go Team Estrogen!

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12

Modern Warfare 2: Putting the Riot in Riot Shield

It is said that one should not try to be the boulder in the stream, but rather the leaf.

Then again, sometimes there is nothing better than just strapping on your shield and sitting in front of the only exit while listening to your fellow players go nuts.

Also, I don't know why, but even though most British people sound proper and polite by default, when they are mad, their cursing seems somehow worse. It's almost like it means more. Enjoy.
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13

Modern Warfare 2: Repeat Offender

This video should be used as a teaching tool for the younger generation. When playing against or with adults, it might be a good idea to just keep your racist thoughts to yourself. Of course, feel free to mouth of if all you want to do is get killed time and time again.

Sometimes spawn-camping can be a fun, useful tool against the most objectionable kind of fellow gamers in the community: the racist pre-teens.
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14

Honorable Mention: Hot Girl Griefing!

Since most of the videos above just featured men griefing other men, I thought that, as an honorable mention, I should include a video about how the fairer sex does it.

She might not actually be playing the game, but man, does she know how to deal out the verbal abuse.

Girl, chu be representin' and hatin' and cussin. Ain't nobody gonna mess with her.
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