Shadowrun

Bill Fulton, the game designer in charge of Shadowrun’s economy system and user interface, posted a note on the official Shadowrun forums about the steps being taken to combat griefing in Shadowrun.

My central goal around griefing is to make it so that players who are playing the game ‘honestly’ don’t have to quit or leave when the griefers show up.  Running from bullies just makes them feel powerful, which is what they want, so it doesn’t address the problem.

He goes on to say:

1. There will be a vote system to kick players. It has some wrinkles to it that are different than other games vote kick systems. It will have a little more teeth in it than most systems, and be more resistant to being used as a weapon by the griefers as well.

2. It will be fairly apparent who is team killing/shooting.  The money a player loses for team killing & shooting is on the top page of the stats screen.  It will be obvious to anyone paying attention if a teammate is actively being a team killer/shooter.

3. There are $ penalties for shooting teammates.  So players who ‘negligently’ shoot teammates (as opposed to intentionally) will have their bottom line hurt.

Note: there will be no punishment system.  While they have their uses, it is hard to prevent them from being used by griefers as well (they can intentionally step in front of you while you’re shooting, etc.).

Fortunately, there have been very few cases of griefing in the beta, but it only takes a few to ruin the experience for many.