Interview with John Suler on Griefers and How to Manage Them
by Alphaville Herald on 07/01/04 at 12:09 am
John Suler is a PhD in Cinical Psychology and is currently Professor in the Department of Psychology at Rider University. He has worked on topics ranging from mental imagery to psychoanalysis and eastern religions, but he is best known by netizens for his work on the psychology of cyberspace and in particular on the psychology of griefers and ways of managing them. His study on the griefers in The Palace, “The Bad Boys of Cyberspace,” has become a classic in this area of study. In this interview Urizenus takes a break so that Peter Ludlow can ask him some questions about Alphaville’s problems with griefers
Ludlow: As you know there has been a history of griefers on TSO, and in my paper we reported on one particularly notorious griefer, currently with an avatar named Evangeline. Note that I’m not asking you to discuss this particular case (although of course that would be great), I mostly interested in what we know about the psychology of griefers in general.
Suler: I’m no expert on SIMS or the griefers there, but my perusal of the [Evangeline] interview sure rings some familiar bells from my days at the Palace and various encounters with PITAs, trollers, and “deviants” of various types.
Ludlow: Could you expand on that? How so? What happened in the Palace and what were the similarities?
Suler: I wrote about it in my rather long article about the “bad boys of cyberspace“. It reminded me of the various trollers, PITAs, and sexual “deviants” that came to the Palace in the early days…. the need to establish a “bad boy” identity in order to feel unique… the compulsion to buck the system and defy the authorities (rebels without a cause)….. the desire to feel powerful by inflicting problems on others….. the rather elitist and holier-than-thou attitude…. preying on vulnerable people (probably a way to cope with one’s own feelings of helplessness and vulnerability)…. a seemingly sociopathic inability to empathize with other people…. a preoccupation with issues of humiliation and shame…. hiding behind fantasy identities…. an inability or lack of interest in creating meaningful relationships…..that sort of thing
Ludlow: How did The Palace deal with its bad boys?
Suler: The answer is a long and complex one! It mostly depended on the type of deviant behavior, but the strategies fell into different categories (and combinations thereof):
1. Preventative versus Remedial: creating an environment that would minimize deviance versus fixing the deviance when it appeared)
2. Interpersonal versus Technical: talking to and persuading people to stop acting out, versus creating automated interventions that would eliminate their deviance or prevent them entering the community
3. User or Superuser: software tools for the average user to deal with trouble-makers, versus tools for managers of the site.
Ludlow: Are there general rules of thumb for managing griefers? Is there anything that can be done with respect to game mechanics?
Suler: As a very general rule, if you ignore griefers and trouble-makers, they tend to go away. If they get no reaction from anyone, they give up. But it’s not always easy to ignore them. Then it’s a matter of banning them from the community, which often turns into a cat-and-mouse game of them sneeking in and the managers of the site trying to detect them and oust them back out….Because people acting out in online communities tend to do so anonymously or in disguise, it sometimes helps to discover who they are in reality and connect with them on that level. While online you can tell BadAss to stop misbehaving, but for him that request is just part of the game to be manipulated and toyed with. But if you call Johnny Smith – aka BadAss – on the phone and maybe even speak to his Mom or Dad, the impact of the request tends to be much greater. It doesn’t work all the time, though.
The more an online game simulates real life, the more the social problems in that game will simulate real life. If it’s a fantasy environment, then people will act out their fantasies. If the game involves status power, then people will become preoccupied with status power. The social elements you design into the environment can easily be magnified by the users and turned into unpredictable directions. It might help to set up a screening system and select only “appropriate” users, but that’s a complicated, time-consuming, and potentially expensive process, if done right.
Ludlow: Is there something that can be done to protect newbies and “innocents” from them?
Suler: Educate them and give them software tools to screen out the misbehavior.
Ludlow: Any advice on managing the particular case of the griefer Evangeline
Suler: Reasoning with the “real” person behind the character might help. Channel his energy, as you suggested.
Ludlow: Is it reasonable to think that the game owner must be to some degree implicit in tolerating this?
Suler: Hard to say. It’s unlikely a company wants to encourage or tolerate any serious deviant behavior. There’s too much at risk. And it’s not easy to control deviance online than it is to control it in-person… in some ways, it’s harder.
Ludlow: Can’t let you go without asking this: Any thoughts on the article in Salon.com on the termination of Urizenus?
Suler: Interesting article! What you’re going thru reminds me of my days at the Palace. It seems to me that the Company often bites off more than it can chew by creating these highly versatile and fantasy-based virtual communities. I think they’re not prepared to deal with the complex social systems that develop – especially handling deviance and mental health issues, and issues of governance. They often seem to get nervous about the idea of the community becoming self-conscious, organizing itself, and wanting some power over its own fate. I’m sure to them it feels like riding a wild horse….It takes money to effectively manage the social structure of a complex online community. And these communities often aren’t very profitable anyhow.
Dyerbrook
Jan 7th, 2004
Gosh, Uri, what a missed opportunity. Here you had a real-live shrink in your grasp, and you forgot to ask him about the clinical significance of BDSM invading Alphaville and whether this is a sub-culture or a cult. (BTW, everybody check out http://www.rickross.com where they have picked up this thread under their forum.) But I have to say, once I saw “eastern religions” in the bio, I feared we’d get no honest look at this deviance…but that’s just me. It’s very hard to do what is necessary to deal with a griefer, and that is, create something positive. For awhile, New Sims Ranch held the first slot in the welcome houses, displacing Evangeline’s soi-disant FREE MONEY for Newbies, but then he and his friends got tired or else Van redoubled her efforts. It’s work. The greatest insight here from your shrink is to stop paying attention.
ScaryBitch (Former Isabella')
Jan 7th, 2004
John Suler, Do you think you are special? *Throw Up!* You are a ugly creature
RB
Jan 7th, 2004
Of EA & maxis tolerate it. It’s pretty obvious. Encourage it? No, not directly. But their sloppyness does provide a helping hand to all the nuts out there.
- RB
RB
Jan 7th, 2004
*Of course EA & Maxis………………
Another view
Jan 7th, 2004
Ok everyone….I have a question….Dyer…Are you against homosexuality?….because your BDSM bashing is reminincent of Gay Bashing….It is a sub-section of a sexual nature…why not let it be…Its not like your intolerence of it will make it dissappear….Why not let everyone be who they are. Its not like its forced on you….If you dont like a certain section of the population…Just dont go around um….You ,sir, are a Hitler type….If its not your way , Kill it….Well , I hate to break it to ya, World dont revolve around your butt, son. So just let it be….If you want attention Go be an activist for something worth while, Like save the rainforest Or help the homeless. Leave people and their interests alone.
I’m sure no one mucks about in your bedroom, dont muck about in others. I get along with my neighbors by either being friends, or avoiding them….You should try it….works wonder.
Maria LaVeaux
Jan 7th, 2004
I am sure what we do in the BD/SM community would probably fall under What Mr. Suler would Classify as “Sexual Deviency” However, in the main it does NOT automaticly classify us all as Griefers owing to the fact we, For the greater part, keep within our own community. Do we hide what we are? No. Do we do it for Negative attention? Again, speaking for myself, No.
I wonder if Mr. Suler would look at my recent interview, and the interview with Annonymous regarding the BD/SM community, and see if he can identify anyone with what he terms “the rather elitist and holier-than-thou attitude” I am not sure, But i may have seen one ot two posts that might fall in to that catagory.
Mr. Suler, could you please Clarify the roles these Classifications you have listed play in the mentality of the griefer so as not to leave people with the mistaken impression that because some one Falling in any one of those catagories does NOT necessarily automaticly ‘Act Out” against others.
I have known Several people who hide behind Fantasy identities (Most of us in TSO i think) who do not fall in to the Catagory of “Griefer”.
Griefers may have some of those Characteristics, but all people with those Characteristics are not griefers.
Thank you sir, I await your reply.
Maria La Veaux
urizenus
Jan 7th, 2004
Maria, I don’t know if John will be reading along here, and I don’t know if he had BDSM as a kind of sexual “deviancy” (note they are his scare quotes). I highly recommed you read his “Bad Boys of the Palace” piece though. It does include a section on “deviant enclaves”, which pretty much prescibes a live and let live policy. Here is the link to that section.
Dyerbrook
Jan 7th, 2004
Of course I’m not against homosexuality or any other sexual preference. The BDSM cult issue in TSO, however, is not *about* sexual preference and does not deserve protection under civil rights law or the more limited TOS. First of all, civil rights law in the Real World does not protect the right to beat and enslave other people, even with their consent, and even questions the notion of consent. *In any other setting, what BDSM would do is a crime and is wrong* in the words of the inestimable Penny, whoever she is, on the rickross.com forum. Secondly, communities broadly speaking zone BDSM, or even criminalize it as a deviant sexual behavior, or medicalize it as a psychiatric deviancy — and by their own confession, BDSM practitioners acknowledge that as many as 85 percent of them are victims of childhood abuse raising questions of their clinical condition. Thirdly, in TSO, which is a micro-world, we have the problem of the presence of 13 plus, and the problem of just general lack of consideration and courtesy by the BDSM mob, as they spread out and play-act all over AV with their “lifestyle,” advertising it to all and sundry. Fourth, there is the narrow question of violation of Maxis TOS, which ostensibly bans obscenity and urges players not to use language they would not use in a “room full of people” and by “room full of people” Maxis does not mean a dungeon, but a diverse room of people ranging from 13 plus to grandmothers. Fifth, what I am doing here is not calling for discrimination or banning from the game or RL for that matter, but a) zoning and b)making a philosophical case against a society based on violence and slavery. That is certainly my right, protected under the laws of RL in the US and protected under the TOS. If it were not the case, I’d be banned by now due to the complaints file by all those skittish BDSM babes who have slammed me for being “bigoted” because I question their good sense and independence of mind. Their inability to distinguish between the very real offense of discrimination against blacks, Jews, and gays (and conversely, promoting only the rights of Christians and whites) and the philosophical debate against the glorification of violence and slavery, is yet another hallmark of their cultish and illegitimate thinking.
Maria LaVeaux
Jan 7th, 2004
It would be truely a pity if he did not at least observe the responses to his intervew, it would make an interesting study. Lol.
I intend to read in full his “Bad boys” piece. The link was also provided above.
As for Griefers, In general, the advice of ignoring them does work, many of the griefers i have delt with have been adolescents with a very short attention span. I have had one Masquarade as me, Copying my look, my name,(With a ‘ at the end to differentiate his/her account) and my Biography, word for word. They then approached a young woman who was very dear to me. Luckily, she knew i was on line, and attending a wedding so she smelled a rat almost immediatly. Her complaint, and mine resulted in the sim being deleted by maxis on it’s first day.
On one other notable occasion there was a similar indevidual who Masquaraded as one of our community known to me, and came to my home with the intent of disrupting a party i was holding for friends.
Apart from these, i have had little diffuculty with griefers beyond one time drop ins. I have never been Tagged or gloved, (And Honestly, it wouldn’t make any difference to me if i was so it would be rather pointless)and, i have never made an enemy in a year of play.
I do, however know of one case, of a woman who has been persistantly stalked by two others (I won’t name anyone) because one of them entered her property, acted like a complete jerk, and was expelled without hesitation. Obviously, this person took extreme offence to people reacting negativly to their antisocial behaviour. The Griefers in this case have been suspended several times from TSO, but they keep coming back. the logic behind this campeign is foggy enough, but the thing that really disturbs me is the single minded relentlessness of continuing this long (By my reconning, over six months). This would seem to me to go beyond a little youthful hell raising, and perhaps border on the Pathological.
In game obviously, there are griefers, then there are “GRIEFERS!”.
Maria LaVeaux.
Cocoanut
Jan 7th, 2004
Wow! What a total spot-on interview! Suler’s summary of the characteristics of the griefer (I will read the “rather long” original article later) is EXACTLY what I have observed for months now in Evangeline/Voleur/Merrills!
And I have spent quite some time trying to understand the psychopathology of this individual. All of the traits you mention are the exact traits which have puzzled and bothered me all this time.
It is almost as if our Evangeline were the poster boy for the griefer, so strongly and so tenaciously does he exhibit those very traits, such as, particularly, the sociopathic inability to emphasize and the preoccupation with humiliation and shame.
Now, what I’ve been missing (besides someone else who understood that all these traits were present)is exactly what the powers-that-be should do about him. Your prescription to simply call on the phone is a fabulous answer, and one which could easily determine that it is indeed, the same person, popping up again and again. (Assuming they have his phone number. Getting a phone number every time someone joins an online game would be a smart thing to do.)
Thank you so much for this insightful interview, Ludlow and Suler! This particular griefer we have been dealing with is the epitome of griefers apparently, and that is one reason why it has bothered me so much and for so long (in addition to their inability to deal with him quickly each time he pops up). This guy is not like your average, momentary or sporadic griefer. This one LIVES to exhibit all those traits you detail.
I feel much better to know that someone (Suler) is just as intrigued and bothered with the problem this deviant personality brings to the game (and understands that it is a problem that should be handled, not just lived with as “part of the game”) as I am.
coco
Cocoanut
Jan 7th, 2004
woops – I should never skip “preview.” Empathize, not emphasize, and just ignore any other typos please, lol.
Cocoanut
Jan 7th, 2004
Guys, guys! Let me call your attention to another spot-on piece by Prof. Suler about called, “Why is This Thing Eating My Life?”
Or, “Psychology of Cyberspace – Addiction to Cyberspace.” He uses this place called “The Palace” to illustrate, but it could be just as easily applied to us Sims.
http://www.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/eatlife.html
Funny, understanding, helpful, and very insightful.
coco
Urizenus
Jan 7th, 2004
Oooh, good pointer Coco! I missed that one.
Maria LaVeaux
Jan 7th, 2004
It is as coco says, this article is right on the mark when it describes the various types of griefers (Evangeline is well known for his/her antics, and not very well thought of).
I also noted that many of the methods used to deal with griefers described in the article are already commonly used in TSO. (Though actual game mechanics differs from the Palace model as presented in the article.)
One thing i Did appreciate was that the article did not automaticly clump “deviant enclaves” in with greifers simply by virtue of their existance. it is appearant from the article that the one deciding factor on what determines a griefer is that said person is deliberatly, and in many cases maliciously disturbing the environment for others.
A person from the BD/SM community, entering a lot that is open to all is not griefing. If the owner of the home finds something objectionable in the persons description, or attire and wishes to address the issue, that is their right, along with moderating what they perceive as offensive language or behaviour. If on the other hand the owner finds nothing objectionable, then there is no problem. We in the BD/SM community have similar rules, and we respect the rules of others as we ourselves wish to be respected. If we are on a Vanilla site where our presence has been accepted by owner, room mates and sundry guests, and someone comes in and starts bad mouthing us over our lifestyle, it is they, and not the BD/SM person who is the griefer.
We welcome just about anyone into our community, We love having guests. but coming to our homes, and demanding we change the whole focus of our lots to suit an outside opinion IS griefing. (I beleive that the relevant sections in the article would be “Revolutionary”).
If some one from our community comes to a vanilla home and acts like a jerk, then by all means, deal with him/her As an indevidual case. you should also be aware that it is distinctly possible that, at some time in the past, We, inside our community have also had to take steps do deal with them. Not everyone who professes to be part of our community is a member in good standing.
Thank you Professor Suler for a most enlightening article.
Maria LaVeaux.
Dyerbrook
Jan 7th, 2004
Uri, your Freudian slip is showing: “John Suler is a PhD in Cinical Psychology.” Yes, I’m familiar with Cynical Psychology, one finds it among all those know-it-all Internet tekkie nerdpacks who think that such figures as insufferable “wizards” are a boon in online communities and oh, so necessary to combat “griefers” including, oh, Mon Dieux, the erstwhile “freedom fighters”. What’s more interesting to me about that article, Coco, than the “to-a-T” descriptions of griefers is this underlying concept that worlds need these power-hungry wizard figures to “pin” or “ban” or get special powers and props or whatever it is they do. It’s funny, at first I thought, hmm, cool, we should have that in TSO. I remember I once thought of developing a guild of “guardians” in TSO to perform necessary social tasks like fighting the SSG or griefers but whew, I’m glad I was too lazy to develop THAT thesis.
In their infinite wisdom, the Maxis designers put those pin/lot ban/etc. tools into the hands of every Sim instead of letting “wizards” (bleccth) take those powers from us. Imagine, I was even yammering awhile back here about having in-game presence from Maxis Ring Ding eaters — what WAS I thinking??? And there should be even more of this democratization. Self-governing structures are boring and who wants to bother when they are engaging in a leisure activity, but if they are the underpinnings that secure us a world free of all this medieval crap that game designers usually foist on us with their dungeons and dragons and wizards and monsters — and the abhorrent social systems that go with them — bring it on. I just want a game where I can just go to the toilet — or pee myself.
Trey
Jan 8th, 2004
There are definitely spoilers who are immature egomaniacs, but some of them are just being funny. Evangaline specifically mentioned in the interview that her behavior adds some spice and makes the game more interesting. I have to agree. TSO definitely has that nicey-cutey flavor to it. There is something humorous about the way in which the spoilers poke fun at our fantasy world. While it may be true that they do it for ego reasons, they might just do it for fun, the same way that I might pretend to be a low-intelligence person of the opposite sex. You know, it’s about having FUN.
Maria LaVeaux
Jan 9th, 2004
Point taken Trey, but if it is only fun for the spoiler, Isn’t the ascribed intent lost completely?
Bizarre behaviour can be amusing, and if the whole room is laughing along with the joke, this is a good thing. But the griefers actions are generally viewed as those that No one but the griefer himself find amusing or supportive of game play.
I do not recall if professor sulars articles made such a distinction, I will have to reread it with that in mind.
Maria.
Cocoanut
Jan 9th, 2004
I’ve run into this notion that Evangeline and his many alts provide spice and fun to the game before. I don’t buy it. I don’t think he pokes fun at the game, either, as satire or anything that intelligent. I don’t think he is doing it for fun or to be funny, and in fact, he’s reptitive and un-amusing. He’s just a sicko.
coco
Dyerbrook
Jan 10th, 2004
I think it does add spice to the game and it’s hard for me to understand how people get so angered by scammers and yet give a pass to BDSM. Scammers can be isolated by existing game tools and a little human solidarity. BDSM undermines the fabric of society, based on freedom, equality and non-violence in personal relations. I guess I can’t get too exercised as I should about Evangeline, just like you can’t get indignant about BDSM, Coco. People are hurt by him/her due to their *greed* not their newbie status. If they went to skills and money-making lots and earned money the old-fashioned way as we did with pizza and code and boards, before there were map bots and ebay money, then they wouldn’t succumb to scams. It’s their desire to get money fast and bypass the game exigencies that sets them up. Especially young kids nowadays understand how much hacking and fakery and scams there are on the Internet. Anyone dropping into the game fresh would just find it odd that the fierce hostess of this lot won’t let you have blue hair or a bear head, and makes you wear a helmet, and would exit. I remember on my first day, I sat like a tard for a day telemarketing with 2 other clueless newbies, without skills and without at least 8 people to make it worth our while, but we figured it out by the next day. I’ve found that people really scammed out of their stake of $10,000 are helped by old-timers. So somebody scammed out of any sum greater than $10,000 is not a newbie and therefore has no excuse but their own greed and possible gullibility to blame. I have no sympathy for someone scammed out of $100,000 — they have been in the game long enough, or have cheated, so that they should know better, and take their knocks like a man and not whine. You have to understand it in those terms: of what these “victims” really lose.
When I say “spice up” let me give you two examples, because the Stratics boards won’t let us discuss this. Some kid has set himself up as president of Alphaville, with a CIA, prosecutor general, etc. I think he has the number one slot now in either “welcome” or “coffee” — it’s called Alphaville Capitol. I came to his lot and pointed out that their government was unelected, irrelevant, and kinda heavy on the power ministries and light on things like a state legislature and maybe a complaints bureau. Anyway…all the goons on the lot gloved me, they wrote things like “This Sim is a scammer who stole $300,000 of mine!” etc. because they can’t believe anyone could criticize their beloved presidet, and are the products of a liberal democracy without ever having massed its fine points in their heavily-fortified high schools or Marxist colleges.
I’ve never held $300,000 in my life in the game, of course, and no one is going to believe that a year-old Sim with no reputation as a scammer or griefer has suddenly robbed a kid of $300,000. We kept chatting, they were role-playing their government shtick, I was role-playing my Lightsavers Partisan Liberation Movement shtick, I managed to talk my way in to the Chief Executive’s office and light his fireplace, etc. A good time was had by all. The red link was later removed. All, good clean fun. If these idiots continue to chase me with their silly government, I will continue to fight back, and hopefully both they and I will make the game interesting for each other, until we don’t, in which case we’ll both press “ignore and ban” buttons and move on. But meanwhile, some girl is squealing she has been red-tagged falsely and screams for the red-tags to be removed from the game. Hasn’t she ever played paintball or laser tag???
OK but let’s look at another example, probably a reincarnation of Evangeline or someone like her/him. This is Miss-Crumplebottom. She started a lot for “Special Sims like it is a workshop for retarded persons, it is in offbeat with a name like “Special Sims” or something I forget. Well, it’s faintly annoying and stereotypical but…whatever. I noticed that in her balloons, she had recreated, or had befriended, more likely they’re all one person, Sophie the Janitor, Annie, a Beatle, whatever. I thought, hmmm, a glimmer of intelligence and wit in this game, so infrequently found. I IM’d “I need remedial work” to get Miss C to open her locked lot so I could gnome. She starts a barrage of griefing and/or paranoid idiocy, showing intellect, but lots of mispelling, and then like the Red Queen, says the term “common-sense” has a hyphen in it even when it appears as a noun. She concludes that I am Evangeline, and that I am locked out of other lots for cause, although I assure you I am not Evangeline, and the only lots I’m locked out of are those of neuralgic BDSM queens.
So I stop writing to Miss-C, seeing she is a griefing personality, not an interesting RPer as I thought, and she begins to IM me, and then have all the people in her balloons IM me, but IMing and quickly putting me on ignore so I can’t answer. I get another Sim to talk to them, but then quickly that Sim is accused of being not only Dyerbrook, but Evangeline, etc. etc. Clever, a bad speller, quick as a whip, but malicious and willing to keep stalking. I begin to get a sense of deja-vu all-over-again because I suspect that one of the things Evangeline has take up to annoy people is accuse other people of being Evangeline. OR…also likely…the horrorifying magnification of Evangeline in the distorting lens of TSO has made even bright,normal non-griefing players become so paranoid that they can’t even trust another good-willed Sim to RP with them for a bit in their short-bus workshop. You see?
OK, I played two hours last night, one hour with the silly AV Gov, and another with this nest of Evangeline look-alikes, and the boards at Ye Old Boot and Board just flew by in the meantime. So…will I waste two hours like that again? Possibly not. Will those adolescents continue to attack me for sport? Probably, but if I want to just chill at the Flamingo with friends, I will lock my lot. So what’s the big deal? All that is required to get rid of Evangeline is to boot, ban, ignore, drain the traffic away from her lot,and isolate her. Remember 1947, the Year of Containment. That’s the ticket. It will be a cold war, but one in which the arts could flourish in the 1950s….If Miss-C turns out to be the new sinkhole for the unsuspecting, well, be warned…
I can’t understand how, Coco, as a hostess of a game lot always filled on a schedule with panel games, where you can boot anyone not in fact really there to play your games, and keep your stake in the ground, that you would have to worry about these annoying flies…but you’re not looking up above your lot to the map to see 30 out of 100 romance lots are taken over by men and women who have made mainly women unequal to them…
The key to freedom from griefers and would-be “governments” is to enlarge your personal space and your neighborhood in the game. I believe that only clear and present dangers like like especially radical Gorean BDSM which have enlarged beyond the capacity of others to either contain them or provide safe alernatives require some action by the game company.
realWorlder
Jan 15th, 2004
1. You’re incredible losers, all.
2. BDSM is *fantasy* play, can you wrap your tiny little brains around that? “Assault” and “enslavement” are acted out, yes. And many non-BDSM couples do similar roleplay, such as “cop and woman wanting to get out of a speeding ticket”…should the man then be arrested for impersonating a police officer?
Goddamn, get some lives you pathetic losers!
Lady Julianna
Jan 16th, 2004
Well, at least realWorlder’s comments were on topic, lol, in an odd sort of way.
Dyer, I was going to ask what you were doing here on this thread with your anti-BDSM rant? Rest, before you drive yourself crazy. People are just tired of it appearing all over the place, your name and your rant, not BDSM. Relax, talk to somebody.
Back to topic now…
I find the sims to be a fascinating place to come and watch human behaviour. Everything seems to be concentrated and intensified in the sim world, including time. Three or fouth months as a sim couple is a pretty good record, but few sim relationships last longterm, and here longterm is anything more than 6 months. Relationshsips end, people cheat on each other, create new sims, are revealed… etc. etc. Who needs TV? lol. Throw in BDSM, and I am hooked. I admit it, but I don’t want to be cured.
What a lovely escape, totally engrossing. Friendships are real, and be careful with your sim heart because it is attached to your own.
Psychological advice? Let me save you a few hundred dollars. The question you must ask yourself is this. “Is the game causing me problems in real life, and if so, what if anything do I want to do about it?” Work on that question, and you will be able to formulate your own answer.
For me, no problems. And no, I don’t want to be cured, either or TSO or BDSM.
Griefers? I am used to them. And that is a sad statement. I pretty much leave people alone, stick to myself in my community and rarely step out of it, do not impress my morality on anyone else, try to watch out for the kids, comfort broken hearts, and try to have some fun. I think it is a sad day when someone like myself can be harassed this way. And no Dyer, you are not the first and you will not be the last.
I agree with the strategy above. Here is how I deal with taggers. First, know that it can’t hurt you, especially if you already have a lot of friends. You won’t lose any interactions. If you are a new sim, you might. Don’t be upset by the tag. Choose another way to look at it. I saw one of mine as a badge of loyalty in defending a friend, and the other as something to make me a more scary Domme. >:)If you are upset then the tagger has his satisfaction. Do not IM the tagger. Just ignore him, and he will move on to tastier and more easily provoked prey. They quickly forget you, or if not, it takes them some time to get back to you again. You are simply no fun to them.
If we get back to topic, this might help some newbies coming into the game. Advice to newbies, don’t be afraid of anyone bugging you for money or anything else. They really can’t do what they threaten to do. Know that they are powerless, put them on ignore, and go happily about enjoying the game. Hackers? Most of them wannabes, no real threat. Only a very small percentage of hackers would have the ability to hack into Maxis and get your account or personal information. The odds are you have encountered someone who would say anything to try to upset you.. hence the term griefer.
I shall continue to enjoy the human parade moving before me, everything moving at a faster pace, more intense than real life at times. And that is the true addiction I think. One tends not to delay gratification here. Anonymity allows us to free our inhibitions.
It was only a matter of time before social scientists would turn their attention to this little microcosm of society, moving at an accelerated social rate. Fascinating
Mistress maria LaVeaux
Jan 19th, 2004
I tend to agree with My Lady Julianna,
In Game, we have a whole world of Drama and Intregue, Love and betrayal, Hope, and sadness. In a year of play, i have seen a great deal, and Done a great deal, and met some wonderful people (And some awful ones as well).
Why Anyone woud waste there time with Petty acts of Vandalism when a whole world of experience awaits them is beyond my understanding. Only a sad lack of Imagination could account for someone clinging to Infantile attempts to Impress themselves with their cleverness, when there is a small, rapidly evolving world waiting to entertain and enlighten them.
“All My Children” and “General Hospital” have Nothing on us for daytime Drama. Lol.
Put the Spraycans down and join the REAL party.
Maria LaVeaux.