Tutorials/Griefing prevention



Griefing is the act of irritating and angering people in video games through the use of destruction, construction, or social engineering. Popularized in Minecraft by teams, griefing has become a serious problem for server administrators who wish to foster building and protect builders.

For a griefing guide, see How to Grief Minecraft.

History of griefing
Griefing is far from a new phenomenon in video games. It dates to the late 1990s, when it was used to describe the willfully antisocial behaviors seen in early massively multiplayer online games like Ultima Online and first-person shooters like Counter-Strike. Frustrated users or mal-intentioned gamers have oftentimes tried to cause grief among other players in multiplayer servers they join, but many griefers just "do it for the lulz", or just out of plain boredom. An increase in organized griefing occurred with the creation of teams producing their own videos which popularized Minecraft griefing. Fortunately for server administrators, the increase in griefing has pushed the creation of numerous anti-griefing tools and techniques.

Basic griefing methods and prevention
There are other forms of griefing, however they are simply variations on the ones listed above. Essentially, if moderators are attentive and the server is equipped with the necessary plugins, a server can be very secure from griefing.

Griefing clients
While modifications to Minecraft clients are fairly popular with legitimate mods, griefers also often employ client modifications to aid their efforts. Apart from the mods below, griefing clients often include an ingame GUI to display enabled mods, as well as things such as chat commands (".commands") and keybinds to easily turn hacks on and off.
 * Kill Aura or Forcefield: Kill auras, sometimes referred to as ForceFields, automatically hit/attack any players or mobs within the range of the player.
 * Aimbot: Aimbot is a hack which does what might seem obvious: It aims at the closest player or mob, which allows the user of the aimbot to get a better hit. These are often combined with Kill Auras.
 * Autosoup: This hack is used to automatically switch to a full soup in your inventory, eat it, then switch back to your first slot/weapon. It is used on Kitpvp servers which utilize an autoeat plugin, while using it you are practically invincible until you run out of soup.
 * Build: Build hacks are simply modifications that instantly place blocks in a predetermined pattern. Common builds include cubes, pillars, swastikas, and platforms.
 * Critical: This hack is used make sure you always hit a critical attack upon another player and/or mob. There's one which forces it without actually jumping, and one which jumps before attacking. Both are effective.
 * ESP: This hack draws a 3D box around the player which is viewable from a long distance and through blocks to locate the player, in some cases, also displays some info; Object in hand, armor, co-ords.
 * FastPlace: This modification eliminates the normal delay when placing blocks. This may also be applied to placing eggs in order to create a lot of entities in a short amount of time.
 * Flight or Fly: Not necessarily used just for griefing, this hack gives the user the ability to fly similar to as if he or she was in Creative mode, often at adjustable speed levels.
 * Freecam: This mod allows the user to separate him or herself from his or her body and fly around to scout out areas. Since infinite reach was patched, the user of this mod cannot affect any blocks outside his or her reach radius. However, this hack can be used to freecam into obsidian bases, and open chests within the player's reach distance.
 * Fullbright: This hack lights up all blocks as if they were in direct sunlight, even in pitch blackness. The addition of the "Night Vision" potion in Snapshot 12w32a makes this feature obtainable in vanilla Minecraft.
 * Godmode: This makes the user invincible, preventing them from being able to take damage. Almost all versions of this hack have been patched, but there are still some versions which still exist.
 * HighJump: This allows the player to jump higher than normal, often at an adjustable jump height.
 * NoFall: This hack prevents damage from being taken when falling from high areas.
 * Nuker or Annihilator: This destroys all blocks within reach radius automatically and quickly. They are also often configurable, allowing the user to destroy only certain block types.
 * Sneak: This allows griefers to sneak indefinitely, and without being slowed down. This will keep their nameplates hidden behind walls just as if they were holding the sneak button.
 * Spam or Flood: This allows the client to send a large number of chat messages to the server, and often very quickly. This is partially patched in vanilla, with the "disconnect.spam" kick message if you send messages too fast.
 * SpeedMine or FastBreak: This allows the user to break blocks much faster than normal. It does not usually work on blocks such as obsidian, however.
 * Instant or OneClick: These may sound similar to SpeedMine, but it is not the same thing. Instant and OneClick both allow the user to click blocks once without holding their mouse down, and a short time after, the block will break as if they had clicked and held to break it. This makes it easier to destroy multiple blocks quickly.
 * Step: This modification allows for the user to simply walk up multiple blocks as if they were half steps. The number of blocks is usually adjustable.
 * Tracers: This hack draws a line, which starts at the crossarrow, and ends at another players position. It is used to locate a player accurately.
 * X-Ray or Wallhack: Stops the rendering of any block besides ones desirable to the griefer. This hack is often used to find chests or valuable minerals such as diamond. It can be partially prevented using server plugins that disguise ores and chests that are not adjacent to transparent blocks.
 * Sprint or Speed: This will make the player sprint at the normal sprint speed, or faster. Most of the time, this will not deplete hunger.

Other Griefing Methods

 * Join Bots: Join bots, such as "PWN4G3", "World's End", "Paradigm", or "DarkBot" are used to join tens or hundreds of accounts ("bots") to a server at once, usually to lag or spam the server. There are multiple methods they can use, such as connecting and disconnecting rapidly, chat spamming, drop spamming (In Creative mode), and slot filling. They are often hard to ban due to the fact that they use many accounts and proxies. Proxies make every connection that the spammer makes to the server appear to come from a different PC, thus preventing IP bans. Join bots can be combatted with a good antispam plugin.

How to prevent griefing
While there is not much that can stop a determined griefer, there are ways for a server to mitigate the risks of being griefed. The following is a list of steps server owners can take to try to keep their server protected:
 * Protect the server with appropriate anti-griefing plugins.
 * Do not let administrators abuse their power (this can incite anger in users and bring about griefing). Also, be cautious in choosing who to give administrative permissions to begin with.
 * Should power abuse happen in severe cases, it may be a wise idea to be the only administrator.

For a much more in-depth (and anti-grief biased) analysis, see Crayboff's thread on the topic.
 * Be careful what permissions to which people have access. Owners can limit access with Server modifications.
 * Be careful where the server is advertised. While more exposure means more members, it also means griefers can find it just as easily.
 * Become familiar with what griefers are capable of doing. There are no hacks "to gain op" or "delete the server". If one takes the time to learn what is possible (by watching griefing videos from popular teams and reading griefing forums), you will be more able to counter it.
 * Change servers so that only friends (or owner) can do things big (but not grief if they want to).

Anti-griefing server modifications
While there are many people creating grief-friendly client modifications, there are equally dedicated programmers creating server plugins to foil their attempts. Using the popular and extensible Bukkit server software and other Server Mods, programmers have made numerous add-ons to enforce correct client behavior. There are plugins that allow administrators to log and rollback all edits done on an individual basis, employ jails to trap griefers, and even protect certain blocks or entire chunks.