Hackers, Griefers, and Havoc
Why do they do it?

Background
Alright, to start this out, a little background. I have owned a server for about a year and a half now, and needless to say have had my fair share of greifers and hackers. Personally, I deal with most of the players that try to hack, greif, or cheat with nocheat or worldguard. As foolproof as this may sound, it does not catch all of them. The human element is needed with good staff and other players reporting, but either way, it happens. The question today then, is why? Why to people like to greif, hack, or cause general havoc on a server. Players come on and cheat, or simply destroy another person's hard work. Why do they do this?



Cheaters and Hackers
In all normality, it would seem obvious. A player will cheat to 'beat the system' and get ahead. They will exploit glitches in the game or server to get farther than the other players, faster. But what's the point? I mean usually, server owners or staff like myself will catch these people, and banish them from the server forever, thus making their 'hard work' completely pointless. Why come on and cheat if you know eventually you will get caught? To me at least, such tomfoolery is pointless to say the least, but even so many people do it. Perhaps it is simply for the fun of it. Minecraft is essentially a roleplaying computer game, where a player can become whatever they want. These are probably just regular good kids, that wanted to dabble a little on the 'bad' side of things, and for once not follow the rules. Granted, I know it sounds like I'm sypathising with them, and I know this isn't the case with all cheaters. Maybe they just like the rush, the fun and thrill of doing something bad or 'illegal' for once. Whatever the motive, it still happens, and will continue to happen as long as Minecraft servers exist.


Griefers
Now to address the big one, the greifers. People who come on your server for the sole purpose of destroying the things you worked so hard to create. Sometimes they come in teams, and others a lone wolf. Waiting for you to leave the server unattended for them to creep up and break everything you've worked on. However, there are simple means that can be employed to stop these people. I personally have used simple plugins to be able to roll back greifs, essentially making their antics pointless. Yet, just today, a group of them came onto my server, and inspired this post. They broke out of the Casino into the flatmap world and 'greifed' some things. It was completely pointless, and almost a bit comical, as the minigame they thought they were breaking was an unprotected copy of the real game that was just a few blocks away. Even so, they procceeded to waste time and destroy everything they could. Why do people do this? Is it again to get that rush of destorying things? This is no different than preschoolers playing with wood blocks... one of them will build a grand tower, only for the bully to come and knock it down and laugh, just for the fun of it. This in itself seems odd to me. We're more mature than that, right? Why does it give such sick pleasure to people to break other people's creations that they know they worked hard on? In fact, just the other day, a team of greifers came onto one of my friend's servers. They greifed the entire thing, destroying spawn, people's homes, and forcing op. It caused havoc on the server. In just a matter of a few hours, they had destroyed everything he had worked on over the past month. It must give these people some sort of sick pleasure or sport to break other people's things in this way. What kind of person does it take to completely destroy something someone has worked on for over a month?

Reflection
Many times while playing online multiplayer games, we often forget that we are playing with real people. There is another person somewhere out into the world, that has to join their server to find it gone. That has to hurt, and I do not think that these people realize it. How different would the game be if we could see eachother's faces, interact with by really talking, and playing games? Would people still be so cruel as to greif, cheat, hack, and destory? Would there be half as much cursing, negativity, and generally mean comments? What if you did have to say everything you've said online to that person's face, and not just a whimsical name followed by a bunch of numbers. The Minecraft world, and real world for that matter, might be a far different place.

Your Thoughts
Now I'd like to hear what you guys think. Some of you might be server owners like myself, or just want to get your opinion out there. Others might have personally experienced players like the ones mentioned above. Still some, might be griefers and hackers themselves. I would like to hear from all of you. Tell me what you think in the comments! Want to take a gander at my server? Here:
PMC Post Link
MagnusCraft Casino Server Website

Thanks,
- doubleB1776