Trolling
Trolling is the internet term for someone who acts as a sadist, or someone who performs actions for the detriment of the other mice.
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[edit] Definition
The key of spotting trolling behavior is the voluntariness of the interaction.
Trolls can't troll alone, as they need victims to perform their actions.
The trolling must be involuntary forced into the victim to be considered as such. If the individual being trolled is voluntarily accepting the trolling, then it isn't trolling by definition. (The same way that being mugged is involuntary and giving money to someone is voluntary.)
[edit] Trolling in Transformice
Trolling can be done by both the shaman and the mice. Trolling as a regular mouse is much more common, and can normally be more disruptive to gameplay. Shaman trolling, however, is much more abusive, but is also short lived due to the player being Shaman only once in a while.
In the “Help/Rules” section of the game interface, it says trolling is generally not against the rules. This means that troll-like gameplay cannot result in a moderator-ban. However, mice are free to vote-ban the troll if enough votes are accumulated.
Hackers are usually a type of troll who may anger other mice by cheating. Hacking warrants an immediate ban from a moderator.
Guests are anonymous mice that randomly appears in rooms. 80% of the Guests are trollers. They attempt to take firsts from other mice and kill all mice as Shaman. The 1st guest that was ever made was: *meep.
[edit] Preventing Trolling
The best way to prevent trolling is choosing carefully the rooms that you play in. Sharing your play time with non-trolling friends in private rooms is the wisest choice.
[edit] Avoiding Trolling
If the player doesn't have the luck to have formed a good bunch of friends to play troll-safe, here are some tactics to minimize troll exposure.
- Room change The most efficient way to escape from a troll is to type on the chat /room <name> or just /room to change to a random room.
- Ignoring For verbal trolls, the player can use the /ignore command to stop receiving troll messages on the chat.
- Vote-banning Typing /ban <trollname> will add a vote to void the troll player from the game by one hour. Though ten votes are needed to perform this, and it will rarely happen on most rooms.
- Indifference Sometimes, trolls don’t exhibit troll-like behavior if nobody responds. If the troll is not acknowledged, the troll will most often stop his/her behavior.
- Counter-Trolling For gameplay trolls, sometimes the shaman is able to knock the troll off the map in the beginning of the game. However, this is rare. Counter-trolling, also known as “trolling the troll”, may be effective to upstage the troll and discourage him/her from the trollish behavior.
[edit] Troll themes as a Shaman
In most common scenarios as a shaman, trolls find ways to knock mice off the map, making it impossible for other mice to get the cheese, or tricking players into jumping on invisible planks so mice fall off the map. Troll shamans often create the Anvil God by summoning several anchored anvils. Occasionally, this can crash the game for some (or all) players. Troll shamans can also spam-summon objects (often by using the double-spawn glitch) to trap mice, i.e. covering them with multiple boxes and/or planks so the mice cannot escape on their own.
In longer maps that may take time to complete, a troll shaman can jump off the map to automatically reduce the time to 20 seconds. However, not all shamans that do this are trolls. They can simply be inexperienced players that are frightened by the map’s complexity.
In maps that must have shaman assistance, troll shamans may do nothing to assist mice in reaching the cheese. In the meantime, the troll shaman can attempt knocking mice off of the map by repeatedly summoning drag balls. If the map can be done without the assistance from the shaman, sometimes the troll can block the mousehole (often by placing a large box with a B-anchored plank). If a mouse is wall-jumping, the troll shaman may drop anvils or summon a drag ball to knock the mouse off of the map.
You can see other examples of what trolls can do in the Shaman Items list.
[edit] Troll themes as a Mouse
The trolling abilities as a regular mouse mostly affect the shaman. For example, troll mice can run into a contraption that the shaman has built, and knock it off the map (sometimes putting the shaman in the path of the build, and knocking him/her off the map with it!). In collision maps, troll mice can be even more violent in their trolling, by deliberately pushing other mice off of the map, namely the shaman.
A more passive kind of trolling is just using emotes (such as dancing or laughing), or ducking repeatedly toward the shaman to taunt him/her. The shaman may attempt to knock the mouse off the map with a cannonball, but this may waste time that can be used to complete the map. Troll mice can also refuse to go into the mousehole to progress onto the next map, typically resulting in longer waiting times and the shaman not being able to go into the hole.
[edit] Verbal Trolling
Verbal trolling isn’t limited to just Transformice. It can take place where anyone can speak. Verbal trolling can be done by anyone (as long as they have the ability to speak in-game). But in the game, depending on the severity of the case, verbal trolling can result in a ban from a moderator. Some words are forbidden to be used, namely racial/ethnic slurs and slurs related to sexual orientation. Promoting political or religious subjects can also result in a punishment or warning, as they often result in flame wars. Trolls may deliberately break the rules to anger other mice. [1]
However, there are forms of verbal trolling that are not rule-breaking, and thus more common. But they usually still involve minor insults, such as harassing others if they can’t walljump, or insulting the shaman if he/she can’t build properly. Sometimes, a troll can reach an “island” of ground that is very difficult to access, and taunts other mice by chanting “Pro island” to possibly encourage other mice to try to get there, usually leading to mice falling off the map attempting to reach the “island”.
Verbal trolls often have a narcissistic personality when it comes to competition. They may be targeted by a shaman, but dodge all the attacks from the shaman and brag about their victory of not being knocked off the map. If they get first place (or sometimes anywhere near first), they may also chant of their victory.
[edit] Room Dedicated to Trolling
One room dedicated to trolling is room “troll”. Typically, it is similar to the survivor minigame, except in normal maps. The shaman often uses many trolling techniques to prevent the mice from getting cheese. Blocking the mousehole is often not considered trolling, and may result in a vote-ban.
