Why was 'smurfing' born in the online battle game where you made subaka and hunted beginners?



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Smurfing '' is an act of playing at a lower level level than actual skill by creating and using a sub-account in online battle games, etc., and it is a cheating that leads to ``beginner hunting'' It has been accepted. Inverse summarizes how this 'smurfing' was born and spread on the Internet.

Smurfing meaning in gaming: How an annoying strategy became a viral meme
https://www.inverse.com/gaming/smurfing-meaning-gaming-overwatch-league-of-legends

Smurfing is the process of creating a new sub-account and playing a game in order for a player with a high level of skill, such as an online battle game, to play against a player who is poorer than himself, such as a beginner. Players with advanced skills can play against opponents with lower levels than usual, so it is possible to take a break and enjoy the play itself, but it is higher than the original opponent For beginners who have to compete against skilled opponents, this is a nuisance that is a nuisance.

Inverse said the smurfing was 'just like Pepsi's CM where NBA player Kylie Irving impersonates an old man and participates in street basketball. It's certainly funny and you can meet NBA players four times in a row. After the dunk was decided, the side that actually played together felt like being fooled.”

Smurfing is nothing but the act of mocking the basic 'matching function of players so that they can match opponents of the same level' in online battle games. Note that while the popular online battle royal game ' Fort Knight ' bans smurfing, League of Legends has defended smurfing as a way for players to test new strategies.



One of the popular YouTube channel subscribers with over 11.8 million YouTube subscribers, Tfue has even made a video about smurfing at Fort Knight as part of a plan to entertain viewers.

Smurfing in ranked fortnite-YouTube


The term smurfing is beginning to be used outside the game community, and is being used on the Internet as, for example, 'to pretend to be an 'amateur who posts an interesting video' by a professional.' Also, on Reddit on the overseas bulletin board, there is a subreddit specializing in smurfing that is performed in the real world, not in the game ``IRL Smurfing (smurfing in the real world)'', and nearly 96,000 users participate doing. On 'IRL Smurfing', there are posted movies in which professional musicians pretend to be beginners and movies in which professional soccer players pretend to be beginners .

IRLSmurfing: Real life smurfs
https://www.reddit.com/r/irlsmurfing/top/



Geoff “Shlongor, who was a famous player ofWarcraft II: Tides of Darkness ” that appeared in 1996, was the first to do “smurfing” that has become widely used not only in the game area but also in the real world. 'Frazier and Greg 'Warp' Boyko. At that time, when doing online battles such as Warcraft II and command & conquer , the method of using software called ' Kali ' was the mainstream, and it seems that two people were also using Wari to play online battle of Warcraft II.

To compete online in Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness using Kali, you had to enter the online competition lobby and wait for your opponent. However, it was possible to see the waiting player in the lobby, and since Mr. Frazier and Mr. Boyko were famous players, it seems that other players tended to avoid playing against two people. So Frazier and Boyko come up with the idea of creating a sub-account so that other players can't see themselves. The sub-account created by Frazier was 'Papa Smurf' and Boyko's sub-account was 'Smurfette'.



At that time, there was no way to record the game play screen, so many players took screenshots and left smurfing records on their blogs . In his blog, Frazier said, 'I'm having Warp II together with Warp in Subaka to enjoy playing against other players!' 'Playing as a smurf (sub-account) is fun!' I am writing .

It is said that Frazier and Boyko are playing games using sub accounts immediately, Frazier and others have encountered a player who enjoys playing games online by making sub accounts in the same way. is.

Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness As the online battles become more prevalent in games and beyond, smurfing will spread like wildfire. In particular, with the groundbreaking matching function installed in the online battle-ready ' Halo 2 ' released in 2004, the term 'smurfing' is widely known as being registered in the online dictionary site Urban Dictionary. It was decided to be done.

For Halo 2 online battles, Halo 2 online battles employ a system that ranks players by skill and matches players with similar skills during battles. This is the basis of rank matches like Overwatch's 'Rival Play', Fort Knight's 'Arena' and Splatoon's 'Gachi Match' and is also a great reason why beginners suffer from smurfing.



In ranked matches in online battle games, when a player loses, the number of points that determine his or her rank decreases. However, since the game side cannot know that this player is smurfing, only the player who lost to smurfing has many points unilaterally without harming the player who is creating the sub account. Will be reduced.

As a result, many games have seen smurfing as a problem, and developers face the question of whether or not to deal with smurfing, or whether to ban it. Overwatch's director Jeff Kaplan said of a big issue among players in 2019: 'I know there is a very bad perception of smuffing, but in fact and in the over-watch of the matching system has become so highly skilled player is rapidly isolated from the low-skilled player, ' he said underneath. Although Fortnite prohibits smurfing, the information that distinguishes an account as a sub-account currently depends on 'reports from players'.

When a player plays a gamer of the same rank, he has no way of knowing if the opponent is a gamer of the same rank, or if he is caught in the prank of the distributor who plays the game live on Twitch. Also, if you report to your opponent that 'the opponent is smurfing!' just because you lost the game, there is a possibility that you will hurt the innocent player, so there is nothing you can do on the player side. That is the current situation. As a result, Inverse writes, 'Timeless, smurfing continues in online competition.'

in Video,   Game, Posted by logu_ii