The 7 Biggest **** Moves in the History of Online Gaming

by Stangmar

Back to The Funnies.

Stangmar2011-06-29 06:48:39
I read this on another forum. They linked to this webpage, and quoted the text.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-7-bi...online-gaming/
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#7.The EVE Super-Heist

EVE Online's universe consists of 350,000 active subscribers piloting customizable space craft around 7,500 solar systems. Putting that many people in space with lasers might sound like an open horizon to awesome, but the players who hang out there created a fully functional free market economy that ends up feeling more like space accountancy.

As with the real-world economy, making a profit in the world of EVE Online is easier if you form corporations. While many spend years working together for mutual gain, others behave a lot like corporations do in the real world. Or at least how they would if they operated in a universe where murder is legal.

For instance, the Guiding Hand Social Club assassinates people for profit and steals their stuff for bonuses. In one instance, they were hired to destroy "Mirial," the CEO of Ubiqua Seraph corporation. While many EVE Online players literally grind rocks for hours to make a profit, the GHSC use the assignment to show everyone what Ocean's Eleven would have been like if it took place in the Star Wars universe. No one has had so much more fun than everyone else playing a game since Michael Jackson suggested Junior Twister.

First, they got jobs with the target corporation and worked their way up the ranks. The primary assassin became second in command of the entire firm because the background checks for imaginary space pilots aren't very good.
Then, after a year of real-time play, they struck harder than Keyser Soze in that one flashback scene where he's played by Fabio. They killed Mirial, emptied the corp's accounts and hangars, stole everything that wasn't bolted down and blew up everything that was, then killed Mirial again because EVE is specifically programmed to let you kill people twice. The first time gives you all the XP and valuable wreckage, but allows the murdered player to escape in a pod. The second does nothing but shout, "Screw You!" with murder (which is admittedly the best way to do that).

They scooped up the virtually vacuum-frozen corpse for delivery to a client who had paid the equivalent of 500 real dollars for the hit. Which pales next to the $16,500 (again, real-world money) worth of items destroyed or stolen in the raid. Also, holy ****, people are paying to assassinate hated video game characters now.

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#6.The Corrupted Blood Plague (World of Warcraft)

In 2005, Blizzard added a new boss with a hit-point draining spell that effected anyone standing directly next to him. Since stepping to the boss meant you were probably about to die anyway, they saw no harm in making the spell contagious. The only explanation is that Blizzard had never been on the Internet, and therefore had no clue that basic humanity transforms from "Don't share this poop-filled video with anyone because it's horrible" to "THIS IS ABSOLUTELY HORRIFIC I MUST SHARE IT WITH AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE!" Players soon worked out how to teleport the plague out of the dungeon and into the real (fake) world. An MMORPG pandemic was born.

The hit-points it took away were enough to instantly-kill low level players, so high-level players immediately started teleporting around the map as much as possible. Because if there's one thing World of Warcraft players hate more than people who don't play, it's people who do play but not as much as them. The Breakfast Hen has more respect for its young than online gaming culture, and it's an imaginary bird which lays eggs directly onto a frying pan.
The plague killed new players, old players; it even infected non-player characters who couldn't get sick but acted as carriers -- so talking to an innkeeper about killing 10 wolves could infect and kill you. But after your 20th "Lo, noble warrior, kill exactly 10 pests for me like an OCD Orkin man," that was probably a relief.

It was also revealing: In a game where people can be heroic knights or masterful mages, many leaped at the chance to become Terrorist Tyhpoid Mary. A small Taliban like force of plague-carriers actively fought Blizzard while hiding in the mountains, breaking quarantines and even incubating the plague through server-purges by infecting their own virtual pets then re-infecting themselves. They forced Blizzard into hard server resets, nuking and reinstalling their entire world. It was douchebaggery on measurable scientific and national security scales: Real-life scientists and bioterrorism experts now study it as a case example. Presumably before drinking themselves into unconsciousness when they realize they're protecting a species that commits bio-terror in order to destroy worlds they hang out in for fun.

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#5.Despawn of the Sleeper (EverQuest)

You're playing a game where you kill things. What do you do with a giant dragon that kills things, can only be woken by killing four smaller dragons first and is now trying to kill you? If you said "kill it" you just surprised the hell out of Sony who, to be fair, have never claimed they weren't wearing human-skin suits while studying these Earth things called "game-ers." Kerafyrm the Sleeper was EverQuest's dragon-equivalent of Sauron, if Sauron drove the Death Star to work. It had a hundred times as many hit points as any other boss, was immune to most damage, had two spammable instant-kill attacks because screw you and didn't work right because it was online and programmed by Sony.

It forced the three top guilds to co-operate, which makes herding cats look easier than getting Bollywood extras to move in step. It was Sesame Street by way of Lord of the Rings, specifically the end of the third movie, since for over three hours, 180 players turned themselves into a Sisyphean Zerg horde. Resurrecting each other faster than the monster could kill them, they put in Herculean feats of teamwork that cruelly mocked the concept of "fun." They fought like warrior poets, they fought like Scotsmen and eventually ground the boss down to 22 percent health -- at which point Sony turned the whole thing off and acted like it was the players' fault. So if you're wondering how they can keep the PlayStation Network off for a week and act like that's fine, it's because they've been practicing.

They took their ball and went home, where their ball was a giant harbinger of doom and the focus of the entire game.
Showing less regard for their users than an Iron Maiden, they released a rubbish (and later disproven) excuse about how Kerafyrm's programming had been distracted by an NPC -- and you'll notice how even their own excuse is based on their incompetence -- before simply apologizing and resetting the entire event, telling players to try again. It was like Lucy tricking Charlie Brown if Lucy was making millions of dollars making Charlie Brown miss, and if it took three man-weeks to run up to the football.

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#4.Crashing The (Funeral) Party (World of Warcraft)

A Horde guild proved a lot of the good things people say about online relationships by holding a respectful in-game funeral for a friend who had died in real life, and an Alliance guild, Serenity Now, proved everything else they say by massacring everyone present. As **** moves go, it's effective and tactical: Everyone's clustered together, no one's expecting to fight and you've got one less target than normal.

Proving that the only reason the Internet still exists is because it's not possible to kill other people through computer screens, most people familiar with WoW culture sort of shrugged, and said, "Yeah, they sort of had it coming." The targets were holding their funeral on a PvP (Player-versus-Player) server. The victims could have mourned their friend somewhere besides the middle of the battle field, but instead, they mourned a real tragedy to demand special treatment. This was the closest the Internet gets to real war after all, and you don't see soldiers mourning their dead in the middle of the battle field.

Actually, it turns out real-world soldiers even show more respect for the dead than WoW players. Yes, it was stupid of them to give out their location and advise people they wouldn't be ready to fight without first getting confirmation that everyone was on board with the ceasefire. Yes, they should have known that relying on mutual respect online is like relying on body armor made of beefsteak in a lion enclosure. But if the German and British soldiers managed to hold off on avenging real deaths for an entire week during WWI, we have a tough time siding with the guys who couldn't hold off for an hour in a fake online world.

NSFW for song lyrics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgXW-cKI1bw

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#3.Assassinating The Inventor of MMORPGs (Ultima Online)

Richard Garriott invented the MMORPG, and the computer system he invented found a way to kill him, just like '80s movies warned. Ultima Online was the first MMORPG to hit 100,000 players, teaching developers a lot about social interaction and game economics and what colossal dicks players were about both. Naive programmers spent months coding adventures and monsters only to watch players immediately set about raping and pillaging the game mechanics, the physical laws of their world and each other. If MMORPG players were around when God said, "Let their be light" they'd have called the light gay, and plunged the universe back into darkness by squatting their nutsacks over it.

Dog-headed humanoids riding horses and lots of naked people -- yep, it's online all right.
Roving gangs of high-level players exterminated noobs the instant they arrived. It was the Jurassic Park of griefers, except velociraptors were more welcoming because their little hands can't type "FAG" on a keyboard. They used glitches to duplicate items and wrecked the game's economy, showing more hatred for newly arrived citizens and blatant disregard for financial logic than the Tea Party's right wing.

When Mr. Garriot visited the cyberworld of violent murderers he'd created, it was a Dr. Moreauvian plan that yielded predictable results. First, his highly publicized appearance attracted every player in the game to one location, crashing the beta servers. The game was forced to turn off the automatic sentries dispatched to protect him. When Garriot logged back in he forgot to re-enable his invincibility option. User "Rainz" stole a fire field scroll (only possible because the guards were gone) and tried to come at the king. The attack was so randomly suicidal (Rainz had no idea the invincibility was gone) that Garriot's asbestos player-guards were already mocking the assassin over text chat, wondering how the assassin thought, "such a petty spell" could work on the invincible king -- seen right next to that text engulfed in flames.

When their king suddenly burned to death they reacted about as rationally as a combined "video gamer who's been proven wrong" and a "high-level warlock with access to demons" would by summoning hordes of monsters and massacring everyone at the castle. Without guards, the players were able to fight back, triggering a full-scale virtual riot which ended with admins teleporting entire groups of players into space, where the players survived approximately as well as real people from the Middle Ages would have survived in space.

So at least it was a successful beta test -- Garriott wanted to find out what MMORPG players were like, and they killed him just to see if they could.

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#2.Literal **** Attack (Second Life)

Second Life is a complete virtual environment that compliments reality by helping people who are no good at the real world voluntarily remove themselves. One of the biggest figures in this world is millionaire Anshe Chung. Real-world teacher Ailin Graef created Anshe as a Second Life avatar, but as the avatar's virtual business grew she took "Anshe" as a real name and had to start acting like her in interviews. She's basically a William Gibson character escaped into a real (fake) world.

In an adorable misunderstanding of technology, CNET attempted to film a "live" interview in the virtual world, forgetting that the real studio audiences only behave because security can flatten them, and Second Life isn't TRON so that's not an option here. The interview had barely started when Anshe was bombarded with an army of flying disembodied penises.

Unfortunately, TV networks believe their own rubbish about being able to fight hackers in real time instead of just switching the system off and cursing, so she was left at the mercy of armies of cyber-cocks. She teleported out to escape what was rapidly becoming a Japanese cartoon, then revealed that she doesn't know how virtual worlds work either. Deciding not to return to the now secure CNET studio, she invited everyone into her own home server instead. There are men hopping back into minefields on one leg with better pattern recognition than that. The cockbardment immediately resumed with mind-bending meta-porn of her virtual body attacked by pictures of her real body photoshopped to hold a fake penis.

The horrible cock-mobile mindlessly pressing against fake women brought down her entire server, generated a lot of publicity for the event and gave TV executives the idea for Jersey Shore.

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#1.The Ultimate Investment Scam (EVE)

Player "Cally" won at EVE Online despite it being a massively multiplayer game with no victory condition. Other players earn ISK (game currency) by mining, completing quests or killing each other. Cally, on the other hand, simply asked for it. And it worked, and there was nothing they could do about it. Because while the other losers went into the economy as honest workers, or corporations, he realized he could go in as a bank.

He spent months running the "EVE Intergalactic Bank (EIB)." This offered loans for start-up EVE corporations and miners who wanted to buy tools, with interest rates and repayment plans and yes, we're still talking about a game people apparently play for fun.

Cally certainly had fun: He fulfilled the secret fantasy of every bank manager in history, when one day, he walked in and just took all the money. All the money was 790 billion ISK, about $170,000 in real dollars, which he used to become the greatest video game villain of all time. He spent a huge chunk of the money to buy a ridiculously powerful warship, another chunk posting a huge bounty on his own head, then sailed off into space just daring people to kill him.

The ultimate dickery? He posted a 15-minute video bragging about how he got away with it, mocking his loyal employees at EIB, enemies who failed to stop him and the suckers who basically paid for a second job -- essentially paying for the right to have their money stolen. Understand: Cally is now officially smarter than every Bond villain put together, because he found a way to give an expository monologue without getting killed.

Luke also tumbles and writes on his own site. If you like videogame shenanigans, you should check out Umbrella: The Most Wasteful Movie Corporation Ever and 7 games that gave you the best weapon right away.
Seraku2011-06-29 06:54:03
Thankfully I missed the wow blood plague thing. Also, Im rather surprised that the Falador Massacre in Runescape wasn't mentioned. It was kind of a big deal because in that game, if you died you lost EVERYTHING IN YOUR INVENTORY except for one random item.
Calixa2011-06-29 08:09:44
EVE is king as usual \\o/ And we'd not love it if it were any other way. I can add a few examples to that list, one scam in which I had personally invested. Luckily, I'm clever enough to not put all my eggs in one basket and didn't lose much at all. In fact in the months it was still a legit investment I did get about half my investment back.

I remember that funeral party thing in WoW. That left a bad taste in my mouth. Where as in EVE the entire culture is that it's kill or be killed, WoW targets a different audience. The blood plague however was absolutely marvelous.

With the current hysteria going on in EVE, long story short being RMT being badly received due to high prices + media outlets spreading sensationalist information + developers being unclear on what the future is like, I've spent a lot of my weekend both keeping up with the development of this hysteria, watching how rumors ride social waves, as well as reading up on social psychology. Herd behavior is fascinating. People can become utter twats in large groups. And this does not just happen online. There is a good reason when someone wants to jump off of a building the crowd is taken apart. Not just to protect them from seeing it happen, but also to protect them from starting to shout for the person to actually jump Now you might think as a rational person you'd never do this. But even the most level-headed among us are prey to it happening.

Now I am curious, have we had things like this in Lusternia? And how were they received?
Kaalak2011-06-29 09:04:25
EVE is EVE. It will always be amusing for anecdotes like this and characters like Remedial and the Mittani. If memory serves, Remedial is still in prison. Anyway.

QUOTE (Calixa @ Jun 29 2011, 09:09 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
People can become utter twats in large groups. And this does not just happen online. There is a good reason when someone wants to jump off of a building the crowd is taken apart. Not just to protect them from seeing it happen, but also to protect them from starting to shout for the person to actually jump Now you might think as a rational person you'd never do this. But even the most level-headed among us are prey to it happening.


I disagree. Most people are not rational. A sizable percentage of human beings are stupid, gullible, lack conviction in their beliefs and are casually cruel in groups or alone. Though old, I think the classical studies of the Stanford Prison Experiment and Stanley Milgram's experiments illustrate this pretty well.

EVE is amusing because you can see just how successful a sociopath can function in an environment where no one knows his reputation and no one can kill him. Take the gentleman who formed a bank then ran with the cash. I often wonder exactly how many times a situation like this arose in isolated cities or communities in the Classical (Greek/Roman) world and if individuals like that had a measurable effect on setting back the progress of civilization.

QUOTE (Calixa @ Jun 29 2011, 09:09 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Now I am curious, have we had things like this in Lusternia? And how were they received?


Lusternia's economy is overseen by the admin, unlike EVE, so not really. Even in Imperian the Admin stepped in when large amounts of cash were taken from an organization. The logs are on nogfx.
Calixa2011-06-29 10:22:12
Mittens <3 Had the pleasure of speaking with him at Fanfest. Quite the character.

And true, people are stupid even as individuals, I just mentally ignore it most of the time, else living gets quite depressing v0v

Not even any Lusternia drama that didn't involve large heists? There's got to be something worth of history? sad.gif
Aison2011-06-29 10:52:52
QUOTE (Calixa @ Jun 29 2011, 03:22 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Not even any Lusternia drama that didn't involve large heists? There's got to be something worth of history? sad.gif


I very vaguely remember something from Achaea where someone robbed an order or a guild or maybe a city for a lot of gold and credits. They got away with it as well from what I recall. I guess the admin had stated that they appointed them, so they kind of deserved what they got. Though part of me is thinking that the guy gave some of it back (or was forced to?), but he went dormant, or something. I can't be sure now.

I don't remember any other details. However! Big heists do and certainly can happen in IRE games!
Arix2011-06-29 10:57:57
Annabelle. Just ask any oldbie about Annabelle
Jack2011-06-29 11:11:52
QUOTE (Calixa @ Jun 29 2011, 11:22 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Not even any Lusternia drama that didn't involve large heists? There's got to be something worth of history? sad.gif

Large-scale organizational theft can be easily rectified by an admin (and thankfully so, since otherwise, unscrupulous leaders could nab hundreds of real life dollars worth of credits and run for the hills). Consequently, the worst you get in Lusternia is small scale theft and griefing, which doesn't quite compare to crashing a virtual funeral. Still... we've had some humorously douchebaggy moments - that one courtesy of Yrael, coincidentally!
Unknown2011-06-29 11:27:04
QUOTE (Jack @ Jun 29 2011, 07:11 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Large-scale organizational theft can be easily rectified by an admin (and thankfully so, since otherwise, unscrupulous leaders could nab hundreds of real life dollars worth of credits and run for the hills). Consequently, the worst you get in Lusternia is small scale theft and griefing, which doesn't quite compare to crashing a virtual funeral. Still... we've had some humorously douchebaggy moments - that one courtesy of Yrael, coincidentally!

Trying to read more than a few posts into that thread made me want to put my head down. Maybe multiple times, against a very hard surface.
Jack2011-06-29 11:28:47
Whyzat? I remember a Flame War™ broke out, but that's 'bout it.

EDIT: haha, wow, read it. That thread makes me nostalgic for the days when you could call people morons without being warned for it.
Unknown2011-06-29 12:40:30
Let's face it. People are jerks. After the funeral thing in WoW I refused to even consider playing for a long time.

I like Lusternia. In general, we've got a pretty good group of people, pleasant to play with when not being griefed out of the game.

(and EVE, as others have said, is, well... EVE. Does anyone take this game seriously?)
Ialie2011-06-29 13:13:18
The only one I can think of for Lusternia is when Ketheru was coming back and such and we had to kill a billion astral creatures to get this harmony seal, and after what seemed like forever we get the seal and Daevos orders it to be put in the Magnagoran Nexus.


I DIDN'T FORGET DAEVOS!
Enyalida2011-06-29 14:09:40
In Lusty, it happens every once and a while, but if you steal from an org large scale, you get griefed out of the game by that org and ALL OTHER ORGS (for the most part). You can't spend or use anything that you steal because no one ever will sell to you or trust you, and you end up either giving it back and still being mostly hated, or keeping it/burning it on something stupid and no longer playing that character (or known alts, probably).
Jack2011-06-29 14:13:35
QUOTE (Ialie @ Jun 29 2011, 02:13 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
The only one I can think of for Lusternia is when Ketheru was coming back and such and we had to kill a billion astral creatures to get this harmony seal, and after what seemed like forever we get the seal and Daevos orders it to be put in the Magnagoran Nexus.

I DIDN'T FORGET DAEVOS!

HEY! He thought you had to do that! Don't step to the ur'Warlord!

... although when the Tainted Fae event reached its apex, and the Nihilists and Moondancers were collaborating to kill Gorgulu-on-fae-steroids, Daevos did order the Geomancers to kill everyone present...
Unknown2011-06-29 14:19:33
QUOTE (Enyalida @ Jun 29 2011, 11:09 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
In Lusty, it happens every once and a while, but if you steal from an org large scale, you get griefed out of the game by that org and ALL OTHER ORGS (for the most part). You can't spend or use anything that you steal because no one ever will sell to you or trust you, and you end up either giving it back and still being mostly hated, or keeping it/burning it on something stupid and no longer playing that character (or known alts, probably).


Precisely. Ya screw up, we hear about it, we'll shun you. I think part of what keeps most people in line is the shame they would face and the griefing from other orgs/players.
Daraius2011-06-29 14:35:41
Nobody remembers Lusternia's own plague and the juicebags who spread it?

We at least got an easily accessible cure, though.
Llesvelt2011-06-29 14:37:09
THEY NEVER GOT ME! Muahahaha!
Daraius2011-06-29 14:40:37
QUOTE (Llesvelt @ Jun 29 2011, 10:37 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
THEY NEVER GOT ME! Muahahaha!


*fistbump*
Esano2011-06-29 15:19:20
I ran soooo many trips to Canker during that event.

And I was the first person to eacheat a chocolate bunny....
Lehki2011-06-29 16:01:12
Didn't Celest cough up the credits for Talkan to buy a cubix, and then he just stopped playing right after? Can't recall if there was a reason he disappeared.