World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

As is the case with almost all griefing occurrences, the aftermath was almost as noteworthy as the initial incident. Graef’s husband issued takedown notices to YouTube, where the inflammatory video was posted, claiming copyright infringement of the Anshe Chung avatar. Graef later changed his protest to claim that the videos did not constitute a copyright violation, but were nonetheless clearly defaming and in fact constituted a sexual assault. In the end, the video was re-published on YouTube, albeit with an age restriction.

Martin Fury Does Ulduar

World of Warcraft - April 2009

In a game with over 250 servers (not to mention 12 million players) it takes a lot for one player to grab everyone’s collective intention. Leeroy Jenkins is about the only household name that comes to mind among MMO players. But late last month, just about every WoW player was discussing the exploits of one particular gnomish warrior in a nondescript Vek’nilash guild.

It's pretty hard to argue with Martin Fury.

More often than not, YouTube-enhanced claims of finding a GM item lead to someone getting his or her jollies on a private server. Not so in this case. All accounts show that our protagonist, Karatechop, wasn’t looking to make a show of his win button. But in an Armory-powered, achievements-driven game, it’s hard to keep a secret. Almost immediately the leaderboard-attuned were wondering how The Marvel Family guild had achieved numerous world-firsts and how one player in particular had scored a hit of over 350 million damage. (By comparison, one of the toughest bosses currently in the game, Yogg Saron, clocks in at just over 55 million hitpoints on heroic.)

Karatechop told his side of the story to WoW Insider, but whatever the course of events that granted him a shirt with 100 charges of “kill all enemies in a 30 yard radius”, the odds of him hacking or exploiting the game with malicious intent seem incredibly low. More than likely, an error was made in restoring items to a friend’s hacked account, or maybe it can be traced back to a GM’s last day antics.

Whatever the case, Karatechop’s sin of omission in not reporting or deleting Martin Fury has cost him a warrior decked out in epic gear. Whether or not regular players should be able to wield GM weapons period, the causal linkage (to use an analogy: if you give the homicidal maniac the gun he wants desperately, don’t you bear a big share of the responsibility for the shooting spree?), or any number of ethical arguments simply don’t matter when Blizzard wields the ban hammer lightly.

The Great EIB Bank Heist

EVE Online - August 20th, 2006

EVE has had its share of controversies, from dev intrigues to underhanded corporate takeovers to massive battles that turn on a single well-placed spy. The good news is you can read about all of that and more weekly in our Sins of a Solar Spymaster column. Any massive single shard sandbox must have it’s dustups from time to time. But nowhere are these dustups more avoidable than in EVE’s completely unsecured and unregulated banking system.

On the face of it, EVE players stockpile ISK like hotel shampoo, so why not make that ISK work for you while you’re out-of-game training for long periods? If you’ve got 30 days of training before you can fly a battleship, why buy that battleship today? Invest your money with EIB and have money left over for that Tech 2 turret you’ve always wanted. Operators are standing by!

“The usual customers of 'EVE Banks' are people who live in the protected area of EVE,” The Mittani, leader of Goonswarm and our resident Spymaster explained. “They tend to be less acquainted with how the game really works, and expect that CCP would step in to bail them out much like a GM in World of Warcraft does after a scam.”