Birthday thread: MMO Stories

[Uncle Ball-Sack]

I can't tell you any good MMO stories of my own but I would recommend you check out Preach Gaming's "Drama Time" series on Youtube (the thumbnail of each episode is a goat wearing lipstick and mascara, don't ask why, I don't know). It's basically a show where Preach asks people to send him stories of the craziest things that happened to them in WoW or other MMOs and he reads them back over his stream. He uses a lot of WoW lingo but you can still understand the story fairly easily.

 

Here's a link to the playlist.

 

 

It's basically a show that has exactly what you're asking for. I love it and I'd really recommend you check it out. Hell, there's probably too much content there for you.

[Bob Builder]

This doesn't quite qualify as MMO, but if you haven't read the "Ballad of Edgardo," I think you need it in your life. From your list of requests, I think it's right up your alley. http://imgur.com/gallery/CMc5RMt

[MartyParty]

I've never really got into any MMOs, and the closest I've gotten was playing on different Minecraft Servers.

The funnest one I played was a short-lived Minecraft server hosted for the people of 4chan. I will be the first to say that 4chan is a cesspool, but I enjoy my corner of it, which is /tg/ the traditional games board for board games, D&D, WH40K, MtG, etc.

Well, the idea of the 4Craft server was that each board got an island and a faction, and you join the faction of the board you enjoy most.

Being /tg/ were obviously went along creating a Dwarf Fortress on our small frozen island that grew up into a mountain. At the time, I did not have a great computer, and even though the combat in Minecraft is not complicated, I mainly stuck to building up our base.

Because of a plugin/mod, players from other faction could no break blocks on your faction's land, so it was possible to build an impenetrable fortress (more on that later).

But seeing as we were trying to have a fun game, we made sure that it was possible for enemies to get into our fort, we just made it incredibly difficult for them to get very far.

The grand entrance was a large room surrounded by murder-holes for us to shoot invaders. Another important aspect of the plugin was that non-faction members could not activate buttons/levers. The murder-room worked well at first, but somehow enemies kept sneaking in. Turns out that they had invisibility potions, and that they would sneak through open doors.

This led to the development of the airlock system. We would have hallways with iron doors that could only be opened by pressing a button and quickly walking through. On a laggy server these were very annoying and sometimes a pain to get through, but it trapped the invisible invaders well enough. It seemed like the enemies of /tg/ had given up, but in fact they had organized spies to infiltrate our faction. From the inside, the spies could dig holes in the fort to let invaders in, and destroy our resources when most of us were asleep.

Eventually the server was reset, and each faction was given a new island.

This reset is thought to have killed the spark, but I believe that it was my board that really made the game not fun.

On the new server, the /tg/ island was similarly snow covered, but featured a vast frozen lake in the middle of a valley and a huge unclimbable mountain. We built our base on the inside of this mountain, with the entrance facing the interior of the island where the lake was.

There were a number of alliances and enemies between the boards of 4Chan, but everyone's enemy was /mlp/ the My Little Pony board...except for /tg/.

We all knew that the other boards would rush the /mlp/ island, so we struck and alliance with them. They would build a cloud fortress above the frozen lake in return for taxes and defense of the dwarf fort.

This alliance was controversial, and I suspect it motivated some of our faction to betray the group.

The first attack was the heaviest, but our fortress was too well designed this time. We had perfected the airlock system, but with traitors assisting the invasion it allowed the enemies to slowly make their way inside.

When we first started digging out the fortress, we dug out a huge cylinder within the mountain and build a heavily protected tower in the middle. To get from one level to another, you had to go through the tower.

We were able to defend the tower and prevent our enemies from reaching the top, where we stored our valuables, by shooting at the catwalks that connected the tower to the farms that the invaders had infiltrated.

My heart was racing as I shot at the invaders and they shot me off the tower. The base of the tower and they cylinder that surrounded it was a bedrock level, which reduces vision distance in Minecraft. I had almost died, but I was able to hide in the darkness and make it back into the tower.

The caves under the island and throughout the map were heavily mined. Man people used x-ray mods to just strip mine the best stuff easily, but the mines were often unguarded and were a weak point in our fort until we plugged them all up.

Then there was the mega-project. I believe it was built by an /mlp/-er, but I can't be sure. First, they build a border in the sky around the whole island, then used lava and water to create a gigantic wall around the island. Since there was a teleport home command, there was no need for an entrance. We planned on having Gates that lead to traps, but after the wall stopped a few raids for us, they stopped coming. The server soon died. I guess they were too frustrated to try beating us, but we were also frustrated by spies/malcontents constantly destroying our goods, and eventually the server just died.

It was one of the funnest times I've had playing a multiplayer game, and I'd like to play something similar but I haven't found it yet.

[MrBaman]

Here's a story that I heard from World of Warcraft. At the time, people only cared about the Ahn'Qiraj raid for the final boss. The raid itself took an eternity just to get there, and if the group wiped, that was a huge run back to the boss.

 

One guild found out a way to alter the game files to remove a floor under the first boss, as the final boss was just down there. Everyone who used this trick got a permanent ban.

[awolfgang]

This is the story of the creation of a super weapon in the fight of the few against the many in EVE online. This story is of a small corporation (of about two dozen members) called Rooks and Kings developing and using a super weapon, whose ammo was their own pilots, to take on some of the biggest coalitions in EVE. This weapon, known as a pipebomb, used battleships armed with smartbombs, a form of AOE weapon that blasts everything around a pilot's ship including allies, that would be "fired" by a capital ship towards the destination of an enemy fleet. Using this tactic Rooks and Kings destroyed fleets of over a hundred using fewer the 30 of their own. This video explains the rise and use of this weapon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNUu75fH8Uc

[Blightmare]

This isn't much compared to the famous WoW stories but it is basically me and my friends crowning achievement of our time playing.

 

Back when I played World of Warcraft my friend and I (who I met when i first started) were really big into world PvP, even though that was mostly dead in favor of battlegrounds. One of our late night hobbies when we were bored but not ready to log off, we would go around to horde towns (we were both alliance. Shut up, don't want to hear it) and attack them hoping to summon someone's level 80 to the fight. I don't remember how particularly but we ended up in the Burning Crusades first area (can't remember the name) so we thought "what the hell" and went on to attack one of the bases.

 

Well we got our wish. after 10 minutes 4 level 80 horde showed up to fight and eventually took us out. As we were recuperating and preparing again back at the alliance base, those 4 horde attacked ours. This summoned more alliance level 80's. Withing the span of an hour, both sides worked into a groove of attack and defense on each other, with a little more people joining the fight each time. Right before I went to bed, 2 horde clans and an alliance clan had come to join the fight but I was too tired to continue.

 

10 hours later, when i logged back in, the fight was still going, but there was so many people on that my internet couldn't keep up and was lagging me horribly. the attack notices in chat were flooding so rapidly that you couldn't see anyone's messages. Apparently the fight went on non stop for a total of 15 hours, complete with all the lower levels of each side making new characters on the other side for the sole purpose of shit-talking.

 

I'm still slightly upset that i missed a majority of it. People were still sour for several days after that ended and were trying, yet failing, to organize more raids on the horde capital. Idunno why anyone would be upset, that kinda thing is fun.

[Okamatan]

So, we're starting with stories now, Also Happy Birthday Ross.

 

A bit of context for this story. This was about five years back in the game Mabinogi, I was in a relatively active guild (Which was like a Roleplay Guild) and we were contributing with this other guild that was pretty much helping us with materials and all that til they went silent on us which was quite unusual due to them being like the most active guild I've known at the time, so one of my guildmates and I went to the normal place where most of the guild would be which was in a separate continent than the main one. (For those who know Mabinogi, I'm talking about Iria, not Belvast) Me and him practically searched everywhere for SOMEONE in that guild before bumping into one of the newer members somewhere around the Desert Region. Apparently he was a messenger for a war declaration against my guild which came as a surprise to me and my guildmate and we immediately took this message back to the Guild Master and a few days later, whoever was online in both guilds were pvping in Longa Desert! After all of the PvPing with everyone all tired and severely injured, one of the higher-ups of the other guild said "All of this. Just because you guys didn't say "Thank you" for that last helping of materials we gave." which made everyone laugh and a very few gone apeshit.

 

Who would've known the most generous and helpful guild to mine was ready to go to war when there was no "Thank you" for the stuff.

[Mognovox]

During hardmode progression our guildmaster invented a system for dealing with mistakes called suicide rolls, three strikes then a d10 to determine your fate. 1-5 would be normal mats for raid, but 6-10 were totally useless items in mass quantities (ie 1000 wolf pelts) and every time after the roll the same mistake was made the toll was doubled, all of these items were due next week too. One unlucky soul had to farm 16k vicious fangs he quit after he turned in the items.

 

In our boss kill pics we would spell out crude insults in smoke bombs to discourage other guilds. We actually got a guild to ask us to stop

 

During all of mists of pandaria we figured out how to do many boss fights by just kiting all of the adds and burning the boss, or just ignoring everything and burning the boss

 

We once got in a 4 way fight for a world boss that lasted 2 hours (chain taunting across a zone) until we finally won the fight and promptly recieved a 72-hour ban.

 

I have more, let me think

[Ant0n]

Here's a couple old WoW YTMND's

 

http://pvpisserious.ytmnd.com/

 

http://vazick.ytmnd.com/

[Cybersnake]

This was not in an MMO but in Half Life 2 Deathmatch. This story I have to share as it is too epic to keep private. There was a server called "Crime City" and this was an RP server (Earned money, took on a job, all that jazz) and we HATED how the admins on this server abused the admin rights that they had. Me, and a couple others took on the now banned role of Secret Service. We called ourselves the RSSA (Rebel Secret Service Agency). We took weeks to plan how we were going to fight admins who abused their power. What we did was snuck into the police station (Admins only) and followed an admin and killed him once we got far enough and used an in game tool "lockpicks" to get through the doors. Won't work on PD doors anymore nowadays. We took over the ENTIRE server keeping the admins out and having a LOT of people for those who got kicked for reason. We did get the server owner himself to get on the server and we said "NO MORE ADMIN ABUSE AND WE WILL STAND DOWN!". After we came to an agreement (which was very tough and involved arguing) the server conveniently crashed and rebooted. Since then, the server has never came back and the rules have been changed for RP so there isn't another uprising but we got 30 players to band together against admin rights abuse.

[Zeto1000]

Until 2012, I've played a MMO called Taikodom. Defunct now, but the community was something else. Forget the game's story, the players infused their story inside the game. The rest did not matter.

 

My memory is selective so it does betray me from time to time but I recall pretty interesting things from my days there.

 

Like EVE, a spacesim game such as Taikodom had players organize themselves in corporations. The game dragged on for many years since 2003... devs had little money so they did what they could with it. It became really interesting in 2008. Back then, there was a single, anarchist, overly powerful corporation named Death Law. Players from that corporation would login day and night to mine, secure stations, and lock systems and/or prevent traffic from other players. Their 'dedication' to the game and corporation was so great,that many had given their cellphone numbers to the other members, in case emergency action in particular systems was required. For all my days as a gamer, I've NEVER seen an organization to that extent, forget TeamSpeak, these guys had the ZIP code of one another, and they swapped computer hardware and ensured that the corporation remained dominant, with every player fully able to play the game. However, as the devs tried to fix the game (and several exploits) some of the changes angered Death Law's leader, BORGUE. He eventually decided to leave Taikodom altogether, running to EVE, and beginning the schism (and ever lasting conflict) within Deathlaw.

 

After much debate to the future of the corporation, no tangible agreement was reached, so Death Law split into several factions, and some of its players decided to join the existing enemies of Death Law (CONDUTA and The Illuminati). After the split was done, 3 corporations were born from Death Law: they were Infinity Space, Airborne Division, and the Corsairs.

 

Airborne Division maintained the organizational tactics and strategy of Death Law, Infinity Space worked to change the face of the Taikodom Universe, trying to paint Death Law in a new, less pirate-like image (mostly idealism, they did almost nothing), and the Corsairs were a small assortment of the best players left from Death Law.

 

Airborne, with the most players, began aggressive creation of new branches of itself, since corporation membership limit capped at 50 (if memory serves). In Taikodom, it was possible to obtain space habitats for spawning, and Airborne's brilliant (as much as it pains me to say it) leader managed to secure almost 60% of those habitats, effectively controlling much of uncivilized space outside the Core. This gave an edge to Airborne players, because they secured space with the best mineral resources XP-wise, and could breed an army of high level players. Airborne also maintained a rule of thumb, that was never followed, but it was there: never attack unaffiliated players below level 35. Nobody followed that rule, and it was because of Airborne players violating it, that I eventually decided to join the other side. That and the fact that they destroyed me, A LOT. Their goal was simple, control the game, the devs if need be, and ensure that only airborne players managed to play it completely. This goal simply did not resonate with me, because I could not figure it out for the life of me why they would undermine the game itself.

 

IS or Infinity Space had infighting from the start. Without properly established leadership, their corporation lost clout and thereafter much of its power. Essencially, IS was a paper tiger. It wasn't until 2010 that there were enough allied forces on their side that the could properly assemble a fleet to challenge Airborne. Always the understudy, they had average players, habitats in uninteresting locations, and a policy of no engagement until critical mass was achieved.

IS' attempts at disrupting Airborne operations were a joke at best. If anything, it would be a comparison of the FARCs vs the US full military complement (Airforce, ground force, navy, and intelligence). Guerrilla warfare was pointless due to the fact that in Taikodom what mattered was controlling nodes, tightly patrolled areas. Not expanding to every possible direction. To obtain or steal control from Airborne, one needed sleeper agents within their ranks to intercept cargo transfers to supplies for habitats. The dates, the merchants and the routes were all necessary information in taking a habitat from the enemy. Moreover, Airborne had foreseen this, and used Explorer ships, that carried much less than a freighter, but were unrivalled in speed, and therefore impossible to intercept. Such a technique had to be countered by guarding hypergates, and that was no easy task considering Airborne's power.

 

Finally, the Corsairs, the group I was affiliated to. It took a long time for me to enter the Corsairs but still, I managed to climb the 'corporate' ladder and become one of the advisors in the corp. Our group worked with a simple yet efficient motto: if you can't defeat them, you can't stop them. Our corporation, despite being small and holding only 2 habitats, could hold its own against airborne and anyone else in our way. Comprised of no more than 10 hardcore players, we worked with any field advantages we had against Airborne, be it tactical superiority, battlefield use, heavily augmented ships/weapons, and no formal training. To enter the Corsairs, one had to be a great player prior. There was no training program, if someone couldn't keep up with us they were soon dropped from the corp, resulting in a small but tactically adept team of highly skilled assassins. Still, Airborne was a corporation that could easily outgun us 10 to one, and fighting was left only when they bothered us.

 

By the end of the 2008 era, the final wars against Airborne were breaking out. Corporations like IS, Magedom, Benning, Corsairs, were turning the tide against them. We began to organize ourselves more, and work to calculate the timing of 'Concentrations', fields of asteroids with minerals that had a high XP value. By ensuring our access to those fields, we effectively threatened Airborne's grip in the outer, and more lucrative systems. Unfortunately, by working their agents and connections, Airborne managed to infiltrate a spy in our corporation, and by claiming to be a long lost friend of one of our advisors, he was quickly given a high title. I protested several times to the rest of the board (comprised of 3 other players) but for some odd reason they seemed hellbent in promoting the bastard.

Two days later, all our habitats were wiped clean, and our message board was filled with boasting and slander. Where Airborne could not break us in the battlefield, they did it from the inside. We lost our habitat in Venus, leaving only the one in Europa, where supply lines could not be properly established due to the need to cross the Ceres Node, better known as No-man's-land. After that, the Corsairs broke apart, and the game had a reboot announcement. Airborne was bloodied, but not defeated. Infighting that I suspect was provoked by their agents within the other corporations fragmented our order of battle, and they retained their power.

 

Amidst all this (rather simplified tale of the real events) was the game's lore, that in fact even had book novels and comics made, but paid no mind.

 

The players wrote the story.

 

 

The story of Death Law.

 

 

Resistance is Futile.

 

Expect our Neutron cannons.

And happy birthday to you Ross, we hoped our cannons could reach YOU!

Edited December 29, 2015 by Guest (see edit history)

[Massecurr]

First of all, Happy birthday Ross, I'm not quite sure if this fits your criteria but its defiantly surreal at the very least.

 

Back in high school a couple of friends and I suddenly got really interested in Runescape after years of not touching the game. We we're working on some stuff in the computer lab when we all got done we got permission to take some free time to play around, so naturally we all start logging into Runescape...all of us, that is, except for me. I could not for the life of me log in, I was sure that I had entered my information correctly but it kept saying was wrong, so while I'm having my what the hell moment everyone else is logged in, when something peculiar happened, my account was logged into. my friends all sorta went "Hey finally figured out what the problem was eh?" meanwhile I was muttering a flurry of just about every curse word I could think of staring at the log in screen. I look over at my friend like "Does it look like my shits fixed?" when I realize...holy shit my accounts been hacked, and the hacker is online RIGHT NOW. I drop everything and rush to my friends computer and confirm that my account is logged on but it ain't me playing. So we start fucking with him, first acting like we don't know whats going on saying stuff like "Hey man, come to [city] I found some stuff you've been looking for" and the like. After a while we spring a trap asking for high level items my character didn't have, mithril stuff to be exact, we told him that it should be in the bank (I had a password on my in game bank account) so when he said "Sorry I can't my bank is bugged out" I hopped on and said "That's a shame, because my best gear is in there you hacking pile of crap" naturally he starts getting defensive and fires back with stuff like "Dude what are you talking about I'm not a hacker! The banks just bugged out!" to which I said "really now, then what is the name of the person who account you've been talking to then? If you aren't a hacker you should know what his name is!" this goes back and forth for a little before I just drop the hammer and straight up say "You want to know why I know you're a hacker? Because you're talking to the person whose account you stole! I'm going to be real nice and ask that you return the accounts password to what it was before you grabbed it and vanish, or I report you and let Jagex handle this!" (Jagex being the people who handle Runescape) Much to all our surprises he actually did surrender the account back to me and after I got confirmation that the password had been changed back I quickly changed my password and logged in,made sure nothing too valuable was missing and went on my merry way.

[Scampi]

Right then, here's my story.

 

First thing's first, I'm not very well versed in MMOs at all. Never actually played one yet. This situation actually took place- don't hold your breath- on an MCMMO Factions/Raid Minecraft server. Now I am well aware of the stigma associated with this, but I can definitely assure you that mixed in equal parts with all the immaturity and stupidity was a vast quantity of sadism, violence, cruelty and the like. Basically the same characteristics you can expect from most people in any online game, but intentionally concentrated by the grief and be-briefed nature of raid servers. Or at least this is how we saw it. By we I mean my faction, a two-man group of depraved coward thugs.

 

The typical players on this server fall into the standard economic classes. The Upper Class: fellows who have been there for a while, donated, and are well-seated, with large, nigh-impregnable bases, maxed out levels, large factions, too much money and god-tier equipment. These guys can be cunning and they can be moronic, but unless you're at or near their level, you'll still get your ass kicked if you take them on in combat. Then there is the Middle class, whose presence is defined more by their actions by anyone else. You can be the type who works hard to get some great gear, but makes poor choices in combat and looses it all. You can be a sitting on a rich plot of land, building levels and resources, waiting for the perfect moment to make a big move. You can even be a terrifying force to be reckoned with in combat, but have base-building skills too poor to maintain a non-griefed base. Lastly, there are the poor, smelly unfortunates who are simply unable to survive for any length of time, and result in the vast array of burned-out houses that will inevitably surround any raid servers spawn. These are not hard categories, it's more of a Venn-diagram.

 

Initially, I was stalking a new faction of young, inexperienced players. More often than not, the same type of people who join this server, build a nice little house next to spawn and quit when their house is demolished and they are murdered in the ruins. The server's description outlined the type of environment they would be entering, but in one ear out the other I guess. Anyway, I was observing this group from a distance, crouching behind one of the many trees. This group had been unusually resilient. I was sure they had been raided at least once, but their large numbers allowed them to recuperate and rebuild from the typical loss they would experience from a raid. I believe this was partially to explain why these poor souls were still a minin'.

 

I had followed this group to a shore along the edge of a small lake. As I watched, they set about building themselves a new home. They had claimed the land, meaning only members of their faction could edit the terrain. It was at this point I informed my teammate of the full situation at hand, and we decided that the most fun could be had if we waited for the fruit to ripen before harvesting. This was a gamble, because opportunities like this are rare. Most players on this server would have assaulted this group on sight, and any rich player would have succeeded. Not only was this base extremely easy to see on the surface (they had a large log-cabin-castle combo aesthetic going), but inexperienced players are liable to fall for teleport traps and inadvertently TP raiders into their home. But, alas, our gamble payed off and we were ready.

 

The plan was to deviate from standard procedure; where were use an TNT cannon or fire spreading to make an entrance in to the base and proceed to empty all storage containers within. We knew that we had the ability to take them all on in combat, even at once in an area where they can respawn constantly. And, much to my delight, they had made a land-claiming mistake, allowing me to hand-break the blocks I needed to get in. The numerous reconnaissance missions I made allowed to to know the rough layout of the base, enough info to tell me that the structure on the surface was the tip of the iceberg.

 

First, we needed to make it appear something was amiss. From a distance away, I fired volleys of arrows onto their base. My associate was much closer, and taking great care not to be be seen, started fires in the surrounding forest, detonated the occasional explosive and poured some lava around. The goal of this was to terrify them in a greater manner than what is possible through shock-and-awe tactics (storming the base and killing them all). After some time, their agitation became apparent through their accusations and ramblings in the chat. Once the beehive had been sufficiently kicked, we waited for things to cool down a little. If we continued our games, or made our presence known, they would probably gather up as many valuables as they could and teleport with them to a safe location. The goal was to spook them enough to keep them on their toes, but not enough to encourage them to evacuate. After about 30 minutes of mild torment, the next phase began.

 

For those not well-versed in Minecraft, you can see any player's name above their head, even though blocks, up to a certain distance. This makes it extremely difficult to sneak up on even mildly observant players without the use of crouching (which renders your nametag invisible though blocks). Crouching was instrumental in getting the drop on these guys. After all the members of the faction we were tormenting had gone into the basement of their house, a primitive room deep underground consisting of a large open area, a spawn pad in the center and chests and other essentials lining the walls. After we were sure we were at the same depth as their room and only one block was between them and us, we lit the fuse on a TNT block that would allow us to make a dramatic entry. The hissing of TNT is a sound every Minecraft player will instantly recognize. In the seconds before detonation, their gamertags, which we observed through the wall and used to track them down, appeared to move about erratically. Oh, what fun! As soon as the explosives detonated, we entered the room. The following was, as expected, a bloodbath, with our higher levels, better equipment and superior experience. They did, however, flock to us desperately in droves, because their faction spawn point was in the very center of the room we were in. It was certainly fun times for all, but eventually our supplies would run low and we would be forced to pull out. This is where we claimed over their land for our faction, preventing them from editing the terrain. Were were able to do this because their 'faction power' was now incredibly low, something that happens when faction members die repeatedly. Once their base was belong to us, their fate was officially sealed, just as they were themselves sealed in a little tomb we built for them. Unable to escape, they had no choice but to disconnect or wait to see what we had in store for them.

 

We looted every last piece of their base, something rich factions tend to neglect to do. Once we had all the loot, we returned to the room where our prisoners were being held. From their viewing window, they watched as we lit a small fire in front of them. And one by one, we proceeded to drop every single item they had into that fire. As we chucked their enchantment table into the fire, their rage reached it's peak. Once that was over with, the two of us, cackling with laughter, filled their base with a really unnecessary amount of explosives. The last block of TNT was placed right in front of them, right next to the fire. They knew it would only be a matter of time.

 

Rather than teleport out, mock them and count our winnings as many of our peers would have done, we slowly walked away without looking back (I'm sure you know the rule about cool people and explosions). With their anger turning into resignation, we climbed their staircase up to the surface. Rather humorously, the TNT took it's time to ignite, giving them plenty of time to insult us before there last sentences were cut off. At this point, we were just barely able to hear the blast. For a short while afterwards, were were in silent awe at what we had just done. If only they had known. If at any point, they had said "We surrender", we would have immediately backed off. After all, we're certainly not savages!

 

Anyway, I hope that was an interesting story. Maybe I embellished it a little. Happy birthday, Ross!

[ISGC]

I'm really enjoying this thread, guys

Keep them coming!

[Junk]

eve just google eve stories you will find something..... or die trying

[KON_Air]

While not exactly an MMO but the insanity that was Warbros of Warframe is something to remember.

In short turbo autists from 4chan got used as QA, put together as design document for the game but eventually died off.

http://pastebin.com/GG8mdWZp

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bx-OZG3OqlkwcjNVUXVOLUxiTEk/

[State of Bedlam]

Guild power struggles? Political drama? That is what I am all about. When you said that, I knew I had to make an account immediately.

 

Chapter 1

 

I joined Runescape in early 2006 (I think February) with the username "Invader 50" when I was 13. Runescape looked the way the "Old School Runescape" servers look now. I liked the game so much I got my mom to start paying for membership, unlocking the rest of the game's content and the other half of the world map. This was probably in June, maybe July. It was after the Construction skill and player-owned houses were released, and not terribly long after the Falador Massacre (which was on 6/6/06. I was vacationing in Europe that day).

 

I considered myself a follower of the chaos god Zamorak, so I walked around wearing the Zamorak robe set. (The cheap one, not the vestamant set). I ran into another player wearing Zamorak robes outside a bank in the city Varrock. He invited me to join his Zamorak clan. In runescape, that's the equivalent of a guild. At the time they were completely player-made social constructs and there was nothing official supporting them. He didn't exactly invite me to join it either, because I think I was his first recruit and the clan didn't even exist until that moment. When we recruited a few more members it was time to think of a name for our clan. I suggested the Mighty Brotherhood of Zamorak (or MBZ for short). Our leader, who I will name Fortunato because I do not remember his username, liked the name well enough to use it.

 

Now we were MBZ and we had a decent sized group, but I began to dislike ol' Fortunato. Here are the three strikes against him. Firstly, there was a potential recruit I was chatting with. I told him we were the MBZ. Then I either told him it stood for Mighty Brotherhood of Zamorak or asked if he wanted to know what it stood for, but Fortunato said "Don't tell him." I think he just liked us being mysterious (it wasn't any secret that we were a Zamorakian group), but for 13-year-old me this was quite irritating. I came up with the name, so I should get to tell people what it was. I couldn't get a satisfactory answer from Fortunato for why I shouldn't.

 

Secondly, we attended a group combat event called Castle Wars as a clan. It's organized so that you can join the team waiting room for Saradomin ("god of order") or for Zamorak. Or the balance god Guthix's portal could sort you into whichever room was emptier. We were in the Zamorak waiting room when a poisoned player came in asking for help. I had some anti-poison potion in my bank, so I said I'd go get it for him. While I was heading to the exit portal, Fortunato told me not to help him. I asked him why. He said "It will be funny." While I debated whether to disobey orders or let this stranger die*, someone else provided their own anti-poison potion. Crisis averted, but my view of Fortunato dropped sharply.

 

Thirdly, we held a clan meeting at a player-owned house. I don't remember much about the meeting. It may have even been my own house (since I remember that was something I took pride in and proposed be used as a clan meeting place my entire Runescape career). What I do remember was that suddenly Fortunato decided to set a combat level limit for clan membership (which two of us - I and a player I'll call "Brutus" - did not meet). He gave us an ultimatum: if we didn't reach that level within a certain amount of time, we were out. I don't remember the combat levels involved, but I do remember that Brutus was our lowest level member, I was the second lowest, and Fortunato was the third lowest. All three of us were quite low level but he conveniently cut it off only below himself. And let me tell you, getting your skills up in Runescape is a griiiiiiiiind. You can't do anything in the game without grinding, grinding, grinding, and more grinding. It wasn't worth it to me to get up to that level until I was ready, but I realized this was my opportunity to start plotting against our leader.

 

As Brutus and I left the meeting, I had a chat with him because I realized were both dissatisfied with Fortunato. I considered Brutus a bit dim (he was probably just a younger kid than I was), but I told him I wanted to overthrow Fortunato and I agreed to let him be second in command. From there I privately spoke to every other member of the group except Fortunato and convinced all of them to join in my plot to overthrow him. It turned out he wasn't a popular guy. Overthrowing him would be as simple as sloughing him off our collective shoulders.

 

At least it should have been. For some reason I decided to mess with him a bit in a completely boneheaded way. I told Fortunato there was a rumor of a plot against him to test his reaction. He asked me who told me this. I... had not thought that far ahead. So, in a panic, I privately messaged one of my co-conspirators and convinced him to take the heat. And then while Fortunato was interrogating that guy I got another co-conspirator to take the heat for him. I think I maybe even got a third guy in on it. Somehow Fortunato was satisfied with whatever I told the last guy to give as an excuse. I should've told him to say I said it to him so it'd be a weird continuous loop with no discernible origin.

 

From there we began divvying up ranks, but I was on the fence about retaining Brutus in the second command position I promised him. There were more capable people vying for the position and Brutus wasn't satisfied with my uncertainty. I only discovered the severity of my folly when Fortunato asked me to meet him "in person" (at a player-owned house, as opposed to over private messaging). Standing in his garden, he revealed to me what Brutus had told him. Brutus has spilled the whole bag of beans. Fortunato knew the entire clan was conspiring against him. And... he was surprisingly chill about it. He was happy to step down as leader. He only wanted it to be remembered that he was the founder. I was happy to make that concession.

 

With our conflicts basically resolved, did the clan move on to a glorious new future? No, it just sort of petered out. We never even got to officially stage the coup (which I think we were still doing for some reason even though Fortunato was on board with it) and set me up as leader. People, including me, just lost interest.

 

However, in Chapter 2 I'll tell you about my first plan to recruit spies and anonymously infiltrate and conquer other clans.

 

*The only penalty for death is losing all but three of the items you're carrying (unless you're "skulled," which happens when you attack a player in the Wilderness. If you die while skulled you lose all items. Being skulled wears off after awhile). You respawn in Lumbridge (or possibly another city if you've done certain quests) with the three items the game thinks are most valuable. Since there was a bank chest nearby I don't know/remember why he didn't just put all his items in the chest and wait to die. Maybe his bank was full? More likely he just didn't know better.

Edited December 29, 2015 by Guest (see edit history)

[DarkHoodness]

Another thing which seems interesting. (Happy Birthday, BTW)

 

I used to play lots of WoW on and off for a few years - My experiences with it were mostly the usual interactions with players or guild-related shenanigans such as minor power struggles or people falling out with each other for no reason - Stuff which comes with most online social groups. But there are a couple of mediocre stories which stand out.

 

This one may not be what you're looking for but sort of related - A guildmate I once knew made a mountain out of something which wasn't even a molehill. Back in 2010 a new profession was introduced to the game called Archaeology where you ran around the world digging up artifacts. One such artifact was a special hearthstone with the tooltip:

 

According to legend, Bryher Stonekeeper ran a prosperous tavern near Loch Modan. His daughter, Keelin, travelled far from home, eventually developing the kind of reputation that embarrassed her father. Bryher made a deal with a gnome warlock to keep his daughter close to home. The warlock turned Keelin into a hearthstone, so that she would always return to the inn.

Said guildmate interpreted the story behind the item as "something produced by a control-freak father abusing his child, all because she 'had a reputation'", then made a post on the WoW forums berating Blizzard about it, saying that she found the artifact "creepy" and that it seemed "potentially triggering for people who really have been the victims of familial abuse or control". After admitting it didn't trigger her personally, she then said that this was something she "wouldn't expect to see in a game without warning".

 

Maybe she had a tiny point, but surely it was no more offensive than most old folk fairy tale stories? Forum responses ranged from "this is stupid, people will complain about anything" to "I sort of agree, but this is a fantasy game! Why would anyone be offended by this? Maybe you should seek professional help" - The latter of which caused her to quit WoW for good after playing it for 2 years and investing in the collectors edition of the Wrath expansion. I lost contact with her shortly afterward. I guess the first responder was right: Some people really will complain about anything...

 

Secondly, during vanilla WoW in 2006 when UIs were cluttered and raids were boring, I was part of a group which wiped on Onyxia at 1%.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7iM9ftmxhY A little funny, but I admit it's not quite as entertaining as the famous angry Onyxia raid leader audio.

 

Thirdly,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKV48lGP8Nc where my character was able to "swim" through the air and fly around town.

[Onin]

This isn't quite as epic as the grand scale stories, but it's a story about how single players defy the entire game. Or, a couple of small stories.

 

Soloing raid content in World of Warcraft.

 

 

I did a lot of this during the Cataclysm expansion (level 85), on a Hunter. Hunters were great for this because they have a pet that can tank for them, they can heal their pet, they can heal themselves a little, and just being high range is very helpful too. But, I'm a single Hunter, facing bosses that were designed for 40 players (lower level players, but still). Not all boss mechanics worked properly. Some of them required some insane mechanical abuse to kill. Those are the ones I'd like to talk about now.

 

1. C'thun

I'll start with the dumbest one, because it's the one I'm the most proud of. C'thun is the endboss of the level 60 dungeon Ahn'Qiraj. While he is most famous for his eye laser skill, that's not what makes him dangerous to solo. What makes him difficult, is that he swallows players, teleports them into his stomach, and slowly digests them. That's a problem, because I'm alone. If he swallows me, he loses track of me, thinks the fight has ended, and as a safety feature he'll instantly murder anyone in his stomach; Me. In short, I could fight him for a couple minutes, then get swallowed and instantaneously die.

 

But there's a trick. One of the bosses in the dungeon, Ouro, is optional, you can skip him. What you can also do, is kite Ouro into C'thun's room. And Ouro has a different safety measure. Whenever Ouro's primary target (me) is out of his range, they get instantly teleported to face him. Including when I get swallowed by C'thun. Suddenly the two bosses start fighting over whose mechanics apply to me, constantly putting me in and dragging me out of the stomach. This abuse made it possible to stay alive long enough to kill C'thun by myself.

 

As the first person in the world to do so.

 

 

2. Kael'thas

Kael'thas is the endboss of The Eye (level 70), and a primary lore character in Warcraft. Once again, he became rather problematic because of one of his main abilities. He likes to mind control people. He'll do it every 30 seconds to 3 random people in the raid. In my case, that's just me. And if I'm gonna start attacking my own pet, he's sure to die within seconds.

 

The trick? I had to kite Kael'thas to a specific area of the dungeon where I could hide around a corner. I needed a very specific spot that ensured he was out of line of sight, and couldn't mind control me, but my pet was in my line of sight, so that I could still heal him. And then I just had to wait for 15 minutes while my pet slowly but surely bit that asshole to pieces.

 

 

3. High Warlord Naj'entus

This is probably the dumbest one, and I never actually managed to beat him, sadly. Naj'entus's main ability is a giant spear that he throws at a random person in the raid, which drills them into the floor. Someone ELSE has to drag the spear out, and then throw it back at Naj'entus to break his shield, otherwise he starts healing rapidly. Too bad there's no one else in my party to grab the spear out of my flailing body.

 

The only way to get around this was to abuse the way range works in the game. The giant spear ability has a range of 60 units. Hunters have a range of 60 units with their attacks. However, range is calculated from the center of the user's model, to the edge of the target's model. I'm a small player, Naj'entus is a huge beast. I could just find the sweet-spot where I was allowed to attack him, but he wasn't allowed to attack me. But staying in that range the entire fight long was exceedingly difficult, and a single spear thrown would get me killed.

 

 

 

Soloing multi-player content was the most fun I've had in WoW. The hunter I did it with even leveled up to 70 by soloing the 5-man dungeons on the way. Not every dungeon was as easy as the others, but I always managed to find a way to kill problematic bosses (or sneak past them and clear the rest of the dungeon anyway). And I really miss that challenge. I haven't found a single other MMO where skilled play can let you defeat content they designed for 5 players, let alone 40 players. Sure, there's Monster Hunter, but there it's intentionally possible, that just doesn't feel the same.

[crispydiesel]

Another event worth looking into is "The battle of B-R5RB" in EVE Online, usually shortened to "the battle of BR5B" it takes the throne as the largest online multiplayer fight with an estimated $330,000 USD of items being destroyed.

 

The fight was large enough to get itself a segment on BBC news and was extensively covered online. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodbath_of_B-R5RB

 

Similar to this story is one I heard about recently, it also involves the CFC; the Fountain War. This wasn't a solitary battle, but a full scale war between players that lasted months and is a tale of clever tactics, betrayals, opportunistic banditry and massive set-piece engagements. I'm not an EVE player and probably never will be but this was something else. Full credit to Scott Manley for his account of the saga.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZQ4ejFq7BY

Edited December 29, 2015 by Guest (see edit history)