Great Rumbler
Member
The Assassination of Lord British - Ultima Online - August 8, 1997
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_british#Assassination_of_Lord_British
Lord British was killed during an in-game appearance on Ultima Online's beta test on August 8, 1997. A royal visit was conducted as a part of server population stress test. A player character known as Rainz cast a spell called "fire field" on Lord British that, surprisingly, killed him. According to Starr Long, the whole thing was just a human error: Lord British's character, like others, had been made invulnerable, but by design the invulnerability did not persist over several game sessions. Shortly before the incident, the server had crashed, and Richard Garriott had forgotten to set his invulnerability flag on when logging on again. Shortly afterwards, Rainz's account was banned from the beta test for previously exploiting bugs rather than reporting them (infamously used by his character Aquaman to kill many player characters, a purported griefing incident). According to Origin, he was not banned for the assassination but rather for previous complaints against his account that were brought to light as a result of this attention. The massive amount of lag, caused by the stress test, was a factor in Lord British's death, as well as the guards being deactivated in the area, which allowed Rainz to steal, avoiding immediate death. 99% of the players were at Lord British's castle. Only the few at Lord Blackthorn's castle were the lucky witnesses to this historic event. Those known to have been present besides Lords British and Blackthorn were their jesters Chuckles and Heckles and the following players; Rainz, Dr.Pepper, Mental, DemonSoth, Helios, Phobos, Gildoreal, Wind Lord and Kylan.
Plague Outbreak - World of Warcraft - September 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4272418.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_warcraft#Corrupted_Blood_plague_incident
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAEhyHiNdrA
The Corrupted Blood plague incident was one of the first events to affect entire servers. Patch 1.7 saw the opening of Zul'Gurub, the game's first 20-player raid dungeon where players faced off against an ancient tribe of jungle trolls under the sway of the ancient Blood God, Hakkar the Soulflayer. Upon engaging Hakkar, players were stricken by a debuff (a spell that negatively affects a player) called "Corrupted Blood" which would periodically sap their life. The disease would also be passed on to other players who were simply standing in close proximity to an infected person. Originally this malady was confined within the Zul'Gurub instance but made its way into the outside world by way of hunter or warlock pets that contracted the disease.
Within hours Corrupted Blood had infected entire cities such as Ironforge and Orgrimmar because of their high player concentrations. Low-level players were killed in seconds by the high-damage disease. Eventually Blizzard fixed the issue so that the plague could not exist outside of Zul'Gurub.
The corrupted blood plague so closely resembled the outbreak of real-world epidemics that scientists are currently looking at ways MMORPGs or other massively-distributed systems can model human behavior during outbreaks. The reaction of players to the plague closely resembled previously hard-to-model aspects of human behavior that may allow researchers to more accurately predict how diseases and outbreaks spread amongst a population.
Funeral Ambush - World of Warcraft - March 2006
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31MVOE2ak5w
A player dies in real life, so his clan buddies decide to hold a memorial service for their fallen comrade. Unfortunately, they decide to hold it in PVP territory. A rival clan takes this opportunity to launch an all-out assault, wiping out all of the attendees. Is it funny? Is it sad? Well, it all depends on what kind of person you are, I suppose.
First Virtual Millionaire - Second Life - November 2006
http://mmorpg.qj.net/First-virtual-millionaire-ever-is-from-Second-Life/pg/49/aid/74390
http://www.secretlair.com/index.php...cond_life_millionaire_interview_penis_bombed/
For former school teacher Ailen Graef, everything began with a meager amount of US$ 9.95 two and half years ago. She subscribed for an account in Linden Lab's Second Life and chose to become Anshe Chung, her avatar. Today, Graef could be the first online personality ever to achieve a net worth of US$ 1 million.
In the virtual world, Chung started by purchasing small scale virtual real estate. She then subdivided and developed those with landscaping and themed architectural builds for rental and resale. Since then, her operations had included the development and sale of properties for large scale real world corporations. Her total number of assets now stand at 36 square kilometers of land, supported by 550 servers as well as Linden dollar holdings, virtual malls, stores and brands.
More interestingly, Chung started her own business in the real worlds that is more like a spin-off of what she does in Second Life: Anshe Chung Studios develop 3D environments for purposes of education, business conferencing and product prototyping. Also, she currently owns shares for various SL companies.
All of the said virtual properties can actually be exchanged for legit U.S. money. Developer Linden Lab has several in-game programs like property value statistics and current simulator prices to ascertain the exact worth of Chung's assets.
The Epic Heist - EVE Online - November 2005
http://eve.klaki.net/heist/
This was published in September's issue of PC Gamer UK, a popular video game article magazine. It is a detailed account of what has to be one of most beautifully executed in-game scams in a MMORPG ever pulled. It breaks all previous world records for 'virtual crime'.
The game in question is Eve Online, an open ended sci-fi mmorpg with a heavy emphasis on roleplaying, where developers try to give their players as much freedom as possible, and where corporate espionage and political intrigue have become an integral part of the game.
The perpetrator of the heist was the Guiding Hand Social Club (GHSC) corporation (a corporation being similar to a clan in Eve); a freelance mercenary outfit that offers their services (which usually involves corp infiltration, theft and assassination) to the highest bidder. Over a year in planning, the GHSC infilitrated their target's corp with their own members and gained their trust, as well as access to the corp hangers, with time. It all concluded in a perfectly timed climax, with a massive theft in multiple corp hangars synchronized with the in-game killing of the corporation's CEO, the primary target of the contract.
What's most interesting and impressive about this operation is that it was entirely 'legal' and within the game's own rules, and the mastermind and his agents pulled it off together flawlessly, all the while staying in character. The estimated real-life value of the items stolen is, according to PC Gamer, $16,500 US. The in-game value of course is much, much higher as the things stolen would take years and years to aquire.
The Opening of the Gates at Ahn'Qiraj - World of Warcraft - January 2006
http://youtube.com/watch?v=uYzKCy4D5NE
Death of the Sleeper - EverQuest - November 15-17, 2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerafyrm
The guild Blood of the Spider on The Rathe server was the first guild system-wide to kill Ventani (the fourth warder) on July 28, 2001, and therefore wake the sleeper. The event caused a stir on the server when Kerafyrm went into multiple zones, including Skyshrine, killing everyone and everything in his path.
On November 15, 2003, on the Rallos Zek PvP server, the three top guilds (Ascending Dawn, Wudan, and Magus Imperialis Magicus) assembled over 180 players with the intent to wake and kill The Sleeper. This was in response to an attempt to wake The Sleeper by an Iksar monk named Stynkfyst, who partnered with the largest random-pk guild of the time. Having been a former member of uber-guild Ascending Dawn, he had the knowledge the random pk guild needed to wake The Sleeper. The top guilds did not assemble their forces until word of Stynkfyst's intentions had spread, and it became clear that he intended to wake The Sleeper, forever preventing future guilds from farming the old loot table. Until this point, waking The Sleeper had not been seriously considered by any guilds, as it was believed that waking The Sleeper would make the offending guild's players kill-on-sight to the other guilds of the server. After 3 hours and 15 minutes, at 26% health, Kerafyrm disappeared (despawned). The players talked with the EverQuest Game Masters, and there was a general consensus that a bug had caused the problem, although some suggested (backed by statements from one GM) that higher-ups at SOE had purposely despawned Kerafyrm, because it was not intended to be part of the story.
The following day, the players logged in to find that Kerafyrm was back in his "sleeping" state, ready to be triggered again. There was also an apology on the official EverQuest forums from SOE, explaining that they had stopped the encounter because they feared the players were engaging the boss in an unintended manner. Although annoyed (the players pointed out that the reasons SOE gave could not have occurred, and felt lied to), they attempted to battle Kerafyrm once again.
On November 17, 2003, after a nearly 3-hour battle, Kerafyrm was defeated. He had between 100 million and 400 million hit points, likely around 250 million (most EverQuest bosses have 2 million at most), was immune to all spells except wizard's manaburn spell and Shadow Knight's Harm Touch, possessed two death touch abilities (abilities that automatically killed players), and attacked players for 6999 damage per swing. By using the cleric's epic weapon and other resurrection spells, the players were able to bring their dead characters back into the battle faster than Kerafyrm could kill them all.
Destruction of the Shard of the Herald - Asheron's Call - November 2000
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnemGvYLOZQ
"That was the Defense of the Herald Shard on Thistledown in Asheron's Call.
It was probably the coolest goddamned thing ever. The entire idea for most people was to kill this shard for some awesome item, but in doing so you'd release [Bael'Zharon] the really big badass bad guy of doom (who then wandered around the server killing people at random or teleporting them to "Teth" (Fort Tethana, one of the major towns in the high-level area), except about 400 feet too high. Yeah, Teth rained people for a while there, it was awesome.
Anyway, to get to this shard thing you had to flag yourself for PvP (which, on any server but the singular FFA PvP server, involved doing a dungeon), and that meant that it could feasibly be defended. In AC mobs could actually level, and so this shard was not only defended it was "fed". One of the defenders would actively die to it on a set cycle in order to have it gain XP and level up, thus making it harder and harder to kill. They not only held off the assaults of the opposing groups of people trying to get said uberl337awesomeitemofdoom, they actually killed one of the GM-played characters, which were clearly meant to be overpowered, even though they technically never should have been able to.
For that, not only did they get a sweet unique GM event to kill that last shard, they got to witness a GM-acted lore event where Asheron, the namesake of the game, fought the big bad demon guy Bael'Zharon (or whatever the hell his name was, he was also GM played, and he was also the one running around dropping meteors on people and teleporting them 400 feet above Teth, etc.). All in all it is probably one of the most amazing spontaneous, and somewhat unexpected, events I've ever seen in an MMO."
Guide Goes Postal - EverQuest - November 20, 2000
http://pc.ign.com/articles/088/088149p1.html
Monday night at about 10:30 PST one of the EverQuest Guides on the Terris Thule server snapped. This poor misguided soul summoned and bound about twenty characters to Veeshan's Peak and bound them there. He then watched as the players died over and over again. After about an hour, several conscientious Guides showed up, disconnected the renegade Guide, resurrected the dead players, helped them loot their corpses and teleported them to a local Red Cross station where they were fed sandwiches and given hot chocolate.
Darktide - Asheron's Call - 1999-Present
http://www.pvpblog.com/post/History-Asheron-Call-Darktide.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darktide
Darktide is the one world of Turbine Entertainment's Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game Asheron's Call which allows unrestricted player killing. Two aspects of the gameplay of Asheron's Call, namely the ability to dodge projectiles and powerful healing abilities, allows the outcome of combat between players to be determined by the power of the characters and the skill of the players. The cost of death in player versus player combat can be high, and the threat of attack by another player infuses the world with a constant tension.
The history of Darktide has been shaped by strong individual players and player guilds. Prolific player killers quickly gain notoriety, and staunch defender's reputations grow as well. Monarchies which control important locations thrive. The storyline dictated by Turbine's monthly updates is optional, but fighting for survival versus other players unavoidably shapes the experience.
Lord Kazzak Invades Stormwind - World of Warcraft - March 6, 2005
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXZ1aBdti7k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abmbObP02IE
Kazzak, a major Demon, has decided to invade the Alliance city of Stormwind. Most likely pulled there by a player, he doles out death like a Las Vegas blackjack dealer. With his awesome strength and insane spells, he lays waste to near everything in his path.
Fansy the Famous Bard - EverQuest - July 4-9, 2001
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_120/2552-Fansy-The-Famous-Bard
Fansy, a level five bard, used a collection of trained sand giants to kill virtually anyone that he happened upon and, in so doing, caused the downfall of Sullon Zek, the so-called "no-rules" server.
Southern Coalition vs. The Red Alliance - September 2006
http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=564
One of the oldest surviving groups in EVE, Red Alliance has always been known as a fearsome, cold-blooded outfit. Possessing modest numbers, but a will to use any means necessary to win--including tactics deemed dishonorable by much of the EVE community--RA soon became one of the most hated organizations in the game.
This lead to a steady verbal attack by their enemies, who used the EVE forums and in-game chat channels to spread anti-Russian propaganda. "For two years, Lotka Volterra and the Southern Coalition fighting RA would basically fling every racist stereotype about Russians onto the forums that you could imagine," says GoonSwarm's Mittani. "Really over-the-top, obvious racist stuff, like 'They're feeding their families by selling isk for money over Ebay,' jokes about buying Russian brides, calling them 'Russian Dogs.'
"RA gets very offended about attacks on their ethnicity... Even today, RA leaders will be able to tell you which LV individual pilots smack-talked them in local and made racist jokes. They'll drop anything to go kill them or hurt them in-game."
Sure enough, with no prompting, UAxDeath recalled the harassment in a separate interview: "Russian dogs. Feed our children. I still have those screenshots."
With this bad blood in mind, the two space navies readied for a showdown. The battle-lines were pathetically mismatched from the beginning: the Southern Coalition fronted over 300 ships, including 60 siege-deployable dreadnought-class capital ships and 30 fighter-carriers. In response, Red Alliance could only scrape together around 50 ships, total. More than a mismatch, the forthcoming assault was shaping up to be a massacre.
On a Friday morning, the combined Coalition fleet calmly jumped into C-J6. After enemy dreadnoughts quickly put one Red Alliance station into its reinforced mode, the rag-tag Red Alliance gang entered the fray, and began the fight for its life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_british#Assassination_of_Lord_British
Lord British was killed during an in-game appearance on Ultima Online's beta test on August 8, 1997. A royal visit was conducted as a part of server population stress test. A player character known as Rainz cast a spell called "fire field" on Lord British that, surprisingly, killed him. According to Starr Long, the whole thing was just a human error: Lord British's character, like others, had been made invulnerable, but by design the invulnerability did not persist over several game sessions. Shortly before the incident, the server had crashed, and Richard Garriott had forgotten to set his invulnerability flag on when logging on again. Shortly afterwards, Rainz's account was banned from the beta test for previously exploiting bugs rather than reporting them (infamously used by his character Aquaman to kill many player characters, a purported griefing incident). According to Origin, he was not banned for the assassination but rather for previous complaints against his account that were brought to light as a result of this attention. The massive amount of lag, caused by the stress test, was a factor in Lord British's death, as well as the guards being deactivated in the area, which allowed Rainz to steal, avoiding immediate death. 99% of the players were at Lord British's castle. Only the few at Lord Blackthorn's castle were the lucky witnesses to this historic event. Those known to have been present besides Lords British and Blackthorn were their jesters Chuckles and Heckles and the following players; Rainz, Dr.Pepper, Mental, DemonSoth, Helios, Phobos, Gildoreal, Wind Lord and Kylan.
Plague Outbreak - World of Warcraft - September 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4272418.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_warcraft#Corrupted_Blood_plague_incident
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAEhyHiNdrA
The Corrupted Blood plague incident was one of the first events to affect entire servers. Patch 1.7 saw the opening of Zul'Gurub, the game's first 20-player raid dungeon where players faced off against an ancient tribe of jungle trolls under the sway of the ancient Blood God, Hakkar the Soulflayer. Upon engaging Hakkar, players were stricken by a debuff (a spell that negatively affects a player) called "Corrupted Blood" which would periodically sap their life. The disease would also be passed on to other players who were simply standing in close proximity to an infected person. Originally this malady was confined within the Zul'Gurub instance but made its way into the outside world by way of hunter or warlock pets that contracted the disease.
Within hours Corrupted Blood had infected entire cities such as Ironforge and Orgrimmar because of their high player concentrations. Low-level players were killed in seconds by the high-damage disease. Eventually Blizzard fixed the issue so that the plague could not exist outside of Zul'Gurub.
The corrupted blood plague so closely resembled the outbreak of real-world epidemics that scientists are currently looking at ways MMORPGs or other massively-distributed systems can model human behavior during outbreaks. The reaction of players to the plague closely resembled previously hard-to-model aspects of human behavior that may allow researchers to more accurately predict how diseases and outbreaks spread amongst a population.
Funeral Ambush - World of Warcraft - March 2006
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31MVOE2ak5w
A player dies in real life, so his clan buddies decide to hold a memorial service for their fallen comrade. Unfortunately, they decide to hold it in PVP territory. A rival clan takes this opportunity to launch an all-out assault, wiping out all of the attendees. Is it funny? Is it sad? Well, it all depends on what kind of person you are, I suppose.
First Virtual Millionaire - Second Life - November 2006
http://mmorpg.qj.net/First-virtual-millionaire-ever-is-from-Second-Life/pg/49/aid/74390
http://www.secretlair.com/index.php...cond_life_millionaire_interview_penis_bombed/
For former school teacher Ailen Graef, everything began with a meager amount of US$ 9.95 two and half years ago. She subscribed for an account in Linden Lab's Second Life and chose to become Anshe Chung, her avatar. Today, Graef could be the first online personality ever to achieve a net worth of US$ 1 million.
In the virtual world, Chung started by purchasing small scale virtual real estate. She then subdivided and developed those with landscaping and themed architectural builds for rental and resale. Since then, her operations had included the development and sale of properties for large scale real world corporations. Her total number of assets now stand at 36 square kilometers of land, supported by 550 servers as well as Linden dollar holdings, virtual malls, stores and brands.
More interestingly, Chung started her own business in the real worlds that is more like a spin-off of what she does in Second Life: Anshe Chung Studios develop 3D environments for purposes of education, business conferencing and product prototyping. Also, she currently owns shares for various SL companies.
All of the said virtual properties can actually be exchanged for legit U.S. money. Developer Linden Lab has several in-game programs like property value statistics and current simulator prices to ascertain the exact worth of Chung's assets.
The Epic Heist - EVE Online - November 2005
http://eve.klaki.net/heist/
This was published in September's issue of PC Gamer UK, a popular video game article magazine. It is a detailed account of what has to be one of most beautifully executed in-game scams in a MMORPG ever pulled. It breaks all previous world records for 'virtual crime'.
The game in question is Eve Online, an open ended sci-fi mmorpg with a heavy emphasis on roleplaying, where developers try to give their players as much freedom as possible, and where corporate espionage and political intrigue have become an integral part of the game.
The perpetrator of the heist was the Guiding Hand Social Club (GHSC) corporation (a corporation being similar to a clan in Eve); a freelance mercenary outfit that offers their services (which usually involves corp infiltration, theft and assassination) to the highest bidder. Over a year in planning, the GHSC infilitrated their target's corp with their own members and gained their trust, as well as access to the corp hangers, with time. It all concluded in a perfectly timed climax, with a massive theft in multiple corp hangars synchronized with the in-game killing of the corporation's CEO, the primary target of the contract.
What's most interesting and impressive about this operation is that it was entirely 'legal' and within the game's own rules, and the mastermind and his agents pulled it off together flawlessly, all the while staying in character. The estimated real-life value of the items stolen is, according to PC Gamer, $16,500 US. The in-game value of course is much, much higher as the things stolen would take years and years to aquire.
The Opening of the Gates at Ahn'Qiraj - World of Warcraft - January 2006
http://youtube.com/watch?v=uYzKCy4D5NE
Death of the Sleeper - EverQuest - November 15-17, 2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerafyrm
The guild Blood of the Spider on The Rathe server was the first guild system-wide to kill Ventani (the fourth warder) on July 28, 2001, and therefore wake the sleeper. The event caused a stir on the server when Kerafyrm went into multiple zones, including Skyshrine, killing everyone and everything in his path.
On November 15, 2003, on the Rallos Zek PvP server, the three top guilds (Ascending Dawn, Wudan, and Magus Imperialis Magicus) assembled over 180 players with the intent to wake and kill The Sleeper. This was in response to an attempt to wake The Sleeper by an Iksar monk named Stynkfyst, who partnered with the largest random-pk guild of the time. Having been a former member of uber-guild Ascending Dawn, he had the knowledge the random pk guild needed to wake The Sleeper. The top guilds did not assemble their forces until word of Stynkfyst's intentions had spread, and it became clear that he intended to wake The Sleeper, forever preventing future guilds from farming the old loot table. Until this point, waking The Sleeper had not been seriously considered by any guilds, as it was believed that waking The Sleeper would make the offending guild's players kill-on-sight to the other guilds of the server. After 3 hours and 15 minutes, at 26% health, Kerafyrm disappeared (despawned). The players talked with the EverQuest Game Masters, and there was a general consensus that a bug had caused the problem, although some suggested (backed by statements from one GM) that higher-ups at SOE had purposely despawned Kerafyrm, because it was not intended to be part of the story.
The following day, the players logged in to find that Kerafyrm was back in his "sleeping" state, ready to be triggered again. There was also an apology on the official EverQuest forums from SOE, explaining that they had stopped the encounter because they feared the players were engaging the boss in an unintended manner. Although annoyed (the players pointed out that the reasons SOE gave could not have occurred, and felt lied to), they attempted to battle Kerafyrm once again.
On November 17, 2003, after a nearly 3-hour battle, Kerafyrm was defeated. He had between 100 million and 400 million hit points, likely around 250 million (most EverQuest bosses have 2 million at most), was immune to all spells except wizard's manaburn spell and Shadow Knight's Harm Touch, possessed two death touch abilities (abilities that automatically killed players), and attacked players for 6999 damage per swing. By using the cleric's epic weapon and other resurrection spells, the players were able to bring their dead characters back into the battle faster than Kerafyrm could kill them all.
Destruction of the Shard of the Herald - Asheron's Call - November 2000
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnemGvYLOZQ
"That was the Defense of the Herald Shard on Thistledown in Asheron's Call.
It was probably the coolest goddamned thing ever. The entire idea for most people was to kill this shard for some awesome item, but in doing so you'd release [Bael'Zharon] the really big badass bad guy of doom (who then wandered around the server killing people at random or teleporting them to "Teth" (Fort Tethana, one of the major towns in the high-level area), except about 400 feet too high. Yeah, Teth rained people for a while there, it was awesome.
Anyway, to get to this shard thing you had to flag yourself for PvP (which, on any server but the singular FFA PvP server, involved doing a dungeon), and that meant that it could feasibly be defended. In AC mobs could actually level, and so this shard was not only defended it was "fed". One of the defenders would actively die to it on a set cycle in order to have it gain XP and level up, thus making it harder and harder to kill. They not only held off the assaults of the opposing groups of people trying to get said uberl337awesomeitemofdoom, they actually killed one of the GM-played characters, which were clearly meant to be overpowered, even though they technically never should have been able to.
For that, not only did they get a sweet unique GM event to kill that last shard, they got to witness a GM-acted lore event where Asheron, the namesake of the game, fought the big bad demon guy Bael'Zharon (or whatever the hell his name was, he was also GM played, and he was also the one running around dropping meteors on people and teleporting them 400 feet above Teth, etc.). All in all it is probably one of the most amazing spontaneous, and somewhat unexpected, events I've ever seen in an MMO."
Guide Goes Postal - EverQuest - November 20, 2000
http://pc.ign.com/articles/088/088149p1.html
Monday night at about 10:30 PST one of the EverQuest Guides on the Terris Thule server snapped. This poor misguided soul summoned and bound about twenty characters to Veeshan's Peak and bound them there. He then watched as the players died over and over again. After about an hour, several conscientious Guides showed up, disconnected the renegade Guide, resurrected the dead players, helped them loot their corpses and teleported them to a local Red Cross station where they were fed sandwiches and given hot chocolate.
Darktide - Asheron's Call - 1999-Present
http://www.pvpblog.com/post/History-Asheron-Call-Darktide.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darktide
Darktide is the one world of Turbine Entertainment's Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game Asheron's Call which allows unrestricted player killing. Two aspects of the gameplay of Asheron's Call, namely the ability to dodge projectiles and powerful healing abilities, allows the outcome of combat between players to be determined by the power of the characters and the skill of the players. The cost of death in player versus player combat can be high, and the threat of attack by another player infuses the world with a constant tension.
The history of Darktide has been shaped by strong individual players and player guilds. Prolific player killers quickly gain notoriety, and staunch defender's reputations grow as well. Monarchies which control important locations thrive. The storyline dictated by Turbine's monthly updates is optional, but fighting for survival versus other players unavoidably shapes the experience.
Lord Kazzak Invades Stormwind - World of Warcraft - March 6, 2005
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXZ1aBdti7k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abmbObP02IE
Kazzak, a major Demon, has decided to invade the Alliance city of Stormwind. Most likely pulled there by a player, he doles out death like a Las Vegas blackjack dealer. With his awesome strength and insane spells, he lays waste to near everything in his path.
Fansy the Famous Bard - EverQuest - July 4-9, 2001
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_120/2552-Fansy-The-Famous-Bard
Fansy, a level five bard, used a collection of trained sand giants to kill virtually anyone that he happened upon and, in so doing, caused the downfall of Sullon Zek, the so-called "no-rules" server.
Southern Coalition vs. The Red Alliance - September 2006
http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=564
One of the oldest surviving groups in EVE, Red Alliance has always been known as a fearsome, cold-blooded outfit. Possessing modest numbers, but a will to use any means necessary to win--including tactics deemed dishonorable by much of the EVE community--RA soon became one of the most hated organizations in the game.
This lead to a steady verbal attack by their enemies, who used the EVE forums and in-game chat channels to spread anti-Russian propaganda. "For two years, Lotka Volterra and the Southern Coalition fighting RA would basically fling every racist stereotype about Russians onto the forums that you could imagine," says GoonSwarm's Mittani. "Really over-the-top, obvious racist stuff, like 'They're feeding their families by selling isk for money over Ebay,' jokes about buying Russian brides, calling them 'Russian Dogs.'
"RA gets very offended about attacks on their ethnicity... Even today, RA leaders will be able to tell you which LV individual pilots smack-talked them in local and made racist jokes. They'll drop anything to go kill them or hurt them in-game."
Sure enough, with no prompting, UAxDeath recalled the harassment in a separate interview: "Russian dogs. Feed our children. I still have those screenshots."
With this bad blood in mind, the two space navies readied for a showdown. The battle-lines were pathetically mismatched from the beginning: the Southern Coalition fronted over 300 ships, including 60 siege-deployable dreadnought-class capital ships and 30 fighter-carriers. In response, Red Alliance could only scrape together around 50 ships, total. More than a mismatch, the forthcoming assault was shaping up to be a massacre.
On a Friday morning, the combined Coalition fleet calmly jumped into C-J6. After enemy dreadnoughts quickly put one Red Alliance station into its reinforced mode, the rag-tag Red Alliance gang entered the fray, and began the fight for its life.
