8) Leeroy Jenkins — World of Warcraft - 2005
A battle strategy was ruined by a player known as Leeroy Jenkins, who, ignorant of his group’s plans, charged headlong into the battle shouting his own name in a stylized battle cry. His companions rushed to help, but Leeroy's actions caused the entire group of members to be killed. The video went viral and became a widely popular meme in many forms of media.
9) Massive Protests — Starwars Galaxies – 2005
When Starwars Galaxies implemented the Combat Upgrade, players of the community protested stating that the new combat system was too simple and dumbed down. After the release of the New Game Enhancements update, more protests erupted on message boards asking for an explanation. SOE decided to delete any negative posts and then started to mass ban users, which eventually lead to the forums being closed down.
Players decided to take their protests in game. Meeting up in star ports, players cranked up their graphics settings and started to open multiple windows using their data pads. Channel spam and players rallying in the same location caused server loads to skyrocket. Players were being threatened with account suspension and bannings, but the players continued anyway.
10) Lord Kazzak — World of Warcraft – 2006
Before the release of The Burning Crusade, an outdoor raid boss known as Lord Kazzak was lured to Stormwind. Once there, he became practically invincible from the massive health gains after killing blows. Stormwind became an epic playground for Kazzak. The boss took his time towering through the city destroying everyone in his path. With the release of TBC, Lord Kazzak has since been chained to the Blasted Lands.
11) Funeral Bombing — World of Warcraft – 2006
A guild posted on message boards about their plan to hold an in-game funeral for a guild mate that died in real life and asked other players not to break it up. However, when the funeral was underway, it was attacked by a rival guild, Serenity Now.
12) Fallador Massacre (666 Massacre) — Runescape - 2006
On June 6th, 2006, a player by the name of Cursed invited players to a house party. As players showed up, many went into the dungeon where they could participate in PvP. The lag became too much for the party, and Cursed had to boot everyone out. Once outside, players retained the ability to PvP anywhere. Many took advantage of the situation and started killing anyone they could and looting the corpses. GMs quickly became aware of the situation and tried to warn other players to log off or bank their items.
Player driven events like these make online gaming take on a life of its own. It’s interesting how impactful these events can become to the players and onlookers of online games. No matter what we play, gamers tend to be connected beyond the game’s parameters.
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Bimonthly, Holder’s Dominion author Genese Davis opines about MMO gaming, the issues the genre faces, and the power of shaping online worlds.
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