The Original Trolls of Gaming
The Original Trolls of Gaming
Everybody has heard of Leeroy Jenkins—who famously dove headlong into battle, dragging his entire guild into the fray, causing a panic, and ultimately wiping his own raid, famously adding, "at least I have chicken."
But Leeroy was not the first, and won't be the last to cause an uproar in an MMORPG world.
Throughout gaming history, whenever there has been an opportunity to cause anonymous havoc that subverts the developer's desired intentions, somebody is bound to step up to the challenge.
We start our journey with one of the greatest trolls to ever come out of Norrath...
FANSY THE BARD: EVERQUEST
You and your party have just traversed the scorching dunes of the Southern Desert of Ro.
After months of planning, you’ve finally cornered an Orc Chieftain—the kind of legendary target that puts a group on the map.
You unsheathe your blade, ready for glory, but the Erudite Paladin in your group suddenly holds up a hand.
"Is that... a flute?"
Over the ridge comes a Level 5 Bard named Fansy.
He isn't running for his life; he’s leading a parade. Behind him, a thundering wall of Sand Giants—creatures capable of swatting high-level raids like flies—follows him in a perfect, terrifying "train."
Fansy wasn't just a troll; he was a mad genius. At the time, Verant Interactive had opened Sullon Zek, a "Team PvP" server with one hard-coded rule: You could not attack players under Level 6.
Fansy realized that by staying at Level 5, he was effectively a "God." He was untouchable—no player could strike him to stop the madness—and thanks to his Level 5 Bard song, Selo’s Accelerando, he was also slightly faster than everyone else.
With this speed, Fansy would gather an irate parade of Sand Giants (or even the legendary crocodile Lockjaw, if he was up) and lead them right to the footsteps of terrified, unprepared parties.
The results were devastating. In those days, dying in Norrath meant a grueling "corpse run" to retrieve your gear—which was usually lying exactly where the monsters had slaughtered you.
This often led to the ultimate frustration: the "corpse stack."
If you died trying to get your body back, you just added another corpse to the pile, eventually requiring the unique (and very costly) services of a Necromancer to summon your remains to a safe zone.
When the victims of Fansy's reign of terror flooded the forums with demands for a ban, the developers famously took Fansy’s side.
Since he wasn’t technically breaking any programmed rules, the GMs simply told the frustrated players: "Go-go Good Team!"
Rainz: The Man Who Killed God
In 1997, during the Ultima Online beta, creator Richard Garriott appeared as his avatar, Lord British.
Usually, Garriott played with an "Invulnerability" flag toggled on, but a server crash just minutes prior had reset the world, and the developers forgot to re-enable his god-mode.
A thief named Rainz noticed the opening. He cast a "Fire Field" spell he’d just swiped from another player's backpack.
To everyone's shock, Lord British simply slumped over, dead on the floor.
The aftermath was digital "scorched earth." The developers summoned greater demons to slaughter every player in the vicinity.
Rainz was eventually banned, but he had proven that even the creator can be brought down by a well-timed spark.
Angwe: The Ghost of Menethil
Angwe, an Orc Rogue on the Dethecus server, became a living legend by camping the Menethil Harbor docks for four straight months.
In vanilla World of Warcraft, these docks were a critical chokepoint—the only way for Alliance players to travel between continents.
He would sit in Stealth for up to
What truly solidified his infamy was his second account, a level one Alliance character named Angwespy. He used it to infiltrate Alliance chat and listen to his victims scream in real-time.
Angwe eventually created a
ISTVAAN SHOGAATSU
The infiltration by Istvaan Shogaatsu and the Guiding Hand Social Club (GHSC) remains the gold standard for corporate espionage in gaming.
While the heist itself was lightning-fast, the "Nicole" signal was the culmination of nearly a year of meticulous social engineering.
The GHSC didn't just join the corporation; they became its backbone. They ran the logistics, defended the borders, and earned the absolute trust of the CEO, Mirial.
One operative even ascended to the rank of Vice President, effectively giving the assassins the keys to every vault, hangar, and starship the company owned.
The execution was a masterpiece of synchronized betrayal.
While Mirial was flying her rare Navy-issue Apocalypse battleship—escorted by Istvaan himself—the order was given. In a single moment, the "loyal" escort turned, and Istvaan opened fire on his own CEO.
Simultaneously, across the galaxy, sleepers within the corporation stripped the hangars bare and emptied the accounts, jettisoning the company’s entire legacy into the void for pickup.
The GHSC walked away with assets valued at 30 billion ISK, which converted to roughly $16,500 USD at the time. To ensure the defeat was total, they destroyed Mirial's escape pod and kept her frozen corpse as a trophy.
When the gaming world reacted with shock, Istvaan remained cold and pragmatic, famously noting that in a universe where everything can be insured and replaced, the only thing that truly hurts to lose—and the only thing you can't get back—is your pride.
The story of Cally and the EVE Intergalactic Bank is a masterclass in social engineering that changed the way players viewed trust in MMOs forever.
Cally didn't just wake up one day and decide to scam; he spent nearly eight months building one of the most sophisticated financial institutions in New Eden.
At its peak, the EIB wasn’t just a place to store money—it was a functioning bank that offered interest-bearing savings accounts and provided industrial loans to smaller corporations.
He even employed a team of actual players as tellers and security officers who were completely unaware of the coming heist, effectively using their reputations to bolster his own.
When Cally finally decided to pull the rug in early 2006, he did so with theatrical flair, releasing a high-production video confession where he systematically mocked his victims and his own employees for their naivety.
He walked away with roughly 790 billion ISK, a haul so massive that it was officially recognized as the largest virtual theft in an MMORPG by Guinness World Records.
To add a final layer of salt to the wound, Cally used a portion of the stolen funds to place a massive bounty on his own head, essentially daring the entire galaxy to come and get him while he sat safely on a private moon.
Because scamming is a legal part of the cutthroat universe of EVE Online, the game developers at CCP Games refused to intervene.
Their stance was that since Cally used the game's own mechanics, such as corporate roles and wallet permissions, he was simply playing the game more effectively than those he exploited.
Cally eventually retired from the game as a legendary villain, having proven that in a sandbox world where everything can be insured, the only thing that truly hurts to lose is your pride.
THE 18 HOUR BOSS FIGHT
The battle against Pandemonium Warden in Final Fantasy XI remains the most notorious example of "developer griefing" in gaming history.
In 2008, the top-tier guild Beyond the Limitation spent 18 grueling hours attempting to take down the boss, which possessed 20 different forms that each had to be defeated in succession.
As the clock hit the 18-hour mark, the raid group was forced to retreat—not because they had wiped, but because the players were physically collapsing.
Reports surfaced of raid members vomiting and fainting at their desks from sheer exhaustion, turning a digital challenge into a legitimate medical hazard.
The mainstream media, including the BBC, picked up the story, casting a harsh light on the lack of safety boundaries in MMO design.
The backlash was so severe that it forced Square Enix to issue a public apology and fundamentally overhaul their design philosophy.
To ensure such an event could never happen again, they implemented a strict two-hour time limit for the encounter, effectively ending the era of "marathon" boss fights and setting a new industry standard for player well-being.
THE RALLOS ZEK 500
The ultimate "Players vs. Developers" story. Kerafyrm the Sleeper was designed to be unkillable. On Rallos Zek, 200 players coordinated to take him down. As his health hit 26%, the developers deleted the boss mid-fight.
After a nuclear community backlash, Sony apologized and let the players finish the job, making them the only ones to ever slay the god-dragon.
