In recent, interesting, community news a guild on the Vek'nilash server waltzed through some of the hardest content in WoW by using GM item (Martin Fury) that allows you to "Kill all enemies in a 30 yard radius". Apparently a member of the guild had their account hacked. Because the member was an officer, the hacker cleaned out the Guild Bank. Several of his characters were also deleted/transferred. After Blizzard rescued his account and restored his lost characters, he found that one of his low level alts was wearing the the GM item. The Guild then went on to use the item to do thing the guild typically could not.
Source: WoWInsider [ more info ]

Now, Karatechop is not the character who had Martin Fury; it was just easier to say it that way in the comic. Karatechop was the Guild Leader. I say was because his account was banned. And I imagine most of the guild will eventually be given the same treatment (at least the ones who attended raids where the GM item was employed).

Reading the intial article, the resultant WoWInsider analysis of the situation, Karatechop's ban letter, and the subsequent interview WoWInsider conducted with him, I just couldn't wrap my brain around why, after realizing a guild member had Martin Fury, they didn't open a ticket and report the issue. Surely they knew that if they used it, they'd eventually be found out and the consequences would be dire.

Then saw Karatechop's WoWArmory profile, realized he was a Gnome, and was no longer surprised.

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Sorry about the exceedingly late comic. I went to bed early without doing any work on the comic. So I had to do it all this morning.

No worries Woody.

We had an officer get hacked too, Blizzard restored everything stolen in that particular instance.
Everything taken from the officer and from the guild bank, which was really nice.
Then we had another person get hacked, and Blizzard didn't restore anything at all.

Haha who could resist using something like that in any video game?

Wow...um that is one epic chest piece. But even more dumb to use it to clean out the hardest dungeon's and bosses. I guess if you wana get caught cheating...might as well go out in a blaze of glory. hehe

Indigoz, I could.

Just recently I received from WoW, 2 emails, one saying get 14 free days of play, the other for 10 free days of WotLK. Didn't think anything of it. Since I stopped playing almost a year ago for Eve. Just thought it was WoW's way of getting me to come back.

Until my daughter, who stills plays, and is in the same guild that my toons are in, goes, "Dad...are you logged on Wow?"
I had removed the program to make room on my drive, so I'm like "No.....WHY?!"
The reply I get is, "Well, Elk is."
Turns out someone hacked my account, and was using my hunter to farm leather making mats in the new content. Called up WoW Customer Service, explained what was going on. They changed the password, so we could kick the bast...um...person off. And change the password to something else.
When we was able to get back on my account; one toon was gone, there was a new toon that had never been played, and most of my other toons, but the main, was stripped of anything worth gold, including my 59 rogue, that had some very nice instance stuff. Oh, and the hacker forgot to clear the friends list of who they sent my stuff/gold to, how dumb is that? My main's bank was basically empty of anything worth selling, and had stacks upon stacks of WotLK leather making mats in his bags. Luckily they didn't touch the guild bank.
Petitioned, less then 2 weeks later, WoW had returned everything to the way it was before the hacker had taken over, AND left everything the hacker had collected too. Couple hundred gold there, he he.

Why not use it? It was the mistake of a GM or whomever that put that item on him. If they are dumb even to not notice, then heck yeah use it! Yeah it's cheating but that would have been really cool!

Eh.... I probably couldn't resist. Not sure if it was a pvp server... but can you imagine the chaos that would've caused if he walked into an enemy city?

I may just be a jerk, but for some reason seeing anyone playing a gnome makes me want to throttle the player behind it. I guess it is almost like wearing your 'Douchebag of the Year' award around your neck and adding bright neon lights so everyone knows. Now I know not EVERYONE who plays a gnome is a douchebag, but personally I have yet to meet one who is not. They do tend to have the highest race-to-douche ratio in the game.

And anyone else but me think that gnome and troll are 'throw away' races? Like Blizzard really kinda used them to have an even number (originally as the BC races make it an odd number)? I know both races are in the strategy games and world lore... but they always felt like scenery and not much more. It's like giving the red uniformed science officer on Start Trek a backstory just so he wouldn't die on the next mission because McCoy had the flu and couldn't go.

Ugh... Stories like this tend to make me a little ill... I consider myself a "Puritan" I was one of the few people that HATED Dark Age Of Camelot when they "Nerfed" the Trials of Atlantis. I spent months nay years in TOA grinding out gear and then they nerf it.. and any yahoo with a week of spare time can hit level 50 and have the best gear... Not cool. It cheapens it for the players that put all that time in. Now I know some are casual players.. and heck I take LOOOONG breaks myself.. and have never been in a single top tier guild... But I dont begrudge anyone who is. If they put in the time, effort and work.. they should have the best gear... Kinda like life no? Anyway that's my 2 cents.