Back When Ninja Looting Was a Thing

[Heathy]

I thought master looter didnt exist until bwl

it existed while i was playing but ppl just didn't like using it in dungeon runs, it just slowed everything down and from what i remember no one really even trusted the master looter so yeah. it was self defeating in most ways. at least thats what i remember.

[Trollhammer]

Blizzard has never, ever, ever, ever taken the loot / ninja issue sufficiently seriously. It is not a particularly difficult problem to solve, they simply didn't.

Why should they? It's part of the game.

[Super Kami Dende]

Had a Guild on my old server that was basically known for being Ninja Looters. They were also known for being some of the best players on the server. So basically it came down to "Do I get carried and run the risk of getting Ninja'd?". I ran with them often, became friends with a bunch of them. So I didn't get ninja'd from.
It basically came down to
- Are you a stranger No/Yes?
- If Yes then the next part was
- Is someone that is not a Stranger in need of this Item more No/Yes?.

Also if the person that came along was horrible i.e. Died in Fire/Horrible DPS/Horrible Threat Gen. Then sometimes they ninja'd the gear and D/e'd it in front of them.

[Akka]

The only case where I or anyone from my guild could get in trouble was when we ninja'ed something from someone from higher tier guild than ours with which we had some sort of relationship. But we could get in trouble even if we won something fair and square because "muh loot, I wanted it!!!11one" and their gm or officer talking to ours, ugh >_>

Crossing someone from higher tier guild led to shortage of mats, gold and other nice things. That's a PITA.

This old school strict vertical hierarchy was annoying af >_>

What can I say, not my experience at all.
We had a pretty good reputation on my server (mature and nice) so when we said to other guilds that one of their members had misbehaved, they tended to take it seriously. We never felt under the power of any other guild, as we were nearly never poached (even in the famed TBC poaching era) due to being a pretty close-knit group of friends, and never had to compete for mat due to being among the "decent but not top-tier" guilds on our servers.

So yeah, no, nothing even close to what you describe.

Trash guilds weren't that bad, I actually played in one for quite sometime when I returned to the game in TBC, I pretty much joined the first guild I PUGed with, and they ended up being a guild of outcasts.

It wasn't that different from playing in high-end or even top-end guilds. A bit more restrictive because some people in PUGs knew who you and/or your guild were and they snitched on you, well, if RL even cared about it, but other than that... Selling boosts? Easy, buyers didn't care, they wanted the job done. AH was and is faceless.

My experience about trash guilds has been more "guilds made up of whiny, immature brats, who can not manage to kill even entry-level bosses". The kind of guilds where people go because they either don't know better, or end up due to being kicked out of everywhere else. Amusingly, my most striking memory of a run with people from such guild was precisely a run with joking, fun, polite and pretty good people - the very fact that they were the exact opposite of what their usual players were was precisely the reason why I remember it so vividly
But the usual run ? Wipe, wipe, insults, trash talk, either the group disband or I leave rolling my eyes.

[Deleted]

After a while the raiding community is going to be so small there will be an active blacklist of people on the forums that most people will refer to when taking people into their guilds/groups.

So in that respect, I don't see it as being an issue. Ofc, that won't stop someone going it for the first time.

[Enkrypt]

People tend to over-exaggerate consequences of ninja-looting.

As long as you're in high-end raiding guild on your realm you could ninja everything you wanted, anyone who dared to call you out would be ridiculed by other guild members and their asskissers and prob would end up being ignored and not you.

RLs were fine w/ ninja-looting because your raid > PUGs, some even asked their members to do so

IMHO, the only time it's low to ninja is when you're boosting someone who paid for loot through BWL, then, yeah, it's a shitty thing to do.

Something tells me you were the one ninja-looting and this is what you told yourself to feel better about it.

For people returning to Vanilla and to those who never played, ninja-looting is always shitty. If your guild condones ninja-looting, leave that guild. It's a bitchmade thing to do.

IMHO, you ninja-looted a lot back in the day.

[jackofwind]

Fuck ninja looting, I used to run silent auctions on gear.

[ls-]

Something tells me you were the one ninja-looting and this is what you told yourself to feel better about it.

For people returning to Vanilla and to those who never played, ninja-looting is always shitty. If your guild condones ninja-looting, leave that guild. It's a bitchmade thing to do.

IMHO, you ninja-looted a lot back in the day.

Well, I never said I didn't do so I even said when it's defo not okay to ninja. So your part about feeling better is quite weird o_O

It's a way to deal w/ lack of gear, you needed it, but there's so few pieces of it. I also used to poach from lower tier guilds in Vanilla/TBC because attuning people from scratch is a PITA.

That's just how things are, it's a part of the game.

[Enkrypt]

Well, I never said I didn't do so I even said when it's defo not okay to ninja. So your part about feeling better is quite weird o_O

It's a way to deal w/ lack of gear, you needed it, but there's so few pieces of it. I also used to poach from lower tier guilds in Vanilla/TBC because attuning people from scratch is a PITA.

That's just how things are, it's a part of the game.

Ninja looting was never excusable when I played Vanilla. It made you a persona non grata. There was a list of people on the official NA forums for our server that listed raid ninja-looters. My comment about feeling better is because you're basically stealing what people worked hard for and/or may have been waiting for a very long time, and even though it wasn't rightfully yours, you took it anyway. That, sir or ma'am, was not "just how things" were.

You talk about it like stealing other peoples' shit was just commonplace for you.

"Oh, you're the rightful winner of that loot? Well, fuck you, I'm stealing it." <--- Seriously? That was just "part of the game" to you? Yikes. Glad my experience was nothing remotely like that.

[ls-]

Ninja looting was never excusable when I played Vanilla. It made you a persona non grata. There was a list of people on the official NA forums for our server that listed raid ninja-looters. My comment about feeling better is because you're basically stealing what people worked hard for and/or may have been waiting for a very long time, and even though it wasn't rightfully yours, you took it anyway. That, sir or ma'am, was not "just how things" were.

You talk about it like stealing other peoples' shit was just commonplace for you.

"Oh, you're the rightful winner of that loot? Well, fuck you, I'm stealing it." <--- Seriously? That was just "part of the game" to you? Yikes. Glad my experience was nothing remotely like that.

Let's call it a privilege of playing in higher end guild, there's enough people below you about whom you didn't need to care and many of whom actually needed stuff from you, so ignoring you (if you're an officer or higher) and/or your guild would actually hurt them and not you.

You'd be ignored by like 100 self-righteous people, but majority didn't really care, and most importantly guilds above us didn't care about our pleb drama the same way our guild didn't care about drama in lower tier guilds. But if we crossed members of higher tier guilds or even top guilds on my realm, we'd have a lot of issues because it could affect our ability to raid efficiently.

And lastly, I'll just copy my other comment from this very thread:

The only case where I or anyone from my guild could get in trouble was when we ninja'ed something from someone from higher tier guild with which we had some sort of relationship. But we could get in trouble even if we won something fair and square because of "muh loot, I wanted it!!!11one" and their gm or officer talking to ours, ugh >_>

Crossing someone from higher tier guild led to shortage of mats, gold and other nice things. That's a PITA.

This old school strict vertical hierarchy was annoying af >_>

-- edit #1

Vanilla experience on different realms was quite different and sorta unique, I guess.

Some people remember Vanilla as a time when most people were friendly and reputation mattered, others remember stuff like tanks and healers asking for money to join dung runs, MC/BWL boosts (mostly BWL), others experienced PvP rank trading and so on.

[Enkrypt]

Let's call it a privilege of playing in higher end guild, there's enough people below you about whom you didn't need to care and many of whom actually needed stuff from you, so ignoring you (if you're an officer or higher) and/or your guild would actually hurt them and not you.

You'd be ignored by like 100 self-righteous people, but majority didn't really care, and most importantly guilds above us didn't care about our pleb drama the same way our guild didn't care about drama in lower tier guilds. But if we crossed members of higher tier guilds or even top guilds on my realm, we'd have a lot of issues because it could affect our ability to raid efficiently.

And lastly, I'll just copy my other comment from this very thread:



-- edit #1

Vanilla experience on different realms was quite different and sorta unique, I guess.

Some people remember Vanilla as a time when most people were friendly and reputation mattered, others remember stuff like tanks and healers asking for money to join dung runs, MC/BWL boosts (mostly BWL), others experienced PvP rank trading and so on.

I comprehend what you're saying. It's the most elitist and dickish thing I've read on the forums today. I played in a high-end guild in TBC, and I'm aware hard decisions must be made, but ninja-looting was never the answer. Especially when you talk about people "below you" in World of Warcraft. I guess the Oxygen gets thinner way up there on high horses. It would explain the strange thought process.

[munkeyinorbit]

Nothing cool about that. Cool thing, however, was that there was actually accountability for that back then.

no there wasn't. I saw lots of ninja looting and those guilds/players never got in trouble. "Don't group with player x from guild Y. They ninjaloot" trade spam for an hour. Next week, they are at it again. Same shit. Different victims.

[ls-]

I comprehend what you're saying. It's the most elitist and dickish thing I've read on the forums today. I played in a high-end guild in TBC, and I'm aware hard decisions must be made, but ninja-looting was never the answer. Especially when you talk about people "below you" in World of Warcraft. I guess the Oxygen gets thinner way up there on high horses. It would explain the strange thought process.

But how do you call people who are literally below you in terms of progress? o_O

And don't tell me your guild never "recruited" people from lower tier guilds, it's a pure masochism to reattune new people for a higher end guild. If you never poached, you either lie or your realm was a freaking wonderland w/ unicorns and rainbows >_>

[bash the fash]

Because its exciting?

Lol it's 'exciting'?

So an asshole gets into one of your raid's open spots, after you've spent weeks farming consumables and learning/attuning/gearing/practicing to take down a boss, and after the kill, he ninjas the loot? Then he runs back to his guild, which happens to be one of the bigger guilds on the server, and they protect him, and people deal with it, because that particular guild is e-famous and tends to hoard the high-level mats/recipes on the server?

That sound exciting to you?

The best way to know somebody never actually dealt with this kind of BS is if they think it's 'exciting' to have weeks of their hard work wasted because of some jackass. All of you people who think this enigmatic 'social aspect' of the game was some kind of magic sunshine-and-rainbows and that everybody was nice and ninja-looting was 'exciting' are in for a real ride.

[FelPlague]

Blizzard has never, ever, ever, ever taken the loot / ninja issue sufficiently seriously. It is not a particularly difficult problem to solve, they simply didn't.

It's lessened somewhat since the introduction of newer loot methods, but not fixed. Not by a long shot.

I honestly can't tell you why either, Blizzard is usually pretty smart but they have weird blind spots when it comes to certain aspects of the game design.

what? they havent fixed it or even tried to?
have you missed the introduction of personal loot, and forcing it into groups that have anything less then 80% guild members?
it has been completly fixed, and mostly fixed since even back in vanilla, yes there was the odd "rogue needs a int dagger" but its either in a group that it doesent matter, or in a setting that they would then have their rep ruined on the server.

[munkeyinorbit]

Why should they? It's part of the game.

They solved it with personal loot.
Blizzard always took it serious but it was up to the players themselves to prove it. If it was stated in WoW chat and you persevered then you got ninja looters suspended. It was a form of fraud. The punishment for first time offenders was so lenient (as were lots of first time offences) that it was hardly worth the hassle and other people who got ninjaed never got the loot. Someone would have to be prolific ninja-looter for it to effect them. It took a couple of expansions for people to wise up to this.

[Enkrypt]

But how do you call people who are literally below you in term of progress? o_O

And don't tell me your guild never "recruited" people from lower tier guilds, it's a pure masochism to reattune new people for a higher end guild. If never poached, you either lie or your realm was freaking wonderland w/ unicorns and rainbows >_>

I wasn't an officer in the 40-man raid team. None of that is really relevant. You keep mentioning attunement, poaching from others guilds, higher end this or that, etc. None of that is any of my concern and furthermore are just your reasons for having taken things that weren't rightfully earned by you.

I'm talking about the act of ninja-looting, that's it. You're using all those factors to explain why you stole people's loot. That's (not) cool and all, but you're still ninja-looting. If you had a loot system that didn't award your veteran players, that's your guild's fault. Your poor planning shouldn't mean others don't get rewarded because you fancy yourself "non pleb". Your taking someone else's reward because you deem yourself more important? Psh, no thanks.

I'm going to bow out from this conversation. Good luck all! Have fun.

[Jorgee]

I feel like there were also a lot of cases of half-ninja looting too. Where someone, whether greeding by mistake or misclicking or whatever, got the wrong piece of loot that was intended for someone else. The old BoP system caused gear to immediately become soulbound the moment it went into your bags, as opposed to today where you have a time limit to trade it with whoever was in your group. It might be asking for much, but I wouldn't mind the gear trade system sticking around. It wouldn't deter true ninja looters, but at least it would spare the people who just made an innocent mistake from social isolation.

[ls-]

If you had a loot system that didn't award your veteran players, that's your guild's fault. Your poor planning shouldn't mean others don't get rewarded because you fancy yourself "non pleb". Your taking someone else's reward because you deem yourself more important? Psh, no thanks.

Well, it's hard to award veteran players w/ stuff that didn't happen to drop in our raids, so ninja-looting in PUGs and thus walking over others was a viable option, and yes, your performance in guild raid was more important than someone you didn't even know not getting his/her loot. If you knew said person, you could always buy his roll in PUG...

you fancy yourself "non pleb"

I literally called my guild and myself plebs and our issues w/ others who weren't above us pleb drama, lol...

I'm going to bow out from this conversation. Good luck all! Have fun.

BB o/

[Mormolyce]

what? they havent fixed it or even tried to?
have you missed the introduction of personal loot, and forcing it into groups that have anything less then 80% guild members?
it has been completly fixed, and mostly fixed since even back in vanilla, yes there was the odd "rogue needs a int dagger" but its either in a group that it doesent matter, or in a setting that they would then have their rep ruined on the server.

That took them a decade to roll out, and you can still get a guild together, pug a guy and ninja his loot. Sure it's better than it was for ten years but I don't count that as fixed.

- - - Updated - - -

Why should they? It's part of the game.

That's the worst argument I've ever heard.