I'm sure we've all encountered them before, in one form of another, in either normal group quests, instance runs, or raid groups. They come in all shapes and sizes, and strike when you least expect it. They'll roll Need on any Bind on Pickup Items regardless of whether or not they can use it, or even worse on ANY rare (blue) or epic (purple) item that drops, when everyone else rolls greed to be fair, then they mysteriously vanish. While annoying and frustrating at the lower levels, it gets even worse at the higher levels (60+). Recently, a guild member related his experiences with a ninja during a heroic Vault of Archevon raid. The ninja in question was the raid leader, and looted the main boss at the end of the run, and then left the group. This is probably one of the biggest breaches of trust in any group: when the group/raid leader designates his or her self as master looter, and abuses that privilege for self-gain.Another example was recently mentioned in my friend, The Tank Hunter's blog- when one ninjas a rare spawn in the game for the sake of the loot, or just to be nasty. He had been camping the rare Loque'nahak (or "Spirit Beast") in Sholazar basin for two plus months, and when he finally found him, and was in the middle of taming him, a druid by the name of Scratchh swooped out of the sky and proceeded to attack and kill the animal, causing my friend to scream at him in utter frustration. What causes people to do this? Greed would be the most logical reason. No sense of honor, or fair play? Most likely. Following are the classic definitions of a Ninja:
A person who:
A) If loot is set on free for all. Person runs up and loots corpse, regardless of what group/raid is talking about.
B) Loot is on master loot. Something of value is looted by ML, to be rolled on later, and ML just keeps it and bails.
C) Loot is on group loot. Someone rolling "Need" on everything, including BoPs they can't even use. (I would kick this person from group after 2nd offense, after warning from 1st offense)
As in the case of A and C above, most of these are new players or "Noobs" who don't understand the need vs greed concept, and once it's explained to them, they usually don't do it again. However, there are those who will continue to do it just because they have an utter disregard for fair play.
The type listed in B above are probably the most despicable of the ninja types. These are the ones trusted by the rest of the group or raid to make sure that loot is distributed fairly and evenly among the players and, as stated above, abuse the power for self-gain.
What happens to ninjas? Well, not much can be done but have a report sent to the Game Masters reporting their activity, and what is done beyond that is beyond me. Some have suggested that they have their accounts suspended for repeat offenses, or complete bans from the game. If nothing else, they get a bad reputation for themselves which spreads quickly throughout the server, like Pestilence spreads disease. This may cause said player's guild to gain a bad reputation as well (depending on how the GM decides to handle the situation). Also as news of the act or acts spread, said player is blacklisted from any reputable guild, raid group, etc. So, is being a ninja worth it? You decide. As for myself, I prefer to play fair.
