A man in World of Warcraft has gained dubious fame. He is likely the biggest troll that Azeroth has ever seen.
Trolls appear in online games from time to time. Whether it’s nasty gankers who just won’t leave you alone or people who use their skills to ruin others’ fun – like certain priests with a faith leap. But most trolls invest only a little time in their pranks and cruelties.
But not all.
Some trolls go further and invest weeks and months to completely ruin the fun of others. For some, this effort is admirable; others find it simply disgusting. “TinyViolin69” navigates precisely between these two extremes, having destroyed tens of thousands of hours of progress in seconds.
What happened back then? Although World of Warcraft was not originally intended to be a “hardcore” game, the community created and then embraced the mode. Characters have only a single life. If the hero dies once, it’s over – and you have to start all over again.
While this pressure is manageable when playing solo, it becomes much more challenging when tackling the hardest content in the game, like dungeons or raids. Not only are these harder, but you also have to rely on all your teammates.
The guild “HC Elite” was considered one of the best in the hardcore scene. They conquered one raid after another – Ahn’Qiraj and the Bastion of the Twilight also completed in hardcore mode.
However, this heroic journey changed in Naxxramas.
For TinyViolin had sneaked into the guild and even snagged one of the tank spots. He had waited for weeks for his big moment, and during the infamous “The 4 Horsemen” boss fight, he saw his hour arrive. He pulled the assigned horseman across the room. Since this boss casts spells on all nearby players every few seconds, it only took a few moments before a large portion of the raid died, and the characters were lost for the hardcore mode.
Several thousand hours of gameplay were destroyed in a moment. After all, the characters had been leveled and equipped over weeks. The whole raid effectively existed just to tackle these challenges ideally without losses and with maximum planning.
With a traitor in their midst, however, this proved impossible.
But TinyViolin kept going. He snuck back into the guild and again waited for his big moment in the raid “Ahn’Qiraj,” pulling the final boss C’thun, which immediately killed numerous characters again.
Ultimately, Blizzard banned TinyViolin for his behavior on his main account as well.
The player was already suspicious before: The warning signs had all been visible beforehand. The account name “TinyViolin69” already screams troll. For “TinyViolin,” or the “smallest violin in the world,” is essentially nothing more than a classic: “Cry me a river!”
Furthermore, TinyViolin was not an unknown entity in Classic. As early as 2021, long before the incident in Naxxramas, TinyViolin had caused a stir. He made life hell for other players by playing priests with 16 accounts simultaneously. He positioned them in front of the major raid instances, just to remove the coveted world buffs from the characters.
Back then, Blizzard took swift action against this behavior and banned all 16 accounts.
The signs were there that TinyViolin was quite the troll.
But that’s also a bit of “Cpt. Hindsight” – in hindsight, one is always wiser.
These incidents will surely remain in the memories of players for many years to come. Especially on hardcore realms, players will likely think multiple times about who they let into their group – and how much responsibility they give away.
