As John tells us, the guild was gathering around for another regular and fun day of game play. Things were going fine until all of the sudden one of their guild mates logged on and started acting weird. This was the first sign something was wrong. The second was when the people playing the guild mate's account started demanding gold in return for returning the character to the owner.
The gold sellers effectively held the account hostage until the guild ponnied up the ransom. John doesn't tell us if they complied, so we'll all have to guess. What is interesting here is the tactics employed by the gold spammers. If they are actually doing this, then they have gotten quite desperate in their attempts to get easy and quick gold.
To me, the most amazing part of this story is that everyone banded behind John and believed that his account was hacked. What if John was deceiving his entire guild for great personal gain? Why would gold sellers be willing to invest so much personal time and risk into a hostage situation that is likely to end in little reward? A phone call to Warcraft customer service would shut this situation down in a few minutes. The article claims that gold sellers are getting desparate, but the price of Warcraft gold on the grey markets has been consistent for months. In the past gold sellers have resorted to raising prices when their gold supply diminishes (or when demand increases). I doubt the gold seller situation has changed so drastically that they're resorting to extreme hostage situations.
Did John deceive his guildmates? How can his colleagues tell if they're being deceived? If John deceived guildmates, why was it so easy to get dozens of people to support him with such minimal effort? These are the types of questions I would like to flesh out during the workshop.
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