A ninja by any other name

The Hub was victim to a ninja the other night, it seems. I had not been sleeping well the past few nights, and actually wiped out just before 8pm. After tucking me in with my stuffed menagerie, he came back downstairs and logged into WoW for a bit.

While on his Alliance Priest, he received a whispered invitation for a Mara run through. He delightedly accepted, and found himself the only at-level clothy in a full party, headed by a friendly level 80. At some point during the run, an epic BOE mace dropped. Long story short, the Rogue rolled "need," and an outcry among the party members ensued. The Rogue claimed that the purple tanking mace was better than what he had equipped, and was finally convinced that it did not suit his character.

At this point, all party members agreed to roll again, and the Hub actually won. Unfortunately, however, this rogue refused to trade the item over to him. He also refused to equip it, claiming that he had been told by the 80 leading the party "to just sell it." When reminded that it was not the 80 who had won the roll, his response was that they were all "getting a run through so just shut up."

Coincidentally, I logged on to WoW.com yesterday morning to find this on the front page:

Heroes of Warcraft on EU Stormrage sure does try to justify their ninja in this thread -- they have paragraphs and paragraphs about why it was a "tactical choice" to ignore a roll and give an item to one of their guildies. But in the end, a ninja is a ninja -- if you decide to roll, and someone wins, and you give it to someone else, that's a ninja. No amount of explanation and squirming is going to get you out of it.

Why, oh why, after all this time, do people insists on being greedy bastards and trying to sneak off with things that do not belong to them? Don't they realize what they are setting themselves up for?

And before anyone starts in with that "mara is srs business" crap, might I remind you that it isn't the item that dropped, or even the gold it could have been sold for - it's a matter of being the kind of person that other players can trust and will enjoy running with. And I don't care if someone bogarts my freaking hat, they aren't getting the opportunity to do it twice.

I have withheld said Rogue's name from this post, mainly because I still haven't decided whether or not this is the end of the story.

See, I gotta mean streak.