5 Gamers Who Turned Trolling Into An Artform

One recently released update to the game, The Doomsday Heist, added an orbital cannon that players can access and use to target other players. That sounds ... problematic, but Rockstar was sure to add a countermeasure against malicious-minded hooligans: the fact that it costs between $500k and $750k per shot, making it cheaper to beat players with stacks of bills instead. This places the cannon outside the price range of the vast majority of people playing the game, and only within the grasp of those who truly put in the time and earn this rare perk. Oh, and spammers who can generate infinite amounts of money at will.

You can see where this is going.

Because there is no obstacle the human spirit can't overcome, trolls are using a variety of workarounds in order to go hog-wild and wipe out players who are just, like, trying to play the game without being turned into piles of pixel dust. It's a situation also compounded by the fact that the cannon is more than overpowered; it's unstoppable. With the exception of the bunker from where you control the cannon (and, somehow, your avatar's apartment building), it can find and kill you anywhere and everywhere. Of course, with all those nukes falling all over the place, we wouldn't be surprised if the next GTA looks more like a mutant-filled Fallout landscape.

The only thing that players have going for them is that there's a 48-minute cooldown period between shots, which gives them more than enough time to find and eviscerate the bastard responsible for blowing up their epic ride. Also, you know, Fallout's pretty good.

Following the game's opening, The Division decided that it was a good idea to dump all of the players into a single lobby, because these attempts at realism never go awry. As it was launch day, however, the lobby was nonstop stream of players arriving and walking into the next room to get their game on ... until some of them realized that you could stop everyone from starting the game by simply standing in the doorway linking the two rooms. Jumping jacks optional.

The trick to bypassing the trolls, as it turned out, was to run on the spot and eventually phase through them (you know, as in real life). This knowledge didn't trickle down to a lot of players, however, so the launch day lobby wound up resembling our local gym, populated by one guy doing jumping jacks and a bunch of angry people staring them down.

Still, all the pain and aggravation of getting through the door was immediately worth it, right?

... pushing treasure-hunting players into a pit containing a murderous monster and blocking the exit ...

... and dressing up as Shrek and -- with friends dressed as Donkey and Puss in Boots -- defending his swamp from invaders.

It's so hilariously dumb that it's kinda hard to get mad at him. By his own admission, he never hunts down players -- they have to come to him first, which he takes as an invitation to royally mess with their heads. So there you are, kids. If you want to start a successful gaming channel, all you need is friends, a sense of humor, and a methodical, serial-killer-esque nature.

It's quite fitting, then, that these games also have to deal with the same type of immature trolling that the rest of us do: rude names. It's way funnier than it sounds, trust us.

When you enter most online casinos, the dealer is required to greet you by name, presumably in the hope that your heart will be so warmed that you'll open your wallet wide and let them take it all. Some mischievous tykes, however, take advantage of this fact and, well ... remember how the high score tables old arcade machines used to be dominated by "ASS" and "FUK"? It's like that, but with names like "P. Ness" ...

... "V. Gina" ...

... and, of course, good ol' "Suk Mike Hok."

The fact that at least one dealer keeps falling for it makes us feel like this is now part of their business strategy.

We're hoping those are actual fake names, not people trying to gamble away the family fortune in revenge for whatever hell their school years must have been like.

It's known as "stream honking." Trolls and mischievous types join the same server as a popular streamer and obsessively follow them around the map in cars, holding down the horn like a dead man's trigger. The horns aren't loud, but the effect of having someone stalk you around the map while also blasting the equivalent of white noise makes attempting to communicate with watching fans into a hilarious mess.

This is related to another big problem within the game, "stream sniping." Instead of following streamers around and blasting horns into their ears, players use popular streamers' own streams to gain an advantage. The worst/best thing (depending on your perspective) is that there's no real countermeasure except to be crazy paranoid about not giving away what server you're playing on. It's not as if you can run and hide, because cutting off their source of information on your position also means cutting off those sweet, sweet donations on Twitch.

It's such a problem within the community that the drama flows like red-hot streamer tears. Players have been banned from the game for "stream sniping," despite that not being a provable thing, and one streamer launched an ill-fated copyright takedown against a group of honking trolls for recording his on-stream meltdown at their antics. He eventually apologized and realized that he was being a big freaking baby over video games -- which, to be honest, is the most gamer thing imaginable.

Adam Wears is on Twitter and Facebook, and has a newsletter about depressing history that you should definitely subscribe to.

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For more, check out The 5 Most Hilariously Creative Video Game Trolls and 6 Hilariously Creative Ways People Are Trolling The Internet.

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