A Posteriori

Player versus Player

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.¹

Quiet for a moment. Listen, just listen. Can you hear it? Seriously, can you hear it? Those, ladies and gentlemen, are the sounds of the QQ-tears of the numerous win traders who suffered the consequences of their actions this past weekend.

A quick perusal of the forums while at work this morning brought many an insidious grin to my face. You see, I had just found out that Blizzard decided to publicly reveal their opinion on the murky matter of win trading, which has been an issue of contest in the past. They have been cracking down on “actions deemed inappropriate for the World of Warcraft by the In-Game Support staff of Blizzard Entertainment”.² This past weekend hundreds of players attempted to log in and found that they had Arena points removed from their accounts, Arena gear removed from their accounts, and three-day suspensions. Some individuals received punishments that were so severe that certain frequent offenders were banned from the game.

Of particular note is the fact that many players are complaining that they’ve had S3 gear removed even though they engaged in win trading after acquiring said gear.³ Blizzard doesn’t seem to care, since they’ve removed gear from players who engaged in this activity irregardless of when it occurred this Arena season. Furthermore, people who purchased slots in Arena teams that gained rank from win trading also received various punishments, even if they didn’t actively engage in win trading while on that team.

The part that has me deviously laughing, however, is the reaction of the community — including notable Blizzard personalities like Reythur, Aredek, and Belfaire. For example, take this gem of a quote:

This type of behavior is not — I will repeat, NOT — a laughing matter, but rather a very serious offense and we have deemed that these actions are comparable to the violation committed. If you feel otherwise, however, you’re more than welcome to contact our Account Administration department as well as post your ideas for change on our Suggestions forum.

While Aredek refuses to shed light on how Blizzard staff is able to recognize win trading — and why their proof tends to be rather accurate — he did tell us the philosophy behind the recent wave of bans:

Win-trading is an abuse of the system by which players queue for arenas. Arena matching is a process designed to randomly select players with similar ratings. Our more creative players have found methods by which they can circumvent the random element, and, quite frankly, have abused it. I am of the belief that this ruins the spirit of the Arena and the rewards therein.

Intentionally losing arena matches is hardly against the rules, Bastaria. I would hope that personal pride would prevent you from doing this; however, this harms no one but your team. On the other hand, queuing with a similar opponent and losing repeatedly may raise some red flags, and rightfully so. Our goal is to provide players with as fair of a system as possible, and purposefully losing to the same team disrupts fair-play.

Overall, I’m pretty pleased with the recent wave of bannings — as if my repeated references to gloating and joy couldn’t make it any more clear. I’m an exceedingly casual Arena player who plays mostly for fun. I think that the highest rating a team I’ve been on has ever acquired was something just a smidgen over 1700. However, I do have an issue with people who take advantage of a loophole or engage in what is clearly not appropriate conduct. Furthermore, it does upset me when I do go into the Arena and find my team going against people in full Season 3 Arena gear and pummeling us mercilessly. Though there have been times when we’ve gone up against people in this better gear and trampled over them.

Seriously. Csilla left dainty little boot marks on the back of some of her opponents and has on more than one occasion gotten a sweet sweet victory in the form of a mace to the back of the skull.

In particular, I’m very glad that they waited until the end of the current Arena season to enforce the rules. While earlier action may have prevented some of the cheating from occurring, doing it this late in the season prevents the rulebreakers from reacquiring their gear — which means that they’ll start over from scratch as soon as Season 4 comes rolling around. And that appeals to me much more on a vindictive, decidedly female, level.

I’ll end this entry with a quote from Belfaire: “Projection is for movie theaters. Appeals are for AA.”

Related Posts

1. Spirit on Arena Gear — Absurd!
2. Lowering the Bar
3. Arena Shape-Up!