Wow forums are blowing up again...this time it's win trading...

[Vyndree]

That would actually be a productive discussion. Crying like a baby about blizzard's decisions ...

I'm not sure name calling is productive either, but what do I know.

I didn't name names, nor was it directed at anyone in particular -- from my history you should know that if I ever have a problem with an INDIVIDUAL I contact them privately and don't promote public slander. This, however, was directed at the entire thread. The whole topic is about people crying on forums over wintrading, and I think the crying and illogical argument style is starting to creep into our forum in a way that's rather hypocritical.

The last I want to have to hear and/or deal with is some random forum troll deciding to use this as firepower in their argument to get the community all riled up about multiboxing. "GG, multiboxers have no skillz, they are teh cheatzors, lookit them cry about point trading cuz they suxxor at teh pvp and think it's cheating cuz they can't make it outta 1500's, roflmao gg qq lol wtfpwnzor" -- many of you have decided to tune out this sort of garbage on the wowforums, but I for one am trying to make a decent name for the multiboxing community as a whole, and using similar baseless argumentative styles isn't helping.

[Buzzatronic]

... using similar baseless argumentative styles isn't helping.

Just because you feel the arguments on one side or another are "baseless" doesn't make it true, this is just like the "Blizzard doesn't think it's cheating but it is because I say so" annoyance that anti-boxers quote daily.

There is obviously a problem with people obtaining arena gear through illegitimate channels, I think on that we can all agree. It's not baseless to assert that such behavior breeds worse behavior and the fact that Blizzard is actively making changes to not only stop win-trading but also make team/point selling much less profitable and much harder to do means that Blizzard also feels this theory is not baseless.

If everything was hunky dorey with team selling and point selling and win-trading was the only problem, there would have been no changes made and win traders would have just been banned.

But ultimately I think the debate here is futile since for the most part, whichever side you stand on is in direct relation to how you play the game so no one is going to change anyone's minds.

With that said, I'm done. I've stated my opinion and am confident is it not baseless nor does it make me a cry-baby. But of course, we know the old saying about opinions ...

[Vyndree]

... using similar baseless argumentative styles isn't helping.

Just because you feel the arguments on one side or another are "baseless" doesn't make it true, this is just like the "Blizzard doesn't think it's cheating but it is because I say so" annoyance that anti-boxers quote daily.

I believe you might've misunderstood (why am I sensing a pattern here? Am I speaking weird today?) what I was saying, or you're just confirming what I said... I believe the STYLE of the argument is flawed -- not the argument itself.

[Zaelar]

Letting teams have an unlimited amount of people and letting everyone get points based on team rating without ever playing would stop s3 people from playing in the 1600 bracket. There would be no monetary incentive to create new teams at least. People would still sell arena points, but it wouldn't affect you in the same way that power leveling wouldn't affect you.

[Ðeceased]

Well as far as I'm concerned selling arena teams for gold, or boosting ppl for gold or whatever is fine. It's just part of WoW trading. whether it's providing an item or a service.

As for trading in $$$.. /slap

or

if it involves communicating with the other team and fixing fights in order for a team to gain rankings... it's more of a grey area :S

[Zaelar]

It's not a gray area, it's flat out not allowed. That is what the recent suspensions were all about.(at least from what I can tell)

It's not allowed in battlegrounds or world pvp either. It's not allowed in any competitive environment(outside of wow) that I can think of either.

[Tonuss]

If there was nothing wrong in Blizzard's eyes with points/team selling, then they wouldn't be making so many changes to make it much more difficult in today's patch.

I get the feeling that they don't like it, but they don't feel it's something they wanted to deal with so severely. Win-trading was an obvious exploit and something they had to try and put a stop to. Buying and selling teams can hurt other teams in the bracket that do not buy/sell points, but I am assuming that their investigations turned up that it doesn't make enough of an impact to harm the arena system as a whole. So instead of dishing out punishments, they are working to make it less effective.

I was teasing some of the trolls in the CS forum that maybe Blizzard was banning people who participating in buying or selling points and forcing them to go through the recovery process as their way of a mild punishment, but I don't really believe that to be the case. I think a small number of people who were on a team that win-traded, but didn't take part in it, got swept up when they were doing the bans. But the gear/point loss will be reversed if they contact account administration. People who didn't win-trade but were banned would understandably rush to the forums in an indignant panic, so it wound up appearing as if a large number of people faced this action. But blues explained that the number has been quite small.

I suspect that the tightening of the rules being done in order to rein in point selling will be further tightened if they feel it is not effective enough. Time will tell. I think that point selling is something that Blizzard would prefer go away on its own than something they want to try and prohibit directly.