Hello,

I submitted multiple tickets about this but frankly there were too many players moving around and a lot going on to be able to click and report each player as cheating with adequate details – and my GM ticket was just closed saying to do that, and I cannot re-open it.

I’d like to discuss the topic of exploits by guilds trying to be “top US” and being willing to do whatever it takes to do so. On Alterac Mountains we have a guild called [removed] that is one of these guilds. Several times now they have exploited game mechanics in favor of their attempts at being the top guild, and when confronted about it they shrug it off with the attitude of “well why don’t you support us?” and “we need it more than you do.” I disagree that some players can “need something more than others” especially when it turns into players exploiting, harassing, and in general making parts of the game inaccessible to anyone outside of their little guild. I’ll cite two examples of their exploiting as a guild, since I don’t think the “report player for cheating” function is really going to do us much good here – it’s a guild effort that they’re pulling.

Firstly, one that most people have shrugged off but characterizes [removed]‘s player mindset, is an incident with the “Warband” rare world boss spawn. Being situated in the Valley of the Four Winds, players not only have to successfully tap and defeat him, but also compete with the other faction trying to stop you at the same time. A group I was in successfully did so, and we were clearly going to down the boss. He’s untauntable, so there’s no way of pulling him away from the group to be reset, right? Well, [removed] found a way. They used multiple shamans to pull him to the river, then layed down AOE effects at his spawn point to take a boss that was over 50% dead, reset it, and tap it for themselves. When MANY players asked “wtf” they simply shrugged it off as “we’re [removed], we need it more than you.” I personally saw this as an exploit of game mechanics (taunting a boss who’s immune to taunt) but most of us shrugged it off as something we can just get later – as well as it being a grey area in terms of player conduct. It can go both ways.

Another example, however, is a very clear set, black and white exploit of the game with a large amount of individual player harassment. Yesterday, some 509 Heroic gear was on the Black Market Auction House. I bid on it, and as the timer was running down, [removed] picked up and started bidding on it as well. All in all, a friendly bidding war isn’t anything unusual, it’s business as usual. However after the auction turned to short, I encountered over 20 to 30 of their guild members at the black market auction house crowding the vendor to attempt to prevent me from interacting with it. I knew they were trying to prevent me from interacting with it because in addition to crowding it, I was receiving dozens of trade requests per minute every time I was outbid. If you’re not familiar, the trade window closes the auction house window. I was forced to disable trades in order to outbid them. They also were spamming a lot of particle effects as if to cause me to lag (good luck with that…) I was also subjected to a lot of not so friendly chatter but I just ignored them for that, not really an issue.

When this tactic failed and I was still outbidding him, they moved to another tactic – 5-10 of them stacked up on large mounts around the mailbox so I could not interact with it and retrieve my gold to continue bidding against him. This resulted in me having to fly to the shrine of the moons to get my gold back, fly back, and re-bid. As a result of having to take this extra long trip, the auction finally expired before I could get back and bid again – and their harassment, blocking the mailbox, attempts at bombing me with requests all ended up paying off. Their mage (who’s name was in the ticket and I will not post her to protect his privacy) got the gear as a result of enlisting the entire guild in a campaign of harassment and game exploits to prevent another player from accessing the Black Market Auction House.

Now I’m not sure where this falls in Blizzard’s terms of service. The player harassment certainly is a violation, but blocking the mailbox and attempting to deny players service at the BMAH are areas I’m unclear of the legality of. However it certainly sets a bad precedent by allowing tactics like this to go unpunished in favor of a “be the best in the world” goal – the ends do not justify the means if the means include exploiting the game to gain an unfair advantage.

Multiple people witnessed this and submitted tickets on the people they could see, but like I said the sheer number of them, all moving around, made even using nameplates to target and report them all impossible before they dispersed.

I appreciate your time and hope we can get a better answer here on whether this kind of behavior is acceptable. ’cause though I don’t feel like it’s good sportsmanship, if this is acceptable and considered within the rules I’ll be happy to bring MY guild along next time to return the favor.

-Michichael GM of <Off in the Woods>