Arena rankings for sale
by Mike Schramm 
Mar 9th 2007 at 2:30PM
Want to get some of those awesome PvP arena rewards, but don't have the friends or talent to win the points yourself? Buy your way in!A poster on the Elitist Jerks guild forums says a rogue and shaman in his guild (he's part of Paradox on Eredar) are supposedly selling arena spots on highly ranked teams. These guys go in, get the rating up to 2000-2100, and then charge 500-800g (depending on the rating) to join the team and play 10 matches. At the end of the week, "customers" pick up 500-600 arena points, and within a few weeks and a few thousand gold, they're buying a Gladiator's weapon.
Is this cheating? I don't think so, any more than the selling of Onyxia slots way back when was. This team is probably known on the server (or they will be now, if they're not already), so anyone but the two guys running it won't get the respect those with such a high ranking normally would. And if the two guys can actually hold down a 2100 ranking while adding in random people from week to week, I say they deserve the cash.
Who knows what Blizzard will say, though. Sometimes they're hands off on this stuff (I don't think they ever had a problem with guilds selling raid spots), and sometimes they take an interest. To tell the truth, I'm not really sure how big a market there is for this anyway. Would you pay 3000g to run the arenas 10 times a week and pick up the epic weapon when you're done?
Update: Robert says in the comments that he talked to a Blizzard GM about this, and the GM says it's cool. So there.
[ Thanks, Robert! ]
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Guilds, PvP, Making money
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Poddo Mar 9th 2007 2:43PM
they took notice when people were selling key fragment's for Kara. I think it was in Arcatraz? But then again, that may be because they weren't doing anywork, just inviting to the party and walking to the fragment, where as here they have to actually play the matches.
Matt Mar 9th 2007 2:50PM
My first instinct is to say, holy @#$! that's a lot of gold for an arena weapon. But, the people who are signing up for this are probably the same people buying gold so what's it to them?
James Mar 9th 2007 2:50PM
The people who really worked for their arena rankings are going to have a fit, and will probably accuse people of free-loading. Further, it will skew Arena rankings and scores since you'll have people who have 'fake' scores.
On the other hand, I feel for folks who would like the weapons and rewards, yet don't have the friends to put together an arena team. Note I said friends...if you don't have the talent, then that is another matter. As someone who really enjoys PvP but who is in a very small guild of friends who are not PvP'ers, I am not sure what chance, if any, I'll ever have to do Arena PvP. And the guys doing this are definitely inventive, if nothing else.
However, I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard cracks down on this, and that's probably for the best. It'd be nice to get some of those weapons, but if this becomes even mildly popular, it will make Arena scores pointless, and will ruin the spirit of Arena PvP--which is to see who the best of the best is.
Which, brings up a new idea: 1v1 Arena PvP. But, then again, that might really, really show an ugly light on class imbalances.
Strongmark on Arthas Mar 9th 2007 4:48PM
Personally, I think this guild has the right idea. They are using the ingame free market style to make some coin, as long as they are doing it within the TOS, I don't see a problem.
They are essentially just buying these weapons, which is promoting the market within the game, even if these weapons were never meant to be bought with gold. There is nothing against the rules that they are doing, if anything, they are very inventive for thinking this up before the rest of us.
In order for Blizz to counteract this, well, they may very well have to change how the entire arena system works. Its hard to think of ways that they will abolish this new form of money making.
Robert Mar 9th 2007 4:58PM
@4 I have an issue with this: the whole point of arenas was to finally introduce skill-based PvP. Make BoE epics with equivalent stats if you must but don't expose the Arena ranking system to this kind of abuse.
It would be extremely easy for Blizzard to ban this and I'm fairly certain they will soon. A team shouldn't be an entity that exists apart from the players that are a part of it, and so any changes in the roster should equal an automatic equalization of arena points. Replace 3 or more people and your rating should be flat out reset.
Robert2 Mar 10th 2007 1:36PM
Well I jsut asked a GM if it would be acceptable to sell arena rankings in this method and the response I got was :
"Best of luck in your new business!"
:-( so it's doubtful they will change this.