I don't think anyone needs to go overboard with punishment. Just "undo" what was done, and let that be it. Don't award the cape, champ points or reward points & other prizes. I don't see why anyone would feel the need for something extreme like banning.
People seem to be stopping just short of suggesting anet go to their homes, beat up their mothers, and shoot their dogs.
I don't think anyone needs to go overboard with punishment. Just "undo" what was done, and let that be it. Don't award the cape, champ points or reward points & other prizes. I don't see why anyone would feel the need for something extreme like banning.
Because ArenaNet already set the precedence for themselves by completely removing Team Quitter [QQ] from Guild Wars History, permanently setting their ladder rank to N/A and their rating to 1000, and removing all cape trims they may or may not have received.
And this is for a guild that didn't even carry out the ladder manipulation - all they did was ask in All Chat.
Now, let's consider the case for Rebel Rising [rawr] who:
1. Asked in All Chat.
2. Actually carried out the ladder manipulation.
What do you think would happen then?
As far as other guilds receiving gold trims, it's clear that gold trims should be reserved only for the #1 guild in a monthly automated tournament; no guilds outside of Rebel Rising [rawr] achieved this during the January mAT.
Due to this infraction, it is either pertinent to:
1. Re-play the mAT.
2. Do not distribute any rewards including cape trims to any guild, regardless of what they finished.
There is no "default winner" unless a referee was clearly present and active during the mAT - and this is certainly not the case. Rebel Rising [rawr] and Survival Rate [zero] were both allowed to play through all of the Single Elimination rounds which changes the structure of placement drastically. Giving "default awards" to any guild is seriously demeaning. Either give a chance to every guild again or don't distribute any prizes at all.
Last edited by lutz; Feb 05, 2009 at 08:55 PM // 20:55..
unfortunately, replaying the mAT is not an option. they didn't replay the mAT a few months ago that had more than half of the participants disconnecting, so there's no chance they'll replay this one.
not distributing the rewards hurts every guild involved OTHER than rawr, simply because they already have a gold cape and don't really give a damn about the other prizes. this obviously defeats the purpose of punishing them in the first place.
more extreme penalties such as banning will basically destroy what's left of the american gvg scene, which is something to be avoided.
what will they do? probably just slap them on the wrist by taking away tournament points. that's the only thing they can do at this time.
unfortunately, replaying the mAT is not an option. they didn't replay the mAT a few months ago that had more than half of the participants disconnecting, so there's no chance they'll replay this one.
not distributing the rewards hurts every guild involved OTHER than rawr, simply because they already have a gold cape and don't really give a damn about the other prizes. this obviously defeats the purpose of punishing them in the first place.
more extreme penalties such as banning will basically destroy what's left of the american gvg scene, which is something to be avoided.
what will they do? probably just slap them on the wrist by taking away tournament points. that's the only thing they can do at this time.
It's unfortunately what must be done. There are only two logical options here.
I wish they would ban both guilds from ever competing in a tournament for the next 6 months, any infraction of that ban by smurfing in another guild would result in a permanent ban.
Ban any of the players and sh*t would ensue. High end PvP isn't as active as most people think; let's not be hasty and kill it off all together. Happens all the time in HB, yet no one cares. All of a sudden since it's GvG, people care? I don't care if HB is dead, GvG isn't as popular as it used to be with fewer players advancing to high level PvP, and more high level PvPers leaving the game.
Strictly speaking we have no tournament rules at the moment, as was pointed out correctly. Hence, you can't violate any rules that are non-exsitant. Common sense however *should* tell us to carry on with the existing rules...
Some methods of "punishment" i've read so far carry the air of hostility - do people want to remove [rawr] from mAT's to increase the chances that other guilds can also win ? I remember that somebody asked where the sportsmanship has gone. With those "demands" it's clearly visible that there is NO sportsmanship left, on BOTH sides. Sportsmanship works boths ways, if you hadn't noticed so far.
Ah well - whatever the outcome will be, there will be people being happy, unhappy, smugly grinning, raging, ...
I'd rather they tackle real issues, like removing Heroes from Player vs Player, that's more important than raging about something that didn't change the outcome of the tournament a single bit.
But that's my personal opinion, feel free to disagree
Because ArenaNet already set the precedence for themselves by completely removing Team Quitter [QQ] from Guild Wars History, permanently setting their ladder rank to N/A and their rating to 1000, and removing all cape trims they may or may not have received.
And this is for a guild that didn't even carry out the ladder manipulation - all they did was ask in All Chat.
Now, let's consider the case for Rebel Rising [rawr] who:
1. Asked in All Chat.
2. Actually carried out the ladder manipulation.
What do you think would happen then?
In terms of precedent, it would seem to make sense to have a more severe punishment, but I question if the first precedent/punishment is fair, and I also question how useful it would be to ban en masse people who participated in ladder manipulation. A large handful of players, especially high-end PvPers, have 2-3 accounts and sometimes more. I'm not sure it would make these people go away if their one account was banned.
I think it's more pressing to preempt ladder manipulation instead of always dealing with problems after they happen. While it's too late now, the focus should be on fixing a broken system. It should be broader than GvG, too; possible manipulation of the system in all facets should be corrected. As with the "duping scandal," I think a large part of the onus should be on ArenaNet. While it's ideal to say that players should be expected to act out of goodwill despite any circumstances, it is a far cry from what we all know as reality. In other online games, methods of duping have been practised in very similar fashion - part of making a successful game is learning from other games' mistakes. I don't encourage & condone ladder manipulation or duping, but I can't pretend like I don't understand wanting to "make your own luck."
I would much rather see infracting guilds be forbidden to participate in tournaments instead of individual account bans. Account bans don't make people go away, and I don't think it diminishes their reputation as much as disassociating prestige from guilds like rawr would do. Even as we speak here, we associate this problem with the guild name, not the individual players.
__________________
"Let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world."
Jack Layton
Nothing will happen except rawr and zero will be unallowed to take part next month. If anything, you can expect zero, most likely, to suffer more than rawr. After all, you can't have a Rawr Cup without rawr...
We'll see what will happen though.
Till then, unless this "fiasco" causes problems for PvE, I could care less what happens. PvP is none of my concern until it affects PvE in some way...
Last edited by StormDragonZ; Feb 05, 2009 at 10:28 PM // 22:28..
Alright so, next time, they'll make it look like an actual fight, kill each other and stuff, except mysteriously leave the guild lords alone?
There's good reason that ANY competitive game which has a draw condition (like chess), allows you to declare intentional draws- you can't stop them. If you don't like draws, award double loss instead- accidental draws are virtually impossible in GvG/HB anyway.
Nothing in the rules stipulates that both teams must fight for the duration of the match. That would be completely silly, anyway, since teams need to run to different parts of the map, sometimes you need to hold for morale boost, and back when you had the VoD mechanic, teams were basically agreeing not to do anything until VoD. In this case, the tournament standings ultimately weren't adversely affected, and both teams were playing to win the tournament, even if that meant not playing for the win in that particular match.
Furthermore, the game mechanics fully support the draw. Intentional draws are a part of other competitive games, so if ANet intentionally programs in a draw mechanic, it's absolutely wrong to punish the players for using that mechanic.
For those who don't know, here's how the game works currently: if both teams have the same "aggressiveness" (basically a measure of the amount of damage done to the opposing Guild Lord) at the end of a normal GvG match, the game ends in a tie. If you're competing to win the tournament, and you know that this is the game mechanic, you will employ it to your advantage if the situation calls for it. It's no different from, say, choosing to run Protective Was Kaolai instead of Heal Party for your party heal. Whether you run perfect counters to everything the opponent tries to do (i.e. playing to tie--which is a perfectly legitimate strategy in other competitive games where a win is not necessary, but a loss will hurt) or you conga, you're still achieving your desired outcome. This wasn't like some big exploit, and neither team intentionally lost the match. Frankly, the strategy for both sides seemed like a brilliant move, since neither of them needed to win (a draw would've sufficed), and taking a gamble to win outright would've risked taking a loss. And nowhere in the tournament rules does it specifically say that Intentional Draws are not allowed.
The way this is shaking down feels more like the developers got mad that they designed a crappy draw mechanic and want to punish the players who gave it the most exposure instead of taking all the blame themselves. Meanwhile, they do nothing to punish those who sign guilds up with the intention of never competing and thereby give another guild a 1-0 record (and that definitely affects tournament standings). That's pretty petty and it certainly would not speak well for Guild Wars (or Guild Wars 2, for that matter) as a competitive platform.
Edit to add: And as Foxbat indicates, if you just pretend to fight it out, you get the draw anyway. If rawr and zero wanted to be dishonest about it, we wouldn't even be having this discussion and there'd be nothing done about the draw mechanic.
Last edited by Oink The Pig; Feb 05, 2009 at 10:38 PM // 22:38..
Nothing in the rules stipulates that both teams must fight for the duration of the match. That would be completely silly, anyway, since teams need to run to different parts of the map, sometimes you need to hold for morale boost, and back when you had the VoD mechanic, teams were basically agreeing not to do anything until VoD. In this case, the tournament standings ultimately weren't adversely affected, and both teams were playing to win the tournament, even if that meant not playing for the win in that particular match.
Furthermore, the game mechanics fully support the draw. Intentional draws are a part of other competitive games, so if ANet intentionally programs in a draw mechanic, it's absolutely wrong to punish the players for using that mechanic.
For those who don't know, here's how the game works currently: if both teams have the same "aggressiveness" (basically a measure of the amount of damage done to the opposing Guild Lord) at the end of a normal GvG match, the game ends in a tie. If you're competing to win the tournament, and you know that this is the game mechanic, you will employ it to your advantage if the situation calls for it. It's no different from, say, choosing to run Protective Was Kaolai instead of Heal Party for your party heal. Whether you run perfect counters to everything the opponent tries to do (i.e. playing to tie--which is a perfectly legitimate strategy in other competitive games where a win is not necessary, but a loss will hurt) or you conga, you're still achieving your desired outcome. This wasn't like some big exploit, and neither team intentionally lost the match. Frankly, the strategy for both sides seemed like a brilliant move, since neither of them needed to win (a draw would've sufficed), and taking a gamble to win outright would've risked taking a loss. And nowhere in the tournament rules does it specifically say that Intentional Draws are not allowed.
The way this is shaking down feels more like the developers got mad that they designed a crappy draw mechanic and want to punish the players who gave it the most exposure instead of taking all the blame themselves. Meanwhile, they do nothing to punish those who sign guilds up with the intention of never competing and thereby give another guild a 1-0 record (and that definitely affects tournament standings). That's pretty petty and it certainly would not speak well for Guild Wars (or Guild Wars 2, for that matter) as a competitive platform.
Edit to add: And as Foxbat indicates, if you just pretend to fight it out, you get the draw anyway. If rawr and zero wanted to be dishonest about it, we wouldn't even be having this discussion and there'd be nothing done about the draw mechanic.
this however, sets a dangerous precedent. if this behavior of idling for draws is allowed, everyone will do so and hope for a dice roll placing. it is after, the path of least resistant, and gives a much better chance to get into the final 8 than most guilds can really hope for.
lol I love how people actually care about this. I myself didn't even hear about this until today when I got on gw guru and saw the post. People have brought up how this happens in HB frequently. The thing i love about this the most is that people only care about this because it was in GvG, which makes up only a percentage of PvP anyways. Why should they do anything about this when they don't even fix the rest of PvP.
everyone will do so and hope for a dice roll placing. it is after, the path of least resistant, and gives a much better chance to get into the final 8 than most guilds can really hope for.
Generally the only time people draw in competitive swiss, is when they are sure it will put both of them into the playoffs. (or else, they are splitting a prize in the finals, etc.) If there's any doubt, it's going to be played out. There's no reward for both teams to bargain on, if the dice will ultimately favor only one.
[rawr] and [zero] in the Swiss rounds cooperated together to achieve a draw by making a conga-line across the map. That way they'd both get at least silver trim.
By ANet's rules, it's ladder/rank manipulation.
wait so you mean two teams who were already going to get silver anyway had a little fun.... playing a game is about fun GUILD WARS IS SRS BIZNZ. and anyway... a tie results in no change of rating which means there is no rank change which results in GUESS WHAT.... NOTHING there is no ladder movement involved in this harmless fun.
wait so you mean two teams who were already going to get silver anyway had a little fun.... playing a game is about fun GUILD WARS IS SRS BIZNZ. and anyway... a tie results in no change of rating which means there is no rank change which results in GUESS WHAT.... NOTHING there is no ladder movement involved in this harmless fun.
Doesn't matter. Rules are rules. They agreed upon the terms when they started playing.