Ladder Manipulation Investigation Results

The ladder manipulation they're investigating, for those who dont know, has to do with a team in winning position, but resigning to the other team and letting them have the win. I've witnessed it first hand, and I know for sure one of the guilds, but I wont be mentioning it.

I don't know why everyone is so "hush hush" about this. Anyone who is even remotely familiar with GvG already knows who this is about and why...

Hmm, exactly Tekish Those who need to know, who care about this, all ready know most of the information. So bringing any further publicity to the guilds is not necessary and would only result in complaints, speculations, accusations, and more amongst the people who just want to voice an opinion but have no knowledge of it.

I think this posting on Guildwars.com is to serve more as a warning, a slap on the wrist, to guilds that they are paying attention and will be taking action. A public warning.

Actually, I think Redly may have his analogies mixed up slightly.

ANet has stated that resigning or asking those to resign purely for the rating increase of the team not resigning is wrong (or to prevent a large decrease). This was not entirely clear as they never enforced it and different people within ANet said different things, but the official response has been there before.

I agree with Inde. This seems to me to be a slap on the wrist to try to potentially reduce problems in the future with the threat now there.

From Gaile Gray:

http://www.guild-hall.net/forum/showthread.php?t=42779

Can anybody explain in simple terms what the 'violation' is? From what I'm seeing, one guild is allowing another to win. Other than that, its a complete blur to me. Yes, i'm a retard and ignorant.

so, are both resigners and winners being punished, or only one team?

That is the rumor I heard.

Guild matches were scheduled, with the understanding that one guild (i.e. The Biggest Loser) would always resign, giving the other guild the win.

If that's the case, then it seems pretty obvious to me (even as a non-pvp guy) that some action must be taken to keep confidence in the ladder system.

As for guesses as to why this activity wasn't stopped before, perhaps Anet did not have "proof?" Only guessing.

Smurfing - it's when members of a guild (or 'friends' of the guild) make some other guilds, maybe using different accounts. Then the two guilds battle it out. The "smurf" guild then resigns and easy win for the ones who set the whole thing up. The other arrangement is the other guild isn't a smurf guild, but they have an "understanding" to lose..

In other words, fixing and/or throwing the match.

So this is like WWF? lmao

I am not surprised. I guess some PvPer's will choose a win over morals anyday.

serves them right for getting caught. I think all their accounts should have a perminent ban.

Anet stated it was written in the agreement and if they choose not to read it or ignore it doesnt mean it should be a just a slap on the hand for an offense. Would you allow a drunk driver who was caught for the first time driving drunk to go on their way with a warning? How many people could get hurt. Rules are rules!

Your analogy... well, sucks. There is no reason the drivers should have known they were doing anything wrong. Thus, they were warned, and not required to pay out real world fines for doing what they always thought was obeying the law. By comparison, one cannot argue that guilds manipulating the ladder in this way should not have known they were doing something wrong. How would you feel if your guild "earned" its position in the ladder, and you were beaten out for your prize by a guild that never fought, but only benefitted from resignations. No warning needed. These people knew they were manipulating the system, and as such, they simply were prevented from receiving the rewards that they didn't deserve or "earn" anyways.

This IS one way to inspire confidence within their customer base.

Now, I have a few questions:

Why would the resigning guild do this ? Were they offered some sort of compensation ? It just doesn't make sense to me.

I can see the scenario where you have the "affiliated guild" that is set up to resign or lose, but I thought you couldn't pick your opponents in ladder-based guild battles. Correct me if I'm wrong, but is there another way to do this other than timing the entry of the guild battles and hoping for the best ? And even if they are matched against their affiliated guild, they would have to repeat the process over and over, while their ratings get farther and farther apart. I must be missing something.

Finally, to the busted guilds: gg - you deserve it.

So news on GWG is becoming "need to know" basis

Oh I love the smell of burned cheaters...

Just because its not in the EULA agreement and everybody is doing it that its not wrong. Cheaters that abused that knew that it was wrong, and now should get punished ( wich should be a permanent ban imo ).

This can be equated to a rigged boxing match cause both Boxers work for Don King.... But how do you really prove it?

This is only the tip of the iceberg, if anet did due dilligance in enforcing thier rules there would be ten's of guilds in trouble.

Some of them are "champs", so we know they wont get any action because of anets bias rule enforcement,

That's not what they're calling ladder manipulation. Any guild with a "smurf" (be it a real smurf [actual manipulation] or a subordinate guild with an actual second string that regularly guests from the main guild) usually /resign spikes to prevent a high-ranking team from losing rating.

If you were correct in assuming that's what Anet is calling ladder manipulation, most guilds who were part of the GWFC couldn't have won, including WM.

After being told who the 3 guilds are supposed to be, I'm slightly suprised. It's strange Anet is bothering to finally start enforcing rules against ladder manipulation, taking action over last season because it was a "fun" season, and that all that's going to happen is the 3 guilds will lose silver trim. >.>

Just a little story about the other night we were gvging and GW crashed so my team resigned. I log in we go again and i crash and burn again. We try a 3rd time same thing. You also can just lag out, have a Pc crash, no load, whatever. How do you prove a team resigned just to lose? In order to "fake it" you just have a player pull his internet conection. As long as you can just resign it will always be easy to do something like this a least for a few games and if anet where to say what happened you say "Well with an err7 we couldn't win so we resigned."
It is wrong and unsporting but if people are smart its not proveable beyond a reasonably doubt(not that anet has to but just saying).

Oh please coldplay, stop. If you had taken the time to even read this thread you would have seen the reasons why I stated I would not allow the discussion of the guild names:
The overwhelming reason being that if ArenaNet saw fit to post the guild names then I would have. Since they did not I am left to assume that they had their reasons and I will follow in their steps.