Esteemed Guild Wars guild punished for cheating

Guild tournaments are serious business in Guild Wars. The arena-based PvP in ArenaNet's successful MMO is widely popular as global guilds face up for a top spot on the Tournament Ladder. One of the most popular and powerful of these competitive guilds is Rebel Rising [rawr], who has been in the spotlight many times for their own separate Rawr Cup Tournament. Recently though, Rebel Rising was caught cheating in a Guild versus Guild tournament. According to ArenaNet, both teams stopped fighting at the end of a match, allowing the timer to run down and guaranteeing both teams a spot in the Top 16. As punishment, Rebel Rising will have their gold cape trim removed for one month, while the other team, Survival Rate [zero] will not receive their silver cape trim, as would usually be awarded for a guild placing in the top 16.

Since this was the first offense for both guilds, the punishment was light. ArenaNet has stated that any future offenses will be met with temporary or permanent bans for any players involved. So how do you feel about this decision? When guilds knowingly break the rules to manipulate the ladder, should the punishment be more harsh or more lenient?

Reader Comments (15)

It is interesting due to the nature of the offense. I think the punishment is reasonable and suits the offense.

I'm a glutton for details. I'd love to know the nature of the cheat. Though, I guess its a reasonable punishment, if you also consider the public humiliation that they are now receiving. If they do it again, I'd ban their asses.

"both teams stopped fighting at the end of a match, allowing the timer to run down and guaranteeing both teams a spot in the Top 16."

I'm guessing they wanted to retain their win-loss ratio and so forced a stalemate to leave it unchanged...

Oh... I thought they did that because they were caught. I didn't know that would be considered "cheating". I thought it was an active hack or something.

I'm not very familiar with Guild Wars, but I don't consider "not fighting" cheating. Unless there isn't an in game system that allows the opposing teams the ability to communicate, but if all they did was persuade each other to stop fighting so they would both win that seams more strategic than cheating. ArenaNet should have a system in place that gives the team with the highest score, or most kills, or whatever the point of the match was the winning spot. Again I'm a bit ignorant to Guild Wars Tournaments, and I'm use to people cheating by putting their modem on standby or something.

That seems well within the rules of the game. Do you penalize a football team because they took a knee at the end of the game?

"That seems well within the rules of the game. Do you penalize a football team because they took a knee at the end of the game?"

In football? Hell yeah.

In american footbal? Who cares. But I'm sure you're right. Those pansies probably play by such girly rules, yeah.

- All kidding aside, in (american) football, that is indeed perfectly legal, as it's a game of strategy as much as athletic competition, and the act of "taking a knee" is built into the rules, and the other team has to acknowledge it.

But in this particular case, there is no such agreement built into the rules, and it is not an accepted action. Furthermore, that is a flawed allegory, since what REALLY happened, was that both teams agreed not to continue the match, as it was deemed mutually beneficial. And that's "rigging". They're in fact refusing to seettle the game on the game's terms.

As for the punishment, I've always thought that issuing a warning first, and saving the real punishment for a second offense, is exactly the same as saying: "Everyone is allowed to cheat once".

It doesn't work. Just ban them already. That will set an example that people will understand.

..... that fact that they both could "cheat" that easily says bad things about the tourny system in GW....

I think the point is not how they cheated, but the fact that they knowingly altered the outcome of a match to manipulate the ladder. That directly violates the tournament rules, according to ArenaNet.

Actually, they probably would. I mean it would be one thing if one side was the clear victor, but in this case rawr threw the match so zero could get an award that they didn't earn, because they didn't win. This is a clear case of throwing a match, which in most competitive sports is a clear violation and will be punished.

In any case, the punishment is nothing more than a smack on the wrist. It's not like anyone lost their account over this minor infraction. But it's nice that Arenanet takes their ranking system seriously enough to take action.

Got to say I have no sympathy for them at all ; my symptahy is for the guild that SHOULD have been 16th, had Rebel Rising not thrown the match - I'm guessing they weren't awarded the prize they would have won when it was taken away from Survival rate?

I don't get how the "fact that they both could "cheat" that easily says bad things about the tourny system in GW", as this is pure player misconduct and nothing to do with game mechanics.

There is no conceivable way to make players 'play right' through game mechanics alone - all that can be done is promote order through discipline after the event, as has been done in this case.

1 month with no shiny cape!? oh noes!1!

If this had been any other guild than [rawr] Anet probably would have actually punished them, but that's Anet for you.

Yeah, it's pretty retarded.

Punish people for doing what the rules and common sense tell them to do?

Maybe fix the system instead?

The punishment is a slap on the wrist, as both teams will likely regain their top ranks in a month's time.

As for whether it's cheating, well the rules are written in such way that you can't agree not to fight. Whether that's a flaw or not I don't know, because these two teams deliberately tried to cheat the ranking system.

I think the worst part about all this is that they danced in a conga line for the entire match. I view that as a bold insult to other teams trying to move up the tourney ladder.

This article is true, although they left something out. Both guilds did stop playing vs. each other mid match, although whether or not either one of them won or lost, both teams were guaranteed a spot in the top 16, allowing them to play in the tourney knockout rounds. So whats the harm in this? Both guilds were having fun in the end of the match, progressing to make a "conga line". I see nothing wrong as to what they did, seeing as if either team won or lost they would have still placed 16th or better.

Esteemed Guild Wars guild punished for cheating

Reader Comments (15)

Posted: Feb 9th 2009 9:21AM arnavdesai said

Posted: Feb 9th 2009 9:33AM ultimateq said

Posted: Feb 9th 2009 9:50AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 9th 2009 10:17AM ultimateq said

Posted: Feb 9th 2009 10:17AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 9th 2009 10:47AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 10th 2009 8:31AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 9th 2009 10:52AM Holgranth said

Posted: Feb 9th 2009 10:55AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 9th 2009 10:55AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 9th 2009 12:58PM Minofan said

Posted: Feb 9th 2009 4:49PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 10th 2009 1:21AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 9th 2009 6:14PM cray said

Posted: Feb 21st 2009 9:31PM (Unverified) said

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