WotLK PUG gambling - Serious griefing issue

[Owlofwar]

I have noticed this happening every week since I started to do pugs for ICC 10 / RS and today with OS for the quest weekly (on Icecrown server).

The process is as follows:

- Two players find and fill the pug roster. One is typically the tank, the other is typically a healer. Their job is to stall and waste everyones time. Then deliberately wipe the raid via poor tanking & healing, pulling adds etc. Also to get the player saved for the raid.

The first time it happened, I noticed a few players entering and leaving the raid, with no business being invited (low gear/hp, not even level 80). With the raid leader mentioning something like 'Just fixing before we start'.

I believe they take bets on who leaves first and trade gold betting on things such as this. Who dies at Marrowgar hc flames, etc (Tank moving the boss and getting flames across players deliberately).

Other than trolling and wasting time, getting players saved, their alterior motive is the gambling. They then probably live stream it on discord. The trades can be monitored by mods. They are almost always looking for a raid in Icecrown. Especially 7pm st onwards.

It is very easy for it to go un-noticed. Its just an unsuccesful raid. Players don't suspect it. And hence proof or take valid screenshots to report. But large gold exchanges within players in the raid and their friends would verify their intentions with their unsuccesful raid.

edit: I went on to raise this issue via chat and noticed I could use /y /1 /2 way more often. I thought it was normal to get muted every minute when making a pug. They abuse the report spam function to shut down alternative pugs. They now avoid reporting me for the following message:

LFM - RS ICC etc - PUG troll gamblers are active on this server. They mess up the raid, stall and take bets on who leaves first. Report them via screenshot and ticket on website and raise awareness on the issue. Check if the pug is suspicious.

Things to check: Gold trades and report spam abuse.

[Obnoxious]

You're throwing all sort of theories and accusations, yet as far as your post goes everything is based on "I believe" and zero evidence.

[Blind]

You can't really punish people for deals/gambling they do in discord or whereever they do them outside of wow. Even if said gambling is placing bets on random things happening in a raid.

Investigating people based on them randomly trading money with each other is going to be hugely ineffective and downright useless to do due to the sheer amount of trades happening daily.

If there's hard evidence that's a different story. But just joining a ****ty pug is just that: joining a ****ty pug. Steer clear from those and just don't join/get saved when you don't feel alright with what's going on. Apply common sense when you raid.
People placing bets on wheter you leave first, are dumb enough to get saved for nothing or whatever shouldn't be your concern because it's not going to affect you in any way.

[Owlofwar]

I believe now its beyond gambling.

Warmane is a key competetor to activ. I believe what we have today is a troll farm funded by activ to destroy the experience blocks of warmane. The two being PVP + PVE. Pugs and random battlegrounds. They grief in various ways to destroy the experience of the players so they procede back to retail or quit all together.

On icecrown, they seriously abuse report spam functionality to shut down pug creation. They then run their own pugs and deliberately destroy the run. They also join random pugs and try to throw the raid. Metrics to hit throughout the day.

To hire someone abroad acti will have to pay them £100-300 a month. Extremely low investment. They quantify the damage done as success markers. Player griefing on payroll.

edit: With a keen eye, on icecrown, 3:5 pugs running throughout the day are doing this. Very easy to spot. Hard to prove, plausible deniability.

[shhnedo]

I believe what Obnoxi here said applies fully to your fiction novel. Now that I finished reading your 2nd novel(your 2nd post), I strongly believe you need to give up writing and take up, say, tetris. Yeah, that should eliminate any gambling paranoia you have.

[Owlofwar]

I believe what Obnoxi here said applies fully to your fiction novel. Now that I finished reading your 2nd novel(your 2nd post), I strongly believe you need to give up writing and take up, say, tetris. Yeah, that should eliminate any gambling paranoia you have.

Go run 3 10mans on Icecrown and see for yourself buddy.

[mysecondacc]

I have. And I've already seen it for myself. People are just coming and going and nobody gives a damn about it. You ending up in bottom-of-the-barrel raids is entirely a you problem.