I have read on the forums more and more about a phenomenon in the wow arena system that is essentially people buying arena rating with in game gold. I thought it was consigned to a few small pockets but it seems this has been growing at a rate of knots if you believe the forums (take with a pinch of salt) but also explains some of the completely strange arena teams that you can browse when looking at rankings or that we meet actually in game.
There are frequent examples if you look around on the rankings,of high(ish) rated teams than it seems they really should be. There is an absence of games played (i.e. the team played 200 games, yet no one member has played more than 50) and their win ratio is individually low and not that great even as a team (e.g. 2000 rating, 52% win ratio).
What's happening makes me sick to my stomach really. Well geared (full merciless) and/or 'skilled' (*cough*) players with a stable 5v5 team (to guarantee themselves points) then pretty much pimp themselves out to other teams or friends for 2v2/3v3 in exchange for in game gold, to boost friends or maybe even just for the hell of it (we know how those skilled people love fair fights).
The result you get is players who should rate above 2000+ are playing for teams with ratings as low as 1300/1500, thus assuring that team a meteoric rise in the rankings (usually to about 2000 or so). The 'real' players for that team can either play along with the higher rated players to get points, or most likely simply wait a week and play ten games and run off, still assured of a reasonably high rating and lots of arena points.
There is no limit to the number of times you can change arena team. What i truly am detesting is that teams around the 1500-1900 range are being excessively punished by this, losing allot of rating points as you've lost to a team that is statistically 'inferior' according to the rankings.
I think we've seen more and more of this as the weeks have gone on, just like gold buying i think many people's (perhaps kiddies) attitude tends to be 'if you can't beat em, join em'. I'd be interested next time we pvp to note down a few names of really well geared teams that absolutely destroy us (like some last Saturday) and I'd be interested to track their armoury profiles for a bit. I am waiting for the day i see in Shat or Org 'WTS 1900 arena rating'..... (apparently happening on other servers, but i guess wildhammer is not so pvp orientated, most peeps seem to have low ratings)
Made me lose faith in the entire system really, doesn't seem anyway fair atm and bliz have not announced any plans to deal with this, even though i've been reading about it on the forums for well over a month now. Furthermore i read that Blizzard are probably gonna introduce items that require an arena rating (probably to buy, but might even be to equip) which is gonna make this ten times worse... it's also quite easy to see the gold farmers changing their focus a bit a selling arena ratings for IRL money, that doesn't require such a stretch of the imagination (already being offered if you google search for it)
Sad eh ? If there is a way to cheat and exploit the system why do such a large amount of people (in my mind anyway, i have no hard facts) do this ? In some ways i think we're a dying breed (in that i'd actually want to 'earn' my place...). I remember as far back as when i used to play quake2 in competitive leagues etc, our team frequently came 3rd in the 1st division but never got the glory really. Years later members of the 1st and 2nd placed teams (by this time i was playing daoc) for repeated seasons openly admitted they comprehensively cheated (wall hacks etc you name it), again made me just question why? Of course they said 'everyone was doing it' ......