The best items for small gold – that’s what a player in World of Warcraft wanted to offer. But that leads directly to a harsh penalty.
The new crafting system in World of Warcraft has finally made professions useful again. Almost everyone is looking for skilled crafters to get hold of the best equipment. Some crafters enrich themselves and earn a lot of gold by offering the rarest recipes at high prices. But not everyone thinks about the big prize, some just want to be nice and make good offers at low prices.
A mistake, as it turns out. Because this friendliness caused a German player to no longer be able to write messages in the chat.
What happened? The “Elemental Loop” is one of the most coveted items in the crafting system right now. Jewelcrafters can craft them if they’ve gotten the rare recipe beforehand. Because the chain is considered by many to be the “Best in Slot”, there are numerous orders – but only very few crafters who can make them. Because the recipe is a very rare drop.
The result of this: on many realms, the production of the necklace is rewarded with several tens of thousands of gold pieces, on some even significantly more. Jewelcrafters can earn a golden nose with the recipe and correct specialization.
The player “Schlay” from the EU server Thrall did not want to play this game. Instead, he offered to craft the elemental loop at a bargain price. He says:
Rather than conforming to the exorbitant prices of other jewelcrafters, I decided to craft the item for a small tip. At first my decision was praised and I was showered with crafting orders. However, the tide began to turn when I faced hate and threats from fellow jewelcrafters.
The threats were soon followed by action. Because whenever Schlay advertised his services in the trade channel, he was reported by other jewelcrafters.
The result: Schlay was “muted” and could no longer compose messages in the chat. He tells about it in the WoW subreddit in his post: “I challenged the monopoly and they took revenge”.
Greedy jewel cutters silence cheap competition
Why was he banned from chat? This is mainly due to the World of Warcraft reporting system. Because if other players find a message inappropriate, they can simply report the message and the player in question. As soon as a certain number of reports are received, the affected character is immediately sanctioned – usually with a mute. Then this character can no longer write in the chat.
Apparently, other jewelcrafters who have been making big profits with the Elemental Loop have teamed up and falsely reported Schlay to reduce his visibility.
What’s next for the player? Schlay has already announced that once his mute ends, he will simply continue and create the elemental loop completely free of charge in the future – only against the provision of the materials. He also wants to accept orders for re-crafting for free. His goal now is to “broadly disrupt” the elemental loop market on his realm because:
I believe that one of the best items in the game should be available to everyone, whether they are new players with limited gold. I have set myself the goal of making this a reality.
Blizzard gives questionable advice
Here’s how Blizzard reacted: Schlay did not want to let the unfair treatment sit on him and contacted support to unmute him – after all, he said he had never said anything offensive or wrong, but was only falsely reported out of anger at the low prices.
However, the support employee is said to have told him that it was not possible to withdraw the fine because you had no insight into the reported messages. You can only take action if your entire account is blocked. For the future, the support employee suggested that he raise the prices of his offers.
Here’s how the community is reacting: In the WoW subreddit, Schlay is celebrated for his actions and his “reporters” are ridiculed. Some comments on this:
Some other players on the Realm Thrall have even offered to promote Schlay as long as he can’t do it himself.
However, there is criticism for Blizzard. For years, the reporting system has been exploited to penalize players who have actually done nothing wrong. Although the exploitation of the reporting system for such purposes is prohibited and can – in theory – lead to sensitive account penalties, it appears that this is rarely implemented.
How do you like that? Absolutely incomprehensible to punish someone for this in the chat? Or is that “the just punishment for ruining prices like this”?