Guild Wars 2

There is nothing whatsoever that can be done about people burning supplies as long as anybody can do it. Sending screenshots means nothing as there are NO rules whatsoever that tell you how to play.

Anet could action someone but that would create a precedent where they would punish or penalize someone for playing the game they bought the way they want.

There is a huge difference between what is doable and what is morally reprehensible. Just like you can not action a commander who bought the tag just for fun and likes to run into enemies and knock on doors just to see his/her group wipe…or people burning supplies, or people jumping in the JP for hours blocking spots for actual combat on the map.

These things were put in place for people to use them. In my opinion the JP is a total disaster as it blocks spots for actual control of the map while there are people in queue but hey that is Anet’s decision, they believe this creates a means for people to do something else that is fun inside wvw when most people see the JP as a waste of time and resources when you need every combatant on defense for example.

If the whole map goes to do the JP, will you report all of them for jumping in the dark instead of fighting? Of course not…those were tools given to players by Anet so you can t report people for using them

None of those things are and can be forbidden in game, you can NOT punish someone from doing something that the game allows them to do. It sucks but it is like running with a zerg and purposefully not using any skills and just being a target. Obviously nobody does that but if your entire zerg was only made of people using Dolyak transfor potions there would be nothing you can do about it.

Sometimes to scrw around I thrown in a potion to transform into an animal for fun. you want to start policing that and ban or action people? You can t because that would create precedents that would destroy gameplay.

I do not condone ANY of those shenanigans I am only explaining that you can not police these actions and tell people how to play.

What Anet can do instead could be to have requirements to limit these abuses. Like requiring badges for commander tag instead of gold. Requiring # kills to be able to deploy purchase siege so that a level 5 on an enemy server could not drop siege and would require tons of kills that sort of thing.

In the end the objective of Developers is to NOT manage for the exception and that is valid for every game. Out of 200 people on the map you will have 1 or 2 tr0lls trying to waste supplies and spy or sabotage things…well that is part of war and implementing changes just for those 1 or 2 people would be managing for the exception and not the majority.

Monsoon.2589:

There is nothing whatsoever that can be done about people burning supplies as long as anybody can do it. Sending screenshots means nothing as there are NO rules whatsoever that tell you how to play.

Anet could action someone but that would create a precedent where they would punish or penalize someone for playing the game they bought the way they want.

There is a huge difference between what is doable and what is morally reprehensible. Just like you can not action a commander who bought the tag just for fun and likes to run into enemies and knock on doors just to see his/her group wipe…or people burning supplies, or people jumping in the JP for hours blocking spots for actual combat on the map.

These things were put in place for people to use them. In my opinion the JP is a total disaster as it blocks spots for actual control of the map while there are people in queue but hey that is Anet’s decision, they believe this creates a means for people to do something else that is fun inside wvw when most people see the JP as a waste of time and resources when you need every combatant on defense for example.

If the whole map goes to do the JP, will you report all of them for jumping in the dark instead of fighting? Of course not…those were tools given to players by Anet so you can t report people for using them

None of those things are and can be forbidden in game, you can NOT punish someone from doing something that the game allows them to do. It sucks but it is like running with a zerg and purposefully not using any skills and just being a target. Obviously nobody does that but if your entire zerg was only made of people using Dolyak transfor potions there would be nothing you can do about it.

Sometimes to scrw around I thrown in a potion to transform into an animal for fun. you want to start policing that and ban or action people? You can t because that would create precedents that would destroy gameplay.

I do not condone ANY of those shenanigans I am only explaining that you can not police these actions and tell people how to play.

What Anet can do instead could be to have requirements to limit these abuses. Like requiring badges for commander tag instead of gold. Requiring # kills to be able to deploy purchase siege so that a level 5 on an enemy server could not drop siege and would require tons of kills that sort of thing

I think the snowflake jewelry fiasco would disagree. You cannot always play the game the way you want, even if ANet allows it.

Monsoon.2589:

I am not familiar with the snowflake thing

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Bans-for-Snowflake-Jewelry-are-unfair

hmm according to what I read about that snowflake incident it looks to me like a market issue was not foreseen by Anet and instead of fixing the values of the items being salvaged or the changes on the salvages they banned people who used the salvage method to make money because the money they made would have damaged the economy… fine , then remove the money made and don t ban the player.

That is what I mean by creating bad precedents. And it does not matter how much money you made from this, if it was available in game you should have been able to make money from it until it was removed. But banning people for such actions is just dumb you ban hackers and botters, not people who find creative ways to make money.

Bad precedent because it will make others think twice about spending more time in the game which in turn may affect sales and get bad publicity.

lets say you find a npc you can kill over and over for more xp than any other NPC and thus you level faster. Should you be banned or actioned because of it? Of course not, the NPC should be fixed and you move on. Those example are very different from exploits and bots.

In the end the rule should be that if something is available in game to anybody and that action can be done with a normal client by anybody anytime then it is not the fault of the player if that action or series of action is done.

I understand where Gaile comes from but you can not have a vague definition of what Exploiting is. Exploiting could be anything you want when you are a moderator or developer. Doing something available to you in game over and over should NOT be considered an exploit. I understand the economic implications but in that case you wipe the excess that was done or you reimburse mats…but instead people got banned.

hey that s their game…I just think managing for the exception without actually fixing the problem and instead correcting the mistake without alienating players would have been better. But then there is the issue of resources and now we are wayyy off topic so i ll stop.

TLDR: spies and saboteurs are not an exploit and are part of all wars

That was the point, there is a thin line between what can be considered exploiting/griefing and you never know when you may have crossed that line.

At this point it seems to depend on whether WvW is considered PvP as to whether spying/sabotaging is griefing. We just don’t know.

At this point if I see anyone doing what I said in my OP or similar I am just going to start SSing and reporting.

I’d go ahead and report it. What can it hurt? But burning up supply on useless seige and upgrading just prior to reset isn’t normal gameplay.

It will be a judgment call on ANets part.

While Monsoon makes some great arguments about what the game will allow you to do and not to do, abusing those privileges can be considered an exploit: To make full use of and derive benefit from (a resource). While it might be argued that a player laying useless siege gains no benefit directly, it can be counter argued that it is still an exploit intended to benefit others. It is a fine line, true, but one that I think Anet can clearly see when it is being crossed, especially in such extreme cases as has been seen lately. In my honest opinion, if the actions of any player or players can be deemed detrimental to the purity of the game and the intent of the developers to offer an enjoyable experience to players, then they are well within their rights to curtail such activity up to and including banning accounts. Furthermore, to compare the Guild Wars world with the real world is a useless argument, including the use of spies and sabotage. This is Anet’s world, and they rule over it as gods as they please and as they should. In the real world, spies and saboteurs can be captured, pain is real, punishment swift, death is permanent, and fairness an illusion. At least in Anet’s world, it’s my opinion that they will err on the side of ‘fair play’ rather than continue to allow the most egregious use of exploits.

Building masses of useless siege (i.e. rams) to get a team to its cap deliberately is called griefplay which is not tolerated by anet. Theres a huge thread about this on the german forums since a few servers had some serious trouble with that (whole matchup was screwed). You can actually report them via support ticket.

Heres the link (its in german) https://forum-de.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Screenshotprotest-gegen-Griefing-im-WvW/
Burning supply is one thing but mass useless siege weapons quite another.

Yes, in a game you cant execute the spy and eliminate him/her from the game. But it’s a game, so treat it as just another aspect of the game, you can use it against them. Be creative. Do not ask Anet to fix it. Work on it. Isolate the spy, try to track him down, and feed them false info. Counter spy, whatever it takes.

It’s a game, and that is all it is in the end. But understand that it is real people playing the game:

“ kitten sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto”

“I am a human being, I consider nothing that is human alien to me.”

and there is nothing a dev can do to adress it. You can ban 10000 acounts for spying but it will not ever stop certain players from doing it. So be creative, identify them, feed them false info, and beat them at their own game. Smash their zerg at a place of your choosing instead of theirs.

Shooting a spy irl does not stop the spying game, as soon as you shoot the spy his place is already taken by another. Hell, spies shoot spies to make themselves credible. Expose a positive identified spies name server wide. That will force them to leave every guild and make a new character and they will have to start all over again, working their way into a guild and earning trust or go wildcard and play their luck they can pull it of playing pug.

The only thing a Dev can do in GW2 is adress griefing by what i said, give commanders the ability to block players they think, or who are reported by others that they are sabotaging/griefing from picking up suplies for x amount of time.

treat spying as an added factor to the game, making things more interesting and challenging.

The perfect game does not exist. If you want one, then perhaps make one where people can only gather flowers, arange them into bouquets, and give them to other players who enjoy a game where sitting in a big circle, around a campfire in a green gras field, under a rainbow singing kumbaya, receiving flowers from idiots who think gathering flowers and arranging them just to give away for free is gaming.

hmmm, thinking about that, given peoples online sensibility and urge to demand things wihtout thinking, that might just possibly be the next 100 million dollar online game. There’s nothing that can go wrong with that. Probably.

I think there should be a minimum level to enter WvW; perhaps level 25 or so.

That would prevent people from deleting characters on servers that they previously went into WvW on before they moved to a different tier and creating a new level 1 character for the express purpose of spying/griefing in WvW.

While it’s fine for us to all debate the right/wrong of this, it’s ultimately Anets decision on whether to ban or not. They have tools they can use to monitor player history and can make a decision one way or another. But if this kind of griefing is making folks throw their hands up …. It means losing playerbase (at a certain point people just get frustrated and thow in the towel) … And that’s death for any gaming company, heck any company … and something I’d rather not see happen because I love this game.

Personally I hope that Anet pursues this the same way they did with the bot infection.

Rather than arguing over if it is right/wrong or what Anet should/should not do, let’s chip in some suggestions that can alleviate this problem.

My input – how about creating a red-flag feature where players can flag another team/server member for some antisocial behaviour.

Once 10 flags are received, this red-flag would pop-up over the head of the offending character, and he/she would not be able to do the following for 1 hour:
1. draw resources
2. plant siege
3. use siege
4. activate traps
5. see/talk in team/map chat
6. view location of commander icons
7. activate commander icon / pin up
8. siege that they have placed can be destroyed by own team?

and perhaps some other restrictions…

There must be 50 flame rams scattered around Jade Quarry’s keep in eternal battlegrounds right now. There was no point in building those there except to grief, and possibly to throw the match in a certain other realms favor.

I don’t see how someone can compare doing PvE stuff in WvWvW, like the jumping puzzle or harvesting, with intentional griefing.

Monsoon.2589:

If the whole map goes to do the JP, will you report all of them for jumping in the dark instead of fighting?

The fundamental point here is that requires an entire map to show some form of solidarity. However a spy can impact on a whole map influencing all the people on that map in an unhealthily disproportionate way.

That my friend is griefing, something which ANet is against.

aeroh.8930:

There must be 50 flame rams scattered around Jade Quarry’s keep in eternal battlegrounds right now. There was no point in building those there except to grief, and possibly to throw the match in a certain other realms favor.

I don’t see how someone can compare doing PvE stuff in WvWvW, like the jumping puzzle or harvesting, with intentional griefing.

I don’t see what’s the fun in building rams in the enemy’s territory. Those griefers abuse the game system and cause problems for other players’ game experience; therefore, there is absolutely no reason or excuse why they shouldn’t be banned. Does Anet not have a clue who is building those rams? Can’t they check the data to find out who owns those rams? There must be records or something for Anet to know who is doing it.

Monsoon.2589:

Jayne.9251:

While it’s fine for us to all debate the right/wrong of this, it’s ultimately Anets decision on whether to ban or not. They have tools they can use to monitor player history and can make a decision one way or another. But if this kind of griefing is making folks throw their hands up …. It means losing playerbase (at a certain point people just get frustrated and thow in the towel) … And that’s death for any gaming company, heck any company … and something I’d rather not see happen because I love this game.

Personally I hope that Anet pursues this the same way they did with the bot infection.

I think you are exagerating because you are on one side of the equation. I don t think it is that abysmal as you say it is and the point is that you are able to do the exact same thing by buying a second account and going wasting supplies of the enemy.

Let me put this one other way…again.

You zone in wvw but spend you whole time doing nothing but picking up flowers and onions and mining. Should you be actioned and banned? Should you be removed from wvw? I mean Anet put onions to be picked up in wvw so should that player who is not fighting be banned?

What about people who waste slots when there is a queue by jumping in the dark in the Jumping puzzle…should they be banned? See the problem? I hate people in the JP but its apparently perfectly ok to waste slots that could be better used fighting for your map…so how come one thing is ok when it is detrimental to map progress and the other is potentially grieving players?

see…a fine line hence why nothing has been said officially because it would create a precedent and it would be a mess and open a can of worms. If you think wasting supplies is a reason for a ban then wasting a slot on the map should also be a reason for a ban…you can t have one and not the other

You can have varying degrees of griefing. Some are more patently obvious than others and easier to make a decision about. I get that you like spying and endorse it, but if actions taken by one player (or a string of them) are affecting another player’s gameplay to the point they don’t want to play anymore because their efforts are wasted or their hands are tied, that’s against EULA. And based on the number of posts in this thread and others, it’s pretty rampant.

All my post said above is that we should stop arguing about what is valid and what is not, and let Anet decide. That is out of both our hands, regardless of how many posts you or I (or others) write in its defense or against it. And we, as players who don’t like this sort of behaviour, can help them by sending in reports. Simple as that.

Glitchfull.5826:

Let’s settle this. This is still just a video game, no matter what is said. There is no sort of physical reward on the line, the only source would be from sPvP, but that would only be the case if sPvP did go esport (Unlikely in current state). Spying is a form of “Taking the game too seriously.” It is sad that people get this competitive over a game, but the same can be said for those that get upset and will willingly false accuse others for being such. Do I think spies should be punished? Hell no. If they want to, by all means do it if you really want to. Who are we to tell you not to when we are equal customers (Even though you are technically higher for being a 2 time buyer). Do I care if they spy me? Nope, let them. It’s flattering to know that we pose a threat to them, I trust in my skills to still kick their kitten butts. Do I think accusing someone and trying to make people that may not even be spy’s hated wrong? Hell to the kittening yeah. You are the scum of the game that are willing to hurt innocents for a ridiculously idiotic reason. Play the game and have fun with others. If you don’t want to have fun with all? Go play a single player game. For those who just stand by, drop them stones, stand up and fight it. And to all who play for fun, keep on fighting gents.

Ummmm….

Not even sure how to respond to this.

I assume you are one in WvW that likes to run around and pick flowers to put in the end of a rifle barrel. WvW is a competition whether you realize it or not. That is part of the fun for me, if there were no competition, why paly WvW. You may not be competitive, but I am. I like to win. Regardless of whether there is a physical reward does not matter to me.

The spying is less of an issue to me because there are ways to counter that. The sabotage is a big issue. It could literally change the outcome of numerous battles, and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about it.

Genesis Notch.1905:

Isaac.6041:

Zephyrus.9680:

No it doesn’t. WvW is obviously “Plaver-vs-Player (PvP) gameplay”.

Of course leeching is irrelevant in WvW and the “this also includes” means it includes sPvP leeching in the category. Not exclusive.

Spying/sabotage is not “participating in matches in good faith”. It would take a pretty big twist to convince yourself otherwise, even if you’re a perpetrator?

Same with “inappropriate behavior”, “other misconduct”, and “match manipulation”.

I don’t see how they can make it anymore clear than that without extending it to 100 pages for every conceivable and inconceivable offense that no one would ever read.

We have seen ArenaNet use the term PvP exclusively for sPvP and NOT for WvW.

The examples are all throughout their game update notes where they make certain changes for PvP (they use the term PvP to refer to sPvP) and the changes do not affect WvW/PvE.

So 22 does not apply to WvW.

Spying and sabotage is allowed. Killing your teammates in the Eternal Battlegrounds jumping puzzle is allowed. Taking slots in WvW so you can do the jumping puzzle instead of fighting other players is allowed. Partying with enemy players is allowed.

Talking with enemy players is allowed. Guesting on enemy server’s in lions arch (and other PvE locations) so you can boast and brag is allowed. Buying multiple guild wars accounts is allowed. Multiboxing is allowed as long as each account is personally controlled by the player (and not macros/bots). Reading “enemy” movements, map/team chat on your 2nd account and conveying that information to your “primary” account’s server is therefore allowed.

The wiki does not agree with you though:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP

It clearly says ‘World versus World’ is considered as one of the PvP modes in Guild Wars 2.

I believe rule 22 affects WvW too in the sense that Anet does encourage players to actively participate with good intention. If by ‘good intention’ means that players should not disrupt other people’s game experience, then spying and sabotaging are a big no.

Multi-boxing is allowed, yes, but if one multi-boxes to other server just to excessively boast/drain supply/purposely chose silly keep-tower upgrades/whatever that affect other people’s game experience in a bad way, then these kinds of multi-boxing are not allowed.

The problem is that it’s really hard to tell the good from the bad, also considering that there are many that fall in between. Hence, we should not blatantly encourage other players that spying/sabotaging is allowed, so that they will not rely on these methods to have advantage.

Wiki’s are NEVER a reliable source. They are community edited, anyone could put anything on them.

Monsoon.2589:

If someone throws a Arrow cart in front of a door while we are attacking it. Are you going to ban that person? What if it was a mistake, what if the person wanted to use the arrow cart after the door was down?

What Anet needs to do is fix the reasons why the person is wasting rams and the way to do that is to not have limits on siege or simply limit how many sieges you can put down yourself per 15 minutes. You could also limit the number of a type of siege one person can put down in an area per hour.

One other way could be to require players to use badges to put down siege once that single person has put more than X forcing them to gain badges/karma on that particular character.

There are many ways to lower the impact of these behaviors but the very important point is NOT to manage for the exception and impact everybody with a fix that was made to stop a single behavior. Also you have to be very careful in NOT starting to tell people how that have to play.

Monsoon,

For the most part ppl are talking about the very worst/extreme offenders. Like completely siege locking a keep with flame rams, burning supply at a keep by building tons of siege that are of no use and starting worthless upgrades at the same time. It is very obvious that these ppl are doing nothing but trying to grief/sabotage.

If someone throws an arrow cart in front of a gate, it’s not a big deal. I have made the mistake as have others of throwing down a ballista instead of a cata at times, it happens. Even if it was done on purpose big deal, it was one or 2 stupid siege. I have not on the other hand managed to single handedly wipe a keep of all supply by accident, or siege lock an entire keep with flame rams by accident. If ppl want to do map completion/gather/whatever, not a big deal, they are taking their chances to do so. I know if I find someone doing these thing I will go out of my way to kill them.

Glitchfull.5826:

Sorry if you don’t know me, but let me prove your judgment wrong. I love competition, keeps me quick on my feet. I wouldn’t get into a debate if I didnt like competition, that would be a “hypocrit”. Spy is an issues when the community will risk an innocent for unjust reasons. Sabotage is another story and should be treated as such. I still don’t agree with punishing them, it is a risk that an innocent may be unrightfully punished and there is no way to be sure if they are or not. Kindly inform them in a detailed and productive format why they should not do it. Do not be rude at any point, it increases the chance they will continue and it will then be your fault. Even if they seem to give an attitude, do not be rude. Go ahead and counter spies, but when that results in affecting the player in hurtful forms, that’s when it becomes wrong.

A tip for you, don’t be so quick to judge when you have no usefull information to prove such. I will remain being a threat to the behind of enemy lines, killing all their yaks and causing chaos in their lands with no ally anywhere, on my thief. Rolling through the melee train as a deadly hammer warrior. Running head first into the enemy force to portal my allies to victory on my Mesmer and destroying anything that comes my way on my Elementalist. Far from flower picking, wouldn’t you say?

I was going off the information in your post. You made it sound like this was all for fun when most people see it as a competition for fun. I may have been harsh, for that I apologize.

As I said in my OP, I did try to contact this guy numerous times. It started out he came into the camp and started building golems, he left them there and ran off. After he ran off seeing that he left them vulnerable me and another guy moved them into the keep to be safe. When he came back the second time I said in /s hey we moved your golems over to the keep so they don’t get destroyed. There was no response and he made 2 more. Thinking he was making them for his guild to push another keep, I moved them again to the closest keep and ran over to keep ticking them in an effort to help him out. He came back again to build 2 golems and empty the fully upgraded camp, at this point I started to whisper him asking him if he wanted us to keep moving them or where to put them, again no response. After he had come back another 3 times we had around 12 worthless golems as we did not have any chance to try to take another keep because we were way to busy defending and were way outnumbered. I very politely asked him to stop making golems and explained to him we needed the supply to siege up the keep we had, no response.

At this point I followed him. He had the exact same route over and over. He went to the camp, built 2 golems, went to the keep and started merchants (this is not on our own BL, we had already done doors, walls, WP, mortar, cannons, etc) it made no sense to start anymore upgrades as we were on an enemy BL and never do merchant, banker, and guards. Then he went to the next camp and started an upgrade, this was a camp that made no sense to upgrade as it was constantly being flipped. Then he started the whole process over again. If he ran into enemies in his route, he would summon the hounds, and auto attack every time. I started telling him I was going to report him – no response, I told him I was frapsing him – no response, I asked him if he was a bot – no response. I expected at least akittenill play the way I want. but got nothing. I still wonder if this was not a saboteur bot.

Theres putting an arrow cart at the door and being able to see through the top opening to target people inside & then there’s putting one against a keep wall and being able to target everything within which is what SOR of FEAR does everytime they’re attacking a keep. They don’t have it at the door they have it up against the wall like they did lastnight on at hills.

Impmon.3056:

Theres putting an arrow cart at the door and being able to see through the top opening to target people inside & then there’s putting one against a keep wall and being able to target everything within which is what SOR of FEAR does everytime they’re attacking a keep. They don’t have it at the door they have it up against the wall like they did lastnight on at hills.

It’s SoR, what do you expect?

Although I am not sure what the problem is. Are you saying they are exploiting?

CHIPS.6018:

Since you cannot ban someone for “playing dumb”…

Wishful thinking.

TC … guy making golems for ya, take his golems. Stack and rack them, and use them at will. You guys are doing very well with golem ports and attacks. If he ignores you take them, port back, stack them where the commander wants, then see if he has anything to say to you… most people don’t appreciate when they go to the effort of prepping golems, only to have random players swoop in and take off in them. 1G per aint no scoffin matter. You guys could build an army with this guy. Free seige ft toast!

I read in anotehr post someone submitted a ticket to Anet about people who act as spies and waste a server’s supplies on useless siege.

They said Anet got back to them and said people can play the game how they want. i.e. They do not see anything wrong with players doing this and have no plans to prevent it.

So even though the rest of us, even players on the other servers, know this ruins WvW for everyone; Anet dont think the same!

Posts in the NA Tier 1 thread discussing this were deleted. JQ was handicapped on multiple maps for days with griefers wasting supply, destroying golems, turning siege opposite direction, capping the siege limit, etc. The moderator who deleted the posts said that discussion of “cheating” is not allowed. From this, I think some in Anet do view this type of behavior as a violation of the rules of conduct. If not, why label it as “cheating.”

I think Anet has to step in. If not, servers will start to retaliate and this type of behavior will be part of the “meta.” And soon, you will see which server who can waste supply the best on the opposing server winning the weekly matches.

Jayne.9251:

Nuzt.7894:

You gave a fictional story to backup your other post, I call it fictional because what you posted would not have happened. Giving someone a reason to investigate and proving fault is two completely different things. Gaming companies reserve the right to ban whomever whenever, but thats not smart business.

Lol, I think you just like to argue And how are you so certain it wouldn’t happen?

I was avoiding naming the guild and server because I have a lot of respect for these folks and those who have paid close attention to these forums know who I’m talking about anyhow. It wasn’t fictional, and the bans were real and taken from WvW. They reported seeing anet-tagged players following their zerg for a full week before it happened.

I’ve been in game and fighting merrily along in WvW next to someone and then suddenly they pop an anet tag, whereas before they were guildless, or in another guild. They do send anet folks into game, I imagine both for diagnosing bug issues but also to monitor. If these guys are seeing griefing going on while they’re in there, they’re going to flag their own guys, too. The guy next to you in WvW could be an anet dev.

But they don’t even have to do that, which is my point. They can simply use tracking systems to monitor player behaviour and determine if griefing was invovled or not. It’s not hard to see transaction history, for example, of buying ‘merchants’ over and over again, nor is it hard to see 100 rams being built repeatedly, and no other activity by that player. It’s harder if the player just stands at spawn and does nothing but relay info back to their team, but I imagine because anet owns the software, they could easily monitor and review chat logs too. But I’d think they wouldn’t start doing that unless a complaint was received.

But the onus is on us the players to report this stuff. Out of the thousands of players in game, it’s like a needle in a haystack, unless they’re pointed in the right direction.

As usual I agree with you Jayne.

The reason that spying is low is that it diminishes using in game communication tools to relay commands. Do we really all want to log on to secure chat programs just so we can communicate to one another without a likelyhood of being compromised? Why should this be acceptable? In Tier 1 there are rumors of mumble DDoS attacks and worse. To anyone saying “all is fair”, I would like to say, go to Eve. It is the most paranoid MMO game on the market and with good reason. Do we want to collectively turn WvW into Eve? I sure don’t. I quit Eve to get away from that kitten.

Also real spying carries risk, in this game, there is no risk in being a spy other than some gold. So yeah, GW2 spying is even more honor-less than usual and any win you may garner for your server comes at a cost of fun for casual players.