Even professional guilds have purchased gold or paid real money for items in World of Warcraft. This has now come to light regarding Method.
Just yesterday, we reported that the major boosting provider “Gallywix” was attacked by Blizzard. Relevant accounts involved in real money trading have been penalized. In the course of these revelations, it also became apparent that some of the large guilds in WoW were also involved in real money transactions, including Method, who were the idols of European WoW players just a few weeks ago.
What happened? On the WoW subreddit, a series of incriminating screenshots have emerged. These show the player Scripe from the guild Method in contact with the owner of the Gallywix Boosting Community. The dialogues, which apparently occurred over Discord, discuss the large-scale purchase of gold and items for real money. A table with all purchased items is also visible there.
Scripe has since spoken out on Twitter and confirmed the allegations. He and his guild were involved in these dealings.
Method apparently wanted the best items
Why did Method do this? While Scripe didn’t elaborate further, the reasons for Method’s actions can be easily inferred.
In patch 8.3, it was apparently necessary for the professional guild Method to search multiple auction houses on other realms for specific items and to purchase them. The reason for this was the extremely strong corruption effects, which were mainly available randomly at the start of patch 8.3. Therefore, the strongest effects could also be on so-called “BoE items” – items that could be traded via the auction house. To have the best possible equipment, it was necessary to buy these items and – if necessary – even transfer them from other realms.
Ultimately, this didn’t pay off for Method – they lost to Limit in the World First race.
What does this mean for Method? The WoW guild Method no longer exists as a raid-capable group. After a major scandal involving “sexual harassment” the guild was unofficially disbanded.
Many players have since come together under the new guild name Echo and want to return to the raiding scene in Shadowlands. Among them is also Scripe, who now serves as the guild leader for Echo. However, since his participation in real money purchases has come to light, it is possible that he will also face account penalties. Whether these will be resolved by the launch of the first raid season in Shadowlands remains to be seen.
However, it is also likely that many other large guilds were involved in such or similar dealings. After all, guilds have been doing nearly everything for years to secure even the slightest advantage.
