In this week's editorial Byron "Messiah" Mudry looks at the arena combat and reward system and the way a select few are using it to become extremely wealthy in-game. Since the inception of the arena combat system in the World of Warcraft many players have hungered for some of the amazing gear that can be earned through the arena rewards system. It didn't take very long before players found a way to buy pass the system and arena ratings and arena team sales began. In the fast paced arena combat system is this legal, ethical, moral even? Should you be able to buy your way into the rankings and essentially get gear for gold?

The how is actually surprisingly easy. There are a few ways, however the most common seems to be as follows. They generally have a fully geared 3v3 or 5v5 team (depending on which you are buying) that starts off being very highly rated. They then log on and throw many matches to drop their rating through the floor. The do this (when possible) to another of their (or their friends) teams to raise their rating. Once the rating is low enough to be in an easy bracket for their gear, they start a fresh team and put up a notice of a team for sale.

You can read all about it in the Editorial - Selling Arena Ratings and then have your say in our forums.