Dear community
It is with great sadness and regret that I have to announce that amongst our tight nit community, two players have been found guilty of cheating.
The names of the cheating players will probably not come as a surprise, as many concerned players have suspected both players for a while now. However as we maintain that somebody is suspicious but innocent until proven guilty, we extensively research players before passing actual judgement.
Recently our anti cheat team has put in extra hours and wrapping up the ongoing investigations to come to a decision as to if and how these individuals were cheating.
Ah Solidsnake. It's almost a Cinderella story, had it been a natural skill increase.
Our story starts in 2009, when Solidsnake was caught in 2009 with Zeliusbot on a public server.
Fastforward to January 2013, where he graced us with his presence under the name Woozahh.
were not very impressive to say the least, shooting around 18% accuracy and getting 30ish frags.
He changed his name to Solidsnake at the start of iCTF III (where he was ranked at $406) and with his new nickname apparently came 'new found skills'... He was ranked a whopping $1175 in iCTF IV half a year later due to his major skill increase... and was most recently ranked as high as $1351 a year later in iCTF V.
So how did Solidsnake do it? How did he manage to raise his skill to the equivalent of a new player to one of the top 20 in under a year, go from 18 acc to an average nearing 40, from 30 frags a match to 130.... learning all this in just under 200 pugs?
solidsnake | Pugs: 231 | Since: Thu Feb 28 2013 09:59:22 GMT-0500 (EST) | Daily: 0.53 | Top: 22.93% | Captained: 44 | Last: 2w 4d ago
Sadly you already know the answer:
he didn't.As he was under investigation, we have since requested multiple videos and even asked him to record himself playing. Those demos (the ones he provided when his autodemo didn't accidentally conk out) and the video have since been thoroughly analysed by the anti cheat team.
While we choose not to disclose the full details on how we performed our investigations and what exactly we look for when detecting cheats (duh), we like to share with you that it is impossible for a human to do some of the things that he was doing.
Feel free to look at some of these demos and form your own opinion*. If you look for it, you will see it. In Solidsnake's case, I will provide Solidevidence.
Solidsnake has been found guilty, by the anti cheat team, for using an assisted aim. For obvious reasons, we will not disclose the exact cheat. In addition to the visual proof, there are also damning logs corroborating the fact that he is indeed cheating.
He will be banned for 1 year from #iPug and be banned from competitive play for at least 3 years.
Scroll down to see how his ban effects iCTF V.
Sadly, Nicks' case was harder. An admin of the GU team, never convicted before, an old player that also went above and beyond to prove his innocence by uploading his demos, filmed himself playing and would not run away from conflict and defended himself against every single accusation in order to 'prove' his innocence.
So what's Fallacy's story? He has been with us at GU since 2011 and at one point in time seemed to go from good to PRETTYFUCKINGAMAZING very fast. And people noticed this. The first official allegations started around in the beginning of 2013.
He was investigated for awhile but while a lot of it had a fishy odour, we felt there was not enough conclusive evidence to say that he was cheating.
Nick said he lost interest in UT after the heavy accusations and was around less and less - he was on IRC but not really talking and barely pugging. He cancelled his server and in the following seasons he did join he was not very involved. He didn't show up for a single match in Global.saCTF due to work, which was why he was banned from playing Global.iCTF V. Needless to say with him disappearing, the investigation kind of came to a stand still.
However with recent reorganisations we also dove back into the Fallacy case and spent many maaaaany hours investigating Fallacy in all ways possible.
While we choose not to disclose the full details on how we performed our investigations and what exactly we look for when detecting cheats (duh), we like to share with you that it is impossible for a human to do what he was doing.
Feel free to look at some of his demos and form your own opinion*. Fallacy's assisted aim is admittedly better hidden and is harder to see with the naked eye but is easier to spot with a slower speed.
Fallacy has been found guilty, by the anti cheat team, of using an assisted aim. For obvious reasons, we will not disclose the exact cheat.
He will be banned for 1 year from #iPug and be banned from competitive play for at least 3 years.
Sidenote: Players are allowed to appeal the ban but they must provide compelling evidence to have the case re-opened.
He will be banned effective immediately. We are currently trying to find an adequate substitute for Solid to play for Ramdrops team. Naturally it is unfortunate for the team that they lose one of their most valuable (*cough* cheating *cough*) players mid season - but we feel that the fact that he is cheating outweighs letting him finish play the games for the sake of the team (which would only ruin the league anyway).
As you can see, hunting season has started
Don't cheat friends. Friends also don't let friends cheat. We play UT for fun, 15 years after its creation. If you have such a tiny dick you need cheats to feel better about yourself and enjoy spoiling the game for everybody still playing, you are a very sad person.
We hope you can rest easy tonight knowing the streets of #iPug are a little cleaner after tonight.
HULKSMASH