With my recent win at ESGN and redemption against x5, I feel there will be no better note for me to quit on.
I've had a lot of good times playing CoD and met a lot of people that I'm never going to forget, both sick mates and dicks that have shown me how you should and shouldn't act. I won't ever forget the feeling of having worked so hard from the bottom to be successful and win competitons, and then oppositely coming so close to kill myself in a crucial round. There were definitely a few sleepless nights over that one.
Looking back, it's easy to see the mistakes I made and the things I would do differently. I came into this community never intending to stay, dropped way too much shit bait and made enemies for no reason. For that, I am sorry. I really wish I had been able to swallow my pride and make more friends rather than enemies.
I'm not going to lie, being banned really did hurt, but it's helped me come to some realizations as well. Having all my achievements, including my LAN victories, stripped away from me was one of the worst feelings after the effort I put in to get there and the way it was done made it even worse. On the other hand, it allowed me to see how important CoD had become to me and how stupid that was. I used to practice alone for two hours a day at minimum, this is not including scrimming. It had become a chore rather than a hobby for fun and that is something I should never have allowed. In the weeks since this has stopped, it feels as though a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.
Regardless of this, and even though I will not be returning to Auscod, I will still be doing everything within my power to get this ban reversed. This is to clear the blemish from my name for both my own personal reasons and so I can play other games casually. Many of you already know the lengths I am going to, and I will push this all the way if I am forced to.
As Talnoy has said, I can scream "no evidence" until I am blue in the face and it will do no good, but I feel the demoes I have been banned from should be made public so it can be understood why I am fighting this so hard. I have been banned for 12 months, and MF were removed from CG-P, meaning there should be conclusive evidence within my CG-P demoes. The three CG-P that the A/C had access to were; QMX on crash, SQL on season and Meka on cluster. There demoes can be found here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?0a298f087jg35og
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?5cf5cn9zk2l917k
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?i818vgaby1k6agw
The other two demoes were from the SYF cup grandfinal against Voxe which can be found here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?evz6pkkct7kz6cr
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?qdb0e6hifw9mczm
Firstly, if the A/C team has not made a mistake, there should be 100% conclusive evidence that I was cheating within the first 3 demoes. I was taken into mumble by the A/C team and asked to explain multiple rounds. When this happened, I was told that both my SQL and QMX games were cleared. This means that conclusive evidence should be found within my 49bomb against Meka on Cluster. Most people have already seen this demo and so understand how ridiculous this is. There are a few "suspicious" rounds, but nothing even close to conclusive. There isn't even any abnormally good timing in this game, or things that I have done that do not have solid logic behind them. If anyone can point out these things to me, it would be much appreciated.
Then we come to the SYF cup demoes. I was shown and asked to explain four rounds by the A/C team.
Streets:
2-8: Walking up the stairs and kill Tal. I was told that I pre-aimed this position. I do not actually aim on him as I walk around the flowerbed. We know a player is back there, and I am checking every possible position. I see him, react to him and kill him. There is nothing even remotely suspicious about this kill, and it pains me that this was even brought up.
12-10: I am back flowerbeds looking into carpark. I flick to the guy in carpark arches as he is running back to their spawn. Not only do I see a pixel of this player, I only have two windows to be watching. It is quite possible I could have been flicking to the right window as I had been watching the left for so long, though I have no trouble seeing the pixel when I am concentrating on the right window (which I probably was). Either way, there are two circumstances in which this could have been done legitimately.
15-13: I am sitting on platform and apparently trace Anx perfectly through the wall as he pushes back wooden (I have not watched this with cheats so I cannot confirm). I have been told that I stop when he stops and then start when he starts. What was not taken into account is that the pattern I moved my mouse in is the exact pattern I have used when looking at catwalk during many other rounds. You can see another example of it in the very next round. I move from to the left, back to the right a bit, and continue moving to the left. I am watching that catwalk line, Anx would have commed he was pushing back wooden (meaning I no longer had any reason to watch that line), so I would begin my normal catwalk "sweep". Further than that, I am accused of being an excellently undetectable cheater, and then I suddenly decide to trace my teammate? It just doesn't fit.
Strike:
14-9: I am sitting on the bins for a long time, Tal pushes in front of me (I don't see him), then I walk out and shoot him, and it looks as if I have reacted to him through the bin. On first look, this looks the worst, but if you assess the logic it becomes a lot less suspicious. It's a 1v2, and I know there is only one person coming around behind me because my teammate has commed it and I have only heard one guy back there. This means it is probable that the other player is front a. In any clutch situation when you are surrounded, the best move is to push one side hoping to kill one of the players. I hear the guy behind me drop (meaning I need to push immediately), so I push forward to kill the player front a. I push around the left side of the bin because I am exposed to less area (this is the side I generally push), check around the bin to make sure I haven't been pushed (I have), see Tal and kill him. This is the most suspicious play I have ever made (I believe) and even then it is only some good logic with a stroke of lucky (or unlucky, depending on your point of view) timing.
Based on this, my ban should not even be 6 months, let alone 12. My input was asked about these rounds, meaning they were unsure. How could a conclusive decision possibly be reached from this position?
It has been reiterated over and over again that there was no bias involved in my ban, yet based on psychological principles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias), I doubt that's even possible due to the people who were reviewing my demo. I do not believe the bias was intentional, but a quick read of the Cognitive Bias wikipedia page suggests that it was probably unavoidable. I have quite a few enemies on that A/C panel, but no friends.
Going further, CG is refusing to release any information about my ban (other than what I was told in mumble). I was provided with the following reasons for evidence not being released:
"Provision of a breakdown of evidence will not be provided for three reasons.
1. This would involve the collation of each individuals findings which
in itself is an exhaustive task for the creation of further arguments
based on opinion of yourself and those you entrust to support you versus
the findings of the AC Team.
2. The publishing of these findings whether just to yourself or
otherwise would bring the views of the Anti-Cheat team to the public
arena. The discussions that would ensue around this is not something
that will give this community or any other community any positive
support.
3. The provision of the findings are very individual thoughts and
opinions - which can easily be targeted and skewed to the argument of
anyone as they see fit. What I might find suspicious and have reason to
believe as suspicious, another party may not, and vice versa. This
extends to all members of the Anti-Cheat team; sometimes there is a
disagreement on a moment in a demo or evidence provided, but this one
disagreement is not cause for the entire evidence to be dismissed, it is
a mere piece of a large puzzle."
Reason 1 suggests that they simply do not have a compilation of evidence. If solid evidence was not constantly discussed then how were they able to conclude that I was cheating? This brings into question the process of judgement that was used. If the process was completely correct, it should be a simple enough task to release the private A/C forum thread relating to me.
Reason 2 suggests only that they do not want to be held accountable to anyone. It is incredibly wrong to say that a fail safe, such as being forced to release evidence, would provide no support to the community. It would stop bad decisions from being made and allow the community to have 100% in the A/C team because they are able to see the evidence. As things stand at the moment, people are supposed to have faith in the A/C team because they are told to, with nothing to back that up.
Reason 3 is basically saying that the evidence is subjective. If the evidence is subjective, and one person may find it to be not cheating, then how can it possibly be conclusive? Furthermore, if this is the case, then why are the people who are making decisions about me the ones who don't like me? If the evidence is so subjective, then this fact could be the one that pushes the decision over the edge, from suspicious to cheating.
Maybe publicity is not required for every player, but to claim that I, who had the best statistics at 6 lans this year, including NVIDIA, cheated and then offer no evidence. A claim like that requires at the very least some justification. If it were my decision, banning a big lanner would require 100%, no doubt what-so-ever proof, rather than proof from the other end of the spectrum.
If you took the time to read all that and assess the evidence then thank you. When this is done, I will be taking up either LoL or CS:GO competitively, and taking no part in Auscod. To all those people/teams I was coaching, feel free to continue to hit me up on xfire, I'm still happy to help.
Peace.