EPT
A few weeks ago the TL staff were discussing what would be an appropriate punishment for the players involved. As I went back and forth on my opinion, I began to think back on the major cheating scandals of the past.
Online preliminaries have long become unnecessary in Korean progaming. But in the early 2000’s there were no pro-teams to scout out promising players and bring them up through the ranks, so online tournaments were necessary to allow everyone a chance to prove their skill. To name a few notable examples, the World Cyber Games qualifiers for Korea relied in large part on an online ladder until KeSPA seeding was established, the now defunct television channel GhemTV offered four spots in its Starleague through an online tournament, and the $10,000 first place prize KBK Masters was played completely online through the finals.
Cheating was rampant. The lack of launchers or replays allowed maphack to be used almost completely unchecked, while the alarmingly incompetent tournament organizers were too lazy to enforce rules regarding win-trading and other forms of ladder abuse. When I asked Nazgul about his personal experiences during his stint as a pro-gamer in Korea, he said that without exaggeration 99% of the players on the GhemTV ladder were abusers and that he had faced his fair share of blatant map-hackers as well.
The shadiness of the Starcraft scene was relatively well-known from its early days, but it was not a big deal at the time as Starcraft was still considered to be just a silly, if immensely popular, video game. Even Lee Gi Suk (aka Ssamjang), the earliest face of Korean pro-gaming, may have been guilty of ladder abuse in the first Blizzard Brood War tournament which he then went on to win (there was no conclusive proof). The public was happy enough to have another poster-child for Korea’s burgeoning internet revolution.
Progaming would have to become established as a real professional sport before the issue of cheating would be examined in a more serious light. When WCG2004 came around, it was not just hardcore gamers, but fans of a cultural phenomenon that would hold the players under scrutiny.
To get right to the point, take a look at this list: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=16387.
Even excluding the most laughable offenders who recorded wins at a pace of one every six minutes, the majority of those players were probably abusers. Lim Gyuntae (aka Gyuntae), who was oddly enough, the only high profile player to be disqualified by WCG (I may be wrong on this point, please correct me if you remember), wrote a long post to apologize and describe the ridiculous situation on the ladder. To quote him in part:
“You could not qualify for this tournament without abusing, and every progamer knew this from the start. If I stay honorable and don’t qualify, no one’s going to come out and congratulate me for that. You think anyone abuses because they like it? So I should think about the fans and stop abusing and just fail to qualify? Unless you’re a god, you can’t get in the top 15 without abusing. How are you supposed to get points when no one will play you… … there’s no one in the top 50 who hasn’t abused.”
Gyuntae’s statement was one of frustration. His plan, like that of many others, had been to play multiple accounts into the top fifty through regular play so he would be able to trade wins between accounts for the final push. It required a massive amount of games to be played during the short online-ladder period, and a high enough level of base skill to rank up the multiple accounts. With all the players aware of this strategy, the WCG ladder became a perversely intense competition in cheating where all the original rules had been subverted. The comical high point of Gyuntae’s post was where he asked people to at least recognize the insane amount of effort all the players had to exert in order to cheat the system.
At first, it was a shock. There was much denouncing, mockery, and talk in general. Looking back through pro-gaming community posts from that time, people were frequently calling Hong Jin Ho (aka Yellow) “Abuser Yellow” with derision. However, talk was as far as it went. KeSPA (then still the KPGA) was as incompetent then as it is now and did absolutely nothing. For all their momentary anger, the fans were at a loss for any kind of concrete action to take. A boycott of progaming may have been the only meaningful move to make, but no one was really willing to give up such an entertaining product. A few months later, Proleague continued to be amazing, Yellow was getting bunker rushed (three times) by Boxer in one of the greatest OSLs ever, and life moved on.
I went through the TSL2 disqualifications thread and came across Reason’s post.
+ Show Spoiler +
On December 14 2009 02:02 dshsdhk wrote:
Well, I'm ReasoN and I'm posting to clarify one thing, that TSL2 could have been one of the best online events of all time, if there weren't some extremely idiot rules, like forbidding smurfs, obviously the talented and famous players had a disvantage , especially those who were able to get excellent stats, and we, that did that, were praticaly dodged and ignored of the ladder, just in the most important fase (B+, A- above), with that we were unable or delayed pretty bad of getting a better rank (i didnt have 6hours per day to find people to play), and our unique solution would be playing with koreans (and that woudlnt be fair).
After spending hours trying to get games and being dodged and ignored by 99% of players, we got really in despair, and without thinking of the consequences we try to get some wins in a irregular way, which really hasn't changed anything in my situation (and the other tops that did the same). I even had classified myself by my own merits even without those wins. Dont get me wrong, im not saying that what we did was right, we did shit, but in my point of view, many of the other players had done too, like avoiding players with good stats, or spamming games on just one matchup like i saw some guys doing. (B+ A- only zerg msg for example...)
F91, Yosh, A2, Dimaga, ReasoN, Sarens
This list shows the total TSL2 fail in these requirements, players in this category with 80%++ win percentage with indisputable level were obligated to cheat for moving up in rank, because they were getting hard time to find games, u guys should reflect on what happend in this TSL2, and improve the rules for the next one, im retired since 2007 and i just came back to play this last tournament before quit this game definitely, sad that this shit had to happen, at least i had great time beating some players that are pretty active and who thinks that they are TOPS, and then they get raped by a retired player, i can quit this game satisfacted, peace all.
TSL2 = DODGER LADDER, congrats to the dodgers, they succeeded.
Well, I'm ReasoN and I'm posting to clarify one thing, that TSL2 could have been one of the best online events of all time, if there weren't some extremely idiot rules, like forbidding smurfs, obviously the talented and famous players had a disvantage , especially those who were able to get excellent stats, and we, that did that, were praticaly dodged and ignored of the ladder, just in the most important fase (B+, A- above), with that we were unable or delayed pretty bad of getting a better rank (i didnt have 6hours per day to find people to play), and our unique solution would be playing with koreans (and that woudlnt be fair).
After spending hours trying to get games and being dodged and ignored by 99% of players, we got really in despair, and without thinking of the consequences we try to get some wins in a irregular way, which really hasn't changed anything in my situation (and the other tops that did the same). I even had classified myself by my own merits even without those wins. Dont get me wrong, im not saying that what we did was right, we did shit, but in my point of view, many of the other players had done too, like avoiding players with good stats, or spamming games on just one matchup like i saw some guys doing. (B+ A- only zerg msg for example...)
F91, Yosh, A2, Dimaga, ReasoN, Sarens
This list shows the total TSL2 fail in these requirements, players in this category with 80%++ win percentage with indisputable level were obligated to cheat for moving up in rank, because they were getting hard time to find games, u guys should reflect on what happend in this TSL2, and improve the rules for the next one, im retired since 2007 and i just came back to play this last tournament before quit this game definitely, sad that this shit had to happen, at least i had great time beating some players that are pretty active and who thinks that they are TOPS, and then they get raped by a retired player, i can quit this game satisfacted, peace all.
TSL2 = DODGER LADDER, congrats to the dodgers, they succeeded.
In some ways, it reminds me of Gyuntae’s post. An online ladder will always have intrinsic flaws revolving around dodging and the difficulty of getting games near the top. Gyuntae mentioned as well, “How are you supposed to win when no one will play you?”
The major difference however, is that Gyuntae knew everyone was cheating, and everyone knew that he was cheating as well. Without oversight, the system fell apart, and the players ended up establishing their own corrupt system. ReasoN and the TSL2 cheaters, on the other hand, were attempting to slyly gain an unfair advantage over their peers in a tightly overseen ladder.
The case of the TSL2 cheaters was clear to me, they were quite obviously in the wrong and deserved whatever punishment they received. The more pressing dilemma I was presented with was what was I to think of those Korean pros now, who got away clean in 2004, and why couldn’t I remember how I had felt five years ago?
I realized that I had been as torn then as I am now, and all I had done was to defer judgment for so long that I simply forgot.
It’s no easier now, having to make moral judgments about those I admire. Perhaps it is even harder in the present, because the names Anytime and Iris have acquired so much meaning over time. I recognize that an unregulated ladder is not a credible ladder, but does that mean it does not deserve the least of the players’ respect? Victor Goossens (aka Nazgul) was a noble fool for killing his chances before he even begun by refusing to abuse the GhemTV ladder, but I don’t know whether this means he’s more noble or more foolish.
In the end, I guess my morals are as malleable as anyone’s. It hurts me to say it, but if you were a fan of any early progamer, there’s a good chance that you were cheering for a cheater. It really hurts, but I can live with it.
At least, it takes the sting out of every Air Force Ace loss. Maybe they deserve it.
