07:06 KST - method linked here has been disproved here
10:54 KST - Find a full timeline of pro comments (including Spades) in the topic here.
08:47 KST - Summary: Accusations of maphacking have the potential to destroy a player's career if left unaddressed. Because of the potential consequences, we should be careful about accepting unproven accusations. The principle of 'innocent until proven guilty' should be applied here. That does not mean that there has been a conclusion about this case, however, which is why this thread remains tentatively open.
Please discuss with caution and use evidence to back up your claims.
(also a summary post by an unnamed pro on reddit here)
I understand that you're probably unhappy with the huge stir and perhaps pre-mature outrage, but this is an outrageous allegation on both sides, whether you believe this is a case of an innocent player being falsely accused, or a professional gamer cheating. Adding to the confusion on both sides is the number of professionals giving their opinions, be it for or against Spades. There is really no other way for the community to react other than in confusion..
Which is why I don't blame the community. As I said earlier, I mostly blame TL for letting it unravel the way they did.
Listen, I don't like hackers, and I certainly don't know or care about Spades in particular. But I think in this case, with an accusation this serious, I think TL could have done a better job in it's response, and how it was moderated.
Let's put it this way: the open discussion about the Transgender Miss Universe had more red ink and revisions in it than this thread.
Even if other pro's, the TL Mods, or whoever is behind the scenes doesn't like Spades, he still is/was a pro-player with his rep on the line, and deserved the courtesy of being judged by his own peers, before allowing the community to chime in with our two cents.
He at least should get an updated OP!
Out of curiosity, who do you consider his peers then ?
Other players, casters, team managers, teammates ... basically the people that either have to actually work with him or play against him. They're the opinions that should decide whether he plays professionally or not anymore.
In the Western Wolves statement, they basically admitted they weren't sure if they could keep him, regardless of whether or not he was proved to be a hacker. Maybe I'm a softie, but I'd much rather wait a week and find out Western Wolves fired him because they thought he was a filthy hacker. Does that make sense?
No not really i am sorry, but you can not let a team or players who play with him (friends) judge him for simple bias reasons. Independend pro gamers how ever can.
Alright, let me try again.
"Team Liquid has decided to let Haypro go because we believe he is a hacker, and here's the evidence we have."
"Team Liquid has decided to let Haypro go. Although we don't believe he is a hacker, everyone else does."
The first response is reasonable. Team Liquid is firing a player based on their own standards. It's within their rights.
The second response is depressing, and result of caving to public pressure and opinion. The quality or strength of the evidence/argument is irrelevant.
Another, more recent example is when EG fired Orb. EG Alex did not fire Orb because people found his behaviour offensive. Alex fired Orb because, coincidentally, he had an undergrad in Black Studies and ulitmately HE found Orb's behaviour offensive and didn't want him on his payroll.
First... Alex did fire orb because of the community, he did not fire Idra and that is proof enough. You are trying to compare apples with oranges here, The orb situation was a PROVEN thing, and EG had to let him go due to community backlash even tho they themselves were reasonable enough to allow him stay even tho he said niger no ladder 1 year ago. The community was immature, or "offended" as some refer to it, and thus orb had to be fired since it might have hurt the EG brand. Spades maphacking isn't a PROVEN issue, its quite obvious but not PROVEN, however the community as a whole can agree that cheating in a showmatch/qualifier is a bad thing and should be acted upon by the team even if its "just that one time", the problem here is that we are not sure if he was hacking or not, not arguing the "morals" of hacking.
The relieving/resigning of Spades from WW happened about 200 pages ago. I am inclined to believe that the team leader didn't decide he was over and done without first having a long convo with Spades and also look at all the evidence for himself. I find it hard to believe that he would be naive enough to get rid of him based on the reaction of the community to accusation and a hunch that it must all be true.
Well i do agree with this, The only thing that i said is that EVEN if the pr story is true and it was the "community" fault, it was still right, unlike the Orb case,since what he did is something that should be punished harshly under 99% of the circumstances.
Why doesn't everyone here just read the 288 pages already posted instead of rewriting the same arguments over and over and over and over and over and over and over and...............................
On June 07 2012 14:43 McFeser wrote: that he went from low masters to 1#GM in the blink of unstreamed eye
Where's the part about him being GM and placing top 32 multiple times in MLG before dropping down to Masters in his poker and CS phase?
Was his previous rise to GM streamed either?
Also it could very well have been legit back then, it is not hard to believe that if he was in the proper practice regimen he could, back in the day before the Koreans came around, be able to keep himself in upper tier shape in the NA ladder and tourneys. He is not an AWFUL player. He has good game understanding.
But the points that GiX and his other teammate made about him having basically quit altogether and play at mid masters the last time they saw him and having pretty much no practice regimen at all due to loss of motivation, not practicing like an upper tier player, then a sudden GM1, and a 3-4 vs one of the best foreigner TvT'ers in the world, is still relevant.
Combine that with the fact that his current play as evidenced by his latest streams doesn't have the look of the upper crust mechanics and decisions one would expect of today's GM, much less rank 1, much less with better winrates than Demuslim and SelecT.
Doesn't add up.
Isn't living and Korea really depressing for some players? And isn't the NA ladder a hell of a lot easier in comparison. I think Sheth starting tearing it up on NA once he left Korea because he was homesick.
I don't think pointing out that he had a good run in NA after leaving Korea is a strong argument. There's better ones out there, that's all.
Well i do agree with this, The only thing that i said is that EVEN if the pr story is true and it was the "community" fault, it was still right, unlike the Orb case,since what he did is something that should be punished harshly under 99% of the circumstances.
You can argue that Western Wolves made the right decision for the wrong reasons, or that EG made the wrong decision for the right reasons.
I won't wholly agree with you on what's worse, but you can argue that.
I understand that you're probably unhappy with the huge stir and perhaps pre-mature outrage, but this is an outrageous allegation on both sides, whether you believe this is a case of an innocent player being falsely accused, or a professional gamer cheating. Adding to the confusion on both sides is the number of professionals giving their opinions, be it for or against Spades. There is really no other way for the community to react other than in confusion..
Which is why I don't blame the community. As I said earlier, I mostly blame TL for letting it unravel the way they did.
Listen, I don't like hackers, and I certainly don't know or care about Spades in particular. But I think in this case, with an accusation this serious, I think TL could have done a better job in it's response, and how it was moderated.
Let's put it this way: the open discussion about the Transgender Miss Universe had more red ink and revisions in it than this thread.
Even if other pro's, the TL Mods, or whoever is behind the scenes doesn't like Spades, he still is/was a pro-player with his rep on the line, and deserved the courtesy of being judged by his own peers, before allowing the community to chime in with our two cents.
He at least should get an updated OP!
Out of curiosity, who do you consider his peers then ?
Other players, casters, team managers, teammates ... basically the people that either have to actually work with him or play against him. They're the opinions that should decide whether he plays professionally or not anymore.
In the Western Wolves statement, they basically admitted they weren't sure if they could keep him, regardless of whether or not he was proved to be a hacker. Maybe I'm a softie, but I'd much rather wait a week and find out Western Wolves fired him because they thought he was a filthy hacker. Does that make sense?
No not really i am sorry, but you can not let a team or players who play with him (friends) judge him for simple bias reasons. Independend pro gamers how ever can.
Alright, let me try again.
"Team Liquid has decided to let Haypro go because we believe he is a hacker, and here's the evidence we have."
"Team Liquid has decided to let Haypro go. Although we don't believe he is a hacker, everyone else does."
The first response is reasonable. Team Liquid is firing a player based on their own standards. It's within their rights.
The second response is depressing, and result of caving to public pressure and opinion. The quality or strength of the evidence/argument is irrelevant.
Another, more recent example is when EG fired Orb. EG Alex did not fire Orb because people found his behaviour offensive. Alex fired Orb because, coincidentally, he had an undergrad in Black Studies and ulitmately HE found Orb's behaviour offensive and didn't want him on his payroll.
First... Alex did fire orb because of the community, he did not fire Idra and that is proof enough. You are trying to compare apples with oranges here, The orb situation was a PROVEN thing, and EG had to let him go due to community backlash even tho they themselves were reasonable enough to allow him stay even tho he said niger no ladder 1 year ago. The community was immature, or "offended" as some refer to it, and thus orb had to be fired since it might have hurt the EG brand. Spades maphacking isn't a PROVEN issue, its quite obvious but not PROVEN, however the community as a whole can agree that cheating in a showmatch/qualifier is a bad thing and should be acted upon by the team even if its "just that one time", the problem here is that we are not sure if he was hacking or not, not arguing the "morals" of hacking.
The relieving/resigning of Spades from WW happened about 200 pages ago. I am inclined to believe that the team leader didn't decide he was over and done without first having a long convo with Spades and also look at all the evidence for himself. I find it hard to believe that he would be naive enough to get rid of him based on the reaction of the community to accusation and a hunch that it must all be true.
Well, if he did secretly believe Spades was a hacker he should have grew some balls, manned up and announce that they fired him because he was a hacker.
I understand that you're probably unhappy with the huge stir and perhaps pre-mature outrage, but this is an outrageous allegation on both sides, whether you believe this is a case of an innocent player being falsely accused, or a professional gamer cheating. Adding to the confusion on both sides is the number of professionals giving their opinions, be it for or against Spades. There is really no other way for the community to react other than in confusion..
Which is why I don't blame the community. As I said earlier, I mostly blame TL for letting it unravel the way they did.
Listen, I don't like hackers, and I certainly don't know or care about Spades in particular. But I think in this case, with an accusation this serious, I think TL could have done a better job in it's response, and how it was moderated.
Let's put it this way: the open discussion about the Transgender Miss Universe had more red ink and revisions in it than this thread.
Even if other pro's, the TL Mods, or whoever is behind the scenes doesn't like Spades, he still is/was a pro-player with his rep on the line, and deserved the courtesy of being judged by his own peers, before allowing the community to chime in with our two cents.
He at least should get an updated OP!
Out of curiosity, who do you consider his peers then ?
Other players, casters, team managers, teammates ... basically the people that either have to actually work with him or play against him. They're the opinions that should decide whether he plays professionally or not anymore.
In the Western Wolves statement, they basically admitted they weren't sure if they could keep him, regardless of whether or not he was proved to be a hacker. Maybe I'm a softie, but I'd much rather wait a week and find out Western Wolves fired him because they thought he was a filthy hacker. Does that make sense?
No not really i am sorry, but you can not let a team or players who play with him (friends) judge him for simple bias reasons. Independend pro gamers how ever can.
Alright, let me try again.
"Team Liquid has decided to let Haypro go because we believe he is a hacker, and here's the evidence we have."
"Team Liquid has decided to let Haypro go. Although we don't believe he is a hacker, everyone else does."
The first response is reasonable. Team Liquid is firing a player based on their own standards. It's within their rights.
The second response is depressing, and result of caving to public pressure and opinion. The quality or strength of the evidence/argument is irrelevant.
Another, more recent example is when EG fired Orb. EG Alex did not fire Orb because people found his behaviour offensive. Alex fired Orb because, coincidentally, he had an undergrad in Black Studies and ulitmately HE found Orb's behaviour offensive and didn't want him on his payroll.
First... Alex did fire orb because of the community, he did not fire Idra and that is proof enough. You are trying to compare apples with oranges here, The orb situation was a PROVEN thing, and EG had to let him go due to community backlash even tho they themselves were reasonable enough to allow him stay even tho he said niger no ladder 1 year ago. The community was immature, or "offended" as some refer to it, and thus orb had to be fired since it might have hurt the EG brand. Spades maphacking isn't a PROVEN issue, its quite obvious but not PROVEN, however the community as a whole can agree that cheating in a showmatch/qualifier is a bad thing and should be acted upon by the team even if its "just that one time", the problem here is that we are not sure if he was hacking or not, not arguing the "morals" of hacking.
The relieving/resigning of Spades from WW happened about 200 pages ago. I am inclined to believe that the team leader didn't decide he was over and done without first having a long convo with Spades and also look at all the evidence for himself. I find it hard to believe that he would be naive enough to get rid of him based on the reaction of the community to accusation and a hunch that it must all be true.
Well, if he did secretly believe Spades was a hacker he should have grew some balls, manned up and announce that they fired him because he was a hacker.
Case closed, problem solved.
There is no way he would have just announced it. Remember that these guys were on a team and they have personal ties. The guy may be a hacker but not a bad guy. Why would you want your friend to burn when you have the choice not to. I'm not saying he knew he was hacking but it's a possibility.
On June 07 2012 14:43 McFeser wrote: that he went from low masters to 1#GM in the blink of unstreamed eye
Where's the part about him being GM and placing top 32 multiple times in MLG before dropping down to Masters in his poker and CS phase?
Was his previous rise to GM streamed either?
Also it could very well have been legit back then, it is not hard to believe that if he was in the proper practice regimen he could, back in the day before the Koreans came around, be able to keep himself in upper tier shape in the NA ladder and tourneys. He is not an AWFUL player. He has good game understanding.
But the points that GiX and his other teammate made about him having basically quit altogether and play at mid masters the last time they saw him and having pretty much no practice regimen at all due to loss of motivation, not practicing like an upper tier player, then a sudden GM1, and a 3-4 vs one of the best foreigner TvT'ers in the world, is still relevant.
Combine that with the fact that his current play as evidenced by his latest streams doesn't have the look of the upper crust mechanics and decisions one would expect of today's GM, much less rank 1, much less with better winrates than Demuslim and SelecT.
Doesn't add up.
Isn't living and Korea really depressing for some players? And isn't the NA ladder a hell of a lot easier in comparison. I think Sheth starting tearing it up on NA once he left Korea because he was homesick.
I don't think pointing out that he had a good run in NA after leaving Korea is a strong argument. There's better ones out there, that's all.
it wasnt after he left korea. it was after he left the Reign house in California
On June 07 2012 14:43 McFeser wrote: that he went from low masters to 1#GM in the blink of unstreamed eye
Where's the part about him being GM and placing top 32 multiple times in MLG before dropping down to Masters in his poker and CS phase?
Was his previous rise to GM streamed either?
Also it could very well have been legit back then, it is not hard to believe that if he was in the proper practice regimen he could, back in the day before the Koreans came around, be able to keep himself in upper tier shape in the NA ladder and tourneys. He is not an AWFUL player. He has good game understanding.
But the points that GiX and his other teammate made about him having basically quit altogether and play at mid masters the last time they saw him and having pretty much no practice regimen at all due to loss of motivation, not practicing like an upper tier player, then a sudden GM1, and a 3-4 vs one of the best foreigner TvT'ers in the world, is still relevant.
Combine that with the fact that his current play as evidenced by his latest streams doesn't have the look of the upper crust mechanics and decisions one would expect of today's GM, much less rank 1, much less with better winrates than Demuslim and SelecT.
Doesn't add up.
Isn't living and Korea really depressing for some players? And isn't the NA ladder a hell of a lot easier in comparison. I think Sheth starting tearing it up on NA once he left Korea because he was homesick.
I don't think pointing out that he had a good run in NA after leaving Korea is a strong argument. There's better ones out there, that's all.
it wasnt after he left korea. it was after he left the Reign house in California
On June 07 2012 14:43 McFeser wrote: that he went from low masters to 1#GM in the blink of unstreamed eye
Where's the part about him being GM and placing top 32 multiple times in MLG before dropping down to Masters in his poker and CS phase?
Was his previous rise to GM streamed either?
Also it could very well have been legit back then, it is not hard to believe that if he was in the proper practice regimen he could, back in the day before the Koreans came around, be able to keep himself in upper tier shape in the NA ladder and tourneys. He is not an AWFUL player. He has good game understanding.
But the points that GiX and his other teammate made about him having basically quit altogether and play at mid masters the last time they saw him and having pretty much no practice regimen at all due to loss of motivation, not practicing like an upper tier player, then a sudden GM1, and a 3-4 vs one of the best foreigner TvT'ers in the world, is still relevant.
Combine that with the fact that his current play as evidenced by his latest streams doesn't have the look of the upper crust mechanics and decisions one would expect of today's GM, much less rank 1, much less with better winrates than Demuslim and SelecT.
Doesn't add up.
Isn't living and Korea really depressing for some players? And isn't the NA ladder a hell of a lot easier in comparison. I think Sheth starting tearing it up on NA once he left Korea because he was homesick.
I don't think pointing out that he had a good run in NA after leaving Korea is a strong argument. There's better ones out there, that's all.
Sheth is a really good player tho, he got past first round of Code A so IMO he was at least Code A standard at that time, which is pretty good
I understand that you're probably unhappy with the huge stir and perhaps pre-mature outrage, but this is an outrageous allegation on both sides, whether you believe this is a case of an innocent player being falsely accused, or a professional gamer cheating. Adding to the confusion on both sides is the number of professionals giving their opinions, be it for or against Spades. There is really no other way for the community to react other than in confusion..
Which is why I don't blame the community. As I said earlier, I mostly blame TL for letting it unravel the way they did.
Listen, I don't like hackers, and I certainly don't know or care about Spades in particular. But I think in this case, with an accusation this serious, I think TL could have done a better job in it's response, and how it was moderated.
Let's put it this way: the open discussion about the Transgender Miss Universe had more red ink and revisions in it than this thread.
Even if other pro's, the TL Mods, or whoever is behind the scenes doesn't like Spades, he still is/was a pro-player with his rep on the line, and deserved the courtesy of being judged by his own peers, before allowing the community to chime in with our two cents.
He at least should get an updated OP!
Out of curiosity, who do you consider his peers then ?
Other players, casters, team managers, teammates ... basically the people that either have to actually work with him or play against him. They're the opinions that should decide whether he plays professionally or not anymore.
In the Western Wolves statement, they basically admitted they weren't sure if they could keep him, regardless of whether or not he was proved to be a hacker. Maybe I'm a softie, but I'd much rather wait a week and find out Western Wolves fired him because they thought he was a filthy hacker. Does that make sense?
No not really i am sorry, but you can not let a team or players who play with him (friends) judge him for simple bias reasons. Independend pro gamers how ever can.
Alright, let me try again.
"Team Liquid has decided to let Haypro go because we believe he is a hacker, and here's the evidence we have."
"Team Liquid has decided to let Haypro go. Although we don't believe he is a hacker, everyone else does."
The first response is reasonable. Team Liquid is firing a player based on their own standards. It's within their rights.
The second response is depressing, and result of caving to public pressure and opinion. The quality or strength of the evidence/argument is irrelevant.
Another, more recent example is when EG fired Orb. EG Alex did not fire Orb because people found his behaviour offensive. Alex fired Orb because, coincidentally, he had an undergrad in Black Studies and ulitmately HE found Orb's behaviour offensive and didn't want him on his payroll.
First... Alex did fire orb because of the community, he did not fire Idra and that is proof enough. You are trying to compare apples with oranges here, The orb situation was a PROVEN thing, and EG had to let him go due to community backlash even tho they themselves were reasonable enough to allow him stay even tho he said niger no ladder 1 year ago. The community was immature, or "offended" as some refer to it, and thus orb had to be fired since it might have hurt the EG brand. Spades maphacking isn't a PROVEN issue, its quite obvious but not PROVEN, however the community as a whole can agree that cheating in a showmatch/qualifier is a bad thing and should be acted upon by the team even if its "just that one time", the problem here is that we are not sure if he was hacking or not, not arguing the "morals" of hacking.
The relieving/resigning of Spades from WW happened about 200 pages ago. I am inclined to believe that the team leader didn't decide he was over and done without first having a long convo with Spades and also look at all the evidence for himself. I find it hard to believe that he would be naive enough to get rid of him based on the reaction of the community to accusation and a hunch that it must all be true.
Well, if he did secretly believe Spades was a hacker he should have grew some balls, manned up and announce that they fired him because he was a hacker.
Case closed, problem solved.
There is no way he would have just announced it. Remember that these guys were on a team and they have personal ties. The guy may be a hacker but not a bad guy. Why would you want your friend to burn when you have the choice not to. I'm not saying he knew he was hacking but it's a possibility.
Sadly, you're probably right. Guess we'll never know whether or not Western Wolves believes (or knows) that Spades is a hacker.
Okay so what I decided to do is grab all the Spades replays from his MLG games in 2010 and 11 and look for things that people have complained about. Unfortunately I didn't find the minimap SCV scouting - because if (or when) I do I will declare victory and dance a jig - but again MLG is closer to ladder in that you don't get to study and prep builds for a particular opponent in advance. However I did find in games against coLMVPKeen and FXOmOoNan respectively:
Not really a good idea and I don't recall it mentioned much here but it's something I remember from CatZ/Illusion and it's easy to disprove. Note The red above the minimap box are enemy units seen by a sensor tower so he knows he is moving the tanks toward danger.
I know it's not easy but trust me you can zoom in and see the minimap's unfog of war circle before he scrolls up.
Changing army direction due to spotting a minimap dot: + Show Spoiler +
Again you can't really see it, but the story is Spades takes one Xel and starts moving to the second when a red dot appears in the yellow circled area. Within a second he changes direction to defend the drop which he ends up holding off without any of that army. I know it doesn't exactly match the scan at 32:20 and move at 32:50 on TDA but does anyone really still want to say he should ignore 4 previous drops to that spot and the scan info to continue defending the mined out 3rd?
Marching his army into death while looking somewhere else for macro: + Show Spoiler +
One of the more recent complaints. Again, bad idea but it's something he apparently does and this time he pays for it.
Again, suspicious play is foiled by the opponent not doing his part. If only his opponent had started the 3rd we could call shenanigans.
Anyway, I have new-found appreciation for lawyers getting $100/hr. and up. This stuff is tedious. So much easier to make 20 claims, see half of them dismissed and just continue saying "What about the rest?"
On June 07 2012 17:29 dvorakftw wrote: Okay so what I decided to do is grab all the Spades replays from his MLG games in 2010 and 11 and look for things that people have complained about. Unfortunately I didn't find the minimap SCV scouting - because if (or when) I do I will declare victory and dance a jig - but again MLG is closer to ladder in that you don't get to study and prep builds for a particular opponent in advance. However I did find in games against coLMVPKeen and FXOmOoNan respectively:
Not really a good idea and I don't recall it mentioned much here but it's something I remember from CatZ/Illusion and it's easy to disprove. Note The red above the minimap box are enemy units seen by a sensor tower so he knows he is moving the tanks toward danger.
I know it's not easy but trust me you can zoom in and see the minimap's unfog of war circle before he scrolls up.
Changing army direction due to spotting a minimap dot: + Show Spoiler +
Again you can't really see it, but the story is Spades takes one Xel and starts moving to the second when a red dot appears in the yellow circled area. Within a second he changes direction to defend the drop which he ends up holding off without any of that army. I know it doesn't exactly match the scan at 32:20 and move at 32:50 on TDA but does anyone really still want to say he should ignore 4 previous drops to that spot and the scan info to continue defending the mined out 3rd?
Marching his army into death while looking somewhere else for macro: + Show Spoiler +
One of the more recent complaints. Again, bad idea but it's something he apparently does and this time he pays for it.
Again, suspicious play is foiled by the opponent not doing his part. If only his opponent had started the 3rd we could call shenanigans.
Anyway, I have new-found appreciation for lawyers getting $100/hr. and up. This stuff is tedious. So much easier to make 20 claims, see half of them dismissed and just continue saying "What about the rest?"
At the very least, I am appreciative of you putting in your due diligence, and continuing to make everything so precise and clear with your posts. Thanks for this.
I bet the op is lucifron. The other thread talking about the op's identity said tl mods know who it is, but won't reveal him. If he was just a no name random spanish poster, they would have no reason to hide his identity, cause no one would give a damn. That leaves it most likely to be lucifron himself and tl doesn't want to cause trouble for him. There's no point in protecting someone no one has never heard of, so the op has to be a known person.
On June 07 2012 17:43 Canucklehead wrote: I bet the op is lucifron. The other thread talking about the op's identity said tl mods know who it is, but won't reveal him. If he was just a no name random spanish poster, they would have no reason to hide his identity, cause no one would give a damn. That leaves it most likely to be lucifron himself and tl doesn't want to cause trouble for him. There's no point in protecting someone no one has never heard of, so the op has to be a known person.
If its true I completely understand the reasons he would want to remain anonymous then when releasing a replay pack of himself and accusing the opponent of hacking. Can you imagine the backlash he would also be facing if he had posted as himself? Hypothetically of course. I have seen no strong evidence that it would be him yet.
EPT![[image loading]](http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/9849/spadesmvpteam.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/5408/spadesmvpteam2.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/700/spadesmvpteam3.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/8799/spadesoonan.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/7680/spadesoonan2.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/9486/spadesoonan3.jpg)
