EPTSC2 progamers are selling account leveling services that bring an unknown number of accounts into GM and high master. Certain featured streamers have leveled accounts on stream and then been told by TL mods to stop. A simple Google search yields websites and forum threads devoted to leveling services, with claims that well-known progamers, all the way up to Code S, are performing the leveling. Some even claim that the player (who may be featured on TL), will stream the leveling for an extra fee. The levelers are never named, of course, and sometimes there are even disclaimers that the services will not be offered for long because the players could lose their jobs if caught by their teams.
The proof that this is happening is not hard to find. The most blatant example that I know of is MillDragon, who has been leveling accounts on stream. Here's a VOD of it - http://www.twitch.tv/dragon/b/324831636. Starting at ~58:00 he starts leveling silver account FX.Shidow for several games. Other pros that have been confirmed to do it are Destiny, Desrow, and Select (although it seems Select only did it for a short while and then stopped).
I've also found an example of a GM account that is being leveled by Naama:
+ Show Spoiler +
It's rank 169 on NA (at the time of posting) IMMvp.
Here's why I think this account is leveled by Naama:
1. The 1v1 player's hotkey patterns match exactly to Naama. The team game player's hotkeys are completely different, as is his skill level (far inferior). See below.
2. The owner of the account denies that it's leveled, and claims he simply uses different hotkeys for 1v1 and team games (see here; the "skrillex123" account is his as he admits earlier in that thread). Clearly he wants people to think he himself is good enough to be in GM, which is likely the reason people pay for leveling services. Otherwise, why wouldn't he just admit that he shares the account with Naama?
3. Given that the 1v1 player is irrefutably Naama, the only other possibility is that this is Naama's friend and they just share the account. Obviously, this is hypothetically possible and certainly not unprecedented; daisuki, for example, has admitted that he shares the NITRIX NA accounts with people who play the team games. But, what are the odds? Does Naama have a friend in the US that he just decided to ask to use his account to smurf on? Why wouldn't Naama have his own smurf account(s) in NA, possibly paid for by one of his former teams?
4. It's likely not the account owner just playing much better in 1v1s. As of season 6, the account was in silver in 1v1. The team game player's skill level, if you watch the replays below, is indeed silver or gold level. In season 7, the account jumped to top master, and of course now is GM.
5. Now for the hotkey graphs.
Naama's hotkeys, pulled from drop.sc replays against Naniwa and Dimaga:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/d7qhn.jpg?1)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/pGwuN.jpg?1)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/iaDQZ.jpg?1)
IMMvp's 1v1 hotkeys:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/md2tJ.jpg?1)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/18Sbd.jpg?1)
IMMvp's team game hotkeys:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/XrNQr.jpg?1)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/sOmis.jpg?1)
I also believe the owner of the account hacks in his team games and plays with other hackers, which leads to another problem with these leveling services. But I'll get back to that later.
Here's why I think this account is leveled by Naama:
1. The 1v1 player's hotkey patterns match exactly to Naama. The team game player's hotkeys are completely different, as is his skill level (far inferior). See below.
2. The owner of the account denies that it's leveled, and claims he simply uses different hotkeys for 1v1 and team games (see here; the "skrillex123" account is his as he admits earlier in that thread). Clearly he wants people to think he himself is good enough to be in GM, which is likely the reason people pay for leveling services. Otherwise, why wouldn't he just admit that he shares the account with Naama?
3. Given that the 1v1 player is irrefutably Naama, the only other possibility is that this is Naama's friend and they just share the account. Obviously, this is hypothetically possible and certainly not unprecedented; daisuki, for example, has admitted that he shares the NITRIX NA accounts with people who play the team games. But, what are the odds? Does Naama have a friend in the US that he just decided to ask to use his account to smurf on? Why wouldn't Naama have his own smurf account(s) in NA, possibly paid for by one of his former teams?
4. It's likely not the account owner just playing much better in 1v1s. As of season 6, the account was in silver in 1v1. The team game player's skill level, if you watch the replays below, is indeed silver or gold level. In season 7, the account jumped to top master, and of course now is GM.
5. Now for the hotkey graphs.
Naama's hotkeys, pulled from drop.sc replays against Naniwa and Dimaga:
IMMvp's 1v1 hotkeys:
IMMvp's team game hotkeys:
I also believe the owner of the account hacks in his team games and plays with other hackers, which leads to another problem with these leveling services. But I'll get back to that later.
The following are quotes taken from threads/websites created for leveling services. Each of these is from a different group offering the service:
+ Show Spoiler +
"We have 2 of the finest Top 30 Grand Master Zerg Players to provide professional coaching and league/ranking services." "We have 2 of the best Grand Master Terrans. Both provide professional coaching and league/ranking services."
"We have already gotten quite a few customers in Grand Masters league in the past 3 months on the North American, European and South East Asian servers."
"We currently have top tier pro players of each race for account leveling!" "Up to TOP 16 GRANDMASTERS LEVELING!"
"All 1v1 orders are processed by highly experienced Grand Master players from Europe and North American servers."
"We have 3 Korean GM players each race."
"Our leveling service consists of some of the highest skilled players in the world, consistently top 16 GM on KOREA/NA/EU servers." Another ad for this service on another site states "1 of the players is a Korean GM Protoss, he is widely known in the starcraft 2 community and has a featured stream on Team Liquid"
"I have 1 top GM protoss and 1 top GM zerg. They both keep above a 65% win ratio in GM." As of 7/12/12 - "The service is re-opened, come one come all." "If the wrong person found out about this they could lose their job as professional gamer." These two players are going through a established hacker and site donor. Him speaking about an upcoming patch - "There is no set time for this patch to be released just that it is under development right now so get ready to update those hack/bot folders."
"The leveling will be done by a top 50 grandmasters zerg, top 25 grandmasters protoss and a top korean terran." Note he says "Hey I'm sure alot you guys have seen my free leveling thread, but I realized its not really realistic because of the amount of people that want leveling." He states he uses a maphack for the leveling he does personally.
"We have already gotten quite a few customers in Grand Masters league in the past 3 months on the North American, European and South East Asian servers."
"We currently have top tier pro players of each race for account leveling!" "Up to TOP 16 GRANDMASTERS LEVELING!"
"All 1v1 orders are processed by highly experienced Grand Master players from Europe and North American servers."
"We have 3 Korean GM players each race."
"Our leveling service consists of some of the highest skilled players in the world, consistently top 16 GM on KOREA/NA/EU servers." Another ad for this service on another site states "1 of the players is a Korean GM Protoss, he is widely known in the starcraft 2 community and has a featured stream on Team Liquid"
"I have 1 top GM protoss and 1 top GM zerg. They both keep above a 65% win ratio in GM." As of 7/12/12 - "The service is re-opened, come one come all." "If the wrong person found out about this they could lose their job as professional gamer." These two players are going through a established hacker and site donor. Him speaking about an upcoming patch - "There is no set time for this patch to be released just that it is under development right now so get ready to update those hack/bot folders."
"The leveling will be done by a top 50 grandmasters zerg, top 25 grandmasters protoss and a top korean terran." Note he says "Hey I'm sure alot you guys have seen my free leveling thread, but I realized its not really realistic because of the amount of people that want leveling." He states he uses a maphack for the leveling he does personally.
Who cares?
Now you might say, what's the big deal? After all, account leveling is not actually hurting anyone other than the person buying the leveling, because he won't really be able to play 1v1 again or else he'd get stomped. Besides, progamers need a little extra income. However I do think this is a "big deal", for the following reasons:
1. Need for money never excuses a wrong. Coaching would be a better avenue.
2. It hurts the competitive integrity of the ladder. Like it or not, the ladder does have meaning to the community at large. Similar to how hacking hurts the ladder's competitive integrity by providing hackers with an unfair advantage, account levelers have an unfair advantage over the vast majority of their opponents because the levelers' skill level is far above the league they're playing games in. Thus, whenever you play against a pro who's leveling an account, that game is just as meaningless to you competitively as if you were playing against a hacker. The ladder player base is already dwindling, we don't need people being under the impression that in any given game, they may well be playing against an account leveler or hacker. Lots of players are discouraged by lack of ladder progress, so we also don't need master league filled with leveled accounts.
3. It's against the EULA and the TOU. 2(B) of the TOU states:
"You agree that you will not, under any circumstances exploit the Service, a Game or any part thereof for any commercial purpose, including without limitation...perform in-game services in exchange for payment outside the Game, e.g., power-leveling."
You might argue that coaching would seem to fall under this part of the TOU. I would say it's reasonable for Blizzard to look past coaching since it will only benefit the community and the competitive integrity of the ladder. Blizzard also looks past things like relocalizers that allow people to switch between regions, but do modify game files if I'm not mistaken, because they can only benefit the community.
4. It IS hurting other people. The semi-pros in high master who are struggling to break into GM, because GM does in fact provide recognition to players. Granted, it's not the same level of recognition that tournament success grants, but it undeniably beneficial to a player to get into GM. Indeed, many aspiring semi-pro teams have ladder rank cut-offs for entry. Ideally GM should be the top 200 ladder players, and not littered with leveled accounts. Aspiring semi-pros are being cheated out of potential opportunities by the people selling these leveling services. Moreover, these leveled accounts basically go inactive save for some occasional playing by the leveler to keep the account from falling out of GM. The levelers also offer "maintaining services" to keep you in GM.
5. The people most likely to buy leveling services are associated with hacking and botting communities. Indeed, many of the ads I mentioned are on hacking sites. Often you will see the same group advertising on multiple hacking sites. As an example of a hacker's account being leveled, I believe the IMMvp account owner hacks in team games and plays with other hackers. Replay evidence here:
+ Show Spoiler +
http://www.sctemple.com/replay/260581/
- His team is ready and waiting for the attack that comes at 9:30.
- karaNICOLE looks through the fog of war at my drop at 16:50, and then Mvp is ready and waiting at his expansion and even moves SCVs away pre-emptively.
- One of his teammates here, FFSentries, has an account on a prominent hacking site where he asks for SC2 loss bots (revealed by Google search).
http://www.sctemple.com/replay/260996/ (very damning evidence here for IMMvp)
- Suspicious fog of war peaking by "skrillex", which the website can see is his the account's former name, @ ~2:30-3:30, 8:00-8:15 (VERY suspect, including looking @ hidden expo), 10:30-10:35, 15:13,
- His team is ready and waiting for the attack that comes at 9:30.
- karaNICOLE looks through the fog of war at my drop at 16:50, and then Mvp is ready and waiting at his expansion and even moves SCVs away pre-emptively.
- One of his teammates here, FFSentries, has an account on a prominent hacking site where he asks for SC2 loss bots (revealed by Google search).
http://www.sctemple.com/replay/260996/ (very damning evidence here for IMMvp)
- Suspicious fog of war peaking by "skrillex", which the website can see is his the account's former name, @ ~2:30-3:30, 8:00-8:15 (VERY suspect, including looking @ hidden expo), 10:30-10:35, 15:13,
Do we really want pros giving legitimacy to the accounts of people who hack?
6. The people buying these services may even advertise coaching once they get into GM and make money off it. NMxBlazinT, for example, is notorious for having his account leveled each season, and he has an account on a prominent hacking site where he has advertised coaching.
9/24/12 UPDATE: The VeraLynn issue posted by KawaiiRice is further proof that a leveled account can be used as a facade to profit from other things such as coaching. This isn't necessarily small potatoes either considering this person was a representative of SixPoolGaming.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=371282
7. It's possible that the people acting as middlemen between the pros performing leveling and the people buying the leveling keep a portion of the proceeds, similar to something like Gosucoaching. If this is the case, the proceeds are likely contributing towards the hacking communities and sustaining them further. The middlemen who offer their services on the most prominent hacking site are veterans of the site and in some cases "Advanced Hackers" and site donors. These people contribute money and add to the knowledge base of the site with their programming expertise (as demonstrated by their post history). I'm not linking to direct sources since I don't think TL allows any linking to hacking sites.
In addition, the leveling threads on hacking websites draw traffic and thus ad revenue to those sites. By adding leveling to the list of services offered at these sites, progamers are bolstering those sites' communities and potentially putting more money in hack creators' pockets. This can only be a bad thing because it encourages the hack creators to continue doing what they're doing, and potentially expand what they're doing.
In sum, I think this is a legitimate problem that needs addressing. I hope I have provided enough proof that it's happening. I don't intend to merely tarnish the names of the pros I mentioned, but I do think they should be criticized for this practice. Also, the example of Naama shows that by comparing hotkey graphs from sc2gears we can potentially identify other leveled accounts. I think this kind of thing is just as reprehensible as hacking and it should be put to an end.
