EPTAbout Vera Lynn and Deathangel
+ Show Spoiler +
KnowMe: I met him in the ladder and said to him he shouldn't talk to me normally with "hello sir" and "hf". I find his actions completely out of line to which he responds I shouldn't be so pedantic about this because it wasn't something like maphacking. I don't understand this at all and when I see how he handles it... when he doesn't see that it is the most uppity scam and how he cons the whole community... I became very agitated.
HasuObs: I found it very terrible as well. The case was elaborated once, I think KawaiiRice did a TL-Thread, but other than that nothing happened. Deathangel can still participate in every tournament. Nobody cares about it and I find that very strange because everything was setup from the beginning how to be run.
Darkforce: To be honest, I can understand it a little. You don't need that much money in Romania to sustain your life and he probably has earned some dime. I mean Deathangel has almost no fame and rarely wins something online. And think about that... solely because he got invited to showmatches and even won some of them. Normally only players with fame get invites to showmatches. And showmatches are basically... free money. Of course, you don't always win but you only have to play one match. Compare it to a win in a Sunday cup. And he gets more viewers because people think he is a woman. And he probably will get paid by her for it as well and she probably encouraged him. I understand his motives but I find his activies to be totally out of line as well. I don't know but I think you shouldn't penalize him more than her... even though you can't penalize her really because she hasn't anything left. Yeah, I don't know. Of course, tournaments could ban him but nobody cares and I don't really care...
KnowMe: How do you compare this to, for example, maphacking?
Darkforce: I find maphacking to be a lot worse.
KnowMe: As a threat? I mean people use maphacks that can't cope with losses and take some extra wins. But what they did was a real scam.
Darkforce: To be honest, I am not so sure how much of their doings was premeditated. But you are right, actually. But maphack feels worse... I don't know, I am pretty relaxed in such things.
KnowMe: I mean, he farms female tournaments. Nobody above master league was participating in there.
Darkforce: Yeah... I mean you are right and one shouldn't do it. But it didn't have a shock effect for me. I would be more shocked if a know player was found out to be maphacking. I gotta tell a little anecdote: I met Vera Lynn, respectively DeathAngel in a ladder match before my TSL4 match against Nercho. I lost and then I thought "Oh well, now I lose to women as well, everything is gone now" ("alles vorbei" - coined by HasuObs I think).
*laughing*
KnowMe: And only because you saved your face you take a relaxed stance on this? (cheekily)
*laughing*
Darkforce: Yeah... when it came out I thought "well.. don't need to retire now.."
HasuObs: But this is a good point you brought up. You only get invited to showmatches with fame.
(talking about showmatch formats)
Rine: What I wanted to say. I am with KnowMe here. (...) There is no deterrence if you have no qualms about this and just think it is a possible way to make some money. If you don't create a precedent... which isn't possible because there is no umbrella group that publishes a blacklist. But if there was a precedent and the guy got punished, people in the future will look back to this and say "some 100 euros aren't worth it to be possibly banned from all events" and it would be a greater deterrence than doing nothing.
KnowMe: Yes, like I said. In that ladder game he said he paid his money back and everything is okay now. But anyone who does these things in general is very close to streamcheating and maphacking.
(...)
Darkforce: Something that popped up in my mind. Tournaments, like Dreamhack for example don't have any incentive to ban him from his tournaments. Because they possibly get more viewers on the stream because of him. There won't be any people that stop watching just because DeathAngel is playing.
Rine: Every PR is good PR. It's sad that not only he doesn't get punished but that he also might benefit from it.
Socke: Well, nobody knew him beforehand.
Rine: Yeah... people will be like "I don't know what happened but... I know him". (...) Just one more point that I remember. In SC1 there was the TSL and TL was more or less the sole ruler. And in the TSL qualifiers there was a swindle with qualification points. When TL found out, some people, for example Dimaga, were excluded for one or two years from TL events. That was a real consequence. (...) Something like this isn't possible today because if you are excluded from one tournament, why bother, there are eight other event hosts.
KnowMe: Yeah, but someone has to start this.
Darkforce: Something like that is very, very difficult. In DotA there was something like that when a player was boycotted.
Rine: That wasn't enforced as well. It didn't work.
(...)
HasuObs: Something brought up in chat regarding Roof. He was banned in the ESL because of multiple accounts.
Socke: No, he was banned because of wallhacking in Counter-Strike.
KnowMe: He made multiple accounts because of the ban.
HasuObs: Ah! The ESL has very strict rules overall... I find that very good. Regarding account sharing and stuff like that. The ESL is someone that has a good ruleset... or an existing one, for that matter.
Darkforce: Yes, the ESL is quite pedantic in enforcing this. Except for TLO...
*laughing*
KnowMe: Oh, how you prepared that...
Darkforce: Nah, that just popped up in my mind (laughing) where the ESL made an exception for big fame. But it's not that bad like in NASL where only fame matters. Ah, that's exaggerated but it sometimes feels like it.
HasuObs: I found it very terrible as well. The case was elaborated once, I think KawaiiRice did a TL-Thread, but other than that nothing happened. Deathangel can still participate in every tournament. Nobody cares about it and I find that very strange because everything was setup from the beginning how to be run.
Darkforce: To be honest, I can understand it a little. You don't need that much money in Romania to sustain your life and he probably has earned some dime. I mean Deathangel has almost no fame and rarely wins something online. And think about that... solely because he got invited to showmatches and even won some of them. Normally only players with fame get invites to showmatches. And showmatches are basically... free money. Of course, you don't always win but you only have to play one match. Compare it to a win in a Sunday cup. And he gets more viewers because people think he is a woman. And he probably will get paid by her for it as well and she probably encouraged him. I understand his motives but I find his activies to be totally out of line as well. I don't know but I think you shouldn't penalize him more than her... even though you can't penalize her really because she hasn't anything left. Yeah, I don't know. Of course, tournaments could ban him but nobody cares and I don't really care...
KnowMe: How do you compare this to, for example, maphacking?
Darkforce: I find maphacking to be a lot worse.
KnowMe: As a threat? I mean people use maphacks that can't cope with losses and take some extra wins. But what they did was a real scam.
Darkforce: To be honest, I am not so sure how much of their doings was premeditated. But you are right, actually. But maphack feels worse... I don't know, I am pretty relaxed in such things.
KnowMe: I mean, he farms female tournaments. Nobody above master league was participating in there.
Darkforce: Yeah... I mean you are right and one shouldn't do it. But it didn't have a shock effect for me. I would be more shocked if a know player was found out to be maphacking. I gotta tell a little anecdote: I met Vera Lynn, respectively DeathAngel in a ladder match before my TSL4 match against Nercho. I lost and then I thought "Oh well, now I lose to women as well, everything is gone now" ("alles vorbei" - coined by HasuObs I think).
*laughing*
KnowMe: And only because you saved your face you take a relaxed stance on this? (cheekily)
*laughing*
Darkforce: Yeah... when it came out I thought "well.. don't need to retire now.."
HasuObs: But this is a good point you brought up. You only get invited to showmatches with fame.
(talking about showmatch formats)
Rine: What I wanted to say. I am with KnowMe here. (...) There is no deterrence if you have no qualms about this and just think it is a possible way to make some money. If you don't create a precedent... which isn't possible because there is no umbrella group that publishes a blacklist. But if there was a precedent and the guy got punished, people in the future will look back to this and say "some 100 euros aren't worth it to be possibly banned from all events" and it would be a greater deterrence than doing nothing.
KnowMe: Yes, like I said. In that ladder game he said he paid his money back and everything is okay now. But anyone who does these things in general is very close to streamcheating and maphacking.
(...)
Darkforce: Something that popped up in my mind. Tournaments, like Dreamhack for example don't have any incentive to ban him from his tournaments. Because they possibly get more viewers on the stream because of him. There won't be any people that stop watching just because DeathAngel is playing.
Rine: Every PR is good PR. It's sad that not only he doesn't get punished but that he also might benefit from it.
Socke: Well, nobody knew him beforehand.
Rine: Yeah... people will be like "I don't know what happened but... I know him". (...) Just one more point that I remember. In SC1 there was the TSL and TL was more or less the sole ruler. And in the TSL qualifiers there was a swindle with qualification points. When TL found out, some people, for example Dimaga, were excluded for one or two years from TL events. That was a real consequence. (...) Something like this isn't possible today because if you are excluded from one tournament, why bother, there are eight other event hosts.
KnowMe: Yeah, but someone has to start this.
Darkforce: Something like that is very, very difficult. In DotA there was something like that when a player was boycotted.
Rine: That wasn't enforced as well. It didn't work.
(...)
HasuObs: Something brought up in chat regarding Roof. He was banned in the ESL because of multiple accounts.
Socke: No, he was banned because of wallhacking in Counter-Strike.
KnowMe: He made multiple accounts because of the ban.
HasuObs: Ah! The ESL has very strict rules overall... I find that very good. Regarding account sharing and stuff like that. The ESL is someone that has a good ruleset... or an existing one, for that matter.
Darkforce: Yes, the ESL is quite pedantic in enforcing this. Except for TLO...
*laughing*
KnowMe: Oh, how you prepared that...
Darkforce: Nah, that just popped up in my mind (laughing) where the ESL made an exception for big fame. But it's not that bad like in NASL where only fame matters. Ah, that's exaggerated but it sometimes feels like it.
About ApeX esports
+ Show Spoiler +
Rine: Akkis has stated in several posts how apex treated him. He came into the EPS finals and wasn't given a shirt or something and never received any salary or travel compensations. Apex couldn't support a small player like him and out of nothing they take on a team which requires a budget of some 1000 euros per month. What do you think? Should players inform themselves better?
Socke: How can you inform yourselves as a player? Sure, you can ask around, but that's just hearsay.
HasuObs: Well, if you know Akkis you can ask him.
Socke: Do you think Inca knows Akkis?
HasuObs: No, but MorroW.
Darkforce: You probably know as I do about cases that never went public. You know well of shady business but this never gets published. And moreover, in this case, these players that get into such teams have no better choice. It went pretty downhill with Morrow and the oGs players... they didn't have that much hope finding a reasonable team and then they take what they get and hope it works out. And if not, then not and they still don't have a team. They just try and if it doesn't work it's just like it was before. Especially in Korea there are good players that get nothing. Most Koreans don't get any salary. And if you promise them 100 euro per month... it's better than nothing.
(...)
Rine: There is the question: Why doesn't it get published? There are two main reasons: On the one hand, in every contract there is a clause "if it gets published, we send 20 lawyers to you" which is nonsense most of the times because it won't happen, especially if money wasn't send. And the second reason is, you don't want to slander your last team because the next team will think "if something doesn't work in our team, will you slander us?". And with nothing getting published, teams will scam players over and over again.
HasuObs: I send Morrow a link to Akkis posts over Twitter, but he didn't respond to it. Probably, we will see how it turns out in 2-3 months, if they are still in the team.
Darkforce: My expectation is that nothing will come out and slowly fade away out of attention. In some months, maybe, some will realize that they don't have a Starcraft roster anymore, but there won't be a big coming out.
Rine: Especially the Koreans can't defend themselves because they have no medium.
HasuObs: Morrow... I believe he would be capable to make a thread if it happens.
Rine: When a team has no history or promises unrealistically much, you can say to yourself "If in the end of the month the money isn't in my bank account, I'm gone!". Because everyone that had to deal with teams knows when asking for the salary gets responses like "Oh yeah, I will transfer the salary soon, soon, soon..." Every pro player that climbed the ladder dealt with teams' promises where nothing came out in the end. That's unfortunately the standard. What the community doesn't know is that even big names have huge problems paying out salary.
HasuObs: Not all teams, but yeah.
Rine: Except for the Top 5 teams in Europe or the world, there is no way you can trust that all promises are kept.
