Originally Posted by eisley
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
First of all, thanks for the insightful reply. I realize this is RNF but I think this is topic important to warrant civility because I believe resorting to /random will remove the last shred of competitive spirit left in the game, and that not only will undoubtedly hurt the playerbase, it also just makes me kind of sad. I care about this game, it was never Classic EQ, but it was Project 1999, and I loved this game for what it was, warts and all.
My apologies for being ignorant of the metaphor, but I think I understand what you're saying.
I did a little research, and it looks like steroids weren't legal at the time, but in sort of a grey area. I see this era referred to as the 'steroid era' suggesting he wasn't alone. Also, I see his stats jumped an astronomical amount, to a level not seen before or since. whereas gaining 100ms on 90,000ms race is, I think we can agree, statistically within the margin of error. And Stunningly, while good, is certainly not the undeniable best racer of all time, though he's up there in my eyes. Kelzaraz, Aikons, Brutillus, Quean, Mani, Fingerz, among others, are all up there with Stunningly. Hell, the greatest single accomplish I witnessed in this game was Kelzaraz showing up to his very first raid in Awakened, zero raid experience, and getting *FOUR* FTE's his first raid cycle.
Now, I know what you're probably thinking, so yeah - how did the rest of this race go? Did Stunningly even win? It's really frustrating how the video glosses over this stuff. For the record, I've been to maybe 5 or 6 Statue races with Stunningly, of which he won once. I actually was right behind him and tagged Vindi for him.
Bonds was in a league of his own. Stunningly shows, from the small sample I've seen, a pretty typical win rate for a good player. That said, steroids provided a bigger benefit than a scripted line jump does, so we'll call this a wash - I concede you may be right, I get your point, but I don't think the Bonds comparison is accurate.
I agree with you here, and all I can really say is I don't know. IF Stunningly is cheating, I think it's very stupid and not worth tarnishing his legacy over. IF he's being falsely accused, I am sympathetic. I was falsely accused of RMT and banned for 4 months. I was falsely accused of stealing an item from a guild and acquitted only recently (yeah, I'm waiting for that apology guys, I'm sure it's in the mail).
What bothers me is the level to which Riot is convinced he is cheating. I was in Riot briefly when I first returned. One of the first things that struck me is how obsessed they were about Stunningly and Furoar. I thought, jeeze, these guys are living rent free in their heads. They don't worry about their own tactics, they just complain about cheating. It was a toxic, and demoralizing environment. I talked to a guildmate/friend of mine since Vanilla about it, and he said, "This isn't Awakened or Rampage. This isn't 2016. The game you remember is dead. The friends you remember are gone. They cheat, we cheat, mutual respect for your opponent is a foreign concept now, and there's a reason us old-timers aren't leading these guilds anymore. My suggestion is to ignore the drama."
(To be clear, 99% of the people I met in Riot seemed perfectly cool and I don't have strong opinions about Riot or Vanquish honestly - but the difference in guild morale and leadership is so stark its like a slap in the face.)
I haven't been relevant in the raid scene since the Obama administration, and even then my relevance is pretty debatable. But it's been interesting watching as an outside over the past few years.
I was not a playmaker. My roommate, Yumyum was, and I did excel at small group content, but I just wasn't a great FTE'r. I got maybe 10 FTEs in Awakened, it frustrated me and I felt guilty, I wanted to help more, contribute to the guilds success. Someone suggested that due to my high attendance, I should play bard so the FTE group always has one DA, and since I don't speak on voice, I can be the first (Aary) DA. My brother had a bard (Chocomao) and yeah, I started playing it and it worked beautifully. I got quick jumps because our primary facetracker was sitting next to me screaming "POP" in my ear, and though it didn't pay off in yellow text, it paid off in guild success, and along with doing a lot of off-hours tracking, I felt like I carved out a niche for myself in Awakened.
The point of that "cool story bro" is that I don't see people doing things like this very often anymore. Asking themselves, "how can I be better?" I see a lot more pointing fingers at the opponent.
One last story, since I suspect not many left know about this. This isn't even the most egregious example of cheating, even if it is true. Back in Kunark, a certain guild exploited the PD race for months and months, not even being the tiniest bit discrete about it. Franswa or some other old-as-dirt player probably remembers better than me, but I want to say they got upwards of THIRTY PD's in a row. It was so blatant, so infuriating, so much evidence that we stopped even trying. Nilbog always said his worst nightmare was a 1-guild raid scene, so we forced his hand. The result? A forced rotation, and the guild disbanding not long after because all competition was gone, no one was punished.
Love the reference, but they don't accrue over time. Every race is a new 90,000ms race. 100ms of 90,000ms is always negligible. How often do you see races come down to the last 100ms? It happens, sure, but it's very rare. Not enough to even be statistically quantifiable.
I mean, I have no issue with this. But, I do have one question... what if he succeeds?
I asked Stunningly and Nilbog on Discord if they'd be willing to do this. I'd love to see it, personally. Be careful what you wish for. (that goes for both sides, heh)
Yep, you get it. Since the very beginning, those 'playmakers' have ran the entire game. I could name dozens, from Perun, to Getsome, to Calrizien, to Kegluas, to Eratani, to Yumyum, to Zeelot, to Detoxx, to Furoar, to Quean, to Kelzaraz, to Fingerz, to Hokushin, to Stunningly, to Venice, and many others. I remember watching Yumyum prep for each cycle, pre-drafting every Twitter batphone, facetracking the highest priority target, for upwards of 24 hours straight. I remember sneaking up on my rogue to pull, and he'd tell me the order of drakes and how far apart so I knew when to hide from flurries.
Meanwhile we had well assembled FTE groups, ideally 2 bards 4 monks, getting pre-targets. Pulls weren't too difficult back then, thanks to clickies. I remember fighting a dirty Vulak at zone-in one time and keeping the train kited the entire time going from 4 way back to trio with just Bladestoppers. I remember Quean rushing to camp to swap out Bladestoppers with me, lol.
Moments like that are what made me love this game. I never hated BDA, TMO, Aftermath, AG, or anyone. I respected their competition. Detoxx and Aikons are probably the two people I respect the most in this game. Aikons is someone I met when he was lvl 59 and unguilded in Sebilis. I sent him a tell saying hey, want to learn how to duo Fungi King? He said "that's not possible" and I said "You'd be amazed what you can accomplish in this game if you drop that mindset." I showed him to pull it on my monk and he caught right on, even respecting my wishes not to share the strat.
(Course, there weren't many 60 shamans with full spell book back then anyways. Torpor was 150k+ or just never sold, guilds kept them, Canni4 was 100k, Malo, Bane, Pox around 30-40k. Even other spells were 10k. Plus you really wanted a shaman with the VP Ensnare spear. Anyways...)
Years later he would tell me that meeting me and hearing that changed his whole outlook on the game. Later, when he joined Aftermath, I was confused. Why not come to Awakened?
"You taught me that having something to overcome is the best part of this game. I'll always be your friend, but I don't want to ride your coattails. I want to beat you."
And he did. Aikons went on to become one of the best players in the game.
Detoxx was brash. We only ever spoke in-game once, and it was him calling me a "f[slur for homosexuals]" for clicking my guise in front of him over and over. When he finally got one from the same event I also got another, I sent him a tell saying grats. He didn't respond.
Aftermath started out very poorly. Awakened was much, much better. For those of us who were in IB/Rampage, Awakened was like shedding all the baggage and ego and stress and finally just being able to have fun. I could stop pretending to give a shit about Warders or server firsts. I could start doing the things I actually wanted to do (Dain rings, Vaniki, NToV, Plane of Mischief, etc). AM wasn't very competitive at first. During my time in the guild we only lost Vulak a few times. They focused on other targets, Kael, Dain, Yelinak, and grew slowly.
They never gave up. Slowly but surely the veterans of Awakened got burnt out, myself included, and AM kept growing, building alliances, mass recruiting. Whereas we didn't actively recruit, you had to know someone to vouch for you, and while the fall of Awakened is a different topic entirely, the point is that Aftermath's refusal to give up, their competitive drive led by Detoxx, was very admirable. He was passionate. If he delivered my pizza, I'd tip him very well. In the end, he won. His time came, because he refused to give up.
Even that guild that cheated, I never hated them. My own guild (IB, TR) famously had some of its prominent members go down for RMT, and I was 'glad' they got banned. They were my friends. It made me sad they chose to cheat, and to steal from us.
And this is what matters. I really hope we don't resort to /random without trying some alternatives first. Test him. Hell, make scripting jumps legal. Since the jump doesn't matter much and you can't viably script entire races, I'd be fine with this. It's not ideal, but it sure as fuck beats /random.
Competition is ALL WE HAVE. Barely anyone gives a shit about the loot, its always been about the competition. (okay, some people do care about the loot) I remember Nilbog telling me back in beta, his worst fear for the game was it becoming dominating by 1 guild or on a rotation. Uthgard chipped in, he would disband that guild. No competition will kill this game very quickly, just like it did in Kunark. Some of you may not realize it, but this game used to peak at 100-150 players primetime when a certain guild was dominating.
Has anyone played The Witcher 3's "Hearts of Stone"? Riot members should. Be careful what you wish for.
|