Story by XtoTheZ

A little story

Now my actions last night appear to be common knowledge, and I've recieved equal praise and scorn for them. I have been both flamed by those with no understanding of what happened, and thanked by those who see me as the one who got rid of their enemies. For anyone willing to read, this is the full story.

Since around Christmas last year I have been running the private tech tools for the BG known as OuZo. Since then it has expanded from a basic private irc with 25 members online, to something to rival any full-blown alliance*. A total of 5 BGs (OuZo, Critters, GTO X-Raid and Olvi) shared the network of 150 registered members and averaging 75 online. I wrote PA-customised IRC services from scratch, a member tools site with arbiter, boards, etc. In the last few weeks I became suspicious about cheating by certain command members in Ouzo. Planets would launch when I knew their owners were offline, scans from attacks would be obviously done by top players, despite them lacking the ratio to get past a single jammer. All the while the usual public conflict continued. Alliances accusing each oher of cheating, blocking, backstabbing and ****ing each others mothers...

I decided to prove my suspicions right or wrong. I added some code to the IRC to log PMs. [tech bit] The code is a simple one-line modification to the IRCD. By default it is not possible to read people's PM's, it requires some extra code in the IRCD and something to parse the messages in services. It also exponentially increases bandwidth and cpu usage, making the modification wildly impractical on larger networks. So for the paranoid - Netgamers opers arent reading your private chat.[/tech bit]

It would be an understatement to say that I was shocked by what I had seen it just 2 nights of logs. Before doing this I told myself that if I found evidence of simple launching for each other, I would ask them nicely to stop, to give them a fair chance considering where the evidence had came from. But nothing could excuse this. Account sharing, asking to farm each other, multi scan/escort accounts on a large scale (one ouzo command member had 4 accounts in para10 alone).

On a personal note, up until last round I had often turned a blind eye to friends bending the rules. Then I was on the recieving end, I was ****ed over by a community of friends who stuck up for each others blatent cheating. They were prepared to destroy the game of anyone they felt like, and there was no way to stop it as the group covered each other. My top 10 account of 2 months playing straight was ruined by people who would never be caught except by their own admission. I realised then that this is where the game is heading. Until people take responsibility for the actions of their friends, the cheaters will always win.

I wasnt proud of what I did. I gave a list of the logs to PA crew and watched as they closed people who considered me their friend. It was what happened next that appalled me. Rather than hold their heads high and admit to cheating, which they all knew they were guillty of, the usual accusations and excuses started. "We've been hacked!", "Eclipse Dossed us!", "PA crew are making up reasons to get us closed because they hate LDK!".

Is this community really so bitter and twisted that they can't admint to their own mistakes? Are you all really so self-involved that you cant concede an inch to the people who fly a different galaxy banner to you in an online database? This does not just apply to ouzo. This happens all over, everyday. A game populated by resentful hypocrites who break the rules every bit as much as those accusing them, yet can be guilty of nothing themselves...

I consider this a statement to the community as a whole. Cheating is killing this game. Mindless accusations and rampant hypocrisy is destroying what alot of people have put alot of work into. And most of all, if HC arent safe on their own private server, who is?

• For anyone who wants to continue the Alliance Vs BG arguement, use another thread ta