well hypnotoad, on its face it does seem silly. i do think there's sort of a hierarchy of cheating or whatever, it seems like recruiting collusion and throwing NT games are at the top, and then there is everything else. i have never seen them straight ban someone for the lesser offenses, at least not on the first time. the first time someone gets reported for multiple teams within 1000 miles, and HD staff doesn't see evidence of recruiting collusion, they typically have just made the person move teams. banning an entire ID is relatively serious, and i think a reflection of it not being ab's first time with this issue, but they probably saw no evidence of recruiting collusion and felt like a complete ban would be harsh. i suspect if it happens again that is where they'll go?

of course, HD is under new management, so who knows if they will do things the way seble did.

Posted by hypnotoad on 10/17/2021 9:23:00 AM (view original):
I don’t understand the logic of finding a user in violation of the guidelines and then eliminating only one of the two accounts as opposed to both.

This isn't the first time he's been in violation of the same fair play guidelines rule. He had an alt account of abninety and did the same thing-2 teams in the same world within 1000 miles of each other. At some point, enough is enough.

Get rid of all of this guy’s accounts. You wanna attract new users or not? I wouldn’t even allow an ALT ID nevermind an ALT in the same world regardless of how far.

Posted by darnoc29099 on 10/17/2021 6:50:00 PM (view original):

Posted by hypnotoad on 10/17/2021 9:23:00 AM (view original):
I don’t understand the logic of finding a user in violation of the guidelines and then eliminating only one of the two accounts as opposed to both.

This isn't the first time he's been in violation of the same fair play guidelines rule. He had an alt account of abninety and did the same thing-2 teams in the same world within 1000 miles of each other. At some point, enough is enough.

I agree the guy should be banned. This is bulls---. Dude needs to go the F away.

Posted by therealjerk on 10/19/2021 7:48:00 PM (view original):
Get rid of all of this guy’s accounts. You wanna attract new users or not? I wouldn’t even allow an ALT ID nevermind an ALT in the same world regardless of how far.

VERY good point. Regarding attracting new users. And it won't change until they shut down his main account. Shutting down the "2nd" account does nothing.

reminds me of the movie enemy of the state where hackman finds some surveillence devices and then tells will smith:. "those are the ones they wanted us to find"

Posted by gillispie on 10/17/2021 11:07:00 AM (view original):
well hypnotoad, on its face it does seem silly. i do think there's sort of a hierarchy of cheating or whatever, it seems like recruiting collusion and throwing NT games are at the top, and then there is everything else. i have never seen them straight ban someone for the lesser offenses, at least not on the first time. the first time someone gets reported for multiple teams within 1000 miles, and HD staff doesn't see evidence of recruiting collusion, they typically have just made the person move teams. banning an entire ID is relatively serious, and i think a reflection of it not being ab's first time with this issue, but they probably saw no evidence of recruiting collusion and felt like a complete ban would be harsh. i suspect if it happens again that is where they'll go?

of course, HD is under new management, so who knows if they will do things the way seble did.

It's about the integrity of this game, which we pay to play. He's openly breaking the rules, doubling-down on being a douche, and laughing about it. The response to the guy shouldn't be to laugh it off and-or shrug or mention something about New Jersey (?). Just ban all the accounts of the dude... there is no good explanation not to support this nor do this.

Also, the response to his cheating isnt "play in a World that he's not in". Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? I mean, c'mon.

And i swear we had this same discussion repeatedly over several years about this same guy. And it's still being tolerated and defended. Unbelievable. No wait, slow down--- he's from New Jersey, so that makes it ok cuz that's just how they roll.

Posted by npb7768 on 10/20/2021 10:29:00 AM (view original):
Also, the response to his cheating isnt "play in a World that he's not in". Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? I mean, c'mon.

And i swear we had this same discussion repeatedly over several years about this same guy. And it's still being tolerated and defended. Unbelievable. No wait, slow down--- he's from New Jersey, so that makes it ok cuz that's just how they roll.

1) i never said he shouldn't be removed

2) i don't think anyone ever said 'play in a world he's not in'. maybe someone somewhere, but its a strawman regardless

Posted by npb7768 on 10/20/2021 10:20:00 AM (view original):

Posted by gillispie on 10/17/2021 11:07:00 AM (view original):
well hypnotoad, on its face it does seem silly. i do think there's sort of a hierarchy of cheating or whatever, it seems like recruiting collusion and throwing NT games are at the top, and then there is everything else. i have never seen them straight ban someone for the lesser offenses, at least not on the first time. the first time someone gets reported for multiple teams within 1000 miles, and HD staff doesn't see evidence of recruiting collusion, they typically have just made the person move teams. banning an entire ID is relatively serious, and i think a reflection of it not being ab's first time with this issue, but they probably saw no evidence of recruiting collusion and felt like a complete ban would be harsh. i suspect if it happens again that is where they'll go?

of course, HD is under new management, so who knows if they will do things the way seble did.

It's about the integrity of this game, which we pay to play. He's openly breaking the rules, doubling-down on being a douche, and laughing about it. The response to the guy shouldn't be to laugh it off and-or shrug or mention something about New Jersey (?). Just ban all the accounts of the dude... there is no good explanation not to support this nor do this.

i am ok with this. i was only commenting on how these issues have been dealt with in the past. typically HD staff gives a couple warnings on the 1000 mile stuff before having more consequences, unless there is collusion too - agree or disagree, i don't care, but factually that is how its generally been done.

Thank you for everyone speaking up finally. Ab90 and his shenanigans are ridiculous. And two things are very important here in my opinion.

1) the intentions of playing the game in a manner in which it should be played....... sure, that definition could change from person to person. But I can tell you that 99.9% of all coaches can grasp what that means. And behave in a manner that fits the description.

2) i believe npb mentioned this..... he openly laughs in the face of people at headquarters. He gets away with it repeatedly. He'll cheat later and we all know it. And it's tolerated. That makes no one happy here except for one! And that is ab90.

As gil mentioned, they give warnings around here like it's a glass of water. This is an extreme case, that deserves attention. Everyone here is irritated by it. Except maybe gil, and Trentonjoe if he still plays Haha. He's got an interesting view on things sometimes. But I do know that the more we talk, the developers listen

a month or whatever ago when dogg posted that note about sinai possibly being ab90, i kinda had a bit of a change of heart. i looked at that sinai account for like 30 seconds and it was like, yep, obviously. i *almost* posted a 1 word reply 'hilarious' but thought better of it (or maybe i did post it, but either way, thought better of it). the whole situation is just so... unproductive. i mean, it already was, but i think the alt account thing is the escalation that makes it clearly too far.

i probably am less concerned about the 1000 mile stuff than the average person, partly from joining HD at a time before FSS/potential when folks ran multiple teams all over the place and folks were fine with it. but i totally agree that the intentional breaking of rules and the rubbing it in everyone's face, its just too much from more or less any perspective. so, when it comes to 'defending ab' or whatever, i'm out. just want to be as clear on that as i can. but i will still argue points and take exceptions, because that's just the way i am. and folks will still take that as being against their side, because that is just human nature.

Posted by npb7768 on 10/20/2021 10:29:00 AM (view original):
Also, the response to his cheating isnt "play in a World that he's not in". Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? I mean, c'mon.

And i swear we had this same discussion repeatedly over several years about this same guy. And it's still being tolerated and defended. Unbelievable. No wait, slow down--- he's from New Jersey, so that makes it ok cuz that's just how they roll.

npb...I was the one that had made that remark ("don't play in a world he's in") but that was strictly in reference to ab90 and his team-jumping.
Somewhere along the way someone got the warped idea that I was supporting his cheating, which is wrong. Suspend both accounts as we agree that suspending the alt is worthless. No one needs alts in the same world.

Never cared about him jumping teams, although that is weak as we all know. Never cared about a guy trolling and thinking he wrote these great pseudo-intellectual responses to people criticizing him. I do, however, take issue with cheating. There’s no reason to do it in this game unless you are a complete *** of an individual. My point about attracting new users (doubtful they ever will at this point at least sustained) was from the POV of if I was newb coming in here and realized the population of this game is already low enough and you got guys with ALT accounts sitting at lower levels especially, in the same worlds why the hell would I spend money on this game unless I planned to do the same thing?

Posted by therealjerk on 10/20/2021 5:08:00 PM (view original):
Never cared about him jumping teams, although that is weak as we all know. Never cared about a guy trolling and thinking he wrote these great pseudo-intellectual responses to people criticizing him. I do, however, take issue with cheating. There’s no reason to do it in this game unless you are a complete *** of an individual. My point about attracting new users (doubtful they ever will at this point at least sustained) was from the POV of if I was newb coming in here and realized the population of this game is already low enough and you got guys with ALT accounts sitting at lower levels especially, in the same worlds why the hell would I spend money on this game unless I planned to do the same thing?

On a separate note, I think it’s possible we’ll see growth in HD within the next few years, assuming the ownership follows through on their intentions to modernize the website.