So how 'bout those Mets?

[Esben Mose Hansen]

Yeh. Someone definately doesn't believe in "innocent until proven guilty", or "beyond a reasonable doubt". After all - hypothetically, it'd be more likely that the host or the person with the master password was doing any digital manipulation of game files.

If Norfleet was being framed, why would he agree on the numbers of the battle? I liked Norfleet as much as anyone, but I find the framing scenario very unlikely. I have to say that Norfleet's guilt is proven beyond any reasonable doubt. In that light, we must assume that Norfleet has probably cheated in more games, which brings the different flamewars into a different light.

[Cainehill]

As for Illwinter's position - here are some excepts from KristofferO letter to me, that he send after you locked that thread:

And once again Stormbinder displayed _his_ glaring lack of ethics / common courtesy, quoting a private email publicly, just as he used wiretaps to quote from conversations (ie, logged irc chats and publicly posted them, akin to illegally tapping a telephone line).

I'm not saying that Norfleet is necessarily innocent of cheating. I'm just saying that I find Stormbinder's actions, attitudes, and diatribes disgusting and reprehensible - and he wants to be thanked for this?

To the point of sending harassing private Messages, asking if I have the "guts" to say I'm sorry to Stormvomit, after having been told I didn't want private Messages from him.

Stormbinder, to once again quote your acronom : I'm sorry you didn't FOAD.

[Cainehill]

If Norfleet was being framed, why would he agree on the numbers of the battle? I liked Norfleet as much as anyone, but I find the framing scenario very unlikely. I have to say that Norfleet's guilt is proven beyond any reasonable doubt. In that light, we must assume that Norfleet has probably cheated in more games, which brings the different flamewars into a different light.

Or that some of the people with an agenda against him went "beyond the pale". I certainly don't think you (as the host) had anything to do with it.

But something irks me, from a logical point of view. Supposedly Norfleet had _17_ dwarven hammers on turn 22 or 23. To me, that's nuts - maybe at turn 40, or 60, someone might have use for 17 hammers.

But at turn 23, it's conspicuously wasteful - you can't _use_ that many hammers, even if the cost of creating them was negligible. That's something fishy, to me.

It seems just as likely to me, that someone figured out how to cheat and used that to frame Norfleet in so hugely blatant and obvious a way that he could start calling out, in what was for him an oddly reasonable tone of voice, "Say, partner, can you explain what I think I see here?"

Knowing the forged evidence is so damning that the jury will already have decided to hang, no matter the explanation : "I don't know how those stolen cattle got into my pen. The 17 dwarven sheep in the bedroom? No sense even talking about them."

As I say - given the animosities involved, this seems as credible as someone going so far off the deep end as to actually forge 17 dwarven hammers while cheating. (If you're capable of cheating so massively on gems - _WHY_ do you need all the hammers?)

Another fishy thing, from another game : How does an artifact (the Holy Grail) simply disappear from the magic item stash, with a message saying "Suddenly the Chalice was not found in the laboratory anymore".

[archaeolept]

I don't think that possibility is very convincing caine, whatever the characters involved. Norfleet did not say, hey this isn't the game I was playing (as if he had been set up), but instead tried to put forth various bull**** explanations (such as about having used sorceresses for ravensfeast and getting 40 death gems from burninating provinces). And, frankly, I find Norfleet much more likely to have had the necessary skills for the job.

As to the chalice thing, that's just the message you get if someone wishes the artifact away from you. You can wish it back if you want

[The_Tauren13]

And once again Stormbinder displayed _his_ glaring lack of ethics / common courtesy, quoting a private email publicly

To the point of sending harassing private Messages, asking if I have the "guts" to say I'm sorry to Stormvomit, after having been told I didn't want private Messages from him.

you have a tendency to be hypocritical

[Gandalf Parker]

otoh, we might wonder why there was seemingly so little interest on the part of "the powers that be" (Moderators, beta testers, etc...) in the norfleet phenomenon - its not like there wasn't a tide of complaints about the overpoweredness of clams, of VQ's, of castling; all originating specifically in these games. No one thought that where there was so much smoke there might be fire? It has been months since those first examples of norfleetian excess. But the response of many was just to insist that there couldn't be a problem, whether the problem turned out to be norf or game mechanics, and to not even pursue any investigation into the source of all these complaints upon their own initiative.

I thought you were smarter than that. Norfleet was in fact a well worn topic of discussion in the dominions developer forum. And in the shrapnel Moderators forum. Norfleet had sanctions against him and a watchful eye on his actions well before Stormbinder started being so loud. You sound like a high school kid who is mad that he doesnt know what goes on in the teachers lounge.

[archaeolept]

lol, nothing like. however, the "teachers" in this case actively worked to dismiss the concerns of the students, and put forth as if there were no problem. Have you forgotten the discussions on VQs, on clams, on castling? My own experience is that any concerns I had were dismissed by mods because i "must just be a newbie", and incompetent, if I couldn't deal w/ VQ's or castles...

obviously something was broken, but there was not even a hint of acknowledgement of that fact.

the real discussions, and work, concerning what was going on certainly seemed to have taken place completely outside of the teachers' lounge, which to all appearances was rather out of touch. As is the way such things often go.

Now that I've had a chance to reread this, (I was half asleep from waking up earlier, so I have adjusted my response to accurately reflect what is written instead of my half-asleep understanding)

To Zen: I didn't suggested to you that you ban Norfleet before the Illwinter would take a chance to look and decide what's going on here. But I do feel that it may not be the best solution in this situation to just lock the thread with no explanation, as it was another silly flamewar and nothing more, instead of at least saying something on this matter before you lock it, even like posting your personal opinion.

I closed it because it was going to *become* a silly flamewar. Because it was taking on the tendancies of it. And maybe I should let flames ride if it's cheating? Maybe, but I don't want to be quick to jump the gun on accusing or saying irrefutably such things happened or not, though in this case it may be obvious to all but a few. Here is from an earlier post about my personal opinion:

I don't think my personal opinion should be tacked on the end of every closed post. Since my personal opinion could be very much the opposite of the reason why the thread was closed down.

If you want my personal opinion on the subject. It is: Cheaters suck. I don't like them. But they happen, in every game you play. At least to some degree you can control such things, but as it is now I haven't found an excessive amount of cheating in Dom2 as opposed to say ... Blizzard games (For obvious reasons). I think it's personally very low to cheat, and to cheat in a forum that you seem to want and have a helpful presence within. I also think it's abhorable to use cheating against newbies, constantly, anhillating them constantly and without mercy by cheating when it's perfectly servicable and easy enough to do without cheating.

Sort of like murder is bad, but murdering a 2 year old kid is an uncommon sort of low bastard.

Now, with that said, I'm not going to foam around about it, just a sad fact of life.

After all you are the most experienced player around, not just a forum moderator. You have read yourself blatant lies that Norfleet said about this game, answering my questions. You have read the numbers that KristoferO and me posted on the board. Do you honestly think that there is any way short of cheating to have 5000 gems in such game by turn 23 ?!?

No I don't personally think so. But as I said previously that it may not be him alone, and I don't see how it can be done. That the game was tampered with is not an issue, that it was tampered with in favor of Norfleet or "for Norfleet" is not an issue. How he did it, and why to that extent are a few questions I have personally but yes, as far as I'm concerned Ermor cheated in that game and that game and Ermor was Norfleet. Conspiracy theories aside, I have no reason to think that Norfleet was not capable, had motivation and had previous record of doing such in the past.

But that's ok, I didn't expected anything else from him, so it doesn't bother me at all. But when instead of saying "thanks", you , the forum moderator and very dedicated Dom2 MP player on your own, keep calling me "another side of Norfleet's coin", as if it was me who had cheated, I do feel a bit hurt by it, frankly.

No, the other side of the coin as far as conversation and discussion about such things. We both know you have a tendancy to get yourself worked up on certain issues, this happens to be two of the main issues that you get worked up, combined! I never said you cheated, that you were even in the same Category as a cheater or that I do appreciate the fact that you have found enough proof to damn him for his actions and exposed him for cheating and thus tainting those who play the games he was in.

I don't think that somebody who exposed cheater, should be equaled with the cheater, just because that somebody was *really* hurt and irritated by this very subject of cheating, which happened to him in his own game, but he didn't have hard proof of it at that time. But if you really think that there is no real difference here between the cheater and the one who was cheated, and who spend a lot of time gathering and preparing all these evidence to expose cheater, to the benefit of the entire players MP community, I am not going to argue with you. I am leaving it up to you to decide.

I never said they were the same. I only said that you haven't seem to have given it enough time to really look into it, especially considering the forum switchover, differences in timezones, and a multitude of factors. I would hope you wouldn't think my objectivity and not instant judgement of ANYONE (including yourself, Norfleet, or any other number of people) is better than rash accustations.

[Pickles]

Keeping it on baseball. It reminds me of the little boy who went up to shoeless Joe Jackson after their bribery scandal player & asked "Joe say it ain't so". I find it hard to believe and do not want to believe that Norfleet was cheating. This from someone who does not know him at all & had decided that I did not like him much, though I mostly valued his presence. I, like Cainehill, started dreaming of conspiracies- though these do not really hold water (they are too wide & Norfleet should have raised the issue of massive wealth himself).
My initial regret was that Stormbinder too had not committed some heinous act & would also be Banned, as his hectoring of Norfleet & Norfleet's goading back were one of the low points of the board. I will try to modify this reaction in light of the fact that N was cheating but it IS my gut reaction.
To those of you in Stormbinder's camp we are the people of Rome who instead of praising Caesar's assassins for freeing them from tyranny, join in hunting them down.

Pickles

ps Baseball details may be wrong I am English, it's from a movie

[Gandalf Parker]

lol, nothing like. however, the "teachers" in this case actively worked to dismiss the concerns of the students, and put forth as if there were no problem. Have you forgotten the discussions on VQs, on clams, on castling? My own experience is that any concerns I had were dismissed by mods because i "must just be a newbie", and incompetent, if I couldn't deal w/ VQ's or castles...

obviously something was broken, but there was not even a hint of acknowledgement of that fact.

the real discussions, and work, concerning what was going on certainly seemed to have taken place completely outside of the teachers' lounge, which to all appearances was rather out of touch. As is the way such things often go.

Actually those conversations were well followed, and in fact the VQ was changed. The clam conversations are also followed but no solution has come forth. Of course these are a couple of minor points in the overall list of things being worked on. There were also acknowledgments given by the developers and the beta team members. You might take note of the people who did receive answers, specifically the differences between their threads and the wording of them. Again, the end justifiying the means does not fly with everyone if you are waiting for some sort of thank you response.

Im sure if I worded this in the same language and tone that some people use to put their points across, that it would be much better understood. Unfortunately I would get in trouble for that unless I created a new login and sent it anonymously.