So how 'bout those Mets?

[Esben Mose Hansen]

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.

Did you look at the game? With the number of magic-Users 17 hammers are not unreasonable, especially if you're making many clams.

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?)

You seem to desperately want Norfleet to be framed, which is, eh, unlikely, given the things he said. Why would he claim that he used many fetishes, when he had one? Why would he claim he used Sorceresses, when he had none? And so on, and so forth. Besides, what jury are you talking about? Not many people have been outspoken against Norfleet personally.

[Esben Mose Hansen]

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 never believed in hushing anything up. If somebody sent something to me, and I found reason to publish it, I would not hesitate to do so. I also routinely log IRC logs; while I have never had reason to publish such I would not hesitate to do so. To do otherwise would be dishonest and frankly --- wrong. I somebody wrote to me that he is cheating in a game, I would publish it without any hesitation.

So in conclusion, Stormbinder's only fallacy was a tendency to flame, a tendency he IMHO has out behind him. I believe in forgiveness where appropriate, and surely, Stormbinders transgression wasn't THAT bad.

[Truper]

Im still not sure what the real problem you are refering to is, clams? or Norfleet? And how should it have been aknowledged If the problem you believe we were ignoring was Norfleet possibly cheating I don't see what you feel should have been handled differently.

The problem I'm referring to is cheating. I've never been involved in the clam debate on way or the other. Part of the problem with this whole discussion is that a bunch of seperate issues have become all tangled up together, and things have been further complicated by the personalities involved. The only thing I think could have been handled differently is that the fact that cheat alarms have been set off, and that improved cheat detection and the like were implemented for a *reason* could have been acknowledged before now.

There was occasional instances when Norfleet triggered cheat prevention alarms. He also pulled his somewhat underhanded coup on Stormbinder. But these aren't reasons to issue an offical illwinter fatwah on him, in my mind. If you find these sorts of instances troubling or if you believed Norfleet was cheating the obvious ploy would have been avoid playing with Norfleet.

Which is what I did. I actually think Illwinter does a great job responding to the community. I had no intention of becoming involved in this discussion at all, until I had one of my buttons pushed, and I now regret my "head in the sand" line, and apologize for using it.

If it isn't Norfleet's cheating you consider there being an official osprey behaviour on what is it, the clams? If so I still do not agree that they are overpowered, I also still do not see how it should have been handled differently. In fact the possibility of Norfleet cheating before only lends credence to our previous standpoints. And Norfleet apparantly very succesfully utilising a strategy is hardly cause for Nerfing it in the first place. Especially since other appeared to have problems reproducing it. So like an older thread suggested the problem with clamming was Norfleet, wether from extraordinary skill or cheating.

I've known for a long time, but been in no position to prove, that the clam strat was just a smokescreen for some sort of cheat or exploit.

Kudos to Illwinter for creating a game that has kept so many people so passionately involved for so long.

[Mardagg]

Johan:

Oh, I agree 100% that it is more _likely_ that Norfleet was cheating - Occam's Razor and all that. I simply (?) wanted to raise an alternative theory that, while not as simple, could also explain things.

Cainehill,your alternative theory implies also that Norfleet was cheating...makes really no difference.

Lets go with some facts for the conspiracy theory(I already pointed out this):

-Norfleet did play his turns in this game,undoubtable.
-He receives nearly every turn a lot of gems out of nowhere
-He uses this to his advantage,forging lots of items,summoning lots of things,instead of telling anyone whats happening.


----> he cheated

The only difference between an unknown third party giving Norfleet the gems and him being the actual hacker is,that within the conspiracy theory we would have several cheaters.
But the fact alone,that he even at the end tried to explain his wealth by inventing things,makes the conspiracy theory VERY unlikely...and there are lots of other facts,that make it even more unlikely.

[Kel]

If someone tells me that my dog is loose then I will thank him. If he yells at the whole neighborhood, calling names, threatens with a police call, and generally makes the entire block sick of it; then acknowledgment is all he will get if even that. Nobody wants to thank an ........ (various words tested and deleted) except maybe sarcastically even if after the fact he shouts "isnt anyone going to thank me?".

This sums up my thoughts pretty well. Personally, my first thought was "Hey, the boy who cried wolf all night finally found one".

Cheating is unforgivable, cheaters should be Banned on first offense and the evidence that *Kristoffer* posted is sufficient to convince me, in the absence of any contradiction, that Norf cheated or abused a bug or something of a similar and illicit nature.

That said, it is not out of the realm of possibility that Storm would do something equally as illicit to get rid of someone he didn't like and most people who have been around a while might at least understand why I might say that. I mean, they were going to have some inane deathmatch which, if Norf lost, he would have to stop playing Dom2 here entirely, for god's sake !

However, *that* said, the only impartial evidence is pointing at Norf so I can accept that. As someone said, Occam's Razor and all. It doesn't change that, to me, Storm's contribution to the community was entirely an inadvertant by-product of his otherwise antagonistic personality.

- Kel

I never believed in hushing anything up. If somebody sent something to me, and I found reason to publish it, I would not hesitate to do so. I also routinely log IRC logs; while I have never had reason to publish such I would not hesitate to do so. To do otherwise would be dishonest and frankly --- wrong. I somebody wrote to me that he is cheating in a game, I would publish it without any hesitation.

As you have seen things are edited, or 'not said' in order to provide things in a certain light or for a certain topic/conversation. This is a universal thing, not specifically one for this particular occasion/forum.

It's called 'in bad taste' and in general, if you are going to post a private Email, you post it in it's entirety without editing out anything you'd rather not mention or feel is irrelevant for such things.

Where you might be faultlessly honest (at least in your own opinion) there are countless others who are not or are not to the degree where they would do such things.

Like I said, not in this particular instance, but Online in general.

[johan osterman]

The problem I'm referring to is cheating. I've never been involved in the clam debate on way or the other. Part of the problem with this whole discussion is that a bunch of seperate issues have become all tangled up together, and things have been further complicated by the personalities involved. The only thing I think could have been handled differently is that the fact that cheat alarms have been set off, and that improved cheat detection and the like were implemented for a *reason* could have been acknowledged before now. ...

As far as I recall the cheat detection was not implemented to deal specifically with Norfleet, even if Norfleet from time to time would imply that Illwinter was out to get him. There was a little extra attention paid to Norfleet because of this and related issues, but the cheat alarms were not aimed at Norfleet, nor as far as I recall improved in response to Norfleet, they were just improved. The people that experienced the cheat warnings posted about it here, as did Norfleet himself on occasion. Norfleet claimed the cheat alarms had targeted him for offenses he hadn't commited. As far as I am concerned I do no think that there is much else that should have been done, I think it is up to the parties involved to impart any information about players being suspected for cheating. I at least certianly doesn't want here to be some sort of illwinter blacklist of players. In my opinion the only viable and workable option is for the player community to police itself in these matters.

[Gandalf Parker]

Johan Osterman:

As far as I recall the cheat detection was not implemented to deal specifically with Norfleet, even if Norfleet from time to time would imply that Illwinter was out to get him. There was a little extra attention paid to Norfleet because of this and related issues, but the cheat alarms were not aimed at Norfleet, nor as far as I recall improved in response to Norfleet, they were just improved. The people that experienced the cheat warnings posted about it here

Heehee. I think I would be willing to bet that I set off the cheat alarms more than anyone. My maps with handcreated gods for strange and powerful AIs became unplayable after the cheat-check went in. I was one of the big pushers to get an "off switch" to the chear detection.

Thats besides all of the purposeful tests and things I tried. And friends of mine from alt-hacker.org
Of course my results always went to illwinter.

[Esben Mose Hansen]

As you have seen things are edited, or 'not said' in order to provide things in a certain light or for a certain topic/conversation. This is a universal thing, not specifically one for this particular occasion/forum.

I have not seen this; nor am I doubting it. I just reacted to the part about it being poor manners to publish private email --- I find this perfectly acceptable, with the obvious restrictions. I could not let this pass, and wanted to support Stormbinders action (not the editing, if any, but the publishing).

It's called 'in bad taste' and in general, if you are going to post a private Email, you post it in it's entirety without editing out anything you'd rather not mention or feel is irrelevant for such things.

As long as you do not misrepresent I find some omitting fine, especially for large texts. It is a better to err toward caution in this respect though.

Where you might be faultlessly honest (at least in your own opinion) there are countless others who are not or are not to the degree where they would do such things.

Nobody is honest, not completely. I do not believe the human mind can take that kind of honesty. I am not too good about being honest, either, but I do try. I also believe that people generally are dishonest to themselves more than to other people. This is certainly true for me.

Like I said, not in this particular instance, but Online in general.

This was the very context I was aiming at. Publishing emails are mostly ok, publishing IRC logs from public channels certainly are. I will defend this any time (that was supposed to be a joke about honesty).

[jimbo]

Coming in very late on all this but I can't resist commenting on this subject, since I suspected Norfleet of cheating from the very first game I ever played in with him, and have thought about that far more than I ever cared to.

To me, he was the very worst of cheaters - one who was good enough to win many of the games he played in without cheating, but he did it anyway. Thus, whenever you called him on it, and I did once, he was able to give very detailed and just maybe plausible explanations for how he had achieved his results.

Strangely, however, when I followed his instructions TO THE LETTER in a subsequent game as the exact same race, I didn't get anywhere near the same results. The anywhere near part is key - I can accept some level of variance but totally not at the same level...hmmmm...

Having talked some to another player in a game with Norfleet, once again he somehow managed to hit the totally perfect start position (i.e. for example, found two sage sites on the first 2 turns when he doesn't even use his god to search) and was dominant in all categories, with no one beating him in any of them. Gee, how lucky was that! And every time too!

So in the end I knew in my heart was cheating but my head said maybe I'm just missing something (and I am sure Norfleet has far more knowledge of the game than I do) and I can never prove it anyway so whats the point. I am happy someone finally did. I had decided a while ago to simply not play in any games Norfleet was in since I believed in my heart he was cheating.

From the above Posts there seems to be some people defending him and possibly even wondering if he really was a cheater. If he is innocent, then he can very easily prove it. He can give someone his step by step what to do to achieve his results, they can post it here for him, and we should all be able to play the game and have at least some us achieve a comparable result in some games.

I remain convinced that if he chose to do this either none of us would be able to achieve close to the same result (i.e. he is throwing out more BS which he can do easily since he knows the game so well) OR it would involve some "miracle occurs here" step that almost of all of us would look at and say "hey thats cheating!" And that should be the working definition of cheating for all intensive purposes.