With shock and sadness the most legendary skilled player in Tibian history was deleted. Evizerate, most commonly known as Smoked, was deleted for "inciting rule violations," and other crimes according to the official records. Yet as I am a very good friend of his, with friendship dating back well into my beginning years, I found this news hard to stomach and the deletion astonishing, so I vowed to find out what exactly had happened. What I would discover would forever change the view I held of the Cip staff and the way I saw everything. I write this independently because of the many attempts refused or pushed aside by the Tibianews editor to publish these news stories, obviously because of his Cip staff ties and hard-line opinions he must display to the public. No fault to him but the truth must be told, so this is the true story of the deletion of Smoke Dragonwake.
For the record let me state that there has been a lot of backlash at me by all parties, mainly regarding the bias that I hold being one of his best friends, also for the betrayal of the counsellor team for standing against their solidarity. I chose to defend Smoke because no one else seemed to care, everyone either hated him for being better then them or because of his style of playing; maybe people simply didn't care? From the moment the incident occurred, to even now, I decided I would be the only person in the world who could defend him, and so I took on the role of lawyer. As a friend, as one who believes strongly in justice, and as one who wanted to test out his skill as a lawyer, all led me to undertake this case, and what ever repercussions that might of transpired. This is not a story about Smokes deletion; this is about how it all happened from the start of his career to the end. By better knowing what he was a part of, what he lived through, and what ended up, we can see exactly the totality and dept of duplicity that was breed to mark the end of this great forerunner. I often wonder who else has met a similar fate, with no one to defend them. I am glad I decided to do this and I will have no regrets about the firestorm this document will unleash.
It was a great time to play Tibia, the golden age was in full swing and everyone wanted a piece of the glory and the history that would be told down through the ages as the greatest time - though in truth no one conceived that it would be the last of Tibia's great ages. The age of powergaming was just a thought, not even conceived among the people of the great city of Thais, as this city was the major outpost of everything that happened in Tibia and truly the center of all things great and mighty. Revolution was in the air as people broke into new bounds, trying out new tactics (and exploiting bugs as the case often was). Who needed to train in a world with so few monsters, with great role players, and with the atmosphere of complete dismissal of a death?
I was bumbling along as I usually do, a low level knight who seamed to never level far beyond the small numbers of 20, and stumbled upon this knight who was viciously training, Dave Death and fellow Mercenary. I thought it funny that anyone would train for endless hours, not realizing that this concept, would eventually dominate the world in just under a year. I tried it for a bit to see if it was anything special and found it boring, and after I was killed by Knight Fang while training with Dave, I gave it up entirely.
It was some time before I rethought this old idea of training when I met SmokeDragon (smokes first name). After speaking to him in town I came to know that he was like Dave, wanting a spot in the top scores. I saw that twinkle in his eye, he dreamed of power and fame, perhaps even fortune and the legacy to be remembered? I smiled to myself and continued my simple existence, deciding that skills in the 30's where not enough for the ambitions I was starting to develop. So I finally train on ghouls alone in POH (when you could let them hit you can train forever, it was the best method of training), never spending too much time to become great as many had, but enough to improve my less then satisfactory skills.
The powergaming age came in a strong sweep, imbuing the desire in people to become better and greater then their fellow player. 70 skills no longer where the accepted skills, fast rising to 80, then 90. People where eating up exp, maximizing the grounds available, and soon those with level in the low 40's, where no longer a high level, becoming inadequate against this new push, as many rose to try to take a covenanted spot on the top charts. The long held spot of highest level was Arieswar at level 70, 10 levels higher then anyone else, keeping his lead to level 80 and finally to his last peak at level 92.
The powergaming race soon began and people where fast spending large amounts of time to try to become the greatest in every area possible, setting records and inspiring others to follow suit. The age of relaxation and care freeness was gone; this new age would clearly be the defining point in Tibia's future. Some believe it was the expansion of tibia that brought about these changes, others think it was the change in player's attitudes, and others still vigorously claim that it never happened at all.
Smoke had kept at it, training harder and harder and his work was starting to pay off. He was advancing faster and faster up the charts, replacing old names with his own vibrant image. Though his training would cost him many hours and the better part of 4 years to gain, his already small success was creating ripples. But Smoke was not the only one competing for the top scores; Recca was way ahead in skills, leading as the biggest powergamer out there and so it was Smoke's determined passion to beat this leader to skill 100. At this time Arieswar, Wurzel and the eventual winner, Bubble, would fiercely battle it out for level 100, a spectacular finish to prove beyond all else that powergaming was in.
The world watched was Bubble overtook Wurzel in a heart beat, whipping out of seeming oblivion to take level 100 and go far beyond. In the same stroke Recca was taking sword 100 and shield 100, but that was as far as he would go, citing real life as his reason to stop. Smoke did not waste any time in quickly overtaking Recca, going far beyond the normal rational of skills, to finally rest at 106/105. But this is where our story begins, this is where I truly met Smoke and became one of the avid believers in skills, though in truth I never had the heart to go all the way with my skills, I still wanted a piece of the power and legend (and friendship more then anything) that training had to offer. Its often said that the biggest names must start small, with a few people before becoming into a wild success, and I guess I was lucky enough to walk with him, every step of the way.
Everything was enjoyable about training; to sit and not worry about lag or freezes, about random fluke deaths, or even about doing anything but chatting. As one who had come from an age where you could just sit and do nothing, training was a great option. Why not train while you talk? So our little camp trained constantly and continuously, spending hours and hours online bashing away at ghouls, at people and sometimes at random passerby's. During that entire time we had many people pop in to "check" for AFKing, Multi Client, and Macroing, enduring such tests as the counting and "dancing." It has not long before become an accepted practice to kill people who did not meet such grueling tests, and we would be its guinea pigs, though few dared to enter into a camp of many trainers and cause a disturbance. Those who where young and foolish enough to disturb the peace often found a quick trip back to their home town. These disturbances where a constant affair, filling up the time of anyone who wanted to look good, or just needed some items by hunting afk trainers. Only after a while did I get use to it and it was not until GMs started to pop in that things really started to get out of hand. I guess people don't believe you can actually sit in front of your computer and train for endless hours, and not be cheating in some form, I guess a sane man should worry that 16 hours is too long a time to sit in front of a computer screen.
But as all things go, we got use to it to our own comic pleasure and even enjoyed playing with the various people who came to see us, killing anyone who decided to take our food thinking us unknowingly away or attacking us hoping that we had our weapons or runes hidden inside our backpacks. We did it all, from pretending to MC and hastily log when someone came, to outright pretending to be away. Though the odd time we would be caught while going to the washroom or while reading the forums, leaving us off guard to return from our meanderings to see some idiot there causing a ruckus. Though what gave us a bad name of being cheaters, feeding the rumors that gossip creates, was the many of trainers who did afk in our camps, who did macro and MC, and who always seemed to get caught in the end, causing a great kafuffle where we had to explain why we shouldn't be punished with the real offenders.
Not every case was simple and easy to escape the bad judgments caused by over working and poor information, and sometime the constant GM vigil became a nightmare. How could you talk privately when a GM could pop in and start banishing for ill timed wording (as this did happened to a few others on some select cases)? Maybe we could get banished for that off comment they would hear, perhaps banished for not dancing properly in one of the hundred accepted ways to test - all of which foolish? Never did they find us doing anything illegal that wasn't sorted out and exonerated; never once did they find anything that could lead them to believe we where nothing but honest trainers.
All I wanted was peace, peace to train and do as I please. Does the hunter get harassed because he is killing to quickly or the guy walking through town because he is walking to strait? Solitude to enjoy my friends company was what I craved, and why I put such a concerned effort into training, perhaps it's why I no longer train now, with all the originals gone to the dust. I was doing nothing different then sitting at X-roads, just training in an unpopulated place instead?
Smoke was not a liked person, he liked fights and his gruff attitude was always a cause for problems, and even a breeding ground for even more rumors of abuse. People claimed he macro fished, his fishing skills being incredibly high; they claimed he afk trained for endless hours, though he seemed quite talkative to me; they claimed he had a fleet of druids making him UH by the boatload; though he always seamed to be privately striking deals to buy UH, hunting so little and spending so less due to his good skills. A thousand things where rumored, and the interruptions continued, becoming worse and more frequent, even after moving from one spot to another. The insanity was unbearable at times and so everyone would occasionally pack up and log or simply take a breather and resume a bit later.
Training does require a lot of food, you might as well gain a good magic level while you train and what not a better way then to train your fishing, providing you with lots of fresh fish? Why even selling fish is a great market and it's very easy to do, just casting your rod in the water and hoping to get a fish. With not a lot of money to waste on food, you tend to rely on fishing to get by and I am loath to admit I mooched very frequently off Smoke as I did not like fishing in the least. With nothing to do but talk you tend to fish a lot, especially when everyone else is quietly doing their own thing, looking up statistics or reading the board, even creating theories on how many hours needed to the next advance. I spent many a long night doing home work and flipping back and forth from essay to Tibia to keep up to date with the chat going on, or the many interesting things occurring in real time.
Though training was a time of great fun and many good memories it had to end as all things do, ending with the biggest blitz of training afk checks that we had ever received. For 3 days we where assaulted by afk hunters, random monster killers and lurers, and GM's in droves, coming and checking on us, asking stupid questions like how is the weather or just even a simple greeting. By the final night we had had it, a large body of players had come to our spot and where presumably trying to find a bunch of GM's to cause trouble. Many of our usual followers decided to log for safety; or perhaps just in frustration of being harassed yet again in such a small space of time. That company of high levels caused a deep anger in me and it also was the very end of the long held friendship with the Mercs, only intensified by their summoning of two GM's. I tore a strip off everyone of those present and made it quite clear that I had had enough of the pestering, Smoke was very furious as well and decided he would gain one more skill and give training up for a little bit and go level.
After the incident I decided to write a formal complaint to Guido, he being my unfortunate listener of problems from as far back as time recorded. I detailed the entirety of the abuse and mistreatment that we had received, though that email never made it, MSN was down again and I deleted the entire complaint in an angry hiss.
I remember clearly speaking to many GM's that night about the mistreatment and I had even spoken to my own CIP GM, Solkrien. Who could blame us, it was a miserable few days and we weren't pleased, having just recently beginning training again after going our separate ways on new servers.
After I finished work the next day I logged into Tibia and then discovered the shocking news, Smoke (recently name locked to Evizerate - but ill always call him Smoke) was being deleted! I completely lost it, swearing up a storm and saying a lot of nasty things in the counselor channel. Luckily Flattery was a damn good leader in my Merc days, and is a damn good GM now and chose to teleport to me to calm me down, rather then ban my angered ass.
How could he be getting deleted I thought? What the hell could he possibly do while I was at work? Was the massive onslaught of criminal seekers the reason? All I could think about was the ramifications; would me and Dark Serphant get deleted too; what would happen to the last of our rock solid friendship; would Smoke be exonerated? I must admit I was very unpleasant to a lot of people that day, and I hope they will forgive my change in behavior since.
It was not till a bit later when I started to analyze what had happen in a calmer manner that I discovered that I, myself, escaped total ruin by merely a few hours, my Rares being returned to my shop before he began to train (he was very lazy about returning anything so it would have been my end too if they had of remained on him).
After finding out the information and spreading the word, I emailed my CIP Gm (whom I was trying to get more involved with his counselors and coincidently was seeing him that day to discuss how we should cooperate to work more efficiently). It was on this one to one meeting that I was granted the unprecedented right to present a full case against a deletion, a decision usually held as final. Solkrien was and still remains a damn good guy and reasonable fair GM, with a very comforting down to earth feel. He gave a ray of hope in a sea of despair and I snatched at that ray and drank its radiance.
Once and for all I would prove to the world that the system would prosecute rightly, that no holes would remain to crush mother justice under the weight of corruption. What I eventually found would forever smash the faith I held in the system, and would shatter the confidence I had that Tibia would somehow become better. If you cannot trust your highest authority for proper judgment and fairness, then who can you trust?
I donned the role of the lawyer and asked the main questions, why, what, when, where, how. Phase one became finding out the answer to this questions: Though this task may seam simple, it was not clear cut, and was very hard to find exactly why he was banished. Smoke was never the less willing to give me everything I needed to try his case and so he sent me a lot of txt and pictures of his criminal record. The very last one was a shocker to me, "Inciting rule violation (admitting to of cheated, including rule breaks, and more)." The description sounded ominous and could be described as vague at best. He also informed me that he had been speaking to a GM the exact time he was banished, Gm Dolkein (sp) I believe. Armed with this bizarre occurrence and a reason for the banishment I set out to find exactly what this banishment meant, and in figuring out the entire banishment system in general for that mater (I had never received any banishment in my entire Tibian career).
I asked a few GM's about the banishment system, discovering that a deletion can occur anytime after 3 banishments, and even as late as 10. A deletion warning is always given first before a deletion (notated in red below the banishment). Smoke received the necessary response from the CIP team and I added this to my collection; highlights as follows:
"First I would like to clarify one thing since there seems to have been am misunderstanding. The banishment has been issued because of your statements on the boards, and not for any other reason - no mysterious screenshots have been used. I just wanted to make this clear because I have heard there are lots of rumours on Antica at the moment. But to the main matter.
You have been banished because of what you have written on the boards. A couple of people here have scrutinised what you have written. Let me insert some quotes:
A)[in response to this statement: You got some seriouse problems if you need to cheat in a game you play for fun just to be the "best".] "who says I want to be the best? can't hunt because of the server, can't hang out in towns because of people.. very little options left, training is quite peaceful."
B)
[in response to the question: 'Why do you train AFK then?']
Because I need to take shits and pisses, watch t.v, eat dinner and
other meals, go out for a swim, out for a movie, sleep, work, study
for my driver's license, play other games, plan for college, chat on
messanger like most humans.
C)
logging out would require me to re-lure creatures, re-convince
ghouls, etc.
benefit is greater than risk.
I am too lazy for such dumb activities, so I'm a cheater, and I
don't have your respect, my life is ruined
I believe that even with a lot of goodwill this does not look like sarcasm or irony - it looks like a blunt confession to cheating, and I'm afraid we will have to treat it accordingly. Since you had already received a final warning on March 16th I'm afraid a deletion is the logical conclusion. This procedure is fully covered by our licence agreement. Please see our licence agreements at http://www.tibia.com/home/?subtopic=payment for details.
Kind regards,
Christian Glashauser
Customer Support"
I immediately laughed when I read it, they where going to base a deletion, the most serious punishment, on the principle that Smoke's words where admitting to cheating - especially on a flaming thread that would be made up of satirical and ironical replies, what else do you feed the biggest idiots of Tibia? I thought I had this in the bag, people knew my replies to be comical and witty and knew I could draw from this to create a huge case to show them exactly how wrong they where. Not only that but I started to see holes in their arguments and very big mistakes that boarded fowl play and false evidence.
The biggest red flag in this entire case was March 16th, the date of a 2 month old banishment. According to Smoke this was originally a board banishment of 30 days, no in game banishment. It had mysteriously been changed to a 30 day account ban, some weeks later, (the ban was already long past when it changed into an account ban and he served no in-game banishment time) no deletion warning was present though. I know the banishment was changed because of the modification date, July 23, 2004, 1:44 am, making this change occur 20 hours prior to the deletion banishment (July 23, 2004, 10:34 pm)! This is when the deletion warning came, its red lettering as displayed being predominant and intimidating. I'm very confident this red lettering was not displayed prior as it only appears after a significant banishment has been made (defined as a ban of 30 days I believe). Smoke basically got his warning, and his deletion on the same day, both for nothing, a simple set-up.
The three screenshots can be seen here:
CIP's reply failed to notice the modification of the banishment, and did not realize that the deletion warning was given less then a day, not a few months as they had believed. Yet this was already far to late, the deliberation was already occurring about the posts made (Editing a banishment so late after it was implemented is like changing a criminal record to say he spent 3 years in jail when he only spent 1, being more then 10 years released). This was fuel to my fire; I saw their carelessness and tried even harder to show their mistake.
I decided I ought to check up on other banishments and see if any of them where poorly placed, or inconceivable. My wisdom paid off immediately as I looked not far down the list. The very banishment that was modified just hours prior to his deletion banishment should never have existed in the first place as Smoke was currently serving a 20 day account banishment on march 4th for massive killing (when his account was stolen). You could argue that he made the post prior to being banished for mass killing, yet how can you explain banishment so late when most topics do not live that long on the boards and are usually caught and punished far sooner then 12 days? So how could Smoke have made any posting that was deemed offensive during that time?
Armed now with an iron hard set of arguments, that the banishment before was bogus or even set up, I decided to tackle phase two of my case, creating an argument against the banishment that had lead to the deletion. This was a simple task, taking just a few hours to complete, mailing the final copy to my CIP GM. This is what I wrote:
"let me first state that after reading the email smoke recived from Christian Glashauser (you i guess) that i acualy had to laugh that a delation was actualy baced on such grounds. even with twisting the words, i still failed to see how anyone could misinterpret them and then use them as "proof" of anything more then smokes satirical wit. every awnser i make is mostly a use of sarcasm, its the flavor of my speach, and commonly known to be that of smoke's and even dark serphant's speach, both of them use this type of wit continuously and they do say "birds of a feather, they all floak together". if there is anything but this as the reason for his banishment then ive yet to hear it, yet i am confidant that this is the only such "proof" that is gotten, as he has comited no crime but that of being over scritinized due to his popularity. (note there is another close to his skills on amera (eternal oblivion) whos character has existed FAR less them smokes has, has he been subject to such structiny too?)
"First I would like to clarify one thing since there seems to have been am misunderstanding. The banishment has been issued because of your statements on the boards, and not for any other reason - no mysterious screenshots have been used. I just wanted to make this clear because I have heard there are lots of rumours on Antica at the moment. But to the main matter.
A)[in response to this statement: You got some seriouse problems if you need to cheat in a game you play for fun just to be the "best".]
"who says I want to be the best? can't hunt because of the server, can't hang out in towns because of people.. very little options left, training is quite peaceful." "
there is no mention of cheating in his reply, he responded to the question posed at the end of the sentence "why play to be the best." the flame towards him (the first half of that sentence) has no baring on his awnser and was ignored entirely. his responce about training insted of other options echo for many people that do not want to be spamed in towns or assulted by low levels sucking up or to be killed by lag from hunting. he, like many others (myself esepcialy) chose to train for thier time and enjoys doing it. its obvous the cheating part of that sentence was not counted or he would of refuted it entirely, or atleast commented on it. if you responded to every detail of every post made to you, rather then pick and chose what you respond to then you would have pages of replies about things that didnt need to be commented on. also keep in mind the theme of the thread, the thread was about smoke gaining another great skill advancement - not about how he "cheated" to get where he is, replying to the flames from everyone would just degrade the topic into a flame war (as it would become a bash fest and ended up becoming one anyway).
"B) [in response to the question: 'Why do you train AFK then?']
Because I need to take shits and pisses, watch t.v, eat dinner and
other meals, go out for a swim, out for a movie, sleep, work, study
for my driver's license, play other games, plan for college, chat on
messanger like most humans."
sarcasm is a very effective tool, its bace definition is a responce that is both satirical and known for its bitter wit and irony. what responce would you exspect to a question like this one? you'd exspect an awser to refute that he would do such a thing, insted he has chosen to reply sarcasticly. the responce is ironic becuase you exspect the obvous of this responce. obvously, to anyone who reads it, they can see that there is NO admition of anything. if i recall he has made a post after it stating "any more stupid questions?" this statement shows his view on the question above as stupid and and worthy of a flame (sarcasm is essentialy a flame directed at the questioner's intelegence, like the phrase "what are you, stupid?" in wich a reply from the other is ususaly "yes"). if he serously was afk training with iligal bugs or the like then he would not of responded to EVERY single gm of date, which seam to like to pop up and check on him and the rest of our training camp VERY often! gms don't pop in regularly scedualed times, they pop in at any time, at any whim, without any rymn or reason. every time without fail they have recived a greating, their questions awsered (no bots, macroing programs, ect. can mask entire conversations). i see the lack of a banishment for use of iligal bugs portraining to "afk training" as yet more proof that he has not done such a thing. he has been killed once while reading the boards and that was a carefuly planed attack to get revenge on smoke for a personal reason.
"C) logging out would require me to re-lure creatures, re-convince
ghouls, etc.
benefit is greater than risk.
I am too lazy for such dumb activities, so I'm a cheater, and I
don't have your respect, my life is ruined"
i supose you think that his admition as a "cheater" is the monumental proof for this delation. well let me inform you that this "cheating" is not your macro, afking with bugs type of cheating but rather something entirely different. this is the cheating you do to save time by cutting corners and wasting as little time as possible. did your mother ever tell you to clean your room, and you then proceeded to pushed the mess under your bed? this is cheating as you did not do exactly what was asked exactly but cut corners to do acive the end result. lets anilize this sentence fearther. loging out would require him to spend time getting mana for convince, to spend time looking for more creatures and to lure them to his desired spot, so he does not log out to go to the washroom, or to make a phone call. this does NOT state that he never logs out at all (to go to the movies, to sleep or anything else of that nature), but states that he takes the risk to be "AFK" over loging out for minor things. the black dragons activly hunt people who are away from the keyboard, the server kicks those who have been inactive for 16 minites, the risk is being killed within that window of time, not for being "discovered" by a gm while he was sleeping and training at the same time! as a reminder let me once again point out that no gm has found him inactive for longer then 16 minites - id guess even longer then 5 minites.
if he never loged out then he would have much higher skills, as it stands hes played a long time - these skills didnt happen over night by cheating save to save, and most people stop at about 90 skills. keep note that he has alot more time off then many people that work as he is a student and gets summer off, plus has more hours to play then those that work. how do i know this? ive studdied the habits and trends of trainers, the high scores as well as people themselves being my sources and i've trained with smoke for over 3 years.
in conclusion id say that once again this banishment has been based on a grose over anyalisis of his words. even when i read through that topic as it was made and progressed, i found myself smiling at the wit and comments made to those that where serous in their acusations. i cannot be biased here, anyone else reading that thread should of picked up easily on the sarcasm and diction used. i am by far no english major and i picked up on it easily.
thank you my lord for giving me this oppertunity. i'm disapointed that such a banishment was even made, truly sad in my opinion.
Kind reguards,
Karr Chaos"
Despite my serous butchering of the English language, and why it's important to teach typing early on in schools, my points where for the most part clear - that Smoke was not "admitting" by guilt or any other stupid farce, but rather speaking in a sarcastic tone. It was really impossible to build a case against a deletion when the thread it was based on disappeared into the moderators dust bin. I remember reading it and remembering it as nothing but a flame thread made by jealous people. If any of you read the Antica boards, you would know that just recently 3 such topics where made about me and everyone who looked at them knows the cascading problems they create.
In retrospect I should have used a word processor (and maybe I did on the final draft), but other then that I made a very solid argument and waited endlessly for a reply.
While I was making these investigations the world was ablaze with shock, excitement, and even mild discontent. Threads sprang up like new sprouts of grass and everyone was asking the quest "How and why was Smoke deleted?" Rumors exploded, spreading lies to every tongue, creating reasons to solve the biggest question out there. These threads best capture the moment, thread 425286 being the biggest topic on the mater.
http://forum.tibia.com/forum/index.php?sub...threadid=425544
http://forum.tibia.com/forum/index.php?sub...threadid=425425
http://forum.tibia.com/forum/index.php?sub...threadid=425458
http://forum.tibia.com/forum/index.php?sub...threadid=425286
People where yelling at Knight Fang, calling him a traitor as he had appeared the night before with the other high levels, and the big incident that was caused. Some idiot was out making a scene, claiming to know who had been the "informant" that had tipped CIP off to Smokes "cheating," and many other threads closed by our good GM Enforcer (its page 64-67 or so that you can see all the threads that where made, key date being July 23rd).
No one really knew what was going on; many believed he had gotten deleted for AFK training, or perhaps for some other secret crime. The entire thing reminded me of a typical court case and so I made this witty conjecture to bread the mood up a bit:
"Originally posted by Siddakky on 26.07.2004 02:13 CEST :
> Sure sir, may I know when then? (for be logged in)
when my clients case has been tried in the surpreme court, which we are preparing for. no further questions please
Taghor was quick to end this thread, the outrageous flames and course language being too much for the proposed pg rating of the boards.
So the waiting game continued, and it was about this time that Smoke mailed in his reply to the CIP team, why shouldn't you want to defend yourself? This is a copy of what was sent, posted in true Smoke fashion, hardcore, blunt, and satirical:
"Greets! I assure you, the posts pertaining to the level 8 were nothing but pure sarcasm.. it is fairly obvious that a person such as me, wouldn't "admit to cheating" that clearly on public boards? The reason for that is I don't cheat, however the level 8 is obviously convinced I cheat, so I decided to give her a piece of my mind.
Why would I knowingly cheat while training while knowing the fact that a death could cost me over 65 hours in training? There are many that do not like me and there surely has been many attempts on my life while training, this supports the need for my presence whenever I'm online.
A blunt confession to cheating to a level 8 on public forums by the highest skilled knight is just not logical, please rethink this. Even after 3 official visits by GMs within 2 days, I was not found AFK, or doing any cheating of any sorts. The only cases in which the statements are remotely true are from my past, from which I have "shared accounts" and "afked more than 15 minutes" BEFORE it became a rule that it was illegal.
Although sometimes I have been "autologged" while training, and log back on cursing the system because I lost my ghoul, I hardly think that it is considered cheating.
For example, there are many rumours of Bubble having 10+ owners or whatever, of course that isn't true. However if she suddenly got sick of all the people calling her a cheater or have multiple owners just because she is such a high level, and she responds to them "Yes, I have 135 owners, happy?", is that a banishment/deletion reason? It is quite the same in my case as I'm constantly harrassed whenever I'm online, and on the boards because of my skills.
I'd still like to add the fact that the "board ban" on March 16th was merely a normal board ban before, and I had not had my account banned for it. A few weeks after March 16th, I saw that it was converted to an account ban, but it was already over and I did not worry too much about it.
However, the key thing is that there was NO red deletion warning before when it was converted into an account ban, and that warning did not appear until less than a week from now. I know this because I check my account page regularly and I assure you the deletion warning could have very likely only appeared less than a week from my actual deletion. Even when I had to reassign a new name due to my namelock, there was absolutely NO deletion warning on the March 16th banishment. Please look into that..
Let me take this quote from the thread "http://forum.tibia.com/forum/index.php?subtopic=thread&threadid=427390" by GM Enforcer.
In response to "Maybe a SGM or a god can tell GM Enforcer to get off his high horse...
I've watched your arrogant and cocky attitude for a few months now on the boards.
Your the only GM ive seen thats thinks he is the leader of hell's angels.
rise and shine its wake up time "
GM Enforcer said "Hum hum, how would I be able to do my job without all those nice hints by players?
Thanks Broke Moke, you opened my eyes. I'm so lucky that there are players like you who know how things have to be."
Is not that the same situation where he responded to a "flame post" with sarcasm? I did the same, but its with an obvious intent to only flame the person, even the level 8 who received my flames could tell it was sarcasm.
A real life situation could be referred as such: A man is jealous of another man's suit and comments saying "Where did you get that? steal it?", and the man with the suit would reply "Yeah, I'm a no-good theif, I stole it." Would the man with the suit even be arrested for such a statement? Or would investigations follow first if it is taken seriously? During the 3 GM visits, my presence during training was confirmed and there was absolutely no cheating to be found.
In quote [A], I did not respond to the cheating comment, I only responded to the part about why I train.
I believe AFKing, as long as it was within 15 minutes, is legal, else I'd be auto-logged anyways, so how could I possibly break that rule in quote [B]. It was sarcasm.
In quote [C], I admit it looks like a confession, but the humour in it is also very clear, and that was the posts ONLY and main intent, humour. Even if it is taken seriously, the in-game investigations on me should be enough to prove I am not cheating in anyway. Also you are free to continue sending representatives of the gamemaster team to keep checking on me if I am cleared of my charges, just to confirm that I do not cheat.
I have heard, that I'm going to have a hearing, represented by Karr Chaos, where he will defend me and my innocence in the matter with several GMs. If this letter does not convince you, please hear him out..
Let me state again, that bluntly admitting to cheating on the boards towards a level 8 who accused me of cheating is just not logical, its an obvious sarcastic flame towards the level 8 herself, and I received the expected response to it, lots of laughs and giggles.. its not supposed to be serious or I would be plain stupid to admit such a thing!
Also I have spoken to a gamemaster who tells me deletion is usually after 7 banishments, and that my May 18 2003, 10:51 pm account ban does not count because there was a misunderstanding and I was not found guilty after investigations. In total I have an account ban on Sep 28 2003, 2:05 pm, Mar 4 2004, 12:23 pm, and a board ban which was later converted into an account ban WITHOUT a deletion warning until very recently on Mar 16 2004, 9:11 pm. I have only 3 banishments even though my record seems stained with extensions.. I, and alot of others just don't think banishment and deletion due to several sarcastic postings is the next step for this.
Thank you for listening,
Yet the biggest surprise would come, a post by Guido on the counsellor internals, on the post where I attack the banishment. He said to the effect that the decision was made and it was final, meaning that my efforts where just a waste of time. I lost it at that point, completely lost it. My CIP GM had the poor chance to log in and see me just before I left for work and I tore into him about Guido, how he couldn't do that and fuck him and I'm gona kill him and so on. My unfortunate luck would land me face to face with the god I just tore into pieces. I made a snarky comment to the effect that, "id give you a piece of my mind." I had a sinking feeling when I realized he was making SD's, and it became worse when he attacked me. I ducked inside my home and watched as a crowd became suddenly interested in what was happening.
"Do you want to fight me?" He sneered, anger clearly visible.
"You're a God, I can't fight you," I said flatly to him.
"Karr Chaos your time is over," he pronounced and so it was that I would receive my first banishment, perhaps it's ironic that this banishment was entirely justified, compared to the case I had spent an endless amount of time on.
I spent a few minutes chuckling to myself then logged into another account and messaged my CIP GM and asked if it was ok to speak. He said Guido has left the office, informing me then that the employees of CIP actually work IN the office, and not at their own computers - seams Guido read the heated words right over my GM's shoulder. What a wonderful incentive to have, you cannot even count on your own GM to give you support!
It also seamed that he was going to speak to me about the case, that the hearing I had been granted had just been canceled, the deletion was justified to CIP and nothing was going to see it otherwise. To instill false hope has got to be one of the hardest and cruelest things to do to a man in desperation, it felt like that ray of hope I had grasped hand turned into a black gauntlet of death, that seized me and crushed me into dust.
The final end came with this last email:
"I have had a close look Evizerate's case - a much closer look actually than on other deletions, which brought me criticism for giving special treatment to high-levels. However, after I had a look at all possible hints as well as after having spoken to a dozen people I have myself come to the conclusion that the decision is justified. And since nobody else really made a case in favour of Evizerate I'm afraid the deletion will be carried out. As to the irregularities in his criminal record. It is true that the sequence of banishments was not as consequent as one would wish for. However, remember that the rule is:
After these rule breaks he still wasn't deleted - in fact, he had not received his final warning. He got it on
16.03.2004, 21:11:20 Evizerate AccBan destructive behaviour (inappropriate language (Board)), account will be deleted in case of further rule violations! 30 days
I don't know how you feel about this, but to me it appears that he had plenty of warnings. Personally I must say that I have seen people deleted for less."
"Right. I think I got nothing more to add. I hope we'll get another chance to talk about this, but please understand that� decisions are final.
Take care,
This was it, the dynasty was over; an age ended, and with it went the last vestiges of a fair system of punishment.
If you kill more then 6 people in a day (skull system) you will get a banishment, after 3 times of doing this you will get deleted. Also note that no mention was made regarding his previous banishments in any of the letters to CIP, and please note that my CIP GM actually received CRITICISM for trying to make sure this deletion was just! What kind of system is this if you criticize your own peers because they wish to make deeper enquiries to ensure that something is right?
This has cost me an outrageous sum of time to create, both for the many articles I sent in to CIP and for the time I spent in game explaining to people, and this article in particular (spanning 15 pages and MANY hours of work). With this finished I will be able to lay this case to rest, knowing I have shown the public what has become of their system. This article has exposed the decay and decadence of our very own justice system. When law is circumvented and justice is stopped, then chaos soon follows, then the collapse of government and the entire destruction of the institution that once held justice in high regards. Blessed be those who seek the truth, blessed be those who seek out justice, and blessed be those who seek salvation and find only a closed fist.
Ben"
1) First banishment for an offence = 1 week
2) Second banishment for the same offence = 30 days + final warning
3) Third banishment for the same offence = deletion.
Now, Evizerate had these banishments:
01.06.2003, 22:24:11 Evizerate Notation destructive behaviour (next massive killing may lead to banishment)
28.09.2003, 14:05:09 Evizerate AccBan destructive behaviour (massive random killing before server save) 3 days
28.09.2003, 15:23:31 Evizerate AccBan destructive behaviour (ban extension for mass PK before server save) 20 days
04.03.2004, 12:23:26 Evizerate AccBan destructive behaviour (too many unjustfied kills) 20 days
Christian Glashauser
Customer Support"