[Solus]

The button thing was brought up in April 2004. I know the timeline.

I think I, a regular on Materia Magica's site, know more about what went on on that site than you - someone who does not know the site...

[Threshold]

Originally Posted by (Solus @ Feb. 06 2006,01:52) I think I, a regular on Materia Magica's site, know more about what went on on that site than you - someone who does not know the site...

Since I am talking about the time BEFORE he put the button on the site, and yet was magically generating a lot of votes, being a regular on the site would have no bearing. Your presence on the site is not going to help you notice the LACK of something you have no reason to expect to be there. You continue to speak of the time AFTER he first got caught cheating, and subsequently had to add a vote button.

Furthermore, the complete lack of any vote icon anywhere on the site was confirmed by actual players when they were asked if they knew of one and if they could find one.

Your tenacious attempt to revise history does nothing but demonstrate the extreme depths of your fanboism on this issue.

[Solus]

I can easily find posts from Jan 2003 mentioning the voting and such. We had a link we could use. This is when the 'vote vote vote' spam started.

Out of curiousity, why would Vass even want to stop player votes? It doesn't really accomplish anything possitive.

PKzone shows Adam asking where the vote button is, and Vassago tells him where. It also has a log of Adam randomally asking where the URL to vote is. (Without even saying what to vote for.)

--

PKzone also proves Materia Magica wasn't getting near 200+ votes every 10 hours. This leaves me to question your creditablity or your memory. (Only 60 to 130 splurt votes every 18 hours on average can be blamed on Lothos's script.)

Originally Posted by Then we have the incident described in this thread, where MM would normally average a handful of votes per hour, and then every 10 hours or so would get about 200+ in 5 minutes.

[slaughterhousefive]

Solus, give it up already. The fact that Lothos was able to post a graph showing virtually the same information the TMS administration went through a few posts earlier is enough evidence in itself. It means either he has access to TMS admin information, or HE WAS DOING THE BOTTING HIMSELF. You take your pick.

[somied]

Originally Posted by Your tenacious attempt to revise history does nothing but demonstrate the extreme depths of your fanboism on this issue.

Sorry I have to be the one to inform you, but your anti-MM protesting has far surpassed any fanboism going on in this thread.

And you don't even have the benefit of logically sound arguments to back it up. You're just one of the bandwagon masses, completely engulfed by the mob mentality without concern for logic or reason. You're all basing your entire arguments on personal (and mostly misinformed) opinions and this almighty log that HAS TO BE TRUE because it backs up your opinions, and for no other reason.

Oh yeah, and your correction of my analogy was retarded. You compared Lothos (a player, having nothing to do with game staff) to the CFO of a company. Sorry, but my analogy beat up your honor student

[Valg]

Originally Posted by (somied @ Feb. 06 2006,09:19) You're all basing your entire arguments on personal (and mostly misinformed) opinions and this almighty log that HAS TO BE TRUE because it backs up your opinions, and for no other reason.

I believe the log because it and the script attached explain the known data perfectly-- the bursts of votes despite the missing voting button, the IP patterns, etc.  That's convincing-- reverse engineering the code as well as the extensive conversations (and capturing Vassago's tone/attitude as well as the conversation does) would be extremely difficult.  It would be especially difficult to know what the exact IPs used were-- information that is otherwise only available to Synozeer, who has no reason to collaborate in this.

Those are my opinions, and the facts behind them.  Now, please explain, in no uncertain terms, what evidence you have that it is not true.  Otherwise, Occam's Razor steps in.

Aside: I don't moderate this forum, but I wish someone would. =)

[Spoke]

Originally Posted by (somied @ Feb. 04 2006,23:54) And if you really want to question my logic, just think about it this way. You're under the impression that this log is true - and as such, Lothos is behind the "crime". If you owned your own business and one of your employees cheated on his taxes, should your business be shutdown and held responsible? How can you possibly correlate the actions of a well-known disgruntled player to the morality of the games owner(s)?

Well, I think your analogy would be more accurate if you put it like this: If you owned your own business and one of your employees clearly cheated on your business' taxes, should your business be held accountable?

I believe in this case, the answer is yes. If you knew your employee was misbehaving you had in your hands the power to fire him, and if you learned too late, you could have dealt with him then and faced the problems this employee caused the company later.

The problem here, it seems, is that this analogy does not resemble what happened in MM's case, at least not after the ... one of your employees clearly cheated ... bit.

[Corrupted]

I find it rather strange that people are refusing to believe that Vassago cheated - if the log isn't proof, if everything Lothos has said is a lie.. and this is from my own point of viewing - had I been Vassago, the last thing I would have done would be deleting Lothos. I think the fact he decided to take that kind of drastic measure against him is proof alone. Yes, Lothos has been known to cause problems, yes he is many things but.. the fact he got deleted as soon as he posted this well, I find that very suspicious indeed.

I don't know, it is a bit of old news and not that big of a deal. It's interesting to find out how it was done if indeed things were like this. The truth is, we wont really know the truth but we can continue to assume

[AtDusk]

Here's some new links that even further prove what we already know.

E-Mail correspondence between Vassago and TMS

Graph showing the cheating patterns

[Solus]

Originally Posted by Solus, give it up already. The fact that Lothos was able to post a graph showing virtually the same information the TMS administration went through a few posts earlier is enough evidence in itself. It means either he has access to TMS admin information, or HE WAS DOING THE BOTTING HIMSELF. You take your pick.

I'm not saying Lothos isn't to blame. I am saying Vassago's connection isn't fact. Its not proven.

Originally Posted by the bursts of votes despite the missing voting button, the IP patterns, etc.

Again, the vote button was there. I recall clicking it & we had a bit of message board spam from players saying to vote.
--
For the anolagy, a customer would be more accuracte.

Originally Posted by I find it rather strange that people are refusing to believe that Vassago cheated - if the log isn't proof, if everything Lothos has said is a lie.. and this is from my own point of viewing - had I been Vassago, the last thing I would have done would be deleting Lothos. I think the fact he decided to take that kind of drastic measure against him is proof alone.

Lothos actually got punished first, then started making claims.

[Corrupted]

Lothos got punished and then he went public with that which in turn got him deleted

[Solus]

Would it really be wise to keep a player who tries to publicly harm your game - one who has been a problem for years?

I don't see how its incriminating just because you delete a known trouble maker with a bad history.

[AtDusk]

Don't bother arguing with Solus and somied, they're working hard at becoming Immortals on MM.  The staff is composed entirely of people with their follower mindset.

If none of this was true, Vassago would be here telling people how ridiculous it is.  Anytime that MM has been brought up on the boards here, or even had a bad review, Vassago is the first to show up crying foul.  Afterall, he still pays to advertise here.  Wouldn't he want this bad rumor cleared up and "Materia Magica's cheating ways" removed from the front page?

It's undisputed fact that MM cheated and was removed from the listings here.  There is absolutely nothing that can be said to change that.  A reasonable person is able to deduct from the massive amount evidence provided that Vassago was aware and encouraged the cheating.  Perhaps he even suggested it.  

Let's assume for a moment that Lothos, in the span of 1 day, creatively authored these logs and wrote 2 programs that perform the voting attack precisely as how it was executed.  How would he have private correspondence between Vassago and TMS administrators?  How would he have a graph created by someone at this site who was investigating the MM incident?  How would he know in-depth details about how and when it occured?

I understand that by questioning Vassago, you run the risk of deletion.  The history of the game would have proven that time and time again.  It's ok to not understand what happened, or to be confused by it, but please don't insult the intelligence of the people here by suggesting that this never happened or Vassago had no clue it was going on.

[Threshold]

Originally Posted by (Solus @ Feb. 06 2006,02:54) Out of curiousity, why would Vass even want to stop player votes? It doesn't really accomplish anything possitive.

Yes it does. It accomplishes a lot. When you send your players here to vote, you are risking that they will see the other games listed and decide to try them out. That is why Vasago's FIRST round of cheating involved PURE script/bot use and no real votes. He did not want to risk his players seeing other games, trying them, and then leaving MM for one of these other games.

Originally Posted by (Solus @ Feb. 06 2006,02:54) Originally Posted by Then we have the incident described in this thread, where MM would normally average a handful of votes per hour, and then every 10 hours or so would get about 200+ in 5 minutes. PKzone also proves Materia Magica wasn't getting near 200+ votes every 10 hours. This leaves me to question your creditablity or your memory. (Only 60 to 130 splurt votes every 18 hours on average can be blamed on Lothos's script.)

LOL. Thanks for the worthless nitpicking - I needed a good laugh this morning. We are talking about something that happened a couple years ago. 130 or 200, the exact number is irrelevant. The point is MM would barely get any votes until the script would periodically kick in, and then get a huge surge of votes. It produced a very clear stairstep graph.

The fact that this weak attempt at a point is the best you can muster has pretty much resolved this debate.

[somied]

Originally Posted by Those are my opinions, and the facts behind them. Now, please explain, in no uncertain terms, what evidence you have that it is not true. Otherwise, Occam's Razor steps in.

As I've said before, and as you would alread know if you actually read any of the posts you're supposedly arguing against, I also believe that Lothos did it, and that it was in some way motivated by Vassago. So asking me to give you evidence to support the opposite is rather asinine of you.

However, I did make the clear distinction that no matter WHAT I believe, I don't have factual evidence - I (as well as every single one of you) only have circumstantial evidence. You don't have to be a lawyer or law enforcement agent to know that circumstantial evidence holds about as much water as a cloth bag when it comes to proving guilt.

My whole point is that you can't just go around crucifying people publically for things that aren't factually proven. You and the other bandwagon mob members can argue all you like about how coincedental the voting graph points to cheating, or how its the easiest solution so it must be true, etc etc etc. But at the end of the day, none of you can offer up any kind of actual proof, so just keep your opinions to yourself until you can.

[Solus]

Originally Posted by How would he have private correspondence between Vassago and TMS administrators?

As we can see on PKzone, Vassago forwarded the e-mail from Adam to some other people. It is possible that one of these people were friends with Lothos and passed the e-mail to Lothos.

Originally Posted by I understand that by questioning Vassago, you run the risk of deletion.

I can't recall to many people who have been deleted. Deletion is rather rare.
There are players who have argued with Vassago for years who continue to play the game.

Originally Posted by It's ok to not understand what happened, or to be confused by it, but please don't insult the intelligence of the people here by suggesting that this never happened or Vassago had no clue it was going on.

I am not saying the incident didn't happen. I'm just saying its not a fact that Vassago was involved involved with Lothos. We are limited to speculating.

Originally Posted by If none of this was true, Vassago would be here telling people how ridiculous it is.  Anytime that MM has been brought up on the boards here, or even had a bad review, Vassago is the first to show up crying foul.  Afterall, he still pays to advertise here.  Wouldn't he want this bad rumor cleared up and "Materia Magica's cheating ways" removed from the front page?

Vass may not consider it worth dealing with. As is, I can't recall him ever replying to the hate mongering on KoC or PKzone.

And just from what I see on these forums, Vass has only made four different posts. One about helpfiles, one declaring the winner of the fansite contest held by Materia Magica, one pointing out Materia Magica isn't a comercail MUD, and one clarifying what was said.

Originally Posted by Thanks for the worthless nitpicking

I don't consider my pointing out your bad memory to be worthless. If your memory is bad, how do I know you remember about the button. I even checked some web archives and seen the button.

[Valg]

Originally Posted by (somied @ Feb. 06 2006,15:54) You don't have to be a lawyer or law enforcement agent to know that circumstantial evidence holds about as much water as a cloth bag when it comes to proving guilt.

I'm reminded of the Chappelle's Show skit where Dave can't believe R. Kelly would do anything untoward because he once made albums Dave liked:

Prosecutor: Mr. Chappelle, what would it take to convince you that R. Kelly is guilty?
Dave Chappelle: Okay, I'd have to see a video of him singing "Pee On You," two forms of government ID (for the underage girl), a police officer there to verify the whole thing, four or five of my buddies and Neal taking notes, and R. Kelly's grandma to confirm his identity.
R. Kelly's Grandma: That's my Robert, always peeing on people.

As an aside, if you're going to claim I'm on a "bandwagon" with the original poster (the_logos)... son, you haven't been around these parts long, have you?

[an anonymous coward]

Good god Solus, can you smell what you're shoveling?

Try reading between the lines, jesus.