He should be allowed to play. You need to take into account what his competitors think and to a degree what his teammates think. So far I haven't seen 1 person actually accuse him of cheating who he plays against or for, this alone speaks volumes. It is clear this is one of those cases you need to follow the spirit of the rules and not strictly go "by the book". From the outside looking in it seems he is being "punished" for not telling people what he was doing instead of being banned for actually cheating.
At the end of the day the tournament overseers shouldn't be getting in the way of what would be a fair competition. Let the players play.
There most certainly is an excuse. When a game has absolutley zero anti cheat measures while at the same time trying to be competitive. What choice does a player, or an admin of NS2 competitive play for that matter have to confirm or deny any suspicions.
Your reasoning and threat is just as ridiculous as this decision, @Gisp.
What are you talking about zero anti cheat measures? There is VAC, consistency checks, and a spectator mode. This game would be unplayable if it didn't have some basic anticheats like the ones that are in place. And the people that bypass these barriers put in place would bypass anything with time, so to try and sit here and say how easy it is to get by them is silly. They will stop the majority of the cheaters.
Reminds me of when I pirated COD4 years and years ago before Steam changed my ways. You had no choice but to play on unsecure pirated servers without punkbuster. Almost every server had a handful of cheaters using some ridiculously obvious autoaim bot or speed hacks. I eventually bought the full version and played on legit servers with punkbuster and the experience was much better and I never noticed a hacker again. Does that mean punkbuster is some godly anticheat system? No, but it stops a lot of obvious hacks that would otherwise ruin the game for a lot of people.
And good on whoever banned him, especially if the VAC ban was recent. I don't care what excuse anyone has for hacking, there should be zero tolerance for it, especially in a competitive gaming scene of all places. Allowing him into the event at this point would be a nightmare. All the focus and discussion would be on monitoring an alleged cheater. That's not what you want a large event like this to be about.
And then the people buying his excuse that he installed cheats to catch cheaters? Come on, that is worse than the "my little brother did it" excuse, lmao.
The World Cup rules didn't say anything regarding VAC banned players not allowed to partake in the tournament, or banned players overall.
There's proof out there that shows he's clean and has not been cheating in any way.
He's offered to prove he's clean in numerous of ways, regardless how it might reflect on his performance.
Your decisions & thoughts on this matter -admins-, is simply pathetic.
The World Cup rules didn't say anything regarding VAC banned players not allowed to partake in the tournament, or banned players overall.
I actually though about writing exactly that with a reference to the official rules, but then decided to let the pic speak for itself...
Thx for posting this tenderloin.
I just don't understand how any of you can think being barred from a COMMUNITY tournament makes any logical sense.. Its like hey lets have a tournament for good fun and competition, but your kind isn't welcome here... Clearly this tournament is srs business now, people need to win for all the fame and fortune that NS2 offers... Its that exact attitude that made me quit playing this game competitively.. And even that doesn't make any sense when there are vac banned players in all kinds of other leagues at high levels still playing..
Agree with @xDragon it IS a community tournament, so the community should have a say in my opinion. Like has ALREADY been stated multiple times in this thread, this isn't some pro league where the winner takes home $1,000,000, it's just a small set of games that existing players can enjoy and be reminded why they like playing the game. If it gets some popularity because of it too then that's great, but really, it's just a small in-house thing, if the rules need to be bent because the circumstances are asking for it then they should be.
He's not being banned because he broke a WC rule. He's being banned because it looks bad. Which because of the reasons above, shouldn't be the case, we shouldn't care if he did something stupid. We know he's clean, it's our little thing, I don't see the problem. Unless they plan on advertising it mid game on live stream, "Oh and here's Eissfeldt, you know he got a ban on his account the other week and has had to create a new one to be allowed to play", in front of a ton of spectators while being sponsored by big companies.
So it appears, at least from this thread, that about 85-90% of the community is in favor of allowing Eissfeldt to play.
Let me remind you that this event has been marketed and hyped as being "by the community for the community" and in fact could not have happened if not for 16,000 USD donated by generous community members.
AsranielJoin Date: 2002-06-03Member: 724Members, Playtest Lead, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Retired Community Developer
edited November 2013
Perhaps the community has to create a petition
I reread the rules. I dont see any rule that can ban a player from the tournament before he did anything wrong during that said tournament. So this ban is against the tournament rules if i understand it correctly. Please correct me if i'm wrong.
SpoogeThunderbolt missile in your cheeriosJoin Date: 2002-01-25Member: 67Members
As a sideline spectator with absolutely no horse in this race, I have to suggest Eissfeldt's proponents please stop using the "no true Scotsman" defense. It ruins credibility.
I think the most influential argument being made here centers around the fact that this tournament is community based and that disagreements or policy disputes should be addressed from a community perspective. It's literally being funded by the people posting opinions in this thread.
Also, the xenophobia in this thread is roflcakes. Take a bath already.
There most certainly is an excuse. When a game has absolutley zero anti cheat measures while at the same time trying to be competitive. What choice does a player, or an admin of NS2 competitive play for that matter have to confirm or deny any suspicions.
Your reasoning and threat is just as ridiculous as this decision, @Gisp.
What are you talking about zero anti cheat measures? There is VAC, consistency checks, and a spectator mode. This game would be unplayable if it didn't have some basic anticheats like the ones that are in place. And the people that bypass these barriers put in place would bypass anything with time, so to try and sit here and say how easy it is to get by them is silly. They will stop the majority of the cheaters.
I'm surprised that VAC was able to detect any Natural Selection 2 hack. However I guarantee you I could find, or someone could easily make a wallhack or aimbot that it couldn't. The consistency check system has been demonstrated to me to be useless, if someone has the knowledge to get around it, it isn't entirely complicated to do so.
As for the spectator mode, it's interesting that you bring that up. For starters it does a pretty good job of making anyone look like a cheater - due to it's unresponsiveness and choppiness due to the low update rate. Second, generally a first person demo is used in conjunction with a wireframe mode or wallhack so that comparisons and judgements can be made.
Ironically enough, if Eissfieldt streams every match. Which he has offered to do. He will be the one competing player that people can be certain isn't cheating. What does Titus ... I mean the NS2 WC admins say to that? @Zefram, @WasabiOne
VAC definitely only started ban waving that cham hack in the last month. Because I KNOW people were still using it (for legit cheating purposes, I know, shocker) not that long ago.
@Jekt Update rates really need to get unlocked or pushed up, it's causing so many more issues than just spectator mode, but spec mode is pretty bad. Wireframe would be amazing, isn't there already a wireframe cheat in this game? Make it a spectator option with a hotkey, then no one will have to cham.
Also yeah, any new cham will go undetected for another 12 months if it gets released. VAC hasn't exactly been fast to respond in this game.
He should wear this, if he makes it to cologne, lol:
lol ;P
someone else: "Hey, i know that voice... is that you eissfeldt ?"
eissfeldt: "ah... hm... no, i am... i am... i am mr. incognito... incognito is my nickname!" (or something like that)
I'll clarify for those who don't know the details of what happened: Eissfeldt downloaded and used a wallhack to spectate a player he suspected might be wallhacking, in order to obtain proof. About a week later, he received an automatic VAC ban on his steam account. Let me be very clear on this: No-one has ever seen Eissfeldt cheating, nor has anyone ever accused him of cheating. The fact that he got VAC banned is almost proof in itself that he didn't use a hack to cheat -- no one who knows anything about hacking would ever use a wallhack that is old enough to get detected by VAC. For this, he has been told that he will not be allowed to participate in the NS2WC no matter the circumstances.
Players and tournament admins have been using wallhacks to catch cheaters since NS1. It is the only way to reliably detect and prove that someone is wallhacking. If having had a wallhack installed is grounds for banning someone, I should've been banned 10 years ago, and so should dozens of other players who have never cheated in an actual match a single time in their lives -- their only crime having been attempting to prevent hackers from ruining this game.
But... "installed" leads to doubts, doubts leads to stories, stories leads to fù*ked up games.
Especially at this level; players should be the cleanest of them all. To avoid this very story here. This is also meaning that players install cheats to detect cheats on suspicious other player, that install cheats... it nevers ends.
This behavior also induce the fact that players do not trust admins... This should have been the first action to take if one suspect another player: Talk to the admins. If a player is suspected, admin should be aware of it and so they will be able to verify and take action. This is their job.
This evolve in the end as a "bad climate".
The proper way to do anti wall-hack cheat stuff would be the "uploaded client screen-shot" which shouldn't be difficult to do for a game like this.
-Screen-shot if a common technology
-Admin on server can trigger it so the client upload the picture.
-A standard Jpeg less than 100kb is far big enough to see things. The file size can easily be handled by any ADSL connection.
Yes we don't have it. But it would be better than installing cheats isn't it ?
Please someone, make a mod!!! This kind of game needs it terribly (can help for some details).
Consider someone who stops a thief, takes the stolen goods from the thief, and goes back to the store to return it, only to be arrested for stealing because he was carrying stolen goods. It is obvious to anyone that this is a perversion of justice; abusing rules to punish desirable actions.
Still; cops have means to retrace story with the store clerk isn't it ?
The worst with this story is that; you as me as other will suffer accusations, bans and stuff on public servers. The server list was already thin lately... pff, i'm gonna go gorge for a month now...
@all
If you like the game don't spoil it. Any action have consequences.
ns2 wc rule: if you cheat and get caught you cant participate on the ns2 wc.
humanity: he did never cheat & will never cheat as we know (he has the skill).
The proper way to do anti wall-hack cheat stuff would be the "uploaded client screen-shot" which shouldn't be difficult to do for a game like this.
-Screen-shot if a common technology
-Admin on server can trigger it so the client upload the picture.
-A standard Jpeg less than 100kb is far big enough to see things. The file size can easily be handled by any ADSL connection.
Yes we don't have it. But it would be better than installing cheats isn't it ?
Please someone, make a mod!!! This kind of game needs it terribly (can help for some details).
Please no, my poor Australian 1mbit upload would lag me to hell uploading images mid game. If only for a moment, I'd still be at 300 ping when I'm normally 30.
If he's already lanproven (?), streams constantly, and hasn't had a single competitive player believe he's suspicious, I don't see why he shouldn't be able to play.
Point invalid, it's not a rule. That is, cheating in games other than the wc tournament ones.
Ok, then eissfeldt should be able to participate on the ns2 wc.
If there is / was no clear rule, he should be able.
Double checked it, the only mention of cheating is 11. b (here ns2wc.com/?page_id=2102) which says "Players may not cheat" (lol). These rules are for the tournament only, and since it hasn't even started he cannot have cheated yet. He has broken no rules.
However I guarantee you I could find, or someone could easily make a wallhack or aimbot that it couldn't.
What's your point? This can be said about every game on the market with a capable programmer. My point was to debunk the fud you posted about this game having zero anti cheat measures when in actuality it has a few to deter most. Sure they can be better, but what we have right now is better than nothing, especially for an indie developer like UWE. I just find it funny you're talking about how this game has zero anti cheat measures, but this damn topic is about a person that used hacks and got banned. That is the definition of irony.
Using a wh is always sad. But dont punish people who put time into revealing a hacker. And yes even if it is always sad... sometimes you have to turn a wh on to reveal a hacker. Anyway i would not do it and i think Eißfeldt will not do it again. Just report and let some anti-cheat admins handle it, if there are any
I have never heard of a player getting banned in a league without actually having cheated in a match.
I played high level clan matches in Team Fortress Classic back in the day and people got banned for cheating in ACTUAL MATCHES not because they happened to use a hack in some pub server and got a vac ban for it.
@Res this is false, of the three (north american) leagues that lasted into the twilight of TFC (STA, TFL and UGC) ONLY TFL did not ban for the use of hacks in public play. I have seen you reference the bans resulting from PP2/TFCMultihack in another thread (the logged hacks created by hackers that aided admins in catching cheaters for the TFC deprived) and all the players that only used the cheats in public servers were also banned from STA/UGC. That being said there were never any players banned just for having a VAC ban on their account, that part is true. Now why is that? See below (TL;DR at bottom).
I am going to weigh in on this purely from the standpoint of a former league admin who was involved in some of the biggest ban waves ever to occur in Team Fortress Classic. I will do my best to lay out our thought process for both the concerned players and those players who seek to condemn Eiss. Ultimately it is always up to the organizers and administrators of any league or tournament to decide what and how they wish to enforce I merely wish to attempt to explain the way the thought process worked in the past.
*DISCLAIMER* At the time of writing my knowledge of the situation is as follows: It is noticed that Eiss' account has received a VAC ban, Eiss issues a statement that he used a wallhack to check (assume this means spectate) another player suspected of cheating there fore my statements are based on this and may change should any other information be made available. Also this is purely how things would have been viewed as a member of a group that did a great deal of work to remove cheaters fairly and with due process from a past competitive game.
1. BURDEN OF PROOF
The burden of proof is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS on the administration. What does this mean? It means that not only must it be proven that:
a. a cheat/hack/hook was loaded during connection to a live server with other players playing.
b. Said cheat/hack/hook was used to gain a competitive advantage whilst playing against other players.
So looking specifically at this case what do we know? A player is VAC banned and admitted the VAC ban was due to a wallhack used (I assume) only in spectate so what do we have proof of? Only "a.". Based on this is can say that Eiss would NOT be banned from ANY TFC league play.
There is no room for speculation or feelings here unless there is actual 100% (or as close as reasonably possible) proof that the tool used in the resulting VAC ban was used to gain a competitive advantage this ban would not have happened under the administration I was a part of. It is up to the applicable administration(s) to decide if both a. and b. are required to execute a ban.
2. USING HACKS TO DETECT HACKS
This is pretty much a staple of being an anti-cheat admin. To cite specifics from TFC again there were even hooks created that would allow you to activate wallhacks/ESP etc. ONLY while in spectate. Yes that is right a hack specifically made to catch hackers. Drawbacks? of course there were drawbacks, this hook just like any other could be detected by VAC and had to be updated regularly in order to not be. (full disclosure it could also be used to view demos safely w/o worry of VAC detection but demo viewing doesn't really apply to NS2 does it?). It is not as though this is the only tool we used to catch hackers, a solid understanding of hacks and how they work is required. Personally I had a rather large compliment of cheats including an UNLOGGED version of the logged cheat I mentioned in the first paragraph. People are always coming up with new cheats and new methods of using them you may never even know about the possibility of a cheat (little less how to detect/prove its use) unless you see and use it yourself! Yes, this means loading up those hacks yourself in a safe and controlled environment (vs. bots or other admins, non VAC server preferred) and testing.
As I alluded to above one of the groups that was most instrumental in catching hackers were the hackers themselves. By working with a few individuals who made hacks we were able to gain intimate knowledge not only of how hacks worked but perform a sting operation which resulted in the simultaneous banning of a large group of players (to be honest a decent percentage were not competitive players but were banned to prevent them ever joining the leagues that chose to ban them) all at once.
So now where do we fall on this specific case then? If this were TFC I would have recorded a demo and watched it later using tools but that is really not a viable option in NS2 which leaves only live viewing (preferably with 3rd party software recording) with the tools enabled. Now would I go out and download a random wallhack and use it? Nope. Not a chance, not worth the potential VAC ban but if I had a tool I knew was safe, sure, i'd have used that.
3. STREAMING FOR JUSTICE
The offer to stream as proof of innocence is mostly irrelevant from my perspective as an admin. If you were banned then you were banned there is no coming back (We did eventually have "parole" for those who had been banned in some leagues for a long period of time to apply for probation and demonstrate that they wished to return to the community and play legitimately and fairly, this was highly monitored and these players had a tough application process). This is why the burden of proof is so imperative, there must be no wiggle room, as regardless of the legitimacy of your play at any given moment you cheated at some point and therefore your punishment is to be barred from playing.
So. Specifics. If the NS2WC committee decides that they wish to ban a player based on a VAC ban and an admission that the ban resulted from actions that said player did not gain a competitive advantage from that is their business and they are under no obligation to allow him the chance to prove his innocence via streams. A ban serves not only to allow for a fair playing field for other players but also as punishment for the offending player.
4. BUT WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
Nothing really. This is just an example and based on how things were run around where I am from. If this were TFC Eiss would have received no punishment for his actions he would simply have needed a new steam id. It is up to individuals be it NSL, NS2WC or server admins to decide who the burden of proof should be on and what should constitute a ban.
5. SUMMARY
The use and understanding of hacks is was an integral part of the anti-cheat system I was a part of. While the burden of proof we imposed on ourselves was not always popular (ok, almost never popular, someone is always screaming for a ban) as any official one must resist to urge to be influenced by the court of public opinion. The fact that this has become such an issue demonstrates the importance that establishing such proof has for any officials even in the justice system.
I know many parts of this post will not be popular with the zero-tolerance group but I hope it gives you some understanding of a different point of view in that it is also important to strive for fairness when making the decision to prevent someone from playing.
Opinion time! If this decision fell to me as an administrator I would have used whatever resources available to see if Eiss had actually been hacking and gaining advantage from it, failing that he would be under scrutiny in the future. It would not be up to Eiss to prove he did not use to hack for an advantage. Would not ban.
As a player who plays pubs and the occasional PUG who will probably only ever watch a select few games from the NS2WC as VOD later I can say that I would like the quality of those VODs to be as high as possible and without some solid evidence that Eiss did a real big no no I would rather see him and his team in those videos. Pls unban.
This got awful long and I am sure some people will skim it and cherry pick things to argue against so i'll throw in a TL;DR and do my best to respond to people.
TL;DR - As a former anti-cheat admin I always put the burden of proof on myself in order to make the decision to ban someone and at the time the policy required that proof to include evidence that the accused used a cheat in order to gain an advantage over an opposing player/team. Eiss would not have been banned under the system I was a part of and that system used MANY cheat/hacks/tools/hooks in order to be effective and fair.
Comments
At the end of the day the tournament overseers shouldn't be getting in the way of what would be a fair competition. Let the players play.
What are you talking about zero anti cheat measures? There is VAC, consistency checks, and a spectator mode. This game would be unplayable if it didn't have some basic anticheats like the ones that are in place. And the people that bypass these barriers put in place would bypass anything with time, so to try and sit here and say how easy it is to get by them is silly. They will stop the majority of the cheaters.
Reminds me of when I pirated COD4 years and years ago before Steam changed my ways. You had no choice but to play on unsecure pirated servers without punkbuster. Almost every server had a handful of cheaters using some ridiculously obvious autoaim bot or speed hacks. I eventually bought the full version and played on legit servers with punkbuster and the experience was much better and I never noticed a hacker again. Does that mean punkbuster is some godly anticheat system? No, but it stops a lot of obvious hacks that would otherwise ruin the game for a lot of people.
And good on whoever banned him, especially if the VAC ban was recent. I don't care what excuse anyone has for hacking, there should be zero tolerance for it, especially in a competitive gaming scene of all places. Allowing him into the event at this point would be a nightmare. All the focus and discussion would be on monitoring an alleged cheater. That's not what you want a large event like this to be about.
And then the people buying his excuse that he installed cheats to catch cheaters? Come on, that is worse than the "my little brother did it" excuse, lmao.
There's proof out there that shows he's clean and has not been cheating in any way.
He's offered to prove he's clean in numerous of ways, regardless how it might reflect on his performance.
Your decisions & thoughts on this matter -admins-, is simply pathetic.
EDIT: Worth it. The guy was practically begging for it.
I actually though about writing exactly that with a reference to the official rules, but then decided to let the pic speak for itself...
Thx for posting this tenderloin.
edit - And oh i fixed the picture
Let me remind you that this event has been marketed and hyped as being "by the community for the community" and in fact could not have happened if not for 16,000 USD donated by generous community members.
I reread the rules. I dont see any rule that can ban a player from the tournament before he did anything wrong during that said tournament. So this ban is against the tournament rules if i understand it correctly. Please correct me if i'm wrong.
Just let him play.
I think the most influential argument being made here centers around the fact that this tournament is community based and that disagreements or policy disputes should be addressed from a community perspective. It's literally being funded by the people posting opinions in this thread.
Also, the xenophobia in this thread is roflcakes. Take a bath already.
See: http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/129668/hacking-cheating-and-ns2-anti-cheat/p1
I'm surprised that VAC was able to detect any Natural Selection 2 hack. However I guarantee you I could find, or someone could easily make a wallhack or aimbot that it couldn't. The consistency check system has been demonstrated to me to be useless, if someone has the knowledge to get around it, it isn't entirely complicated to do so.
As for the spectator mode, it's interesting that you bring that up. For starters it does a pretty good job of making anyone look like a cheater - due to it's unresponsiveness and choppiness due to the low update rate. Second, generally a first person demo is used in conjunction with a wireframe mode or wallhack so that comparisons and judgements can be made.
Ironically enough, if Eissfieldt streams every match. Which he has offered to do. He will be the one competing player that people can be certain isn't cheating. What does Titus ... I mean the NS2 WC admins say to that? @Zefram, @WasabiOne
@Jekt Update rates really need to get unlocked or pushed up, it's causing so many more issues than just spectator mode, but spec mode is pretty bad. Wireframe would be amazing, isn't there already a wireframe cheat in this game? Make it a spectator option with a hotkey, then no one will have to cham.
Also yeah, any new cham will go undetected for another 12 months if it gets released. VAC hasn't exactly been fast to respond in this game.
lol ;P
someone else: "Hey, i know that voice... is that you eissfeldt ?"
eissfeldt: "ah... hm... no, i am... i am... i am mr. incognito... incognito is my nickname!" (or something like that)
would be hilarious.
But... "installed" leads to doubts, doubts leads to stories, stories leads to fù*ked up games.
Especially at this level; players should be the cleanest of them all. To avoid this very story here. This is also meaning that players install cheats to detect cheats on suspicious other player, that install cheats... it nevers ends.
This behavior also induce the fact that players do not trust admins... This should have been the first action to take if one suspect another player: Talk to the admins. If a player is suspected, admin should be aware of it and so they will be able to verify and take action. This is their job.
This evolve in the end as a "bad climate".
The proper way to do anti wall-hack cheat stuff would be the "uploaded client screen-shot" which shouldn't be difficult to do for a game like this.
-Screen-shot if a common technology
-Admin on server can trigger it so the client upload the picture.
-A standard Jpeg less than 100kb is far big enough to see things. The file size can easily be handled by any ADSL connection.
Yes we don't have it. But it would be better than installing cheats isn't it ?
Please someone, make a mod!!! This kind of game needs it terribly (can help for some details).
Still; cops have means to retrace story with the store clerk isn't it ?
The worst with this story is that; you as me as other will suffer accusations, bans and stuff on public servers. The server list was already thin lately... pff, i'm gonna go gorge for a month now...
@all
If you like the game don't spoil it. Any action have consequences.
ns2 wc rule: if you cheat and get caught you cant participate on the ns2 wc.
humanity: he did never cheat & will never cheat as we know (he has the skill).
Please no, my poor Australian 1mbit upload would lag me to hell uploading images mid game. If only for a moment, I'd still be at 300 ping when I'm normally 30.
Point invalid, it's not a rule. That is, cheating in games other than the wc tournament ones.
Ok, then eissfeldt should be able to participate on the ns2 wc.
If there is / was no clear rule, he should be able.
Double checked it, the only mention of cheating is 11. b (here ns2wc.com/?page_id=2102) which says "Players may not cheat" (lol). These rules are for the tournament only, and since it hasn't even started he cannot have cheated yet. He has broken no rules.
What's your point? This can be said about every game on the market with a capable programmer. My point was to debunk the fud you posted about this game having zero anti cheat measures when in actuality it has a few to deter most. Sure they can be better, but what we have right now is better than nothing, especially for an indie developer like UWE. I just find it funny you're talking about how this game has zero anti cheat measures, but this damn topic is about a person that used hacks and got banned. That is the definition of irony.
Using a wh is always sad. But dont punish people who put time into revealing a hacker. And yes even if it is always sad... sometimes you have to turn a wh on to reveal a hacker. Anyway i would not do it and i think Eißfeldt will not do it again. Just report and let some anti-cheat admins handle it, if there are any
@Res this is false, of the three (north american) leagues that lasted into the twilight of TFC (STA, TFL and UGC) ONLY TFL did not ban for the use of hacks in public play. I have seen you reference the bans resulting from PP2/TFCMultihack in another thread (the logged hacks created by hackers that aided admins in catching cheaters for the TFC deprived) and all the players that only used the cheats in public servers were also banned from STA/UGC. That being said there were never any players banned just for having a VAC ban on their account, that part is true. Now why is that? See below (TL;DR at bottom).
I am going to weigh in on this purely from the standpoint of a former league admin who was involved in some of the biggest ban waves ever to occur in Team Fortress Classic. I will do my best to lay out our thought process for both the concerned players and those players who seek to condemn Eiss. Ultimately it is always up to the organizers and administrators of any league or tournament to decide what and how they wish to enforce I merely wish to attempt to explain the way the thought process worked in the past.
*DISCLAIMER* At the time of writing my knowledge of the situation is as follows: It is noticed that Eiss' account has received a VAC ban, Eiss issues a statement that he used a wallhack to check (assume this means spectate) another player suspected of cheating there fore my statements are based on this and may change should any other information be made available. Also this is purely how things would have been viewed as a member of a group that did a great deal of work to remove cheaters fairly and with due process from a past competitive game.
1. BURDEN OF PROOF
The burden of proof is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS on the administration. What does this mean? It means that not only must it be proven that:
a. a cheat/hack/hook was loaded during connection to a live server with other players playing.
b. Said cheat/hack/hook was used to gain a competitive advantage whilst playing against other players.
So looking specifically at this case what do we know? A player is VAC banned and admitted the VAC ban was due to a wallhack used (I assume) only in spectate so what do we have proof of? Only "a.". Based on this is can say that Eiss would NOT be banned from ANY TFC league play.
There is no room for speculation or feelings here unless there is actual 100% (or as close as reasonably possible) proof that the tool used in the resulting VAC ban was used to gain a competitive advantage this ban would not have happened under the administration I was a part of. It is up to the applicable administration(s) to decide if both a. and b. are required to execute a ban.
2. USING HACKS TO DETECT HACKS
This is pretty much a staple of being an anti-cheat admin. To cite specifics from TFC again there were even hooks created that would allow you to activate wallhacks/ESP etc. ONLY while in spectate. Yes that is right a hack specifically made to catch hackers. Drawbacks? of course there were drawbacks, this hook just like any other could be detected by VAC and had to be updated regularly in order to not be. (full disclosure it could also be used to view demos safely w/o worry of VAC detection but demo viewing doesn't really apply to NS2 does it?). It is not as though this is the only tool we used to catch hackers, a solid understanding of hacks and how they work is required. Personally I had a rather large compliment of cheats including an UNLOGGED version of the logged cheat I mentioned in the first paragraph. People are always coming up with new cheats and new methods of using them you may never even know about the possibility of a cheat (little less how to detect/prove its use) unless you see and use it yourself! Yes, this means loading up those hacks yourself in a safe and controlled environment (vs. bots or other admins, non VAC server preferred) and testing.
As I alluded to above one of the groups that was most instrumental in catching hackers were the hackers themselves. By working with a few individuals who made hacks we were able to gain intimate knowledge not only of how hacks worked but perform a sting operation which resulted in the simultaneous banning of a large group of players (to be honest a decent percentage were not competitive players but were banned to prevent them ever joining the leagues that chose to ban them) all at once.
So now where do we fall on this specific case then? If this were TFC I would have recorded a demo and watched it later using tools but that is really not a viable option in NS2 which leaves only live viewing (preferably with 3rd party software recording) with the tools enabled. Now would I go out and download a random wallhack and use it? Nope. Not a chance, not worth the potential VAC ban but if I had a tool I knew was safe, sure, i'd have used that.
3. STREAMING FOR JUSTICE
The offer to stream as proof of innocence is mostly irrelevant from my perspective as an admin. If you were banned then you were banned there is no coming back (We did eventually have "parole" for those who had been banned in some leagues for a long period of time to apply for probation and demonstrate that they wished to return to the community and play legitimately and fairly, this was highly monitored and these players had a tough application process). This is why the burden of proof is so imperative, there must be no wiggle room, as regardless of the legitimacy of your play at any given moment you cheated at some point and therefore your punishment is to be barred from playing.
So. Specifics. If the NS2WC committee decides that they wish to ban a player based on a VAC ban and an admission that the ban resulted from actions that said player did not gain a competitive advantage from that is their business and they are under no obligation to allow him the chance to prove his innocence via streams. A ban serves not only to allow for a fair playing field for other players but also as punishment for the offending player.
4. BUT WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
Nothing really. This is just an example and based on how things were run around where I am from. If this were TFC Eiss would have received no punishment for his actions he would simply have needed a new steam id. It is up to individuals be it NSL, NS2WC or server admins to decide who the burden of proof should be on and what should constitute a ban.
5. SUMMARY
The use and understanding of hacks is was an integral part of the anti-cheat system I was a part of. While the burden of proof we imposed on ourselves was not always popular (ok, almost never popular, someone is always screaming for a ban) as any official one must resist to urge to be influenced by the court of public opinion. The fact that this has become such an issue demonstrates the importance that establishing such proof has for any officials even in the justice system.
I know many parts of this post will not be popular with the zero-tolerance group but I hope it gives you some understanding of a different point of view in that it is also important to strive for fairness when making the decision to prevent someone from playing.
Opinion time! If this decision fell to me as an administrator I would have used whatever resources available to see if Eiss had actually been hacking and gaining advantage from it, failing that he would be under scrutiny in the future. It would not be up to Eiss to prove he did not use to hack for an advantage. Would not ban.
As a player who plays pubs and the occasional PUG who will probably only ever watch a select few games from the NS2WC as VOD later I can say that I would like the quality of those VODs to be as high as possible and without some solid evidence that Eiss did a real big no no I would rather see him and his team in those videos. Pls unban.
This got awful long and I am sure some people will skim it and cherry pick things to argue against so i'll throw in a TL;DR and do my best to respond to people.
TL;DR - As a former anti-cheat admin I always put the burden of proof on myself in order to make the decision to ban someone and at the time the policy required that proof to include evidence that the accused used a cheat in order to gain an advantage over an opposing player/team. Eiss would not have been banned under the system I was a part of and that system used MANY cheat/hacks/tools/hooks in order to be effective and fair.