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manike

INCEPTIONDESIGNS.COM
Jul 9, 2001
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Pete Lets try and keep personal attacks out of this and have the decent intelligent debate that we are both capable of.

Originally posted by Robbo
How the hell u can paradoxically believe they are clean and the next minute put forward an argument that suggests they cheat is beyond me.
I do believe they are a very clean team in how they conduct themselves but in this case I believe they pushed the rules too far. And once their conduct in relation to the rules goes passed them, and they know it, then it's cheating. Now I could believe it to be a fault of the marker, that is possible, but if a player is knowingly using a gun that fires more than one shot per pull then they are cheating. Can you argue with that? If they are using such a marker on the field and it does that in play then they should stop using it in the same way that players can call themselves out if they believe their gun has gone hot.

Unless the faults of the guns happened with one right at the start of the game and with the other right at the end of the game then the players using it knew what they were doing and if they didn't call themselves out then they were breaking the rules. If they stepped onto the field to play knowingly with a marker in that condition then they were cheating.

Why would a judge deliberately try and check a gun's operation if he wasn't suspect of it's use during a game? If he suspects it and proves it to be so doesn't that mean it is damn probably that is was like that during the game and therefore the rules were broken and the players with said markers were cheating?

In this case the said guns were shooting very fast. I watched them and watched a judge check them before the banning game.

Originally posted by Robbo
Firstly, nobody and I mean nobody can know for sure whether it was intentional or not
Absolutely. Neither of us can be sure. I'm voicing my opinion from what I saw and spoke to people about.

I can not say 110% what happened, and neither can you Pete, we can just base our opinions on what we knowand heard and information we got from speaking to other people.

I spoke to Jack Woods about electronic boards (not the gun's in questions) and he said he has only ever seen two Angel boards that have had problems that could even be close to accounting for the conditions that happened here without having been overly fine tuned for it to occur. The chances of that happening to two guns on one team at one event? I'll let you do the maths.

Originally posted by Robbo
a design weakness that when these guns are 'finely tuned' as you euphemistically put it, it enables the gun to fire, on occasion, at full auto.
Now if this is the case, it may or may not be apparent to the user as one of the guns was only found to be full auto, when the trigger was pulled hard over to the right and fired.
Then such guns shouldn't be so finely tuned, and rules are set up within the Millenium deliberately to make such fine tuning illegal. Are you seriously trying to tell me a player using such a marker wouldn't know it was happening? Are we that naive?

Guns that have been designed for this to happen on purpose are not allowed in the Millennium series, such as the reflex autococker or the tippman RT in runaway mode. Tuning a gun to have this happen is not allowed.

Originally posted by Robbo
And you call yourself a reporter ?
Nope I don't. I report purely for fun and as a hobby. I try to put across what I see and feel for others. I'm not a professional report and do not pretend to be.

I do call myself an Engineer and a damn good one at that. I know what is technically possible with markers and I've even built guns do exactly what happened in this situation to prove how easily it could be done with electronic markers. I know the chances of this happening accidently and I know how easy it is to set up a gun for this to happen such that it was hard for a judge to detect but easy to use on the field. As an engineer setting it up so it only happened when pulled hard over to the side is ideal. I'm not blinded by my want to see a pure and clean team. I'm an open minded engineer looking at the facts as I see them.

If a gun is shooting more than one ball per trigger pull and the operator knows that then under the Millenium rules it's cheating.

Originally posted by Robbo
favouring the least common sense viewpoint of intentional cheating, leastwise that's what your post inferred.
I favour a point of view that is logical understanding the facts of the case and probability of such failures and conditions being accidental, whereas you favour the chance of two guns being accidentally in an illegal state (trigger bounce is illegal under any circumstances) at one tournament, in one game, and on one team...

You think yours is more common sense? hmm... You know what they say about coincidences.

Originally posted by Robbo
Thirdly, the Russian Legion whilst playing in Germany, had a couple of guns pulled off the field and played men short after falling foul of this pre game checking, they knew what was in store with regard to the new regime and yet you try and tell me they ignored this in favour of intentionally setting up their guns to run full auto ?
When you see a player one for oned for playing on do you never see them do it again? I wish! When a player gets caught wiping and is three for oned do you think that player will never do it again? get real!

If the risk is worth the benefits people will keep chancing it and pushing the rules and falling foul of them. That's why it's great to see such high penalties for people cheating via their markers. Due to this I expect a lot more people are considering the legality of their markers. I know many people I spoke to have their guns in a condition that can allow this. Does that make it right or legal? of course not. Now those people have no excuse to know the rules and the situation. I hope they take notice before also being banned from an event.

Originally posted by Robbo
Instead of trying to make a cheap, quasi-sophisticated attack on a team who are models for us all, go after the real cheats of the game or would that be too hard for you ?
Actually you know what that's exactly what I am doing. I am going after the real cheats who are doing things which normally they can get away with. I believe people cheating with their markers for performance benefits wether it is hot guns or FA are getting a serious advantage and therefore ARE the real cheats. I discussed this with many people in Portugal and they all thought that FA on the break of a game and at certain instances would be a huge advantage.

I admire the Russians for their playing ability and I do believe they are a role model there.

Originally posted by Robbo
To this end, we have to look at how they conduct themselves on and off the field to try and gauge whether intentional cheating would be an extension of their existing behaviour.
Has anybody ever seen them cheat in any way, shape or form ?
The answer to that is NO, NO and NO again and yet you and Capnap ignore this, favouring the least common sense viewpoint of intentional cheating, leastwise that's what your post inferred.
I've watched the Russian Legion play many times and from very close quarters, that's one advantage of being on the field with them and I can honestly say I have never seen them cheat in the way they play the game, but I have several times wondered about their guns and how fast they were, but to be blind to the fact that they might or that they did in this case is very close minded and doesn't seem like how a reporter should act does it? Shouldn't a reporter be open minded enough to see what was possible rather than categorically stating that they did not intend to cheat as you did?

Originally posted by Robbo
Did ya ask Sergei what went down ?
Did you examine their guns ?
I would expect the answer to all three to be in the negative
I take it therefore that you did? I would like to hear what Sergei said and what you found when you examined their guns such that you could be so sure they weren't illegally fine tuned...

I actually spoke to one of the techs and the person who has worked on their guns and set them up before. He was very sure to make clear to me the facts that he HAD checked the boards and examined the guns and that there were no extra boards or switches in the guns. He stated that it was simply a case of trigger bounce.

I asked him if a player with a gun that had trigger bounce would know it. He said that yes a player with such a trigger would be aware of it.

I asked him if a gun shooting more than one shot per intentional pull was illegal. He said yes.

I asked if trigger bounce meant the gun fired more times than intentional trigger pulls. He said yes.

That kind of summed it up for me and after discussing it with the tech in question he agreed with me that the players would know their guns were shooting in this manner BEFORE being checked by a judge and that it is very unlikely that the first instance of it happening was just when the judge decided to check the gun :rolleyes:

We can debate this for a long time as we will never know the full facts and ultimately we will only be talking about our opinions, both of us being very strong willed and minded.

I think Matski summed it up perfectly with.

originally posted by matski
Russian Legion are a true sports team, their whole approach to the game has to be admired, they got caught with gun setups that infringe the rules. So what! They took their punishment, played the rest of the tourney with 5 players (who played their god damn asses off!), end of story.
That's it. None of us can state categorically that they did not intend to cheat or that they did. The millenium rules found them guilt of an infringement and punished them. That's the end of it in my book.

I will continue to support them as much as possible and wish them the best in future events.

manike
 

Baca Loco

Ex-Fun Police
Guns, Money & Lawyers

Not really on point but an excellent song.
I don't know anything about Russian Legion one way or the other (except of course for Robbo's endless paeons) and have no interest in trying to judge their motives. Seems to me the only "facts" that are relevant are two markers were found to violate the rules and the appropriate penalty was assessed; RL accepted the penalty and made the best of the situation. Period.

About "cheating"--
Can we please stop this nonsense? While most of us would like to encourage clean play we can not legislate morality or know for a certainty a player's intent. Only thing we can do is structure the game around a set of rules and enforce the rules as fairly and consistently as possible. When there is an infraction, assess the penalty and move on. Otherwise this is an endless debate.

About markers--
No experienced player is unaware of what his marker is doing or is able to do. Unless the game in question was the first one and the player somehow hadn't fired it before walking on the field I find it improbable that the player was completely ignorant of the marker's potential.
About the pull to the right altering the firing capability of the marker this isn't new or unusual or exclusive to Angels as I've seen it on a number of electronic triggers. I've also been told that A) the triggers in question were set up that way on purpose and B) on personal examination of same triggers I'm inclined to believe it's a defect of the switch if there's enough "play" in the trigger.

Robbo, I think perhaps you actually do RL a disservice by putting them on a pedastal. By holding them as an exemplar of how teams ought to conduct themselves you focus a lot of attention on them and while it might influence some up and coming players it's actually unfair to RL and potentially puts you in a difficult spot. It's unfair to them because things happen during a game that can be interpreted in different ways and your accolades set them up to be knocked down and it puts you in the position of feeling like you have to defend them against any and all canards because you plainly have a personal investment in their integrity. You're more or less demanding perfection from RL and no matter their intentions perfection will elude them.

Moo
 

kartmann187

Kick your arse
Jul 9, 2001
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RL

I watch most of there games over the weekend and they rocked. I did not see anything but very good play. Hats of to them they maxed I think all there games once they only had 5 players... made the semi's.......

They are a class team and that is all.. there are no teams out there that at some point in there life have not cheated... If you say that you have not then ... well I think your kidding yourself that you have always played with clean players....
 

canpap

New Member
Mar 7, 2002
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my answer to Robbo

Pete,

I was quite shocked when I have read the second post you have sent and admire your ability to manupulate a subject this good. This is probably why you are a journalist and me not...

Anyway, I do not like alll this personal stuff, you do not know me neither do I so we have nothing in common, hopefully only paintball and I truly believe that we want the same good for our sport.

1- RL is a model team for us more to any other team in the world, since they and our team (Turkish Tigers ref. TT) started at the same period and have the same difficulties. we could not find teams to train neither were they, we were both far away to go Europe every week and etc. Howver, they became a much better team than ourselves (now this IS a common sense) and became very successful, more than that a success story for all newbie paintballers around the world.
I remember some tourneys ago (which one I do not remember) they were asked to remove their goggles since it was rumoured that they have some sort of comminucation and it turned out to be a total bullsh**t and I remember your article in PGI about this and could not agree more. It was total nonsense, they came out clean because they were not cheating.

2- Crime and Punishment: millenium series defined it clear: one pull, one shot at a time... if you break this rule by any means, by deliberately changing your settings or by adjusting your trigger too sensitive you pay your price. So RL did, it was checked by, I do not know, how many marshalls (who are by the way paintball players as well, they know stuff too...) and it became a fact that somehow I repeat somehow, they were full auto in a way. The crime was made, does NOT matter deliberately or not, and immediately punished by losing two players fro the tourney. Now there are some questions to ask:

a- Did RL team captain or any players have objected the punishment to the Millennium comitee (or the ultimate judge in portugal)?? Ýf yes, what was the response from the judges?

b- Did the ultimate judge speak to the WDP tech team? since I do not believe every player is capable of tuning ( by tuning I do not mean cheating so no manupulations please!!) his gun, this might be WDPs problem as well.

3- RL made a mistake, it was a vital one, they paid for what they did, so end of the story. You wonder why I am digging deeper on this incident, here is why;

A- as originally posted.
10- abou the russians, I know they are excellent players but auto guns?? strange... they don't need this, they proved by reaching semis even without two guys.

this means that I have no problems with RL and appreciate their skills... So my intention is NOT to make a cheap attack as you put it, they are our role models more than yours believe it or not...

B- None of our team members are pro or none of us are involved with paintball as a business. We are attending the Millennium series since 1999, we pay 1000 USD per player for the airplane tickets, pay 60-70 Euros for each box of paint and pay 2000 euros for our guns all by ourselves. We fly 4-6 hours to play for two days... We are doing this sport because we like it. We want to become good at it and believe it or not we will be. I do not know one single promoter or anyone from this business and our intention is not, to make RL drop their sponsors and collect them to our team. We know it is not possible, because we are not that good team yet and I know, like I know the ABC, you only get sponsors if you become a good team. That means I have no problems with RL, AGAIN...

C- I am not a reporter or any kind of key figure in paintball, I am just a regular player who loves the sport but I am frustrated!!!

I am frusturated because I cannot understand why no one is asking questions for this incident.

I am frusturated because I do not pay 2000 Euros per each tourney to see someone trying to pull out some sh**t and get away with it. This auto thing may have been a mistake or a deliberate action I do not know, it is the journalists responsibility relieve the truth, my responsibility is to ask and dig because I put my effort to this sport and I want it to grow and I want it clean. now this IS a common sense...

I am frusturated because I was put in a position like I was condemning RL without any knowledge. I did not, repeat did NOT condemn, I only told that RL were penalized fro auto guns and told I was suprised. These are ALL FACTS aren't they? they were penalized and it was because of auto guns according to the marshalls, can you change this reality? NO. Instead, I am asking questions because I do not want any player or team to blamed without any proof.

I am frusturated because I cannot believe that you, as a very important key figure of our sport, take the subject like it is a personal insult and defend it blind. RL may be a morally perfect team, maybe they do not cheat, but I and all other players want to know the truth... It is YOUR responsibility to ask questions to WDP, ultimate judge and RL themselves, what went on and then return to this post or PGI and explain what happened.

Now it is your turn to put your hat in front of you and have some common sense...

The question is;

Can you?