Sometimes, Accusations Are Enough
Feb 14, 2018 9:48:21 GMT -5
The Sandmen and xx - The King's Poison like this
Post by The Sandmen on Feb 14, 2018 9:48:21 GMT -5
Fancy Intro: Cause Every Good Essay Has One of These
As we have seen with the rise of the #MeToo movement, and the fall of many public figures (justified or otherwise), an accusation has a great deal of power. In an ideal world, an accusation is brought about with proof, and the accused is given the opportunity and the means to defend themselves. But this is not the always the case in the current “react-now” social climate, and even moreso here in our tiny world of ManMMA.
Since it is in human nature to blame others for one’s own failings, people here like to blame the simmer, or the program, for their shortcomings. They tell the simmer and the program who SHOULD win or who SHOULD HAVE won. And as much as we like to think we know what SHOULD happen, not a single person here knows what SHOULD happen in any given fight. If we did, the fight would be pointless and boring. And so, we sim, and we get results.
This being said, there are still many times where people feel the need to accuse me of cheating (either for their loss or my benefit). Which brings me to the purpose of this whole post. You have to understand that these accusations are unacceptable here, and if I sound like a North Korean Chairman, read forward – this all makes sense.
Part 1: Does Sandmen Cheat, Re-Sim, or “Vince McMahon” Fight Results?
Firstly…Regardless of what I write here, if you legitimately think I cheat or that the site is somehow rigged, no truth or logic will change your mind. If that is the case, I invite you to resign now, since there is no point wasting your time on a site you feel is broken and corrupt.
Let’s start with this question. Why? What in the hell would The Sandmen gain by cheating at an online game (that he created) to win sometimes. Do you guys feel good about yourselves if you win via cheating? It takes the fun and fulfillment out of a real, legit ManMMA title/Grand Prix win. The satisfaction is you earned that shit. Nothing is given here, it is earned.
I have outlined this for several of you privately, I will write it now, publicly, so I never have to deal with it again.
When I created ManMMA, I only did so because I wanted to be a part of an MMA sim site and I could not find one. I had no interest in running one, per se. I just loved MMA and wanted an MMA community like what we had on our hockey sites. Since there was not one, I had to make my own.
When that decision was made, I had been a part of about 10 hockey sim sites, and had run several along with The Rocketmen . We were not new to being staff or members of a site, so we knew very clearly what it took to run a successful or shitty site. The absolute number 1 rule I made for the site was that under no circumstances, would anything shady happen. I was running a site for others, and if there was any shadow of doubt with anything, I would work against my own personal best interests for the good of the site.
And that has been the case since day 1. When the site was created, I made my own fighters slightly worse than other peoples (logic being I would be here even if I lost, but other people might leave if they lost too much and having members here was more important to me than winning). But since I was new with the program, I did not know that meant nothing, and in some cases, my below-average fighters were still exceedingly successful (see Gina Carano or Kimbo Slice).
Further to this point, if I exclude times the program crashed, In the history of this site, I have only ever re-simmed a fight one time, a few years ago. I don’t remember the specifics, but we had a huge, hyped Zenith fight for a championship. We were all kinda pumped about it. And my fighter won, via flash KO, in about 40 seconds. And it sucked. So I said, “fuck it, I want to see my epic Zenith fight”. Re-simmed it (which is a pain in the ass), and we got our epic Zenith fight. I think it was fight of the night. And my fighter lost a championship they would have otherwise still held.
Even though that was, for what I felt at the time, was the greater good, it still did not sit right with me and I have never, and would never, do it again.
Over the past 6 years, I have finely tuned an upgrading and sim routine that ensures I only ever see or have access to exactly, and only, what I need to in order to upgrade your fighters, or, when asked, help you upgrade your fighters. I do not sit at my computer and make notes about your fighters, nor do I photo-memory your stats to give myself some sort of strange advantage.
Part 2: Does Sandman Use Matchmaking As Punishment or as a Way to Hurt Members?
I actually laughed out loud the first time I read this accusation a while back. No one has any way of actually knowing this, but the absolutely robotic, systematic, assembly-line-esque way I go about matchmaking not only leaves no room for this type of thought process, but it also means if I were to try to do something like that, it would fuck up the whole match-making process for 1-3 cards after.
Matches are made the exact same way every card (pending extenuating circumstances like special challenges, new member joins, etc). First, I make the title fights. Those have been pre-established by tournament wins (a measure I put in place so I was no longer responsible for choosing #1 contenders). Then tournament fights are created, based on 4 criteria: Ranked fighters, Season Fight totals, Win Streak, and Last fight. If your fighter is, or is not, in a tournament, feel free to ask me why. I’m a fucking robot, man. Everything I do has a crystal clear, boring, robotic reason that I will happily share with you. Most often, though, I try to make tournaments competitive. So I will rarely put an unranked 12-30 fighter on a 3 fight win streak against fighters ranked, 2, 3, and 5, with 50-22 records. That sort of thing.
Part 3: If You Don’t Cheat, What’s the Harm in Accusing you? Why Do you Care?
1) It’s insulting to youself, since you look like a fool making accusations with a bucket full of sore-loser-ness, and a case devoid of proof
2) It’s insulting to me, who has spent, without exaggeration, well over 1000 hours of my life on this site over the past 6 real-life years.
3) It’s insulting to other members. As Ferocity pointed out a while back, which had a big affect on me here, when you accuse the site of cheating, you are accusing every member here who has invested their time and interest into the site of being stupid, gullible, and of wasting their time as well.
4) It can affect membership. When people sign up to a site, they are deciding if they want to invest the time in the site or not. If the site has some butt-hurt jackass spewing crap about how the site is rigged, or the simmer cheats everywhere, we lose potential members.
5) It diminishes someone’s accomplishments. Accomplishments here are a big deal – you really do have to earn your GP or your title wins. Some people have 2 title wins in 6 years, for example. If they win a belt after years of trying, and some jackass starts posting that their title win was rigged, or someone cheated to give it to them, it takes ALL the fun away.
And I’m at a point now, 6 years into ManMMA, where I won’t put up with this type of crap anymore. 0 tolerance, and possible site-removals. Laying the hammer (or the smack) down, depending on your level of WWE familiarity I guess.
But lastly, this.
There is not a single thing I can ever do to prove any of this to any of you. Your accusation hurts my site, and there is nothing I can ever do to restore that, once your accusation as been made. If you have undermined peoples’ confidence in the site’s integrity, I cannot restore that. If you have made a new member leave because they think the site is broken, I cannot bring them back.
That said, if you can think of something I can do to prove any aspect of this site’s integrity to you, let me know, and I will gladly do it. As I have said from day 1, I have absolutely nothing to hide here, and would even love to show you guys how much care is put into the site’s integrity.
Part 4: If you Have Nothing to Hide, Why Can’t We See Our Fighters Attributes?
Glad you asked. Your fighter builds are the only thing that means that I can say with 100% certainty that no one can possibly cheat on the site. If attributes were public, anyone could download the program, create the fighters, sim fights, and tinker with their fighters to make them near-unbeatable. As “OMG YOU ARE PARANOID” as this sounds, when I was creating the site, literally exactly this process was outlined to me by a member who claimed he was going to do exactly that. And he tried. And he failed. Because every fighter on this site is created and customized by me, and me alone, and therefore is not clone-able.
Part 5: I Think You Cheated Because of This or That. What Can I do About That?
First and foremost, don’t post a rage-a-thon about how everyone is out to get you, and how Sandmen has cheated since the dawn of time. That just brings the site down, and will get you nowhere but removed from ManMMA.
Contact me privately. Privately, you can express your concerns however the hell you want. Call me or the site every name in the book. I really don’t care, since you are not hurting ManMMA at that point. But, ideally, be civil, and if you have concerns or reasons you legit feel cheating is taking place, message me. If you live in Canada, I will even be willing to arrange a phone call with you to get things cleared up.
So now you have reached the end of what has become the longest ManMMA essay Justin has ever written. And your reward? Wasted time, most likely, since I believe the majority of you already know everything written here anyways. But, alas, if you need actual rewards, PM me. I will shoot you a quiz on this enormous essay. If you pass (without copy and pasting) you can have a point or two. I haven’t decided yet.
Part 6: And Most Importantly
Thank you to each and every one of you for your presence here. Whether you are 12 (Austin) or 52 (Kruze), whether you are an MMA historian (Justin
) or a completel MMA noob (Austin), and whether you have been here for 6 years (Bullies, Knockouts) or a few days (Austin), you are all loved.
Thanks again, and get those Grand Prix lists in, pricks.
*Yoel Romero Kisses*
As we have seen with the rise of the #MeToo movement, and the fall of many public figures (justified or otherwise), an accusation has a great deal of power. In an ideal world, an accusation is brought about with proof, and the accused is given the opportunity and the means to defend themselves. But this is not the always the case in the current “react-now” social climate, and even moreso here in our tiny world of ManMMA.
Since it is in human nature to blame others for one’s own failings, people here like to blame the simmer, or the program, for their shortcomings. They tell the simmer and the program who SHOULD win or who SHOULD HAVE won. And as much as we like to think we know what SHOULD happen, not a single person here knows what SHOULD happen in any given fight. If we did, the fight would be pointless and boring. And so, we sim, and we get results.
This being said, there are still many times where people feel the need to accuse me of cheating (either for their loss or my benefit). Which brings me to the purpose of this whole post. You have to understand that these accusations are unacceptable here, and if I sound like a North Korean Chairman, read forward – this all makes sense.
Part 1: Does Sandmen Cheat, Re-Sim, or “Vince McMahon” Fight Results?
Firstly…Regardless of what I write here, if you legitimately think I cheat or that the site is somehow rigged, no truth or logic will change your mind. If that is the case, I invite you to resign now, since there is no point wasting your time on a site you feel is broken and corrupt.
Let’s start with this question. Why? What in the hell would The Sandmen gain by cheating at an online game (that he created) to win sometimes. Do you guys feel good about yourselves if you win via cheating? It takes the fun and fulfillment out of a real, legit ManMMA title/Grand Prix win. The satisfaction is you earned that shit. Nothing is given here, it is earned.
I have outlined this for several of you privately, I will write it now, publicly, so I never have to deal with it again.
When I created ManMMA, I only did so because I wanted to be a part of an MMA sim site and I could not find one. I had no interest in running one, per se. I just loved MMA and wanted an MMA community like what we had on our hockey sites. Since there was not one, I had to make my own.
When that decision was made, I had been a part of about 10 hockey sim sites, and had run several along with The Rocketmen . We were not new to being staff or members of a site, so we knew very clearly what it took to run a successful or shitty site. The absolute number 1 rule I made for the site was that under no circumstances, would anything shady happen. I was running a site for others, and if there was any shadow of doubt with anything, I would work against my own personal best interests for the good of the site.
And that has been the case since day 1. When the site was created, I made my own fighters slightly worse than other peoples (logic being I would be here even if I lost, but other people might leave if they lost too much and having members here was more important to me than winning). But since I was new with the program, I did not know that meant nothing, and in some cases, my below-average fighters were still exceedingly successful (see Gina Carano or Kimbo Slice).
Further to this point, if I exclude times the program crashed, In the history of this site, I have only ever re-simmed a fight one time, a few years ago. I don’t remember the specifics, but we had a huge, hyped Zenith fight for a championship. We were all kinda pumped about it. And my fighter won, via flash KO, in about 40 seconds. And it sucked. So I said, “fuck it, I want to see my epic Zenith fight”. Re-simmed it (which is a pain in the ass), and we got our epic Zenith fight. I think it was fight of the night. And my fighter lost a championship they would have otherwise still held.
Even though that was, for what I felt at the time, was the greater good, it still did not sit right with me and I have never, and would never, do it again.
Over the past 6 years, I have finely tuned an upgrading and sim routine that ensures I only ever see or have access to exactly, and only, what I need to in order to upgrade your fighters, or, when asked, help you upgrade your fighters. I do not sit at my computer and make notes about your fighters, nor do I photo-memory your stats to give myself some sort of strange advantage.
Part 2: Does Sandman Use Matchmaking As Punishment or as a Way to Hurt Members?
I actually laughed out loud the first time I read this accusation a while back. No one has any way of actually knowing this, but the absolutely robotic, systematic, assembly-line-esque way I go about matchmaking not only leaves no room for this type of thought process, but it also means if I were to try to do something like that, it would fuck up the whole match-making process for 1-3 cards after.
Matches are made the exact same way every card (pending extenuating circumstances like special challenges, new member joins, etc). First, I make the title fights. Those have been pre-established by tournament wins (a measure I put in place so I was no longer responsible for choosing #1 contenders). Then tournament fights are created, based on 4 criteria: Ranked fighters, Season Fight totals, Win Streak, and Last fight. If your fighter is, or is not, in a tournament, feel free to ask me why. I’m a fucking robot, man. Everything I do has a crystal clear, boring, robotic reason that I will happily share with you. Most often, though, I try to make tournaments competitive. So I will rarely put an unranked 12-30 fighter on a 3 fight win streak against fighters ranked, 2, 3, and 5, with 50-22 records. That sort of thing.
Part 3: If You Don’t Cheat, What’s the Harm in Accusing you? Why Do you Care?
1) It’s insulting to youself, since you look like a fool making accusations with a bucket full of sore-loser-ness, and a case devoid of proof
2) It’s insulting to me, who has spent, without exaggeration, well over 1000 hours of my life on this site over the past 6 real-life years.
3) It’s insulting to other members. As Ferocity pointed out a while back, which had a big affect on me here, when you accuse the site of cheating, you are accusing every member here who has invested their time and interest into the site of being stupid, gullible, and of wasting their time as well.
4) It can affect membership. When people sign up to a site, they are deciding if they want to invest the time in the site or not. If the site has some butt-hurt jackass spewing crap about how the site is rigged, or the simmer cheats everywhere, we lose potential members.
5) It diminishes someone’s accomplishments. Accomplishments here are a big deal – you really do have to earn your GP or your title wins. Some people have 2 title wins in 6 years, for example. If they win a belt after years of trying, and some jackass starts posting that their title win was rigged, or someone cheated to give it to them, it takes ALL the fun away.
And I’m at a point now, 6 years into ManMMA, where I won’t put up with this type of crap anymore. 0 tolerance, and possible site-removals. Laying the hammer (or the smack) down, depending on your level of WWE familiarity I guess.
But lastly, this.
There is not a single thing I can ever do to prove any of this to any of you. Your accusation hurts my site, and there is nothing I can ever do to restore that, once your accusation as been made. If you have undermined peoples’ confidence in the site’s integrity, I cannot restore that. If you have made a new member leave because they think the site is broken, I cannot bring them back.
That said, if you can think of something I can do to prove any aspect of this site’s integrity to you, let me know, and I will gladly do it. As I have said from day 1, I have absolutely nothing to hide here, and would even love to show you guys how much care is put into the site’s integrity.
Part 4: If you Have Nothing to Hide, Why Can’t We See Our Fighters Attributes?
Glad you asked. Your fighter builds are the only thing that means that I can say with 100% certainty that no one can possibly cheat on the site. If attributes were public, anyone could download the program, create the fighters, sim fights, and tinker with their fighters to make them near-unbeatable. As “OMG YOU ARE PARANOID” as this sounds, when I was creating the site, literally exactly this process was outlined to me by a member who claimed he was going to do exactly that. And he tried. And he failed. Because every fighter on this site is created and customized by me, and me alone, and therefore is not clone-able.
Part 5: I Think You Cheated Because of This or That. What Can I do About That?
First and foremost, don’t post a rage-a-thon about how everyone is out to get you, and how Sandmen has cheated since the dawn of time. That just brings the site down, and will get you nowhere but removed from ManMMA.
Contact me privately. Privately, you can express your concerns however the hell you want. Call me or the site every name in the book. I really don’t care, since you are not hurting ManMMA at that point. But, ideally, be civil, and if you have concerns or reasons you legit feel cheating is taking place, message me. If you live in Canada, I will even be willing to arrange a phone call with you to get things cleared up.
So now you have reached the end of what has become the longest ManMMA essay Justin has ever written. And your reward? Wasted time, most likely, since I believe the majority of you already know everything written here anyways. But, alas, if you need actual rewards, PM me. I will shoot you a quiz on this enormous essay. If you pass (without copy and pasting) you can have a point or two. I haven’t decided yet.
Part 6: And Most Importantly
Thank you to each and every one of you for your presence here. Whether you are 12 (Austin) or 52 (Kruze), whether you are an MMA historian (Justin
) or a completel MMA noob (Austin), and whether you have been here for 6 years (Bullies, Knockouts) or a few days (Austin), you are all loved. Thanks again, and get those Grand Prix lists in, pricks.
*Yoel Romero Kisses*
Have 9 points in celebration of this monumental achievement!