Fruitcake wrote:The scores don't really matter, the rank doesn't really matter, the games won don't really matter, abuse or legal play doesn't matter.
Changsha alluded to it, in a subtle fashion (as he does so often). It matters little that one can argue from a point of law (whether something is against the rules) or whether an achieved objective is deserved due to way of achieving said objective.
Real cc rank is a matter of respect. In this I do not mean respect from those who know no better, but respect from those who do. To be Conqueror can mean that any one viewing the leaderboard says to themselves, "that player must be very very good indeed". The question is, does one obtain personal satisfaction by receiving that approbation from a player who knows no better or is the satisfaction quotient ultimately improved when this accolade is made by those players who are also proven top performers. I would always go for the latter but that is a personal choice. Furthermore, to surround oneself with acolytes and sycophants who will applaud every action, every achievement and every win (in the case of cc), will also, ultimately, bring no real satisfaction (this is as true in real life as it is here).
There will always be those who view any Conqueror with a measure of distrust as to how it was achieved. However, the real greats tend not to receive censure due to the simple fact that those who do perceive their achievement in this way cannot find anything to censure them with in any real combative manner.
We have had numerous Conquerors over the years, but I can count on two hands those who the community have really tipped their hats to and it is those who I remember with respect. As for the others, I just mark them down as another also ran who hadn't really got the talent to achieve so twisted the unsaid rules do so. For themselves, if they could but see it, in doing so they sowed the seeds of their own undoing.
If one looks superfically at xiangwang's record he certainly seems to be one of the standard players cc has ever seen. Yet we see so many of his games have been with kiron (his greatest offence), he plays on non-standard maps, he plays freestyle, he prefers fog against the unwary and you add all that together and you actually have a player who may shout about his 50+% win rate but actually, really, one is far from sure that he is actually all that good.
I was amused by his comment earlier that a 42% win rate at 8 man dubs is not that great. In fact he pointed to a 70% win rate as being where the 'top players are'. Well, find me a player who has played 8 man dubs on basic maps and standard settings with a 70% win rate and I will applaud them. He seems to see the win rate as key, but ignores the basis of which that win rate was achieved. Respect is gained from playing your equals as much as possible on fair settings and beating them square. Every game that has involved dubious tactics, or the smell of farming is a lasting stain upon one's record.
This can be very clearly seen by the public reaction to these two. As a group we are pulling their records apart; game after game is looked at and while each one is individually hard to prove as an abuse, collectively they present an overwhelming picture of players who have chosen the opposite of my suggested route to respect.
I can accept farmers at the top of the scoreboard because to an extent all players much above 3500 are going to have get into relatively dubious practices to continue to increase. The most successful farmers (rabbiton, herpes) are simply the extreme end of a common practice that affects most of the upper ranks of the site to varying degrees. But what we have here is blatant CHEATING (which is different to farming). I consider all of xiangwang's games with kiron to be obvious examples of cheating - and am confident that with further examination by those more qualified than I my assertion will prove to be true - and cheats have absolutely no place at the top of the scoreboard.
As a standard player myself, I know just what they were thinking when they made the gaming decisions that they did. I also noticed that freestyle would give me an advantage...yet I continued to play sequentially. It was very obvious that I could add in one or two of my real-life friends into games and control an 8 man standard with ease...but I chose not to. It was clear that I could master a complex map maybe add in fog and bemuse those hapless enough to find themselves playing me. But I didn't. Kiron and xiangwang on the other hand encountered the same questions but took a very different path. Their win rates and scores may be much higher than mine but you know in a year or two I will still be here, my record will remain clean, while they will be gone and their records, if remembered at all, will have the lasting taint of cheating.
