Phil

In our neverending quest to bring C&C:Online to an ever greater userbase and to make it more accessible for players of other countries other than our own, I'm please to announce that the C&C:Online website now has proper internationalization support, meaning we can make every part of it multilingual

 

 

We currently have the following languages:

• English (no surprise here)
• German
• Spanish
• Croatian
• Polish
• Brazilian Portuguese
• Chinese (simplified)

 

Special thanks go out to our very talented and motivated translators!

We are always looking to expand the list of languages we can support. If you wish to participate in this collective translation effort, please refer to the Translators Wanted topic.

This is our final response to Green_ZERO and the situation that has developed around him.
After this, we will cease all correspondence about Green_ZERO's ban, because there is nothing left to be said.
Future threads on the subject will be deleted, and further inquiries will be redirected to the post below.
In this post, we will be addressing the following items:

• C&C:Online rules broken by Green_ZERO, why these rules make sense and will continue to exist, and why Green_ZERO will not be unbanned.
• A complete history of the situation.
• A rebuttal of Green_ZERO's claims made against us.

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RULES

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Green_ZERO broke rules on both GameReplays.org and Revora over the course of years. His lifetime server ban, however, is based solely on his behaviour in the actual server environment, C&C:Online, not on his problematic behaviour on our forums or in the past, during GameSpy times. In the following sections we will explain why we had to come to this conclusion and why it will not be reversed.

Green_ZERO broke the following rules on our server:

• Purposely disrupting events officially authorised by C&C:Online. Severely disrupting server events can eventually lead to a temporary suspension. Green_ZERO broke this rule and was temporarily suspended several times.
• Circumventing account suspensions. Admins reserve the right to suspend your account, temporarily or otherwise, after an internal discussion. If this happens to you and you disagree with the decision made, you may contest it on GameReplays. However, circumventing the suspension is considered a bannable offence and will increase your suspension significantly. Why does this rule exist? Because to run a server like this, you need to be able to remove toxic presences when necessary. Green_ZERO broke this rule several times, and this is the direct cause of his lifetime ban. However, other circumstances concerning his previous behaviour have also played a role in the decision.
• Creating duplicate accounts. In order to reduce administrative work and to have some semblance of overview on our thousands of users, we only allow one account per person. Should be enough now that C&C:Online players are able to manage their nicknames (as well as set them to private) through our website. Green_ZERO has broken this rule about 2,000 (two-thousand) times.

This is our server and we provide it for free and keep it running by investing our own time and money. We provide daily support and everything else for free (completely, no costs for players, nothing!) since the beginning of C&C:Online and allow thousands of players to enjoy the games after the official servers were shut down. We do not get paid, we do not make a profit, everything is 100% voluntary. We are free to decide how we want to run our server, and we believe we've done in a very fair way. The only person that is permanently banned on C&C:Online is Green_ZERO - literally nobody else has ever received this extreme sort of penalty - because Green_ZERO has earned it for being by far the most toxic and aggravating presence we've ever had to deal with in our 12 years of existing as a community.


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HISTORY

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Green_ZERO was a Kane's Wrath commentator at GameReplays, respected by staff and players alike both for his videos and his playing skills. In late March and early April 2013, Green_ZERO was working on video coverage of the top 10 replays of 2012. The article related to this was published prematurely by JCDoo7, the KW administrator at the time, without waiting for Green_ZERO to finish the video and embed it. Green_ZERO got angry and started abusing GameReplays staff (see below), for which he was kicked from the staff. He then attacked JCDoo7 on several occasions and had trouble with the moderators as well. After ToxicShock took over the TW/KW administration, he as well became victim after sanctioning Green_ZERO's outbursts.



In the autumn of 2013, CGF123, another KW player and modder, was in the process of making 1.02+ the official patch for GameReplays events, and there were serious internal discussions with him about this. However, this meant the patch needed to be finalised, as each version is incompatible with the previous in online play, and old replays are rendered useless. CGF suddenly decided to make a version of Release 6 (better known as R6) where all maps were set to appear in the ranked menu, just a day or two after a 1.02+ tournament was hosted and its replays were uploaded. This meant people were again incompatible with each other. This was deemed unacceptable by GameReplays staff, and CGF was briefly suspended from posting as a warning (and for other, entirely unrelated incidents relating to his conduct on the forums), as complete community approval needed to be achieved in order to accept such a thing, not to mention how this was an unannounced and direct violation of the aforementioned negotiation between GameReplays and CGF. The disputed 1.02+ build was removed from public view and replaced with the "old" one soon thereafter on the forums. Green_ZERO took the chance to flame and lie about like never before in a video and hosted the controversially changed 1.02+ build just to spite (as there was no other possible excuse for doing so given the reason for which they were originally blocked). His hidden posts that he showed on screen were not entire. At the bottom of his posts, and sometimes in a separate subsequent post, he'd write djw2104 ( moderation administrator) off with petty flames.



He formed a new site on iClanWebsites, called Kane's Wrath Online, or KWO for short. There, he organised several tournaments he himself admitted were made to spite GameReplays, the first of which was the Kane's Wrath World Championship in April 2014, hosted on 1.02+ (which GameReplays tended to avoid at the time because of the controversy it caused), which attracted much attention which he used to defame GameReplays since. When GameReplays had their own tournaments, Green_ZERO would spam the lobby with flames and links to his site. GameReplays administration deems this site and its operation to be hostile, and all links to it are hidden or altered. The tournaments held there were never recognised as valid by GameReplays, either. Green_ZERO was disqualified from GameReplays events (Ladder Wars included) for deliberately interrupting GameReplays events, spreading lies, and defamation. His GameReplays forum account was also first placed on moderation review (each post he made had to be approved by a moderator before it went public), and then permanently banned after his behaviour did not change.



GameSpy shutdown and the beginning of C&C:Online
GameSpy servers shut down on 17 July 2014, but C&C:Online had already been opened on 30 June. Much of the Kane's Wrath community migrated there (including Green_ZERO), making C&C:Online the de facto successor of the GameSpy service. Both his Revora and C&C:Online account were without sanctions. He tried to create negative sentiment towards GameReplays staff on the Revora forums and in a message to myself, the C&C:Online lead developer and Revora admin (see attachment below), in an attempt to advertise another tournament hosted by KWO (a tournament for which he had been given permission to use the server). Revora staff was presented with evidence of Green_ZERO’s past bad behaviour, and his attempts to set Revora and GameReplays against each other were foiled. Shortly thereafter, he was banned from the Revora forums for breaking flaming rules. However, he was not banned from the server because the forums and the server are moderated separately.




Since the earliest GameReplays-hosted tournaments on the new server, he started interfering with them by spamming the lobby with banter and links to KWO, which deterred from the tournaments' organisation, and even attempted joining rooms (see example screenshots below) to either prevent them from starting or to play himself. However, the C&C:Online staff decided not to punish him for this, because they considered the offences not bad enough to warrant action.



However, in late October 2014, he was temporarily suspended from the server during the course of a GameReplays-hosted event to prevent him from interfering with the event and insulting the staff that were hosting it. He successively circumvented that suspension by using the accounts of other players and continued to interfere with events. On 24 November 2014, he was suspended from C&C:Online for so doing. His reaction was to the effect that he would defy the suspension.



He duly circumvented that suspension by making duplicate accounts and using the accounts of other players. On 25 January 2015, he did that during a GameReplays.org hosted event and, again, disrupted the event. His account was again suspended, this time for 15 days. He continued to create duplicate accounts to circumvent that suspension. That lead to a final warning publicly (and in a private message) by me, to which he did not adhere. Judging from this video, it was clear that he was fully aware of the warning and chose to ignore it (his politeness about it has yet to be seen). (For supporting evidence, see Option 3 and 4 under the Rebuttal Section, below.) Then, he was given a permanent ban on the server, and all duplicate accounts he has made since are treated the same.

By now, the number of his duplicate accounts has well exceeded 2,000. These numbers have put a strain on our player database and Shatabrick, and even worse, are binding our resources.

In addition, he repeatedly logged into other people's accounts (Granola17, trouble055, DuneTiger, Wookibert a.k.a. BootyWarrior...) to attempt to play on tournaments. He falsely convinced these players that they would not get caught, even though C&C:Online staff has the ability to verify whether any player on the server is having someone else playing under their account, so they gave him their credentials. (See one of many examples below.) He bragged about winning a tournament played on the Renegade Wars mod map (which was done under DuneTiger's account). To this day, he has been observed to play with the same people over and over with his duplicate accounts.



Through all this time, neither GameReplays nor Revora defended themselves publicly, deeming it unnecessary, but this resulted in mixed sentiments towards the issue. Green_ZERO exploited this and twisted the truth repeatedly on his YouTube channel. We now believe that our collective failure to publicly defend ourselves was a mistake which this thread is meant to address.


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REBUTTAL

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Below we will quote and refute Green_ZERO’s recent claims made against us.

The fact that I have repeatedly and genuinely tried to resolve this situation despite myself not requiring a resolution is proof in itself that I want to see this current scenario end.

Green_ZERO has never tried to genuinely resolve the situation. He was warned several times, contacted several times, but has ignored our words at every turn. A list of options given to him can be found further down in this post.

 

At no point in time has any Revora admin ever reached out to contact me or discuss the situation

Leaving the final warning he received by me aside, Pasidon contacted Phoenix to arrange a conversation with Green_ZERO about the situation. For the full conversation, see the link to the file at the bottom of this post entitled "Phoenix PM Pasidon".

 

If Revora are claiming I stated that I do not wish to be unbanned, then it is their responsibility to prove it, not mine to disprove.

Over the period of the suspension, GZ was given several options to end it.

- Option 1: July 2014. GZ was told that his suspension from GameReplays-hosted events would be lifted if he apologised for his previous disruptions. He refused and instead attempted to resort to blackmail.



- Option 2: October 2014. GZ was told that if he requested access to GameReplays events in advance of the event and showed good behaviour, his request would be seriously considered.



- Option 3: November 2014. GZ didn't follow up on the above options, circumvented the suspension again, and abused other people's accounts. For this, he was given a 7-day suspension, and was told that circumventing it would result in severe consequences. It should be noted that, during that time, he made no real attempt to have his ban on attending events lifted. On 25 January 2015, he again used the account of another player to circumvent his suspension during GameReplays-hosted events and played in the event. He was suspended for 15 days and told that an attempt to circumvent that suspension was likely to result in a permanent ban. He defied and circumvented that suspension.



- Option 4: My last warning: https://forums.revor...o-last-warning/, which he also ignored.



- Option 5: Pasidon, a Revora admin, approached Green_ZERO recently in an attempt to discuss his ban. The result of this conversation can be seen in these screenshots.

Initial Confrontation (full conversation at the bottom of the page, file titled "Zero w Pasidon"):


Group Conversation (full conversation at the bottom of the page, file titled "Zero Group Chat"):








Green_ZERO has failed to make use of any of these options. We can only conclude that he doesn't want to be unbanned. If he did, he would've changed his behaviour a long time ago. Based on the experience above, we have come to the conclusion that Green_ZERO wants us to make an exception for him, not based on his good behaviour or his working with us, but because he thinks he’s important, capable of attacking us and threatening us. We do not consider these valid reasons to make an exception.
 

Advising that Green_ZERO is the aggressor is one of dumbest points I have seen so far, yeah because I totally banned myself, that's basically what the admins are saying.

Green_ZERO was banned as a result of his aggression, not the other way around. Aggression from his side can be seen in every video in which GameReplays or C&C:Online are mentioned. This video shows best how he actively tries to defame GameReplays and sabotage C&C:Online. He is in fact responsible for banning himself, because he failed to listen to our repeated warnings and chose to ignore the options he was given.

 

ToxicShock has been attempted to ban me for years, well before Revora ever came into the picture, this is common knowledge.

The previous refutation proves that even after ToxicShock was given the authority to moderate C&C:Online, he tried to work with Green_ZERO (despite the personal attacks made by Green_ZERO) rather than trying to convince us to permanently ban him from the first offence. In the end, the decision to permanently ban Green_ZERO was not made by ToxicShock - it was me, the C&C:Online lead developer, who decided that enough was enough. Also, stating that something is ‘common knowledge’ is a very easy way to get out of providing evidence for claims made.

 

Banning’s, suspensions, over moderation, degradations of events, malicious conduct on competing events, abuse towards modders and mapmakers, not to mention the players. ToxicShock has done it all

ToxicShock was a long-time GameReplays fair play specialist before he was appointed as administrator. It was his job to moderate the game's player base as per the moderation authorisation given exclusively to GameReplays by Electronic Arts themselves for all Command & Conquer games hosted on GameSpy at the time.

We have never seen any proof whatsoever of ToxicShock "over-moderating", degrading events or exhibiting malicious conduct towards anyone. Even in his private correspondence with Green_ZERO, he has always been neutral and respectful, as can be seen in the screenshots we've posted above - and the same does not go for Green_ZERO himself. Based on this, the behaviour exhibited by Green_ZERO while disrupting GameReplays events (see the screenshots above), and Green_ZERO's banning of dissenting voices on his YouTube channel, we can only conclude that the above claim is him projecting his own behaviour onto ToxicShock, and, above all, intentionally telling lies in order to defame one of our admins.

As for his claim on "abuse towards modders and mapmakers", this is a lie based on the patch 1.02+ situation that has been explained in the history section above.

 

Actions speak louder than words and what does the community see me doing in comparison to Revora, ToxicShock and the other admins?

The community sees Green_ZERO making YouTube videos in which he slanders us, they see him convincing others to use their accounts in events even though he knows it will get them banned (see copy of correspondence between Granola17 and Green_ZERO before a tournament below). What they don't see him do is make thousands of accounts to bog down our resources and privately refuse to work with us (see Pasidon's conversations).
They see us keeping him banned for reasons we may not have communicated publicly enough in the past (which this post aims to correct), while spending our time and money on providing them with C&C:Online, the only way they play their games in their native online multiplayer environments, complete with tournaments, statistics and competitive ladders.



 

Once you view this from the community’s perspective you will see that I do nothing but good for the community and while Revora and GameReplays also do some good, the majority of the time you are fisting the community under the table.

Without Revora, the community would be scattered on services like GameRanger, Tunngle, or Evolve, none of which offer support, statistics or competitive ladders. Without GameReplays, the community would be without the central hub that organises and/or publicises the vast majority of competitive events. Without ToxicShock, we would not be able to run this service at all, because he's helped us with everything from hosting competitive ladders to tirelessly offer people support and give them back their old GameSpy nicknames, and there would be neither statistics nor ladders for any of the supported games, because he programmed the necessary parts of the server.

Without Green_ZERO, there wouldn't be a relatively small group of people that he's lied to for years and that are now mad at us, because they are not aware of the actual reasons of his ban and the fact that he has deliberately failed to work with us to get himself unbanned.

Green_ZERO very liberally uses the word "community" to support his claims. From what we can tell, "the community" refers to a handful of experienced players Green_ZERO likes to play with, and the people that comment on his YouTube videos (most of which don't even play the game online). This is not our definition of the community. {Thousands} of people enjoy our services and find no problem with the way we run this operation, as they follow our very basic rules.
 

The morale of the story, stop banning and abusing people in my name, take responsibility for your own actions. I didn't start this situation, but I have too much integrity to accept a lie as the resolution.

We temporarily suspend people that consciously give their account to a permanently banned individual to help him break more rules. We take full responsibility for everything we do, because we've done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide. As we've shown above, it was indeed Green_ZERO who started (and to this day conitnues) "this situation".


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CONCLUSION

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Green_ZERO was given a clean slate on our C&C:Online server, broke rules that were clearly communicated to him and refused all of our attempts to come to a resolution. The only way he wishes to "resolve" the issue of his lifetime ban is by claiming the ban to be unjust (which it factually isn't) and by us removing it immediately. We will not make such an exception, because it undermines the authority of our own rules and because his behavior has not in any way warranted this. As you can tell from the screenshots that we have provided, Green_ZERO has been highly aggressive and insulting in his correspondence both concerning us in his videos and in his private communications with us.

Green_ZERO believes he deserves an exception based on the fact that he is who he is (not because of any good behavior), writes his responses and his videos in a way that suggests he believes he's above the rules, and actively takes advantage of the people around him. He is someone who is unable to look past his own ego and acknowledge the fact he's made mistakes, and who, despite multiple attempts from our side (and our side alone) simply cannot be reasoned with. A classic case of narcissistic personality disorder, really. As such, the verdict remains the same: Green_ZERO is permanently unwelcome on C&C:Online, and, as a sidenote, we suggest that the group of people that believe he should be unbanned stop following a proven liar and manipulator.