The truth about the Clanbase corruption

Courruption part 1

The match between Sweden and Germany in the Clanbase Nations Cup was supposed to be played between the 20th-26th January, this is the rule stating that:

http://www.clanbase.com/rules.php?lid=703#roster

1. A predefined roster determines which match must be played in which week. Group matches are to be played in the week specified in the roster.

The match was scheduled for 18.00 CET the 25th of January. I had my team, map and server ready a long time before 18.00. When I talk to the Clanbase Nations Cup admin and the German players they said that they wanted to play the match the next week instead and that they have been trying to contact me. However I didnt receive anything from them, no mail, no irc messages nor any messages on any of the community-sites I regular visit.

Germany's head-admin raal, was not even at location before the match. So we discussed this with Clanbase and Germany's other admin. The match was ruled to be played, agreed and decided by both Talita (Clanbase head-admin and founder) and Chriz (Clanbase Nations Cup head-admin).

Everything was set to start, Sweden had a team, Germany had a team, we had decided on maps and servers, and the match was (once again) decided to be played. The minute before we are to start raal enters and tells all players to leave the server and forfeit the game. Ok we thought, boring cause we really wanted to play this match.

Rule that covers this behaviour:

http://www.clanbase.com/rules.php?lid=703#mr_general

1. Matches are played 5 on 5. Showing up with less than 5 players is equivalent to a no show and therefore a forfeit loss. Clans short of 1 player may forfeit the first map. They get until 30' after the scheduled starting time of the match to get a full team then.

A few days later I receive a mail from Godsmurf of Clanbase, who is not even responsible for the Nations Cup, stating that the match was to be replayed. Clearly according to the rules, Germany hade already forfeited the game.

The reason because Germany forfeited the game was:

They did not have their best lineup, for the week that was to be played according to Clanbase.

In a small note I want to say that Team Sweden did not use their first lineup in any of our games except vs Finland, vs Austria for example we had four non-starters. We play in this cup for fun and to let other players get a chance to show what they are made of.

Germany also claims that they have emailed me and wanted to reschedule the game, according to this rule:
http://www.clanbase.com/rules.php?lid=703#roster

4. During the match week, any scheduled match, be it scheduled by the clans themselves or by the supervisor, can only be rescheduled if both clans agree on a new date/time in the same match week and if both inform the supervisor of this by email at least 1 day before the original date of the match.

That is only possible if both clans agree. Since I never received anything from Germany I did not agree to anything, and if I would have received anything, I still wouldnt have agreed since we have had a guy going by train to Stockholm just to be able to play that specific game.

Now the interesting claims begin, quote from Godsmurf:

"Germany's claim that they couldn't contact you (Raal says his mail prog filters bounce messages because due to his job at an ISP he gets tons of those every day)."

So raal sent the mail to a non-valid email-address and becuase his mail prog filters bounce messages it is, according to Godsmurf:

My fault that he did not contact me.

Becuase I never received anything (still according to Godsmurf) I agreed to reschedule the game.

When I tried to talk to Godsmurf he had already made his mind up. Although the original match had already been:

Decided by Clanbase to be played.

Forfeited by Germany although they already had a team ready.

So with the very very weird ruling by Clanbase and Godsmurf Team Sweden decided to go on and play the match the next week, we are still in it for the fun.

Corruption part 2

2nd February and the second match is to be played. Germany with their first lineup on LAN (the reason why they wanted to reschedule and forfeit the first game). Sweden with three non-starters all spread out in Sweden.

The players, the team captains and the Clanbase Nations Cup admins decided the match to be played on two servers cause of the ping issues and problem to find a neutral server. We tried a few servers and we came to a mutual agreement.

UPDATE:

We discussed and agreed on servers a long time before the match (starting at 19.00).
raal even sent his players to the matrix server to try it out and they confirmed that it was good and accepted to play on it.

I suggested a neutral server in Denmark, but it was decided two servers were going to be used.

This is what was decided:

<[CB]chR1z`> ok 1st map inferno on 62.80.116.77:27015 pw = swebase
<[CB]chR1z`> 2nd map cbble on 195.58.125.5:27016 pass: mestl0l

When Swedish player Nebb, who was a little late, joined the server he had a terrible ping, solid 250 which is unplayable (the Half-Life net code does a great job til about 100). But since we already had agreed on servers, it was not much we could do.

Explained in this rule:

http://www.clanbase.com/rules.php?lid=703#before

8. Once a server has been decided upon, either by the clans or by the admin, this decision stands for the entire match; a clan can not demand a server change or more server testing later on. The server decision can only be changed if both clans agree, or if the connections to the server have changed drastically for several players.

So we played on the German server, did a great job scoring 12-12. Now it was time to play on the Swedish server. All of a sudden Germany refused to play on the server stating that its a too big ping difference.

According to the rule above the server can only be changed if both clans agree or if the connections to the server have changed drastically, which they had not, they were the same for both teams when we tried them and mutually agreed.

The ping issue was not that Germany had a too high ping, but that Sweden had a too low. Here is a quick calculation of the pings.

German server:
Sweden = 250 + 4x60 = 490 total ping
Germany = 5x50 = 250
Difference = 240 in favour of Team Germany

Swedish server:
Germany = 5x50 = 250
Sweden 3x10 + 2x30 = 90
Difference = 160 in favour of Team Sweden

So the difference was even better for Germany, even then Clanbase decided that it was an unfair choice, even tough it was already tested before and decided upon.

Now we all in Team Sweden felt that this was becoming a big joke. We have all been spending a lot of time over the last Nations Cups to prepare, practise and do our best job to win every match fair and square.

Team Sweden's mutual agreement was that either we played on the Swedish server as decided by the players, the capatains and the admins and according to the rules was not possible to change, since German even had a better ping difference on the Swedish server than vice versa.

Godsmurf still forced us to change server. When we wanted to follow the rules and decisions Godsmurf ruled that we had forfeited the match.

When a tournament that is created to be a fun thing for players and fans turns into something heavily corrupted I and the whole Team Sweden feel that the fun is long gone.

More courruption?

Germany's captain raal is also a member of the Clanbase Crew

Final words

I still want to thank Talita and Clanbase for overall doing a great job, Clanbase has helped many players, clans and esports itself to become something much bigger than we could ever expect!

I will also resign as captain of Team Sweden.

Andreas "bds" Thorstensson
former Team Sweden captain
Schroet Kommando captain