Addressing Recent Issues in the MKC Community

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Brandon

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Hi everyone,

There’s a lot of things that have happened recently in our community that we believe deserve some kind of explanation. One of our goals as a staff team is to be more open with the community and this should serve as a start to that.

Public Ban Reasons

The first thing we would like to address is a new site feature. Simply put, the reasoning behind bans are now publicly viewable on every banned player’s registry profile. Previously, there would always be a “telephone game” every time someone got banned, with people spreading rumors about why and how a player got banned. This feature should serve to end the gossip and keep the community more informed, while also allowing us to be more transparent with the community. We understand that we make mistakes sometimes, but at the end of the day, it’s crucial for everyone to take accountability for their actions, including us, and we hope this feature can help make that more of a reality.

Hacking, Alting, and Logic’s Case

The next thing to address is a recent (very public) case of suspected alting and cheating in MKU (mainly the latter). Logic, formerly known as Mecha to some members of our community, has been at the center of these accusations and will be permanently banned, not only for hacking the game but also for threatening the competitive integrity of our events. After a public outcry at his recent performance, we decided to look into his gameplay. What we found was the fact that Logic never, ever pulls bananas in first. There was other evidence presented to us, but this fact alone is enough to all but guarantee the fact that his game is modified.

We looked through seven events - the two MKU wars played on November 15th, 2020, the MKU war vs DY played on November 8th, 2020, a Tier-S lounge event played November 2nd, 2020, and a set of one Tier-S lounge event and two Tier-A events played on November 5th, 2020. In these events, from what is viewable by the streamer (or MKTV in the case of the MKU wars), Logic pulls exactly zero bananas from 35 item sets in first place. The statistics get a bit complicated here based on whether he takes a single or double box, or if he’s already holding an item:
  • If you take a double item set in first or if you go through an item set while holding a coin, you have a roughly 50% chance of not pulling a banana
  • If you take a single item in first or take a box while holding a non-coin item, you have a roughly 85% chance of not pulling a banana.

Applying these probabilities across the boxes Logic took in these four events, we can see that he had a roughly 0.001% (1 in 50,000) chance of pulling the items he did without a single banana. These odds were also found to be the best case scenario for his POV - we gave him the benefit of the doubt on some of the rolls. The probability is most likely a decent amount lower, but no higher than this. Remember that in all the footage we observed, Logic never pulled a single banana, not even once. If we wanted to also include 2nd-5th place boxes in this, the probability would decrease exponentially. This on its own should be enough suspicion to justify a ban, especially with other incriminating evidence.

In addition to hacking the game, we’ve also made the discovery that Logic has been utilizing several alt accounts alongside his regular one. For those who are unaware, Logic has a historic reputation for alting, as he has done so numerous times going all the way back to MK7. To begin, Logic has been alting as a player named Alexis ever since this past summer. Not only did we make the connection to Logic, but we took a look at MKU, where, coincidentally, Alexis has yet to play an MKU match this season while Logic has played 4/4 matches for xı. We also learned that Logic was alting as a Japanese player named “mikhail”. We found that this account had been used to ask questions about how to hack their switch in an MK8DX modding discord and also posted that they had successfully edited their item distributions.

Figuring all of this out essentially served as the nail in the coffin for his case, and is what emboldened us to finalize our decision. Given the occurrence of this, we’d also like to use this as an opportunity to remind you all that alting is completely forbidden and will result in punishment, as there have been a few instances of it lately.

In summary, because of the astronomical odds witnessed with Logic’s item pulls, as well as his proven history of hacking and alting in Mario Kart 7 (and this game as well), we believe that there is significant evidence to issue a permanent ban. To any lower division clan leaders who may be reading this, we implore you to be careful with who you recruit in the future. It’s been made quite apparent that Logic is willing to create alternate accounts at any time in order to stay in the community after he gets banned. This is not to say you should avoid recruiting obviously, but it’s essential to be cautious in order to prevent him from participating in our events any further.

And just to be absolutely clear on this, to make sure everyone understands—if we are to catch any instance of a player hacking with the intent to gain a significant advantage, we will immediately issue a permanent ban without question. Of course, this is being said with the assumption that there is enough concrete evidence to justify a ban in the first place, but regardless, the point still stands. Please keep this in mind as we will not be making any exceptions to this, so make sure to think twice before you consider hacking. You may feel free to ask us about any player you're wanting to recruit, and we can give you an honest evaluation in private on the risk. It's worth noting that any points scored by a hacking player or alternate account will be discounted and results will be edited even if they swing matches.

The Elephant in the Room

The big thing on everyone’s minds right now is a recent influx of sexual harassment and pedophilia cases within MKC. We would like to clear up our stance on this issue.

In any case, if an adult is found to be engaging in a relationship or sending explicit/sexual content to a minor, they will be banned. We have a zero-tolerance policy on this. As an adult, you are responsible in the eyes of the law and in the eyes of Mario Kart Central. Ban length can vary depending on the severity of the evidence presented to us, but we want to be extremely clear in saying that if you are found to be engaging in sexual conduct with a minor, you will be punished. No exceptions.

As in any case, if you wish to report a case to us, please send all the evidence you have that you are comfortable showing to us. Everything we receive is kept 100% confidential and within the staff team, and your identity will never be revealed to the person in question or the wider community.

We want to emphasize that there is a lot that goes into the evaluation of these cases. We wish to remain impartial in all cases presented to us, and carefully consider all evidence given. When the stakes are as high as they are, we can’t afford to make a mistake. Our goal is to make this community as safe as possible for all of our members, and we appreciate everybody’s cooperation in achieving this goal.

That is all for now, but as always, if there are any questions, comments, or concerns about anything mentioned in this thread, you may gladly approach us about it. We would like to thank everyone who has come forward to help us recently, and we hope that this will open up the door to a much brighter future for our community.
 
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giovanni

New member
I'd like to thank staff for being amazing. Regarding hacking, you have done in 1 day and a half the right thing that mk7 comm didn't manage to do in 1+ year. Huge congrats on your end. :)

You and I both know this is false. We have dealt with hackers the moment we are provided clear evidence that a player has been hacking and we have also removed games off the site when someone is banned for hacking. Two people have been banned in 7 lounge for hacking in the last 3 years of it being around, so stop spreading lies.

Anyway, you guys made the right decision on permanently banning Logic. We have dealt with him back in 2016 when he initially used a modified item probability table and increased the chances of power items such as triple reds, stars, and lucky 7’s and increased the odds of blues in 5th from 5%->10%. He also had some course modifications like adding an entire road to Neo Bowser City to pull off the turncut safely 100% of the time, it was that sad and I’m not really shocked about this news at all, but good riddance.
 

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You and I both know this is false. We have dealt with hackers the moment we are provided clear evidence that a player has been hacking and we have also removed games off the site when someone is banned for hacking. Two people have been banned in 7 lounge for hacking in the last 3 years of it being around, so stop spreading lies.

Anyway, you guys made the right decision on permanently banning Logic. We have dealt with him back in 2016 when he initially used a modified item probability table and increased the chances of power items such as triple reds, stars, and lucky 7’s and increased the odds of blues in 5th from 5%->10%. He also had some course modifications like adding an entire road to Neo Bowser City to pull off the turncut safety 100% of the time, it was that sad and I’m not really shocked about this news at all, but good riddance.

Should definitely follow on the MK7 lounge if you haven't already. Given the amount of chances he's had over almost a decade, there's really just not a place for him in the community anymore.

The sad thing is we know the alts are likely going to come. To the team leaders of mid-lower division teams: be very careful for a new player who is scoring abnormally high. I don't want any of you to have to deal with point removals in your MKU matches, it can ruin a whole season if caught. You can always make a ticket in the MKC Server if you need, even if it's just for general advice on something. We'll be here for you all.

Like I mentioned in the MKC Discord a second ago, going to give out a final warning for all of those who are either considering hacking/cheating or already have: if we catch you hacking, it's lights out for you. After watching how the MKW community botched the response to cheaters in their community by giving them second chances, I can say with confidence that we will not make that same mistake. Yes, I think we can forgive those who alt after a certain amount of time if they've grown up and took accountability for it. For cheating and trying to hide it, you will not give another chance. Ever. And if you think you're safe because you're smart about it, you better be careful. We won't hesitate to run the numbers. This is simply what stats are for. We have the data for item probabilities, and if we can prove that with 99.9% confidence that your behaviors are abnormal, even if it is not a pure certainty, we will not hesitate.

Thanks everyone for the good response on this. We'll get through all this stuff and be better for it. Can't wait to continue playing meaningful competitions with everyone moving forward into the new year.
 

Naathan

The tiger's shadow
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I'd like to thank staff for being amazing. Regarding hacking, you have done in 1 day and a half the right thing that mk7 comm didn't manage to do in 1+ year. Huge congrats on your end. :)
That's cool and all but some people tried to get logic banned in summer of this year (when he first joined the comm) to no avail. No reason to throw shade on others and no need to act like he was instantly exposed the moment he did it. His alting and hacking has definitely affected a lot over the past duration he was allowed in this community. Glad the staff finally got the proof and banned him. I hope this time around we can catch his alts (if he does try) so he doesn't ruin any more experiences for teams wanting to play a fair game.
 
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