Discussion of what to be done about the situation with Mergy
7 years ago
Bavaria, Germany

As of right now it seems everyone who wanted to have their opinion on this topic voiced, either here, through twitch chat comments, or discord posts, tweets etc. have done so.

I wanna go through a few points first that various people confronted me with.

My "ability" to get almost every run in a small amount of time to Final 6 - even with a really bad deck, this is normally achievable and not the hardest thing to do, as seen many times. The New Game+ PB i got after a short amount of completed runs (i think it was 4 or 5) - this time is still bad and can be improved by a lot (5-6 2 turn kills) and it wasn't hard to beat in the first place. My second finished 100% run with incredible fast Heishin drops - I can't deny that i was surprised, but what no one mentioned was my 20h grind for Monster Egg, or that i got my first trap after farming Kaiba 37 hours in. And as soon as GFC_ continues his still ongoing 100% run, he will very likely beat my time by a couple of hours. My amount of good drops in my runs - how should i be able to prove or disprove RNG? As for my Final 6 Easy/Hard Modes, i can't say much about that, since it either happens or not, and again, everyone has seen easy modes happen more then once. That i "did all of this" to get money/donations - do people even realize what they say with this? People don't support me because of Forbidden Memories, but because of the time i invest(ed) into it on stream, and the community that built around my channel knows that i won't play FM forever and will move on.

We had a lengthy discussion about this in my stream community, so i can say for sure, they don't support me because of Forbidden Memories, but because of me as a person/streamer.

There is one thing though i need to make clear: I'm, and i always was, up for a normal discussion about anything, as i did with a few people, for example gcah. He is 110% sure i cheated, yet still i can have a civil discussion with him. But there are people who can't do that and just start insulting and even banning people from twitch chats that have a different opinion. That shouldn't be a thing and i do believe that those people don't have a right to take part in this discussion at all! No need to attack each other, just have a friendly discussion.

Those are a few things i wanted to point out. As for the leaderboards and my times: I agree that something needs to happen, since i can't even trust my own console for this. To ease everyones mind around this my times have to go, easy as that. Since because of this i obviously can't continue moderating the leaderboards, i will remove myself as a mod, but you should find someone else to replace me, since Kollin can do it on his own very easily, but really shouldn't! I will continue to run this game on a native NTSC PS2 console soon (hopefully), but if i'm not allowed to submit my new times, i can understand and will respect that!

If i'm not welcome in the Forbidden Memories community anymore after this, i respect that aswell and won't bother anyone, since this can be seen as a huge trust breaker. I did not cheat, nor will i ever feel the need to cheat in Forbidden Memories, even though sometimes i wanna break my disc into pieces.

People pointed out, even though we had to "sacrifice" me, froggy and other people did a great job on digging deeper into the game, and we are even close to have a draw prediction for duels, so thank you guys for your research!

I'm in no bad blood with anyone and will talk to everyone who has the ability to do that in a normal way, but i'm really disappointed in the behavior of quite a few people in this situation, that were around in the past in the FM Community.

Baffan, f1 and 16 others like this
Emilia-Romagna, Italy

Well, we need solid evidence to try and make the option of cheating as unlikely as possible, this isn't solid evidence towards the 000 happening on a normal disk, since there is an easy way to fake all of this out. Anyways, if we get good evidence that this happens on a normal FM disk on Mergy's console, I feel like the most reasonable deduction would be to guess that his console causes the glitch, which would still arguably be unfair but not as bad as flat out trying to cheat. I am still waiting to see if anything relevant is found from the research to explain what could cause this glitch other than a modded iso or a hardware malfunctioning, but I don't think anything will be found.

Canada

Until we can confirm that card number 000 is impossible to manipulate, we shouldn't jump to conclusions. Personally myself I find it hard to believe that card number 000 can be manipulated, because after all these years of constant farming and no one else has gotten it, seems rather far-fetched. I am not saying I think Mergy did intentionally cheat, I think it has something to do with his modded console or ISO. It is possible Mergy did cheat, but not admitting it at this point would be low for even the slimiest of people, which Mergy is not. Should his WR be taken off the leaderbords? Well I honestly don't know.

Bristol, England

I appreciate what Mergy is now doing and I truly do apologise if he is telling the truth.

Wisconsin, USA

Well, I guess that is it then. Unless anyone has anything else they'd like to say I'm going to go ahead and remove Mergy's times and lock this thread. I'll keep it open for about 12 more hours from now.

TheRedhotbr likes this
São Paulo, Brazil

I feel like it should be made clear here that Mergy's times are being removed due to cheating, not because "people don't want him" or that he's doing us a favor due to his PAL console maybe being a liability. Many people can be under the impression that he is the victim of a modchipped console malfunction, which is something that the evidence does not point out to - and we don't even know if it could. That obviously doesn't take away his right to make his defense (nothing ever should), but crediting his story should not be the default in the situation. Zero bad blood attached to this post.

KajurN, AndreaRovenski and 2 others like this
São Paulo, Brazil

First I apologize if what I say/ think is wrong and Mergy didnt cheat, my apologies. Well, I m one of the oldest runners of this game, and I did follow all the dramas and issues we had in the past, like supergamer57 one and some others that dont have the same dimension of Mergy and supergamer57 issues. Everything was given to Mergy, the chance to defend himself and to prove he wasnt a cheater, when supergamer57 had his run We didnt even gave him a chance even tho We had no proof he did cheat( later he admitted that he cheated, but run wasnt accepted). This is a good thing, it shows that the community respect each other even with a proof of 99,99% chance that he cheated. What made me angry is the fact that even with all the chances We gave to him, He just tried to trick people with his new video showing him getting another 000 card, showing how he disrespects our community and the hard job We did to make Yugioh FM a thing for everyone( Again, if what I say is wrong, my apologies). For me after his second video it just made it more clear, He did show to us that that 000 drop was a thing on his CD(modded iso CD), He managed to get it again and show to people, and it means that his game has the 000 drop as an actual drop chance like any other card. I m brazilian, and as a brazilian you know how difficult is to find a no MODDED PS2 here, its basically a default thing, I have LOTS of friends that spent HUNDREDS of hours(I do play everything in my modded ps2) and never had this to happen. But the coincidence is insane, that glitch happened with the guy that has some consistent luck in his runs, that completed 100% with insane luck. Even tho, instead of insta removing his time, people gave him a chance, 99,999% chance that Mergy did cheat, but We did respect him enough to give him time. It just shows how our community developed over time. For my huge experience with this game, I know that you cant get a consistent luck like that, I have a good sample of runs to be sure of that. And as I did say before, Mergy mentioned people fighting to prove they are right and the other one, its simple, its about respect, if you are in a channel that the runner believes that Mergy did cheat, dont go there and try to prove your point, it will only make an useless fight. I dont know if someone did it but I doubt someone did ban other people because they thought the other was wrong or not(I m not in all chat at same time, so I could be wrong). Also what I m saying its not random things, I did talk to Froggy before coming here to make this text, I wanted to make everything clear, but I leave the technical stuff to Froggy explain(He did explain very well ) Well, thats it I wanted to say, if the 0,000001% is a thing and you are truly legit I m sorry Mergy, but if you really did cheat, you should rethink about your actions, because after alll that happened you keep trying to lie to other people and make them fight because of that, thats pitiful. But life teached me some thing and one of them is : "Aqui se faz, aqui se paga", the translation is like "You do the things here, you pay for those things here". Theurnator, Yugioh speedrunner and Brazilian( Even with slums and education problems, We are progressing and in the way to be one of the best countries of the world) Thanks!

Limousin, France

(For the record) [quote]26/09/2016, 19:14:01 TheUrnator: Hey what's up? Whats your commentary on Mergy's recent video showing him getting 000 another time? Froggy25: Hey Froggy25: as I said on this post: http://www.speedrun.com/yugiohfm/thread/dalm1/1#2tpbl Froggy25: this video doesn't actually prove anything Froggy25: I don't get why he wasn't recording his whole session if order to prove he wasn't cheating Froggy25: this seems very obvious to me if I was in his shoes trying to prove my innocence TheUrnator: but it kinda proves that the game he was playing has indeed 000 as a drop chance right? Since he got that just farming Rex Froggy25: he might have hotswapped a modified iso TheUrnator: yeah I know, but you know it proves that the he was using a version(99,99999999% chance modded version) that has 000 as an actual drop % chance TheUrnator: so basically on his game 000 drops is just a common drop like Crawling Dragon TheUrnator: and only on Rex Froggy25: well, the issue cannot be from his retail game Froggy25: because its md5 corresponds exactly to the one that roams on most emus websites Froggy25: so his game has the exact same drops than everyone else Froggy25: so it is either a console issue, or a modded iso Froggy25: the game cannot produce that 000 under normal circumstances 26/09/2016, 19:20:32 Froggy25: so yeah, it proves it's either a version that has a very slight chance to drop 000 if he was farming rex for as long as he claims Froggy25: that is, the modded iso that was in his console before he hotswapped for a real disc Froggy25: or it's an issue with the hardware Froggy25: which I highly doubt, but I don't want to call someone a cheater if there is the slightiest chance he might not be cheating TheUrnator: what I m trying to say is, he is not using his original disc ofc, I m saying that his modded iso has 000 as an actual drop %, it means that you can drop that like it was a Crawling dragon for example. And do you really want to consider that a modded ps2 does that? I mean, here in Brazil we basically have no modded consoles, that is a default thing for us and we never experienced some stuff like that. You know why the modded PS2 would cause a particular drop change in a particular opponent? and it seems consistent so the drop chance is changed for him TheUrnator: dont you think we are trying to be fair at a point that we are just accepting that the impossible could happen? Its like saying that an alien could appear right in front of you dancing Mambo TheUrnator: You cant say that cant happen, you cant prove that Froggy25: I do not believe a modded console would do that Froggy25: because it would be so weird to get this to skip the precise instruction that sets the pseudo random number between 1 and 2048 Froggy25: and if this happened, this means it would likely skips other instructions from time to time, causing the game to randomly crash / glitch / whatever Froggy25: I plan to post in the thread before it's locked Froggy25: even though it's already decided that mergy's times will be removed TheUrnator: Exactly, why would his modded iso alter some exact stuff, in a certain character and dont change anything? again, dont think we are trying to be so kind with him that we are accepting impossible thing to happen? TheUrnator: when it will get locked? Froggy25: 12 hours from now on TheUrnator: who said that for you? Froggy25: it's in that thread Froggy25: last post from Kollin TheUrnator: I m gonna post after school then Froggy25: aight Froggy25: don't hesit to quote me if you want TheUrnator: No problem, and another thing, do you think they will accept future times from Mergy? TheUrnator: that would be unfair asf. Froggy25: From what I understand, they might accept new runs if he isn't playing on his modded console Froggy25: but I'm not sure about that Froggy25: might as well ask that on the thread TheUrnator: Well, good thing I did ask you, gonna try to say exactly everything I have to say... 26/09/2016, 19:29:36 TheUrnator: Thanks man Froggy25: you're welcome TheUrnator: so 12h from now Froggy25: I'm pretty sad there was only like 15 people who replied[/quote] My messages in that quote are pretty much what I think atm. I have no idea what could cause this to happen on a retail game. Might be the register r2 that for whatever reason gets set out of bounds after the instruction at 0x21848 in this function ? I don't think this is possible.

Edited by the author 7 years ago
Italy

Our situation basically is: we can't proove either that #000 is a glitch or Mergy is a cheater. This is what I myself strongly believe: Thats so unfortunate, cause if he IS NOT a cheater and we delete his times (and ban him from FM boards, whatever), we would not be ethical. Beside that, if he has cheated and we keep his times on the boards, we would not be ethical. It's quite unlikely to proove that #000 is a real glitch, but thats not 100% confirmed; otherwise, reserach people imediately would tell to ban Mergy.

Edited by the author 7 years ago
AndreaRovenski likes this
Limousin, France

Well, I can say this is impossible on a retail game under normal circumstances.

I just can't completely rule out the hardware possibility because I don't have the required knowledge to assert that. This seems very unlikely though.

All I can do is refer to WhipCPL's post: [quote=WhipCPL]Even though I'm not part of the community I still want to add some hardware knowledge, or at the very least apply what I learned during one of my classes about onboard circuit programming and design.

From what I can find the chip is designed to overwrite the information written by the BIOS on the console itself. Basically meaning that whenever a disc is read, a signal is send back to the reader in which the BIOS would write information to the CPU about the authenticity of the disc. The chip would then overwrite that information and send a false positive back to the CPU resulting in an override of the region verification. If I have to understand how that affects the console overall, it would require me to get a real chip to play around with (and fuck me if any of the chips laying around are actually authentic and functional).

As far as affecting games at all, that depends on the programming of the game and chip design. If the BIOS aren't directly required for anything ingame, calculating RNG, drop rates etc. Then the excuse of hardware error is highly unlikely since BIOS is mainly for software initialization and data flow between the processors and storage units. At least that's how it works for a computer, I have a hard time imagining them making it any different for a PS2.

This neither proves nor disproves Mergy as a cheater, it however makes the possibilty of hardware error being and unlikely perpetrator.[/quote]

Edited by the author 7 years ago
Germany

Well i`m just a viewer but when my opinion is appreciated, i will try my best to respond to this threath if it helps.

First of all, i like to watch all the speedrunners of FM no matter where they are from, because i like to watch the game and how the runs are going and i dont care about the personality of the runner.

So my opinion is that mergy played with an modifyed ISO. The reason why i believe he cheated is because there is no prove of the 000 glitch can actually happen without a modifyed ISO and the people with the knowledge about the hardware say its unlikely to happen because of the hardware. Another reason is my personal feeling about the situation when it was happening, i feel like he was actually knowing in that moment that there was some shit happening wich can prove he is a cheater and then he was saying stupid things like "can someone oddshot this please now" with the knowledge that he can just highlight it, wich makes me thinking that he was trying to give a super surprised face whats going on without having any clue how to react for that embarassing moment (if he actually cheated). Then, people who watched his stream are actually knowing that he is not a stupid guy, so why would any smart guy upload a video as a prove wich doesnt prove anything, the video just doesnt prove the 000 glitch can happen and i guess mergy is smart enough to know that, but he still uploaded that to try to prove that. I think it is a poor try to give hope to the people who actually try to support him in this case and there is no reason to start the recording in that moment when you can capture the whole session wich would prove alot more. Well, i cant prove that he isnt the luckyest guy on planet who can get the WR back when he wants in a RNG based game wich gets runned by alot of people who does not come close to results he can do multiple times in a year by not grinding much more than other people do, but as the 000 glitch appeared once again for him, even if he is not a cheater he needs to be removed from the leaderboards because of the hardware wich caused the glitch then. Actually in my opinion there would be a way wich would prove that he is not a cheater, as it seems like there is no problem for him to replicate the glitch with his hardware, he can just play the game on stream and doing the same thing he has done in the new video while a webcam is showing his playstation and TV. When he can make the glitch happen again, on stream while a webcam is monitoring the whole setup, then it would be enough for me and i would say its a atleast a prove that atleast the hardware can cause that glitch, if someone wont accept that this is a good solution then i dont know what to do. At the moment it looks for me like mergy is actually knowing what he was uploading there just to accept that the runs need to get removed from the leaderboard because it would be a solution for all sides, the guys who want him to get removed, the guys who want to help him clearing the case while believing that he didn`t cheated and for himself, because he could do runs in the future with new hardware. But i think it should be clarifyed and mergy could clear the things either by proving that he can cause it with his setup on a original Game Disc or if he cheated just accept that he made a mistake and clarify this like a man.

Dont hate me for that parts where i gave my personal feelings, there are alot of facts wich proves that its highly unlikely that its not cheated, i just cant believe someone has magical powers because there is no prove for not having it. Only mergy could prove it by streaming the setup and getting the glitch again, for now i need to to build my opinion because of facts.

froggy25 and TheRedhotbr like this
Wisconsin, USA

Well, I think we've gotten everything we need out of this thread. Thanks to everyone for being (mostly) very civil in this thread.

Also, I think I speak for just about everyone when I say, whether Mergy did or did not cheat he has handled this with honor and dignity. And for that, we thank you.

Yagami_Light1992, KajurN and 3 others like this
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