(editorial note: this is a translation of what @VelaRUS originally wrote in Russian. All author’s language mannerisms were purposefully kept intact. Any irregularities should be attributed to differences in phrasing between the two languages.)

@Speedrunners

Hello Diablo 2 speedrun community.

As you know, a day before yesterday speedrunner @Bender_meats_fry had accused me, @VelaRUS, of using cheats.

Link to the accusation:

As I know already, many other speedrunners had taken these accusations quite seriously and asked for clarification not myself, but speedrunner @327, as a Russian-speaking, and, closest to me person because we often spend time on each other’s streams. Strictly speaking many of you had already received answers from him and acknowledged that I play fair and do not use any cheats. He was able to parry all claims you had against me. For those who hear about all this for the first time, I’d like to add:

1. Frozen Armor is easily pre-casted spamming hotkey+RMB during the game load screen. Try it yourself.

2. Photo of my desktop:

I do not know where would I put, according to Bender, another monitor on top. If it were where I have the router and all the cables, my eyes would look much more towards the top, and not like on the webcam. I have a 27” monitor and sit quite closely to it. Therefore by looking at HP, mana, mobs and so on - I just look at different parts of the screen. Looking upwards, as Bender noted, I am either looking at mob HP bar or just at the action in the upper part of the monitor. Or do you think that during speedrun, I am very interested in what is happening on the wall above the monitor? I shall add, that from the beginning of my speedrunner journey, I play not in a small window, rather in a windowed “fullscreen” at 800*600 resolution. Therefore the image is always huge.

3. With regards to 100% swapcast accuracy I probably cannot prove my innocence in any way. But I think that in 3 years of speedrunning, if you want, you can achieve this, there is nothing supernatural about it. There are some speedrunners that do perform swapcast quite well, and there do not seem to be any issues with-’em. I do not know, what is hard about pressing two buttons simultaneously performing swapcast? If you’re interested, I have the cheapest 10 year old keyboard: Logitech Classic Keyboard 200.

4. With regards to the programs on my computer desktop. I do not hide them and sometimes openly show my desktop. Don’t think I did this by accident. DDMM. Just search for this thing in Google. The first link will get you to “DDMM - Dual Display Mouse Manager”. It’s a program that prevents mouse cursor from going to the other monitor in older games. A real cheat in Bender’s view.

Macro recorder and partially WeMod - for most stupid Steam achievements. The brightest example, why I have initially installed macro editor, is in the Age of Empires (2013) game, where were achievements for 100!!! wins for each of the nations. And there are quite many of them in the game. Totalling over 2000 wins. How much time would 100% achievements for platinum would “fairly” need this game? Year, five years, ten? Thanks, no thanks. I might be a speedrunner, but I want to have a life too. Macro Recorder and WeMod help me neutralize mistakes of game developers, who do not think with their heads, adding such achievements in their games. Now for the most interesting - TurboHUD. Bender’s logic is that if you use maphack in Diablo 3 game, you also use it in Diablo 2. Nice logic without logic. Yes, I admit, that since season 4 of Diablo 3 I use TurboHUD. I never hid this. I would say even more, in 2018 I openly streamed this game using this maphack on Twitch, for which I deservingly spend a week in ban. Ban on Twitch, not Blizzard. Blizzard do not care about this program, they do not care about bots either.

Here’s an example, TurboHUD is visible here: https://www.twitch.tv/vela_rus/clip/RelentlessHyperNuggetsCharlieBitMe Why do I use it? Because I had lost any respect for Blizzard as a company. They stopped making games, they started making money. In my view many of the things available in TurboHUD should be in the game from the beginning. To make a pleasant user interface, where all buffs and their timers in seconds are visible is the game developer job! And only of the game developer! And when the developer does not care about their project, because the money from sales had already been collected, people will make a good UI themselves. That’s, essentially, what TurboHUD is. This is my personal view, it may not align with yours. But to accuse me that I use maphack in D2, because my eyes are pointing upwards and because I use TurboHUD in a completely different game is laughable and stupid at best.

Well, it seems that I have transparently and openly responded to all the unfounded accusations against me.

Now to what I want to say to the whole speedrunner community.

When I have accused @Bender_meats_Fry of using cheats on the Diablo 2 forum, speedrun.com, trying to get people’s attention:

https://www.speedrun.com/d2r/thread/d7s3o

I was simply ignored, without anyone even trying to assess the situation. Almost everyone took Bender’s side, because he had done so much for the community, holy man, how could he cheat? As a result many left me after all this. But I knew what I was getting into and was firmly confident in my words, even at the expense of part of my audience. I wanted to share my thoughts with people - I did.

Now the situation is reversed - Bender accused me and what happened? VelaRUS is a cheater? Oh a scoundrel, how dares he? People didn’t want to figure out what’s what, because they blindly believe everything that holy Bender says. They immediately attacked me for being a fraud. Somehow an unfair situation, don’t you think? Why are the words of two different speedrunners treated completely differently? Someone is not heard and someone is labeled fraud from the get go. A peculiar situation: Bender says that there are “unfair” programs on my desktop, so I’m a cheater. That’s his words. In 10 minutes time, on his own stream he opens a folder with maphack for D2 and shows it to everyone on the stream. As it turns out, according to his own logic, he is a cheater himself? All of a sudden he has a fully configured maphack, a character for it and a ready scene in OBS. A coincidence, indeed. Clown.

And what about @Mekalb, who is always one of the first people defending Bender?

There is a tournament going with a big prize pool from @MrLlamaSC, where you could pick any in-game class with a timer penalty. A weeks time for the whole tournament. Mekalb, as well as Bender picks Amazon. He is unsuccessful the whole week, can’t even get into the top 5. Last day of the tournament. Not more than 7-8 hours till the end. His personal best is 6:19:19. He did runs the whole week, all is bad, he won’t get the money. And all of a sudden, during the last hours he beats his own time. By 5 minutes? No. By 10? No. Maybe by half-an-hour? Also no? And by how much? By a whopping 1 hour, 5 minutes, 11 seconds. After a week of unsuccessful tries immediately becoming the tournament leader. You could probably ask how is this possible? It’s simple: sham Titan’s revenge, 2 pieces of Sander’s boots, Peasant Crown, 100 res amulet and many other good items. As an example, in all 3 years of speedrunning I got Titan’s revenge only once (and not on amazon). Also Sander’s boots and Peasant Crown are quite rare, they drop every 20-50 runs. And here is the last day of the tournament, all these rare items drop within a single run and his personal best is beaten by over an hour. Here is this run: https://www.speedrun.com/d2r/run/mejld50y A coincidence for sure! Clown number 2.

Then there is a question about how in reality do Bender and Mekalb treat real proven cheaters!

There is this one speedrunner @AnIceEggSample, who is also a VIP/moderator on Bender’s and Mekalb’s Twitch channels.

On August 25, 2020 speedrunner @327 published a video on his youtube channel exposing anIceEggsample

In this specific case the forgery was obvious. This was also acknowledged by at least one of the speedrun moderators @Indrek, who in the comment under this video wrote:

"Thanks for putting in the time to make this. I agree this run seems to be spliced”.

So what happens next? His runs are just deleted. Not banned. Deleted. And he remains, as before the whole story a moderator with Bender and Mekalb. That’s the attitude of these two speedrunners towards cheaters. In my view this whole situation nicely characterizes them and shows, how much they really do (not) care about cheating. anIceEggsample - clown number 3.

The same can be said about the earlier speedrunner @Slimo, who posted on his twitter, that he “draws his maps” and deleted this post on the next day, stating, that it was just a joke. His speedruns were also just deleted and that’s it.

@Bender_meats_fry it is saddening, that you are so upset about my latest D2 Hell SC p1 Amazon. That was the last straw for you, ain’t it? To beat, with the most standard items, your phony run of the “most honest Bender”, in which there were:

https://www.speedrun.com/d2lod/run/ylkggkrz

Ruby from Andariel 3 first way in Arcane Sanctuary 3 Amn runes without any Countess Very early gloves 20IAS +2java Very early javelin 30IAS +1ama Early SoJ

You're upset, right? Here's a piece of advice. For your next run swindle better items. You can add Peasant Crown, amulet +3java and many others. Learn from Mekalb and try to beat his D2R Hell SC p1 Amazon. All in all I think that it will be you two remaining, “outcheating” one another. You can take your friend Eggsample with you, he’s also not bad at it.

As a result, I do not treat any runs by these speedrunners to be legit for a long time. And this message would not exist if Bender hadn’t picked this topic up again. It is very sad, that even after a year you have remained blind and do not see obvious things. I would like to return 5 years back, when this was a very friendly community, where these controversies did not exist. It was this that attracted me so long ago. Because there were excellent people here. And right now the community is in such state, that you count the days when you can run away to Diablo 4.

Should we go back to the matter at hand, me (here) and 327 (in DMs) should have responded to all accusations against me proving my innocence. Therefore, I ask the speedrunner community to demand that @Bender_meats_Fry publicly apologize to me. I in turn can apologize to Bender, Mekalb, anIceEggsample for calling them clowns. Couldn’t find other words. I am very emotional now, sorry.

Should my request be denied, I will treat it as ethnic discrimination. I cannot find any other explanation as to why my accusations were ignored by everybody a year ago, but accusation of myself had drawn many speedrunners to the case? I can make only one such conclusion. I am a person who spends most of his life sitting at home and playing games.

Attention, a new challenge has been announced for the D2 speedrunner community. Who will drop out more Sander boots in a week? My record in two and a half years of D2 and D2R speedrunning is two in a month (and not one in the last month). The current record is held by the respected Bender, three in a week (I don’t know how much per month, broadcasts are not saved). This is an excellent result, considering that the MrLlamaSC tournament is currently underway with a large prize pool. Who can show the best result? #Communitydon'tbeblind