Epic winner, $ 130,000, licensed by Epic after Reddit's cheating charges were denied

Of the dozens of streamers and pros invited to participate in the second week of the official Epic series, the 1945n006 Fortnite Summer Skirmish, the iDropz_Bodies, until then unknown, have surprised dozens of established figures in the competition. first place and $ 130,000 in winnings.

Almost immediately, he was accused of cheating up to victory.

A certain skepticism was justified. iDropz_Bodies was a mysterious man – he did not broadcast his live performance due to the inability to meet the two-minute lead time only available to Twitch affiliates and partners. But Epic had no rule stating that participants had to broadcast their performance.

Following the announcement of the final standings of Friday's competition, the user of Reddit Sora26 made several false statements identifying iDropz_Bodies as a cheater who robbed their way to victory. In a 2,000-word message Redditor cited a third-party stat tracking website, claiming that the KD (kill to death) ratio of iDropz_Bodies increased from 4.5 to 7 at moment of their participation in the second week of summer. The skirmish has begun.

Above: iDropz_Bodies in action during the competition.

They badigned coordinated kill-counts to iDropz_Bodies to a coordinated kill-feeding, in which players were suspected of creating new accounts and synchronizing queues. to jump at the feet of Bodies, and selective drops, in which the Corps supposedly left the games before the players can give up to find optimal bus routes. Commentators have also accused iDropz_Bodies of using mouse and keyboard inputs on a PS4 to gain an advantage, although Epic allows use of other input methods on all platforms in the name of accessibility.

This is a screed that rivals the predictions of amateur badysts citing weekly player numbers and SteamSpy as if they were an agreement etched on a stone tablet by forces from above , another example of the internet gathering factual elements. None of the statements were true, but it did not prevent the main Fortnite singers from taking the bait and spreading the rumor without waiting for the word Epic, including the best players like Ninja and Tfue.

[19659002] Epic replied with his own post from Reddit shortly after the mob mentality jumped to the point of catching up with any conversation around the skirmish summer, referring to their internal scans to check the performance of iDropz_Bodies as 100% legitimate. Sora26 has since apologized.

To Murder:

"Our internal badyzes of summer skirmishes kept track of all opponents eliminated by the participants." IDroPz_BoDiEs had 129 eliminations during the summer. event and each elimination was on a different opponent.This does not indicate that it was intentionally fed with eliminations and / or collusion with other players. " [19659002] On selective drops:

"Our badytics events left the game before the bus rollout, and recorded these matches." IDroPz_BoDiEs did not join more than the 10 matches specified for the event, the story that he was leaving if the server was not full or the bus was not on a favorable path is wrong. "

] Citing Third Staging Tracking Web Sites:

Statistical tracking is not reliable for recording historical performance because it is only updated when the site requests statistics from a user. This makes the "Most eliminations in a single match" records on an account unlikely to be correct because multiple matches in a given period are combined into a single update. iDroPz_BoDiEs has made more than 20 eliminations in a match several times during his Fortnite career. "

On the use of a mouse and keyboard on PS4:

which followed a similar notation format on public servers there was no noticeable difference in the final score between the top players on the PC and Console platforms.Over this event we saw 11 matches breaking the mark of the game. Elimination 20, with 8 of them on PC and 3 on the console.

There is no evidence that we suggest that iDroPz_BoDiEs played the competition using a mouse and keyboard, and we do not limit input devices for players on our platforms in order to promote accessibility for all of our audience. "

You Can watch the rejections of Bodies and note the camera movement. It is jerky and rigid with respect to typical mouse movement, displaying obvious features of joystick control. Although, as indicated by Epic, other input methods are not limited on all platforms. I feel that it will not always be the case on the competitive stage.

While misinformed and toxic Internet stacking is the most faulty, the rapid oscillation of iDrop_Bodies from a "criminal" competitor to a legitimate Fortnite competitor could have been avoided thanks to better communication from Epic. I'm the scene as close as my box – that's my job, after all – and it has never been made clear to the general audience that the competitors had not to broadcast. Why broadcast and comment live, if that's the case? Why not bottle, collect, check and rebroadcast the event in a tight and dramatic format?

I'm not sure it would be important if so much money was not involved. $ 8 million is a huge payment for a remote tournament where Epic still struggles logistics and techniques. The integrity of the competition and the well-being of the competitors should have been ensured long before the money was at stake, especially with so many new competitors with no experience in the public eye who would would rise through the performance of LTM Showdown. Fortnite is the biggest game in the world, so it's a strange feeling when Epic forgets that the world is watching.