NDC Leader Accused of Cheating in Quake Live

Jerri ‘Rapts’ Mperdempes has been accused of cheating by very high ranking members of the Quake Live community, who have claimed that his accuracy was well above where his levels actually were and that he was using software to see through walls.

Over a month ago, Garth ‘Garth’ Jones and Micele ‘Szarko’ Aleksandrov (also known by the nick 'Azul') started watching Mperdempes play Quake Live, and took an interest in his style saying there was something “wrong” in the way he played.

Aleksandrov has posted a clip saying he spectated Mperdempes games and recorded them. This video can be seen here.

The argument is, however, a complex one. Aleksandrov used a command available in replays enabling him to see the player opposite to the player he was spectating, which he says is Mperdempes. Aleksandrov and Jones maintain that when looking at Mperdempes' gameplay in this format, they can draw the conclusion that the player being spectated is using a wall hack.

Mperdempes has confirmed that the clip posted on Youtube is him playing. However he denies ever using the wall hack and maintains his kills are legitimate.

“This is simply part of a smear campaign by various members of the community,” he says.

Jones and Aleksandrov are convinced that the accused is using an Aimbot as well as wall hacks, which would allow Mperdempes to have an almost unbelievable accuracy. To offset the accuracy in accordance with the Quake Live online statistics, they claim Mperdempes would apparently shoot randomly at walls to lower his accuracy rate and modify the accuracy of the Aimbot.

“He has poor mouse control, but when he takes out his Lightning Gun (LG), he would almost lock on to players and be insanely accurate,” says Aleksandrov. “He has been around the game for something like 10 years, just like us, so he would obviously know to shoot randomly to offset his accuracy.”

Travis “Shase” Weedon, who recently competed at Dreamhack in a Quake Live tournament in Sweden, has left the NDC clan because he says he doesn’t want to associate himself with cheating. Aleksandrov posted the Youtube clip in the Quake Live channel on IRC in the channel topic.

However, Mperdempes says no member of NDC had confirmed to him that they were leaving the clan.

Unfortunately, even Aleksandrov and Jones admit that no player can prove irrefutably that Mperdempes is cheating. It is simply the judgement of senior Quake Live players that he is cheating, in their opinion. Both Aleksandrov and Jones, both having played in CPL competitions, are convinced of the fact that he is cheating and claim Mperdempes has brought the entire NDC clan into disrepute.

“It’s just disrespectful. Plain and simple. It’s disrespectful to your opponents and your team mates. The guy is cheating and he leads a clan like NDC that has been around for a decade, which consists of respected players from the community,” Aleksandrov claims. He went on to say he will notify ID on their forums of his belief that Mperdempes is cheating and will list two accounts he believes Mperdempes plays on.

Mperdempes says he does not understand why he is being targeted. He says the players accusing him are better than he is anyway and with stats of 159 wins and 179 losses, according to his Quake Live profile, he is not even breaking even yet. His accuracy is listed at 28 percent.

His lightning gun is listed at 27 percent and his railgun at 53 percent (his two most used guns). Mperdempes' highest accuracy is with the shotgun where he has a 78 percent accuracy rate.

Comparing the other two players' same stats: Aleksandrov has a win record of 625 wins and 70 losses on Quake Live. His accuracy is listed at 27 percent. His lightning gun accuracy is 30 percent and his railgun accuracy is 40 percent. He also has an accuracy of 78 percent with the shotgun.

Jones has 162 wins and 174 losses. His accuracy is listed at 29 percent. He has a lightning gun accuracy of 29 percent and a railgun accuracy of 39 percent. His highest accuracy is also with the shotgun with an accuracy of 80 percent.

Mperdempes' railgun statistic seems to be the most surprising compared to that of Aleksandrov and Jones. Furthermore, it can be compared to the railgun statistic of Weedon (44 percent) and Stephen “Ph4ntom” Cloete (43 percent).

Mperdempes took over the leadership of NDC in 1998. He says the clan went quiet on the First Person Shooter front around two years ago after Quake 3 started to die down. However, when Quake Live came along he started to play the game and recruited players like Weedon and Cloete.

“I’ve always stuck to what I am good at: recognising the potential in players and managing players. NDC was a platform to allow players to be competitive, and there was a lot of resentment against NDC when I recruited players like Weedon and Cloete,” he says.

Mperdempes says he is “over this” (the accusations) and lists this current incident as the “cherry on the top” in a long list of smear campaigns against NDC.

It is hoped the Quake Live community will be able to work the issue out, and grow a game which has only recently begun to grow in popularity as players have been able to play on local servers with good ping times.