Hello Louis, it is quite clear to me that you misunderstood a very fundamental part of my reply.
I did not direct the reply at you or any one person, it was a general reply to the situation at hand.
When I directed something towards "you", I was not referring to everyone who will read the post, that would be outrageous, I was simply addressing anyone it might concern.
This means that if you do not personally feel that you have participated in any trashtalking, the first sentence was never aimed at you in the first place.
The same goes for the rest of my post and I invite you to read it again thoroughly, for I address many of your concerns and it is completely understandable if you did not get all the points contained within it during your first read if you thought it was a personal attack towards you, I can relate to that.
Now, you may be wondering how we can become so riled up about this and the answer is quite simple, though I can only speak for myself, and it is very much linked to that very first sentence of my post.
Rumours are what started this whole mess and unless you address unfounded rumours early, they can easily snowball beyond anyone's imagination, it happens all the time.
You say that all you have claimed is that GnIDa uses modifications and this is true so far, but you end up crossing the line between fact and fiction when you start guessing about cause and effect.
Had you merely said GnIDa had been using this modification and approached us with your issues, the problem could have been resolved smoothly and efficiently, instead this rumour suddenly pops up that he is using them to gain an advantage and the link is made to a past clanwar without anyone, including yourself; you admitted this, bothering to find out what actually happened.
As it turns out, the modification was never present during said war and while you may defend yourself saying you could not have known this, what did you do to find out if it was true? Apparently not too much, and for that I judge you just as much as the person spreading the lies.
Your posts are riddled with logical fallacies, but I will merely address the ones of concern for this debate.
You say that "we're not talking about stuff that we don't know", but who are we? You forget to elaborate on this.
Are you speaking on behalf of your clan? Everyone behind this case against GnIDa? Yourself with a twist of Multiple Personality Disorder?
I do admit the last option was just for kicks, but I am sure you can see the issue I am getting at, we cannot know who you are promising us aren't talking about things they shouldn't and given you are dancing on the fine line between fact and fiction yourself, I'm afraid your guarantee means little to me.
Another point you mention is that GnIDa was lagging during the clanwar and that when you saw this modification, you assumed that this was the cause, as you stated that "because its well known that mods usually cause lag", but here I must pause for a moment to question you.
First off, you form a sentence that both claims something is quite certain, that is; well known, and at the same time uncertain, stemming from the use of "usually", this already confuses me, as it seems you cannot make up your mind whether you believe they have caused the lag or not, but this is mostly a formal issue so if you feel it does not relate to the discussion at hand, you may skip this little note of mine.
The real issue here is of course that you are taking something of little relevance and with no certainty and using it to defend your stance on the issue.
Is it really well known that mods usually cause lag (disregarding the inherent confusion that lies in the wording itself)?
It is such a vague statement that I cannot prove you wrong, but neither can you prove yourself right, and thus we arrive at the core of the issue.
Furthermore. as you use the plural form of the word "mod", you seem to have already voided your own argument, as GnIDa only used a single mod.
If you were talking about modifications in general, as I assume you were, I must again reiterate that one cannot simply generalise every issue one encounters in life.
A modification can be almost anything, I could replace every model in the game with a single triangle (as models are composed of) and it would indeed be a modification, but I doubt it would run slower, granted it could run at all, I am not sure it could.
You may think I am overexaggerating a bit here and you would be right, but I am hoping that you can understand where I am coming from; your statement has little or no real information of relevance.
Now, were you to have said that you feel this one car modification (as you already know this was all he changed) is a cause for concern, we could have had a serious and enlightening discussion regarding the topic, you are always most welcome to voice any of your concerns with us, though again I must stress that you should approach us as soon as possible, as to not let things get out of hand as you did this time.
Assuming this is what you wished to put forth, I must respectfully disagree or at least ask that you back up this claim of yours.
A higher polygon count will of course induce more load on RenderWare, the engine of San Andreas which is what imposes most limits and causes most issues; not your hardware itself, but I have yet to see a claim with solid references or data to back it up that a single car modification (unless it is of an extreme nature) will result in any observable or measureable difference to the gameplay of the user and I am sure that if it did indeed put a noticeable added load on his dated system, he would have immediately removed it.
As an addition to this, most cross maps are already quite simple in nature when it comes to graphical intensity imposed on RenderWare, given the diversity of objects is usually scarce and the clustering of objects is rarely high, so I feel confident stating that his single modification caused no noticeable change in gameplay, to him or others playing against him.
Ah, I do apologise for that quite technical paragraph, it is an interest of mine so it is easy for me to get carried away in a decent discussion.
Lastly you mention that only you would observe his lag and that his lag was "different than other players' one", I would like to address both statements.
When you say that only you would observe his lag, I once again ask you, and anyone else reading this topic, to please apply a decent amount of logical thought to what you bring to the discussion.
You are implying that we would not know because you were the ones attacking him and while this may be true, this was for a single match during a dozen (or so, I cannot remember) rounds.
I am sure you do not believe that we never play apart from in clanwars, and it is exactly that I would have liked for you to think about before making this claim.
We often play against each other and even when we are teaming up on a public server, it will still result in a battle should we successfully eliminate the competition. For this reason I can claim, with no doubt in my mind, that I have played against him far more often than you have, and yes, he does lag, what is to expect from a man in Russia who doesn't have the best of computers to begin with?
You are always welcome to voice your concern regarding a specific player in a clanwar yet you chose not to untill after defeat, and then somebody decided to try again after they found a picture of him using a car modification.
Had you voiced your concern during the clanwar we could have dealt with it, but you chose not to, and thus we can only assume that you accept our line-up, whom then proceeded to kick your ass, pardon my French (a post this long without a bit of humour would be a chore to read, no?).
You also state that his lag is "different" and I must ask, different how?
Again you choose a very vague argument in defence of your case and unless you choose to further elaborate on your point, I can only present you with an equally vague response.
His lag may be different, but may I ask how much lag you have experienced that stems from Moscow, Russia, a Pentium 3 machine rocking Windows 98, and a high quality cat? I guess little to none, is that enough explanation for his unique lag?
Ultimately, if my attempts at a more light-hearted tone deterred you from my points, I truly only wish to leave you with this:
Why did you not speak up during the clanwar in question?
Surely it was not a light from a clear sky in the very final round of the match; the issue must have been present earlier.
It took a loss for you to speak up about the issue (I am well aware of the childish accusations present in the match itself, but as you cannot be expected to control the every move your members make ingame, I disregard this) and when you realised it led nowhere, you seemed to lay the issue to rest.
Then when a picture emerged good enough for someone to make an absolutely outrageous and unwarranted connection, the issue presented itself again and it humours me that in not too long the issue will have been laid to rest again, until of course somebody decides to stir up a new shitstorm, be it between the two of us or two entirely different clans, communities or individuals.
I have nothing against you or your clan as a whole, but you must see where I am coming from.
You lost a match and to me it seems like some of your members are sour about this, for have you any general concerns, you are always most welcome to approach us.
When somebody chooses to cause a fuss behind our backs, with no interest in our side of the story, I can only assume they hold a grudge towards us and wish to mend their broken egos.
I would also like to address your concerns for the tone you have encountered on our forum, though it is most likely not the answer you would hope for.
You mention sensing a tone of hostility, and I can only agree with you, but I am not about to ask for it to stop, and the reason is quite simple.
This is a very personal issue for some of our members, we are not just a community of players who team up to win clanwars, we are, and have always been, a clan based on friendship and socialising.
You may notice this in our way of bringing in new members to the clan, we do not have a set test or a series of trials a person must endure to be brought in, instead we rely purely on recommendations from our members and the person in question.
We are not necessarily interested in their skill or experience, we are interested in who they are and how they fit in with us.
What this means is that to us, GnIDa is not just "that really skilled guy from Russia", he's that really awesome person who has been taking interest and part in what we do for a long while.
Do I know exactly how often he wins in DDs? Do I know what maps he's good at? Do I monitor his perfomance ingame? No, none of that.
A few of the things I do know is that he's Mr. High-Quality Cat, he dries sausages and the skin from oranges in his bathroom, he's the master of unintentional philosophical linguistics, there's a bank in Russia called ALPHA and honestly, I could go on all day.
But most importantly, he's an incredibly likeable person and I will happily stand up and put my head on the line for him, because I know that he would never risk the fun he has ingame (and with us, I presume) for a silly unfair advantage.
It's just a game, for crying out loud, if you can't have fun it's not worth a darn thing and I know he completely agrees with this.
This ended up longer than I had originally intended, but what I'm quite sure you understand by now is that to us this is not just some factual debate, it is a vendetta aimed towards GnIDa and given the very foundation of our clan, this makes it a personal attack on all of us who stand behind him in support.
This is our forum and we decide where to draw the line, if you find a particular post offensive you have every right to ignore it and I welcome you to use this right as much as you want, but when you bring up a personal issue with someone, expect personal responses.
This is why I invite any of our members to voice an unfiltered opinion, whatever it may be, for while a factual debate has no place for personal feelings, there's not a doubt in my mind that this is personal to not only me.
For this very reason I will not apologise for the opinions voiced or the language used regarding this issue, a personal matter is bound to inspire strong opinions in those who care and I will not censor any support for GnIDa or any of my other friends here.
This truly is the essence of the paragraph and all of the responses you perceive as hostile, we are not a community, we are not a clan.
We are friends.
If you go behind my back and start shit regarding my friends, instead of raising the issue properly and openly, I will not be passive, I will not be quiet.
I will stand the fuck up and I will put my head, my balls and everything I have on the line in support of my friends, for I know they would never hesitate to do the same for me.
This is not being online playmates, this is friendship and you better believe it.
I am not trying to scare anyone off, but know this, if you get personal with my friends, you get personal with me.
If you have an issue with anyone here I am always open to solving it, whether in private or public, in a calm and collected manner, but start spreading shit around and you've crossed the line.
You may think this does not have much weight behind it coming from one person, so to entertain that imaginary notion:
Who the fuck is with me?
Oh and Shadow, everyone knows he uses Google Translate, silly rabbit.
P.S. I apologise for any errors in this post not related to the issue, I moved the post into Word after I was left pondering why Firefox was lagging as I was typing.
Turns out this post, where I have simply typed exactly what I feel, ended up slightly longer than expected.