Random Drama

Hello everyone,
I hate that I have to make this pastebin considering it contains people I would have considered friends prior to this incident.

As you know, or may not know, I was recently banned from the Metroid Prime Randomizer Server and Tournaments for Cheating and Collusion until January 2022. I find these charges to be absolute bogus and fueled by an emotional rage of a dictator mod. Let's get into it.

First I will go over the Instances in which I was called out for.

My first offence was keeping my merch link (Streamlabs.com/imzlow/merch btw) on my stream while speedgaming was restreaming my stream. I would like to point out that this is NOT an allegation towards my ban, but it is merely the catalyst for what created a lot of tension between me and BashPrime and MsMetroid.

I had done this for 3 races with no backlash at all. Chat even found it funny, and I joked about it with the commentators after every race. In my eyes, this was only being encouraged. Tbh, I was kinda surprised it was allowed, but since it had been showed it was fine, I continued. This leads to my fourth race. I continued with the merch links on my stream again. However, this time, BashPrime decides it is a big deal and reports it to a speedgaming representative, MsMetroid. Bash Messages me that I need to get my merch link off screen and that it is absolutely unacceptable. I stop flashing my merch link during elevators for the remainder of the race.

That's another detail I would like to interrupt with, I would only show my merch link during elevators. I would NOT block off gameplay.

Later on in the race my internet goes out. I don't hit record on OBS immediately because I assume internet will be up quickly and because I honestly didn't think about it. I understand in hindsight that this is my fault and that I should have been locally recording. Bash messages me for 4 minutes to discuss my internet problems. At the end of this, he asks if I'm locally recording. I begin recording and say "I am now." to him. I continue the race and an hour and a half later, LV/Erubi/StitchL0rd DMs me to inform me that Bash says due to a 10 minute gap of recording, I will be DQd from the race and it is up to Clyde to determine whether or not I just lose or if he'll let me rematch him. This kills my motivation to finish the race, obviously, and I decide to stop playing and drop out. I want everyone to keep in mind I was destroying clyde at this point. Probably 30-40 minute lead.

Eventually the race ends and I check my vods. I was missing out on 12 and a half minutes of gameplay, most of which was trying to figure out what was going on with my internet. The rule at the time said 5 minutes, but the mods were debating on 15 minutes and bash had declared it was 10 minutes. So let's look at these times:

If 5 minutes like the rules state: I lose no matter what.

If it was 10 minutes like Bash said, then remember how I said bash talked to me for 4 minutes before mentioning that I should record? 12.5-4 is 8.5. This means if Bash had started with the important info, I wouldn't have been DQd cuz I would've made it within the 10 minute range.

if It's 15 minutes like the mods were debating I'm in the green regardless of what happened.

The discussion ended with Bash saying "significant gap in footage" which is subjective and doesn't mean anything, so the rule is unclear.

I, of course, am kinda upset that Bash hadn't just straight up said the important information, but ultimately I don't care. I was planning on dropping out of the tournament anyways. It had been run poorly from the start with the Darkszero drama and then voting on rules and overriding the rules people voted on for little reason at all, and ultimately I just wasn't having fun with the tournament so I was going to drop out after my race with Clyde (I thought there were only 3 rounds of swiss and figured I'd drop out after pools)

I begin voice chatting with some buddies and it comes to my attention that there is some shit talk going on in a private DM group with the moderators about me and LV/Erubi/StitchL0rd.
Here is a small snippet of the conversation:


[8:47 PM] BashPrime: Hey I need to hash something out.
[8:48 PM] BashPrime: Stitch L0rd is someone I am NOT on good terms with. He basically shit talked me and put me down in the most toxic way
[8:49 PM] BashPrime: I feel bad because I can't be neutral on the matter, but he's an abrasive person and someone I'd rather not have on commentary. But he also hasn't outright broken rules flagrantly enough to warrant being banned.
[8:49 PM] BashPrime: Ugh, sorry for the baggage.
[8:51 PM] BashPrime: @msmetroid And I just found out Zlow just spammed his merch page on the restream
[8:51 PM] msmetroid: X.x
[8:51 PM] BashPrime: I did not expect tonight to go this way.... ugh. I'm sorry
[8:51 PM] msmetroid: It's okay.
[8:51 PM] TheWeakestLink64: Imo I don’t like someone isn’t a good reason to ban them from comms
[8:51 PM] TheWeakestLink64: He did a good job on comms for prime 1
[8:51 PM] TheWeakestLink64: I see no reason to ban him
[8:52 PM] msmetroid: Just tell Zlow that if he can't keep that shit off the restream, he doesn't get a restream.
[8:52 PM] msmetroid: I don't like Zlow for a lot of reasons.
[8:52 PM] BashPrime: I sort of agree. He was good but he also did stuff that I maybe gave him too much leeway over in hindsight
[8:52 PM] msmetroid: o.o


Now, this is where I start to feel abrasive towards Bash and MsMetroid. I do not like when people talk shit about me or my friends behind our backs, especially Bash, who I would consider a friend who is a bit too in-touch with his emotions sometimes. LV and Bash have beef from a prior time that I honestly don't understand. Clyde agrees to rematch with me and I figure one more race won't hurt. I declare that speedgaming no longer has my permission to restream any of my content. I want to clarify, this is because of MsMetroid's Shittalk, not because of my merch not being allowed to be posted. I'm fine with me not being allowed to put my merch link on stream. I don't mind that. What I *do* mind, however, is people talking shit about me and acting as if me being restreamed on speedgaming is the best gift I could ever get. I gain nothing from being restreamed on speedgaming. I don't gain a following, I don't get to interact with my chat, I don't get to interact with their chat, I don't get to show off any of my personality to the chat, and I don't even have fun because of how poorly the randomizer race had been handled. It had created this toxic environment that just wasn't fun to be in. So I was honestly happy to no longer be restreamed on speedgaming.

The rematch vs Clyde comes on. I'm in a voice chat with LV and Dante for the entire run. My Capture Card crashes an hour into the run and I have to reset my PC so I can get my capture card working. My capture card does this weird thing where if it stops working I have to completely restart my computer to get it to work again. There was one OBS update where I could Deactivate and Reactivate and it would go back to working fine but that lasted for like 2 weeks LOL. So anyway, the race continues. Not long after coming back Bash hops into my chat to ask if I am continuing the rando race or if I dropped out and am doing another rando seed. I tell him I'm continuing and he tells me to join the SRL back on livesplit. So I launch LiveSplit and join the SRL and reenter the race and start the timer. I tell Bash I'm back in and he says something like "Okay cool" and leaves. Keep in mind I'm still in the Voice Call while all this is going on. Also keep in mind that Livesplit is starting from 0 and will serve as a timer for how long Bash has known I'm in a voice call.

2 and a half hours go by and Bash comes back to declare that I am DQd for being in a voice chat. I would also like to point out that as he is saying this, I'm on my way to grab my last sky temple key, and Clyde is FIGHTING FINAL BOSSES. This means there is 0 chance I win this randomizer race, at all. Nada. Zero. Zilch. It is IMPOSSIBLE for me to beat Clyde at this point because he is literally fighting the final boss. Keep this in mind.

It then is told to me that Dante is watching Clyde's stream. Dante says "Well yeah, I wanna see the race it's not being restreamed, so I have to go into the other runner's stream to watch. I wasn't even sharing any information on it"

I had no idea that Dante was watching Clyde's stream.

I say I don't care about the race and only wanted to have fun and voice chat, no one was giving me advice and in fact I was deliberately avoiding advice if I didn't know about it. Like earlier in the run LV suggested that I use a secret world in main reactor to check the main reactor item. I tell him that since I didn't know about the main react secret world I will not use it cuz that would be cheating. I then say it's my last race anyway, and if I get DQd or lose or win I don't care I just wanted to give Clyde an actual race. I also want to iterate: Clyde won fairly, and I lost fairly.

I say GGs to Clyde after he Wins (Like 5 minutes later) and he says Zchaotix informed him his stream went down for a little bit and he thinks he has the footage for BashPrime if he needs it, I say that I don't need the footage (If there was a problem, I, as his competitor, would decide whether or not I win or we rematch. So I'm making that decision now, rather than later.) I ask Link if he can update the bracket so I can drop out of the tournament cuz I'm just not having fun.

An hour goes by and there's an @ everyone in announcements informing everyone that Dante, LV, and I am banned from Randomizer Tournaments until January 2022, and that I will be DQd and not given the win over Clyde because I had an unfair advantage and was cheating. The post portrays it as if I was intentionally cheating and as if I had beaten Clyde because I was cheating. I would include the @ everyone post here as evidence, but I'm banned from the discord so you just have to take my word for it LOL.

We argue in the discord. I am a bit abrasive, but overall I'm just defending myself. I call Bash out on only doing this because he hates LV and wants him banned, and that banning all of us for 2 years is bullshit and only out of hatred. I also reveal that I know about the shittalk in DMs and that I am over this bullshit. I am Banned from the server and all my messages are deleted by Bash. If When Dante and LV disagree with Bash, their messages are getting deleted. When vertigo says he disagrees with bash, his messages are deleted, he is banned from the discord, and Bash DMs him claiming that he is stirring the pot and causing unnecessary drama.

After a bit of arguing Dante's ban is lowered to until August. LV and I are still banned until January 2022. They rushed the original bans within an hour. This is my FIRST OFFENCE and I was banned for 2 years. I would also like to point out that I didn't even break any actual rules. At the time the rules I could've broken were that I was supposed to have Emote-Only chat on, which I didn't even think about because in my head, if something goes wrong I want the TOs to talk in my chat and let me know about it (Which hey, that's exactly what they did) and the other rule was you cannot receive info from the other runner or advice.

Does that sound fair? Does a 2 year ban because of my first offence on not putting my chat in emote only mode? I didn't even break the other rule. And Also, I want to point out, If Bash was typing in my chat, why didn't he say it needed to be in emote only mode? At the time there were no Rules against voice chatting at all. If there are rules against it now, that means Bash literally invented rules for LV and I to break *JUST* so he could ban us on my first offence. That's literal bullshit. I should've gotten a warning, not a 2 year ban. Dante didn't even talk the whole run he shouldn't have anything done to him. Dante didn't break rules at all.

And here's where I talk about the issues with Bash's way of running things. Bash is the sole dictator of the randomizer discord. At the time, he had no one to challenge his rulings. Darkszero is the only other admin and he isn't even active in the server. He only does Development on the echoes randomizer and tells us that going out of bounds is cheating. Bash gets to make sole decisions on bans and if you challenge those decisions, he deletes your messages and possibly bans you too. Since he is the only mod he makes any decision he wants unchallenged. That's not how moderation works. You should have a group of people who challenge your ideals help you decide the right thing with facts and logic. It shouldn't be "I hate LV so I'm going to do anything I can to get him and his friends banned because they're conspiring against me!"

Bash recently re-added another mod, after our ban, TheWeakestLink64, but Link has voiced that he cannot challenge Bash because if you challenge Bash you are viewed as his enemy. I really think the randomizer discord needs reform because as it stands it's Bash's Dictatorship Discord that features randomizer updates.

I think my Ban, Dante's Ban, LV's ban are unjustified. We deserved a warning, not a 2 year ban. It was LV's second offense (There was an issue with Kalibur or something IDR) so maybe he gets a small ban, but 2 years is super excessive for a second offense, let alone a first offense of a rule that doesn't even exist.

I honestly wouldn't even care if it weren't for the fact that Dante cared about getting banned and if it weren't for the fact that my character was brought into question. I'm not a cheater. I'm not a colluder. I just wanted to VC with some friends while I played a randomizer.