Unlucky

As you may have seen, I have set this season's closing event for this Saturday, followed by a new season beginning in three weeks time (August 8th). Allow me to explain why.

I would be lying if I said this season has been our most successful so far. It started off well but it rather quickly got derailed by several issues. Some of these issues were our fault by not doing enough prep on the website, leading to weird bugs and unclarity about JDC/JDCE/etc. Not to mention Europe being hit with debilitating heatwaves and poor timing with the world cup.

The decision was made to cut this season short, take some time to regroup, and reopen JDC again, with a fresh approach for season 36. We hope to open a new season with a better user experience.

In order to ensure the best experience possible, however, what also needs to be addressed is the unacceptable behavior of certain individuals - who have determined to be disruptive to an extent we have not seen achieved in many years.

1. Enough has been said about "jjTurbo" and the many examples of anti-social behavior he's exhibited since last year, on J2O, on multiple Discord servers, and finally here, at JDC. He has been banned from multiple aspects of the community for being relentlessly creepy, offputting, and not even trying to behave like a well adjusted adult.

2. The player bee/cherrish/etc. has spent the majority of the last two months accusing a certain official of cheating in JDC events, using a "fast fire macro". He initially brought it up in a semi-reasonable manner, and while we agreed that it shouldn't be used, we also pointed out that would be difficult, if not impossible, to enforce. (This is why I decided to host the opening event with a "Blaster Reducer" mutator.)

To paraphrase what Seren has said on the JDC discord: we take cheating accusations seriously. JDC has been a stable part of the JJ2 community for over 25 years because it has been based on mutual trust. We will ban cheaters if provided with proof - this has happened numerous times in the past. Look no further than our JDC hall of fame and see that there is no winner for season 15 listed.

In the week following the opening event, cherrish had decided to escalate the initial complaint far beyond a reasonable manner. When confronted with a video explaining that there are no fast fire macros at play, he rejected the video as "not proof", began accusing the JDC staff of preferential treatment, and kept demanding explanations that were already provided to him. This led to him being banned from JDC.

Since that time, he has begun posting his own "evidence" - which amounts to vibe-based misinformation and claims that are impossible to verify. Some members of the JDC staff spent a lot of time and energy trying to reconcilliate the situation - mostly by explaining to cherrish that he is wrong, but can be reinstated as a player if he admits to being wrong. This was met only with attempts to manipulate and triangulate officials against eachother.

cherrish has since escalated his initial accusation from not one player, but three, with increasingly irrational reasons, has threatened to take Jazz2Online and JJ2+ taken offline, and has been harrassing multiple people in the game about his "situation". It's difficult for me to find other words to describe this than a complete disrespect towards the community we've built over 25 years, driven only by a pathological desire for attention and clout.

It's transparent and pathetic, and we're sick of discussing cherrish's "latest moves" every day. He and jjTurbo have tried to poison JDC as a brand and without this intervention they might have been successful. They will not be reinstated as players, full stop.

Despite everything, we are moving forward.