Best arena hunter in the world now banned?
by Allison Robert 
Mar 10th 2008 at 9:30AM
I'm still not sure what to make of this, but according to a number of very upset hunters on the official forums, Blizzard has handed a permanent ban to a player known as Megatf, said to be the best arena hunter in the world. His Armory does in fact show him as being #2 in his battlegroup (Reckoning) for 2's, #1 for 3's, and #1 for 5's, so even if he wasn't the best in the world, the guy knew a thing or two about PvP. The ban is popularly attributed to Megatf's having posted criticism of how Blizzard has handled the Hunter crisis in arena. It's certainly tough to argue that hunters are doing well; they are the only class that is underperforming in all three brackets, even by Blizzard's standards and months after the introduction of an MS-debuff to Aimed Shot.A player called Macrospamftw (yeah, I laughed) insists it's because Megatf was posting content and links that contained keyloggers, which sounds a lot more plausible than mere criticism (let's face it, if CM's banned people for that, the official forums would be a ghost town). But the player Guinevere counters by saying there were no links in the banned posts. Poking around a little more resulted in additional details: Megatf often posted while tipsy and was prone to foul language. That's certainly more than enough for a forum ban, but a permanent one?
Megatf does seem to have vanished from the forums completely. Not only are the threads in question gone, but according to the hunters, Megatf's popular post on Hunter PvP has also disappeared. Do any of our readers know what's going on?
Filed under: Hunter, Ranking, News items, PvP, Forums, Battlegrounds, Arena
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Replex Mar 10th 2008 9:44AM
I was under the impression that forum access and game access were handled separately, and the most that could come of forum violations would be prevented access to that service.
I would guess it would have to be something big (such as key loggers being posted) to get that kind of forum violation escalated to the in game department.
Spockette Mar 10th 2008 1:17PM
Maybe mommy grounded him and he had to sell his account?
Diaz Mar 10th 2008 9:49AM
Megatf (previously known as Crimsonlocks) posted the 'bible' on Hunter pvp. His posts were almost always contructive and were extremely helpful to the hunter community. Needless to say he had quite the following. He was also highly critical of how Blizz handles the Hunter class. Suddenly he is banned and all his posts deleted. All references to Megatf swept away... the Hunter forum has asked Blizz to tell us what happened, and yet we hear nothing. Thus people are concerned that someone 'in the know' and truly able to speak for the class has been put on ice simply for speaking up.
I've literally read hundreds of his comments and have never seen him post a keylogger.
JPN Mar 10th 2008 9:54AM
I would think being rated 2/1/1 would be the "best"....unless there was a hunter rated 1/1/1 somewhere.
nav Mar 10th 2008 10:05AM
That's in battlegroup. The claim is he's best in the world, which is a different matter altogether.
JPN Mar 10th 2008 10:07AM
True, but again, you'd have to show me a 1/1/1 anywhere to say someone's better. a 2/1/1 I guess would be somewhat similar...
Algorithm Mar 10th 2008 10:39AM
Impossible to know, really, since there are so many different battlegroups. I'm on Reckoning, and I don't think it's a scrub battlegroup at all, but some consider "B9" the premier PvP battlegroup. I don't know how anyone really knows, though.
awender Mar 10th 2008 9:59AM
Well, I've a mail in my postbox from Evil Blizzard, which menaces me to ban my account if I insist on changing my details.
They'll ban anybody, who could possibly disturb their money flow. It's easy for them. They are huge and have monopoly.
Nluvnit Mar 10th 2008 10:22AM
Oh that's BS. If they were so busy protecting their money flow they wouldn't have forums because everyone would be banned. Everyone at some point has been critical of Blizzard. One person isn't going to make a difference. You people that see consipiricies in EVERYTHING amuse me. Did you guys ever consider that they can't discuss with anyone besides the person they banned exactly why they did it? There could be all sorts of repercussions if they did.
Just remember, keyloggers, swearing, etc. This is all speculation.
Cynra Mar 10th 2008 10:38AM
Just to play devil's advocate for a moment, it's one thing when Joe Blow posts on the forums to complain about something; it's another thing when someone who actually has clout does so. And repeatedly. Very few people (Hi, mom?) are going to care if I make a scathing post on the forums, but someone who is well-known within the community and has a following can stir up feelings of illwill. As further evidenced by the hunter community's ire with Megatf's ban.
Though I have to agree: my understanding was that forums restrictions are typically handled different than in-game bannings. I know of a few people who are in-game, yet don't have access to the forums due to past indiscretions and innappropriate antics. I heard of one individual who was supposedly banned from the game as a result of his conduct on the forums, but it was only after trying to circumvent a forums banning repeatedly.
And knowing that individual's reputation, I wouldn't be surprised if he did something in-game that coincided with his attempts.
dan Mar 10th 2008 10:45AM
How on Earth does Blizzard have a monopoly?
To the op please clarify: was this hunter banned from just the forums? the game and forums?
Zarzuur Mar 10th 2008 10:30AM
After seeing Megatf's armory (wow!) and this article, it makes me obviously ask the question .. "who are the best PvPers of each class?"
(Not just "who is best team?" because presumably that question will be answered by the Arena realm (?).)
Diaz Mar 10th 2008 10:37AM
Repercussions by who exactly? Obviously not Megatf as it's to his advantage to continue the posts. And not by Blizz because their TOS allows them to ban for whatever reason they see fit. Also the CMs have often stated when and why they have banned individuals in 'blue' posts, I've seen it done several times. Blizz has no legal liability for the ban either.
griffdog Mar 10th 2008 10:55AM
To educate the ignorant, Megatf is indeed the best PvP hunter in the world and is actually rated the best PvPer in the world by SKGaming (or at least has been in the past). He is incredibly knowledgeable. You can also check out arenajunkies.com for his videos and write ups of Arena Hunter strats.
Whenever a hunter complains about Arenas, people inevitably link his armory. Of course they are usually ignorant of the fact that Megatf is one of the loudest voices decrying how up'd hunters are in Arenas.
Any hunter who doesn't know who this guy is and does Arenas should look at his strats over at Arenajunkies.
hpavc Mar 10th 2008 10:56AM
The guy's guild is
Leaf Mar 14th 2008 11:46AM
Permanent forum bans are not connected to the player's ability to play in the game, as it's two different things.
I've myself been permanently banned on the forums for using explicit language. It's all how you use the language that matters, not the fact that you use it. In my case I pretty much just filled a post with the word "f-ck" and variations of it (i.e. "f-cking" and "f-ucked" and so on).
This made me get permanently banned, without any warnings or temporary bans before it - wham bam thank you m'am, and good night. So, that they banned him permanently doesn't surprise me if what you say is true and that he had a tendancy to type when drunk and posting vulgar thigs on the boards while in that state.
As to best player and all that. Like already mentioned... it's just too easy to exploit the Arena system right now, so I apologize toany good plyer out there with a high rated team, but high rating means diddly right now.
darian Mar 10th 2008 5:07PM
Indeed. If anything it sounds like he got preferential treatment for lasting as long as he did without a ban. Given what I've seen of the forum moderation, explicit language-filled drunken posts are a quick ticket out of town.
Mixx Mar 10th 2008 3:30PM
Jealous much?
BaboonNL Mar 10th 2008 11:22AM
He was spamming the hunter percentages of that class representation thing on the forum, and got forum-banned for a week. They also removed all his posts. He made a post about him on AJ himself a few days ago. Not really a big deal.
Dushkin Mar 10th 2008 11:32AM
You guys do realize that there could be more to it than just forum spam, right? For all we know he could have been botting (why does that sound so ... plausible?)