Pallidum Treponema wrote:I've been reading over this decision, the correspondence between CCP and various parties, as well as comments made by people in this thread, as well as other forums. As far as I'm concerned, my stance is as follows:
* Had Hydra and 0utbreak not attempted to contact CCP, the decision to ban them would have been valid.
* Had Hydra and 0utbreak attempted to contact CCP, and proceeded to train without receiving a response from neither the ATX team nor GMs, and proceeded to train together, the ban would have been valid.
* Had Hydra and 0utbreak attempted to contact CCP, received a response that they were not to train together, yet continued to do so, the decision to ban them would have been valid.
* Had Hydra and 0utbreak attempted to contact CCP, received a response from the GM team that they were permitted to train together, later to receive a response from the ATX team indicating the opposite, and then continued to train together, the decision to ban them would have been valid.
None of the above scenarios took place.
Instead, the ATX team failed to respond to the concerns raised by Hydra and 0utbreak. It can be argued that Hydra and 0utbreak should not have worked that closely together on the test server, but given that they had received permission to train together by a GM, an employee representing CCP, it is certainly plausible that they did so in order to reduce logistics.
Was it a smart thing to do? Probably not.
Is it plausible that they did so with no malicious intentions? Yes.
Given that the alliance tournament has not yet officially started, it is my opinion that the ATX team should have raised their objections with the Hydra and 0utbreak teams, by contacting both teams and established a dialogue. This is an especially important point considering that the ATX team failed to respond to requests from the Hydra and 0utbreak teams regarding this very issue.
The failure of the ATX team to establish a dialogue, combined with the harsh nature of their ruling, suggests that the ruling was made to intentionally punish the Hydra and 0utbreak teams for their actions during the last alliance tournament. It can be further speculated that their failure to respond to the concerns raised by the Hydra and 0utbreak teams was part of this plan.
Is this proof that this is the case? Do I believe this to be the case? No on both questions. But, given the information that we have, it is certainly plausible. In fact, it is about as plausible as Hydra and 0utbreak training together on SiSi in good faith, after having received a response from a GM permitting them to do so.