The case of Lio and alexl is one that would have Columbo himself in a muddle! The case of two of the games opposites being tarred with the same brush. Lio a player who has worked his way up from obscurity and proven 4 times on LAN that slowly but surely he has climbed the ladder of skill to great effect. alxel a player who started off the way he has finished, a banned cheater - somewhere in the middle some believed him to possess a fair amount of skill and that had he not made mistakes as a young’n he would now be welcomed as a good player.
image: MWTMNcolumbo5
Both of them kicked at the same time, in the same match for the same offence and now banned for the same amount of time.

If this had happened just to alexl it'd be simple, hes been a cheater before and this just confirms the idea that cheaters never change, a thought reinforced by countless cheaters in the games history. However it didn’t, It happened Lioco also a player whom despite manys dislike of him does command respect as a player who, as proven at CDC4 can out damage many of ET top players and suddenly out of the blue he’s been put into the same jar as the scum of the game.

Many have complained at Clanbase for their decision to ban these players, but really those who are complaining at Clanbase for this are idiots. Clanbase have to ban based off what they’ve been given otherwise every other cheater would be free to play once again. Some say that its got something to do with an argument Lio and DoneX had in a nationscup game and that if this argument hadn’t happened there would have been at least some delay or Spanish inquisition into the situation but personally I don’t buy that, Clanbase are in my opinion blameless in this scenario (once again, I really don’t work for CB).

The fact they are banned is inevitable, the fact that they are cheaters is in my opinion (for Lio) unbelievable.

Many are looking to one of two explanations – either a) someone did something via MSN to transmit something that got them flagged by punkbuster or b) Punkbuster itself was exposed and hacked. It looks from what I’ve been told that option B is the most likely and that personally is quite surprising. In this journal you can see that its not too far fetched a proposal and I know that a couple of people are trying to see how possible it is.

However, why Lio AND Alexl? There is nothing that ties these two together, they are from different ET worlds. Lio is disliked there is no doubt of that and he alone would make sense, but then why take Alexl out at the same time. If you read the screenshots from conversation logs with idiots who claim to know something then Alexl was unlucky or an accident, so surely there is something technically that ties them together?

If you’re a random hacker and you posses the powers to single handily have Punkbuster kick any player in ET why these two and why not all of the Belgian side? Heck, anyone and everyone. So much of the story just doesn’t add up as to why these two were kicked. For Lio there was never any suspicion, in nearly every case prior many have had an idea or a thought that they were cheating which is why if it had happened to Alexl only I wouldn’t be writing this column and nobody would care that he’d been kicked.

The reality of the situation that we’re in, is that Lio’s reputation has earned him peoples attention and rejection at the ruling now that he’s been kicked. Which I don’t think has ever happened before, is that a right thing? Well I for one think yes it is – if Winghaven was kicked for the same thing then I’d hope there was a revolt also, its heart warming to see that even people that dislike Lio have stuck up for him. However if Lio is proven innocent, then faith in Punkbuster will die within a second of the news being released and that would fuck ET right up, so even if Lio wins, ET loses.

However that doesn’t solve the problem and the reality is I’ve no clue what does. Technically I know nothing, I trust a handful of people that do and they’re all baffled by what happened to the pair of them. However for the time being, one of ET’s success stories sits on the sidelines - surely something is wrong with this picture?