Ever since the Trackmania Cheating Scandal in 2021, top players have had raised suspicions towards new players. Many of the fastest improving talents have wrongly been assumed to be cheaters or smurf accounts. Eddy Reising was thought to be one such player, who had a meteoric rise to Rank 1 in Trackmania Lagoon. But a long investigation into this topic has revealed many uncomfortable truths beneath the surface. This is the story of Trackmania's Biggest Con Man.
Related videos I recommend watching:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDUdGvgmKIw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iROYdfBKmR4
This investigation would not have been possible alone, and I have to give the biggest thanks to:
Arkes, DarkLink, Loupphok, Tomashu, Bigbang1112, Kim & Socramdavid.
Join my Discord to see Bounty Requirements, as well as chat with other Trackmania players:
https://www.discord.gg/Wirtual
Check out my other channel where I post every day!
↳ @WirtualTV
You should watch me live on Twitch:
http://www.twitch.tv/Wirtual
Edited by Zero & Bass
https://www.twitter.com/lolzeroedits
https://www.twitter.com/BassTTV_
Related videos I recommend watching:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDUdGvgmKIw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iROYdfBKmR4
This investigation would not have been possible alone, and I have to give the biggest thanks to:
Arkes, DarkLink, Loupphok, Tomashu, Bigbang1112, Kim & Socramdavid.
Join my Discord to see Bounty Requirements, as well as chat with other Trackmania players:
https://www.discord.gg/Wirtual
Check out my other channel where I post every day!
↳ @WirtualTV
You should watch me live on Twitch:
http://www.twitch.tv/Wirtual
Edited by Zero & Bass
https://www.twitter.com/lolzeroedits
https://www.twitter.com/BassTTV_
Category
🎮️
GamingTranscript
00:00As one of the biggest voices in the Trackmania community, I often get asked to use my platform
00:04for the sake of good.
00:06On the Trackmania Reddit page, the user Slobodan Medota brought up that Virtual could use his
00:10reach for something useful for once, and expose such toxic behavior.
00:15Toxicity in Trackmania is something to be talked about, and you could probably write
00:18a book about it by now.
00:19This user is, unfortunately, completely correct.
00:22There's been a lot of bad things happening that nobody is talking about, and it shouldn't
00:26be that way.
00:27Recently, I was approached with information that, if true, would challenge what everyone
00:32in Trackmania believes to be real.
00:34A story so preposterous it would be easiest to sweep it under the rug and ignore it.
00:38But when I come across heavy information, I believe that players have a right to know
00:42what's been going on, and that I have a responsibility to talk about it.
00:46My goal as a creator is, and has always been, to share my passion and enjoyment for Trackmania
00:50with you, and I will of course continue to do so.
00:52But please know before we dive deeper into this topic, that this video is going to be
00:56very different from my other content.
00:59If you watch my channel for fun stories, this video is not going to be one.
01:04You see, the message I received was about the player Eddie Reising, a new talent in
01:08Trackmania Lagoon, who over the last two years climbed to rank 1 in the game.
01:13By many, he is seen as a player to be celebrated, but after researching this topic, I am no
01:18longer so sure.
01:20The message contained concerns that Eddie isn't who he's claiming to be.
01:24The more I dug for evidence to support this claim, the more I was astounded by what I
01:28discovered.
01:30Not only was there proof that this is true, but it also seemed possible that Eddie could
01:34have pretended to be other people in the community, including this Slobodan Medota account on
01:39Reddit.
01:40The finds in this investigation have all pointed towards one player being behind the Eddie
01:45account, and that is Riolu, the biggest cheater in Trackmania history, and someone who hasn't
01:51had any communication with the community since 2021.
01:55This story is equal parts fascinating and unsettling, and uncovers some of the wildest
02:00behaviors I've ever seen on the internet.
02:03Fasten your seatbelts, everybody, because there is a lot to talk about.
02:07This is the story of Trackmania's biggest conman.
02:19Before we go on, I'd like to thank Arkis, Darklink, Lufoc, Tomoshu, BigBang1112, Kim
02:25and SoCramDavid, players that, if it weren't for their help, this investigation would not
02:30have been possible.
02:31I would also like to say that this video is made with the main objective of informing
02:35the Trackmania community, and documenting the events that have happened.
02:39Please do not attempt to contact or harass the players mentioned in this video.
02:43By publishing this information, we hope to achieve a better competitive environment in
02:46Trackmania, and any and all harassment would only counteract this effort.
02:51Thank you and enjoy.
02:53For those that don't know the backstory of Riolu, I will quickly go through it, since
02:56it is important context for this video.
02:59In 2021, it was discovered that replay files in the game store the exact steering inputs
03:04a player does in their run.
03:07The community member Donadigo made a tool to visualize these steering inputs, so players
03:11could better see how the best drivers had steered the car in their records.
03:16In most cases, this tool worked perfectly fine, but when it was used to display the
03:20inputs in records driven by Riolu, it would show inhumanly quick and jittery steering
03:26inputs.
03:27This eventually led to a huge cheating investigation looking at records in all Trackmania games,
03:32and a detailed report later proved, along with admissions from some of the cheaters,
03:37that records with these inhuman inputs had been achieved by driving in slow motion, using
03:42Cheat Engine to slow down the game speed.
03:45This cheating method was incredibly effective, as it allowed the cheaters to have superhuman
03:50precision and reaction time, in a game all about shaving off hundredths of a second.
03:56And for the longest time, it was completely undetectable.
04:00Out of the cheaters exposed in the report, Riolu was by far the most severe.
04:05He used Cheat Engine to set records in Trackmania United Forever, Trackmania Nations Forever,
04:10Trackmania 2 Canyon, Valley, Stadium, Lagoon, Trackmania Turbo, and recently it was discovered
04:17that he possibly cheated in slow motion in Trackmania 2020 as well.
04:22During his years of cheating, he completely dominated the leaderboards.
04:25At one point, Riolu simultaneously held 62 out of 65 world records in Trackmania 2 Canyon
04:32Campaign, and later 64 out of 65 in Trackmania Valley.
04:36He achieved these feats while holding rank 1 in Trackmania United Forever, and in 2019,
04:42he managed to clean sweep Trackmania Turbo, with 200 out of 200 world records on official
04:47maps at the same time.
04:49In 2015, he was invited to drive strong official target times for the Super Trackmaster Campaign
04:54in Trackmania Turbo.
04:56The community at the time thought he was simply the GOAT, but as we would later learn, these
05:01accomplishments were all cheated, including the official target times driven for Nadeo
05:06in Trackmania Turbo.
05:07In total, it amounts to a decade of cheating, from 2011 to 2020, and it's estimated that
05:13he set thousands of cheated records during this time, making him by far the biggest cheater
05:17in Trackmania history, if not in all of video games.
05:22He was without a doubt also a good player, he proved that in live competitions and by
05:26setting world records on his live stream, but the most competitive and precise maps
05:31he would conveniently grind off stream.
05:33From 2015 to 2021, Riolu was building a career as a Trackmania live streamer, and by the
05:39time the cheating came to light, he had become rather successful, but when the report was
05:43about to be published, he had to face the sobering reality that 10 years of bad decisions
05:48were catching up to him.
05:50Rather than owning up to it and taking accountability, Riolu crashed out in a now infamous live stream,
05:56where for the duration of an hour, he gaslit his audience, denied ever having cheated,
06:01and called parts of the investigation a witch hunt and an attempt at blackmailing.
06:05All of this backfired when the report came out, and people got to see the inputs for
06:09themselves, and it left many with an even worse impression that Riolu had continued
06:14to try to lie to the bitter end.
06:17Shortly after that stream, Riolu shut down his Discord server and presumably logged off
06:21all social media.
06:23It has now been almost 4 years since these events have happened, and Riolu hasn't been
06:27seen in Trackmania since.
06:29He never took any accountability for the cheating, and he never apologized.
06:34Most players thought he had decided to leave Trackmania behind and moved on to other things
06:37in his life, but as we will discuss today, that is not the case.
06:42The reason I'm bringing all of this up is because the person that contacted me is Arkis,
06:46a leaderboard moderator for Trackmania Exchange, and Arkis had strong reasons to believe that
06:51Riolu was now playing under the name Eddie Rising.
06:55Trackmania Exchange hosts the main leaderboards used in Trackmania United Forever.
07:00This website stores millions of replay files of players' records, dating all the way
07:04back to 2008.
07:07Replay files contain a great deal of information.
07:09As mentioned, they contain inputs, but they also tell you what in-game account any run
07:14was driven on.
07:16In Trackmania, game accounts are called logins.
07:19A login cannot be changed after an account is created, and has to be unique from all
07:24other players.
07:26Replay files also store information about the display name a player used.
07:30It tells you the name of the skin they used, and the flag or avatar that they have selected.
07:35There's more things too, but they aren't relevant for this video.
07:39Based on these identifiers, Arkis had legitimate reason to believe that Eddie Rising wasn't
07:44who he was claiming to be, and in November of 2024, he messaged Eddie on Discord with
07:49his findings, in a conversation we will take a look at later.
07:52The final communication between the two is that Arkis asked Eddie to record a voice message
07:57to prove his identity, to which Eddie answered he didn't appreciate being talked to in
08:02a condescending way, as if he was some sort of criminal.
08:05He said he would provide everything Arkis requested, just to get this weird topic off
08:09the table, but shortly after sending these messages, he completely vanished, and Eddie
08:14hasn't been seen in the game or on Discord for the last three months.
08:19As he was one of the best Lagoon players, it was odd for him to just leave without any notice.
08:25In January of 2023, Eddie made his first appearance in the TrackMania community, when he published
08:30his first YouTube video, a 7th place in the world on the official track Coast B1.
08:36Based on the aforementioned identifiers, we know this record was driven on the login Ponzor22.
08:43This track has over 30,000 players on the leaderboards, so setting a time in the top
08:4710 is very respectable, especially for what seemed to be a brand new player.
08:52Over the next weeks, Eddie continued to post records in TrackMania United that went mostly
08:56unnoticed, as the tracks he competed on were rather obscure.
09:00But in April he got inspired to play a different game, TrackMania 2 Lagoon, and his arrival
09:06on the leaderboards was impossible to miss.
09:09On the 29th of April, all the best Lagoon players were quite literally shocked, when
09:14Eddie, on his first day of playing the game, managed to achieve 8 top 10 records in the
09:19world.
09:20And not only that, the maps he drove were the first 15 you encounter, and thus some
09:26of the most prestigious to hold the top records on.
09:29But Eddie made it seem effortless to climb as high as 2nd place out of 15,000 players
09:33on each track he hunted, all in the same afternoon.
09:38A streak of records like this from an unknown player was completely unheard of, and top
09:42players felt it just cannot be possible to get this good, this quickly.
09:47Since they themselves had spent years getting to their skill level, it was quickly assumed
09:51that Eddie had to be either a smurf or a cheater.
09:55Eddie explained that he had some experience from playing Lagoon in TrackMania Turbo on
09:59console, and that the way he was able to achieve all the records was from rigorous practice
10:04beforehand.
10:05He said he would rebuild the map into several smaller sections to learn it more effectively,
10:10as well as comparing replays to analyze mistakes, saying he made very quick progress, as he
10:15just had to copy his muscle memory from practice maps to real ones.
10:20And evidently, this method worked, because his runs were almost immediately the fastest
10:24in the world.
10:25He also live recorded all his runs and included footage of the gameplay sessions in his video,
10:31making it significantly harder to get away with cheating.
10:34The same day as this spree of records, Eddie joined several community servers on Discord,
10:39introducing himself to other players and attempting to put their doubts to rest.
10:43This is also where he shares the first details about himself and his life.
10:48Eddie says he lives in Kazakhstan, has a full-time job, and mentions having a wife and a baby
10:53boy on several occasions.
10:56Over the summer of 2023, Eddie continued to set insane times.
11:01Out of 65 official tracks in the game, Eddie at the time held the world records on 19 of
11:06them.
11:07He managed to accomplish this without even unlocking all the tracks yet, which he do
11:11by beating silver medal target times.
11:14These are ridiculously easy for someone driving at world record pace to unlock, but in 5 months
11:19of playing, he still hadn't unlocked them all.
11:22One time when asked why his display name looked so old school, Eddie explained that he had
11:27a background in playing Trackmania Nations Forever in 2010, and by checking the online
11:32database Deddymania, they could see that Ponsor22 indeed had online records all the
11:38way back in 2009.
11:40His backstory checked out and it added more credence to his skill, but to many players,
11:45something still seemed strange about him.
11:47Members of a Discord server that Eddie frequented said Eddie would often join their voice calls
11:52and watch other top players livestream their attempts, but he would personally never talk,
11:57always citing having his microphone muted in order to not disturb his wife.
12:01Over the next year, Eddie continued to grind Lagoon, and slowly but surely became a trusted
12:06member of the community, and in the summer of 2024, Eddie decided to return to Trackmania
12:12United Forever.
12:13In the description of a video he uploaded on the 25th of July, he writes that he didn't
12:18like his old login, so he bought a new account, and from this point forward, he stops playing
12:23on Ponsor22 and makes Eddie A his new main account.
12:27In November of 2024, Arkis is browsing Trackmania Exchange profiles and stumbles upon the fact
12:33that Eddie uses two different logins.
12:36There isn't anything inherently wrong with having two accounts, but it could be a sign
12:40of account sharing or someone else driving records for you.
12:44Arkis was curious and searched the database to see if these logins showed up anywhere
12:48else on the site, and three replays from Ponsor22 appeared on an ancient profile, Ponsor.
12:55This profile hadn't been active since 2010.
12:58It had four records driven on the leaderboards, and three of them were driven on Ponsor22,
13:04making it seem likely that this indeed was Eddie's old profile, but the fourth and final
13:09replay uploaded to the leaderboards was driven on a different login, and not just any login,
13:15it was driven on Acceleracer01, which happens to be the main account of Riolu.
13:25This discovery is the reason why Arkis eventually approached Eddie in Discord.
13:30When confronted about it, Eddie explained that the Ponsor22 in-game account was one
13:34he shared with a friend, and that he made Eddie A to have his own one.
13:39He says he never knew there was a TMX account with the same name, and whatever happened
13:43with it he couldn't say.
13:45When asked why some replay files have the Germany flag when Eddie is from Kazakhstan,
13:50he says, I can only guess it was one of the people I shared an account with.
13:55And when asked who these friends or people are, he was unable to name any names.
14:00And as mentioned earlier, when asked to voice chat or to record a voice message, he didn't
14:05follow through.
14:07After this conversation, Eddie went inactive, both on Discord and in-game, and hasn't
14:12been seen in the three months since.
14:14While it's weird to have a Riolu replay on a Trackmania Exchange profile linked to
14:18your in-game account, and to disappear just after being confronted about it, it's not
14:23enough to draw any conclusions from.
14:25And in order to find out who Eddie is, we would have to dig deeper.
14:29In December of 2024, Arkis messaged me with all of this information, and together with
14:34a team of players, we have tried to examine all the available evidence.
14:39Over the years, there have been many crazy theories about Riolu smurfing.
14:44Because of his swift disappearance, many found it hard to imagine he went from playing and
14:48live streaming the game every day, to just immediately stopping.
14:52But all the theories so far have been completely wrong.
14:55The players Hobbit and PushtitoPaco have had claims against them of being Riolu smurf,
15:01since they rapidly improved at the game around the time he went inactive.
15:05But both have had clear alibis that prove they couldn't be Riolu.
15:09There's also the controversial 92Bob account in Trackmania United Forever.
15:14A mysterious player that started achieving world records in June of 2021, just weeks
15:19after the cheating was uncovered.
15:22This account went from having 0 skill points to 165 million and achieving rank 1 on the
15:27leaderboards in just half a year of playing.
15:30And the community deemed it impossible for an unknown player to achieve such a feat,
15:35and figured it had to be a smurf account.
15:3892Bob has been the most suspected Riolu smurf account since the cheating scandal, but there's
15:43never been enough evidence to conclusively prove who it belongs to.
15:48In this video, I intend to leave no room for doubt, not just about who is behind the Eddie
15:53Rising account, but also 92Bob, as with what we have discovered, we believe we have solved
15:59both mysteries.
16:01So let's start with the replays on Trackmania Exchange.
16:05When Riolu drove the run uploaded to Ponzor's profile, he was going for rank 1 in Trackmania
16:10United Forever, and in order to achieve that, you must obtain a lot of one particular resource,
16:16and that is coppers.
16:18The copper system is an antique part of Trackmania, and not present in newer games, but back in
16:23the day, to compete on the in-game leaderboards, you had to pay 10 coppers per attempt in official
16:30mode.
16:31It is not possible to purchase coppers from Nadeo, but you receive 50 coppers for logging
16:35in each day, and you get 30 coppers each time you beat the gold medal on a track in
16:40official mode.
16:41This alone is hardly enough to sustain thousands of attempts at getting the best records, and
16:47many players don't bother with the in-game leaderboards for this reason, but for the
16:51players going for rank 1 in-game, it was essential to have a big bankroll of coppers to fund
16:56their grinding sessions, and farming copper competitions would have been a very important
17:01thing for this reason.
17:03The track where we found a Riolu replay on the Ponzor account, just so happens to be
17:07one where the prize pool for the best times was 36,000 coppers.
17:12We decided to scan all of Trackmania Exchange for users that had Acceleracer01 replays uploaded,
17:18and we ended up finding two more profiles.
17:21One of them was Cyrox, which had a Riolu replay on the same track as Ponzor, uploaded within
17:27minutes of Ponzor and Riolu's main profile on the very same day.
17:33In total, Riolu received 8,000 coppers from this one competition.
17:38The run on Cyrox's profile had also been driven with Riolu's display name at the
17:42time, and then been modified to Cyrox before it was uploaded.
17:47There's also one other record on the Cyrox profile, and that one is driven on the login
17:52HotRacer.
17:54This is also the login that Cyrox wants the coppers paid out to.
17:58Doing a lookup on the account HotRacer shows that its current display name is Cyro, and
18:04downloading all the available replays from the in-game leaderboards shows it has used
18:08the nickname Camip as well.
18:10This closely matches the fourth and final TMX profile that has Riolu replays on it,
18:16Ionex.
18:17Interestingly, we find that several of the thumbnails on maps uploaded by this user has
18:21the signature Cyro written on them.
18:24This user has 15 replays uploaded, and 13 of them are driven on the login Xsamir.
18:31One is on the login Craftzor, and the final replay is on Acceleracer01.
18:36In the 13 replays driven on Xsamir, the nickname Cyro is used 10 times, and Camip is used twice
18:43as well, closely linking Xsamir and HotRacer together.
18:48We also realized we were on the right track when we found a cheated run on the Xsamir
18:52account, uploaded in May of 2011 to the track Three Strange Days.
18:58This run was likely driven in slow motion, and displays the same jittery inputs that
19:02can be seen in Riolu's runs from the cheating report.
19:06The Xsamir account went inactive in 2011, and remained that way for many years, until
19:12in 2017 it reappeared in a competition called The True Talent Cup.
19:18In an old video of this competition from Trackmania streamer Spammy, we can see that
19:23Xsamir, or Absol as the display name, is competing, and setting times so impressive that others
19:29in the voice call are surprised.
19:34Since Riolu was considered the best United player in the world at the time, many had
19:38high expectations to see him compete, but unfortunately he showed up too late to compete,
19:43and was only able to watch Spam stream.
19:46Riolu appeared in Spam's Twitch chat just after the mentions of Absol, and then continued
19:51to chat throughout the entire tournament, but if you pay attention to when he sends
19:55the messages, it is only between competition rounds, because as we now know, he was the
20:01one playing as Absol undercover in this tournament.
20:05In 2018, the Xsamir account would take on a new identity, and we would officially get
20:10it confirmed that this account used to belong to Riolu, because that is also when Riolu
20:15gave this account to his friend Lars, so Lars could participate in other Trackmania United
20:20competitions.
20:21Riolu also cheated more than the one replay we discovered on this account, because when
20:25Nadeo scanned the leaderboards for cheated runs in July of 2021, Xsamir was detected
20:32to have 19 cheated runs, resulting in the account getting banned.
20:36If you now try to enter the login details Lars was given, you will be presented with
20:41this notice.
20:43With Xsamir confirmed to be Riolu's account, it likely confirms HotRacer by proxy, as it
20:48has had the same display name multiple times.
20:51But now let's take a look at Crashzor, the third login seen on the profile Ionex, and
20:56see where that fits into the puzzle.
20:59The metastats for this login showed it was driving in the same zone as Riolu, in Dortmund,
21:04Germany, and a Google search of the display name Leandagu reveals that in 2015, someone
21:10suspected an account with the same name of cheating in Trackmania 2 Valley.
21:16These threads are the only time Riolu used the Deddymania forums, and he used them to
21:20defend the legitimacy of Crashzor for Leandagu's runs.
21:24Crashzor also ended up banned in Trackmania United Forever when the records were purged,
21:29having 16 cheated records in official mode.
21:33And interestingly, by analyzing surviving records from this account in Canyon, we can
21:37determine that it cheated with Cheat Engine, as the inputs are clearly inhuman there as
21:43well.
21:44Crashzor also had a few online records that survived the purge, and perhaps most interesting
21:49is that the account goes inactive for around 3 years, from November 2016 until the 17th
21:55of April 2020.
21:57It then returns to play a few rounds online on the server Alpina Public, and by some miracle,
22:04only 2 hours after Crashzor's return to the game, Riolu decides to play on the same
22:08server on his livestream, after half a year of online inactivity on his main Trackmania
22:14United account.
22:15The final account we discovered is Buzzkill22.
22:19Not only does this login have the same name suffix as Ponzor, but it also exists on the
22:23Dortmund leaderboards, and by downloading the replays from the account, we can see it
22:27uses the very same nickname as Eddy, strongly indicating that these accounts are owned by
22:32the same person.
22:34Both of the accounts also have slow motion runs on them, though they are insignificant
22:38and likely ancient records.
22:41Every profile on Trackmania Exchange that has a Riolu replay uploaded links back to
22:45him in clear patterns, and rather than being a very long list of coincidences, we see it
22:51most likely that all these logins belong to Riolu.
22:55It might seem bizarre to have this many accounts in the game, as you would hardly find time
23:00to play on all of them, but once you see it through the lens of copper farming, it
23:04makes perfect sense.
23:06If you buy a fresh account and beat the gold medal on every track available in the campaign,
23:10it can net you over 12,000 coppers, as well as increasing your daily gains by 50.
23:16Another strategy used by players is to buy a previously owned account.
23:20These can often be found for cheaper on eBay, and could have a treasure trove of unused
23:25as described here by the player Techno, who is notorious for having around 50 accounts
23:30in Trackmania United Forever, and has managed to accrue over 3 million coppers this way.
23:36Anyway, if these other logins belong to Riolu over the years, then it is very likely that
23:41Pawnzor22 now does as well.
23:45But let's remember that a lot can happen in 14 years.
23:48In the same way that Riolu gave the Examir account to Lars, Lars could have passed that
23:53account on to someone else.
23:55And though Riolu matches the profile of knowledge and skill needed to be FakeEddy, it is still
24:01technically possible that someone else could have gotten this account.
24:05The most satisfying answer to a mystery is one that leaves no room for doubt or speculation,
24:10and in order to achieve that, we have to analyze more replays.
24:18In the next phase of the investigation, we scanned all available replays on the official
24:22in-game ladder.
24:23To do this, we got the help of Trackmania genius Tomashu.
24:27After downloading all replays from logins related to Riolu, Tomashu crucially realized
24:32that records driven in official mode actually have a date and timestamp of when they were
24:37registered on a DAO servers, something that nobody in the community knew up until then.
24:44Another important detail is that if a player had downloaded the competitive patch, information
24:49about which specific input device they used would be saved in the replay file.
24:54This was commonplace knowledge, but it was previously thought that once a record is submitted
24:58to Nadeo servers, this information would no longer be written into the replay file, but
25:04Tomashu discovered it's actually still there.
25:08These two data points could be used to identify patterns between several logins, and since
25:13nobody knew this information existed, they never thought to shield themselves against
25:17it.
25:19A question that came up frequently in the investigation was, if Riolu is FakeEddy, then
25:24who on earth is 92Bob?
25:26It seemed unlikely that Riolu would find the time to smurf on several accounts at the same
25:31time, but the timeline of known activity from 92Bob and FakeEddy lined up surprisingly well.
25:3892Bob first appears just after the cheating scandal, and remains active from June 2021
25:45until December 2022.
25:47At that point, the account had reached 200 million points, and stopped playing.
25:52Shortly after, in January of 2023, FakeEddy posts his first YouTube video, and proceeds
25:58to stay active until October 2024, where he drove his last known record in Trackmania
26:03Lagoon, and one week later, 92Bob returned to Trackmania United Forever.
26:09Though the investigation was originally focused on Eddy, these new data points made us take
26:14a much closer look at 92Bob as well.
26:17When we compared the timestamps of activity between the logins we knew Eddy had access
26:21to and 92Bob, an unbelievable pattern emerged.
26:26It starts on the 25th of September 2021, when Buzzkill becomes active again after almost
26:3110 years of inactivity, and rapidly starts setting records.
26:36When looking at how much time passes between each record, it's sometimes as little as
26:40only 30 seconds, making it clear that the player could only be doing one thing, farming
26:46coppers by beating gold medals.
26:49And shortly after this streak of records from Buzzkill concludes, 92Bob sets a new personal
26:54best.
26:56On the 24th of October, the same thing happens.
26:59On the 31st of October, the same thing happens.
27:03Shortly after these personal bests from Bob, the Ponser22 account becomes active again
27:07as well, and farms coppers in the same way for 3 hours, and after the harvest, Bob again
27:14sets a new personal best.
27:17This pattern of the stolen Eddy accounts farming coppers and Bob setting a new PB can be seen
27:22again and again throughout the end of 2021.
27:25In 2022, the pattern continues, only that now, 92Bob and the Eddy accounts have started
27:32using the competitive patch, which contains data about the input device used, and wouldn't
27:38you know it, they also use the same controller.
27:42The way this data is saved is by looking at the vendor ID and product ID of the USB devices
27:47connected to the game.
27:49When looking at the vendor ID that appears in Eddy and 92Bob's replays, it shows he's
27:54using a controller from Big Ben Interactive Limited.
27:58Looking at the Wikipedia page of this company, shows that Big Ben has rebranded to Nacon.
28:04On the 8th of March 2021, Riolu posted about receiving the asymmetric wireless controller
28:08on Twitter, as Nacon were one of the main sponsors of his esport organization.
28:14To figure out if this was the controller with the same product ID as we see in 92Bob and
28:18FakeEddy's replays, I decided to purchase one, making sure to get one with the same
28:23packaging.
28:25I plugged it in and drove a replay, and wouldn't you know it, it has the same product ID.
28:31Vendor 146B, product 609.
28:35If both logins were using a standard Xbox or PS5 controller, it would be easy to write
28:40this off as a coincidence, but Nacon is a rather niche brand, and seeing both these
28:44logins driving the same map, same day, 10 minutes apart with the same controller is
28:50very suspect.
28:52When looking at the timestamps, we also assumed that, when there were gaps in the data, Bob
28:57was likely farming coppers via other accounts, and we came up with a smart way of identifying
29:02them.
29:03You see, there is one more way of gaining coppers in Trekmania United Forever, and that
29:08is by logging in to the Mania Zone forums once a week.
29:11This gives you a bonus of 100 coppers.
29:14Since the profile page of each player has a timestamp for when they registered on the
29:18forums and when their last sign-in was, we came up with the idea to look for registrations
29:23and recent sign-ins that matched Bob and FakeEddy.
29:27The imposter made this work rather easy for us, as he decided to register most of the
29:31accounts minutes apart on the same day.
29:35On the 17th of August 2024, we see the Eddy accounts, Ponzor and Buskill, register on
29:41the site, preceded and followed by a horde of accounts in the same 5 minutes.
29:46Keep in mind that activity on these forums is completely dead, and I want to be exceptionally
29:51clear that a series of logins and last active timestamps matching this closely several weeks
29:57in a row doesn't happen by accident.
30:00The imposter was a bit more careful with 92Bob, as that account doesn't register on the
30:05forums till the 10th of October, but Bob's recent sign-ins match exactly with some of
30:10the accounts spotted earlier.
30:12We now had a list of 15 accounts, all logging in at the same time on the forums to collect
30:17coppers and using the same controller that we know Riolu has.
30:21If having one identical controller wasn't rare enough, FakeEddy and 92Bob and two other
30:26coppers merfs can be seen with two matching controllers connected.
30:30The Nacon controller and an Xbox 360 controller, both plugged into the PC when their records
30:36were set.
30:37Bob, Jowurch and Ludoswood did this a few hours apart, whereas the FakeEddy ones with
30:42this combination happened a few months earlier.
30:46Another strange account on this new list was Krafik72, since this is an account that Techno
30:51had told me earlier used to belong to him.
30:54I decided to contact Techno about it, and interestingly, Techno said he at one point
30:58gave the password of Krafik72 to Riolu in order to smurf online together, and when he
31:04tried to connect to it now, he no longer had access to it.
31:07Logging in just one time on someone's account in Trackmania United Forever is enough to
31:11be able to hijack it, as you can change the email address on the profile page and then
31:16request a new password sent to your new email address without any two-factor confirmation
31:22from the old email.
31:24Techno was able to confirm through his backups that he had the password to Krafik72 until
31:28early 2020 at least, but it had been changed between then and now.
31:33But apart from just using these accounts to farm coppers, another pattern that emerged
31:38is that these accounts would all routinely flood specific leaderboards with records.
31:44Sometimes it was just doing one run on each account, minutes apart.
31:49Other times it was an attempt at taking over the top 10 on a track with as many accounts
31:53as possible.
31:55Doing this completely ruins the competition on those tracks, and it got several people
31:59in the community to wonder who was doing all of this.
32:03Many wrongly assumed at the time that these accounts belonged to BlackU, a notorious troll
32:07in Trackmania United.
32:09BlackU said he had no knowledge of these accounts, and BlackU is confirmed not to be 92Bob.
32:15He did however pretend to be 92Bob at one point, as an attempt at getting a Nadeo employee
32:21to delete all of 92Bob's records, but he was unable to show he had ownership of the
32:26account and thus nothing happened to Bob's records.
32:30This story is corroborated from the Nadeo employee.
32:33After much frustration with Bob being anonymous, he also notoriously and reprehensibly tried
32:38to figure out 92Bob's location by sending him an IP address grabber, disguised as a
32:43YouTube link via the in-game mail system.
32:46But fortunately, Bob never clicked on the link.
32:50This action was a stretch too far, and has been shunned by the entire community, but
32:54it also serves as great proof that BlackU isn't Bob.
32:58Someone so hellbent on figuring out Bob's identity wouldn't themselves be behind the
33:03account.
33:04And before you get your tinfoil hat on, analysis of BlackU's replays has also shown he uses
33:09a different controller, he has livestreamed himself playing at the same time as Bob has
33:13achieved records, and he doesn't have any link to any of the Copper Farming accounts.
33:18So no.
33:19Out of the accounts that have been flooding the leaderboards, the strangest of them is
33:23General Cool.
33:25On the 12th of January 2022, this account started playing official mode, both farming
33:30coppers and also setting very strong times on select tracks.
33:35Once you set a record in the top 10, your display name in-game is shown to everyone.
33:40The inexplicable thing about General Cool is that the display name this account was
33:43using was the full real name of the player Misu, and whoever was doing this was essentially
33:50doxing him for no apparent reason.
33:53Misu's real name was not known in the community, only by his closest friends that he had added
33:57on Facebook, and he couldn't understand why any of them would do something like this.
34:02Other players were also lost for reasons why anyone would do this.
34:06At the time, it was wrongly assumed that the player behind these accounts was, again, BlackU,
34:11since he would often try to troll Misu.
34:14And for a period, BlackU did things like driving records with an exact copy of Misu's in-game
34:19display name, causing a lot of confusion.
34:23So it wasn't unthinkable that General Cool could be him.
34:26But in April of 2022, BlackU felt sorry for trolling the community, and requested that
34:31Nadeo delete all the records on the accounts he owned.
34:35Nadeo followed through and deleted all the records from several logins, like the logins
34:40Nevria, Bellamochina, and Fraser.
34:44But the General Cool account was never purged.
34:47In 2023, when BlackU was asked why he never requested General Cool's removal, BlackU
34:52said it was because the account wasn't his.
34:56Misu says, who else would dox me on this random map?
34:59To which BlackU responds, I have my limits, dude.
35:03Trolling, sure.
35:04But not doxing and shit.
35:06And in this instance, we actually know it wasn't BlackU.
35:09The evidence points to that whoever is behind the fake Eddy account, buzzkill22 and ponzor22,
35:16is likely the one who doxed Misu.
35:18On the 3rd of April 2022, the General Cool account can be seen in a cluster playing the
35:24exact same map as buzzkill22, and the other Copper Farming accounts, only minutes apart
35:30on the same controller.
35:31The same thing also happened one month earlier, in March of 2022 on the track Coast C4.
35:38Here General Cool is playing in the same cluster as ponzor22, where all of the accounts set
35:43records minutes apart from one another.
35:46This incident is before any of the accounts used a competitive patch, so we do not have
35:50any controller data for that streak.
35:53But the same thing happens two years later, in September of 2024, when General Cool, together
35:58with buzzkill22 and many of the other Copper Farming accounts, drive one run after another
36:03on AO8 Endurance, again on the same knock-on controller.
36:08General Cool's first registration on the Mania Zone forums happens 4 minutes and 5
36:12seconds after ponzor, and 2 minutes and 56 seconds after buzzkill, and his most recent
36:18sign-in at the time of making this video happens on the 30th of January, which is 1 minute
36:23and 36 seconds after buzzkill22's most recent sign-in.
36:28On the 30th of January, we also see several other accounts login within the same 5 minutes,
36:33and especially of note are the accounts ludoslud, christianclosa, and krafix.
36:38For krafix and christianclosa, their sign-up dates match within minutes of ponzor, buzzkill
36:43and the lot, and their last active timestamp matched within minutes of 92bob, on the 5th
36:50of January.
36:51As mentioned earlier, Techno doesn't have access to the krafix account anymore, and
36:56when asked about this specific forum sign-in, he said it wasn't him.
37:00To try to claim that all these things are a coincidence would be foolish.
37:04We can, based on all these factors, conclude that the person who is behind the fake eddy
37:09account and the 92bob account is the same person who is currently in possession of the
37:14generalcool account now, most strongly evidenced by these accounts playing minutes apart on
37:20the same controller in April of 2022.
37:23When it comes to establishing exactly who was using the account to dox mizu in January
37:28of 2022, I cannot say for sure, especially since doxing is considered a crime, and I
37:33don't want to open myself up to a defamation lawsuit.
37:36But that being said, if we were to entertain a scenario, what hypothetical reasons could
37:42Riolu have to dox mizu?
37:44Well, shortly after the cheating scandal in 2021, mizu changed his profile picture on
37:49twitter to a picture of Riolu, and has kept that as his profile picture ever since.
37:55On the 30th of July 2021, he posted what at a glance could look like a twitlonger apology
38:00from Riolu, in order to troll the community.
38:03And in December of 2021, only weeks before the doxing happened, mizu also posted on twitter
38:08expressing a dislike for Riolu.
38:11But that's just one of many possible scenarios, I'm sure.
38:14Luckily, Nadeo has greater tools available, and they should be able to figure out who
38:19the doxer is by checking the hardware ID of the account.
38:23Hardware IDs are like the serial numbers of your computer, and uniquely identifies your
38:27exact computer to the game.
38:30The doxer without a doubt has other active accounts in the community, since nobody joins
38:35a game and is casually able to drive top 10 times, while at the same time randomly deciding
38:40to dox a community member.
38:42By matching General Cool's hardware ID at the time against other accounts, Nadeo should
38:47be able to conclusively prove who the doxer is, and I hope they take this as seriously
38:52as it should be taken, as this relates to every Trackmania player's online safety.
38:57That strange incident aside, the final piece of information we could gather from these
39:01new accounts was the carskins they used.
39:04All replays in Trackmania contain the filename of the carskin that was used in the record.
39:08Even if the skin might not load for you, it is still saved as a name in the replay file.
39:14Digging deep into the archives, we found a twitch stream from Riolu where he is playing
39:18Trackmania United Forever in 2020, and browsing through the pages of his carskins.
39:24From the skins that can be seen, many are default ones, others are very popular ones
39:29that can be downloaded on a website called Mania Park.
39:32But he also has some very rare skins, skins that there are no publicly known downloads
39:38for.
39:39We wrote down the names of all the visible skins from that stream, and then compared
39:42them to the filenames we can see in the replays.
39:46On 92Bob, he is exceptionally careful to only drive with skins that are available by default,
39:52but on the Smurf account, he is far more careless, and uses many of the very same skins
39:56we saw Riolu had locally downloaded.
39:59For example, Ludoslud, the account with the same forum sign and timestamp as 92Bob, used
40:05the skin Bay Technophase.
40:07When asking Techno about this, he said he created the skin in 2011, and shared them
40:12with a couple of friends at the time.
40:14This is a skin Riolu had in 2020, but there has not been a public available download for
40:19it in well over a decade.
40:21The other most interesting find is the One Alpine Car skins.
40:24The special thing about these is that they were initially created for a snow car mod
40:29in Trackmania 2.
40:30After Riolu played this mod and liked the skins, he personally requested Florencius,
40:35the skin creator, to make them compatible with Trackmania United Forever.
40:39Florencius never shared the skins with anyone else, so the only way someone else than Riolu
40:44could have gotten them, is if Riolu sent the link to them.
40:48Six out of the Copper Farming accounts we discovered are using these One Alpine skins.
40:52It is of course very curious that, during the time GeneralCool was actively doxing Mizu,
40:58he was setting some records with the One Alpine Rainbolt skin.
41:02But there's one final detail we discovered that completely seals the case beyond any
41:07and all doubt.
41:08And it is the fact that Eddie Rising is a real person.
41:12You see, when we took a closer look at the Buzzkill22 account, we discovered another
41:17login closely related to it, Gabriel996.
41:22This account built several tracks together with Buzzkill and uploaded them to a Trackmania
41:26Exchange profile.
41:27The email address registered on this Trackmania Exchange profile crucially had Gabriel's
41:32full name written.
41:33With this information, I contacted Gabriel on social media, and via his friends list,
41:39I found the actual Eddie Rising.
41:41I sent them both a shot in the dark message, and to my surprise, both answered.
41:47Up until this point, it had been assumed that Eddie Rising was a completely fabricated identity,
41:53but after my first few messages with him, it became clear that the reality was much
41:57more disturbing.
41:59Real Eddie's English isn't the best, but he said his in-game name in Trackmania used
42:03to be Ponzor, and confirmed it was his account after seeing a screenshot with the colors.
42:09I asked him what he knew about Acceleracer01, Riolu's Trackmania account that drove a run
42:15and uploaded it to his profile, and to my disbelief, he said he's known Riolu since
42:20they were kids.
42:21Eddie said they hadn't spoken much after he quit Trackmania around 2010, but that back
42:27in the day, him and Riolu used to do parkour together daily, and when the weather was bad,
42:32they would talk on walkie-talkies and play games together.
42:35He said Riolu is the one who introduced him to Trackmania, and they built several maps
42:39together.
42:40He said it was possible Riolu had driven some of the runs on his account, and called one
42:43of the runs shown to him too good to have been driven by himself.
42:48Most importantly, Eddie confirmed that Eddie A. was not him, meaning that whoever was using
42:53his account and his name now was impersonating him, without Eddie's knowledge or consent.
42:59The real Eddie did claim ownership of Ponzor22 and Buskill22, and Gabriel could corroborate
43:05this in my conversation with him.
43:08Gabriel said Eddie was one of his school friends, he said he had played Trackmania in real life
43:12with Riolu as well, but that he hadn't seen him for about 15 years.
43:17Gabriel said that him and Eddie both at one point logged into Riolu's PC, and that quote
43:22''we definitely drove time races because Riolu was very good and could help us''.
43:27Gabriel also said Eddie and Riolu used to be neighbors, and elaborated on having times
43:32driven for him, and thus giving Riolu access to the accounts.
43:37This discovery was truly shocking to me.
43:40With this, the entire Eddie Rising identity in Trackmania can conclusively be called fake,
43:46something that we already suspected, but not in a million years that I expected to be based
43:51on the identity of a real person, and much less, a childhood friend of Riolu, who Riolu
43:57introduced to Trackmania.
43:59After analyzing all available data from all of these different sources, the cold hard
44:04evidence all points in one direction.
44:06It is no coincidence that all of these logins use the same niche controller Riolu was given
44:11by a sponsor.
44:12It is no coincidence that the timestamps of records driven by these accounts match up
44:16so closely, that the Mania Zone registration date and last active dates between them match
44:22up perfectly, and that many of the accounts use the same rare skins as we see on Riolu's
44:27PC.
44:29And when combined with the fact that whoever is behind the fake Eddie account must know
44:33certain things about the real Eddie, and that it just so happens that the real Eddie and
44:37Riolu were childhood friends playing Trackmania together, that it just so happens that the
44:42real Eddie has logged into his Trackmania account on Riolu's computer, and the fact
44:47that whoever is fake Eddie and 92Bob must 1.
44:51be a world-class player, but 2.
44:53have some reason to play anonymously, we believe all in all exhaustively proves beyond any
44:59reasonable doubt that the person behind fake Eddie, 92Bob, and all of the following accounts
45:05is Riolu.
45:06I'm sorry if you feel it has taken way too long in this video for me to say that, but
45:12I didn't want to leave any room for doubt and to leave any stone unturned.
45:16I thought it's better to present all the available evidence rather than jumping to
45:19that conclusion prematurely.
45:22I would urge Nadeo to verify these findings by themselves by checking and identifying
45:26information I do not have access to, such as the hardware ID of these accounts, but
45:31I suspect that Nadeo already knows most of these things, they at least know the identity
45:36of 92Bob since late 2021, and have chosen not to share it with the community, only stating
45:42that since 92Bob's records are legitimate, they will allow him to compete on the leaderboards.
45:48The earliest 92Bob records we have documented were driven in June of 2021, only one month
45:54after Riolu was exposed for cheating.
45:56My main goal with making this video has been to present all the information we discovered
46:00to the community, but while doing so, I also want to interject my own opinion here that
46:05I personally think allowing Riolu to immediately return to competing after 10 years of cheating
46:11with no suspension is disgraceful, especially to all the Trackmania players that have put
46:15great effort and pride towards their legitimate accomplishments.
46:19I don't necessarily think Riolu has to receive a permanent ban, but giving no punishment
46:23at all apart from having to create a new account really makes it seem like they don't care
46:28for the leaderboards, especially when he cheated on a scale that affected every leaderboard
46:33in every major Trackmania game in the last 18 years.
46:36It's been close to 4 years since the cheating scandal, and not once in those 1300 days has
46:41he taken just one day to apologize.
46:44Instead of taking the time to make one apology video, he has found the time to make 65 Trackmania
46:49videos on the FakeEddy YouTube account, and instead of writing one apology to the community,
46:54he has written hundreds of YouTube comments on the FakeEddy YouTube account, while also
46:59infiltrating communities in Trackmania United and in Trackmania Lagoon under a new name.
47:04Before we go on, I want to make it clear that the actual investigation part of the video
47:08is finished.
47:09The next portion is merely an opportunity I'm going to use to talk about the toxicity
47:13that is plaguing Trackmania.
47:15When trying to figure out if Riolu was driving on the Eddy account, we looked at all the
47:19comments written by FakeEddy on YouTube, and it has led to some peculiar findings.
47:25Through this process, we noticed 5 other accounts that would write comments on the same Trackmania
47:30videos as Eddy, sometimes only minutes apart.
47:33Videos on niche channels that only receive a couple hundred views per video.
47:38These accounts all interact in the same threads, they use the same language, they have a strong
47:43dislike for the same players, and they reply to comments on old Riolu videos, shutting
47:48down people who mock his cheated records.
47:51On the list of accounts, you might recognize some of the names.
47:55We have Slobodan Medada Donovic, Swag, Syro, and a username I'll only be pronouncing
48:01as Urine.
48:02These accounts have left over 1000 total comments on Trackmania videos in the last 4 years,
48:08and it is far too much data to analyze every comment here, nor is it the actual point of
48:12this video, but I'll share some short details about each account and how they link back
48:17to the imposter.
48:19Starting with Syro, I mentioned a very similar username earlier on in the video, in the spiderweb
48:25of accounts associated with Riolu.
48:27On the following YouTube channels, Syro has written 5 comments, and 3 of them are within
48:321 minute of FakeEddy commenting on the same channel.
48:36One of them in particular is a rather depressing comment, and as you'll see later, this is
48:41unfortunately a pattern.
48:44Syro can also be seen as a user in Trackmania Discord servers, where he most actively discusses
48:4892Bob and Niko.
48:50As a last anecdote, when I asked Niko if he knew anything about the Syro98 account, he
48:56told me he used to suspect that it's Bob.
48:58Niko would often stream himself grinding tracks in Discord, and Syro would watch, muted in
49:03the voice call.
49:05Anytime Niko set a world record, Bob would contest them quickly afterwards.
49:10But as Niko says, perhaps it's just a coincidence.
49:14Next up is Slobodan Medada Donovic.
49:17The first time I heard about this account was because Niko messaged me and said he'd
49:20repeatedly been sent hateful comments by them, and from what I've seen, this account is one
49:26of the most toxic in the entire community.
49:29Normally I wouldn't bother wasting my own energy or yours on an anonymous hate account
49:33like this, but since it is specifically Slobodan Medada who wrote the comment I showed at the
49:37beginning, telling me to use my platform to expose toxicity, I figure it is warranted
49:42to take a look at some of the things he said.
49:45Slobodan Medada has the same activity patterns as Syro and Eddy, writing YouTube comments
49:51minutes apart from fake Eddy several times.
49:54This account has gone out of their way to reply to comments on ancient Riolu videos
49:59nine times, shutting down comments that make fun of Riolu for cheating.
50:04And like Syro, Slobodan Medada is also very pessimistic about Riolu's whereabouts.
50:09The Reddit user Puchus had long ago noticed that the Slobodan Medada Reddit account had
50:15two posts from 2013 where Slobodan shared videos from Riolu's YouTube channel, but
50:20these posts have since been deleted.
50:23After messaging him about it, he was able to track them down.
50:26On the 13th of June 2013, Slobodan shared the video of Riolu's world record on Canyon
50:32AO1 on the r slash gaming subreddit, and on the 7th of July, he shared a video of Riolu's
50:38world record on Valley AO1 on r slash gaming videos.
50:43Slobodan also left two now deleted comments on the first post, urging those who saw it
50:48to subscribe to Riolu's channel.
50:50It is of course possible that Slobodan was a super fan of Riolu and wanted more people
50:55to see his fantastic channel, but then one might wonder why he would delete the posts.
51:00Slobodan's comments on Reddit after the cheating scandal are often about 92Bob, and
51:05as Puchus noticed, predominantly about defending Riolu in several instances.
51:10And when I made my video about 92Bob last year, Slobodan wrote a grand total of 56 comments.
51:18It is first one streak of 15 comments on the day the video was posted, before returning
51:22one evening, almost half a year later, to drop another 41 comments.
51:28In a reddit post Slobodan wrote on the 27th of May, he argued that BlackHue should be
51:33permanently banned from the game, stating in his post that, quote,
51:37In my opinion, he should be banished forever and none of his records, legit or not, should
51:42be uploaded anywhere.
51:43BlackHue has had enough chances to redeem himself within the community, and has spat
51:47on every chance he received sooner or later.
51:51The community should stop welcoming such individuals that are not contributing anything but a nothingburger.
51:56I believe this sends a really bad signal to players within the community, but also
52:00the people outside of the Trackmania bubble.
52:03Certain lines simply shouldn't be crossed, and patterns of behavior shouldn't be enabled,
52:07and I believe BlackHue is one of the very few players, if not the only ever, in Trackmania
52:12existence who deserves such a treatment.
52:14In order to avoid a lawsuit, which Slobodan did threaten in one of his comments, I will
52:19state it clearly that we don't know who is making the comments on the SlobodanMedota
52:23accounts.
52:24But hypothetically, if it does turn out to be Riolu, then I wonder if he would extend
52:29that line of thinking in the post to himself as well, or if this line of logic only applies
52:34to those who wronged him, and not those he himself wronged.
52:38The last thing I'll say about this is that there just so happens to be a post in 2015
52:43on the Cheat Engine Forums from a user with the same exact username.
52:48The post reads, hey, I've stumbled across a little game on Uplay which I was trying
52:53to mod with Cheat Engine for single player purposes only.
52:56To make it work, I obviously have to hook the process to Cheat Engine, so I'm wondering
53:00if Uplay or Steam might get behind it, aka recognize it, and flag my account for hooking
53:05third party tools to the game.
53:07Any information on that?
53:09The timing of this post as it relates to Trackmania is peculiar, since just two weeks earlier,
53:14on the 16th of June 2015, Ubisoft Nadeo unveiled their new game at E3, a Trackmania title
53:21that as a PC player would only be available on Uplay.
53:24In a reply in the responses he was given, he says, thankfully it's not a Valve game,
53:29so I'll give it a try soon.
53:31Make of that what you will.
53:32We have talked a lot about the YouTube comments now, and I don't want to drag out this part
53:35for longer than it has to be.
53:37But taking a quick look at the last two accounts on the list, they have also alluded to Riolu
53:41being gone, they post streaks of negative comments towards Niko, Blacku, Kimura, Spammy,
53:47myself, they post comments on Riolu's old videos defending him.
53:51In October of 2021, shortly after Bob began farming coppers on all accounts, both of these
53:57accounts leave YouTube comments begging a top player for coppers, Uren just so happens
54:02to have created their account one day apart from Slobodan in 2014, and Swag created his
54:07account only 3 weeks after that, then they don't comment on any of the Trackmania channels
54:12we see until 2021, where they all converge and repeatedly comment minutes apart from
54:17each other with the same opinions and the same language, too many times to be a coincidence.
54:24With all of these things in mind, it can therefore be argued that these comments on these accounts
54:29are written by the same person.
54:31And as for who that person is?
54:33Since all these accounts connect back to FakeEddy, I believe it is most likely Riolu writing
54:38these comments.
54:42I am officially exhausted, and it's understandable if you are too.
54:45Looking at all of this and confronting all the nasty things has made this a very uncomfortable
54:50video to create.
54:51I thought a lot about if the video should even be made, and after contemplating it,
54:55I landed on yes, since the community deserves to know and see these things for themselves.
55:00I thought about how to make it in the best way possible, and realized that with a subject
55:04matter this heavy, there's no good answers.
55:07I could summarize the video in 30 seconds, saying,
55:10We discovered that rather than apologizing or taking accountability, the biggest cheater
55:15in Trackmania began playing on an anonymous account one month after being exposed.
55:20Nadeo knows this and chose to keep the community in the dark about it with no further explanation.
55:24We know Riolu further infiltrated multiple communities, using the identity of his childhood
55:29friend without that friend's consent or knowledge, possibly also using the general
55:33cool account to dox a player who strongly disliked his cheating, and possibly leaving
55:37three years worth of hate comments towards his main opponents on anonymous YouTube accounts
55:42that all link together in a spiderweb of matching activity, patterns of behavior, and language
55:46used.
55:47But without systematically going through the evidence, who's gonna believe all of that?
55:52The downside of making the video this long is that it inevitably could lead some people
55:55to think, it's just records in a game, lol, why are you taking it so seriously?
56:00All in all, I did the best I could.
56:02I made this video because I truly care about the game, and I want it to continue being
56:06a friendly and enjoyable environment to compete in.
56:09In order for that to happen, I really count on Nadeo to consider doing the following.
56:14I hope Nadeo can check the information only they have access to, such as hardware ID,
56:18to verify who has been flooding the leaderboard with the following accounts, and that they
56:22can ban these accounts and or the person doing it from the leaderboards.
56:26Next, I want Nadeo to figure out who doxed Misu on the General Cool account, and I sincerely
56:31hope they take this case seriously, as it borders on being an actual criminal offense.
56:35I hope they can identify who stole Eddy's Trackmania account and impersonated him via
56:39hardware ID, and help him retrieve the accounts, as in my conversation with him, he seemed
56:44really eager to rediscover his childhood memories.
56:48And lastly, I hope Nadeo puts in stronger punishments for cheating, since it should
56:52be evident that enabling the worst offenders to compete with no suspension under new names
56:57only further propagates the problems in the community.
57:00The things I hope that you as a viewer remember from this video is not all the depravity,
57:04but the stories like Niko's, so that when you make mistakes, you can better identify
57:08the path that leads to the best outcome, and also that when you see hateful comments, they
57:13likely stem from hurt and insecure people, who try to hurt others as a way of dealing
57:17with their own deficiencies.
57:19The way you should deal with these things is not to write hateful comments back, and
57:22I urge everyone to stay civil and respectful to the players featured in this video.
57:27I will end with the announcement that I'm going to use some of the money this video
57:29makes to put up a cash bounty for the first player to drive a 1781 on the track Snowbee1.
57:37For the past two years, the players in the Trackmania United Forever community have made
57:41a huge collective effort to try to repair the damage done by cheaters, by beating the
57:46cheated record on every official track legitimately.
57:49In the fall of 2024, there was only one cheated record left to beat, a 1781 by Riolu on the
57:56track Snowbee1.
57:57Many of the best players got tantalizingly close with several 1782s, but before they
58:02managed to beat it, Eddy swept in and grinded to set the first 1781.
58:08Now that we know this record was driven by Riolu, it leaves me feeling that the legitimate
58:12players got snubbed from completing the project on their own, which they are absolutely capable
58:17of without his help.
58:19To reward the incoming achievement, I am putting up a $777 bounty to the first 1781 by a non-cheater.
58:27The requirements to enter are, perhaps unsurprisingly, that you have to verify your identity after
58:31setting the record, as well as livestreaming the session and a few other rules.
58:36Full requirements can be found in my Discord.
58:38That's pretty much all for now.
58:39Now that this is off my chest, I will return to making videos that I am passionate about
58:43and telling stories that inspire me, rather than internet drama.
58:47If you made it all the way here, thank you so much for watching, and I look forward to
58:51seeing the discussion in the comments.
58:53That's all for now, until next time, have a good one.