What’s next for Hunter_?

Whether Hunter_ is punished for the CP allegations or Solace is ripped apart in a vengeful lawsuit will be determined by judges and lawyers in the next few months as this situation continues to play out.  Legal matters aside, what happens now for Hunter, one of the biggest promoters in Hon, as far as e-Sports is concerned?  His reputation has been absolutely demolished by this scandal.  But my guess is that he will try to return to the gaming community anyway, given how much of his life he’s already invested in it.
If he does make a return it will not be a pretty one, and there will be trolls heckling him for the rest of his stay.  Here’s what he needs to do:

First Disappear for a While

It shouldn’t be hard for someone as shady as Hunter_ to activate his Assassin’s Shroud and disappear into the shadows for a month or two until this whole situation blows over.  He took the right first step by resigning from eSports Media and not trying to defend himself too much on forums, which would just sink him deeper in the troll quicksand trap, but parts of his response are troubling: lying about Trojans being put on his computer, changing his account to “hakced” on GosuGamers to try and sell the idea that his computer was hacked (which it was not, it was key-logged by someone he willingly gave admin access to), well and of course denying everything and fabricating a complete bullshit story to try and cover his ass as usual instead of taking the blame for something he’s clearly at least partially responsible for.  Which brings us to our next point…

Be Honest and Don’t Manipulate

Deleting and editing posts to always look right, seducing people with far-fetched lies, and other shady dealings are hallmarks of Hunter_’s online persona and are the reason the communities he involved himself in were already so untrusting of his supposedly altruistic engagements in them.  Regardless of how twisted and perverted his private life may or may not be, behaving ethically and not by the “I can make up anything and cover up anything I want because there’s no way to prove anything on the internet” policy would make him so many less enemies to begin with and would be a lot more positive for the eSports community in general.

Apologize; Admit Fault

What Solace to expose Hunter_ is extremely unethical itself (Key-logging his computer, going through his personal email accounts, and sending out mass emails to his friends and family about his secret habits) and will likely put Hunter’s personal life through a hellstorm of shit that surely no human being deserves.  Some will argue that its okay to do bad things to bad people, and so a gross invasion of Hunter’s privacy is warranted by the complete lack of integrity in Hunter_’s conduct.

Nonetheless, many of the things in the Hunter Exposed article have nothing to do with Hunter’s personal life and are proven situations in eSports where he’s just been intentionally deceptive or clearly just had the mindset to lie his way to getting whatever he wants, whether its making up or exaggerating sponsors and prizes, telling Dota people how much he likes Dota after he just wrote an article about how hes happy it’s dying and good riddance, or just lying to the community about his motives for everything.  If he ever wants to return to eSports, he must finally take responsibility for some of his actions instead of just continuously trying to spin EVERYTHING he does into a good light.  His explanations in the past have NEVER added up, which is why there was so much distrust and hatred for him in the past Dota communities of TDT, GDG, DXD, etc.  If you stop trying to trick and confuse people into buying your bullshit, maybe they’ll buy it on their own accord because it’s some tasty bullshit, but you have to at least give your bullshit that chance to begin with.  That analogy was terrible, but Hunter’s response so far has just confirmed his shadiness and made him look worse.  If he finally takes some responsibility for his past wrongdoings in the eSports community, people can empathize with him and it will make Solace look like the bad guy for trying to ruin his life.

In conclusion, while the way Hunter_ goes about stuff IS extremely shady and always has been, the results of his interactions in the community, at least recently, have been as a whole positive;  Honcast is undeniably a great, free service for Hon players that wouldn’t exist without his hand in it’s making (even if that hand is doing bizarre, creepy things the rest of the time).  Truth is, his private life is none of our business and will be taken care by the proper authorities in due time if he HAS done anything illegal.  But as far as eSports are concerned, we can only welcome Hunter_ back if he changes his ways and stops being so deceptive and dishonest.

“Hunter_ exposed” shady scandal?

Hunter with S2 CEO Maliken and Honcast CBO Adolph Santorine

A new scandal (“Hunter Exposed”) has surfaced regarding Jeff Hunter (Hunter_), a promoter of Hon and Dota and owner of such websites such as dxd-league.com and honleague.com.  Apart from painting him as an embezzling spin doctor, the source also suggests he ran a fake modeling company and regularly impersonated a woman to get girls to send him naked photos, and impersonated a young boy to get explicit photos from a minor.

What do you think?  Is the evidence incontrovertible?  Or is it possible that Hunter_ is innocent and was framed?

The sites with the original material keep moving around but you can follow all the drama in this thread on the North American Dota Syndicate forums here: http://www.nadota.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1474

(Don’t try to discuss it on Hon Forums or your post will be deleted and your account might get banned due to the sensitive subject matter)

Here are some of the sites where you might be able to find the original “Hunter Exposed” material and decide for yourself:

• huntertruth.info
• http://mops.freetzi.com/dxd/
• http://ohshititstas.com/dxd/index.htm
• http://78.129.149.20/index.htm (taken down)
• http://www.dxd-league.com/index.htm (taken down)
• http://staplehoax.com/FINAL/main.htm (taken down)

In case you were wondering what happened to DXD Forums, they are down because of this too.

Update: Hunter_ has resigned from eSport Media: http://hon.esportmedia.com/2010/05/14/resignation

Update 2: Neva cancels partnership with eSport Media/Honcast: http://tropicalninja.eu/?p=3

Update 3: It’s safe to talk about it on Hon forums now; check huge offtopic thread here: http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=122115

Update 4: Dolph Santorine takes over Honcast: http://hon.esportmedia.com/2010/05/15/a-note-from-our-ceo

Update 5: 5/21, more threads have been taken down.  Can follow some remaining drama here: http://dxdforums.org/index.php?topic=154.0

Update 6: 2/14/11, new site up huntertruth.info