By Sean Levin
Unfounded accusations
There have been numerous accusations of cheating since the beginning of Tribal island competition. Most of the time, there’s never been any evidence shown to support the allegations. Most of the claims have been no more than conjecture, and have usually been directed at Harmonious Bliss, which has never cheated.
The following post was from November 2015, shortly after Tribal Island was introduced. It is loaded with conjecture. Ironically, Fabio finally discovered the strategy that Harmonious Bliss pioneered – rotations. His team was then also able to perform the impossible feats he describes in his post:
Reflecting back on his earlier posts, I’m certain that Fabio should be embarrassed by his ignorance. But he never made any apology for his false accusations about us cheating though.
Wubbox cheat (manual)
In December of 2015, the ‘manual’ Wubbox cheat was discovered and widely publicized. It was a flaw in the game. The Wubbox on Ethereal island could be sold and repurchased for a profit of 2,306 shards. The selling price was 2,306 shards higher than the buy-back price. This could be done repeatedly, with no waiting period for incubation. This was a very tedious and monotonous process, to sell and buy-back enough times to make a substantial difference though.
I always felt that it was unlikely that the manual Wubbox cheat was being used extensively due to the tedious and monotonous process. I did receive reliable information that at least a couple of the larger teams were encouraging their members to use this ‘trick’ though.
Automated Wubbox cheat
A method was created to automate the Wubbox cheat process sometime in January of 2016. This method was performed by using Blue Stacks to log into MSM on a PC. A ‘mouse recorder’ program was then used to record the clicks required to sell and buy back the Wubbox. These recorded clicks could then be set to run in a continuous loop, gaining millions of new shards in a few hours of time. A person could start the program to run on their PC, and then go to sleep for the night. When they awoke in the morning, they would have millions of new shards, compliments of Blue Stacks, the mouse recorder program, and the Wubbox cheat. The PC did the tedious and monotonous work for you.
A Brazilian guy named Bruno developed this process. Bruno was on SPFC. Fabio requested for Bruno to use his trick to stockpile shards on multiple accounts each week. Bruno did this for a long while, but then Bruno tired of the cheating and being hassled by Fabio to create these shards. Bruno even got to the point where he wanted to quit the game. He was getting weary of doing this for Fabio.
At Fabio’s request, Bruno created an instructional video to teach others at SPFC how to do this trick. Bruno finally got disgusted with Fabio’s harassment, and left SPFC shortly after that.
Bruno came to me in March of 2016 to tell me about the cheating that had been occurring at SPFC. You can view my conversations with Bruno here: Conversations between Bruno and me
And there are more conversations with Bruno (speaks mostly in Portuguese), Claudia, and me here: Conversations between Bruno, Claudia, and me (some in Portuguese)
Bruno showed us a few of his conversations with Fabio. Bruno said that he had many more conversations with Fabio that he could share. You can see some of Bruno’s and Fabio’s conversations here: Conversations between Bruno and Fabio (all in Portuguese) . Click on the link below to view translations of some of the conversations. Please note: the translations are not perfect. But they are good enough to understand what is being said. Translated messages
After learning of SPFC’s cheating, I was disgusted. It made me feel like quitting any future Tribal Island competition. It is not any fun to try to win against somebody that is cheating. I sent an email to BBB complaining about Fabio’s cheating, but never heard back. I found myself in a dilemma; stop competing in Tribal Island competition, or confirm for myself if the cheating was still ongoing.
I chose to confirm any ongoing cheating for myself. The only real way to confirm if cheating is happening is to see the individual levels on the tribe in question. I had to send an account to SPFC to witness if any abnormal leveling was still accurring. My account was on SPFC in late March/ early April (at the end of the cheating). I believe that I witnessed the tail end of the cheating shards being spent. It think that the week of April 11 – 17, 2016 was the last week that the remaining cheating shards were still being spent. I think they were all mostly gone after that. So I decided to continue with Tribal Island competition, since BBB finally fixed the Wubbox cheat, and it looked like the cheating shards were all gone. Shortly thereafter, I removed my account from SPFC.
The following video shows SPFC’s individual levels on April 12, 2016. This was on a Tuesday, when SPFC still had no idea of how the competition for the week would eventually shape up. As you can see, there is one person named ‘SLPL’ that is already leveled to 220 when several of the others are still only at zero, and the call is only for 160. This ‘SLPL’ person apparently decided on their own to spend over 3.6 million shards to level to 220 while the call was only for 160, which only costs 1.4 million shards. And again, even though there were still several people still at zero, and NO guarantee of having any competition at all that week.
Later in the week, ‘SLPL’ levels up to 270, while all the rest are still much lower, with one only at 168. ‘SLPL’ spent 6,669,720 shards, while Melissa only spent 1,622,488 shards to level to 168. SLPL spent 5 million shards more than Melissa. This is a clear indication of abnormal leveling. I believe that SLPL was one of the last remaining accounts with stockpiles left over from the Automated Wubbox cheat.
SPFC ‘won’ that week that ended on 4/24/16. Their tribe level call was for 6,000 (as can be seen in the last video), but they only made it up to 5,574. That is an average level of 185. The SLPL member leveled to 270, which is 85 levels higher than average. Without those extra levels that were gained from the Automated Wubbox cheat, Harmonious Bliss would have won that week. Those extra 5 million shards can come in handy!
After Bruno came to me to tell me what Fabio had been doing, Fabio was extremely upset with Bruno. Fabio then attempted to concoct a whole new story about Bruno. Fabio tried to claim that he kicked Bruno out of SPFC after discovering that Bruno was cheating. Fabio then claimed that Bruno was actually cheating for Harmonious Bliss. Fabio also posted Bruno’s tutorial video trying to claim it was evidence of this.
This is the video that Bruno made to teach Fabio how to cheat. You can see that when Bruno opens his game, he is on SPFC’s tribe. That is SPFC’s Mammott arrangement from February that you see when Bruno opens his game. We know that Bruno was ‘cracking’ for Fabio for at least one month (but probably longer). Bruno did not come to HB until March.
You be the judge. Who do you think is telling the truth?
Fabio has tried to frame Harmonious Bliss for his own wrongdoings. That is as despicable as any person can get.
At this same time, Fabio was telling his team that Bruno was retiring. Fabio said that Bruno would soon give him his account:
Please take note of the dates on these screen shots. This date on Fabio’s response is right at that same time that Bruno is getting fed up with Fabio’s crap, and he is thinking about retiring. But then Bruno changes his mind to come spend his last days with HB, rather than giving his accounts to Fabio. Bruno retired from MSM shortly after that.
Meanwhile, some members of SPFC did notice some abnormal leveling:
It’s very unusual to ever see ‘mystery’ tribe members add so many levels, isn’t it? I wonder why so many SPFC members chose to overlook this abnormal leveling? So many of them claim to have never seen any cheating. Obviously, they don’t even know what cheating would look like.
And this person was cautioning everybody that used the Wubbox cheat to be careful to not update their game:
There is clear evidence that Fabio cheated between January and April of 2016. And then Fabio tried to frame Harmonious Bliss for the very cheating that he himself used.
Fabio got away with his cheating with no repercussions from BBB. He was not punished for cheating. And he was fairly successful in fooling some people into believing that HB was actually the one using the cheat that he used. Absolutely disgusting.
Fabio was upset that Bruno brought his millions of shards to HB, rather than giving his account to Fabio. Fabio also worried that Bruno would share the secret to winning that SPFC had been using. Fabio thought it best to smear Bruno and lie about the truth to try to protect himself.
BBB fixed the Wubbox cheat flaw
In early April of 2016, BBB did finally fix the Wubbox cheat by changing the ‘buy-back’ price to match the ‘selling’ price. This seemed to remove any cheating from the game. But it did not stop Fabio from continuing to claim that Harmonious Bliss was cheating. Fabio continued to go on his weekly rants about me and Harmonious Bliss. That eventually got him booted from all of the big MSM Facebook group pages.
Meanwhile, I continued to note that BBB did not take any actions against him for his cheating during that time period. I also noted his success in turning the tables on HB to blame us for the cheating that he’d actually done.
But there did not appear to be any more cheating for a while after that, though Fabio did continue to claim that HB was still cheating every week in his rants. We began to produce evidence of normal leveling to combat his claims of us cheating. We produced videos to prove that we did not have any abnormal leveling on our tribe. Nobody else has ever produced these types of videos to show proof. HB is the only team that has ever shown any evidence of legitimate leveling. The following video was the first video evidence that we provided to show proof of our integrity in our win:
The main thing that prompted me to make this video was; once again, Fabio was claiming that we were cheating again this week!
As you can see in the video, our highest member was only 31 levels higher than our lowest member. This is what leveling typically looks like for a tribe that isn’t cheating.
SPFC continues to refuse to make any such video to prove their leveling is normal. The ironic thing about this is; the team that has never cheated is willing to show proof that no irregular leveling exists. And the team that’s been caught cheating refuses to show any proof of fair play.
Mataosos – Monstermaniacs and Arcadia
Monstermaniacs first came onto the scene on 12/4/16. Nobody noticed them at that time since they only came in 2nd place. But after back-to-back wins on 1/8/17 and 1/15/17, people did begin to take notice. That is also when we became interested in learning what was going on. We suspected that cheating might be occurring. We wanted to find out.
On January 8, 2016, we noticed an email address showing on one of the accounts on Monstermaniacs. I sent him an email and he promptly responded.
After connecting on Messenger and talking for a little while, I asked Mataosos how he could manage to level up so high. I suspect that there may have been a misunderstanding about my question at first. I understood Mataosos to say that he had saved for a very long time (“forever” in his words). I didn’t realize at that time that he knew a ‘trick’.
I continued talking to Mataosos about other things. He seemed like an extremely nice guy. He said that he didn’t know that MSM players communicated within social media groups. I offered to add him to our Community page at Harmonious Bliss. He seemed to be happy about that, and then became active with posting in our group during the short time he was there.
I continued to talk to Mataosos several times over the next week. I learned on or around January 16, 2017 that Mataosos was using some sort of cheat in the game. The cheat or hack that he was using allowed Mataosos to do almost anything he wanted in the game, including leveling up extremely high on Tribal Island. We advised him that he should not be doing that. We told him that a lot of people take the Tribal Island competition very seriously.
We learned that he had given stuff (monsters, decorations) to one of our member’s game accounts. We also learned that there had been some other questionable behavior between him and a couple of our members. We decided to remove him from our group page on January 16.
Mataosos laid low for the next couple of weeks, following our advice to not use his cheat to score high in Tribal Competition. On February 2, 2017, we decided to give Mataosos another chance. He seemed like a very nice guy, and he seemed to really enjoy being in our community.
Mataosos immediately violated our agreement within just a few days though. He once again began giving ‘gifts’ to one of our members in their game by using his cheat, and he resumed the ‘other’ objectionable behavior towards a couple of our members. I had to remove Mataosos from our group again on February 5th.
On February 9, 2017, Mataosos initiated a new conversation with me.
I did mention to Mataosos that “I wouldn’t mind seeing you beat Fabio”. That was all I said. I did not encourage Mataosos to cheat in any way.
This was the last time that I talked to Mataosos until I was invited to a group chat with Mataosos on 3/12/17. Mataosos had already decided that he was going to take SPFC down. Mataosos hated Fabio for drawing attention to his cheating/hacking.
Mataosos had already decided that he was going to beat SPFC on 2/12/17 before I was ever even invited to the group chat on that day. I was happy to come watch Mataoasos beat Fabio on that day. There is nothing better than to watch a cheater beat a cheater! I was a witness to justice being served!
On 2/12/17, Mataosos used his cheat/hack to beat Fabio. This was 2 days before my birthday. This seemed like an early gift to me; to finally see justice being brought against a person (Fabio) that cheated and got away with it.
Though I did enjoy watching Mataosos beat Fabio on that day, I am still absolutely opposed to cheating. About a week or so later, I sent a new message to BBB. I told them that I was getting sick of the cheating that I have been seeing. I told them that I was 100% certain about 2 periods of cheating with 2 different tribes that I had witnessed with my own eyes – SPFC and Monstermaniacs/Arcadia. BBB sent an automated response back to me on March 1, 2017.
BBB never responded to me beyond that automated reply.
Sometime after this, BBB finally took action against Mataosos for cheating/hacking. They suspended his accounts temporarily as punishment. During this time, Fabio also managed to get into contact with Mataosos. Probably by the same method I used – through email.
Fabio managed to convince Mataosos that BBB would give him his accounts back if Mataosos would spill the beans on my knowledge of the events. Mataosos fell for Fabio’s trick.
Mataosos bought into what Fabio was selling him.
Mataosos told his newfound friends (Fabio, et al) that he only used his cheat/trick because he wanted more star power. That was not true at all. Mataosos is lying. Mataosos had no need for star power. He could add any monster or decoration into his game that he wanted to. He didn’t need any star power points to purchase them with. The truth is: Mataosos was enjoying being in first place in early January. And then on February 12, Mataosos was eager to take revenge against Fabio for Fabio drawing attention to his cheat. It had absolutely nothing at all to do with seeking star power.
Mataosos has managed to convince Fabio that he was the poor victim of influence and persuasion from me. Fabio is claiming that I persuaded Mataosos to cheat. Fabio is trying to set this up as me being the culprit. This is another blatant lie. Mataosos was cheating long before I ever made contact with him. I told Mataosos several times that he should NOT be cheating. I did NOT ask or persuade Mataosos to cheat on February 12th either. Mataosos was already determined to use his cheat again, before I was ever even invited to the infamous group chat that Fabio advertises.
I cannot control what Mataosos does. If he is intent on cheating, there isn’t much more that I can do about it other than to advise him not to cheat (which I did), and report him to BBB (which I did). I should not have accepted being added to the group chat during Mataosos’ cheating on February 12th though. I should have declined. This cheating incident on February 12th was going to happen either way though, whether I accepted joining the group chat or not. Mataosos was intent on seeking revenge against Fabio. My only interest in being involved was; to see if SPFC could ‘miraculously’ keep up with Mataosos. I wanted more information to determine if SPFC was cheating again. If SPFC had been able to ‘miraculously’ keep up, that would have been another indication that SPFC was likely cheating again. To SPFC’s credit (this time), they did not keep up.
I have told the absolute truth about everything that I have written on this page. I challenge anybody (Fabio, Mataosos) to show proof that I am lying or neglecting to disclose anything important.
Going Forward
There will always be the possibility that somebody will discover a new way to cheat in the future. For these tribes that do like to compete on a regular basis, there is only one good way for us as players to verify that the game is being played honestly by the winner. And that is through video verification. A short video that scrolls through the names and levels of the people on the tribe should be posted within an hour or two after the timer runs out. Everybody would be able to see if there had been any abnormal leveling occurring.
Abnormal leveling is easily recognizable. If there are routinely people on a tribe that level substantially higher than the rest of the team, then that should be seen as a big red flag. Differences larger than 50 levels are a serious cause for concern. 100 level differences are absurd, and are an almost certain sign of cheating.
Many SPFC members claim to have never seen any abnormal leveling. But somehow I was able to manage video taping the evidence of abnormal leveling in just the one week that I had an account on SPFC’s main tribe. This does not give me very much confidence that SPFC members are observing the leveling with an honest and fair eye. It appears that many of them are too giddy about the prospect of winning, regardless of how it is accomplished. They had no interest in seriously looking at this issue. They apparently thought that ‘cheating’ would involve a team-wide acknowledgement, with Fabio broadly announcing their active cheating.
SPFC members are very naive to think that Fabio would ever announce his cheating to the team. They are very naive to not realize that Fabio was doing this quietly behind the scenes, without their knowledge or approval. I do consider the SPFC members to be complicate in this cheating since they did willfully turn a blind eye to the obvious abnormal leveling. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize that something strange is happening. It only requires that the members ignore the obvious.
‘Top Tribes Scores’ records
Harmonious Bliss has always taken great pride in the Top Tribes Scores records that we have kept since September of 2015.
To be continued…
Harmonious Bliss 