Jagex Experiences Mass Disconnect During Finals Of $32,000 Deadman Tournament, DDoS Accusations Fly

The last time we reported on Old School RuneScape's Deadman tournament, it was to say that the winner of the $20,000 top prize had been disqualified for cheating. Jagex agreed that something nefarious had occurred and banned the winner's account, while promising to "discuss how best we can change the mechanics of the final" so as to avoid future problems.

Apparently, those precautions went for naught. In the recently concluded Spring Deadman Tournament, 160 players disconnected during the all-important Permadeath stage of the finals. Jagex considered several immediate alternatives, but eventually decided the best route was to simply stay the course and let the tournament proceed without attempting any kind of "reset."

With so much money (and time) at stake, accusations of foul play are rampant. A pair of threads on Reddit have accused the winner of the tournament -- with possible help from a Jagex employee -- of being behind a DDoS attack that booted a bunch of players during the finals, as well as knocking off 400 players near the start of the tournament.

Jagex claims to have discovered and fixed the cause of the disconnects, which was not a DDoS attack but "A game bug, unrelated to Deadman, which looks to have existed in-game for some time but has never manifested in this way." Additionally, the 160 players who were disconnected will receive a pass into the finals of the Summer Deadman Tournament in June.