Minecraft is a game where players are free to make their own decisions and play however they wish, which can cause problems when personal mod settings come into conflict with more restrictive gaming formats. One major Minecraft speedrunning team has been in conflict with YouTuber Dream since last year, and now their concerns appear to have finally proven correct. It appears that Dream did cheat during a speedrun--by accident.
Earlier today, Dream posted a lengthy essay about the speedrunning controversy to Pastebin and linked it on his official Twitter. In it, Dream explains that he was accused of cheating during a Minecraft speedrun by moderators of the official Minecraft speedrunning leaderboard--and, more importantly, he also explains why. After speedrunning Minecraft 1.16 for about a week, Dream managed to get a time of 19 minutes, reaching his goal of a time under 25 minutes, and immediately started trying for a new record on Minecraft 1.15. Soon after, suspicions arose concerning the streamed 1.16 runs, which all had improbably good numbers for Ender Pearl and Blaze Rod drops, suggesting that Dream had been cheating.
While Dream now admits he was using mods to boost Enderman spawn rates and Pearl drop rates, he claims that he genuinely didn't realize what was happening. The mods in question are used to make his YouTube videos more entertaining and he's been very open about using them. This issue stems from the decision to make a server-side plugin, which happened around the time Dream's new overall recording mod (which he has used consistently since the controversial speedruns were recorded) was being created by a hired developer. It appears that the server-side plugin which boosted rates was incorporated into the recording mod, which Dream assumed wouldn't be a problem due to the lack of client-side support, the mod still being in the early stages of design, and Dream being fairly certain the recording mod wasn't turned on. This explains why Dream angrily denied the initial cheating accusations.
The essay follows Dream's slow realization that the numbers he'd encountered in his controversial speedrun were improbably high, suggesting that he had indeed been cheating. In it, he states that his decision to ask a professional statistician for help is what ended up confirming things for him. After a rocky start wherein the statistician made a mistake and the Minecraft speedrunning team rejected Dream's report, the statistician ran the numbers again--and concluded that Dream's drop rates had indeed been unrealistically high, leading them both to agree with the mods. Dream tweeted out the results and agreed that it looked like he had cheated.
After this, Dream investigated his end and discovered that he had been using an illegal mod during about 6 of his Twitch live streams. Talking to the developer of the recording mod confirmed that he had added the tweaks from Dream's challenge servers to the client-side of the recording mod, which Dream hadn't known about at the time. Dream reports that he deleted his initial angry response video and goes on to apologize to the mods for his negative reaction, even though they ended up being entirely correct. This revelation may explain why Dream took a month-long hiatus from Minecraft that ended in April.
While Dream has made it clear that he didn't realize he had cheated, the fact remains that the mods were correct to remove his old runs, a decision he appears to agree with. Now that the truth is out, Dream has expressed a wish to move forward with his Minecraft career and continue honing his speedrunning skills in a fairer manner.
Minecraft is available now on Mobile, PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.