Eternity RO

[GM Lif]

So why is it that a large server like Eternity RO can manage to get away with such disrespectful, and simply manipulative methods of acting?

If at this point you don't understand what I'm talking about you should read this:
http://www.eternityro.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=11779


For starters, why does this Karei fellow get to make an "event" out of making reviews?
Doesn't it being called an "event" insinuate prizes for participation?
Doesn't that fall under the rule in the Terms of Service that state:

Server owners caught trying to workaround the Terms of Services or taking advantage of loopholes (including, but not limited to: making any kind of misleading statement to players, creating any indirect way of providing incentives for reviews) will have their servers suspended from the listing."

Isn't saying its an event mislead players into thinking that this "event" will have a prize in the end?




Additionally, look at the title of Karei's "event" topic:

Ratemyserver.net, The world's best reward

Now, I believe I just heard the magic trigger word, the word that makes people stop caring what the event is, but they'll do it anyway, I believe, I just heard the word Reward.
Isn't that also misleading? Saying it is "The world's best reward"?
Doesn't that hint that there would be some kind of extraordinary reward at the end of it?




Likewise, this Karei fellow states in his "event" that anyone participating should:

After you write a review, make a post here listing your review name and contents. To avoid confusion, you should write your in game name on the review too.

So why would you need the participant's in game character names unless you need you are expected to give something to that character? Isn't that extremely misleading telling people to leave their in game names like they can expect something in the end.

And if you'll notice this Karei person, leaves this small little message at the end of that line:

You are not obligated to of course.

So I have to wonder, "not obligated to"? But all this effort was just put into misleading me into thinking I'll get a reward, so that makes me think that I really should post my in game name so I can get my prize right?




If you dear readers would all so kindly direct your attention to this now:

Prizes
Since it is against RMS rules, there are no prizes for this event. However, you should take the opportunity to show the server and everyone else our pride and dedication!

So what just happened here? In saying that won't most people think something along the lines of: "I stopped reading after I saw the bold text of the word Prizes because heck, why do I need to read it all, I don't have the time for that, I'll just skim it."




Moreover, I doubt any of you knew this before, but if you look at this topic here:
http://www.eternityro.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=11556

So this Karei fellow had two events in the same topic? One being a Free Item Event, now I think I heard the words free item's doesn't that seem misleading?
Now I'll applaud Rate My Server for talking to this Karei person for doing such a manipulating thing and forcing him to change it. But, why didn't this Karei receive full punishment for this? Still having his listing left alone even though Rate My Server Identified it as a clear cut, recognizable act of manipulation.

Now I'm not saying its Rate My Server's fault, I'm just starting to think that maybe this Karei person has managed to manipulate the Terms of Service of Rate My Server so he can get away with these kinds of actions. Doesn't that make you think that maybe the Terms of Service might need to be changed so that this manipulation can be halted?




Now after finding all this out thanks to a close friend, also a Game Master on this fellow Karei's team, I started to wonder about their donation practices. So, it just so happens they have publicized some of their donation logs so I decided to take a look at them.

You can find them here if you don't believe me:
http://www.eternityro.net/forum/index.php?showforum=23



So lets start from August then, since that is how far back their Donation Logs Date apparently.

In the month of August they made 1706.38 US Dollars
Now their estimated cost was 620 US Dollars

So I'll be nice and add an extra 200 US Dollars to the estimated cost to account for things like advertisement fees. But neither the less, 1706.38 - 820 is still equal to 886.38

So that is 886.38 US Dollars left over from the August donations, now lets move onto calculating the September donations.



Now for September, it starts off already with 886.38 US Dollars towards the server fees because that is the left over amount of money donated from the last month.

So now to the math, and the final sum for the month of September is 1926.23 US Dollars. Now we need to add the 886.38 left over US Dollars from last month to get the sum of 2812.61 US Dollars to spend on the server for this month.

This month, your estimated cost is 740 US Dollars and again, I'll be generous and say that your estimated cost will be 200 US Dollars more then what you expect it to be, so lets do the math here. 2812.61 -  940 and you get a left over amount of 1872.61 US Dollars



Lets move on to the month of October, which already has 1872.61 US Dollars left over from the past months which you can spend for this month's fees.

Off to the math now! The total donations of October come to a grand total of 1358.11 US Dollars, and if you add that to the left over money from the previous month it means you have a total of 3230.72 US Dollars to spend on the server in the month of October.

This is the same drill as before so lets get to it first we add 200 Dollars to your expected 810 US Dollar expenses so we get, 3230.72 - 1100 with a total of 2130.72 US Dollars left over.



Same deal here, you have 2130.72 US Dollars to spend for the month of November, along with the donations from this month, which totals to 1243.65 US Dollars collected in donations from the month of November.

So with your total of 3374.37 US Dollars to spend this month your expected amount is 920 US Dollars, so I'll add the normal 200 US Dollars onto that for the possible other costs that may arise, so that then becomes 3374.37 - 1120, and the end result is, 2254.37 US Dollars



Now wow, that is 2254.37 US Dollars that's being carried over to the next month, and after that month that sum of money will grow even more, so whats happening with that money? Am I the only one that sees something wrong with that?

And what about these "cost raises"? Are they really needed? Or are you just raising your expected cost amount so it doesn't look like you have this huge surplus of donation money left over when you really do?




Moreover, lets take a look at the donation items:
http://www.eternityro.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=3349

Quite cute I'll admit, I really would love to have one of those, and I probably would be willing to donate to get one, but this thought crosses my mind, those sprites are custom made, so are they really yours to sell?

Now I'm sure everyone's wondering what I mean by saying that they are might not be this Karei fellow's to sell, and well, this is what I mean:
http://ro-enhance.net/index.php?showtopic=21889

EternityRO - Using Lina, Yulia, Nyanko, and jupeto's customs for donation items, and have refused to remove them (they say it's "unfair" to the players...so what about the artists?). Our terms do not excuse servers just because their "proceeds" go toward the server. It is still the sale of anothers' work without permission, and against the wishes of said artists.

Now, your cute, lovely, and wonderful donation items, you didn't even ask if you could use them, you just took them from the artist's without any permission and decided to sell them off as your donation items. Is that really fair? Does anyone in this world really have the right to sell someone else's work and keep all the profits for their own uses and needs?






So I have to ask all the dear readers here, am I simply crazy?
Or do all these things seem perfectly normal to everyone else?
Am I the only one that thinks theres something wrong with this?
Am I the only one who's looked, and noticed this?

And if I'm not the only one, why am I the first to speak out about it?
Or has everyone else that has tried to been silenced?

[Littlechan]

I don't really pay attention to any server out there...so I don't know >.<

but to think of it...where's the money left run off? XD

let's wait for server owner's respond then?

*give GM lif some chocolate cookies*

[wireless]

Nice, so that's how you plan to get over 500 players on your server? Talking crap about other servers 

[Littlechan]

Nice, so that's how you plan to get over 500 players on your server? Talking crap about other servers 

umm...don't want to side with anyone (I'm neutral element ), but I think she isn't talking crap about other servers? o.o?

I think she just curious about that server @_@

[Descent]

That's Karei for you. A lot of us server owners hear things about nasty behavior and the like coming from there.

Of course, not in the detail you've displayed here. Downright despicable, it really makes me and my Staff on Solstice ill to see such wanton behavior on the "big" servers, when there are Admins and GMs like ours who are legit and fair to the core and struggling.

[Pandora]

Lif you're not the only one that cares, sadly most people don't.

Not only is using rune sprite for revenue generating against Rune rules, it's also against most artist policy. A quote from Yulia's README included with her Aliza Doll hat:

"3. You understand and agree that ALL of my sprites AND illustrations are NOT to be used in revenue generating systems in any way.
This includes direct sale of an item that this sprite replaces and donation rewards(or gifts) systems for servers."

[Guest]

lets seeeee
if i remeber right there were 3 topics about the donation thing, 1 was here on RMS but then the opener requested it be deleted, the other 2 were on their forums, but they were rapidly edited and removed (okay not that rapidly it took about 2 days though)


the sprite thing you already told me about so ^^;

[GM Lif]

Nice, so that's how you plan to get over 500 players on your server? Talking crap about other servers 

umm...don't want to side with anyone (I'm neutral element ), but I think she isn't talking crap about other servers? o.o?

I think she just curious about that server @_@

Well its more of the fact that a lot of my friends are there, I also have a character there too in fact, but it makes no sense to me how I'm the only one that notices this, while they seem to see nothing wrong with it. I just don't get how I'm the only one that sees this as something major that sticks out like a sore thumb.

[wireless]

Threads about the donation thing in Eternity forums were answered, not removed.
http://www.eternityro.net/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=14857&view=findpost&p=131550
http://www.eternityro.net/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=15118&view=findpost&p=134294

and they're posting on forums how much donations they get each month and aren't telling people "oh no we don't have enough money give us money now or we close server!!!"

If they get more money than they need for server costs it's not their fault.


Stealing sprites is wrong, I agree with that, but there are probably dozens of server who do that. And I don't think it "sticks out like a sore thumb" except to those who made the sprites or are their friends or just generally interested in spriting and read those forums.

[Guest]

removed? okay maybe not but edited so theres nothing there yes

Hi

This post has been edited by Requiem: Oct 25 2008, 07:16 AM
Reason for edit: Made title less obnoxious

and this one was removed: http://www.eternityro.net/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=14857&view=findpost&p=131550


but with this topic here : http://www.eternityro.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=15118&st=20&p=134294&#entry134294

its not the person karei thinks it is, i already asked the starter its someone completely different o.o



either way, i couldn't care less about the donation money, since im not a fan of donations at all, but the sprite thing does annoy me a tad bit ^^;

[wireless]

Sprite thing bothers me now too and it's all your fault 

But anyway I don't think this topic is enough to make 500 people think Eternity sucks and hop over to your server 

[Guest]

o.O?
knowing lif i really doubt thats her intent

but it does seem to make for a convent excuse as to why to disregard this

[GM Lif]

Jay's right, its not that I expect anything really to happen out of this, I'm just wondering if I'm the only one that notices this. I have no expectations of this making my server grow, but I do have expectations that it might make my server shrink.


I made this topic, thinking that I was the only one that cared enough to point this out, because it seems that others have noticed it, they just never brought it up. But I won't ignore such things, it simply baffles me at how some people can agree with me here, yet never have said anything else beforehand.

[Guest]

Sprite thing bothers me now too and it's all your fault 

Dx blame lif! she PM'd me it >.>

[Jin-Rho]

Hi!

Dang, someone had a REALY long night/ was realy disgusted about those server.

Honestly, its hard 2 look on it neutral, as others tryin, specialy after those:
"write me a nice review an i will award it"
For real, i could feel boil the anger and recusal in me when thinkin about that much more.


In first line it`s breaking the sense of reviewing, make it impossible to
to differentiate between "serious" and corrupted reviewing for new/ interested players.
In my eyes a no-go like bribing teachers 4 xample. Just a "bought" appraisal.

So, what are the possible options?

I would say:
Kick it from list.

Hardest penalty i get in mind directly. Easy thing cause not alot of work and its realy effective.
Cause: no more recruting over ur site. In addition i would propose to work hand-in-hand with other greater server-presenting sites to cut off "black sheeps".
They wanna cheat? Let em bite on Granit! And show all other how THAT can hurt ^_^.


Certainly we have the will to forgive; giving those Staff the chance to proof theyr will to change to the "path of light".
After time. After hiden "supervisor"`s green light. AND after our pretty precise look.

Lif collected ALOT of evidences, with links and "karei" wrote the most by himself in his own forum.
It lays now on OUR staff (RMS) how to react. Would we just sit and look on it?
Or would we set a sign?

Questions like "How much worth are our review`s" would be answered, anyway.
But HOW depending on US now.

Would we let them come throught with it others will hang on/doin the same.
And then its just a question of time, until no one G.A.F.


Jin