CasualRO - Shady stuff going on.

[Cawliflower]

In all honesty, this thread isn't about my server so if I wish to post silly GIF images... bite me. In all honesty, this is an outside forum and a third party website. I can choose to act a fool on it all day, every day. However, I have to integrity to say that yes it's pretty immature but it makes me giggle a bit.

The GIF image I posted had nothing to do with you or this thread. I just said Saki flipped a table. Don't get mad.

[Synapse]

In all honesty, this thread isn't about my server so if I wish to post silly GIF images... bite me. In all honesty, this is an outside forum and a third party website. I can choose to act a fool on it all day, every day. However, I have to integrity to say that yes it's pretty immature but it makes me giggle a bit.

The GIF image I posted had nothing to do with you or this thread. I just said Saki flipped a table. Don't get mad.

Yes, and it's that very behaviour that concerns me. The bulk of your contribution to this thread has been posting silly images and saying "Proof or it didn't happen" a number of times. You have automatically chosen the side of a fellow GM who, whether you'd like to believe it or not, has provided less proof to back up his own stance than we have, and even emulates the very behaviour he was critical enough of to permently ban us for when it took place on his own server. You aren't needed here. You can get your coat and leave.

[Cubano]

You know ittttttt. Also get out, pretty boys are not allowed in this topic.

</3

[xalazias]

This isn't their first offense, and have already been temp banned for encouraging Filipino players to use exploits that he'd find on the server with broken skills, etc.

Just as an aside, I have to ask, was the qualifier "Filipino" really necessary? Is it relevant to the offense, does it exacerbate what Daletos supposedly did? If the players he allegedly talked to were American, would that have been included in the reason as well?

In any case. Some mention has been made of prolegomena and I wanted to clear up some things, based on my experience as one of its founding members:

1) I don't feel there was harassment by the GMs towards the guild in general, or towards me in particular. I have had very good interactions with staff, and especially during the early days, my general feeling was one of admiration for how the staff were managing the server. Later on however it became obvious to me that some members of staff harbored dislike towards one of my guildmates, the same person whose forum posts were deleted. When I emailed the server owner, JTynne, regarding this, he stated that this was because said guildmate had displayed a pattern of rudeness and condescension. Obviously I disagree -- that guildmate was the one who enabled us to play on the server, it was clear to me from the very first that he liked the server very much -- but I concede that I do have my own biases; the guildmate is an old friend and I was witness to how much time he poured into the server, not only in playing, but in writing up long, detailed posts regarding what could be done to improve the server.
- 1a) I do know that the GMs were monitoring our guild in some ways, at least. There was at least one instance during which a GM was present while we were killing a high-level MVP. I didn't really mind as I assumed they were there to see that we weren't using any exploits. I believe our guild was at the time quite diligent in terms of killing high-level MVPs, which is why we were being watched.
- 1b) That there is such a list (whether formal or informal; that there is the idea of such a list) of players who will "eventually get themselves banned" is disturbing to me and makes me uneasy. I cannot help but think that at least one of my guildmates (and maybe more?) would have been on that list no matter how scrupulous we were in trying to follow the server rules. Certainly if "dislike by the community" is enough of a reason we'd have been in trouble. We hardly socialized with other people but I know we were not universally loved, I think because of our MVP hunting.

2) Deletion of my guildmate's forum posts did happen. I still disagree with the way it was handled and I know that it had a chilling effect on my forum participation (or even forum reading, for that matter). If I remember correctly, JTynne did say that he would look into it and see if there would be ways to improve the handling of such matters in the future. I don't know if that happened because shortly after that email exchange I went very inactive.

3) While it's true that many of us went inactive because of real life, we had a few dedicated members who had no such problems; it's just that when I went inactive, so did they, as there was no longer any leadership or initiative regarding what we would do for the day. At least one did so because of certain disagreements with how some server issues were being handled. We spoke extensively about this and we both felt the same way, but as we did not feel any value could be had in continuing to contest the issues, we decided to simply go inactive and see if time smoothed over our concerns. It didn't, unfortunately.

4) We'd always planned to come back after our guildmaster finished taking his bar exams, so at first, we didn't really consider ourselves as "leaving", only going inactive. Whenever we met up for lunch or just to hang out, we would still talk a lot about our plans and goals in the server. Considering recent developments, though, I'm not sure any return will still be happening. I don't think that can be interpreted as us leaving because of GM harassment, though. Perhaps more like a general dissatisfaction with the way things have gone, and a reluctance to persist in spending an inordinate amount of time and energy trying to remedy that. It's disappointing, but that's how life goes.

5) As for WOE and SU, I know SU was doing its very best to enable prolegomena to join WOE, as I think they considered us, at the time we were active, a guild that could take them on. SU didn't want the WOE scene to die, they wanted there to be more competition, and so they did what they could to stir it up (including challenging other players, I guess? --I personally haven't seen it, outside of their persistence in trying to enable our guild). While I wouldn't have done the same things they did, in no way did I sense that they were trying to stifle competition, or discouraging other guilds. I don't believe it was their fault the server had a stale WOE scene -- if a serious WOE guild had arrived, they would have been able to challenge SU for that castle in short order, as it is not difficult to farm WOE gear. It really was a matter of the lack of a second strong guild, but I don't see why SU is at fault for that. I remember (I do not know if he actually did it) Daletos was talking about how he was willing to give another guild gear just to encourage them to join WOE.
- 5a) As for Daletos, I realize that the GMs may consider him nothing more than a troll, but I've seen him helping a lot of people, including random strangers, in the past. It's a shame to see his concerns dismissed out of hand and himself labelled as a troll when it's clear to me that he had invested a lot of time and effort into the server.

That's... basically it, I guess. Speaking to the issue at hand, as I wasn't there I can only look at the screenshots posted and note that I think there was some mismanagement here, but considering the general pattern I noticed before I went inactive, it does not come as too much of a shock.

[Rhaeselon]

I'm just going to come right out and say that I don't have anything particularly significant to add to this topic, however I do believe Lythe "hit the nail on the head" in a previous topic regarding one of jTynne's servers.

I really had no issues with you, your server, or even your incompetent co-admin, but your double-faced games, your favoritism and your flippant changes of heart have changed that. Good luck with your server, enjoy the epiphany when you finally realize that even without us your server is full of drama, and have a nice life.

[Kaezar]

There's no point to be silent about it here Kaezar, she can't touch you here. Incase you guys couldn't read in between the lines.

Dale, you know I sympathize with you and generally agree with your beliefs, but this isn't about me. I've probably said all that I needed to say in my other posts. (And for the record, I'm not hiding -- my identity in cRO is out in the open just by looking at my posts here in RMS where I tried to recruit new players diligently and left my ingame names.) My involvement in the matter rests solely on the fact that I feel that I had also experienced such uncalled-for prejudice based on (a) past action/s, and that anything I do after that/those event/s no matter how trivial the GM team would already view with prejudice and judge me accordingly as in the wrong. Other than that, I'll qualify that I have no involvement in the matter and all I know about the WoE drama is second-hand.

At this point though I don't really care whether or not Justin was the GX in the WoE drama. If he was, then yes, that is pretty much corruption through and through, and he's also guilty of 'drama mongering'. If he wasn't, though, and SU's allegations are misinformed, then he isn't guilty of corruption, just probably an 'overkill' in the degree of punishment he administered. And I already said before that I believe punishing players to whatever degree is part of his privileges, although we can always contest his justifications and form our beliefs accordingly.

Why I don't care is because I'm going to side with Sarin here -- lacking conclusive evidence from both sides, the behavior does say a lot. I'm surprised that of the people who've posted so far, everyone but jTynne, Saki and Cawliflower has been (to my eyes) relatively calm and respectful in laying down his or her opinions. When I was still playing I've always respected Justin to a degree, even during the times I disagreed with his decisions, simply because he handles himself professionally. So it's really boggling because you know he CAN handle himself professionally here, but apparently doesn't want to. This -- "You don't play my server any longer, you're no longer a +1 to my online count, so to be frank, you deserve nothing more than an invitation to pay me to entertain your game of drama here on RMS." doesn't even cut it, because there are cRO players who read and post here -- for whatever reasons they have --  who are not banned (last I checked...). Just because RMS is a third-party site, just because your persecutors are banned players, does that really mean the people reading and posting here 'deserve nothing' in the way of a conclusion? Or, at least, your side of the story, told in a calm and collected manner.

Regarding WoE, it baffles me what you really want to do with cRO. There are probably no less than a dozen threads in the cRO forums (mostly in the VIP and Feedback sections) asking for ways to improve the WoE scene, and to my inactive eyes nothing much has changed -- no guild packages, the time wasn't even shuffled around for experimentation, etc. You even entertained the idea of changing the name of the server to accommodate for and attract 'less casual' WoE guilds, but that idea was not revisited. With much of SHUT UP banned, I think it's safe to say the WoE scene has died, and unsure if it'll revive. From what you've said in this thread, it looks like you do want to focus on PvE, in which case, go. I remember you saying PvP/WoE is all drama, or comprises of much of the drama, so go ahead and revisit the theme of the server and might as well remove WoE. All of this is just my ramblings of course.

In any case, I do wish you and your team will use this 'drama' to revisit how you deal with things and more importantly players. Use it as constructive criticism. I do remember posting a long-donkey criticism back in the day about something related to inconsistent punishments and carebearism, to which you said you'd find a solution for, and then months later this happens, people on the 'will eventually get banned' list getting punished for the littlest things. And the whole thing honestly is quite sad because you, and most everyone involved here, do care/did care for the server.

[Yuzo]

From what I have seen of jTynne, he is usually speaks quite formally and shows his full array of manners. This is what leads me to believe these accusations are true.

[Kensei]

Hella boy, this topic grows so fast that it tempts me to join.

I tried CasualRO, quitted because I don't know stuff in Renewal, and then saw this thread. Ugh stop making me feel like my presence is a bad omen for the server I visited.

encouraging Filipino players to use exploits that he'd find on the server with broken skills, etc.

How kawaii you are. Assuming that only Pinoys will exploit buffs.

In all honesty, this thread isn't about my server so if I wish to post silly GIF images... bite me. In all honesty, this is an outside forum and a third party website. I can choose to act a fool on it all day, every day. However, I have to integrity to say that yes it's pretty immature but it makes me giggle a bit.

The GIF image I posted had nothing to do with you or this thread. I just said Saki flipped a table. Don't get mad.

I hope you still remember what I did to you back then.

Although right, you are just a third person that acts as neutral, all your posts are more to helping jTynne. You are inducing some rage to the people who are accusing the discussed server and helped Justin like you're his Co-Admin or whatever you called it. Plus I love how you think you hop to this topic and posting GIF pics are RELEVANT.

It's all about how one interprets the thread. It'll ultimately be up to the readers in terms of what side they believe since there isn't any proof. In all honesty, even if jT provided the logs, those are EASILY manipulate as they're in SQL and you can just delete the row within seconds. For example: "DELETE FROM `atcommandlog` WHERE ...". Hehe.

I have no idea if you do really understand the situation but..

by the time we realized what was happening we got muted and banned less than 5 minutes later.

Please. If I were sleeping and then some unknown person took my first time and ran away before I could even get a glimpse of his/her face, what can I do? Call the police?

I understand some of you people just love and can't live without drama, but please, if you're joining, do it properly. Stop trying to be a kawaii troll that thinks this is still the age where we spam irrelevant GIF pics or saying "U mad bro?" will make you look cool. 0/10. No points given for your tries.

Back to topic, here's some message for both OP and Justin from me.

Synapse :

That's all folks, be careful!

tl;dr on your review, I'm not going to waste my time reading, but from what I know you don't really hate Justin before this happen. But this last sentence of you made me think Justin is one hell of a molester or something and that would affect other people as well.

Plus, I don't know if it's you or your buddies who did that spam post on Justin's FB, but it's just totally childish. If you don't want people to get caught on the server, this is not how you do it. Spamming is just total show of idiocy, and I hope you didn't do that, because that will prove Justin's words on your actions.

Justin :

Ok, before I start, let me start with the sentence : I have no grudges in the past against you.

First, from what I see, I kinda giggled on how 3 sentences from a player would result in a permaban. I'm kinda glad that I left your server as soon as possible because I would hate it if I played for quite some time, then suddenly I'm in the mood of spicing some stuffs and I suddenly got banned.

From eMail with Sarin,

After the display of stupidity demonstrated in-game from those three, as well as the accumulated amount of complaints forged against Daletos and Ronfaure "m4ze", frankly we're happy everyone shot themselves in the foot so that we no longer have to deal with mediating/punishing for immature, demeaning behavior.

Per your announcement on the forum, good riddance if you wish to believe false accusations. As I stated before, so too shall I state again; I'll not lose sleep over moronic behavior.

Is this how you treat someone you just banned with no concrete proof? I might miss it due to tons of spoilers but I have yet to see complaints on Daletos and his crew. And no, I do believe no one is totally true or false, but what I can see is, of course a normal player's rant can be covered up easily by one GM. Especially by the big boss. Why? Unless whole server hates you, basically you will still have supports.

While certain players only have a small gang to provide concrete amount, you can just bribe remaining players with some ingame stuff to sugarcoat your actions. This is not an accusation, this is general stuffs happens on everywhere that ignites drama.

Ok, until the part where I see Saki's forum post, I remembered.

....

"WOW, 2012 AND YOU STILL BAN PEOPLE FOR EXPLOITS THAT YOUR SERVER HAVE? IS IT HARD TO DISABLE AND WIPEOUT"

Plus the number of people exploiting mirrors on how long you abandoned your server.

Severe disrespect? I've seen MUCH worse. But again, I read that UtopiaRO stuff which Lythe wrote, it seems like it's safe to put your server into the "Very Carebear" category. Reminds me of some server that forum banned me instantly when I said the "F" word. Woah, I didn't know RO is for 5 years old.

My server, my rules. Ok. Good luck with that. That makes your server competing with 873618736187236 other kawaii PvM server.

And I love on how you handle problems with your own style. Sadly, not really cool when you are in the position of server owner. Because you basically are showing off on "Hey, I'm da big boss here" feeling too much and not many people are really welcomed with that kind of attitude. Moody? Your own problem, don't bring it to your business. I'll just take one of the post here since this suits me somehow.

Problem is any electronic proof can be fabricated. That's why, if I read drama concerning server I'm in/thinking about joining, I prefer to judge by behavior exhibited by people involved. That's a bit harder to fake, of course unless you are Dexter

Plus the quote from mighty Lythe :

I really had no issues with you, your server, or even your incompetent co-admin, but your double-faced games, your favoritism and your flippant changes of heart have changed that. Good luck with your server, enjoy the epiphany when you finally realize that even without us your server is full of drama, and have a nice life.

2 servers, stuffs are still the same. Don't make me think that the purpose you're making server is to get some pocket money and satisfy your need of drama. Go pull some IRL, I bet it's pretty much better, especially when you are not on the "Big Boss" position.

Do you EVER learn? No wonder Cookie got pulled and could get along well with you on this topic. You two have some similarity inside.

[Cawliflower]

Edited and remove blurb towards Kensei to avoid wasting my time. Back to my original point, before I'd consider even believing Justin would waste his time actually trying to spice up the WoE scene on one character (which doesn't spice anything up and actually looks corrupt) is hilarious with all of his Administrative experience like myself. As I said many times, prove it. Show screenshots of this alleged character or a video.

I really have no benefit of defending Justin. He isn't involved with my server and we've only worked together on rAthena - at that, really not much. We're just cordial Administrators of our own servers.

P.S. - You're getting some good air time Justin. These people tend to not realize that it's promotional, in all honesty. What ends up happening is the players that see these thread get curious about the servers in question and want to see for themselves. I had a lot of players that saw my Hall of Shame entry and have been on the server for months after trying it. It's a bad/good situation because yes it's not a great reputation but it still brings in members. Not only that, it's funny that some of the largest servers are run by the most RMS-proclaimed worst Game Masters.

This all gives... purpose to my RO life. :3

[Kensei]

Edited and remove blurb towards Kensei to avoid wasting my time.

Aww kawaii.

Back to my original point, before I'd consider even believing Justin would waste his time actually trying to spice up the WoE scene on one character (which doesn't spice anything up and actually looks corrupt) is hilarious with all of his Administrative experience like myself. As I said many times, prove it. Show screenshots of this alleged character or a video.

Did you ever read the accuser's post? Who would expect a ban happened without a warning? Should a person take a screenshot on every single thing or record every single second of his RO life? IN A PRIVATE SERVER?

I won't, personally.

I really have no benefit of defending Justin. He isn't involved with my server and we've only worked together on rAthena - at that, really not much. We're just cordial Administrators of our own servers.

You don't really need a "work-related" reason to defend someone. And I don't think you are oblivious to this fact, right?

Not only that, it's funny that some of the largest servers are run by the most RMS-proclaimed worst Game Masters.
This all gives... purpose to my RO life. :3

I don't know what you're trying to say here, it's either :

1. You are a good GM but your server is barely heard by people
2. Your server is popular but your reputation is HoS-level
3. Your server is not popular and your reputation is HoS-level

Sorry, no plus-plus conclusion can be taken from that sentence of yours.

[Cawliflower]

Aww kawaii.

Thank you. I do enjoy being kawaii desu.

Did you ever read the accuser's post? Who would expect a ban happened without a warning? Should a person take a screenshot on every single thing or record every single second of his RO life? IN A PRIVATE SERVER?

I did read it. Thank you so much for asking.

I won't, personally.

You don't really need a "work-related" reason to defend someone. And I don't think you are oblivious to this fact, right?

I take screenshots of everything. I've learned to do so.

I don't know what you're trying to say here, it's either :

1. You are a good GM but your server is barely heard by people
2. Your server is popular but your reputation is HoS-level
3. Your server is not popular and your reputation is HoS-level

Sorry, no plus-plus conclusion can be taken from that sentence of yours.

Absolutely not. It was sarcasm.

[Kensei]

I did read it. Thank you so much for asking.

Then you should know that this could be the reason of the lack of proof from player side. Imagine you're talking with people then suddenly you got DC'ed and banned (and you don't even know which statement you made offended the staff).

Unless it was clear enough that the Admin broadcasted or talked about the case in main or whatever method he/she used, why would you take screenshot of every sentence that the Admin said?

I take screenshots of everything. I've learned to do so.

That is good, but do everyone need to take screenshot of every single stuff happened. Like "OMG I MET COOKIE, LETS SAY HI AND TAKE SS OF IT".

The case was unexpected, yet you expect the accuser to give full proof on what happened like you're assuming this was a planned drama from the start.

Absolutely not. It was sarcasm.

Oh? I somehow found it not sarcastic at all. More to true.

[Sarin]

Edited and remove blurb towards Kensei to avoid wasting my time. Back to my original point, before I'd consider even believing Justin would waste his time actually trying to spice up the WoE scene on one character (which doesn't spice anything up and actually looks corrupt) is hilarious with all of his Administrative experience like myself. As I said many times, prove it. Show screenshots of this alleged character or a video.

Before this incident, Justin several times attacked us with characters that were, in terms of legitimacy, at least questionable (I really can't believe that with all the work he did on CRO, while being busy with school too, he also had time to hunt MvP cards on legit chars), in order to get other people to join WoE. These attempts failed...

[Cawliflower]

Then you should know that this could be the reason of the lack of proof from player side. Imagine you're talking with people then suddenly you got DC'ed and banned (and you don't even know which statement you made offended the staff).

Unless it was clear enough that the Admin broadcasted or talked about the case in main or whatever method he/she used, why would you take screenshot of every sentence that the Admin said?

That is good, but do everyone need to take screenshot of every single stuff happened. Like "OMG I MET COOKIE, LETS SAY HI AND TAKE SS OF IT".

The case was unexpected, yet you expect the accuser to give full proof on what happened like you're assuming this was a planned drama from the start.

Oh? I somehow found it not sarcastic at all. More to true.

Perceive it how you'd like.

Edit:

Before this incident, Justin several times attacked us with characters that were, in terms of legitimacy, at least questionable (I really can't believe that with all the work he did on CRO, while being busy with school too, he also had time to hunt MvP cards on legit chars), in order to get other people to join WoE. These attempts failed...

If he really did, that's... XD. Very counterproductive if you're trying to increase the population and competition only because it looks not only shady but discerning to players.

[Kensei]

I was giving the global looks from player side though.

But nonetheless, it sure is hard to convince BIG BOSS as a NORMAL EMPLOYEE.