While I applaud your admonishing people and for having your opinions of him despite everything, still I can't help but back Adam up.
He's been an absolutely stellar person since I've known him, and even before I talked to him personally the first time he was very tolerant towards the goons who flamed his IRC channel (of those was ZellKFF), and who also came to the AnimaRO channel, which I then proceeded to alert Debbie of Zell's actions in the #animaro channel, and thus Debbie granted me Half-Operator status and asked for me to deal with it, so I swiftly (and rightly) got rid of Zell and his goons from at least the #animaro channel, though he and a few others trolled the #euphro-chat channel for a few days to come scaring off people until he finally got banned by one of the older operators. >< There seemed to be a lot of drama even back then, but Adam never lost his cool while I was in the channel, or from any forum threads I've read, so like I said.. he has my full support and in my eyes he's a great guy and I'm more than happy to work under him as apart of his staff.
As for him shutting down so hastily, I can't contest that it wasn't a tad awkward, but again, what would you do in such a situation when well over a thousand of said player base turns against you, many of which don't even speak English, so they don't even have the story completely either. I can only imagine the amount of chaos and anarchy that existed in the last few days leading up to the first Euph's demise, and I fully sympathize with Adam. Zell seems from what I've gained from my experiences encountering and having to deal with him personally in the #animaro channel, to be a horrible person out for nothing more than self gain. While I can't speak on anything that "happened" back on the old Euph since I hadn't even heard of EuphRO until after Anima got flooded with ex-Euph players, I can say that the way Zell and his goons were going about doing things was absolutely despicable. Flooding channels that have nothing to even do with anything, flaming anyone who tells them to shut up and take their drama elsewhere, etc. I know that if I had been in Adam's shoes and a staff of trusted individuals turned on me the way his old staff did, as well as a player base of over 4,000 players (actively online), I would have done the same, if not worse and never recovered the server. When so many people turn in mass against you and you feel like you have no one you can trust, everything feels like wasted effort. Not saying that you may or may not have ever experienced something that large-scale (even I can't say I've experienced that even after being an admin on the popular "Aura"/Dizzy Cafe message boards a few years ago when Kelly/Sunryse went MIA and the community of over 5,000 users went psycho and took over until the board was shut down), but I've tried to put myself in his shoes to have an idea of what it must have felt like, and 'horrible' is the only word that comes to mind.
It's much easier to say something than to actually do it. It's so easy to criticize Adam or really anyone for a "mistake" in our eyes, but to actually sit and analyze the situation and try to better understand what he or said person(s), is still hard to do and grasp. You can't relate unless you've lived through something that large, and I highly doubt there are even five total on this message board who can honestly say that they've had a community of tens of thousands of players (forum + game server over a twelve month period) turn against them, a staff of people hand-picked who were "trusted".. it's just so much for me to even attempt to take in. It would have driven me crazy, and had I been in his shoes back then, the server would have been shut down immediately.
The hacking incident was before my time at Euph. I had already made an account, but never started 'playing' until about two or three weeks after being hired on as staff. From what I understand, ZellKFF was responsible for it, and a lot of people went crazy at the mouth textually against he and others involved, so if Adam did indeed snap, I don't blame him, regardless. Whether on a 'professional' level or not, it's a game, and Adam, just as everyone else, is human; has feelings, has emotions, and sometimes when you tug at something so dear or precious, you lose yourself when addressing someone or a situation. Even I've lost my cool against an abusive player. It happens, no matter how hard you try, it just does sometimes. I think one of the largest factors that keeps me interested in EuphRO is the fact that we don't have to walk around on eggshells. We're all *extremely* open with the community, and are as much apart of their lives as they are, ours. If a player wants to sit and chat during downtime, I along with any other GM on at the time who happens to be around will of course sit and chat with our players. I think part of being a good GM is gaining trust with your players, and yeah, it's not 'professional' to actually listen to people's problems, or give advice, or talk about the weather.. but you just can't be a robot 24/7 XD Interaction is what makes RO so fun for me. And granted, yes, I'm drifting a bit, but what I'm attempting to get at is.. we're all human, people make mistakes. There's a lot to criticize a lot of people for, but there comes a point when it just doesn't matter anymore. Whatever the case may be in the past, it's not how things are now. I only care about the present and the future at this point. No sense in dwelling on old news. If Adam turns out to be as horrible of a person as some of you portray him to be, I'll be sure to give him a swift kick to the shins and gracefully take my leave, but honestly, I just don't see it happening. Lol.
And to finalize the post and clear up your speculations, after everything's paid back, I don't believe Euph will have anything to do with Anima outside of asking for coding assistance if needed, but again, we have enough knowledgeable people on our staff that we've yet to have to ask for any favors or anything crazy like that, lol.
6:33am.. gah! Stop keeping me up x,x *goes to bed*
