Project Return to Morroc shutting down

[2k2]

Weird and out of nowhere, and judging the guy's past (?) actions and behavior, the doxxing (if even it's even real) may or may not be related to the RO community.

[yC]

Sorry to hear that ... also sorry for the trouble RO players may have caused.  What happens in RO stays in RO please, what is the point of harassing someone in real life over some internet stuff.

[Metan]

I did not have enough time to actually play RtM, but a friend of mine did. According to him, it was bound to happen ever since Ornstein accepted a certain brazilian payment method called PIX, which, in order to confirm that you are indeed transferring money to the right person, shows the recipient's full name and a couple digits of their SSN-equivalent identity card. He suspects -- and I think it's a plausible hypothesis -- that some people in that Maid Cafe group exploited all that info to find social media profiles, official documents, etc. So it appears to be a legitimate case of doxxing.

RIP, I'd considered RtM in the future because it seemed like a really interesting project. We really can't have nice things; this s*** community deserves nothing. I hope nothing bad happens to Orn as a result of this doxxing. Server admins everywhere should be wary of that guild and their members.

[ADM Ornstein]

Hello There.

Yes, PRM is closing.

To bring some minor light, It was as abrupt for me as it was for everyone else. And I had to make a choice, and my family is a priority.

The group who did it , did it "for fun", not for direct harm...but that's today. You never know.

It was not due to PIX or anything, the trail "started" on a FF14 battle damage log, which went into steam playtime, and ended with a person scheduling an appointment with my wife's job, for the luz.

While for obvious reasons I cant provide the details, I wanna drop a special thanks for everyone who supported and still support me on this , and wish the best for the actual good players and staff around.

I put over 5k hours of work in PRM total. it was not easy and people know I actually put my heart into it...but family comes first. While I can't say I wasted 2 years of my life in this...its very, very disheartening.

Take care of yourselves out there.

[Metan]

It was not due to PIX or anything, the trail "started" on a FF14 battle damage log, which went into steam playtime, and ended with a person scheduling an appointment with my wife's job, for the luz.

You mean that "Activity" page on Steam? Bunch of freaks, going this far for a "joke."

Best of luck to you, I hope they get their fair share. Joke or not, there are lines you shouldn't cross and they have effectively disrupted your project.

[2k2]

[...] Server admins everywhere should be wary of that guild and their members.

Not just RO, but the entire MMO community as a whole became extremely elitist, toxic and turned to sh*t around 13~15 years ago. While we're all faulty for this, server owners/admins are primarily the ones responsible for all this sh*t to the community for not doing anything against it/allowing repeated-offenders or known toxic, doxxing, rmting or criminal groups to freely plaguey any server they want. Play with fire and you may (YOU WILL) end up burned.

Values have been f*cked for a while now. Server owners/admins prioritize numbers over everything else, including said antagonistic behavior, even if it means they're passing on a bigger number because of this choice. Biggest example of this is the now defunct Midgard Tales, its staff choices from before the server launch and all the warnings (and chances) they had from the beginning.

[...] What happens in RO stays in RO please, what is the point of harassing someone in real life over some internet stuff.

Just lowlife/neckbeard things. Being a loser in-game and irl is simply not enough for them. They must lower the level to sh*t by doing this kind of stuff, all while server owners/admins give them a pass to keep doing it repeatedly without punishments.

[Gulielmus]

I always loved the idea of people experimenting with the game and doing something more different.
It's a shame that the entire project just had to cease to exist because of this dark reason that happened.

[ForgotMyOldAccount]

Really a shame. The bullies are everywhere sadly, even here on RMS. You see people getting shredded and doxxed and ripped to pieces for just attempting to make a decent server. It really highlights how needlessly toxic the community has become.

@ornstein I may not have played your server but I always respected it for the vast amount of customization done. Editing source code and making new content from scratch isn't easy. I hope you and your wife can keep happy and safe.

[2k2]

It's a shame that the entire project just had to cease to exist because of this dark reason that happened.

Not entirely gone. Player's data and progress may be forever gone as he's said at least a couple times now that he has no intentions to ever relaunch the server, but as for the game and code, it's NOT gone:





So expect it (or more or less the same) to return in some kind or shape in the future.

@EDIT

Not a bad thing the server is gone with a chance of returning under a new leadership. The server's future has always had a big question mark and its growth would always be affected due to the main guy's history and way of handling things (shown over the months by many different people here on RMS and Reddit), so see this as something really good out of a bad thing.

[Gulielmus]

Not entirely gone. Player's data and progress may be forever gone as he's said at least a couple times now that he has no intentions to ever relaunch the server, but as for the game and code, it's NOT gone:





So expect it (or more or less the same) to return in some kind or shape in the future.

@EDIT

Not a bad thing the server is gone with a chance of returning under a new leadership. The server's future has always had a big question mark and its growth would always be affected due to the main guy's history and way of handling things (shown over the months by many different people here on RMS and Reddit), so see this as something really good out of a bad thing.

It would be an interesting turn of events to have it on Open Source, the message from Orn says he needs to think about it so I'll respect his choice in the end.

My point is: Private servers have a lot of devs that are really well on their expertise, we came a long road from the firsts servers I played in 2003.

[2k2]

My point is: Private servers have a lot of devs that are really well on their expertise, we came a long road from the firsts servers I played in 2003.

Personally not a fan of big reworks and new classes/skills etc. I think the base game (pre-renewal) is mostly fine as is, balance-wise, needing only some rebalance/fix on neglected or bugged skills and some rebalance to a few classes, mechanics or systems.

Starting with porting and appropriately balancing renewal content to pre-renewal would create content for the next 10+ years, and then create new/custom content towards match-making system for instances, interactive raids/bossfights, world events and maybe even try to resurrect PvP in this game in some way, perhaps something involving the long-forgotten Guild Dungeons which was peak PvP content back in the day.

Respect to devs deviating from the base game and applying their own vision in their projetcs, despite most of the times resulting in cheap/tacky, broken/unbalanced and weird content.

[Orange]

As far back as 2010 I remember databases being used to try and hack peoples emails, doxing, threats, harassment being common and so on. It has only gone downhill from there unfortunately.

I was impressed by the work put into this server, I'm a forever 99/70 traditional RO servers guy but it still caught my interest.

Whether it's doxxing and your safety or just stress, real life is more important than a private server. They all close eventually, sadly this one didn't get a fair run.

[Kaleidor]

Starting RTM two days ago and had been no-lifeing it. Really sad to see how a group of people can ruin a server just because they wanted attention

[Xellie]

Not just RO, but the entire MMO community as a whole became extremely elitist, toxic and turned to sh*t around 13~15 years ago. While we're all faulty for this, server owners/admins are primarily the ones responsible for all this sh*t to the community for not doing anything against it/allowing repeated-offenders or known toxic, doxxing, rmting or criminal groups to freely plaguey any server they want. Play with fire and you may (YOU WILL) end up burned.

I've been saying this for a long time. It's seen on many servers over and over. If you play with pigs expect to get mud on you.

[2k2]

I've been saying this for a long time. It's seen on many servers over and over. If you play with pigs expect to get mud on you.

Yup. I remember vividly when and how the MMO community turned to sh*t.

Been off of RO for a while now exactly because I refuse to be around said pigs or feed servers/give a chance to admins that are okay with toxicity running rampant on their servers, becoming a sh*t house.

[Saika911]

Yup. I remember vividly when and how the MMO community turned to sh*t.

Been off of RO for a while now exactly because I refuse to be around said pigs or feed servers/give a chance to admins that are okay with toxicity running rampant on their servers, becoming a sh*t house.

Indeed. I have a hard time understanding how the same people keep galloping to every new server (low rates ffs) after they lose their progress again and again, without even a week's delay. Would have to assume 80% of them are only there for RMT.

[2k2]

Indeed. I have a hard time understanding how the same people keep galloping to every new server (low rates ffs) after they lose their progress again and again, without even a week's delay. Would have to assume 80% of them are only there for RMT.

Seems to be the case yes. 2 servers launched this last weekend where I had to warn the server admins about some of the groups playing it, as one was Loki/Rebelo's group of RMTers (they hop from server to server, play the first few weeks, makes a lot of zeny, RMT and quit. They're some of the players in the discord dm screenshots I exposed in the ML thread) and the other group in the other server are the ones who exploited on ML the Dragon immunity and made the mocking video.

Glad I don't take part in all this knowing both those servers are gonna die within a few weeks to a couple months with such players being there.

As for doing it on low rate servers, these groups are brazillian and this is something brazillians seems to love doing. They're all about the early struggle of progressing with limited characters/gears and obviously for the high value and high demand of first drops in a fresh server. Nauseating.

[CVantes]

"Maid Cafe", eh?

Back in 2016-2018 I used to play Tree of Savior for a few years. Our server had a Maid Cafe guild.

Tree of Savior for those who don't know is a game that garnished the title the "real sequel to Ragnarok Online".

Now I know Maid Cafe isn't an uncommon name for a guild in these weeb circles. However I'll say that the guild in that particular server was from 4chan of all places. The way OP describes their actions is exactly the MO these guys had on the server, even for "small people". I was in their guild for a brief while, mostly to gather information and pass it on. Didn't even take them long to oust me as a rat and then the doxxing / threat attempts began.

Long shot obviously but that guild name fits with my past experiences.

Either way never join guilds that use 4chan. This includes p2w, as Reborn has admitted he posts on the Ragnarok Online general, even today. Despite everyone there seemingly hating him too.

[Orange]

Please tolerate us. We will not promise to not burn down your community or anything but please

Also the community in question gatekeeps themselves, I presume you know that and you're making a joke(the joke being that the RO community should just suffer and die, hilarious!)

[Zulf]

Please tolerate us. We will not promise to not burn down your community or anything but please

But enough about you.

It's funny how people look for scapegoats every time. The same guys ruin every community happens to lurk 4chan, reddit, discord, RMS forums; it's the same group. Then you tend to pull the "wikipedia and youtubers talked about the hacker known as 4chan, they are bad!".

I have been in this community for more than 20 years: I have seen these kind of people everywhere, even at work. Should I generalize? Should I generalize groups, countries, religions, races? You only care when it's about the things you care/have been taught about.

Weirdos are everywhere; you should care about specific names, not groups.

Look at these past months. It's always the same people stirring s***. Instead of creating or helping, it's all about creating drama and pointing at each other. The community is long dead due to all of us.

[Ayami]

It's revolting, simply revolting. As I mentioned in previous discussions regarding Orns, I've always made it clear that he worked alone on this and produced absurd content. He probably invested months or even years into it, and yet his own community threatened him, forcing him to shut down the server.

I tried collaborating with Orns before, but it didn't work out due to IRL and priorities. However, in our Discord messages, I gained a decent understanding of him. He's someone dedicated, and he doesn't deserve this, just like no server deserves to shut down because people and developers invest their time and money into them.
I've been threatened a few times in servers I've been dev/staff or where I've worked as mapmaker. There were even instances where my family members names and my address were leaked. Thankfully, nothing bad ever happened to me, but maybe it's just luck. I know most of the time, those who threaten are just barking dogs and don't bite. But Orns has every right to step back if he feels safe and if it's the best decision for him, his mental, and his family.

[yC]

I will limit the description of 4chan to those that are written on its wiki page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4chan

For anyone that are interested to get a better understanding of what it is, do read it from there instead.

It has been around for 20+ years, so there has to be millions of people from all over the world that took part in it and call themselves 4chan at some point in time.  Basically, it is like human and there are good ones and bad ones.  No point trying to generalize such a big group.


Regarding the purpose of this topic

As the server is closed, please try to leave your anger/love/hate toward anyone on the server behind and start on a new journey if you wish or simply take a break from the scene.  This topic is meant for notification and share of your feelings/memories/experiences on the server.

If you have money involved in the server, please contact the respective payment platform if you wish to reverse any transactions.  This shall be done as soon as possible because after a certain date the transaction is considered final.

This topic is NOT for arguing "you are wrong and I am right" regarding anything happened on the server.  If you are going to pick a fight, start drama or gaslight someone, you might as well not post at all because your post will be removed and consequences may follow.

If you need to contact your old friend, you may make use of the Long Lost Friend section of the forum to leave your contact so those out there can find you.

[Develon]

As someone who was briefly in Maid Cafe on Tree of Savior [Fedimian], the EU server.
I very much doubt it was the same guild and/or members unless you're talking of another server to begin with.
As you said, it's a fairly common name for Guilds in MMOs.
As most of us were European/russian and all had contact in english while Return to Morroc's Maid Cafe was mostly brazilian.


Regarding server closing/community argument... honestly. All it takes is a couple lunatics to ruin it for everyone else. Sucks, but it is what it is.

[ayanami_ghost]

I don't want believe Orn is lying to the playerbase but I find it really weird how he said the doxxers made an appointment on his wife job (it was a sunday morning in brazil that's VERY sus) then the entire "My wife is CRYING AND SHAKING RN" then "My wife asked me to not delete the server guys awww i'm deleting it anyway, please donate more to help me pay for the one year hosting I paid in advance".

None of the doxxers were ever banned from the server also I've talked with some guys from maid cafe and not a single one of them know who was the doxxer. I will never play anything this guy touches ever again.

[Rayeth]

The whole situation as to why this server suddenly shutting down is very suspicious. Anything that involves money always crashing down in flames. 🥲

[ADM Ornstein]

While I owe no explanations to anyone here.

-The Doxxing didn't happen on sunday morning, it was acknowledged and confirmed sunday morning, which then prompted a reverse-checking for data. I shall not disclose further information on this fact as requested by legal advice.

-All Donations requested were refunded, even older ones all the way back to october, I specifically mentioned this. I even took resources from my personal funds because I don't want to feel like anyone was harmed in the situation.

PRM was never a for profit server, while you have plenty of reasons to hate the server/me, I'd like it to be based on facts, not lies.

The reason people in this community are like this is a very good reason on why this sort of behavior is accepted and taken for granted. And a good reason for me to have no connections to it.

Thanks.

[Saika911]

The reason people in this community are like this is a very good reason on why this sort of behavior is accepted and taken for granted. And a good reason for me to have no connections to it.

Thanks.

Who in the RO community accepts doxxing and threatening people? I don't think anybody does. After 20 years of hopping from server to server most of us have seen dozens of reasons for servers closing. Most of them were cash grabs or had corrupt admins. Other servers are in limbo for years with dubious reasons. It's reasonable to be skeptical. I've only heard that you spent tons of hours into making new content and want to make it open source. That's reason enough for me to not have many doubts about the incident, but I can understand it if someone has concerns.

[ForgotMyOldAccount]

These kind of follow-up posts attempting to expose something about the owner should honestly not be allowed. This isn't even a server review at this point, the server is dead. All of it is pointless conspiracy attempting to name and shame someone and follow them to their RO graves with harassment. And then, inevitably, the community will ask "where have all the good servers gone?" as though their own actions weren't responsible for the downfall of quality servers to begin with.

[yC]

Too many fake accounts created to post in this topic.  I am not going to waste my time babysitting these people with no life.

Once again:

1) If you have money involved in the server, please contact the respective payment platform if you wish to reverse any transactions.  This shall be done as soon as possible because after a certain date the transaction is considered final.

2) If you were a player of the server, unfortunately you will have to find a new place to start again. 

To the innocent players: Your precious memories will stay with you forever.  I am sure you will keep thinking back to it when you explore other RO servers.

To the haters: Stop beating the dead horse, it isn't going to change a thing, move on.

3) If you don't have money involved nor a player, what are you doing here?  Go touch grass.


Project Return to Morroc shutting down -- look at the thread title again.  Face it, admit it, handle the truth and let it go.