Oh lordy look what cakeRO has done now...

Started by chibizorpixie, Nov 10, 2006, 01:46 PM

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chibizorpixie

I've been playing on cakeRO for at least four months now... Made lots of great online friends and had even made good enough friends with people who had money for cake's neat donor items. I... until this point, loved cake to pieces and wouldn't play anywhere else. Once I had gotten high enough in the "social chain" if you will, I started seeing sights of the corruption for myself, but it wasn't all that terrible really... Some gm abuse but not a whole lot... it was dealable. (if I spelled that word right?)  I was good enough friends with people (not gm's) to where my entire set of equips were all donor items with donor cards. we're talking, hundreds of dollars of stuff that other people paid for so that I could compete with the higher end donors in woe and pvp.  I had my new stuff for roughly two days before the owner of cake, marsh, came into pvp and revoked everyone's donors that did not have paypal reciepts.

CakeRO rules state... (this is NOT verbatim... reader's digest version) "Giving donor items as gifts is permitted. The recipient must let Marsh know who gave it to them and what they gave."

Now anyone who played cake for a long time knows, that if you talk to marsh and you're not giving him any money, you get muted for hours on end. it's impossible to let him know ANYTHING. Over time, people donate, and then people quit. Some of my items were recieved as the result of people quitting. And I know NO ONE that is going to give an online friend their paypal reciepts or even think about giving it to them. Out of the 100+ people online last night, I counted 7 people with visible donors (ie wings and hats) SEVEN... (this is a DRASTIC drop from the usual 30-50)

My original thought was benefit of the doubt. "Oh, some gm is being a tard and giving out donors to their friends." After careful consideration, while that may happen... I came to a new conclusion. Marsh is a greedy *insert whatever insulting name you wish to insert here*.  All in all, he decided that he didn't want people paying for donors and giving them away. Because when that happens, only one person donates as opposed to two if they can't give their stuff away. I don't recommend donating to cake if you play on that server. As if you forget, and delete your inbox, all of your stuff will be gone forever. Whether you paid for it or it was a gift. A friend of mine lost a pair of 20$ wings he had paid for because he loaned them to a priest for ten minutes in pvp and then went out to get food.

It's been rumored that there will be an entire donor wipe. Also been rumored that if you can get whoever gave you your items to vouche for you, marsh will return them. (he supposidly put our names on a list but... I'm not sure how much I believe that at this point either.) However... be wary... because IF Marsh happens to come online... you'll more than likely just get muted for trying to speak to him without permission.

All in all, I won't continue to play on cakeRO unless my items are rightfully returned to me. And even then I doubt I'll stay for very long as I am looking for a new server.

wewt

devow

i havent been on cakero, but the actions of the owners are typical for many (or all?) servers, ie to make money. they usually start out innocently wanting to provide a server to play on (and ask for money for costs), but when they get to taste donations greed usually takes over them.

chibizorpixie

that really sucks... >_> I love hr servers, but the only ones that I have managed to find ALL have donor items or will be having them soon. And if they all turn out that way then I would really just rather not play ro... If anyone knows of a really awesome hr with little or no corruption please send it my way. I'd love to continue playing even if I do have to start over.

devow

if i remember qRO has a high rate (3k/3k/1k) that doesnt have god equips (kaho,mjo,meg,etc). last time i was on the most expensive was an SGH. pretty large number of players (800-1k). there are donations, but not sure what you get.

they are using freya, which they havent updated (freya is dead i think). so no ninja/gunslinger or other new updates.

Nish

If marsh was smart he would make ALL donation items undealable.. yes its possible to do that, niktout does it on nRO.

He sounds like one of many greedy money making Admin's out there, you gotta be careful these days.. Thats why i don't bother donating.

Raiku

#5
Wow that is so messed up. As for most things, greed comes kicking on once more. You should look for servers that usually have a donation system that doesn't revolve around omnipotent items, or at least, something to unbalance the game, which become unfair to other players.

yC

everywhere i heard the voice that ppl shouldn't and shouldn't be able to donate for POWER ... yet there are still ppl that donates ... sigh ... kids these days like to feed greedy server owners ... what can we do ? nothing.

pieman245

Wow...Just wow...If I had a server, I wouldnt have donater items. They make everything unbalanced and you have to be a donater to be high in the "social chain", or whatever...Ive tried hosting a server but I had no idea wtf to do....

Blandastig

yeah marsh drove me away from his server with his donor items, unavailability, and corruption

laecertus

if u want a balanced HR       go to http://trinity-ro.com/ the HR server kalel their are donations but it s only ""5$=4oca or 4opb"" :D

chibizorpixie

I want to thank everyone on their feedback. I will definitely be at least checking out the servers mentioned. I greatly appreciate the support of my complaining  ;D

Chaz

#11
I so agree with Pixie, I played on cakero for almost one year now, it was an great server, great community.
But several people (mostly gms) screwed it all up, I could've lived with some corrupt gms , but what Marsh did now is the dumbest mistake ever.
Hee wiped all , and the presents I got from several people all dissapeared my Kawaii ribbon and all my donor items , over 400-500$ gone from my account, if this is the way Marsh wants to get money , if this is the way he wants the server to be, then screw it all, I left cake, and with me many others did.
I've searched for an other server (low rate this time) and hope that it will turn out to be better then cake. (so far I've seen its way better <3 the community from Chronos RO) so this is the way I think about cakeRO now, I had great memories of it.. but now it sucks, thanks in advance for taking the time to read this message.

~Chaz,

Rumiko

Hi everybody~ I've been playing CakeRO since January of this year and only had a 1 month break. I want to agree with pixie just adding more stuff.

QuoteSome gm abuse but not a whole lot... it was dealable.

I find that quite wrong. There were lots in the old days by Himizu. Especially he cannot follow his own rules because for one he kept calling me an a****** and I'm not allowed to swear back. If I did I would've gotten banned.

QuoteNow anyone who played cake for a long time knows, that if you talk to marsh and you're not giving him any money, you get muted for hours on end. it's impossible to let him know ANYTHING.

I personally haven't gotten muted but I disagree on that because even if you donate and try to talk to marsh, he'll just dismiss you. It has happened to me many times before. But yes I do agree it is impossible to let him know anything too because it's like "oh I'm working on this your stuff will have to wait." He also complains if people ask the same question over and over but he doesn't realize each person is asking it only once. If the same person asked it over and over then I would understand why he would be getting annoyed.

QuoteMarsh is a greedy *insert whatever insulting name you wish to insert here*.  All in all, he decided that he didn't want people paying for donors and giving them away. Because when that happens, only one person donates as opposed to two if they can't give their stuff away. I don't recommend donating to cake if you play on that server. As if you forget, and delete your inbox, all of your stuff will be gone forever. Whether you paid for it or it was a gift. A friend of mine lost a pair of 20$ wings he had paid for because he loaned them to a priest for ten minutes in pvp and then went out to get food.

Indeed very greedy. I've donated $440 dollars to this server. After the wipe, I went to marsh to restore my items and I showed him the transaction numbers and he told me "oh I can't count the first one for $50 because our old paypal account got cancelled." Is it my fault it got cancelled? No but I still donated $50 to that account and so I could only get $390 worth of donations. Not only that but before, he gave bonuses for every $100 you donated. Now, there are absolutely none. Before the wipe, I had my fancy 4 slotted megingjards and sleipnirs with lots of custom cards and everything. Now, I only have 2 slotted megingjards and sleips and not nearly as many cards or equipment as I had before the wipe.

QuoteMy original thought was benefit of the doubt. "Oh, some gm is being a tard and giving out donors to their friends."

To show just how corrupt CakeRO is, there was a time when there were 2 guilds warring on CakeRO. Final Fox and then HoRD (House of Red Daggers and everybody else who hated Himizu and Momo (both corrupt GMs)). Himizu and Momo had given donations to lots of people in their guild Final Fox so they could kill the people who hated them and whoever they wanted to kill.

Another example would be Lovely. I'm not saying she's bad or anything but she hardly donated anything and got like every single donation there was. At least 30 of each custom card, lots of 4 slotted megingjards and 4 slotted sleipnirs each with different cards in them. And they were considered to be "Gifts from the GMs."

Lastly, I agree with pixie that I won't stay on CakeRO until everything of mine is returned to how it was before the wipe. But I doubt it. I really do have to say the best GM on CakeRO was Robochrist. But ever since he left, CakeRO was just horrible. ;s

Chaz

I totally agree with you too Rumiko , the wipe coused me to lose 4 slot sleipnir 2 exor cards 2 4slotted megs 1 fallen card, edp card , 2x crhon card, 3 wings, 2 slot armor, sketchy card, and all the even  items etc I had, but becouse I got all this stuff from several people as presents I lost it all,
mm I never saw Momo giving out donors to her guildmates, but I totallu hate the abusing of Kiba, he banned me for killing his legit account, he stole my donation items and was using them till the wipe.
besides  I 100% agree with you, Robo was the best gm ever and without him cake became sucky, Robo i miss you T_T

devow

someone i know got a gms paypal account suspended when he reported to paypal that he was a scammer.

but its always the donators fault in these cases. i mean.. cmon, 4s godly equips? thats a red flag right there. the server obviously is meant to make money for the gms.

chibizorpixie

One of my very close RO buddies paid 3 grand in donors...3 GRAND! He's been there since the beginning of cake and, until recently enjoyed it very much. He even used to help out quite a bit with coding. I agree if you're thinking "wow 3k is kind of excessive" but it's his money so i make no judgements XD He's got every single reciept from every single transaction and Marsh refuses to give him ANY of his donors back. (I am assuming because he told Marsh before the wipe that he wouldn't ever fix any bugs that they had ever again.)

My point being... with all of these people getting screwed, it would be very very VERY simple for there to be a class action lawsuit against cake and against Marsh. I'm not saying that anyone would do this at all... but the last time I checked, it was quite illegal for someone to let you pay for something via paypal and then say "oh we're out of that item but you can't have your money back."

(I could be totally wrong on this lawsuit thing... I haven't checked into it or anything as I have never donated any money...) There might be a loophole somewhere but I'm fairly confident that refusing to give someone what they paid for is illegal?

Pandora

So greedy.. that sucks.

If anyone is looking for a non-corrupt low rate, try heRO:
http://www.hero-server.net/

You cannot buy any custom with donations, all customs are acquired with quests or in an event called the "Trials of Heroes" (held monthly) ^_^
[color=darkblue]heRO is a great friendly, pre-renweal, unique and fun server with a great community, give it a try![/color]



[color=darkblue]Click here to find out more about heRO![/color]

Duncan

#17
That's the main reason why I don't have donation items or make people donate. And I can't imagine what these servers that have them use that money for. Plus I believe making money of any kind when hosting a RO server is illegal (not sure if that's really true). Private servers are supposed to be free. That's what eAthena, Aegis, and any other EMUs are there for. And when you look at it, it doesn't cost that much to run a server. Though some people do spend a lot of money on a server. I'll use myself as an example. It cost me over $5,000 to run and maintain my server. Three thousand of that was put to my computer that I bought 2 years ago and the rest for RAM chips, video card, sound, the whole works (mainly because I want to play such games as Star Wars Battlefront 2). Anyways hosters shouldn't pressure people to donate at all because it's like paying to play an iRO or kRO server. What if something bad happens and that server closes? All that money that people donate would go to waste. Am I right?

GoldDean

Something people don't understand is that servers cost money to run.

MesaRO costs, on average, $700 a month to run. Thats not including electric bills, website hosts and Ventrilo hosting.

Its true, though, alot of the servers that whore donation items are just being greedy. But some of them actually need that money to run.

Atemu

Quote from: Duncan on Nov 26, 2006, 08:27 PM
Plus I believe making money of any kind when hosting a RO server is illegal (not sure if that's really true). Private servers are supposed to be free. That's what eAthena, Aegis, and any other EMUs are there for.

Just to add a factual statement to this, it's true. "Donations" to private servers are a federal crime, even when it's in exchange for an item. I believe the law states something to the effect the no parties can obtain monetary gain for any work(s) not patented to them, and you can't obtain a patent for any ideas anyone has had before you. i.e. It's a violation of international copyright law to obtain money in any way for RO unless you are Gravity or have their express permission. RO's system is also protected by licensing laws, which also state that it's illegal to obtain monetary gain for it.
This is not to say donation servers themselves are illegal. Anybody can ask you for money because you aren't forced to give it. But for every donation they get in relation to the server, that's one more illegal act. In order to make the donations legal, the owners of the servers would have to obtain a legal patent for the server and/or item(s) in question prior to any donations relating to them. Something to think about and pass along to the owners of donation servers.

GoldDean

Illegal? If people gave a crap about legality, there wouldn't be any RO private servers, would there?

Atemu

Quote from: GoldDean on Nov 27, 2006, 02:51 PM
Illegal? If people gave a crap about legality, there wouldn't be any RO private servers, would there?

There would. RO private servers are not illegal. In fact their free market is protected by the law of usage. (Might be called something else officially. I'm too lazy to look it up.) Basically, this states that if there is a free source code on the internet - including full video games available for download - you have a right to use that source code for free, provided you AREN'T reselling it/making money off of it. (Patent and licensing laws.)
There's also the issue of copyright ducking. International copyright law of usage is 33%. This means that as long as a property is changed by at least 33% from the original, it becomes free market. Classes, NPCs, items, rates, maps and even the admin staff is all considered a certain percentage of the original property. When those are differed from the original enough, you can duck the copyright law completely. You still can't patent it, it's still protect by licensing, so you still cannot receive money because of it. But you can't offer it to others for free, either. eAthena run servers cover that one.
eAthena has a copyright duck under the original RO emulations used by Gravity. It's changed at least 33%. (See above discussion.) That means that if they offer their emulator for free and server hosters who use it then turn around and offer their server for free, it's actually fully legal.

Pandora

I think Private Ragnarok servers are still illegal (like the player using a modified client to connect are doing something illegal). Getting money for it is going deeper into the illegality.

This is the same as people who make fan-sub anime, and people who sell anime fan-subbed (usually people who sell them did not even do the work of subbing them).

Free fan-subbing is tolerated, but someone who sells that is wrong, just like making a profit from a private RO server is wrong.

Covering your expenses is a grey area.. but some people definatly abuse it -_-;
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GoldDean

Quote from: Atemu on Nov 27, 2006, 07:56 PM
Quote from: GoldDean on Nov 27, 2006, 02:51 PM
Illegal? If people gave a crap about legality, there wouldn't be any RO private servers, would there?

There would. RO private servers are not illegal. In fact their free market is protected by the law of usage. (Might be called something else officially. I'm too lazy to look it up.) Basically, this states that if there is a free source code on the internet - including full video games available for download - you have a right to use that source code for free, provided you AREN'T reselling it/making money off of it. (Patent and licensing laws.)

You do know that no one has the source code for RO except Gravity, don't you? Server emulators only emulate, they are not RO itself. The hard-coded data, aka the client, can't be fully modified without becoming illegal. The last time someone tried to steal RO's source code, they were shot out on the way out. You can do that in Korea. :D

Duncan


Atemu

Actually, he's mostly correct. Modifying the Ragnarok Online client file for private server usage IS illegal. It's not illegal to write an identical program from scratch, though, so if you know something about programming, you can write a modified RO client yourself from the ground up and you'd be okay in the eyes of the law. Unless you try to sell it, and then it's copyright infringement.
It's the same grey area as fanart and fanfic. You can draw fanart all you want and give it to your friends, even post it on your personal web page. But the moment you try to make any money off it (Which is the real core of this debate), you're infringing on the property owner's copyright and breaking the law. This is why companies don't generally go after fan artists. (There is a law to protect copyright owners from freely offered fanart, which states they can sue for "abuse" of their characters if they decide the material demeans their property. Most companies won't do this, though, since it would make them look bad and alienate their fanbase. See: Japanese fanbook artists. Abuse is not the correct term, but I'm tired and I can't remember the right one.)
I know what an emulator does, I've written a few for companies for testing purposes, which is how I know they're not illegal to have or offer for free without the consent of the original company provided they're fully rewritten. (See: First paragraph.) The source code, you're right. I asked a few friends and I was, in fact, incorrect, it would not fall under the free usage protections. Which actually makes RO emulators more legal, as they would have been required to figure out and write the code themselves, as opposed to copying an already existing and legally protected code from the source. It's a legal loophole, but it works out well for us, don't you think?

As for what Pandora said about covering expenses being a grey area... Legally, it isn't. The law clearly states (Note: Not a direct quote. My legal books are downstairs in the unheated library and it's about 10 degrees down there.) that you cannot gain any money you would not have had prior to the transaction. This means anything from drug money to server rental money to internet bills to buying new RAM to making a car payment. If you are helped out financially in any way from a server donation, you're breaking the law. There's no loophole in that one, no fuzzy wording. It's just flat out illegal. Granted, you actually have to get caught doing it, but why risk it?

To the original poster: Sorry for s*** up your thread like this. We turned a complaint about an item wipe and GM corruption into a legal debate. <.<;

GoldDean

Well, I think its a great conversation, even though it went from

"OMFG SERVER DIED"
to
"OMFG THEM GMS WUZ CURRPT!"
to
"OMFG THEYS SELLED ITAMZ"
to
"OMFG SERVERZ NEEDZ MONIES TO RUNS!"
to
"OMFG THAZ ILLEGALZ"
to
"OMFG RO SERVERS IS ILLEGALZ"
to
"Well, not quite..."

Yes, and stuff. Well, let's not hinder it anymore.

Quote from: Duncan on Nov 29, 2006, 01:20 AM
Then where did eAthena get theirs?

That's not RO's source code in eAthena. Its just a tool that manipulates the client to run and alter things.

Pandora

Even if eAthena coded stuff themselves, we're still using Gravity's graphics and ideas, we're patching with sak and rag to have the latest update. We are already in the illegality.

What I mentionned was also about what's wrong and what's right, not only in a pure legal point of view, as in, it's also moraly wrong to force your players to pay you to play on your private server.

And also, the degree in illegality and all.. I guess we could say that..

Running a RO server.. is a little illegal =P

Running a RO server and accepting donation to cover expenses.. is faily illegal =(

Running a RO server to make a profit.. is very illegal >_<
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Corwin

To make a profit yes.. But as the donation is not manditory, and some servers need the money, i don't see what the law can do about it unless the money is being misused.

Then again, there are not many servers i've played on which use their money completely for the server. AnimaRO, which is one of the bigger low rate servers out there, uses is huge donation income to fund the server owners post-secondary education.. Which explains the server slowly becoming more and more laggy... THAT seems illegal, but if some people decide to help support the server and the money is being used for such, then i don't see the problem, nor the solution.

Honorbydeath

to tell you the truth you all deserve it for continue to support the dumbass so if you let it happen to you dont b**** about it suck it up and learn from your mistake
Posted on: December 06, 2006, 01:14:43 AM
QuoteSomething people don't understand is that servers cost money to run.

MesaRO costs, on average, $700 a month to run. Thats not including electric bills, website hosts and Ventrilo hosting.

Its true, though, alot of the servers that whore donation items are just being greedy. But some of them actually need that money to run.
you can host for free >_> i did and it had 50x on at a time



"OMFG SERVER DIED"( find a stable server not a s*** one)
"OMFG THEM GMS WUZ CURRPT!"(suck on it for leting them treat you like that or donating non stop
"OMFG THEYS SELLED ITAMZ"(duh)
"OMFG SERVERZ NEEDZ MONIES TO RUNS!"(not always)
"OMFG THAZ ILLEGALZ"( not in all country)
"OMFG RO SERVERS IS ILLEGALZ" (not in all country)

Raiku

Elias, you seem to be ignorant to the fact that people have the choice to choose their quality, and usually free is very poor quality.

GoldDean

Quote from: elias1010 on Dec 06, 2006, 12:17 AM
you can host for free >_> i did and it had 50x on at a time

Really? Your ISP gives you free internets? Point me in their direction, please! :D

Pandora

Most people who host a server from home would have internet anyway, regardless if they host a server or not. So you don't have to count it as "server cost".

[color=darkblue]heRO is a great friendly, pre-renweal, unique and fun server with a great community, give it a try![/color]



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kopono

In the beginning of CakeRO, Marshmellow broadcasted, "Does anyone have bestbuy giftcards or any giftcards at all?", "I will allow people to trade giftcards for donation items".

By them saying that they are "non-profit" is their simple way of tricking people.