One of the first real “problems” with the server (at least that I knew of, because I knew some of the people that ran this server) was the fact that the GM that this server was named after was actually caught embezzling money that had been donated to the server and using it to finance his drug habit. Some people in the years that would come would turn this into a joke, but I can attest to the fact that this actually happened. In the days and weeks that would follow this being confirmed, control of the server would be wrest from this individual, and he would no longer have access to the money that was being donated to the server for what I can only describe as the most obvious reasons in the world. He would never again have access to the money that was being donated to the server. All of this happened when I was a teenager, but I knew enough of the people that were “at the top of this server” to confirm that this actually took place. And as the years went by, his interest in the server actually appeared to… wane, as did my own. I was just never comfortable with the actual knowledge that someone that had built what became one of the most popular “low-rates” private servers for Ragnarok Online had actually gotten away with making it so popular that so many people regularly donated to it that they were able to finance this individual’s drug habit, and that they actually did so for awhile. That’s the kind of “black market” stuff that I desperately want to stay out of, heh.

That wasn’t the only reason that I actually reported that server to Gravity, though.

At that point, that was water under the bridge. It almost became text meme with how often people who were into private servers would joke about it. “Oh, that’s the server where the GM used donation money on drugs”. Never mind the fact that it had a good player base and a lot of good players actually played there at some point in time (since it wasn’t their fault that the corruption started from, and stayed with, the top). To me, it was just the fact that a lot of corrupt things kept happening with that server, and that was what the server seemed to be the most known for. Some people still actually remember that server for the corruption.

If it had started and stopped with this, well, I honestly don’t think I would have reported it to Gravity.

I seem to have been the reason that a particularly large private server for Ragnarok Online was issued a cease and desist order, which by the looks of things led to them actually shutting down years ago. Years and years ago, I actually went to the trouble of reporting them to Gravity (and at that, the Korean version) because of all of the corruption that had been… present on that particular server, we shall say. That server seemed to be plagued with corruption, and coupled with the popularity of that server, I felt like I felt the most prudent thing to do was to report them to Gravity. It wasn’t something that I felt particularly good about, as “tattling” has never been something that I have felt particularly good about, but I had become aware that donation money had been misused on more than one occasion and for more than one purpose (and when I say that, I say that in a broad sense). I just felt like that this would keep on, and keep on, if I did not do this.

Weeks after I made the report, the server itself actually appeared to shut down, which impressed me.

Based on what I could tell, it tried to “re-emerge” in another country, but it never attracted the somewhat massive number of players that it had at its peak, which was a somewhat impressive number of players to begin with, and it eventually closed for good at some point in time after that, which eased my conscience.

I don’t want to go into too much detail about the incidences that caused me to report it to Gravity to begin with, but I did have concrete proof of the… second incidences that caused me to feel it necessary to report it, and I did give proof of those incidences to Gravity, namely in the form of them being brought up in conversation by the individuals that they benefited. It didn’t make me feel good to make that report then, and it doesn’t make me feel good now. But it did come up in conversation when I was discussing the “prime” of private servers with some friends of mine who remembered how popular they used to be and was bringing up some of them in particular, namely one in particular that had… persisted for a number of years.

I suppose if there is one thing about me, there is my conscience when it comes to, well, this sort of thing.