What actually made me report the private server that I have been mentioning in my last two entries was the fact that I had actually stumbled upon sensitive, secret information regarding two of the server’s GMs — it came out that two of the server GMs were using money that had been donated to the server to pay their rent, utilities, and effectively making “being GMs” their full-time jobs, all while failing to divulge that they were doing this with the money that was being donated, and that they wanted to keep this a secret (at least for as long as they could). Given how popular this server still was, and how unethical I knew this was, I made the decision to report the private server (because hosting a private server is not legal) to Gravity’s Korean branch, and I gave them actual proof of what the GMs were doing with the donation money. Apparently, within two weeks of me actually doing this, it came out that Gravity had issued this server a formal cease and desist letter, and they responded to this by shutting down the server. I observed from the sidelines, not saying a word. I suppose it would have been different if the GMs in question had said anything, anything at all, about what they had really been doing with the donation money, but they never once did this. It was apparently supposed to remain a secret for as long as they could prevent it from getting out. (And I don’t think it actually “came out” for years until someone off-handedly mentioned on a message board that yes, two of the GMs were actually using donation money to pay their rent and pay their bills, which I myself had known for years because I still knew people that played that server in… shall we say, positions of authority.)

Some time later, the server made an attempt at “coming back” with a base of operations in another country, apparently an attempt at circumventing the cease and desist with the actual server’s data being located in another country. However, it could never break a player base of 1,000 people when at one point in time between 3,000 and 4,000 people were logged on at any one time. After awhile, it faded back into obscurity. And to be honest, I did feel bad about reporting the server, because a lot of people did play it, and there were a lot of good players on it. But the corruption with that one server seemed like it would honestly never end, and it seemed like it would not stop getting worse. And since this involved people’s money in the form of donation in… extremely questionable ways, I felt that I had no choice but to report the server to Gravity so that it could get dealt with in an ethical way. I felt like my hands were tied in the matter. This wasn’t just some small screw-up, or even a series of small screw-ups, that was occurring. All of these were really large.

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.

One of the biggest appeals of the alchemist class in Gravity’s MMO Ragnarok Online was the homunculus, genetically altered pets of varying types that assisted you in battle. Through AI that Gravity allowed you to use, you could set the homunculus up to attack on its own without you having to manually tell it to attack whenever you wanted it to attack. This essentially gave alchemists a leveling partner, and at that, one that they could choose from — if they didn’t like the homunculus that came forth from their embryo, they could easily make another one. Until, of course, Gravity essentially nerfed the entire homunculus system by making it so that homunculus could no longer automatically attack on their own with AI, forcing those who still wanted to use homunculus to attack to manually make their homunculus attack on their own (or use skills on their own, for the purpose of this blog post being noted as “attacking on their own”) every single time. Returning to Ragnarok Online with Bub having been a proficient alchemist player in my own right, I find this problematic for no shortage of reasons. Not only does it weaken the alchemist class by far, effectively reducing them to “a swordsman without the skills” — as this has actually been said, and I believe it — but this handicaps disabled gamers who then have to input considerably more keystrokes if they wish to continue using their alchemist’s homunculus. Gravity’s alleged rationale behind this was that “too many alchemists” (which I don’t believe) were “using their alchemist’s homunculus to level while not actually being at the computer,” something that a lot of players will call AFKmisting… which can and will get you banned.

Anyone foolish enough to try to level up long-term AFKmisting needs to cop a well-deserved ban for that, quite frankly. First of all, prior to this (as when Gravity made it to where your homunculus could not auto-attack, they could not do this), homunculus needed to be fed at regular intervals. If they starved, they ran away. So anyone foolish enough to “set up camp”, even on a faraway map where they thought they could not (or “would not”) get caught, might run the risk of their homunculus starving to the point where they ran away, rendering this entire “bright idea” of theirs both pointless and fruitless. And secondly, homunculus only net their alchemist base experience, not job experience, which is generally more coveted. Thirdly… the whole ban thing. If you are well and truly caught AFKmisting, you will get banned. No questions there. It’s pointless.

For Gravity to stand up on a soapbox about this one thing and take away something that made having an alchemist character particularly great, I find perplexing if not mind-boggling. Not only is it not smart, but it will get you banned. Why handicap the alchemist character to such great severity? I still don’t understand it.