do what I say and I'll make you okay

(Part one found here; part two found here.)

Here endeth the triptych of drama, with a paraphrased "correction" of what Helbrecht sent out from the last post. This is from the "corrected" notice sent out to group members about the situation (no emphatic bolding on this one; it's going to be tricky enough to figure out who's speaking when. Maybe I'll just emphasize 'chapter' titles):

=============================ROE================================
-Melna speaking here; I wanted to narrate here so I just opened up the document and added my cliff notes to it to give you some facts! I didn't want to have to do this, but here it goes, sorry for the slop! Look for the parts labeled ">>>>>>FACT/WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED:"

ORIGINAL:
As all of you are already aware, the Administrative Council of Remnants of Earth has re-affirmed control of the simulator. Contrary to what Melna claims, the simulator has been owned and payed for almost entirely by Chii Howl. The Council consistently has been attempting to look out for the best of the role-players here at ROE. None of us wanted this to boil over into the situation it did because we admittedly love and adore the community here on sim with us.

>>>>>>FACT/WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED:
-Melna never claimed this, Melna and Chii CO OWNED IT. Melna paid half the rent making them a legal co owner and tenant. By law, you cannot evict someone with out giving them prior notice before hand. Just as I could not simply remove Chii whenever I wanted to do so.

ORIGINAL:
1. - How the sim was supposed to operate.

As some of you may be aware, ROE was originally run by Melna Milos and a board of four administrators. As the simulator grew in size, this number became eight. After an issue arose involving Melna potentially being biased, the entire Administration formed an entity known as the Administrative Council, henceforth referred to as simply "The Council" The council consisted of Melna, Chii, Rukia, Bighairy, Darksleepur, Krystal, Morveyn, Moondoggie, Lutin, Reina, and Myself. We had decided that any decision must be passed through The Council before it was placed into functionality. Moondoggie departed shortly after it's formation due to personal reasons. Morveyn left because of personal reasons as well, and Rukia and Reina ended up becoming inactive due to various reasons. This left Melna, Chii, Hairy, Dark, Krystal, Lutin and myself to operate The Council.

>>>>>>FACT/WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED:
This is true. We are suppose to work as a team.

ORIGINAL:
2. - What actually happened.

The last two months have been hectic to put it lightly. Our inventory system was lost because of various problems and as the sim was set up, it was entirely needed to drive roleplay. This caused things to collapse in on themselves and inhibit roleplay from taking place. Our primary solution was a man I'll simply call "Mr. Sparks" Mr. Sparks is one of the best scriptwriters in SL. At-least in my opinion Mr. Sparks had been reliably working on a brand new web server which would pretty much allow us to update the hud and instantaneously get back to work. However, Sparks has a very busy real life and was unable to work on it more than a few hours per day, and even then, only if his schedule allowed it. He was doing this for free as well. Melna got tired of waiting and asked Jerrik to make a new system with him. This new system is unfortunately very buggy and barely reliable as is, simply because it's based on a sim positioned server and not a web server. This resulted in numerous exploits whilst using and transferring items that often resulted in duplications and manifestations of items not previously acquired. There also was a back-door that might have resulted in someone using a prim, changing it's UUID and easily being able to do whatever they pleased with the server as long as they knew the commands. This system was rolled out early in an efforts to appease all of you, our roleplayers. But the Council felt it needed more extensive testing because of the bugs we KNEW were present.

>>>>>>FACT/WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED:
"Mr. Sparks" had a full time job and I had many players leaving and being upset over the loss. I had to act to make a temporary solution to keep you all happy. This temporary solution could do the job almost identically to the original. Atleast to you the player. This would give "Mr. Sparks" ample enough time, with out being rushed to complete our system, or even continue using the new one if it worked out well enough. It's always nice to have a backup. There were little exploits, this point is exaggerated. When we found one. We patched it. The Dupe bug mentioned here was minor and was patched in 15 minutes. Chii, Helbrecht and Krystal did not even take part in the Alpha or Beta testing. They were even too busy playing games in a skype call to even show up to our weekly admin meetings.
How could they give a proper opinion?

ORIGINAL:
Krystal and Myself are both scripters and were well aware of these risks so we insisted that if it was implemented, it be wiped and the players (( You )) be told this so no one was too attached to their items. Melna felt it was un-needed and rolled it out anyway. During it's time out, it was determined that Powered Armor ((One of the rarest items in the game)) was dropping like candy as well as Jet-packs. This immediately caused alarm and the items were to be confiscated. The Council insisted that immediately the system be turned off and the bugs be fixed. Krystal Slade (( The admin who spawned the items )) is a scripter. And was the one who found out that items were duping and things were far worse than they appeared. Previously, it was determined that their character "Alexis" was to be played as an incredibly important EarthGOV exec who used a rare bio-android as a stand in whilst on planet. This character was intended from creation to be over-powered but in the event of it being downed, to drop incredibly rare items such as shield generators and rare implants that aren't sold by vendors and are not readily available from loot piles. So, as is procedure on sim, Krystal generated the pre-determined items for the character which Melna had agreed to along with Chii and myself. The down side to having such a powerful event type character was that is was not intended to ever engage players. Rather, to let players engage it. That was four of our seven Admins and was within Council Majority Vote rules.

ORIGINAL:
Melna "Magically" forgot that this decision was arrived to months ago. When Krystal spawned the items, Melna immediately shut down the system and inhibited admins from using our commands to check inventories and the like to ensure that no one had been duping items or using any form of exploit. ((We try to be thorough.)) He did this without speaking to any of us aside from Lutin. One Admin and a GM cannot override a Council decision, but Krystal was punished anyway. This is when I got involved, and in the blink of an eye, the Council was at each other's throats. It split into two groups. Melna and Lutin, Versus, Chii, Jade, and Myself. Melna told us that it didn't matter who agreed and disagreed and that he was the GM and that the Council existed only to advise him on matters. This immediately infuriated the vast majority of the Council. Melna went on and on about owning the sim until the person who actually payed for the simulator snapped. Chii took the sim and said. "I'm sick of you constantly pretending we don't exist! I'm taking the sim, we're done." At this point, Melna began fabrication of a story involving Chii spawning items, when Chii has been inactive due to the administration's infighting. Melna then turned around and started spinning stories to defame all of us.

>>>>>>FACT/WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED:
Power Armor was never in any of the loot nodes ever. Im not sure where they got this fact from. It wasn't in the old system, or the new one. That is completely false. There was no confiscation happening...Again. I am not sure why they made this fact up. Noone had power armor.
Furthermore, "Alexis" (is an admin) was only approved a few items to play that character in the old system, Before the wipe. Then generated their items back to themselves without asking the admin council, when the entire council agreed to not spawn items again. Breaking our law: Don't act with out the council's approval. Even for admins. It would be unfair to players who worked hard to get their stuff. We turned off spawning for all admins, Including myself to stop further spawning temporarily then attempted to talk to "Alexis", and the rest of the council, But they had a fit and quit. Which caused the spark to ignite.

I did not want admins spawning things at all during a delicate testing period, ( as they stated above themselves, in their own words) and harming the economy of the sim. There was also no majority vote to approve "Alexis' " character to carry 500,000 credits and a slew of implants and permanent items, Even if it was approved, which it was not, It was moot, because everyone, including admins should have been WIPED clean of all items and would start fresh. ( you all know this) Just because you're an admin does not make you a special snowflake, Chii did NOT spawn these items. Krystal did. However Chii is responsible for supporting it. I did not lie about Chii. They must follow rules too. Heres the proof of what they (Krystal) was spawning to themselves with out approval of all admins.

ORIGINAL: We didn't respond lightly, and Bighairy and Dark abruptly left once Melna wrote a blatantly fictitious statement and put it out on in a notice. This lead to the complete division of our staff between Melna and Lutin, and Chii, Jade, and myself. Dark and Mammoth stood up and have so far remained neutral though this may potentially change.

>>>>>>FACT/WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED:
Melna didn't write fictitious things. He only stated facts. Facts they did not want to face. Bighairy, Lutin, Reina, Morveyn, and Dark did not leave at all. Infact, Helbrecht, Chii and Krystal has spent the past 3 hours attempting to badger them in their IMs to get them on their side. They won't budge because they know who is really right.

ORIGINAL:
3. - How things currently stand.

Melna continues his efforts to defame and attack the sim in any way he can, including sending Jerrik in to return all the prims he can on sim in order to destabilize RP. We're replacing things as quickly as we can in an effort to prevent any issues with your roleplay. We have no intention of stooping to his level and responding to it. He insists on attempting "Peace talks" as he asks people to join his side because we're all "Bad People" We would like to keep the sim open so that you all may continue your roleplay without worry.

As for the inventory system and the story, we will be opening a google moderator forum ourself so that you all may be involved in ROE's reboot, should you all choose to do so. Hopefully we can establish a roleplay sim that will surpass ROE and eventually end up a shining star in Dystopian/Cyberpunk RP. As for what was lost, We've lost a few roads and buildings, but the internals are still completely functional and the wasteland has been completely un-affected. We'll replace the city as soon as possible and this time, with a better layout that is geared for a 50 man RP sim and not a 20 person homestead as the current sim build was intended for.

>>>>>>FACT/WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED:
I am not defaming or attacking. I have tried to open communications, they outright refuse. I sent in Jerrik to pick up my parts that they will not allow me to pick up. This is not to spite them, It's my property that I want picked up. Why shouldn't I have my objects back? I will simply get LL to return my objects to me. I am not stooping to any level, I just want to collect my objects off the old sim. The inventory system belongs to the real RoE, and will be going to the new sim. Not to Chii's. He does not own it and I did not allow it to go into his hands due to his unstableness that he just demonstrated today by taking out his rage on 850+ people instead of on me. He pulled a real low blow to not only me, but the entire community here.

ORIGINAL:
4. - Personal note from the Author.

Hey everyone, Now that the formal crap is out of the way I'm going to be completely honest with all of you. We've hit a critical point in this community's existence. We cannot change what has happened and I wholesomely apologize to each and every one of you that we failed in our duties as Administrators and failed to prevent the issues we dealt with from spilling over into your RP and into the simulator. I am completely and utterly appalled that it came to this... Hopefully this is for the better and this rough spot won't result in this community collapsing because of the behavior of a few. Those of us on what remains of the Council are asking you to forgive us for the mess that has ensued and we hope that you'll continue to consider our sim your home and favorite place to Roleplay.

Thank you all for you understanding, patience, and compassion when dealing with this particularly nasty bump on the road.


- Sincerely, Helbrecht Kytori


of the Administrative Council.

>>>>>>FACT/WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED:
I am not defaming nor attacking. They COULD change what happened, They outright refuse, so I will be purchasing my own sim. I am not asking you to choose sides here. I just want you to have the facts and to make up your own minds. Theres two sides to every story and I wanted mine heard. Thank you for listening.

In conclusion, this is a "bump in the road", but I have purchased my own sim and have begun rebuilding the sim the way it was and installing the new inventory system so you all can continue, The new sim will be open in 1-2 business days as it is being rebuilt. Please have patience. This will be the real RoE. You are all welcome to continue or make up your own minds about who is right and go where you like. If you want more information Please contact me personally,

PS: Jay, the dev asked me to send this to you about his inventory system being insulted as well, It is his words, not mine.


Signed,
Melna Milos

So what does this all mean for Remnants of Earth? Well, I didn't have much time to explore the sim post-meltdown (nor was I really dressed for wandering a dystopian future sim, being in my frilly Loli best), but from what I saw with a short jaunt, while it looked fairly empty, it also looked fairly complete. Granted, there is still room for explosions, expletives, and ensuing hysteria, but that's all from former (and current) sim admins. The sim itself--the pixelated bones and carbon struts making up the space--is trying to struggle on and ignore everything swirling overhead. Not the worst option, but I get the definite feeling there's going to be some insistence on picking sides, one way or the other.

I'll keep you updated if I can.