Hello, and welcome to the second part of the dramatic coverage of the dramatic drama! This is another admin weighing in on the admittedly weighty and emotional issues behind what happened (emphatic bolding again mine):
=============================ROE=================================So that's Helbrecht's side of the coin, and there's yet one more (at least) voice to be heard from! Here endeth the second lesson; the third awaits.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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