Greetings Monke,
Please take what I say here with a grain of salt. Although I am in some ways a 'veteran' (have been lurking in the background for a long time alongside this primary group) I am in no way an expert about the game, both in gameplay, and functionality. By that I mean that I'm not familiar with how the game works from a dev perspective. I don't know the capabilities of their potential logging, what tools they have, limitations, nothing. I bring this up because I'm just a player like you, albeit lower level... but I do disagree, and I think plenty of people are being unfair/irrational, and I'd like to explain why.
First and foremost, what in the world is this post format¿ Man what an eyesore this was to read just because of the way it's set up. I'm being facetious here but also please clean it up a bit next time if it's going to be that long. <_< Okay okay, replying for real now.
So looking at your post, it seems to me like you have 3 major grievances about the goings-on of the server. These being;
1 - Saying there was going to be
NO wipe and then having a wipe.
2 - The dupe situation, more specifically calling into question the ilbi.
3 - Re-launch date being an extra week than implied.
If I've missed any or misinterpreted these, please let me know and I'll address them, but for now I'll move forward with these and give my thoughts in the order that they are listed above.
==Chapter 1: Final Answer==
This is probably the one that I understand the least given the reasoning behind Wacky changing his mind (more on the validity of the dupe scenario in chapter 2). Let's assume for the sake of argument that all of Wacky's claims are true... you know, since we don't have any evidence otherwise, and nobody has come forward with any proof (as of writing this) to show that Wacky is lying. Have you never changed your view on something before? Have you ever thought you wanted chocolate but decided with vanilla instead? Ideas change, viewpoints change, situations change. If the world was set in stone based on the first ideas we decided upon, with no room to grow or expand, chances are we wouldn't be here playing/waiting to play mushroom game.
This isn't to say there isn't some truth to this argument, because there is... it's just not the right time. What scenario is better for the health of the server?
1 - Items were found to be duped and abused, Wacky decides to change his mind about the wipe given the relative extreme nature of the circumstance.
2 - Items were found to be duped and abused, Wacky decides to let the server carry on as is because previously he said he wouldn't wipe, allowing countless duped items to flood into game.
Now to be fair, this is somewhat subjective. Perhaps you consider having duped items in the game more fun, but I personally do not, and would wager that a majority of players would agree. Sometimes scrolling sucks, sometimes it sucks a lot, but when everyone is wearing that pair of duped 20 Dex 15 Att work gloves (I realize these aren't real stats) it devalues not only the items, but fun and sense of accomplishment... again, subjective. Context matters, and assuming his claims are true, in my opinion and I'm sure in many others', this is a perfectly acceptable and reasonable time and place to have a change of heart regarding the wipe situation. Perhaps you can share your thoughts on why him changing his mind is such a bad thing. If he had done so without the dupe claims I would agree but again, context matters.
==Chapter 2: The Birds and the Ilbis==
This I think is the most reasonable one, but it seems to be that everyone is so quick to jump to the conclusion that it's false despite the lack of evidence. Let me say that I do agree with it
somewhat. You are definitely reasonable to be skeptical of it, but to the point of out right denying it is a bit of a stretch. There's two big reasons why this is silly, the first being the absolute lack of any proof, and the second being what Wacky stands to gain/lose in terms of community perception.
By the way have I mentioned the words proof or evidence? I understand people being sus of this given the rather convenient
timing of it all. It doesn't just end at suspicion though. I'm not sure if people just fell victim to the initial wave of fear mongering that happened after the announcement, but the sentiment that it's all a hoax has trickled quite far down the grape vine, despite there being
any evidence showing one way or the other. I'm not saying don't be skeptical, just be reasonable.
The primary argument backing the "ilbi don't exist" argument quite frankly, sucks. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the primary case I've seen being made is a reference to the drop rate. "MM only has an X.XX% chance to drop so I don't believe that it dropped." Not believing that they dropped is fine, but remember that it's
IMPROBABLE, not
IMPOSSIBLE. There's a big difference there. All it takes is
one kill for ilbi to drop. That's it. There's no secret trick, there's no formula, there's no guarantees. It's 50/50, you either get it or you don't. Yes yes I know that's not how it works, but the concept is still the same. Was MM killed? If yes then there
could have been an ilbi drop.
Saying that you know all the top ranks and that you were all friends is nice and all, but that's a weak argument too. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's an invalid argument, it just doesn't hold a lot of weight. If Wacky has the potential to be lying about the dupes, who's to say that the top players can't be lying about an ilbi drop? One top player kills MM while his other ranked buddies are asleep, or hell, even when they're all online talking to each other, it doesn't matter. He gets an ilbi drop but nobody was there to see it, because why would you watch someone else kill MM when you could be ranking of course. Now you would expect that getting this rare drop would stir up quite the buzz,
BUT. What if this top ranked player was previously approached by someone who shared with them how to perhaps... dupe items? Surely if your intent was to abuse this bug you wouldn't tell everyone about your drop and then start duping, you would keep it to yourself. My point is, if you think your friends aren't capable of lying to you, you're wrong.
To close out this chapter will be saving face in the eyes of the community. This is my main reason for my suspension of disbelief about the "does the ilbi exist" topic. The question I ask is what does Wacky have to gain/lose in terms of community perception? A lot of people are already on edge about the whole wipe/no wipe, and there's no way he wouldn't foresee people winding up about over-turning the wipe decision when he already doubled, nay even tripled down on saying that there wouldn't be a wipe happening. Imagine how much worse it would be for his reputation if he instead of just admitting he changed his mind, and thinks wiping is best -- just lied about the reason for doing it. It was abundantly clear that there was a crowd that was going to be upset over the wipe no matter what. If it came out that he
lied about a reason for a wipe instead? Maybe it's just me, but I see that being far, far worse than just saying, "I changed my mind sorry." No sane man would take such a huge risk for such little gain. Then again, the discord during this has made me question my sanity and I'm just a player, can't imagine what it's like for Wacky.
==Chapter 3: Reduce, Reuse, ReLaunch==
Last but not least, we have the relaunch date. I don't think there's much to say about this one.
Yes the poll definitely implied that it was going to be this week, and Wacky
did say in a few days, not a few weeks. It's hard to say which is better. On one hand the sooner you relaunch the more players you're likely to retain, however that's only if things are working which the extra delay is meant to allow. I'd love to see it happen this Friday, but I'd also love to see it be running as best it can. Whatever the case, I hope that when it does come, it's working and we have at least the same concurrent playerbase.
~fin
Closing Thoughts,
I fear based on the amount of text that I can scroll through that I've already turned this into a 100 word essay that nobody will read, so I'll try to keep this shorter than the book. I hope that my thoughts aren't written off for being a WackyKnight. I agree with a lot of the criticisms revolving around this server, I just think that a lot of the arguments raised are irrational, emotionally charged, and lack substance. It also seems like this is the first private server 99% of the people here have ever played.
I think the lack of transparency and updates is absurd. Even if the update is that there's no update, a simple, "We're still looking into it but haven't caught it yet." goes a long way, at least to me. The discord is a joke, and none of the rules matter, allowing advertising, blatant malicious spread of misinformation, etc. Hell, even the website is still telling me the launch date in the pop-op. I sympathize with Wacky, and appreciate him still going with this so we can play mushroom game, but a lot of this (in my opinion) could've been so much smoother with better work behind the scenes, and some actual control. A lot of it is on us as the community there's no doubt, but some of it is on the staff team as well (Wacky included). I openly admit I haven't the slightest clue what Wacky expects from the discord staff or what the extent of their 'power' for lack of a better word is, so please don't take this as a personal sleight to your contribution to the server/community.
For those who see the server as a lost cause, I implore you to make a decision. A
real decision. As they say, actions speak louder than words. If this server is truly destined for failure, show us. Go play me and my 5 mules story, or go play we don't show player numbers story. Go do SOMETHING. Give us a reason to go play somewhere else. As it is right now, all you're doing by staying is saying that you want to play here because you don't like the other options, but you're too scared to admit it so you're sat in a full diaper crying about it instead. If you really mean it, show us, and we'll know where to go play when RS is dead. And to those who doubted it was someone targeting the server, lol. : ^)
Allow me to close with a quick anecdotal story. I've played WoW since its release. I've played private servers since they released. I have a friend, we'll call him K. I asked K to come play with me every time I started up a new 1x vanilla server and did the grind to 60. Every time he told me no. "I don't want to grind and then have my character deleted the next day." he would tell me. This went on for over 5 years. K never played on another vanilla server until the official WoW classic ones were released. I leveled numerous characters to max, most if not all unavailable to be played today. We were both happy with the outcome. Private servers are not permanent. They never will be. Don't invest what you aren't willing to lose.
Kind regards,
Robbery.
PS.
I have a lot to say about this as well but it doesn't matter because I'm a nobody that half the community hates anyways.
It sounds to me like you don't have anything to say at all, if you aren't going to say it just because you think people hate you. If you have something to say, say it. Otherwise, it must not have mattered after all. I'm a nobody and I just wrote a heckin' novel about mushroom game private server. I disagree with people and I wanna talk about it, who cares if they call me a R.
