Runes of Magic US / AU

Hello everyone.

First I'd like to answer to original question in this thread about compensation.
You are all very well aware that those information will not be passed to users in some discussion thread.
Once its decided how and if the users will be compensated I (or some other CM) will announce it in News section of forum.

I know you are all waiting for more information but at this time that is all info I can give you, so please try to be patient until I can give you any official statement about that matter.




On a side note...
I got few complaints about Kalvan about how he handled this topic so I'd like to give the answer here.
Sure, maybe "lower your expecations" was a bit wrong choice of words, but from what I learned of Kalvan in last two months that I'm on RoM US, he's not a jerk.
In fact, he is a volunteer, just a player like you, who is dealing with lots of stuff on this forum for what?
He's not getting any salary and he doesnt have any influence ingame. I belive he's doing it coz he cares for the game and users.Its not really easy to be on the line of fire for all of you.
Every bug - you rant at mentors
Every patch - again everyone is ranting at them
Last thing that happened ingame - again, Mentors are those who are getting the first hit while trying to calm you down, give you explanations and pass the information provided to them from Gameforge.

I know someone will now say if they can't handle it they better leave.
Well this team is great and imho, they're handling it very good. To be completely honest I'd like to have more people like him on my other games.

So if sometimes they say something that doesnt seem appropriate... can you really blame them?
I'm not justifying what he said, not at all, but as a former player that once was in your position i would stop there for a second and try to unerstand their position and give them some credits for their work.

Mika! Be yer our new CM?! Iffn so, welcome ter the madness! As fer words bout Kalvin, he doth do a fine job, esp fer someone who no getteth paid fer it (someone who willinly steppeth inter the path o cannonballs should get a mental eval tho). Me would like ter remind yer o the consumer side tho, an sum it up in one word. Frustration. Me really doth hoper that Gameforge not drags their anchor on this one (although it doth seem like they be already). Yer customers, ya know, the ones who help yer pay the bills? Those be frustrated at Gameforge's response ter this. Take note, plz.

Quoted from "Lemonater"

Mika! Be yer our new CM?! Iffn so, welcome ter the madness! As fer words bout Kalvin, he doth do a fine job, esp fer someone who no getteth paid fer it (someone who willinly steppeth inter the path o cannonballs should get a mental eval tho). Me would like ter remind yer o the consumer side tho, an sum it up in one word. Frustration. Me really doth hoper that Gameforge not drags their anchor on this one (although it doth seem like they be already). Yer customers, ya know, the ones who help yer pay the bills? Those be frustrated at Gameforge's response ter this. Take note, plz.

He's far from new.. he just finally decided to start posting after a few months of sitting there doing nothing.

EDIT: I swear I just saw a post from Zidlef.. did you really delete it that fast or am I losing it.

Well apparently he doesn't like me already loll. He does take care of 14 other games apparently with ROM, so probably can't be here much plus the time difference, but what can we do, can't take constructive critiscism.

Firstly let me start by saying that I have never demanded anything. I feel that it is up to the COMMUNITY staff members, whether paid or unpaid, to keep up with what is going on. If you have no new information to inform us about, simply saying something every few hours, say 3-5 hours, would have calmed the masses. By ignoring us you are essentially asking for us to get grumpy and therefore unruly.

Secondly, you are right Kalvan, you are NOT paid, but that is by choice. You are a volunteer. You CHOSE to do this for whatever reasons. Have you ever heard the expression, if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything? Well there ya go. Now you have the reason for my being upset. Do I blame you personally for the lack of information/communication? Nope, not at all. It's a group effort and you are simply a part of that group.

Thirdly, never once did any of us ever ask to know what exactly was going on. We were all asking simple questions, so answers would not have breached any sort of non disclosure agreement. The questions being asked were things like how much longer? Answer: we're not sure, but we can tell you they're working hard. Are we getting compensated for the lost levels/items/time from the game? We're not sure, but as soon as we know something, you'll know something. Why aren't you updating us or communicating enough with us? Answer: We really don't know what's going on, but we'll check in with you guys every few hours, just so you don't feel like we don't care.

See that? I just answered all your questions and I'm not a part of this company at all. Like I said, no one wanted specifics of what was going on, just a little bit of a clearer picture and assurance that everything that could be done was. I understand that what happened was terrible and I'm sure it wasn't an easy fix. Communication is a wonderful tool that will calm the masses every time. Yeah sure, you're going to get the occasional dbag that nothing is ever good enough for, but in the majority of our complaints was the simple "lack of communication" argument.

My biggest question Mika........and i dont know if he can answer directly, but some type of vague answer will do for now is fine I suppose.

Has to be one of the number one concerns of diamond purchasers as myself......is are the offenders, M/B and his few accomplices ..gone for good?...not just some lame 30 day ban....have you at least removed ALL their gear if you refuse to perma ban them, since you will not be able to distinguish between their hacked gear and none hacked...and removed all their levels since they were hacking their levels too?

Look they actually had a working copy of some type of rom generator, the same power that you have, other then they could not ban anyone....in the years that i have been on rom; Ive actually never seen hacking to this ability....the integrity of your game has seriously been jeopardized to say the least. Not many are voicing this concern that we want the offenders removed for good, but somewhere if they just return on their normal characters, this will set up a green light to all that it is open season on your game. As a guildie said what player would NOT hack all their levels and gear...knowing the result will ONLY be a 30 day ban, knowing they could keep their levels and gear?
I imagine you can not answer directly for privacy concerns...but any type of answer to assure us their will be strong punishment consequences against these main offenders could suffice for now?

30 day ban??? Means nothing if you can edit gear and levels..just make a new account.

Quoted from "christianpilgrim"

As a guildie said what player would NOT hack all their levels and gear...knowing the result will ONLY be a 30 day ban, knowing they could keep their levels and gear?

What player? Probably one that isn't a Dbag and doesn't want to screw over hundreds of other people for self gain and a little "lol" for an hour. That's the type of player that wouldn't risk the 30 day ban, seeing as you have guildmates that would be willing to go ahead and hack to pieces what is left of RoM, I'd wager they are most likely no better than most of the people who DID risk the elusive 30 day ban.



The entire guild that was the center of this should be removed from the game, you should downgrade the castle walls, etc everything. The entire roster should be forced level 1, no gear or just delete the account all together. Since you are a business these people outright stole from you regardless of their counter claims of poor CS, bad sales, broken quests, they brought the issue OUT of the game and into the real world by stealing profits. Now I normally wouldn't back Gameforge on many things but on this situation and the gravity of it all, HARSH action needs to happen.

I can only hope you are tracking the following routes from the alleged players:

1. all trades
2. mail, item shop or gear/items - track receiving player and how they used the illegal items
3. Auction house history/purchases/sales. If the alleged player sold something on the AH there is a history, check history find players, remove item(s)


All this information is kept in the little neat folder for each persons account/char, this entire method can be done by someone who isn't even that familiar with the game if they are working on it. (assuming you have workers that work on like 1949 other games - gameforge). The longer people go without being punished the worse it will get. It's a daunting task IMO seeing as you are going to have the people who want to keep their hacked gear seeing as it's the first time they actually had good gear, so with that said they will defend themselves and try to be innocent, ban them too. Fk it ban the entire server for a week again..punish everyone for it.

Mika isn't new. Its just rare that he / she deems us worthy of a comment. Wasn't it Mika who called us spoiled on the old forums? "I could be wrong there."

As far as the continued issues with hackers spammers and such. Its pretty much killed any desire I have to get more vested in the game. Yes I will keep playing... till such a time as my guildies and I find a different game to play "which we are actively pursuing". I will spend my money elsewhere from now on. I hope they know that its your CM's "not the mentors who should be paid for dealing with this fiasco" and lack of support that have caused me and I am sure many others to start looking for another place to enjoy our time and spend our recreational income.

Because lets be honest. voting with my pocket book is really the only thing I can do.

You had a great game. your neglect is ruining it.

Quoted from "saum02"

Mika isn't new. Its just rare that he / she deems us worthy of a comment. Wasn't it Mika who called us spoiled on the old forums? "I could be wrong there."

As far as the continued issues with hackers spammers and such. Its pretty much killed any desire I have to get more vested in the game. Yes I will keep playing... till such a time as my guildies and I find a different game to play "which we are actively pursuing". I will spend my money elsewhere from now on. I hope they know that its your CM's "not the mentors who should be paid for dealing with this fiasco" and lack of support that have caused me and I am sure many others to start looking for another place to enjoy our time and spend our recreational income.

Because lets be honest. voting with my pocket book is really the only thing I can do.

You had a great game. your neglect is ruining it.

Many of you *are* spoiled little children. But hey, if the shoe fits, wear it and be stylin'. :p

What you seem to see as a "lack of things being done" is all in your own perception. I happened to log onto Artemis after it came back online a day or two back. Went to the Guild Castle Manager and checked on a certain guild. Seems they've lost a few members. Could be people who left, could be toons and/or accounts that no longer exist. Pick one, pick both, pick none.

On Osha, we already had a run-in with a wannabe hacker. He had a weapon that was *very* questionable. Got hisself kicked from the guild.

A bit later that night, one of my guidies said he'd had a chat with the fellow and found out that he was a 14-year-old kiddie who was rather proud of having hacked that weapon hisownself. I don't think it's related to the crapola going on with other servers, but I could be wrong about that. Anyway, it's been reported.

Vote with your wallet, or go play some other game. I don't really care. But it seems to me that those who doth protest the loudest are the ones who have and continue to spend money on RoM.

Funny how that seems to work out, ain't it?

Quoted from "Malignatus"

Many of you *are* spoiled little children. But hey, if the shoe fits, wear it and be stylin'. :p

I was going to say something to this effect myself, given the recent behaviour & attitudes some have displayed...

a lot of the old long timers have not even been buying diamonds for awhile now, which makes up most of the rom population, so how will you go on to compensate f2p lol..

certainly its not the gold sellers who are publicly showing off these hacks, cause they sale gold for cash lol,

rom has been around for awhile now, being publish from different companies, and multiple language servers, so of course this game have been a hack fest now :shit:

problem with rom is that they dont have third party programs, something like a hack shield to not allow users to open and use third party programs, since they dont have that it seems the hacker are easily using the tons of free hacking editors out on the world wide web to dupe... on all the servers..

soo its really no use to buy diamonds at this point of time with cash, since hackers will get them for free

there is really not point for me to invest in a game where hackers are taking over and who knows for how long, most mmo will have hackers and exploiters, but they usually fix the problems quickly if they have a playerbase that brings them income lol... something that doesnt seem to be happening to rom at the moment....

it seems like a dead project game now, being tossed aside with not very much going on to fix the bugs or developing the game into something better...

oh yar back on topic of how rom should compensate the remaining players who are still playing, lets see.. a few people were able to exploit the world bosses for lots and lots of eojs , so rom in return compensated us with eoj events, that seems to quite everyone down...

rollbacks = loss of items, stats, gold, AND TIME = compensation of a few daily resets, maybe just maybe xp/tp bonus,

and of course 30 day bans to the so called hackers and friend, but on the bright side rom needs all those 30 day to try to fix the game

blame the game, not the players

Quoted from "choujiaki"

blame the game, not the players

In what way does the game have to be blamed for the actions of players?

Sure, there may be bugs, hacks and exploits to which the game is vulnerable, but it is the players that take advantage of them!

Sadly, this is the route I see them taking. the game is not a time based subscription even if you had items active (house items, bonus potions, angel sigh, etc) so I don't see RoM caring enough to compensate for the downtime.

Quoted from "Malignatus"

A bit later that night, one of my guidies said he'd had a chat with the fellow and found out that he was a 14-year-old kiddie who was rather proud of having hacked that weapon hisownself. I don't think it's related to the crapola going on with other servers, but I could be wrong about that. Anyway, it's been reported.

I certainly wish it had been that simple......M/B who was the main hacker, convinced the inner-circle of the most powerfull guild in the game, that he REALLY was the one and only Simon Vaghen of Apple......This kinda stuff you couldnt make up in a 3rd rate harlequin mystery...Do they now make MMO players with gullible tattooed on our foreheads?

Quoted from "christianpilgrim"

I certainly wish it had been that simple......M/B who was the main hacker, convinced the inner-circle of the most powerfull guild in the game, that he REALLY was the one and only Simon Vaghen of Apple......This kinda stuff you couldnt make up in a 3rd rate harlequin mystery...Do they now make MMO players with gullible tattooed on our foreheads?

I lol'ed.

Quoted from "Verotila"

Thirdly, never once did any of us ever ask to know what exactly was going on. We were all asking simple questions, so answers would not have breached any sort of non disclosure agreement. The questions being asked were things like how much longer? Answer: we're not sure, but we can tell you they're working hard. Are we getting compensated for the lost levels/items/time from the game? We're not sure, but as soon as we know something, you'll know something. Why aren't you updating us or communicating enough with us? Answer: We really don't know what's going on, but we'll check in with you guys every few hours, just so you don't feel like we don't care.

that is very well written, and infact that was what i was telling my guild this evening, if there was the least little bit of word from RoM, something like, we are aware of server problems... we are trying to fix them, it would feel like they care, but no word... we have had the same worldshout spammers for a week (reported them too), and no word, we had a maintance and no word, i have a post in the technical support and no word... and the laugh a minute...?! they put transport runes on sale in the item shop... OooOooh! Item sale.. but no comments about any problems, or an work being done to fix it, my guild has about 12 members who log in to siege, today there was only 3 of us, and we didnt have siege no one could sign in i didnt bother to post on my technical thread, they havent bothered to reply... my guild probably wont bother to sign in any more

till the game is fixed
am i holding my breath... no

Why dont you take the money Your saving by not paying kavin and buy Advast antivirus. Just kidding i know you guys are probably freaking out. But really one guy took you down. I know how that feels i got beat up by a girl in 6th grade. She put it on me. I mean beat the brakes off me. Thats really a true story. And i know it wasnt one guy. It was a group once they saw how wide open old boy was they joined in. Or so im told. By one guy. O and compensation, how about a reward for all the honest players. Special title or armor.

Why dont you take the money Your saving by not paying kavin and buy
Advast antivirus. Just kidding i know you guys are probably freaking
out. But really one guy took you down. I know how that feels i got beat
up by a girl in 6th grade. She put it on me. I mean beat the brakes off
me. Thats really a true story. And i know it wasnt one guy. It was a
group once they saw how wide open old boy was they joined in. Or so im
told. By one guy. O and compensation, how about a reward for all the
honest players. Special title or armor.


yea just so sur-real that this guy who ran elusive....convinced his inner circle he was THE Simon Vaghen of Apple...they even ran around calling him simon...did the girl that beat you up convince the playground she was Beth Phoenix of the WWF???????...if not the analogy doesnt work :p

And i quess thats how he convinced his cronies to take hacked gear and (a few) even the generstor itself......his mistake was somehow the hack got into 1 individuals hands who has mush for a brain.....who let the secret out with his stupidity ...that really did the public a favor....Those of us who were yelling hack all along didnt seem so stupid anymore with n proof

Quoted from "christianpilgrim"

And i quess thats how he convinced his cronies to take hacked gear and (a few) even the generstor itself......his mistake was somehow the hack got into 1 individuals hands who has mush for a brain.....who let the secret out with his stupidity ...that really did the public a favor....Those of us who were yelling hack all along didnt seem so stupid anymore with n proof

So we can assume that everyone from Elusive dating back to it's conception has more than likely known or knew about what the leaders or "inner-circle" or officers all benefited or used the item creation exploit then?

For a time that is all we would see in world chat after sieges or on these forums about them blatantly using items in abundance during siege that seemed very odd or nearly impossible to justify. Most of the threads seemed to be deleted or ignored, or to the point where elusive members were actually challenging players or GMs to check out their accounts. If this was the the case then and we as a community believe the source of it came from here, we can only truly blame not only the lack of proper customer support but Community managers, mentors of any level, forum moderators also, seeing as the players tried and tried again to get them looked at.

It's all very troubling and sad to see everything come to fruition and it still happening apparently.