A serious in-depth summary of everything that happened today. self.ElysiumProject
Submitted 1 day ago * by
PeprSpry
WhiteKidney (system admin) formed a coup with 9 other devs/gms, created their own backup of Elysium Project (roughly 1 hour before shutdown), and deleted all of The Elysium Project. They did this for a few reasons which are highlighted below:
Crogge was generating currency and selling it to gold sellers. He was also copying characters (maybe generating too, we don't know for sure) including 2 R14's and selling them to account buyers/gold selling sites (we don't publicly know how many copy's, nor how much was generated - although WK seems to know from logs). WhiteKidney went through database logs of items/characters that were being created/deleted and found that something unethical was going on. 'Crogge wasn't properly removing the logs, and perhaps stopped caring' (WhiteKidney) and that is how WhiteKidney got solid proof of Crogge's corruption, and that he was generating currency and copying characters. Both of those accusations have been admitted by Crogge himself in the vod. Despite admitting to both of these accusations, Crogge is adamant that the money that was earned from these ventures was spent on hardware, and that he actually continued to ban gold sellers (even as he generated and sold gold to these very sellers).
Shenna, on the other hand, wasn't generating currency/copying characters but was directly skimming money from the Elysium PayPal. The Elysium PayPal (as per WhiteKidney) was being governed by Vitaly and/or his wife, and Shenna had complete access to the account at her freewill. These direct accusations have NOT been admitted by Shenna, but she HAS admitted to taking $2500-3000USD one time from the PayPal account, on top of $500-700USD per month.
Things to highlight:
-Regarding the deletion and backups of Elysium. WhiteKidney and his team at LH have backups 1 hour prior to server shutdown. From my understanding, WK believes that the best backups that Elysium has could be a few weeks old (Q&Aw/Esfand).
-WhiteKidney said that this has been going on for 7 or 8 months, but that he doesn't have a clue... lol? I think he means 'maybe it has gone on for longer, but I don't have a clue.'
-WhiteKidney originally stated that they had been planning this, 'for quite sometime', but later in the conversation stated that it has been about 2 weeks, and Phoosy then pipped up and said 'less than that'.
Moving forward with Lights Hope:
-WhiteKidney claims that roughly 80% of Elysium staff have left, but did not mention HOW MANY of those staff members joined them at LightsHope. Later, he has does make claims that roughly 80% of those that have left (80% of the 80%) HAVE elected to join LightsHope.
-All loot logs, character logs, system logs, db logs, command logs, will be made available in real time, to as many GMs/Devs as realistically possible.
-Donations will be 'fully transparent' (Pottu, LHDiscord).
-LightsHope anticipates a 1:1 relaunch, meaning: your characters will be identical to your ElysiumProject characters up to 1hour before server shutdown.
-Your characters will be available on both Elysium (which will still be lead by Crogge and Shenna), and LightsHope (which is the new project, lead by WhiteKidney and his team).
-LH is
considering renaming Anathema and Darrowshire to Nostalrius PvP/PvE, respectively, to 'pay homage from where we came from'. EDIT: They will be renaming the servers at a later date.
-LightsHope is beginning to go through all logs to delete copied characters, and generated currency.
-LightsHope is optimistic that the servers will be up within 12hours-a few days, but are moving as fast as they can and somethings are out of their control (they are waiting on delivery of the server [it has already been ordered]). EDIT: Login servers are live. Game servers are up 15-40minutes from 10:36AM EST. EDIT: Elysium server is live. Anathema/Darrowshire will be up as soon as possible.
-The lead Burning Crusade developer from Elysium, (Staden) has left Elysium, and has joined the LightsHope team, so development for tBC is continuing.
-The hardware requirements will demand about 500EU per month.
EDIT: WhiteKidney claims to have every single log of every generated account and currency, and that every occurance will be deleted from LightsHope.
EDIT: There are no plans for LightsHope to create a 'fresh start' server. (LightsHope discord announcements. Phoosy)
Believe it or not this is a tldr of what has gone on. I've listened to vods, and sat in streams for over 3 hours. This is a short summary of all that I've heard from Esfand & Ash's Q&A, Esfand & WhiteKidney Q&A, and the vods provided by MonkeyNews' stream. I've tried to write this as neutral as possible, and not direct my words in any direction.
There is a lot more information, that precedes today, that I have not included (ie. Shenna renaming as Akira and returning to Elysium), but if there is any other information that pertains directly to Elysium or LightsHope, that happened today, please provide solid proof in terms of screenshots/videos.
TLDR: WhiteKidney led a coup that shutdown Elysium, because of unscrupulous activity from Crogge and Shenna. Crogge and Shenna were selling currency and characters, and skimming money off the PayPal. Two projects will now exist: LightsHope (a completely separate entity from Elysium, lightshope.org), and The Elysium Project.
Proof:
https://imgur.com/a/hq9jT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huH76MviuCs&feature=
Links:
http://lightshope.org/
https://twitter.com/lightshopewow
https://discordapp.com/invite/mraKxcU
https://elysium-project.org/
https://twitter.com/elysium_dev?lang=en
Efand's Q&As w/ Ash & WhiteKidney
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Co4vCA8D7o
This was compiled from 6PM-930PM EST. EDIT: I listened to Phoosy's Q&A in the LightsHope discord from 12AM-2AM EST and have since added some additional information.