The True Story of Moesha

The events in “The True Story of Moesha” take place from 2008 through 2011.  As many of you have figured out, the players that were so active in trying to get me banned were OOngats/Angry Banker, Acetic Acid, and Cstroke.  Angry Banker even went so far as to create his own multi, level it up to mid level, and then send it to infiltrate my guild.  From there, he tried to gather evidence from our battle hall to show that I was a multi, that was pushing my characters.  Well, at that time, pushing wasn’t illegal.  When they did make pushing illegal, there was a big flaw in the system.  While you couldn’t outright give gold to someone, if they beat you in battle, and you happened to have millions in gold, it isn’t pushing, and, the GOs claimed they couldn’t see it.  Since we had GOs in our guild, that didn’t make much sense, since they could see it in the battle hall.  But I wasn’t going to complain.  Oh, when they finally did make pushing illegal, it wasn’t because it gave us an advantage, it was because we were their cash cow players, but with pushing, we didn’t have to buy as many rubies.

So what happened after I was finally banned for the last time?  Well, I started playing a new character, on a new server, and never did anything that was even remotely against the rules.  As for those folks that were breaking the rules themselves, but complaining about me, one of them went on to become a GO.  That’s right, AA wanted to get in on the action.  He was hoping to protect his friends, and make a little money on the side.  That worked for almost a year, but eventually Gameforge did crack down.  They got rid of speedbraker, brought in a new CO, and the next thing you know, AA is out the door.

As for John Galt, the guild master that claimed he didn’t know there were so many cheaters in his guild, well, he was banned for multi using about 6 months later.  He did know exactly what was going on, and during donation drives even asked us to stop pushing our multi’s and put that gold into the guild.

The True Story of Moesha Part 1

Part 1

Here it is, the truth, but first a few caveats.

First of all, if you don't like me, fine. I don't care. I never started any trouble with anyone, but I would respond and stick up for myself. Funny how some of you became obsessed with me though. Second, if you claim anything I did in the game had any impact on your game, that's debatable. I didn't snipe any of your gear, I wasn't active in the arena, I only attacked in response to attacks. Those that didn't start fights with me, didn't even know I existed, except for maybe me taking up a spot on the high score list that should have been theirs. Third, I don't care if you believe me or not. This is my story. I have e-mails, chats, paypal receipts, etc. to prove most of it. Will I prove it? No. Like I said, I don't care if you believe me or not. If you don't like any of this, do everyone a favor and just skip over this message.

Background:

Yes, I was a multi user. (no surprise there). I have played this game for over 3 years, and have been a multi for over 2 years. Multiple characters, multiple servers. On 6 out of the 9 servers, I have had one or two of my characters in the top 10. Some of my top characters have been banned, only to be replaced by new multi's. Others have had the bans "overturned". Some of the top characters on all the .us servers that are now retired (or banned) were mine. I have traded some of my multi's to other users and got their characters in exchange. Many of those are multi's themselves. There is a large number of players that multi, push, bash, and insult others, and get away with it all. How, you ask? Now that's the real story.

A Noob's Tale:

When I started this game, I was like everyone else. One character, grinding out the levels. I got in with a good guild and started to learn how to play the game. I also started taking part in the social scene, chatting with people, through the game, and IRC. I got to be friends with a lot of folks. No GOs though. We all played the game, shared tips, and even though we were in a bunch of different guilds, we all got along as we leveled up. When new servers opened up, we all joined and mixed up the guilds. It was fun, there was new stuff showing up in the auctions, there was still a lot to discover about the game. As I continued to play though, on more and more servers, it was taking more and more time. Even though I was only playing one character on each server, 5 or 6 characters was a lot. I didn't have time to manage my packages or gold. So after playing for a year, this is where I was at, and thinking of dropping back to 1 or 2 servers.

Cracks In the System:

On day, I logged on to find my character banned for an insult. What foul thing had I called someone to warrant this? All I did is ask someone if they were stupid. Pretty bad, I know. Well, I went back and forth with the GO on this. I knew him from IRC but was not a friend of his. He told me he wouldn't have normally banned me for this, but he was friends with the other guy, and he noticed that I bought a lot of rubies. A LOT. Now I didn't think I bought a lot of rubies, but he did. He said I bought so many, that I really wouldn't notice buying $15 more for his "friend". If I did that, then the ban would be lifted. Well, that really didn't sound like such a good deal. $15 to avoid a 3 day ban. I told him thanks, but I would wait it out. To be fair, he had no hard feelings and told me to let him know if I changed my mind in the future. I didn't think too much about this, but it did make me start to wonder about how strict the "rules" were.

My Faith is Shattered:

So I continued to play, all within the rules. And it was fun. The guilds I was in were becoming very powerful. Some of my guildmates even became GOs. But never on the servers they played on. So I kept playing. I got a few more minor bans. I sat some of them out, but for some of them, the GOs I was friends with on one server were able to fix them on a different server where I was banned. I wasn't the only one they were doing this for. If you followed the IRC, you could see when a banned player joined and went private with his GO buddy. More cracks in the rules. One day, after reporting someone who was bothering me, the GO said he really didn't think it was bad enough to be banned, but he had a "friend" that needed rubies, so he might be able to do something. Pay $15 to get someone banned for a week? Well, this guy was a real rude jerk, making life for my whole guild miserable, so I said "why not?" It was at that point that I realized the rules really didn't mean a whole lot in this game.

First Steps Down the Wrong Path:

So I asked the GO how it would work, thinking I would log on as his "friend" and buy rubies. The GO said it doesn't

First Steps Down the Wrong Path:

So I asked the GO how it would work, thinking I would log on as his "friend" and buy rubies. The GO said it doesn't work like that. Through paypal, I could e-mail him the money. Not to his gladiatus e-mail, so he gave me a gmail account. I wondered if I should really be doing this and even asked some of my friends that were GOs. They didn't see anything wrong with it. None of them were paid. They all spent a lot of time "working" for gameforge, with very little in return. They said gameforge knew they all get something on the side. That's one reason they don't get paid. Well, who was I not to keep the system working, I sent the money off by paypal.

The Start of the Multi Era:

A little time goes by like this but I'm still frustrated with having to always find someone to help package my gold, on a bunch of servers. Well, after whining about it, a GO asks me to go private in IRC. Great, I think. Now I'm going to get yelled at for complaining. Not so. The GO had a solution. I could create another character, that I could use to package my gold any time I needed. "But isn't the pranger filled with people that thought they could create another character?" I asked. "True" the GO said, but they didn't go about it the right way. So what's the right way? That will cost you $40. "How do I know it works?" Well, you can ask your friends on server 3.

Multi-GOs! Not a Chance! Or is There?

After that little exchange with a GO, he referred me to my friends on server 3, that were also GOs. These friends were boyfriend and girlfriend that played together and the both applied for, and were accepted as GOs on different servers. I asked them about the offer I had from another GO and they confirmed there was an easy way to multi and not get "caught" if you had help from a GO. In fact, "they" were a multi. Wow, that was something. My two friends, 2 of the top players in the game, 2 of the best GOs, were actually 1 person. It was true, and I was sold. I paid my $40, learned the secrets, and got protection.

To be continued in Part 2

Part 2

The In-Crowd

So now I was part of the group. Using my multis to package gold. Everyone said this wasn't really cheating. In fact, on other servers, Gameforge offered the ability to protect your gold for rubies. So even though the game designers thought it was OK to use a method to protect yourself from raids, we on the .us servers didn't have this option, but now we did by using this unapproved method. There's also another advantage. Multis can feed you gold. There was a large group of folks doing just that. Well, it doesn't do you much good to have a low level character feeding you gold, but the top players across all servers had that figured out. We would just switch around some of our high level characters so that we could either get a high level that we didn't care about feeding a low level that we wanted to push, or get 2 high levels so we could get a sufficient amount of gold to make pushing worthwhile. I knew of about 20 folks in the group trading the characters around. Sometimes, when a person quit the game, one of us would get their character, either for free, or buying it through paypal, and offer it up to the group to help push. (Some guilds would also share a high level character, so they could have him hitting others around the clock, with no down time. In effect, having a character active 24 hours per day, by having 5 or 6 people log on as him throughout the day.)

GameForge Steps In

All the while this is going on, GOs came and went. Some of them were looking for something on the side, and some of them weren't. The ones that were, helped protect us from the ones that weren't. All for a little donation here and there. Also, we provided references, letting people know that the methods and protection actually worked, as the GOs sought out new business. The pushing became a big issue though, for those that weren't in the know. Complaints made their way back to GameForge and it looked like the pushing was cutting into ruby purchases. I'm not sure how, but it was enough for the 'forge to tell the GOs to clamp down. Thus the pushing rule. Not to worry, our man on the inside told us all the ways we could get around the rules. In fact, he even posted some of them on the forums for everyone to see. (BTW, when this rule hit, you could tell who was being pushed, because a lot of them suddenly decided to retire.)

Pushing, Multi-ing, Oh My

GOs came and went. Multi users came and went. The system kept working like it always had. Those with cash and connections got an edge. Want someone banned? It's who you know and how much you have to spend. Some GOs tried to do their jobs, and people got lifetime bans-for multi, for "bug using" (which was used as an excuse for a paid ban in several instances) or for other issues. Many of these bans got overturned by other GOs, for a small payment. Sometimes nothing could be done, so the user either gave up that server, or took over one of the characters we had that was just sitting around.

The Overweight Beginner

There was a fellow named fattynoob that was in this group, but for some reason he decided to stick with one character per server. I don't know if a new player took over for him that didn't know he had multi's, or if he really had a change of heart, or if he just got tired of paying all the extra money playing the game this way cost. In any case, fatty knew all the secrets and started to complain long and loud. I was the most blatent offender. I didn't care who saw me doing shady things. I knew I was protected. Almost all the other folks multi'ing kept it very low key. I would go all out. They warned me I was being too obvious, but I didn't care. Fatty was able to build up a huge body of evidence on me. When nothing came of it, he was able to build up a huge body of evidence on the GOs. He took this all the way up to Germany. That got some attention. I was told in no uncertain terms that it had to stop. I was pouring tons of money into gameforge's pockets and they didn't want to see that stop, but I had to tone it back. So I did, for 6 months or so. But that wasn't fun, so I started to push the limits again. Fatty was right on top of it, and caught some GOs dead to rights when they kept protecting me from the other GOs that were trying to do their jobs. To keep the system going, I had to cut back to 1 server. That was fine. The game was getting a little repetitive and one server was enough. What happened to fatty you ask? Well, he won the battle, but the GOs have a long memory. They had access to fatty's personal info, and six months later, started to use it to taunt him. He didn't know it was them, so when he complained to the GOs, they turned it around and made it look like he was the one that was stalking others. They kept leaking bits and pieces of his personal info and when he would ask them for help, they would get more info from him, which they would later use to taunt him. Not nice, but then, neither was he. Finally, fatty figured out which GOs were part of this, but by then, he had become so frustrated that he posted a rather benign comment on his profile, but it was enough that the GOs could give him a lifetime ban. Payback is a b...

Final Days

So, there I was, trying to lay low on a single server. Just play my game, all to myself. More GOs come and go. Some of them were just changing their names, since they had built up too much baggage. New name, new start, but really, same old GO. Some GOs, (most of the GOs???) weren't in it for themselves so BAM! lifetime ban for the top player on the server. No worries. It took some time and $100 but soon the player was back in business. Wow, I thought, nothing is going to shut this down. That's when I started to ramp up my blatant behavior again. Even if I got banned, I could always come back. Well, the top player was hit with a lifetime ban for a second time. A little pissed off that he would have to spend more money, he decided to pack it in. I should have learned my lesson. I kept going as far as I could. Some of the other multis warned me to cut it out. Some of them had the people complaining about me banned, but that didn't stop the complaints. Finally, I was told that if I didn't calm down, I would be cut lose. On my own, no protection. That worked, for a month or so. But face it, the game is boring and repetitive. The only thing fun was seeing how much I could get under someone's skin. Plenty, it seems. But it came back to bite me. Lifetime ban. It's some type of commentary on the game when a lifetime turns out to be 2 weeks. That and $150. Yes, I got my ban overturned by agreeing to pay $150, and bing, just like that I was back. Did I pay the $150? No. I changed my mind. It isn't worth it. The game had become just a matter of taunting others. Fun for a while, but there's no lasting interest in that. I decided to move on.

Final Words

If you enjoy the game, stay and have fun. Don't worry about what others do. There are still plenty of multis out there, plenty of pushing, and plenty of "subjective" applications of the rules. None of it really affects your gameplay, only you can do that. If all of this bothers you though, then you're making the game something it isn't.

Thank you for sharing your story with our readers, and News Reporter for submitting the information.

Hopefully there are GO's that read this, and take a look into the history of some of the players you have mentioned. Rubies already make this game difficult to compete against those that spend large quantities of money, Cheating is just plain unacceptable.

Chief_Rat