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Elysium Project (WoW Private Server Group) disbands due to uncovered corruption
- Thread starter TheLostBigBoss
- Start date
Hexa
Member
This news makes me feel nostalgic for the days, when Scape, Toxic, Legacy, Magic, Crusade, etc. were around and people were making millions off of "donations", that were really just P2W microtransactions half the time, and there was major drama every five minutes with people in staff coming back with new user names constantly. XD
Oh man, Scape... So much time spent on it when it was WoWCrack before it got renamed due to an admin taking $15k or something for a treadmill.
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
It's practically a race now between who has the most up to date server up and running.
Elysium is saying that 80% of their staff is staying, LIght's Hope said that a large portion of their (Elysium's) staff left after everything went public.
Elysium still hasn't made an official announcement on the state of the backups, which is making me believe that they have out of date backups and are going to be in a tough spot.
Elysium is saying that 80% of their staff is staying, LIght's Hope said that a large portion of their (Elysium's) staff left after everything went public.
Elysium still hasn't made an official announcement on the state of the backups, which is making me believe that they have out of date backups and are going to be in a tough spot.
Novel Mike
Member
This shit is why I wish we had official servers run by Blizzard for this shit. Private servers are always sketchy as hell but this takes the cake.
Again, there is no other way to play vanilla wow.
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
One of the Elysium managers are saying that at best the latest back up is around a week old, but nothing is actually confirmed.
Hexa
Member
lol. I remember that, though I thought the name change happened long before that. IIRC it was WoWCrack originally, then changed to WoWScape, and then there was the drama with Peyton getting caught taking donation money, after which the main dev Silent split off and created WoWLegacy which due to drama later changed to Crusade Gaming. Meanwhile WoWScape changed their name to Scape Gaming and got a new dev named Marcelo, who was the developer of the previous largest private server ToxicWoW before they got DMCAd, but he got pissed at Peyton too and created MagicWoW. Then Peyton got a new dev named 2bit, but not long after she was successfully sued by Blizzard for $88 million, so 2bit created 2bit Gaming, which still had the player dB all the way from WoWCrack, but no one played on it so it died. This shit was actually really complicated lol.
It wasn't for 2004 but it certainly is now
Atom Heart Mother
Banned
This sucks. I really enjoyed Elsyium. Even got to 60 on it and did some raiding. Nostralius team was much more mature and not shady.
Just hope Blizzard bites the bullet and releases legacy servers.
Vanilla WoW is still great today. Leveling in it is so special. Nothing can compare to it.
Just hope Blizzard bites the bullet and releases legacy servers.
Vanilla WoW is still great today. Leveling in it is so special. Nothing can compare to it.
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
Seems like the only actual developer left on Elysium is Shenna and the only system admin left is Crogge
Looking at Lights Heart discord, seems a lot of people jumped ship from Elyiusm. Also hearing that Shenna mentioned in a VOD that at best the most resent back up is from two weeks ago, could be a month. Nobody actually knows officially.
Also, Lights Heart is about to go into private testing and seems to be planning on being up and running today, although I'm sure it will crash when everyone tries to log in.
Edit: LH is up for internal testing.
Looking at Lights Heart discord, seems a lot of people jumped ship from Elyiusm. Also hearing that Shenna mentioned in a VOD that at best the most resent back up is from two weeks ago, could be a month. Nobody actually knows officially.
Also, Lights Heart is about to go into private testing and seems to be planning on being up and running today, although I'm sure it will crash when everyone tries to log in.
Edit: LH is up for internal testing.
Do you know where are the LH server located?
I still see Ash on the Elysium discord channel;.
France. OVH, same hoster as before.
So Blizzard can cease and desist LH like they did with Nostalrius now?
Elysium was also in France at OVH.
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
Lights Hope is online from what I have read, which explains why their discord has crashed.
Atom Heart Mother
Banned
Nostalrius was never in trouble, they only went down to comply with Blizzard and to extend an olive branch with them. Their whole intent was to legitimatize the Legacy Server demand and to show they didn't want to steal/host an illegal server, but just wanted to play Vanilla WoW. Blizzard sends these C&D out constantly and nobody really follows them due to their location, but Nos. wanted to be a good guy and comply.
The staff for Nostalrius was amazingly competent and mature. There was never any drama or infighting, and the server always ran smooth. I really hope Blizzard acknowledges them and makes legacy servers with them in control.
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
No, they have all the previous Elysium server data and are using that with a one hour rollback from when the servers went down, before they were wiped.
It's the same account information, but once there is the ability to change your passwords it would be advised to do so due to your information being on Elysium as well.
To clarify a little, WoWscape was originally the lol donation server where the level cap was 255 or whatever that started out under Silent, WoWcrack was the blizzlike server headed by a guy named Stealth. Other servers expanded from there.
Strolling through my old photobucket account is a nostalgia trip lol, good times. I still talk to a couple of the friends I made back then
I was a GM/forum admin for a while under the name Jarvi if anyone remembers me. I largely left when Silent did though, it was crazy how much money the servers brought in that was going straight into Peyton's pockets. We had to hand out donation armor manually and we could never keep up with them, people spending hundreds to thousands of dollars for Uber armor.
We so proud of our almost 1 day uptime back then since private servers were notoriously unstable at the time.
Server is up by the way. It was also really smooth when I was online for like 10-15 minutes. Only 6000 people online but still...
You can always change your password in-game with
.account password oldpassword newpassword
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
Rain is one of the head community leaders of Elysium, and is currently having a bit of a meltdown in discord
@Rob I know you're not trying to sound like a little snowflake, but how exactly does selling gold on a cash shop or behind the scenes affect your gameplay? Out of curiosity. I honestly have no idea what the plan is for the future, until we release a statement.
Message from Rain
@Rob I know you're not trying to sound like a little snowflake, but how exactly does selling gold on a cash shop or behind the scenes affect your gameplay? Out of curiosity. I honestly have no idea what the plan is for the future, until we release a statement.
Message from Rain
Ups, forgot it once but yeah, it's pretty much the standard.
I mean the truth of the matter is running these private servers (as you have experience with) is an incredibly thankless task. Blood sweat and tears go into a quasi-legal operation with a playerbase that is, in some cases,diametrically opposed to giving people any incentive at all. Is it any wonder that some admins will turn to quid pro quo to get something out the experience other than frustration?
On the flip side, I can't imagine spending money on a service like this, considering that it could be gone in a blink of an eye. Imagine spending cash on a boost or some armor and then watching it all disappear the next day over some server drama beyond your control.
Just another reason for Blizzard to get with the times and offer an official option for people that would like to replay WoW from an earlier state.
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
After over a full day, an official statement by Elysium.
https://elysium-project.org/
As rumored, the server backups are about 1 month out of date
Currently, we have character database from: 19-07-2017 for Darrowshire, 09-09-2017 for Elysium and 23-09-2017 for Anathema.
Darrowshire is three months out of date
"Apologies" by Crogge and Shenna
Literally the most backhanded apologies ever written, and these are the statements that have been "vetted" for public release by the remaining Elysium team.
Nobody forces anybody to work on hobby projects. Shenna's excuse is that she worked nearly 16 hours daily to keep everything in working order, and that she needed the money to live and to send to her family.
If she was that desperate than the only actual solution is to stop developing for Elysium and get a job that pays so she can actually live comfortably, instead of stealing donations for months on end and hiding the fact she is skimming off the top.
That goes double for Crogge, considering there is literally no evidence any of the money he made selling gold actually went to the server, yet people are supposed to take his word for it?
It's insane, but not shocking that people who lied for nearly a year about their actions would attempt to lazily explain and deflect blame for their actions.
All they had to do was make an announcement that
1) They need more funding and are going to break the core project goal of being as blizzlike as possible
2) They are leaving to have more time to support their own lives.
https://elysium-project.org/
As rumored, the server backups are about 1 month out of date
Currently, we have character database from: 19-07-2017 for Darrowshire, 09-09-2017 for Elysium and 23-09-2017 for Anathema.
Darrowshire is three months out of date
"Apologies" by Crogge and Shenna
Literally the most backhanded apologies ever written, and these are the statements that have been "vetted" for public release by the remaining Elysium team.
Nobody forces anybody to work on hobby projects. Shenna's excuse is that she worked nearly 16 hours daily to keep everything in working order, and that she needed the money to live and to send to her family.
If she was that desperate than the only actual solution is to stop developing for Elysium and get a job that pays so she can actually live comfortably, instead of stealing donations for months on end and hiding the fact she is skimming off the top.
That goes double for Crogge, considering there is literally no evidence any of the money he made selling gold actually went to the server, yet people are supposed to take his word for it?
It's insane, but not shocking that people who lied for nearly a year about their actions would attempt to lazily explain and deflect blame for their actions.
All they had to do was make an announcement that
1) They need more funding and are going to break the core project goal of being as blizzlike as possible
2) They are leaving to have more time to support their own lives.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Can anyone give me a not more than 3 sentence tl:dr about why vanilla wow is better than current wow? More hardcore appeal?
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
I messaged a community manager from Light's Hope about who left Elysium, was told that, "I would say nearly all left".
WaterAstro
Member
Private Servers always have a danger of shady scams.
Every Ragnarok Online private server literally did this kind of stuff.
Every Ragnarok Online private server literally did this kind of stuff.
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
It's not better, it's just a completely different game in terms of how things are structured, how communities interact, the general difficulty and time needed to commit to end game.
Different strokes for different folks, but the experience you get in vanilla WoW really can't be replicated in retail.
Nostalgia. It takes a lot longer to level, and you generally can't fight more than 2 mobs at a time because TTK is longer for random quest mobs.
No dungeon finder of any sort, so you're stuck sitting in town in general chat or LFG chat forming groups by hand.
That's legitimately it. The content is mechanically vastly simpler, but it's more punishing which causes some people to think it's harder.
EDIT: That's probably a slightly unfair way to characterize it. The game is a lot of fun in vanilla still, but the difficulty is not in the fights themselves but rather in the social aspects around fighting things. Modern wow is very easy to get into, and you can rep a boss until the sun don't shine with relatively minor cost beyond your sanity, but the bosses themselves are many orders of magnitude more complex and difficult.
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
Oh, and there was a deleted post by Crogge which has since been claimed to be a "compromised account" by Elysium people.
They are saying that, somehow, Light's Hope broke the password encryption (SRP6) overnight and gained access to his account, which uses the same username/password combo as reddit.
That's right, a system admin didn't change any of his account information that uses the same user/pass word combo for an entire day after he learned his data was in the hands of people who clearly have issue with him, and that information was instantly cracked
They are saying that, somehow, Light's Hope broke the password encryption (SRP6) overnight and gained access to his account, which uses the same username/password combo as reddit.
That's right, a system admin didn't change any of his account information that uses the same user/pass word combo for an entire day after he learned his data was in the hands of people who clearly have issue with him, and that information was instantly cracked
SomeRandomWeirdGuy
Member
Oh look another vanilla thread and you're back to shit on anyone that might prefer an older version of WoW. And just like in the nostalrius thread way back when, if two mobs will kill you in Vanilla, when they won't in Retail, then yes it's harder. Moan that it's not REALLY harder all you want, but the majority of people would consider it so.
To actually answer the question, the limitations in Vanilla add up to make the world feel a lot more real. Mobs are a lot harder to kill so the world is much more threatening, you can't just destroy a pack of enemies and have little to no downtime. There's no built in quest tracker, so you actually have to just read the quest's instructions/ask around (or just look it up obviously, which we even did back then). Quest hubs exist but the quest design isn't just funneling you to max level hub to hub, and a lot of quests are sort of laying around inconspicuously or in weird locations, so it feels more organic. Lack of flying mounts means everyone from level 1-60 has to actually traverse the world on some level. Seeing 60s running around in Feralas because they're trying to run Dire Mail, that sort of thing. There's definitely still "end game" areas, but there's a much higher high level presence in low level zone.
Honestly, just the fact that it's all one game is why I love Vanilla so much. If you're playing Vanilla, EVERYONE is in Azeroth. You don't have that same segregation between "leveling" and "the real game" that there is now. The high levels aren't off in current expansion land, they're right there alongside the low levels.
There's lots of flavor with quest designs that weren't basically focus tested to hell and back. You get some dumbass quests that send you from one side of the world and then to the other and then back, but they really get you out into the world and not just on the linear leveling path.
Like it's not perfect, but it's a completely different beast. On a moment to moment basis, retail is more engaging. The combat feels nicer, the graphics are better, everything is nice and tidy and leveling is more directed but flows much better. But it doesn't feel like a WORLD the way Vanilla did (and does). On Private servers modern sensibilities and mods and internet usage have changed up the game vastly, but even with that, it still maintains a lot of the feelings that the game just doesn't have anymore.
And that's not even bringing into account the absolute batshit-ness of the story if you tried to play retail as a newcomer due to the expansions and time skips. Vanilla is simple and self contained at the very least
Saw the edit after the fact: yes that's definitely true. If you're into MMO's for the encounter and boss design and that sorta thing, the modern game is doubtlessly superior. Vanilla's endgame difficulty is corraling 40 people and getting them all on the same page but then just tanking and spanking for the most part. Whereas the modern game has bosses with actual abilities and mechanics you gotta deal with. On a moment to moment, soloing level though, I maintain than Vanilla is more difficult. Raiding though, retail without a doubt.
- Because you need to actually explore the world, to level up your character.
- You will need make friends to help you out in quests/dungeons while leveling up.
- You really have to respect all the players around you, because those players will remain in your realm forever, in current wow, you'll get to meet people from multiple random realms, that you will never see them in your life again.
- In current wow, you can level up easily without leaving your main city, and if you do go out and explore, you will find nobody, because nobody does that nowadays.
Thats the main reason i play vanilla wow, the sense of exploration and community IS AMAZING , sadly the current game doesnt have that anymore.
If you want to know about vanilla servers don't ask online. The opinions surrounding it and especially against it are extremely toxic. Take a day off work and create a character (even if you were there for vanilla 13 years ago like me) give it a few hours.
Just make a character and run around. Won't take long for you to realize whether you miss that form of the game and want to play more.
Client is like 1GB and creating accounts is free.
Just make a character and run around. Won't take long for you to realize whether you miss that form of the game and want to play more.
Client is like 1GB and creating accounts is free.
I mean, I agree with your reasoning, but ultimately I don't think that people have a realistic expectation of what running a private server entails. People get into this as a hobby but doesn't really understand what it takes to keep the servers running. Then they turn to shady stuff to justify the time they are spending on a hobby.
Agree, especially on the fact that very few people in the scene seem to understand what it takes and costs to run a private server thats not rife with issues. OTOH, got to be honest.
Warmanes servers for WoW cover TBC, WOTLK, CATA and MOP, and despite being made fun of by the people that troll reddit, those private servers are by far the most reliable and some the highest populated even now (hell especially now) and they are upfront about being a business and selling previous season gear and heirlooms for $.
It keeps the servers running smoothly with no need for drama because their developers are paid, and players get to play Wrath of the Lich King or TBC on highly populated servers for no cost.
Seems that Nost set the expectation that you should have a huge quality dev staff maintaining quality servers and make no money because the entire staff is funding it at a loss for years.. That's just not sustainable to be honest.
The world feels larger because of limited travel options, and you need to interact with other people to form groups for two reasons: content is harder to solo, and there is no auto-dungeon-finder queuing infrastructure.
Honestly, everything that's "better" about Vanilla stems from those two facets of the game. It's not just nostalgia, as some will clam - people were more invested because of the necessity of this social aspect.
SkateorDi3
Member
The server was resurrected under lightshope today. Got from 42 to 44 today. Did uldaman, zul'farrak and some questing. There was about 6700 people online at one time. So it's safe to say a good majority of the players went to lightshope. My guild is still intact and it feels like nothing happened. Let's hope the same thing doesn't happen. The only thing that disheartens me that my guild and I were getting gold seller spam still. On the plus side, this server seems to be running well compared to Elysium. In Elysium you would get 1-6 second server lags, lightshope has not had any if that from my experience.
Here's to hoping the staff can stay trustworthy, I'm really enjoying vanilla ATM.
Here's to hoping the staff can stay trustworthy, I'm really enjoying vanilla ATM.
Even on retail you get pms from gold farmers all the time, that's always going on.
Again, there is no other way to play vanilla wow.