Goodbye Yellow Brick Road...

So there comes a time when you decide: "Okay, that's it. I've had enough."

There may be other times when you sort of felt that way, but just took a breather instead, and after a while put the gloves back on and go back to work.

But again, you might finally reach a breaking point and decide you can't stand it anymore, and want to move on, especially when you realize that you do not HAVE to stay there and put up with it all.

With the way things have been going with MOUL:a, Cyan and the Uru Community recently, was the straw that finally broke this camel's back. That's it, I've had enough, so to speak.

Hacking into the MOUL:a live server during Rand's birthday, then having said Hackers rewarded for it was bad enough. Oh come on. What else did you think Cyan was going to do? Ban them? Change MOUL so it couldn't be done anymore? Sorry, but what the Hackers used is built into the client. Anyone can do it, because that's the way the game is designed. The only way to keep it from happening is to completely rewrite the game engine, and that ain't going to happen. Cyan's only other option would have been to shut MOUL:a down.......permanently. That's what a large chunk of the Uru Community is missing, that what really happened is the Hackers actions on that day was the same as holding a gun to Cyan's head. The message was: "See what we can do? And we can do it any time we want, and there isn't jack you can do about it, except shut down, and we know you don't want to do that. So pay attention to us, listen to us, and let us do what we want, or else."

Cyan knew that they really had no choice then. It was either find a way to deal with them and give them something so they'd play nice, or shut down MOUL:a. So they gave them two Hoods to play in, and their very own place on their forum. Then the Hackers presented themselves to the community with a "Look what we did, and see? We got Cyan to do something! Isn't this great and exciting?"

Unfortunately, the majority of the Uru Community is like a starving animal. All they saw was that something new and different happened, and Cyan did something. They ate it up Hook, Line AND Sinker.

Suddenly the Hackers, now known as the "Grey Hats", are touted about as "Heroes" of MOUL. They will save everything! They will lead us into a glorious new age for MOUL:a!

To some of us in the community, this was quite shocking. Not unexpected, but still shocking. Apparently most of the Uru Community never paid attention in History Class. Because once someone coerces someone into something, there is nothing to stop them from continuing to do so down the road.

Does not matter if nothing was actually said to that effect. The events that happened on Rand's birthday were a VERY clear message: See what we can do? And you can't stop it. There's NOTHING you can do, short of shutting MOUL:a down. You'd better talk to us.

This saddened me greatly to see. I'm fortunate in that I'm not really one of the "starving" masses in the community, as I spent a lot of time making my own content, testing other content that people have made, and have other things besides Uru and MOUL:a. But the majority of other people are the "starving" masses, and what they saw was something new and exciting.

It's not new people. It's old. UU old. And while you all may not have seen it then because you are new now, it's also already on Shards. While you are being "dazzled" by having the fog color changed, your avatar removed from your control, and having the Great Arch move around, you are missing the whole point: You are experiencing this because a group of people took the MOUL:a server HOSTAGE and basically gave Cyan a unspoken ultimatum.

Does this mean all "Hackers" are bad? Absolutely not. Were it not for Hackers, no one would have been able to create Fan Ages before Cyan released their plugin, and then it still would have been limited to those that had copies of 3DS Max. Hackers have done many good things and created very useful tools. Without them, these things would not exist.

But when they take matters into their own hands, and do what they did, then I'm sorry, they can call themselves "Grey Hats" but the truth is, to make White into Grey, you HAVE to add a little bit of Black. What they basically did was the same as a child going up to their parent and saying: "If I don't get my way, I'm going to tell my teachers that you beat me and they'll call social services in, who will make your life a living hell. Now give me what I want or I'll do it."

So shaking my head sadly, I knew that Uru and MOUL:a was pretty much over for me. The door was closing.

What slammed it shut was to see people posting how the "Grey Hats" would be the ones to get new content added to MOUL:a.

THAT was too much to bear for people like me that have spent years learning and working on making new content, so that it would look as good as Cyan's and have plenty of puzzles, interaction and story to it. Who have spent a long time talking with Cyan about how to add new content with a minimum amount of effort on their part. Me who has spent more hours than I can count making tutorials for people so that they don't have to go through the pain staking process of trial and error in order to make an Age. Instead I've already done it for them, all they have to do is read.

I went from "saddened" to "very disgusted" in a eye blink. Seeing posts like that was a huge slap in the face.

So I'm done. Fin. The End.

I've closed down all my Age projects. No more tutorials. No more Uru or MOUL:a for me thank you very much.

Instead I'll be returning to the high res projects that don't have anything to do with Uru. I'll still be working with Max and Cyan's plugin as I'm part of a big project that uses the Plasma engine, but does not have anything to do with Uru (thank god). I'll still be monitoring the GoMa forum as system admin since I've paid the light bill, but if I get anyone wanting to take over, I'll gladly hand them the keys and be done with that too. And I'll still help anyone that PM's me with questions on how to do things.

For entertainment? Nothing Uru that's for sure. I've completely immersed myself back in the Eve Online universe. 45,000 people online each day, and new stuff added all the time. CCP would never put up with anyone trying to hack them, or coerce them into anything, that's for sure! They have no problems handing out Perma Bans to people. I saw them do that to over 3000 accounts in one single day to people that were violating their policies. They don't hesitate to use that big Perma Ban hammer.

They are doing so well they have plenty of free time to even make their own music video warning their fans that they WILL mess you up if you try to screw with them. Hehheheheh. And on that note, I leave you with that music video:

Warning: if foul language bothers you, don't watch the video!

Permaband - HTFU