The Story of Wintermoor

[JC the Builder]

Due to the actions of people who nothing short of hate and despise me, thus far I have received a 24 hour UO suspension and now a formal Stratics forum warning. Please keep that in mind.

Cliff Notes Version

1) OSI steals the Wintermoor collection.
2) The Wintermoor museum accounts are given to me after the incident so they will be in good hands.
3) The accounts lapse and the houses begin to decay. I reactivate the accounts when the houses are Greatly Worn. The next morning the museums are In Danger of Collapsing so I transfer them to other accounts.
4) A bunch of people collaborate and make up a bunch of stuff saying EA gave them and billions worth of items to me.

Full Version

Lets begin at the beginning. This story begins over 8 years ago when UO Renaissance was released. Wintermoor was a large and prosperous UO community. There were 4 dozen houses and a large guild who put on regular events, some of which I had the pleasure of attending. Then came Trammel. Unfortunatly houses could not be moved. With the majority of players now residing in the new lands, hardly anyone visited Wintermoor. Over the next few years the owner Xanthar became disheartened and frustrated. Then the Age of Shadows came and drove him out of the game completely.

During the subsequent years OSI makes a few tiny mistakes. Once involved banning all of Xanthar's accounts. Another was rampaging through the museums and taking everything away. Luckily the banning incident was rectified. Unluckily the museums were only 75% restored. Some items were never returned.

Now that we have history out of the way lets move up to May 2007. Xanthar wants to sell off a few of his museum pieces and entrusts the endeavor to his long time friend Vas. But Vas has also become quite the inactive player himself. So he subcontracts it to his "friend" Gol. Gol has been actioned many timed by OSI with several account bannings. He even got his entire guild banned. Vas has not been playing is unaware of these events. Gol is put in charge of organizing the bids and showing people where the items are stored. Some of you may recall this picture:

Notice how he is stuck behind the wooden boxes? He never had access to the rares. But it was still quite disturbing that he was managing this auction so I personally contacted Xanthar about it. While this was going on EA stepped in and took control of the Keep and its contents. There was a lot of back and forth between myself, Xanthar, Vas and EA. In the end EA would not return the rares. The account that held the Keep was never suspended or banned. The Keep itself was empty and decayed days after being taken by EA. EA has never given an explanation why the rares were taken away. This was all discussed in length on Stratics last year in July. Unfortunately these postings appear lost forever due to the crash a few months ago.

In light of the events, Xanthar gave control of the museum accounts to me. I decided instead of keeping them active all the time I would lapse them for 2 months at a time. There is after all no point in keeping them open when neither the towers or characters are being used. It seemed everything was finished until......

A few weeks ago I noticed that the Museum Towers began to decay. I was not sure of the grandfathered status on the accounts so I emailed Xanthar for details. When the towers were greatly worn I reactivated them on August 5th. The next morning they were In Danger of Collapsing. To be safe I transferred them to my other accounts. I simply logged in and transferred them. I did not see anyone else at them. If someone was hidden I don't know because I didn't track. But if someone was hidden I don't know why they would assume anything other than the houses were being transferred from one account to another.

The same day Limlight asked me about it on the UO Atlantic forum about it. I jokingly replied that EA gave them to me to preserve history. You know me, I like the jokes. Apparently some people decided that this was not a joke, that the only explanation is that it really happened. Anyone with an ounce of common sense would realize that this comment was a joke. If EA did for some reason give me the museums, wouldn't I keep my mouth shut about it? Wouldn't EA themselves tell me that I can't tell anyone that it happened? It is extremely obvious that this was a joke.

The problem is there are people who outright hate me with every bone in their body. I have no idea why some people are like this, they just are. They took the joke and ran with it. Starting topics after topic, post after post how EA is giving me special treatment. This has been going on for a long time but recently it has reached levels of absurdity that are too high to measure. There are literally two dozen or more people who act this way towards me. I don't understand it and don't really care to. But it seems they were able to turn a simple house transfer into an all out assault on myself.

Lets take a trip back in time. Not as far this time, just a month or so. There was a pretty bad group of players who had joined up with our guild. Over time we (HOT council) realized that they were bad news. The final straw was when they tricked a fellow guild member to come sell them a 120 Evaluating Intelligence and +25 stat power scroll to one of them at Luna bank. They proceeded to kill and loot the scrolls. The person was kicked out and quickly followed by another 3-4 people. Later we found that they also looted another member's house. They were coordinating harassment against yet another member. Since leaving the guild they have been non-stop harrassing us anyway possible. They put books on the ground saying we hack people, that our council has Aids, even saying I am personally running an auction and to please message an ICQ not mine to give them items. They claim they don't but we managed to kill one of them and loot a bag containing several dozen copies ready to distribution. They have also now begun creating characters with our council member names and are trying to impersonate us, most likely for scamming.

Now that you know a little about this group of people, you should know they are the ones who I think is primarily responsible for inciting this situation. Thus far they have created at least 4 topics and countless replies on various forums. In one of the first topics I explained the situation but it wasn't enough. They just kept going and going. Nothing short of an official EA reply was going to pacify them. But even then they would just assume that EA gave them to me anyway, because I am the worst person in the whole world to them.

After the topic was locked on the Stratics Atlantic forum I thought that was the end. But no, not for these people. I found some items in the museums and wanted to know where they came from. So naturally I started a topic on the Stratics Rares Collector forum about it. Four days after the last reply a certain someone brings up why I am interested in knowing the value of a basket that doesn't open.

So I thought fine, if they want to keep playing we can. I just decide not even to respond anymore. Just let them continue with their wild imaginations and conspiracy theories. Eventually it spilled over on to the U Hall. During this time I prepare a special "auction" of all the items I supposedly have. The only problem is I pulled the item list from the original auction over a year ago. To make it look more real and make them go even more bonkers, I attached rather ludicrous bids to the items. If you want even more proof that the auction is fake just ask any rare collector around. I only sent the link to one person through Stratics private message, which Stratics can also verify. It was to one of the people who has been posting so vigorously against me. They sure distribution that link quickly because it was all over in under 12 hours.

What else is there to say? Oh yes, I got my account suspended. It was probably related to this whole event. I've had the UOGuide.com link in my character profile since I started the website over 2 years ago. Most likely before they even began all this you can't link stuff in-game business. The person who paged on me admitted it right here on Stratics and said straight out he did it out of vengeance. What did I do to him? I just banned him from our guild forum for inappropriate comments towards other members. Of course he is now never being let back on.

Then there is the official Stratics warning I have gotten today. I don't care at this point whether I get another warning or a banning. The way Stratics staff handled this situation is deplorable. I have been under direct and constant harassment for 2 weeks here and the only action taken is thread locking. I post a simple and careful topic about my banning, which attracts "my haters" like children to ice cream, and it gets locked because of them. Then I mention how one post I made explaining why this whole Wintermoor thing is happening got deleted and get warned for it.

Dear JC the Builder,

You have received a warning at Stratics Forums.

Reason:
-------
Discussing Moderator Actions

There is probably some stuff I forgot to write about. If it comes to me or someone asks a question I didn't answer yet I will respond in full now. Let me now leave you with two previous postings. One by Xanthar on the history of Wintermoor and another made by myself explaining the situation last year.

 

[JC the Builder]

Dear Fellow Citizens of Atlantic,

First, forgive me for not posting before but due to recent time constraints I do not keep track of the boards as prompt as I would like to. I recently received a strange email from OSI, as well as a few odd icq's, and a very disturbing email from Kirah of Wintermoor (and old friend I respect very much) that upset me greatly so I had to look into this and make a post. This post is a little long, but please take the time to review this - it's basically the summation of all of Wintermoor and the Museums and what just recently happened.

Let me first say that I am not selling the City of Wintermoor, nor will I be selling the museums. I know a lot of people in the community as well as have been in this game a very long time and the amount of time and effort it took to build such an establishment makes it nearly impossible to ever let it go. I will go more into this later in the post....

Now, I will say this, in addition to running the City of Wintermoor I was heavily into factions. When AOS came out (and due to many of the changes it brought) factions almost completely came to a halt so I decided to scale down my UO playing and refocus myself. It is well known that I had 38 accounts ($380 a month for almost 60 months on all accounts) which is far more money than I would like to calculate but you get the idea....I downgraded to 10 accounts (the Key Wintermoor housing accounts 10 accounts with 5 houses grandfathered each) 10 x 5 = 50 houses (Wintermoor plus a few spares I owned)

For those who do not know me, I work for the Department of Health and Human Services as the IT Director for the State of New Jersey. I also own a consulting company called Camelot Computers (http://www.CamelotComputers.com). My wife is a Doctor of Neurology. What you have to understand is that people have many hobbies....some people like a fancy cars, some people like to travel, some people collect comics, or coins. We liked UO and that was our hobby. We poured money into UO, and we were lucky enough to start collecting rares when rares were not really 'rare' and there was no 'ebay' world of UO - those evils came much much later. We gathed 75% of the museum items via the game and through playing UO. Only after ebay came out did The Museums had cost me countless thousands of dollars to continue to expand with the accounts thousands more to maintain...some people will call us crazy but it simply was our hobby and we loved OSI and the game of Ultima online. We don't regret this at all and had lots of good times with Ultima Online and continue to do so.

Thus, because I recently downgraded many of my accounts (because I no longer play factions) and began to redecorate and clean (because many of my friends left) I can only assume that lots of rumors have begun about me quitting UO and leaving. I have also noticed posts that 'Wintermoor is for sale', and I have noticed people using my name and email and everything else. I honestly didn't really bother about this because it has been happening for almost 4 years. Many times Vix of Tradespot (and old friend) had to be contacted to delete another user posting on the boards claiming to be me. I don't think a month goes by when some player tries to scam someone at the museum or claims to know me, or claims to be having something for sale of Wintermoor. It's a sad fact but people often try to pretend to be me. The people who know me close know that I like to talk over the phone irl to make sure people know it's me and have no problems commicating that way or even explaining rares or history to them...

Now, let me go over what has been happening for the last few months. With my game-time and life in factions dead I have had time to focus on other things. I played a necromancer a little bit and even explored malas some, but I found myself viewing my website as needing some updating.

Again, forgive me for assuming anything, incase anyone does not know, I am the owner and designer of the UO Rares website. www.UORares.com It has always been my donation to the UO community and I have paid for it out of pocket from day one. We have been a large part of the UO community and even to this day we receive between 20,000 and 35,000 HITS a day from over 20 different countries. You can visit my Server distribution for this month at http://www.uorares.com/usage/usage_200305.html (we are even happy to say that we have a usage base of 8% japanese!)

Well....during my faction fighting (a never ending battle for almost a year) I really neglected the UO Rares website. Then, I got an email from a friend called JC the builder. He's one of those old time players who really respected the rares community and wanted to lend a hand. It was him that renewed my interest in getting the site up and running full time again. So, he started to work on the facts that have changed or were now incorrect, and I began to get all the graphics, fonts and history updated. I broke out my old email machine (5743 UO related emails over 4 years) and began to compile all the old information that was still not posted. With JC's help and determination the UO Rares site has been updated greatly over the past two months and we have even gotten all dead and broken links corrected. Is this the work of someone who is leaving the community or who sells things on ebay to make some kind of illegal profit???

Also, I have been cleaning house of some of the non-rare rares. What I mean is that AOS also upset me with all this spawning rares stuff. I find it really annoying being a rare collector that 'true rares start spawning'. I started to review the rares that are no longer rare and was working on making some changes. We were planning to have a redecoration of the museum with some new rares I had collected. I still have a few quest items and some neat stuff the community has never seen. In order to get a few other rare items, I sold off some of the early common rare stuff like Coal, Fireworks wands, extra pots, kettles and things I had numerous things of...

Now, I come to the boards here and I have to say I was very very saddened by what I read. There was one member of the community (I believe Lilliana) who bashed me, and attacked me and didn't even know me.

First, I want to explain this as this is VERY VERY VERY important. There are very few people left in UO from the original days but those who were around back then will remember that the City of Wintermoor was NEVER blessed. Yes, it is 100% true. As a matter of fact, I sigh heavily when I read that Lilliana wrote, 'Xanthar never lifted a finger to do a thing and gets blessed items'. You have no idea what kind of frustrating world I have lived with Wintermoor. During the 1998/1999 era, lots of lots of establishments were getting blessed. It was a different era back then and Seers were much a part of the UO community. Anyway, for almost 2 years I tried everything to get blessed. I had only wanted and asked for one thing - a stablemaster. We wrote letters, we had guild members write letters, we formed websites, we had meetings, I pleaded until I was blue in the face. Nothing ever became of it....

Finally, the Museum had a 2 year anniversary and lot of the community came out to visit. It was ran and headed by Seer Nickademus who ran a lot of the festivities. Unknown to myself, the Seer (with the help of an IGM) placed wooden walls and a large bartop table in the southern museum, and placed a table only in the northern museum). In addition, the Seer and the IGM did assist with 'removing' items from various locations. For example, Braziers and statues used to spawn on the Earth Elementals at the bottom of Shame (level 4), we kept those few braziers that we had in bags in the museum. The Seer (in a roleplaying fashion) 'tore' open those bags reveiling the braziers for all to see. Thus, that is how things like Braziers and Statues were gotten in the museum. We had supplied the item (the Seers and IGM's were forbidden to create new items) but they had assisted us with displaying it.

Let me rephrase that again to make it clear. The only thing that was EVER done to wintermoor (and it happened when I wasn't even there after the festival - I wasn't allowed inside) was the placing of Wooden Walls as well as two bartops. Never ever ever ever ever was a single rare EVER given to me by OSI, never did they create any rares for me, and never was I given free gifts, housing or any special treatment. I have the same problems, and have to go through the same emails and problems that everyone else in UO has. I have never gotten special treatment and have even had accounts blocked or banned that needed to be cleared up. My favorite incident occurred about 1 year ago when a newer GM came to the Museum and banned my account because 'I used a bug to make wooden walls and needed to be banned'. It took me almost 4 days to get my housing on my account unbanned. I have spent hundreds of hours trying to enhance the Wintermoor community, and we spent almost 2 years trying to get just one thing for Wintermoor (a stablemaster) and completely failed. I get very hurt when I hear people tell me I never lifted a finger and received everything in the world....I spent 2 years of my time trying SO hard to simply get a stablemaster, I got nothing. I spent tons of time trying to get blessed, I never did. The only thing that happened was when the Seer came and they decided what to place in the museum. The walls and the tabletops. That really is important to know because I fear that time has replaced the truth with all these vicious rumors on the stratics and tradespot boards. I have not gotten special treatment from OSI.

** The above image is one of the mini-events the Seers had created **

One of the VERY positive things however, was that with all our festivals and events we did gain the attention of various members of the UO community. Probably the height of our enjoyment was when Seer Narcissus (who we later found out was Claudia Raym of the Atlantic Quests) had visited us and made mini quests and spawns on Ice Isle. There was nothing more fun in my eyes than the old Seer quests in UO. He raised our spirits almost more than anyone in the game.

Now, the next thing I hear people tell me is 'BUT OSI GAVE YOU BLESSED TREES'. Well, again, this was not a blessing and had nothing to do with me. The truth was that when Trammel was born there was a problem with the spawns on ice isle. There were more orcs around than a Lord of the Rings Movie. Things would spawn like mad and for months and months the GM's couldn't stop it. We complained and complained and apparently this problem was on all the shards. OSI then decided to find some of the problem spots (the southern tip of ice isle) and put a GM blocking item such as a rock to lower the spawn. They did this on ALL shards. On many of the shards they placed rocks, some they placed trees (like Atlantic). About a year later the spawn had been fixed and although many shards removed the GM block rocks or trees on their southern tips they apparently thought it looked good near the musuems and decided to leave it. Please don't think OSI was bestowing favoritism to the museum or me personally, they were simply using what they had in their power to fix a spawning problem on all shards. These facts are very important to know and understand.

In the early days of UO, rare items were not 'rare'. No one really collected items, and it was easy to amass true rares. Also, you could find things (my 'golden belt' actually came from the jewerly store just east of West Brit bank, it was on the ground discarded as an item that couldn't be sold). We used to gate npc's for money day and night, and I was a GM tailor for the first year. Xanthar the mighty tailor!!!! hehe.

Later, as the museum became known, people would come to us with rare items and make offers or donations to us because we were the museum. We spent a lot of money and time gathering rares - it was what we did. We never used bugs or exploits, and even promoted AGAINST the use of such things on the UO Rares website.

I also want to point out that collecting rares was a FULL time job. This was no easy task and we had to develop strong business skills as well as contacts. Probably one of the craziest stories we have is how we gained the Marble Collumns, Torn Painting, and Deamon Heads and a 'rose' (the heads that OSI now uses on the Champion Spawn shrines). If I remember correctly is was near the end of 1999 and OSI was having a lot of problems with their servers going down. They were getting hacked and people were very upset (It's funny to see how people get upset when a server goes down for a few minutes now - sometimes we used to see Atlantic go down for days). Anyway, one of my guild members, his name was Mitragorn was from Russia and worked with a team of computer programmers who did 'anti-hacking'. He emailed OSI and to his surprise, Lord British himself contacted him back. He called him on the phone in Russia and Mitragorn explained to Lord British that him and his friends could try to 'hack' into the system and assist in helping on how to block such hack attempts. Lord British agreed and thanked him for the assistance and they hit it off very well. Being a guild member, he had told us this story and we listened in earnist. Anyway, apparently the information really did help and Lord British (Richard Garriot) was very happy. Although Mitragorn did not ask for anything, Lord British asked to meet Mitragorn ingame and offered a few tokens of thanks. He had a GM create for him two roses, a torn painting, 2 deamon heads and the marble collumns in the museum. My guild mate then showed me the items and of course I immediately wanted them for the museum. Being my guild mate, he was reasonable but he also did know the value of such things as they were rare so we made a deal. In Russia, he had a very tough time getting ciggarrettes, especially Marlboro at the time. So, I agreed to get a special order of 10 cartons of cigarrattes (and get them through customs in Russia) in exchange for all the rare items. The entire process took about three months but in the end he got his ciggarettes and I got the rares for the museum.

Another story was about a getting a small house in Wintermoor. It took months to gain houses and sometimes a year just to make contact. We had gotten almost all the houses in wintermoor but one...it was a small but it was tough to get. It was owned by a very young girl from China who could not speak english very well at all. It was the last house we did not own and we wanted it greatly. We had finally gotten someone to talk to her and tell her we would offer $100 USD for the house. She agreed but had no idea how to get the money (she was only like 14 years old and paypal etc wasn't even around then). I had to talk to my bank, who got a Chinese translator for me, who called the mother of the child in china to do a wire transfer into the Hong Kong account of the mother for the mother to give the money to the child to get the house. Thus, after a $100 wire transfer, $40 translation fees, and $20 wire transfer and phone charge, Wintermoor had it's last small it needed. The point of all this was that everything had a story, and none of this was a 'walk in the park'. It took many people helping to get everything accomplished and countless hours of time of mine and my wife's.

So, to sum up everything very quickly. I am not leaving UO, and I am NOT selling the museums. The rumors are incorrect, and I believe the person who is even claiming to be selling Wintermoor is named like 'Marie' or something??? I love this game, and continue to put forth effort into the UO Community Websites such as www.UORares.com I have a lot of great memories of this game, and I'm not sure I can put a price tag on that or ever let it go.

Sincerely,
Xanthar of the Museum
Mayor of Wintermoor
UO Rares Designer
Camelot Computers, Inc - President

That was taken from here.

 

[JC the Builder]

For the third time in its history, the former city of Wintermoor has suffered a great tragedy. A couple months ago the entire collection of rare items, spanning into the dozens, was confiscated by OSI (now known as EAMythic). Let me give a brief summary of what happened.

Xanthar decided to sell a couple rare items to continue paying for his remaining two accounts which hold the Wintermoor Museums. These museums are the last buildings left from the former city of Wintermoor. Because Xanthar has not played UO since the Age of Shadow expansion, he once again delegated his long to friend and business partner Vas. More on their relationship later.

The problems begin here. Vas also did not play UO much anymore. So the item sales were once again subcontracted to a very bad person that most people know by the name Golrath. Unfortunately, Golrath has been perma-banned from playing UO. I am not sure whether Vas knew of this. It doesn't really matter.

Anyway, Golrath goes and advertises an auction for all the items. There was a posting here on Stratics which has been removed to the moderator-only board. You can find one of his listings here. Golrath was only contracted to manage the auction. He was never in possession of the items. But somehow OSI learned it was him (probably by everyone saying it was, including me) and decided to suspend the account that held the keep and items.

Now this was an unexpected turn of events. I was already in the process of talking to Xanthar about what was happening. He didn't know who this Golrath guy was and said he would talk to Vas. At that moment however, OSI had taken action. We began trying to contact OSI about it but got no where. A couple days later the Keep began decaying. It also became open to the public and everyone could see it was now completely empty of items. The Keep fell a couple days later, Vas's friends managed to place it again. It still sits empty to this day.

For weeks there was a bunch of attempts to get OSI to explain why they did what they did. All of them have ended in failure. I received final word today that the issue is closed, they are "satisfied" with their reasoning and the decision is "final". They refuse to explain what that reasoning is. So I can only assume it was this: A perma-banned player had possession of some items and his account was terminated.

Obviously, what OSI has done is very wrong. Sadly, this is actually the third time it has happened which is why this topic is titled "the long and sorrowed history of Wintermoor". A combination of game changes and gamemaster intervention has caused a lot of heartache. I originally planned on writing about both aspects but I am only going to stick to the gamemaster interference side for right now.

Back when Seers still did blessings, they gave the Wintermoor Museums a couple. Some wooden walls and counter tops were added. About a year before the Age of Shadows expansion, a gamemaster was at one of the museums and saw the special walls. He thought the owner had used an exploit to obtain them and proceeded to suspend all of Xanthar's accounts. That must have been a lot of work for him considering there were over 30. Fortunately, Xanthar was still well connected and able to get things fixed within a week.

The second incident occurred a few months after AOS release. Someone claimed to be selling the entire Wintermoor city and this caused an uproar in the community. It was mostly about how the museums were blessed and you are not supposed to sell buildings with blessings. Gamemasters were directed to remove the blessings. What happened next was unbelievable. Both museums looked like they had been pillaged by an angry mob. Every single rare item was taken. In fact, the GMs missed some of the blessings. It was just madness.

Once again, the situation was able to be corrected due. But not without a price. Some items were never returned and Xanthar did not play UO enough to follow up on it. This was the major downfall of the current situation also. Xanthar never gave Vas permission to take the items out of the museums. He didn't even know they were moved until I told him a couple weeks ago. I really wish Stratics had all the postings from what happened but those are gone. What I do have to present you all is the very long and detailed account by Xanthar himself. It is even longer then this topic is going to be. In it, Xanthar gives some history of Wintermoor and explains how the whole thing went down. He then throws in some interesting tidbits towards the end. One of my favorites is how one of his guild members helped stopped hackers from bringing down the shards. Here is an excerpt:

If I remember correctly is was near the end of 1999 and OSI was having a lot of problems with their servers going down. They were getting hacked and people were very upset (It's funny to see how people get upset when a server goes down for a few minutes now - sometimes we used to see Atlantic go down for days). Anyway, one of my guild members, his name was Mitragorn was from Russia and worked with a team of computer programmers who did 'anti-hacking'. He emailed OSI and to his surprise, Lord British himself contacted him back. He called him on the phone in Russia and Mitragorn explained to Lord British that him and his friends could try to 'hack' into the system and assist in helping on how to block such hack attempts. Lord British agreed and thanked him for the assistance and they hit it off very well. Being a guild member, he had told us this story and we listened in earnist. Anyway, apparently the information really did help and Lord British (Richard Garriot) was very happy. Although Mitragorn did not ask for anything, Lord British asked to meet Mitragorn ingame and offered a few tokens of thanks.

At this point it looks to be the end of Wintermoor. It began with Trammel and most of the people moving away. It continued with the Age of Shadows, the game being turned upside-down for the city's mayor. Then Xanthar had to have most of the city torn down when he could not afford to spend $350 a month to maintain an empty city (in total, Xanther has sunk over $10,000 in EA's coffers through UO alone). Thus, every building except the two museums were redeeded and made way for 4 keeps and a castle. The last chapters appear to be of the rare collection being confiscated by OSI without a proper explanation.

If this happened just over 6 months ago it might have turned out differently. Just another casualty of the transition over to EAMythic. Oh well.

The end.

 

[RenaLynne]

I dont know anything bout you, the buildings, or the the rares but it seems to me if this was bull why would you incite people by creating a fake auction list? You must of wanted people to think that you has these items and the buildings were a gift from EA, unless youre just an attention(you know what). Ultimately, I dont feel sorry for you, seems like you brought it on yourself, for whatever reason.

 

[smip]

I remember when Wintermoor came to life. It certainly was not in your hands nor do I remember you even being around during that time... The orriginal Wintermoor was on Ice Island. I didn't even read through the rest of your thread but I'll try as I post...

I do remember when Xanthar's accounts got banned, then reinstated after a fuirous fight for his honor. But by that time, alot of his houses fell already. (I still have his ICQ as my son and I did ALOT of tradeing with him and even contributed a few server births to the museums)

At any rate, Some of Xanthars stuff was NOT supposed to be sold because they were GM blessed items and so was his houses. If you remember right... back then if your house was GM blessed you agree not to sell your house or items, so when you say that things were transfered to your care, that would have been a huge NONO as it went against the agreement that Xanthar made when his houses were GM blessed.

Personally, I think ALL the museum stuff should be deleted as per agrement back then of not transfering or selling items. I'm sorry to have seen MOST of the rares gone back then and the rest.. well, we are all going to have to remember in our minds and hopfully some pics that we took of the museum back then.. (I have a bunch on my zip disk that I think I'll pull out sometime this month to share)...

You nor anyone else had permission from any GM to take over the items and houses I'm sorry to say. Xanthar is gone... and so is his hard work that he put into intertaining us. Back then Wintermoor was about the only safe place that you can go without being PK'd. It's gone. Get over it. Nobody can do what Xanthar did. He was well missed and still is.

 

[Sunrise]

My friend I understand the love you have for your shard and the time and money invested into this silly game.

I do have to say the stuff you have bring back memories of different shards and rares I can only dream about.

Tho my only concern is this. Lets say EA decides tomorrow or heck next year to pull the plug. Thats it. Its gone. the fun is over. etc etc.

we have our musuem on Napa also. Its great. I cant tell you how many drool stains are all over that floor from me alone.

But seriously tho. Dont let other pixles get ya down. who cares what other people think its a game.

I do feel the same for you with the passion of the game. But if it did end..Would you seriously be ok with that? thats all.

 

[JC the Builder]

I dont know anything bout you, the buildings, or the the rares but it seems to me if this was bull why would you incite people by creating a fake auction list? You must of wanted people to think that you has these items and the buildings were a gift from EA, unless youre just an attention(you know what).

Because this wasn't going away. And rather than let it drag on I decided to push the whole thing along to a faster conclusion. They already claimed that I was selling the items, so what better way to get them into a fury then a secret auction? Also I only created the page and passed the link on to one of "them". They are the ones who spread it all over, the same way they did with me getting the towers from EA.

I didn't even read through the rest of your thread but I'll try as I post...

You should have.

I do remember when Xanthar's accounts got banned, then reinstated after a fuirous fight for his honor. But by that time, alot of his houses fell already.

None of the houses fell as a result of that banning. You are probably referring to when all of Wintermoor was replaced by Keeps and a Castle, except for the two museums. That was intentional. Xanthar didn't want to pay upkeep on the dozens of accounts anymore. Especially after they switched to the new payment system. He was paying $3 more per account per month.

At any rate, Some of Xanthars stuff was NOT supposed to be sold because they were GM blessed items and so was his houses. If you remember right... back then if your house was GM blessed you agree not to sell your house or items, so when you say that things were transfered to your care, that would have been a huge NONO as it went against the agreement that Xanthar made when his houses were GM blessed.

You are correct that you are not allowed to sell blessed establishments. The only blessed buildings are the two museums which have never been sold. All items in the museums (except for the wooden walls and bar tables) were collected by Xanthar himself. They were not given to him by any GM and were his to do what he wished.

You nor anyone else had permission from any GM to take over the items and houses I'm sorry to say.

Blessed buildings can be transferred as long as they are not sold, as I already explained. There were never any loose items from a GM, just the few static decorations in the museums.

 

[Amathist of PoC]

I just read all that and sorry to say but it seems your "jokes" brought this on yourself. You may have found it funny but given this is a text base community no one can hear inflection in your voice or see your face so they take your words at face value.

Wether or not your speaking the truth now or you spoke the trueth then you brought it on yourself sorry. And very sorry if all that history gets lost because you decided to "joke" and stir people up.

 

[feath]

JC, i've noticed you're being stalked over the forums. i've noticed the books scattered around luna, saying things that were supposed to be coming from you, but were very obviously not - and i noticed the bogus 'auction' you had up. i'm not even one of the people 'in the know' of the situation, but its clearly a case of stalking and harassment. griefing, if you will. myself, i put the person that was stalking you on ignore, it was so hate filled.
stalking, harassment and griefing are against UO rules, and i have no idea why they haven't been banned.

 

[JC the Builder]

JC, i've noticed you're being stalked over the forums. i've noticed the books scattered around luna, saying things that were supposed to be coming from you, but were very obviously not - and i noticed the bogus 'auction' you had up. i'm not even one of the people 'in the know' of the situation, but its clearly a case of stocking and harassment. griefing, if you will. myself, i put the person that was stalking you on ignore, it was so hate filled.
stalking, harassment and griefing are against UO rules, and i have no idea why they haven't been banned.

Thanks. We have tried to get a GM several times to come look at the books, but the current way the harassment paging system is setup does not allow it. We have never been able to get a GM to respond properly to this unique situation.

 

[Harb]

Thank you. Well put together. Best to all involved on the "upside" of this! From my experiences in game and out with OSI, then EA, and now Mythic, nothing at all here sounds unusual in the least. Sorry parts of the history were lost. Only thing JC, public image can falter when complete history/ intent/ contributions are not known, and few reading know details as have been presented here. But again, sincere thanks for the post, and your site!

 

[Amathist of PoC]

I posted twice to try and clear this up on Stratics. The first was on the Atlantic forum, which they ignored. The second time it got deleted when they cleared a ton of posts out of my banning topic. Saying I brought this on myself in any way is wrong.

I do not think so you are at least in some part to blame - if you had not "joked" in the first place about EA giving you the accounts and then about the auction they would of had nothing to respond to.

As I said what ever the truth is you are in part responsible for this out come yourself.

 

[Maplestone]

(mid-sentence quote)

I have received a 24 hour UO suspension

Hi JC - I just wanted to apologize for what I said in one of the locked threads doubting you about this (and apologize to anyone who trusted my opinion). I'm sorry.

 

[JC the Builder]

Maplestone, I am sure a lot of people were confused and were led to believe what the antagonists were saying about me. I don't hold it against anyone. The only people who are responsible are the ones who have been constantly bringing this up and started the whole mess in the first place. When finally someone from EA replied this evening that the towers were transferred legally, then I could explain the entire situation. But I couldn't before that because there would have always been doubts.

 

[Cear Dallben Dragon]

you da man jc.
hang in there.

 

[smip]

I'm not going to argue with you. I know what I know. My son and I held some items for him when his accts did got banned. And yes.. a few houses DID fall. I know. I was there. I fought for his honor too by writing to EA to voice my oppinion... however small it was..

This stuff is not yours. It was Atlantics the day the GM blessed his houses.... once they are gone.. they are gone. You nor anyone else has any busniss selling anything from those museums. PERIOD. I have no pitty for you.. Sorry.

I am going to attempt to contact Xanthar and hopefully he will put his oppinion here to end this issue. As I said, I hope all the stuff gets deleted. Wintermoor is no more and never will be.

As I said... I am going to attempt to contact Xanthor and see if he will visit us once more to put an end to this garbage. Hopefully he still checks his ICQ.

 

[kendalldcfan]

I have read all of the previous post, as I have to much free time on my hands at work. I really do not care about pixels in this game anymore. I have just came back to UO after a five year leave. At one time I cared about pixels I sold my two accounts and items for thousands of dollars in early 2002. Now it is just something to do to pass the time. I know i will never have hundreds of millions of gold on this game, and I am fine with that.
That being said, when I started reading these post I knew nothing about you or the people that obviosly do not like you. I recently joined your guild and shorly after that started seeing all these post about this situation. Honestly at first glance I believed the things I read, because even though you denied it you would never answer your old guild mates post and explain the situation. Then you posted the fake autcion. I wished I would have never goined Hot becaue of guilty by association. In my opinion you made your entire guild look bad and owe them an apology. Maybe the people close to you new the truth, maybe if my schedule was so busy Icould have spent more time in guild activitys and would have know the truth.
It was not the fact that you were getting the pixels that bothered me. The fact that Ea may have given a person items that would have been available to anyone when the house collapsed did. You are to blame for some of this.

 

[smip]

Maplestone, I am sure a lot of people were confused and were led to believe what the antagonists were saying about me. I don't hold it against anyone. The only people who are responsible are the ones who have been constantly bringing this up and started the whole mess in the first place. When finally someone from EA replied this evening that the towers were transferred legally, then I could explain the entire situation. But I couldn't before that because there would have always been doubts.

When you say "legally" Legal as in he put the transfer papers and the 25 bucks paid to OSI... errrr EA to "legally" transfer the accounts?? I'm shooting from the hip here but I HIGHLY doubt that, that was done.

 

[Harb]

This stuff is not yours.

Smip, my read on this is that nothing was ever being sold. It appears to have been an effort to determine "source," a link sent to a single person to determine if that person would publicize it. I looked again before responding, thats my interpretation for what it's worth Now, one can question the strategy, and I suspect most question the result, but it appears there was no vile intent!

 

[Chaosy]

I feel bad for your situation, but maybe you should take this as a lesson to be serious when it matters instead of trying to joke everything aside all the time.

 

[JC the Builder]

This stuff is not yours. It was Atlantics the day the GM blessed his houses.... once they are gone.. they are gone. You nor anyone else has any busniss selling anything from those museums. PERIOD. I have no pitty for you.. Sorry.

I've never sold anything and never had any intention of selling anything.

I am going to attempt to contact Xanthar and hopefully he will put his oppinion here to end this issue.

I don't know if Xanthar would want to bother with all this. He did during the incident last year and several times before. I can ask if he wants to comment if you wish.

I recently joined your guild and shorly after that started seeing all these post about this situation. Honestly at first glance I believed the things I read, because even though you denied it you would never answer your old guild mates post and explain the situation. Then you posted the fake autcion. I wished I would have never goined Hot becaue of guilty by association.

I made it very clear in our guild voice chat a couple times what this situation was. I think I even made a reply on our private guild forum. Since I don't know what your guild name is I can't verify if you actually heard my replies.

When you say "legally" Legal as in he put the transfer papers and the 25 bucks paid to OSI... errrr EA to "legally" transfer the accounts?? I'm shooting from the hip here but I HIGHLY doubt that, that was done.

The accounts were not transferred via the official UO service. I don't even know why you are bringing this up. That service is only necessary if there is an issue of trust. If Xanthar wants his accounts back at any time he can have them. When I said legally transferred, I was referring to EA's comment that the house was transferred via standard game mechanics without any Gamemaster intervention.

 

[JC the Builder]

Let me reply to this here instead of the other topic.

Several points that prove your statement false.

1. The Sheperds Crook and Tree Ornament Jewelry are normal locked down...and the jewelry has been moved.

2. The Magical Doors on the front house were falling almost under the stairs...yet are movable with a House placement tool as Link has since then moved them....they are indeed movable.

3. The only items that cannot be moved are the two story statues...as they are the only items without a "locked down" next to their name in the entire house.

4. I know all of this because when they were Fairly worn...I put Gift of Life on myself and then killed myself and walked inside the houses and ressed up and walked through them.

There were over 12 chests in each house with 70+ items in each chest.

Yeah, I bet all those items were unmovable.

The tree ornament jewelry are my own I think. Last year when I was first given the towers I re-decorated them with items I had. The Shepard's Crook was always there and not mine.

The magical doors can not be picked up. I simply locked them down and used an interior decorator to raise them. They become unlocked after server up.

The chests just have odds and ends. Half of it is plain old furniture. One is full of 300th anniversary wands, bottles and globes. There was a bag of 50 colored NPC sandals (anyone remember those?). Since it seems to be your biggest concern, the most valuable stuff were a couple dozen valentine cards.

 

[kendalldcfan]

My character in HOT is Bella Noches as I said I am very busy Irl. I work in sales and the summer is a busy time for me. I did not have enough space to finish my post. Basically my message to you is you have to be careful how you stir the pot. I really do not know you as i am sure many people on these forums do not. Yes you denied the situation but you kept stirring the pot.
Irl I love to stir the pot. I am that person that always plays jokes on people. The difference is I play jokes on people i know well and that know where I stand on certain issues. If you care about this game and these forums as I think you do. You have to be mature enough to realize that you were not only talking smack to former guild mates gone bad. You were decieving people that may not know you as a jokester and do not know when you are talking smack to people. As i said I care nothing about the pixels or who gets them. I do not want to pay to play a game if the moderators of the game do things that are wrong. In this case I do not think that happened. I do believe your explanation. My point is if you wanted this squashed you should have not kept it going. Link you brought the suspension and the warnings on yourself. You are good for this game but you handled this wrong. If you do the crime you have to do the time.

 

[smip]

I don't know if Xanthar would want to bother with all this. He did during the incident last year and several times before. I can ask if he wants to comment if you wish.


The accounts were not transferred via the official UO service. I don't even know why you are bringing this up. That service is only necessary if there is an issue of trust. If Xanthar wants his accounts back at any time he can have them. When I said legally transferred, I was referring to EA's comment that the house was transferred via standard game mechanics without any Gamemaster intervention.

I'll ICQ him myself and see if he answers thank you. I like getting stuff straight from the horses mouth.

As far as transfers... YES they are ALL supposed to be LEGALLY transfered in this manner in order for you to claim ownership to any account...

Many times on the stratics boards I have agreed with you... sometimes not.. but most of the time I have... But in this situation I can't and don't have any pity for you. I respected Xanthar for what he did.. and his last ICQ to me was he just could not stand any more and wanted out. He never intended for anyone to take his place. If the GM's want to leave the establishment open to the public then so be it..... It has never been done before. There are 2 towers there that CLAIM to be Xanthars old ones... Only one of them looks like it was the orriginal one.. I'll have to compare pictures for myslef from old pics taken from events long ago.... And I do remember the coloumbs that is on the roof of one of the towers... while everyone else was getting banned and/or those deleted.. he got to keep his... there they still stand. I remember giving one of those things to him.. now if one of those were my old ones or if he got those himself.. I dunno.. but like I said.. Xanthar is gone.. So should the rest of the stuff unless EA keeps a bit of the past open to us.... but I highly doubt that, that will happen as we watched some of the oldest player run towns go one after the other... why should Wintermoor be any different.. and I DO say that with a heavy heart.

I also want to add.. that when or IF you ever get the WRITTEN transfer to your name.. LEGALLY... then and only then will I PROBABLY support you.

 

[DVI]

I'm sorry Jc. You have my support infrequent as it is these days.

 

[Thangorodrim]

So, you are dissembling and prevaricating again or you are an artful and odious troll who instigated and then exacerbated this sad little drama at every opportunity.

Either way, it reflects poorly on you.

 

[Dol'Gorath]

JC just post a pic of the empty keeps so people can shut up about the "billions of EA gave you"

 

[D'Amavir]

I also want to add.. that when or IF you ever get the WRITTEN transfer to your name.. LEGALLY... then and only then will I PROBABLY support you.

Just as a point of clarification, it is not illegal to transfer an account without used the Account Access Transfer program. Just that EA will not be able to manage disputes that may arise because of this transfer.

 

[Halister Marner]

I figured that was what happened with the towers, as I remember you mentioning it, but all this misinformation had me confused. It would have been easy enough to look up had the old Stratics posts been around.

I completely empathize with your situation, as someone in a public role in UO, one tends to be under greater scrutiny and attract alot of unwarranted hatred.

As far as Stratics goes, the situation was probably left too long, and it got rather out of hand. You know how people can be here when they smell blood.

I'm glad it's all cleared up now, at least it may jog the memories of EA and prompt them to at least get the collection displayed somewhere instead of being in limbo.

If not, I still wish you luck on setting up and decorating the towers.

 

[Glim Gerrack]

So I read most of the threads involving this topic and I would like to say it was great. It had everything, comedy, excitement, revenge, plot twists, and a full circle "happy" ending. You cant make up events like this, thanks JC!

-Glim

 

[Doomsday Dragon]

Due to the actions of people who nothing short of hate and despise me, thus far I have received a 24 hour UO suspension and now a formal Stratics forum warning. Please keep that in mind.

And this is not anyone's fault but your own. Please keep that in mind.

Not that you care you started another thread about this after the last was closed and I can only assume you intend to start more drama as that is the only thing that can come of opening another thread about this subject.

 

[Sheridan]

It is only because of what the explanations above mean to the overall community that this thread stands in its entirety, despite its numerous violations of the Rules of Conduct. Specifically, those rules pertaining to accusations and discussion of Moderator actions... Removing any of the posts made thus far for their violations of the Rules of Conduct would render this entire thread useless and would defeat its original purpose, so they'll stand in an effort to bring closure to this issue.

Please bear in mind that from this point forward in the thread, the RoC will be strictly enforced. The very nature of the thread warrants it. No more accusations... No more trolling... No more personal attacks... No more discussion of locked/removed posts or threads please. Thank you.

 

[AmanitaMuscaria]

I just read all that and sorry to say but it seems your "jokes" brought this on yourself. You may have found it funny but given this is a text base community no one can hear inflection in your voice or see your face so they take your words at face value.

Wether or not your speaking the truth now or you spoke the trueth then you brought it on yourself sorry. And very sorry if all that history gets lost because you decided to "joke" and stir people up.

Thank you. This is just it. I couldn't sense the "humor" in his BARE TEXT post on his boards that ignited this whole situation. And the "fake" auction and website was just, well, creepy. Talk about throwing gasoline on the fire!

I have questioned JC vigorously, but it was good natured. I sincerely respect JC and all the work he does on the UO Guide website. And, yes, I was upset that I was unfairly kicked from HOT. But I would have questioned anyone the same way about a situation like this.

Lim questioned him just as vigorously and people can't all pawn that off on "bad blood." I was upset and this situation and I think it's pretty clear why. But I wasn't the only one. So, let's not write this off as a "personal attack" in disguise. I guarantee it would have been the same had it been anyone else who stirred the pot like that.

I hope he can respect that. And the Atlantic community as well. I don't post much and you can say I was "trolling," but this is just the only thing that I've ever been motivated to write about. Sorry if that makes me look bad. I'm a man of few words.

-AManita

 

[Spiffykeen]

I haven't posted much since the big board crash, but I've been following this whole travesty from the Atl board on over to here. It really has just been goofy. Now, I don't know JC personally, but when his museum outside of Zento fell subject to bizarre game mechanics, I actually happened upon it before everything disappeared. I knew of JC from the boards, and I'd visited his museum many times, I knew he was an okay guy.... still a pvp'er, but okay all the same I managed to contact him and give him the stuff back, and even though it was some primo stuff, I didn't regret it. I figured some way or another he'd set up again, and it would be back out there for the community.

But back to the pvp'er comment... EVERYBODY knows one, you've all heard trash talk between them. When pvp'ers go at it, it's no holds barred. You can only do so much clicking to kill each other before you must move on to other avenues of belittlement (is that a word?) So when we look at the fake auction in that context, is it really so strange? It just seems like Uhall is in Torch and Pitchfork mode lately.... what I really think would help is some new content, but thats another ballgame entirely. It's the dog days of summer people, go someplace cool and have a beverage of your choice...

and to JC, I read your entire post, along with the two others, and I knew most of it already, but the parts I did not know reassured me. Anyone else replying, who failed to read the main posts in their entirety, don't be trolls if you're not going to read, you certainly don't lend yourself any credibility by doing so.

and I'm done, and IBTL (hopefully not)

 

[smip]

Maplestone, I am sure a lot of people were confused and were led to believe what the antagonists were saying about me. I don't hold it against anyone. The only people who are responsible are the ones who have been constantly bringing this up and started the whole mess in the first place. When finally someone from EA replied this evening that the towers were transferred legally, then I could explain the entire situation. But I couldn't before that because there would have always been doubts.

Please point me to the thread where an EA rep said the towers were transfered legally...

 

[D'Amavir]

Please point me to the thread where an EA rep said the towers were transfered legally...

I would imagine that if they didnt use the account transfer program then the only person that can confirm if they were legally transfered is this Xanthar fella.

 

[NuSair]

Thanks. We have tried to get a GM several times to come look at the books, but the current way the harassment paging system is setup does not allow it. We have never been able to get a GM to respond properly to this unique situation.

Actually, it's not all that unique. It happened last year to Pandora and Witchblade of TnF, it was really sad to see that weeks and weeks of such harassment was met with a wall at EA.

 

[Sheridan]

Please point me to the thread where an EA rep said the towers were transfered legally...

The post in question found here:

Hello Everyone!

EA Mythic did not “gift” this particular property to any individual.

The specifics regarding this property are not matters for public record. However, I would like to remind everyone that there are legitimate ways to save IDOC-status houses and transfer them to other players that do not include intervention from GMs.

Take care!

~Kilandra~
EA Mythic
[URL="http://www.uo.com"]www.uo.com[/URL]

It wasn't a direct statement of legality, but rather a confirmation that EA/Mythic did not give away the property in question. As JC explained, he transferred the homes to other accounts.

 

[JC the Builder]

Please point me to the thread where an EA rep said the towers were transfered legally...

Here you go:

http://vboards.stratics.com/showpost.php?p=815113&postcount=120

But back to the pvp'er comment... EVERYBODY knows one, you've all heard trash talk between them. When pvp'ers go at it, it's no holds barred.

That may hold true for some people but it doesn't for me. I almost never talk during or after PVP. Just post summaries and other points on our guild forum. I think this is was ticks a lot of people off who don't like me. I can get ganked by 10 people and just shrug the entire thing off. As soon as I die I am heading to the nearest resurrection point. Likewise, I generally don't say anything when I kill someone and extremely rarely taunt them.

I have questioned JC vigorously, but it was good natured.

....

Lim questioned him just as vigorously

No you didn't and he didn't either.

Not that you care you started another thread about this after the last was closed and I can only assume you intend to start more drama as that is the only thing that can come of opening another thread about this subject.

I never wanted any of this. I just wanted to keep a couple of towers from collapsing by transferring them. What is wrong with that? I will be glad if this topic is the end of it.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

Please point me to the thread where an EA rep said the towers were transfered legally...

Please, dear god, get a brain. Double-click house sign. Go to ownership. Go to transfer ownership. Click target. Legal transfer.

You don't need an EA rep to explain to you how a very simple game function is performed.

And yes, blessed buildings can be transferred to new owners, as long as said new owner continues to abide by whatever rules were in place that cover the rules of ownership. However, given that the blessings have already been removed, I seriously doubt ANY of those rules still apply.

Don't believe me? Fine. I only know of a particular keep on Great Lakes that changed hands. And you know what? It's perfectly legal.

Get.

Over.

It.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

I would imagine that if they didnt use the account transfer program then the only person that can confirm if they were legally transfered is this Xanthar fella.

Clearly JC has access to the accounts. Unless Xanthar comes flying out and claims they were stolen, AND has some explanation for who's been paying for the accounts recently, et cetera, there's not going to be an issue either.

I personally have two accounts that were passed to me after friends and fellow guildmates of mine left the game. They were given to me LONG before EA even had an account transfer system.

Guess what. They're mine.

But just as JC said about Xanthar, if either player came back and wanted their accounts back, there'd be zero fight from me over it. That's what happens when you trust someone because you know them from outside of the game.

 

[MolaRom]

Here you go:


I never wanted any of this. I just wanted to keep a couple of towers from collapsing by transferring them. What is wrong with that? I will be glad if this topic is the end of it.

why did u make a fake auction to incite people? you wanted it, man... you just got more than you can chew.

 

[D'Amavir]

Clearly JC has access to the accounts. Unless Xanthar comes flying out and claims they were stolen, AND has some explanation for who's been paying for the accounts recently, et cetera, there's not going to be an issue either.

I personally have two accounts that were passed to me after friends and fellow guildmates of mine left the game. They were given to me LONG before EA even had an account transfer system.

Guess what. They're mine.

But just as JC said about Xanthar, if either player came back and wanted their accounts back, there'd be zero fight from me over it. That's what happens when you trust someone because you know them from outside of the game.

I agree. I don't doubt that JC optained the accounts legally. If not, I expect we would have seen Xanthar on here complaining about them being stolen. My point was only that EA themselves won't be able to make a statement about the legality of the transfer since they apparently didn't use the account transfer program. But, that in and of itself does not make the transfer illegal.

I guess we are saying the same thing more or less. Just wanted to be sure that it didn't seem as if I was questioning the legality of an account transfer.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

I guess we are saying the same thing more or less. Just wanted to be sure that it didn't seem as if I was questioning the legality of an account transfer.

Got it. Sorry if any of my post came off a bit hostile -- don't think it did, but apologies anyway if it did.

This whole thing's just been one big mess, and while yeah, maybe the fake auction wasn't in the best taste, I could see being driven to the point of doing it just to see what kind of reaction the people on the Salem Witch Hunt bandwagon would have had to it.

In the end, it's pretty obvious what's been going on, and that a vocal minority are doing their best to push buttons and smear names... and pretty well getting away with it. I'm not even on Atlantic, but this whole mess has been unique.

 

[UltimaSword]

Some people in this thread are taking this all way to seriously and putting to much emotion into it.

 

[MolaRom]

Some people in this thread are taking this all way to seriously and putting to much emotion into it.

we pay money for this game every month. its an emotional game.

 

[JC the Builder]

why did u make a fake auction to incite people? you wanted it, man... you just got more than you can chew.

You should go read the full version of the events if you want the answer. The auction was started only after continued harassment via the rares forum. The auction was clearly fake but not to those who wanted to believe that there was a conspiracy.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

Regarding the use of verbal sarcasm;

Did any of you who were having problems with it actually read that auction listing?

If I thought for a moment I could get that much money out of some of those items, I'd go down the Luna central right this instant and buy them for the pocket change they're usually sold for. I'd put them up on vendors of my own at "JC's premium rate" and wait for a sale.

I'd be waiting a while now, wouldn't I?

Just because JC has been known to state the absurd with a "straight face" does not make it his fault when you believe it. Absurdity is absurdity. Nor should this be held against him; given some of the comments that have been aimed directly at him over the last few days.

Heck, one individual even posted his "concerns" about the auction site containing viruses with which to attack our computers. Come on, people. JC wasn't throwing gasoline on the fire, he was tossing in the odd blade of grass. The fire would've burnt quite happily with or without his "help".

 

[MolaRom]

You should go read the full version of the events if you want the answer. The auction was started only after continued harassment via the rares forum. The auction was clearly fake but not to those who wanted to believe that there was a conspiracy.

that's just foolish. if i was on fire would you throw gas one me "just because"?

i never saw a personal attack against you -- maybe some trolling, but not any personal harassment. all the posts were about rares and the towers and you generated most that buzz with your antics

 

[AesSedai]

- Your story reads as quite plausible, JC.

But surely you have heard about the boy who called wolf.
As you say, you only gave the link to one person; and you likely knew it would be passed-around, if only to 'slander' you.
So don't be too offended when people question your legitimacy (with regards to this specific situation) because, if for nothing else, you knew you were toying with people that would try to make some drama. And you partook in it a bit too.
I like to think your story is the more accurate of the rest.
But ruses can sometimes farce things up.