I was playing on a server at Eternal-Ragnarok for quite a while (about a year). I thought it was great.. friendly people for the most part, nice customs and great rates. However, about a month ago something happened: the server was “hacked”. Well, not really… Someone uploaded a web page which took advantage of bugs within the gallery, which was probably downloaded from a certain website which is known to offer such scripts. Minutes after the page was uploaded, almost every user was asked to ‘verify their information’ for PayPal on this new web page; which I’m guessing sent the information to whomever uploaded the page. As a result, the host was notified and the site was dismantled… or so they say.
My opinion: The host never received anything from anyone or just didn’t bother and the site went down from a ping-timeout. The owner of the site isn’t exactly bright, she goes by the name of Pinky. Oh, and her brother Jin doesn’t know what he is doing either, nor does their “web designer” Letheesan (or however the hell he spells it). You see, the reason why I put web designer in quotation marks is because, well… he isn’t really a web designer. He was some random guy from some forum. He says he knows what he is doing, but in reality he doesn’t. He doesn’t code well, uses stupid Javascript which he downloaded from a site which didn’t know what it was doing, put up the gallery which he downloaded from some website (yeah, the one that was hacked) and last but not least, he didn’t even design the site.
Of course, if you bother telling any of this to Pinky, she throws it off. She thinks she knows what she is doing.
You see, after the website was hacked and pinged out, you would think that the owner (or at least host) would have a backup of the MySQL tables. Nope. OK, what about a backup of the entire ERO server like… on her own computer or Jin’s computer they used to test it on? Nope. No backup whatsoever. OK then, what about all the donation items and money people spent? Well, Pinky claims she doesn’t have that either! What??? PayPal keeps track of that information! Exactly. Pinky is a liar and a fraud.
So anyway, they decided to move the server to a new website: HeliosRO. Yes, it has the exact same design, and the exact same coding as before. Oh, and Letheesan is sharing the host with her.
So what changed? Well, everyone starts back at level 1, with no donation items (weee!!! Pinky gets more money from faithfuls who enjoyed the last and are too ignorant to know what she has done), and of course, the rates are different. And of course there will be a second server, which Letheesan will take care of. So two different people are taking care of two completely different severs yet sharing the same hosting setup. Yeah, that’ll go over well.
My recommendation:
Stay away from HeliosRO and demand for your money back. They have it and all the information. It’s almost impossible for them not to. They are bad hosts and have no idea what they are doing when it comes to web programming, design or customer service. Let them know!
Edit 10/31/07: First off, I’m surprised that this is the first GMs from HeliosRO have responded to this page. It was originally written over a month and a half ago and has ranked for [HeliosRO] since that day.
Secondly, I will address what is being said in the comments.
Many of the GMs on eRO were kind and there were some nice people on the server, no doubt. The administrators had application forms for those who wished to be a GM, then through whatever qualifications they thought needed to be had, the best was selected. Some of the times it didn’t work, others it did –- much like any job or internship.
No, I shouldn’t have pointed out Pinky the way I had and kept the conversation as general as possible; however, at the time being, she was the most recognized administrator. Using her name was not meant to be an attack on the person, but the administration as a whole.
The argument about the donations still stands in most ways. Yes, the word donation means giving for a certain cause without gaining anything in return. However, something was given in return as an incentive to ‘donate’. How many of the people who donated still would have without gaining items in return? Yes, there would still be a few, but many would not have. At the very least, they would not have donated a set amount. But in the minds of many players, it is as if they went to Wal-Mart and bought a new PC game, then it was taken away after a month (in some cases, a week or a day) with no refunds. One guy donated 300 euros and didn’t receive anything in return. Why? The administration knew exactly who donated, even if the emails were lost for God knows why.
Maybe the server was shut down as well as PayPal. However, that does not excuse the lack of database backups. In most cases a database backup is one single click. Many hosts tell their clients to backup everyday, even if their hosting package does include host backups. So yes, that is the fault of the administration and everything could have been fixed in a matter of minutes if that was the case. Backups wouldn’t have been up-to-date perhaps, but the roll-back would have only been 24 hours tops. Everyone would have gotten their gear back, and it would be forgotten by now.
The donation items could have easily been given back without a database backup. What about forwarded emails from the users who donated or some other proof?
Even if everything I said was complete bull-monarky and meant nothing as if I know nothing about servers or emails or “donations”, this conversation would still take place because of lack of answers. The poorest job of all was the lack of details after the event. The website was shut-down, but word-of-mouth travels fast, especially in a small community as eRO was.
Least of all, this is what you should expect when something like this happens. This is a blog, I write how I feel on subjects. People who lose money in some way is important, and without explanation it is indeed fishy. Either way, criticism should be expected.
If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to Chicken Camels RSS.
Articles you might enjoy:
Finally an update!
Maple Story Response
HeliosRO is not good server i played 1 week on this server and i can say. The GM’s are bad they cant realy help if you have a problem.
I have not been playing on HeliosRO for very long, though I did play it back before this supposed “hacking”. I had wasted my money on donates then, but at least that time I received them. Having read these two reviews and having had Pinky be down right rude to me while I was inquiring about not receiving my donation items this time around, I’m leaving, and recommending to all of my friends, to never go there. These people don’t deserve my money, or anybody else’s.
Great players, terrible administration.
Well HeliosRO.com is Great people who talk about a great Server, then recommends ppl not to go there should keep all their hatered to their selves. Then disliking an admin, who put all her power and hard work into making the server happen for good players to come play and make new friends. Have events & win prizes. Look on the bright side the person your talking about which is my friend pinky, Trying to make heliosRO a better server.
All the staff members are nice. Its just the way you treat us. If you show respect and be nice. You get respect back.
Join HeliosRO. Its Not like what it was before. Everything change =P
Actually, the donations were swiped clean so everyone had a fresh start, do you even know what a Donation means? It is not a tool to pay and receive, its to donate and support, go look up the word in a dictionary.
As for everyone starting with a clean slate, no matter if they donated everyone started fresh and new to keep it fair. What about the donation money? Well what about the server we bring to you for free? We pay for the server and domains every month with money that comes out of our own pockets and we have created so much content for FREE for everyone to play with. My sprite work alone in the server is exclusive work only made for Twilight/eRO, including the design of the webpage. I was pretty well known in the Ragnarok Spriting world until I decided to retire from public spriting works and decided to do them only for our server.
As for backups we had a database backup of the emulator files and scripts, there was no way to backup the accounts from the host since they SHUT US DOWN and NOT PINGED. Proven by an email by the webhoster & paypal about the shutdown of services.
Do we even ask for you to donate again even after all the loss? Hell no point that out to me plz before you talk **** about Pinky because I seriously ****ing hate people who assume who she is before knowing her.
And for all the shit and lies you so call say from Pinky, she does so much work for the server, almost every single day to fix this and that, add new features, its alot of stress so give her some ****ing slack, there’s other staff members on the team for a reason and if your reply was slow then thats because we all actually have a life to be a part of.
I didnt mind at first that you would state your opinion about the server with your thoughts when you didn’t even get all the facts straight, but talking about Pinky and the others specifically? That is not cool.
[edited for cursing]
You were angry when you posted this so you probably said a few things you didn’t mean. I don’t think you should have pointed out specific people just as Puppetsin mentioned in his comments back to you. You can’t judge people when you don’t know them..you never know how hard it is. And maybe your arguement would be “well maybe they shouldn’t play games then” well..maybe but what if that’s all they had? You don’t know that. All the GMs work hard to make the server better for everyone. No one gets special treatment.
Maybe things should have been explained a little better since the whole situation was very chaotic and confusing because everyone was so damned pissed and disconBOBulated about the whole situation. But the whole thing is in the past now and started anew.
Hell I admit I was pretty disappointed that everything I did ingame seemed like a huge waste of time ..but I realized it still gave me a chance to know people and have friends. I still say this is the friendliest server I’ve been to. Of course you can’t be liked by everyone but it’s like we’re one big family ^_^.
Second chances aren’t a bad idea are they? HeliosRO is a whole different server and so a whole new RO life. New everything! So you really shouldn’t compare ERO with Helios because they don’t compare at all. I hope I opened the box of our side a little bit and helped you understand. Just remember that you guys weren’t the only ones that lost everything..it was everyone on the server. Just think of how much time and work effort was lost by the GMs alone o_o; who would just want to toss that away?
You sir are a morron. You don’t even know what you are talking about are you? Please, for the love of curiosity, explain to me where in the world you come up with such retarded exlaination “site went down from a ping-timeout”? LOL!
What really happened:
Some idiot abused the exploit in the attachment feature of Invision Power Board (which was not our fault, we all should point our fingers at IPB) and started to email everyone linking to the fake paypal email on purpose. Ofcourse, the host always monitor every emai that goes out and they saw this and shut us down immediately without explaining anything.
We contacted them immediately and asked them what was going on, and they explained to us wat has happened. By that time, the FBI was informed and they instructed our host to shut our server down and wipe our box.
If our server is taken down, then you will not be able to connect to it, hence your “ping time out”. Do you even know what ping is?
Secondly, why are you talking **** about my work? Is it jealousy of some sort? Seem’s like it. I don’t need to tell you or anyone how good i am when it comes to scripting and makin website, i will let them decide for your self. You are a big joke. I bet you are one of those lifeless nerds who lives with their mom till they are 40 in the basment with a fat belly, who cud barely work with all the lard running thuru ur system who has nothing better than ***** at everything they see online. How dare you judge my work? Let’s see what you are capable of doing, please, im dying to see it.
Sad ****er, get a life and get your facts straight.
Calling me a moron when making easy spelling mistakes does not deserve a response besides this, sorry.
Im sorry to tell you but their host was the tricky one, they actually screwed up instead. They didnt even give the server time to clear this misunderstanding. It’s not eROA’s admin’s fault, the truth was discovered later on and they decided to remake the server with a new name and better improvements. So yeah you should think before you talk.
All donators who had their own donation log saved, got a donation discount instead. Nothing else could be done because the old donators information was also totally lost.
Pinky knows whats she is doing at a 100% rate, why? because she revived the server even without enough back ups, she is the Admin and developer of XRay client which is the client that is being used by almost every server on the world now even the biggest ones.
Ji-n is a master brain with scripts and idea developments, if it wasnt for him, ero wouldn’t have started at all.
If they didnt know what they are doing, then HeliosRO wouldnt have even existed now with such a great service and features. The best customized, balanced and fair server i’ve seen so far. *Unlike exalibur or AnimaRO)
HeliosRO is great, the only reason why people (like you) don’t like the server is because this:
1. You cant keep to the comunity rules, which you get jailed/banned for it and hate the gms for it.
2. You dont get free items/buffs from the gms like those other noobish corrupted servers.
3. You cant kiss a gm’s ass, like almsot everyone tries to, specially Pinky, she is a serious admin which doesnt want to be involved with ass kissers. And like she said, on her profie, intro and Guild title, she is nto a support gm, because she is busy with scripts.
Seriously this is the most well ordered and fine server around. Everyone does a good job, HeliosRO is better improved than eROA. They keep adding new projects every month. The staff is new and rules are better than before. So far nothing has ever gone wrong at all! I am happy i found HeliosRO.
I wish i could donate, but i can’t because paypal doesnt support my country.
Sorry for my bad english.
o.o I am a GM on HeliosRO right now and it really isnt all that bad. I agree with some statements made though. Backups should have been made and donation money should have been given back, or at least the items or something. The administration shouldnt ever be rude to people cuz that isnt right and gets people not to play… however, one thing that people do need to take into consideration is that running a server is hard work and alot of time and effort. They cant pay attentiont to everyone at the same time all the time. And when you have like 50 people asking you “where is my donations?!” you tend to get irritated and snap. I am not making up excuses for the rudeness that was given though. I wasnt there when it happened so i cant really judge. All im saying is that i think Helios is a good server (which ever part you play on, i am Latheesan’s* GM) and until i think otherwise, or see any reason why i should leave, then i will do so.
Until then, i agree with some of the comments, You have the right to give your opinion and recommend not to play, since this is how you feel… but you shouldnt go out right Bashing it until you actually play it, meet the people and see for yourself to be ABLE to judge it.
Saki, you are saying eRO shud have kept backup but they DID, it was wiped along with everything when my host decided to Wipe the whole box after being instructed to do so by the FBI. So, what exactly is the point of backup, when we can’t even get hold of it when something goes wrong? The host did everything and THEN they emailed me explaining what has happened…
The backup should be on the administrators PC, not the host. If you are using phpMyAdmin all you do is just login and click on the export tab. You can then select to download it on your own PC.
Dude, people who run server’s are not newbies, get that through your head first. NO ONE anticipated anything like this to happen.
If they weren’t newbies, they would know to have backups on their PC, which you didn’t even seem to realize could happen through your previous posts. You stated that it was impossible to get backups, yet you supposedly knew you could. So either 1) You are incompetent on being a server admin. 2) You just had no idea what you were doing at the time, thus you lied in your previous post. Or 3) A combination of both.
Meh you noobs… This makes me laugh more than anything so far.
Ji-n had the backup of eroa’s files which is how we recovered everything. And i means FILES, not sql accounts/dbs because they got removed from the back-up folder. Ji-n also posted a topic in the forums about being away for a month because his computer was broken.
How easy do you think it is to recover files FROM a broken computer? WoW you must be “god” to recover a broken harddisk. If you cared to read the forums you should know why this happend, but no. It was all related to bad luck that the server + back ups died together.
Lathee has his own server, slyro, which was NOT part of ero. Is this about ero or slyro now? Cant you think about something better to come up with before changing the subjects? Seriously.
Donations? Like that modex guy said, i gave discounts to “all” donators and not the items. Why is that? Because i am not going to give items and have the other donators complaining about it because “their” logs wasn’t saved so they get no items, which is totally unfair for them. So to keep it fair to all of them, 40% discounts were given.
Also, since you seem to be one of those idiots who dont read the donation agreement and guides: ITS A DONATION SYSTEM. AND NOT A SHOP. So yeah, your comments about lossing the donations are just as pointless like you are. If it was a shop, things would be different, but hey? the agreement said (donation).
So please, watch your pointless comments.
Too bad for you, u two are the only ones who think this way. I wonder why? Maybe i shouldnt even worder at all… i might already know why.
A Bad Admin? lol i could become an admin on every server i wanted since thats what every server has been offering me but i reject it cause its dull. XRay is the most wanted project on every private server, i ban ban servers from using it but thats another subject.
A bad admin… do you mean my mood/attitude? If so, yes i agree i am heartless and mean. But hey? it was posted before in my Admin info, i am not a support admin ^_^ so people knew i didnt have time for their questions unless it was related to critical subjects. So this must be why i am a bad admin? lolz.
Good luck with your criticism, because its not getting anywhere anyway…….
OI, as I said before, there is a difference between a backup on the server and a backup on a PC. If his PC was broken for a month or even a day, someone else should have backed it up.
And 40% off is nothing close to full price. Wal-Mart steals PC game, makes you pay 60% of price to get it back. Yeah, you can call it donation all you want. But I’m sure many of your players don’t see it as a donation.
No, if we were illusionists who could see in the future that the backs up PC AND the server were going to die almost on the same time, we would have prevented it.
But hey… thats impossible, unless you were expecting us TO be able to see that? 2 hits on the same month was a big loss to us specially the back ups were new projects were going to be released.
Have you ever asked yourself that? I dont think so.
And 40% discount was enough to everyone WHICH THEY ALL AGREED. And it worked! Because so far, none has ever complained about it. Unlike the complains we would get if the donators with the logs we recovered gained some items and except the rest, which was also asked, and people hated that idea.
We worked so hard and so much to bring everything back alive, and we are still working on a lot of other things.
Can you please go a blog something else somewhere else? This only just makes you look really sad and ungrateful of how hard we’ve worked on these things. For what? so you just can cry about it somewhere else behind our backs.
Come on say, get real!
Dont you know how difficult it is for us to recover something that lays in dust? My paypal account got limited/blocked. What do you think i can do with the donations you ppl sent us? huh? Nothing! because paypal isn’t letting me use the account anymore. So its just a big loss to us like it might have been to you!
Actually, a lot of people have complained about it, just look above and read the comments. I’m not the only person who has talked about this. And no, you wouldn’t have to be an illusionist to do your job by backing up the server like most hosts tell you to do everyday. Hell, you can even buy an external hard-drive which will connect to your host and download it every night at a certain time automatically.
But I guess you are too busy trying to insult me to actually think for a second.
BTW, I have been blogging about something else. If you actually looked at the date, this is an old post. You guys are the ones who won’t get over it. I love how intimidating this is to you guys. You are giving me free visitors, money, and links. This doesn’t bother me one bit, but I’m glad to see it bothers you.
With the admins cursing and calling names, being intimidated, etc. you are the ones who look bad. And the best part? When someone searches for HeliosRO they will see this web page with you two cursing and not knowing that you can backup on your own PC. Great.
HAHAHAHHAHAH THIS IS SO FUNNY
lol ….. if this is true, its horrible.
Helios ro is gone. anyone know if they changed the name again or anything?
twilight and dusk are still there but in different networks now. Its a long story
twilight moved to http://www.apocalypse-ro.com
I played eternal ro like no tommorow and i will have to say it was and is my favorit server. when i met gm silver i enjoyed my game time very well. not all the gms on the server were bad. infact i never saw any of the gms miss treating anyone infact they were always on and there was always fun events. on the server im on now godly ro its really fun but the gms cant compare to the ones on eternal. there is no events and never any gms on to help. but back to eternal. when the server got hacked i was really disapointed i was 20 lvs from being max and never had to donate. im disapointed in the way the owners handled there server and also the way it hasnt been brought back. also the loss of donners emails and not giving there items is out of hand and its amazing wht people do when all we r trying to do as gamers is enjoy our game and meet new people. im one of the friendliest people i know on rag and ill help anyone but this whole situation could have been handled better and i just hope tht the makers of eternal get there shit together and try and make a eternal ro 2 or i will because anime weapons was the shit