Your donations and you…

[Shenna 1135]

This topic is a continuation of the previous discussions “Unexpected Downtime” & “Recent Issues & Future Plans”

Your donations and you…
Better known as “Donations from the community and where did they go”

As you all know, we had a chargeback recently that caused the account to go into the Red (negative balance) and it almost put our account under lockout. So let’s take a trip down payment history lane and show you where things are going and how it is going to be used.

When the individual who did the chargeback contacted their banking institution to enact this, it put the account into the negative and shutdown the server.

So between NA/EU/CN we raised about $5.7k Euros, the transaction logs being paid directly to OVH and the dates they were paid are below. However, we will not show individual donations due to privacy concerns. But between the players from ALL over the world, we were able to get the server back up and running and paid up until the following:

So, where are the rest of the donations going to in the future and how are they being used? As they always have been:

• Server Upkeep & Misc. server costs (additional IPs, anti-DDoS protection)
• OVH Premium Support Services (to make sure we can get support 24/7)
• Backup server with 3x4TB RAID 5 setup, not hosted at OVH to ensure external storage in case provider issues appear
• Domain Names & Website Certificates
• Jira License (developer’ task-manager)
• Github Premium
• Mail Services (Sendgrid, etc.. this is how email gets to you from us to reset passwords)
• Forum Licenses
• Misc. marketing (voice acting, video production, etc..)

So, as some might not know, Elysium is not a registered company for obvious reasons so every PayPal account will be a private account. Also, when Anathema was taken offline, it also affected the control panel, so you couldn’t use the donation links like we had in the past. 

In conclusion, we appreciate the community and have always stood behind our community because you are the driving force that keeps us going, that keeps us working on the server and to constantly put out updates to better the server and the future of this project.

Sincerely,
Elysium Staff

[YcbshadowE 1]

first

[Hamblin 0]

...But where are the tax reports??

 

Keep up the good work, Shenna.

[Shenna 1135]

Quote

...But where are the tax reports??

feelsbadman.jpg

[Haestingas 30]

Cheers on the transparency

[genaside 0]

Thanks Shenna and Elysium team! :D

Edited March 22, 2017 by genaside

[indi 10]

When is the staff going to address the problem regarding Zeth'Kur's population?

Guilds are falling apart, the ranking scene is dying due to the brackets, and each day we have a new low in the triple digits.

The longer you guys ignore this, the worse things will get on our realm until far too many people have quit and we are stuck with a Kronos-tier experience.

[TTL 6]

Whatttt but Alex Jones Sensual said this money was being used for personal gains!!! DID HE LIE TO ME!

/tin foil hat

[Brisies 0]

Thank you to the Project Managers for the upkeep of one of the best Vanilla projects in the past 10 years.  The transparency as many have been claiming is all here in my opinion, and it is nice to see we are back on track with the original plans as well as everything running smoothly (Anathema aside at this moment) as it should be.

Thank you for the time and dedication you put into our community!

[TTL 6]

1 minute ago, indi said:

When is the staff going to address the problem regarding Zeth'Kur's population?

Guilds are falling apart, the ranking scene is dying due to the brackets, and each day we have a new low in the triple digits.

The longer you guys ignore this, the worse things will get on our realm until far too many people have quit and we are stuck with a Kronos-tier experience.

I noticed today it is "Recommended" for new players, that should help some.

[Ickus 40]

Love the transparency. Keep it up!

[Shenna 1135]

43 minutes ago, indi said:

When is the staff going to address the problem regarding Zeth'Kur's population?

Guilds are falling apart, the ranking scene is dying due to the brackets, and each day we have a new low in the triple digits.

The longer you guys ignore this, the worse things will get on our realm until far too many people have quit and we are stuck with a Kronos-tier experience.

 

@indi We don't plan to merge realms because each realm has a independent community and a sensitive economy which could be heavily damaged. Currently the population of Zeth'Kur is still on a Blizzlike level and not taking any negative influence on PvP or PvE. A possible merge may take place if the population would drop permanently into ranges which would make PvP and PvE barely possible, that doesn't seem to be the case currently. We plan to publish new content on Zeth'Kur to stabilize the population and entertain the existing playerbase. If there ever is a need to consider merging Zeth'Kur our first step would be to get input from the Zeth'Kur community, the opinion of our community is important for us.

[Icoppelia 0]

I wonder how all the people that fell for the conspiracy drama feel right now. I'm guessing not good. Shenna keeps making them look more and more like fake news shills everyday.

[indi 10]

1 minute ago, Shenna said:

@indi We don't plan to merge realms because each realm has a independent community and a sensitive economy which could be heavily damaged. Currently the population of Zeth'Kur is still on a Blizzlike level and not taking any negative influence on PvP or PvE. A possible merge may takes place if the population would drop permanently into ranges which make PvP and PvE barely possible, that doesn't seems to be the case currently though. We plan to publish new content on Zeth'Kur to stabilize the population and entertain the existing playerbase. If there ever is a need to consider merging Zeth'Kur our first step would be to get input from the Zeth'Kur community, the opinion of our community is important for us.

The issues regarding economy could be addressed in any potential merger, I understand that issue however. 

While the pop has fallen to about medium to low pop "blizzlike", this is still not an excuse to not merge the realm as trends continue to show a hemorrhaging of players week in and week out. Just a few weeks ago we were breaking 3k, now we've only broken 2k once in the past 7 days. The million dollar question we all have is how low do we have to drop where a merge is warranted? And even then, would it be too late to have any real impact of salvaging all those Zeth'Kur players who quit?

As for the PvP population issue, we are already seeing that with brackets shrinking to where there is only one bracket 1 spot as entire premades have quit the realm for greener pastures. A lot of raid guilds have either folded or were cannibalized by the handful of raid guilds still active (you can count them on one hand). This simply is not sustainable or healthy for the community on our realm.

Thank you for the reply though, its nice to finally get a response out of the staff about Zeth.

[Gardash 11]

+1

[Doru 0]

18 minutes ago, indi said:

The issues regarding economy could be addressed in any potential merger, I understand that issue however. 

While the pop has fallen to about medium to low pop "blizzlike", this is still not an excuse to not merge the realm as trends continue to show a hemorrhaging of players week in and week out. Just a few weeks ago we were breaking 3k, now we've only broken 2k once in the past 7 days. The million dollar question we all have is how low do we have to drop where a merge is warranted? And even then, would it be too late to have any real impact of salvaging all those Zeth'Kur players who quit?

As for the PvP population issue, we are already seeing that with brackets shrinking to where there is only one bracket 1 spot as entire premades have quit the realm for greener pastures. A lot of raid guilds have either folded or were cannibalized by the handful of raid guilds still active (you can count them on one hand). This simply is not sustainable or healthy for the community on our realm.

Thank you for the reply though, its nice to finally get a response out of the staff about Zeth.

Indi is completely correct, i feel the only way Zeth could possibly be saved if patches were rushed out up to the ZG patch even then it might be too late. Battlegrounds have long queues on both sides, and grouping for a simple 5 man can be a nightmare during NA times. 

[Fiers 0]

2 hours ago, Shenna said:

@indi We don't plan to merge realms because each realm has a independent community and a sensitive economy which could be heavily damaged. Currently the population of Zeth'Kur is still on a Blizzlike level and not taking any negative influence on PvP or PvE. A possible merge may take place if the population would drop permanently into ranges which would make PvP and PvE barely possible, that doesn't seem to be the case currently.

This is incredibly off the mark. PvP is in a DIRE situation on Zeth'kur as a result of the rapid population drop. Rankers are completely screwed, and it only gets worse each week.

[Fiers 0]

I PMed my attempt to describe the PvP situation on Zeth'kur to a few people this weekend, hoping someone would pay attention, but it clearly has not had the desired result if @Shenna thinks that there has been "no negative influence on pvp", so I will repost it here. I honestly cannot believe the official stance is to give such a strong dismissal of the concerns of every single ranking player. Anyway, here goes:

 

Quote

 

Hi [name removed to avoid name and shame]! Is there someone I could speak with, to get some dire feedback about Zeth'Kur and especially the way the PvP system is wholly broken, into the hands of someone capable of evaluating it for potential solutions?

I'm sure you already know about the general population issues, but may not be aware of some of the specific issues it is creating.

The population is dropping at such a rapid pace that it's becoming literally impossible to rank. The number of bracket slots are shrinking far faster than can fit PvPers. Based on past trends, we're expecting roughly 815 people in the pvp population this week, which is down from 2000+ only a month ago

We had 4 people quit the server this week, at rank 11-12, because it was literally impossible for them to hit rank 13+, and that may still not be enough for this week alone. And as the population continues to drop, more and more people will be left with no chance to rank

The PvP grind is a 3-4 month process, under ideal conditions. And with 80%+ of that grind finished, there's no longer room for the majority of players. In about 1 more week, there won't be enough slots in the top 3 brackets for even a 10 man WSG group, which means several people decaying at best. Anyone over rank 10 is essentially screwed at that point, except for the 3 people who get the top 3 standing and are still able to progress.

To put those numbers into perspective, when there were 2000 people in the pvp population, there were 4 people in bracket 1, 10 in bracket 2, 16 in bracket 3, and 30 in bracket 4. Now, only a month later, with an expected ~815 people, there are only 2 in bracket 1 (probably only 1 next week), 4 in bracket 2, 8 in bracket 3, and 12 in bracket 4. You cannot get past rank 10 without a bracket 4 slot, you cannot get past rank 11 without a bracket 3 slot, rank 12 without a bracket 2 slot, and rank 13 without a bracket 1 slot. And last week, we underestimated the rate of population decay, and ended up with our entire bracket 2 getting bracket 3 points. The exact same thing happened on horde.

Even after 4 of our higher ranked players quit following the last reset, I believe we have 8 people at rank 11, and 1 at rank 12, who are shooting for ranks 13-14, and have been getting the top 1-3 brackets every week. That means even if we freeze the pvp population where it is after this (instead of losing the expected 20% like we have been week after week), it is already impossible for 3 of those 9 players to rank up again. And since each week IS likely to have a smaller population than the week before it, we are expecting 3, maybe 4 if we're lucky, of these 9 players to have a chance at hitting rank 13. To reemphasize, that means that even if the top 5 highest ranked players get the top 5 standing slots, respectively, 1 or 2 of them will still lose progress before reaching their goal.

So, basically, to put it bluntly, our rankers are fucked, and there's nothing we, as players, can do about it.

The mass exodus of players from the server means fewer people getting 15 HKs a week, shrinking the brackets. Because the vast majority of the people in the PvP population aren't actually PvPers - they're just people leveling up and getting 15+ HKs in the process. But it ruins the chances of rankers from progressing.

Aside from transfers or a merger, which would directly change the PvP population by simply adding more people, we need something to prevent these ever-shrinking brackets from leaving only perhaps 3 people from a starting group of maybe 40+ that are actually able to reach their goals, in spite of dominating the standings for 3+ months. That would mean something like someone on the elysium team artificially widening the brackets, or setting minimum numbers of people, or implementing the 1.12 PvP rank formula, which was slightly more forgiving than the one that came before it (though even that would probably be insufficient).

This is almost exactly analogous to saying that in order to get any raid loot, you need to clear MC every week, for 3-4 months, and then you get your reward after the last week. But then every week, the number of people elligible for loot shrinks by 20%. So after a week, only 32 people are still elligible for the end prize. And fewer each week, until after 3-4 months, you've got 3-4 people left, and they're the only ones who get anything for their time and effort. And the other 36-37 people end up being used or quitting along the way, after realizing they had no chance at getting rewarded themselves. It's a horrible thing, and there's nothing we can do about it as players.

Sorry for the length, but it's a very difficult situation. We may end up with only 1 person ever reaching rank 14 on our faction (and maybe not even that), since if the server keeps shrinking, bracket 1 will round down to 0 slots before more than 1 person can reach rank 14.

This is a problem that has never been experienced before, due to the extreme rate of population decay on Zeth'Kur. It's not an issue with a small population, but rather with the ever-shrinking population, and the incredible speed of that decrease. So there's a lot of high ranked people with nowhere to go and nothing they can do but quit, and giving up 3 months of work in the process.

We're desperate for any sort of assistance. Thanks for hearing me out. If you have any questions at all, I am more than happy to help, and am likely in a better position than anyone else on our server, and perhaps any server, to understand the math and the details, and how badly this is affecting people.

 

 

[indi 10]

+1 for Fiers, he has a much better first hand experience with the ranking situation than I do on Zeth.

The staff's current view that the PvE/PvP scene on Zeth'Kur is stable and healthy is frankly, delusional. The reason why we are making so much noise on discord and the forums is because we are trying to tell the staff what is actually going on in our little corner of the project. Things are not all peachy unfortunately.

[Lifealert 19]

What were you to expect when playing on an overflow server? That everything would be hunky dory?

[indi 10]

2 minutes ago, Lifealert said:

What were you to expect when playing on an overflow server? That everything would be hunky dory?

Honestly, I wasn't expecting it to be the same pop as Elysium by any means, but I think everyone was pretty shocked by how quickly Zeth died. Personally I thought it would have stabilized around 3k, but it just continued to tank with no signs of stopping.

[Lifealert 19]

The pop was high across the board because of winter break for people who are still in college. 

You can also thanks Alexsexual and the rest of the 'legacy warriors' for ruining everything. Before all that happened we were actually getting weekly server updates. Is the private server community and elysium even better off because of their actions? Hell no. 

Edited March 22, 2017 by Lifealert

[TheDruidCode 28]

Keep up the communication, team. It pleases the masses. Cheers.

[gotmilk0112 10]

4 hours ago, TTL said:

Whatttt but Alex Jones Sensual said this money was being used for personal gains!!! DID HE LIE TO ME!

/tin foil hat

I'm still waiting for the "full campaign against Elysium to make them leave the legacy scene for good" that he promised.....like a month ago.

 

Asked him about it and he blocked me. kek.

[TTL 6]

Just now, gotmilk0112 said:

I'm still waiting for the "full campaign against Elysium to make them leave the legacy scene for good" that he promised.....like a month ago.

 

Asked him about it and he blocked me. kek.

Elysium team has been growing, guess his efforts have failed all he can do now is tweet out more propaganda anytime something happens. His youtube channel and twitter has also been bleeding subscribers. lel

Must suck to get banned for being an idiot and having no where to play.