This is news to you? Guess you never saw this
Dailymotion - TheRealK2Story - een Actu et Politique video
K2 got this video pulled from youtube within the matter of a couple hours of it going public. All the naysayers of GM items dont exist, think again. This game has been a cesspool of corruption since the moment people realized their items have a dollar value. Not to go on a tangent to you official mods, but you guys have blindly followed K2 as their lapdogs for quite some time, and the little power they gave you corrupted you as well. You all put yourself on a pedestal above the people you play this game with, and well you all in a way have become a "chuckie" to us the players. You have abused your rights as moderators in such a way that a large majority now hate you and find it fun to fuck with you. In short, you mods took a game way too serious once you were given power.
Anyone that hasn't seen the video, here's linus' statement made within a few hours of the vid being put on youtube
Just so you know, I hadn't yet done anything to your thread and if I had seen it I would have addressed it how I plan to now. The video was neither seen by me first nor was it removed by me, though I can't say even if it had been that I'd have left it up.
Let me begin by saying this: the video is not fake, it is not of a private server, and it is indeed exactly what it purports itself to be. The GMs in question were members of K2 staff until the discovery of actions such as this, and now they no longer are. I'm not sure of the actual date of termination, but I believe it was 3-4 weeks ago. Illegally produced items and characters that came about as a result of said improper use of tools were summarily terminated as well.
I know a thing like this is hard for you the players to take. If possible, it's even harder for me to take.
The facts are right there: Knight Online is a game first and foremost, but people use it to make money. People think of their characters in terms of real world value. The KO4life marketplace is all about the real world money, and it's the basis for the whole "trustability" rating players give each other (obviously whoever came up with that term had never heard of the word "trusthworthy" before laugh.gif). The problem is Knight Online is perceived as a game, and not a financial institution, and thus the checks in balances that have historically been in place have been related to its being a game (or service) and not as a vehicle for generating real world income (from a product). Instances such as what we saw here with these former GMs are symptoms of a larger problem.
People are people. People are flawed, and sometimes one's ability to rationalize outweighs one's ability to make sound moral decisions. This can happen to you if you are a janitor, a banker, a mechanic, or a customer service representative for an online video game. Add into this mix the perceived low chance of being "caught" and the social barriers for not engaging in criminal activity are removed. It comes down to one's own moral code dictating whether or not something should be done, and if we could rely on only that to keep people honest we wouldn't need police, judges, lawyers, or laws in general.
What happened here is unfortunate. I believe this "Abel" person who is posting is not a bad person at heart, but grew closer to the GM he befriended over the time they spent online together, and at hearing the news of his friend's termination he has felt pangs of guilt and stress. This video is him lashing out and attempting to strike back at the entity that brought about these negative feelings within him, misplaced as they may be. Like a crook who vows revenge on the police officer that performs an arrest that gets him sent to jail for 20 years. He also may be upset at the loss of items and characters, but I don't think anyone should be quick to commiserate with him because he didn't bother to earn them the same way you or I do when we play Knight Online.
All of this begs the question: Is this video indicative of a company gone wrong?
I don't believe so. As an employee, and as a regular guy with a job at a company that publishes an online video game. It shows that while we'd love to be able to trust absolutely every person we work with, that level of optimism is not always warranted, and since this happened steps have been taken to prevent it from ever happening again. Everything is monitored, logged, recorded, and scrutinized to ensure it doesn't happen again.
At the end of the day every player community loves a good conspiracy. It's drama; it's interesting. I've seen no end of them in my time at K2 and I doubt this will be the last one. But real life facts are not always quite as interesting as their fictional accounts. There were several people who's internal moral code was not strong enough to deny them the ability to say "no" when they should have, and they made poor decisions. This is as far as it goes, however. It is not an ongoing issue, or a company policy, or any other such rubbish. It's just people being people.
Well, I've said my part. I'm sure you have questions, so I will try my best to answer them, but keep in mind that there are many details which I do not know and it is not my part to know.
Anyone that thinks this game isn't corrupted either is new or just dumb. At the end of the day tho, we can all rejoice in the fact that we can sell out as long as this game and this forum is running .
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