In this thread: People talking about a situation they have very little information on.
Howdy fellas, Customz here, figured I would weigh in while this topic was still open. Let me start off by painting a little picture for you:
Once upon a time there was a website called Markee Dragon. Markee Dragon was a place MMO gamers could go to buy, sell, and trade all the items the obtained in their respective games. It was a prosperous website, run by a diligent, and ultimately fair group of staff members that cared greatly about the website's users. Being a part of that staff for over 2 years I can attest the the gross amount of work that was put into maintaining the site on a daily basis by all of the members of staff.
Markee Dragon was lead by a man named Marcus Eikenberry. Marcus, being a business man and owning several prosperous companies, was naturally tuned to seek out paths that served to make him the most profit. This, for the most part, was not the case with Markee Dragon. It was his baby, and many times decisions were made counter to what would have made him the most money. One day, for reasons that were never fully explained to myself, or anyone besides Alex / Ace / possibly Dinner (although I don't think he would have known) Marcus decided to sell the website's database in favor of going legitimate and no longer supporting the virtual goods trade.
(MarkeeDragon.com still does exist, it is now predominately a video game news website, dealing mostly with Indy fantasy titles).
The MD database was purchased by a fellow named Mike, owner of a virtual marketplace website called MMObay, for a very large sum of money. MD database was very valuable, Mike served to make a great deal of money off of all of the traffic, and his investment would soon be returned.
Fast forward a month or so, MD is now no longer in the business and the brunt of what Mike has planned for the site has been implemented. All indications point towards Mike taking the website into a direction Marcus would never have taken it, and a lot of the old-school MD members either leave or are extremely critical of his every move.
(A number of these old-school members decided to set up camp for themselves, and took to creating their own virtual paradises where new and old MDers could come and relive the good times. Of these websites I believe MC is the only one still running. Although I admittedly have not checked in on the sites Kevs and Chadwick started in quite some time).
Anyways, as I'm sure many of you are aware, I hit a bit of a rough patch a ways back and had the misfortune of having an account recalled on me while it was in the possession of someone I quite liked. I did all I could do to try and regain control of the account, but once I realized those efforts were fruitless I asked for sympathy from the user. It was the beginning of the school year, and as a student trying to pay his own way through post-secondary, the timing wasn't very financially viable. I explained this (although looking back at the post I was rather blunt. I suppose I was having a bad day / week, I should have been nicer) to Glacial, and the MMObay staff dealing with the situation, and all seemed fine. Glacial was nice enough to let me off the hook, and things looked like they were moving on.
Then enters Vexoz, a user I had previously had an issue with. He and myself had traded accounts, and in an idiotic move I was unhappy with the account, and after Vexo was unwilling to re-trade, I recalled mine and returned his. This admittedly, was not wise, and I do regret it. Vexoz opened a thread on me, as he had every right to do, and demanded some form of compensation for his perceived loss. In the end it was settled that I was to give Vexo $50 in return for the grief I caused him, and that would be that. I had no issue with that, and the complaint was closed. Never in this situation was I "banned and unbanned" as someone claimed in the thread that this thread is talking about.
Anyways, Glacial, quite understandably, got a bit upset and decided I wasn't the nice person he thought I was (an opinion that, let me remind you, was based solely on falsities), and I was banned. I wasn't really given much of a chance to defend myself, and attempt to debunk all the lies that were swimming around in that thread, but I attribute that to the MMObay staff not being very fond of me (I was one of the members who was initially critical of the way Mike chose to run this site), but I hold no grudges.
I have since offered a bit of compensation to Glacial, but chose not to make this fact public, or attempt to get my ban lifted as I really have no interest in being on this website. Although, it does look like it has improved substantially since I was last here (the ad at the bottom of every first post is a very nice touch). So perhaps I was wrong in being critical after all, but I'm straying from the point here. I don't really have any interest in being back on this website, I would simply prefer that people who never really knew me, or the things I did to help on MD, not talk about me as if they have some sort of insider information on the topic. Its nice to see some old friends coming to my semi-defence (thanks Andrew, and what the heck Shane, you banned me from MC?!), but I honestly dont know most of you, and I don't see why you are so concerned about me. As I told whoever it is that started this thread (I dont remember your name), "being concerned is good, but in this case there is no need for your concern".
-Customz