Thursday, March 10, 2011

Server closed.

The title says it all: the server was closed. Don't know the real reason why it was closed nor do I know someone who does but thanks to Gorim you can get a pretty good idea why. Below you have a small essay made by him describing the events which most probably led to this. So go ahead... thank him!

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Alright, time to make this plain to all SMU players both current and past. It is time to tell the story from my perspective. Many would know this story as I collected these accounts from many old players and from my own speculations and observations of the peoples' behaviours and actions. People are more than welcome to add in their own perspective to give a more accurate account so all may know.


As many of you know, this server was founded because Zhen AKA GooDiee, donald cheung, ZhenYu Cheung, etc, had a falling out with the management of Alliance MU (now closed). When he setted up this server he some of his friends from Alliance MU became the players and eventually staff members on his server. The name sunshineMU was derived from the player sunshine, His then love interest who begun this server with him. He then had his core admins of Twinkle and Sunshine. Dubbed the two sisters as twinkle and sunshine are related by blood.

SunshineMU began as a small community much like any other servers. The players who stayed mentioned that the small community fitted them and they loved developing friendships with both the players and staff of the server. As the server grew in player base the roles of each of the admins then were set: Zhen was the owner and admin in chief, responsible for the server's physical well being and keeping it up-to-date. Sunshine was the head of the GM team, who was responsible for taking care of the GM staff team and cover all their needs and reporting problems from GMs to zhen. And Twinkle was the head of community support who was responsible for the players' well being and their problems on forums and occasionally in game.

Things were going well for the server overall then. The player base kept expanding, server was becoming more stable and lagging less. More players meant taking on more GMs, and the system of GM recruitment became formalised with the TGM system. The roles of GMs as you all know are the players' first point of contact for problems in game. Truth to tell the GM teams was fairly tight knit with only a few problems back then. And all was well.
The first major impact on the server itself was admin twinkle leaving. This had a whole of consequences as she was pretty much the core of the server management. With her gone the management balance shifted, however the first sign of the impact started to show when zhen did not replace twinkle with a person as able bodied as twinkle but instead appointed sunshine with both her task and twinkle's task. Sunshine did cope for a while but eventually sunshineMU politics forced her to retire.

If I could of wind back time, I would immediately asked why twinkle left immediately and would of convinced her to come back. But back then I didn't know how badly the politics went. But the question I would ask now was why did zhen added more responsibilies to sunshine when he actually needed at new admin at that time to preserve the balance and also balancing each admin's committment? I speculate now that this situation occured but zhen did not respond and sunshine volunteered to add the twinkle's responsibility as her own and told the staff that it was zhen's idea based upon my own current evaluation of behaviours of sunshine and zhen. We as GMs never had much contact with zhen which is pretty strange. We always had to work through eithier sunshine or twinkle or afroula (then GM) who had a reliable communication link with zhen. This was the start.

With the leaving of twinkle and sunshine. Zhen had no choice but to appoint a new batch of admins to replace his lost ones so the server can continue operations as normal. From the GM pool he selected TormenT, Afroula, and Valego. TormenT was the person who helped him on various matters on the server itself. Afroula took sunshine's and part of twinkle's tasks and valego purely focussed on in game matters due to his time constraints. Things resumed to some normalcy BUT out of the three admins, he only contacted afroula with regularity and TormenT to a lesser scale. I speculate now tha he never personally trusted TormenT or Valego but he had to trust them on advice from afroula out of reluctence.

As time past, TormenT quit after realising zhen repeating ignored the problems he reported. Valego removed due to an issue with zhen and Matt aka WhirlWind. So zhen appointed matt and gotty as an admin and pressured enforcer into becomig admin to hopefully run things as usual. But unfortunately Gotty quit due to real life committments. After a period of time after gotty's inactivity matt and enforcer realised zhen's neglect of the server and resolved to quitting. Firmly taking a finally defeated afroula with them.

So, now you know a part of the story and history of this server and to some respect the admins that came and went. Due to time constraints and me sparing many of you to read through this tedious essay more longer than it should as if I told in full it would cover at least 200 or so pages. I omitted a lot of details regarding the full story and if other players can fill some gaps I wouldn't mind (although this may get deleted soon).

Just to hammer home the information I was alluding to. Zhen in all never personally cared about this server or it's players. A lot of the staff were largely ignored and the centralisation of all power to zhen created this frustration of unresolved problems. I have my own personal speculations about zhen himself but I would not air them here. If anyone wishes to contact me regarding further details about a part of the history. They may contact me through here as I will regularly log in to these forums until it closes.

Lastly, I am Gorim, who was an ex-GM who quitted this travesty of a server after realising twinkle was in fact the glue that kept it all together. Have came to the conclusion that this server should of been closed long ago. Now the conclusion has finally come true. I shall stay to watch it till it finally closes for good with much satisfaction.

Oh, and to all faithful sunshineMU players that haven't pissed me off. A word of advice: This is a private server with ridiculous rates and concepts which MU never had at the inception of this game. Playing private servers by itself is a risk of not knowing when the server will unexpectly close. If you think this was bad, go on google and search for Lineage 2 Extreme closure. It was a huge and popular private server for lineage which unexpectly closed. There were lots of speculations but no one knew the answer.

Good day.

37 comments:

  1. I playd sunshinemu a long time ago.
    IGN was YoDL.
    And i really loved this game.
    I loved the gms,doing their jobs great,almost perfectly.

    So yeah...
    Freakin` sad to see how your first playd server is now down. :)
    I'm now the administrator of an server and hope it will grow.
    If some of you old Sunshine players are interessed I just want to let you know that you are all welcome.:)

    Regards ,
    DarKy

    ReplyDelete
  2. northwind_28@yahoo.comMarch 15, 2011 at 2:49 AM

    Hey...
    it's razorvn here, and it's been quite a while since i left bcuz of some private issues.

    Just.. let me know if i u guys have any ideas or just need a hand ;)

    ReplyDelete
  3. even tho i only tested sunshinemu when it opened i could provide some interesting info regarding this story,or not the story itself but backstory to this one and what happened behind the scenes.

    fact is:AllianceMu was one huge scam,whole team originating from there has been doing similiar scam's ever since

    for to name few of them
    knight/flawless/envy aka jivy
    superman/sexy aka maria and john(double identity,which was unknown to players at the time)
    and ofcourse caviar1 aka brian

    -KraMer,Legendary MuOnline Player

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  4. This is some sad news indeed my name is Maria or otherwise known as Sexy Co-Owner of the Orignal AllianceMU along with Caviar.

    As for Kramer your comment isn’t completely 100% true I merged my SexyMU with LockdownMU to make AllianceMU with caviar with the intentions of creating a combined MU Community gaming experience unheard of at the time when Private MU servers were going up then closing in a blink of an eye.

    I ran SexyMU for close to 2 years and never took advantage of anyone in anyway. It’s the other way around when it came to being scammed SexyMU was constantly being defrauded through PayPal with users donating.. getting there stuff... then reporting the payments as stolen credit cards or other means of identity theft.

    In reality the users doing this to SexyMU were in fact players from rival servers trying to financially ruin SexyMU with their many PayPal fraud activity's. In the end I was the person "Maria" who ended up eating the cost and having to pay these transaction back out of my pocket not anyone else.

    Me and my at the time husband John were the ones running SexyMU both playing dual roles in order to keep things running smoothly with fellow GM's I recruited like Valego,Mehtala, and a few others I kept a very small STAFF to prevent problems amongst the players and STAFF.

    If I would have known Caviar want to merge into a single server only to reap the benefits of not only Lockdowns donations but, SexyMU's as-well in such a way it would eventually tear apart the server I would have never went through with it.

    I personally never made a single cent off AllianceMU caviar was the only one to collect donation money from AllianceMU, I Maria only received the Google Ad sense income of about 300.00 a month on average which was spent on fixing the server boxes and hubs routers and datacenter costs.

    Caviar had some of his servers shipped to a datacenter about 15 miles from my house so that I could maintain the servers hands on 247 to remove the cost of outside sources having to work or fix problems that might occur.




    This is written on behalf of Maria and John,

    Regards,

    Maria aka Sexy

    And

    John aka Superman

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Howdy, UberGlad here!! I wish we could get the old gang back together and make this great again. I worked along side caviar sunshine twink wendy for a long time on the mu projects.

      Delete
    2. Howdy, UberGlad here!! I wish we could get the old gang back together and make this great again. I worked along side caviar sunshine twink wendy for a long time on the mu projects.

      Delete
  5. So ill break it down for you.. I basically gave up SexyMU to make AllianceMU with good intentions and ended up having to maintain,manage,and ultimately take responsibility for AllianceMU once the donations no longer went to supporting the server. Once caviar left to go to twinkles country and left me high and dry with AllianceMU going to hell.

    Caviar ended up moving on to SunShineMU and I was left holding the bag of a mess regarding the players donations which I never received but... I made sure the players got there items once I took over AllianceMU and wiped the database ALL donators SexyMU's donators which I transferred to AllianceMU got their stuff and I made sure everyone who donated to caviar got their stuff as well even thou I didn't see a red cent.

    So don’t go around pointing the finger at me when it comes to situation I kept it running as-long as I could even though it was financially left to me in ruins. I paid to keep it online long as I could and that's the truth.

    Shortly before AllianceMU closed under my administration I fell sick with colon cancer and was hospitalized for close to a year and could no longer maintain AllianceMU anymore.

    In fact I still have AllianceMU's server files, Database and a few of the server boxes that hosted the network. I have been thinking about possibly re-opening SexyMU using AllianceMU's previous database but with Season 4 files.

    Of course if I did do that I would once again honor all previous donations that were sent to SexyMU and AllianceMU.

    I’m very sad when it comes to SunShineMU closing I played it for a while and also donated a few times to help support GoDieees cause and dreams of making one of the most ahead of its time servers on the private sector.

    That’s all I have to say really feel free to comment or ask questions on anything I have stated above I will be checking on this until it no longer works.

    This was written on my behalf and John,

    Regards,

    Maria aka Sexy

    And

    John aka Superman

    ReplyDelete
  6. frogive me john/maria which ever one of you is actually posting i included your names only due to more recent events after sexymu.(sexymu reopen scheme's that never actually went anywhere after the forums opened and you dissapeared etc)
    sexymu was one of the best private servers i have ever seen and will remain as such in my memory but anyway i guess this is the end to legend of lockdown/sexy/sunshine/alliancemu legend unless someone opens up a server for everyone to transfer.(and no,i wouldnt recommend knight's/jivy's server,he has been continously failing to keep his network running more than couple of months)






    anyway

    ReplyDelete
  7. oh and spread the news everyone!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hmmmm so now i can expect a double sorry from you... misses maria?

    Regards,
    JINGA aka MCJINGA

    ReplyDelete
  9. Well im just some details regarding the SexyMU and AllianceMU chit chat no harm no foul... and @ JINGA if i owe you an apology then you have a sincere one coming from me, all of that stuff is in the past and ive moved on since then.

    I haven't decided wither or not ill return to the server hosting end of things and restart a server or not but, if i do ill be sure to let you all know.


    Thanks,

    Maria

    ReplyDelete
  10. Yeah its me Cursiii or more fckin known as "CURSED"

    you mightve heard my name somewhere.

    Well KraMeR is an old friend of mine..

    so if he decides to shut down the server im pretty sure there's a heavy reason for this.

    Dont worry kramsy we will support you again when u decide to revive Shine gaming :)

    P.S:

    to everyone , LETS EAT COOKIES!! :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. cursed you got it "a bit" wrong,even tho my guild name is sunshine,i never had a hand in this server's doings and i only started spreading the news coz loads of my contacts are surely interested in this.

    ReplyDelete
  12. ahhh i love the drama!

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  13. The private Mu Online server owning is near dead now. Server hosting is expensive, getting people to do work with a server for free is even more rare. Global Mu is near dead (and flooded with alot of forigners) and probably will have an official closing as well.
    If someone is going to go as far as emulating an already poorly crafted game that brings more sh*t through the season updates, mind as well add another tally to the failed server list.
    And ever wonder why Webzen didn't release Mu2/X? Because someone already beat them to it and are too busy suing other companies that use the logo "Mu". Can't wait 'til the Mu Project runs out of funds and they start attacking private servers. =D

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  14. Doesn't matter much to me anymore. Just wanted to check how the server was doing. Not too well I see.

    I guess it was about time.

    Thanks for the memories, though.

    ReplyDelete
  15. sorry for the typo..

    here's the edited version of my post

    bad to hear that this server will close.

    btw, i dunno if you guys could still remember me but im a former GM since the start of this server and been a GM for quite sometime.

    my GM name is GateKeeper / Unknown.

    Twinkle and sunshine was an in-game friend of mine even during AllianceMu time.

    i know many people invested a lot here but this is not the end.

    hop to meet you guys in other server.

    best regards

    ReplyDelete
  16. DWARVEN aka AuroraBk here,
    I was playin SMu for such a long time than had to quit for sometime cos of studies. Real sad to see it close,was plannin on making a return :'(.(Btw:Valego,if u r reading this,I still remember the thing you did ;))

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  17. Sorry to hear about this. I kind of already saw that Goodie had little love for the server, and when Twinkle told me that she was thinking about taking a break or quitting, I knew it was time to go. Had some good times on the server and in the forums. Will never forget SunshineMU's golden days.
    My love has shifted to a private server for a game called Minecraft - Uber fun. Looking to do what I did for SMU on it. Events galore. :)

    Take care, Blinkk.

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  18. I miss SMU T__T



    -exGM Taitos

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  19. Hmm, after a long time i decided i was gonna quit this game n play eudemons online... i soon got bored and decided i would come back. its a shame it was shut down before i got to return... SMU was always a great game. With a great community.

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  20. Ehhh you're so full of crap, Gorim, ya old coot, but we still like ya. Still, I miss the days when we mess around with Dimitra on the ol' server, going crazy because of that insane word scramble you always host.

    Me, I still fondly remember the Kill the King events, one I personally invented (or reinvented, as I don't know if there's someone who made it before me haha!).

    PS. Say hi to the missus for me.

    - Bryan aka InVaLiD aka SoulTaker aka former crazy GM Owyne. :P

    ReplyDelete
  21. OvenDog was here :)

    ReplyDelete
  22. I dont remember my correct game name, but i had 2 characters with more than 100rr, so i took a break, after the break i forgot about this server, but in 2012 i remember this server.. and i asked myself, what would happen if i come back to the server, i hoped my account is still not deleted due to inactive or etc., but i couldnt find the server, only today i found this...

    I miss sunshine mu! :(

    ReplyDelete
  23. I wonder if there's still anybody from the old team running around MUOnline private servers?
    I might wanna give it a try again, if only for the sake of sentiment that I certainly have for SexyMu, Alliance and Sunshine too I guess.

    Palpatine (occasionally Fallout/Core)

    ReplyDelete
  24. I remember playing alliancemu, and i dont even know how I managed to find sunshinemu. It's funny, me and my sister would play all the time, and when we found out it was closed, i found this cool looking server named sunshinemu... sure enough, afroula, goodiee, people that i had recognized were there. In truth, I may not be remembered as even I don't remember my ign (I think it was MG_CHRONIC or something), but i had a fun time with all of you.

    i don't know any other server to play, and i dont know if the MU community will ever be that close as SMU, but if there is a server, let me know.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Wow. This is sad. I never knew this existed. I played Sunshine MU, i met enforcer that helped me alot and then he became admin and i also become friend with Afroula and Matt. I was !tZoom and dont remember my GM name xD.
    Okay i hope I see some of you guys around!
    Sad its closed! still remember!

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  26. let me take over SMU re-setup it just send me the SMU DB the server will located on Malaysia :)

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  27. ive been played SMU, i was LORDMIXA and PoLaRiiS, Love you all <3 add me on facebook Matheus Silva.

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  28. Hello all the old Sunshine Mu players. My brother use to be an old GM here through the TGM system and I use to play here regularly. We recently started playing Mu again for nostalgic reasons, but remembered how much fun we use to have. Now that we are older and have the money we would like to bring this back to life. With no intentions of gaining any kind of monetary agenda here we want to bring this up for the pure sake of having fun. I have an email set up just for this. We need help (knowledge based help). I have the money to support and fund, however we don't know the slightest in setting up a server. So, I am calling on to anyone here from this relic server who is still interested to email me and let me know if you are able to help.

    Kryophoenix@hotmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  29. Here ex Tgm BELZEBU now i have my privet server if anyone want to play welcome God bless you all

    Att : Darklucife 868 reset i remember the guild GodHands and Afroula Valego Sunshine Goodiee Owine and all the staff

    ReplyDelete
  30. Goodmorning,

    Dear, us

    Im from sunshine mu player, i never know what the real happen on sunshinemu that close, i'm here to let's us know that i thinking in i reborn the sunshinemu.

    For me i really love this game because of the balance and perfect enviroment, i want to continue this game in present time

    ok i know my grammar is not correct but i dont care my goal is to tell us my idea to reborn this game on my own risk, and frineds wanna get some opions from us to do this again

    Thank you
    Alvin Cabual.

    ReplyDelete
  31. anyone here 2020??? we need to bring SunshineMu back, any ideas how ??? i'll be checking this daily, let me now if you guys are interested

    att: PoLaRiiS

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  32. Volverá sunshine mu?

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  33. Sunshine mu volverá?

    ReplyDelete