A look back on things - Part 4

You know the deal.

• Part 1: totalfreedom.boards.net/thread/55364/back-on
• Part 2: totalfreedom.boards.net/thread/60756/back-on-2
• Part 3: totalfreedom.boards.net/thread/63117/back-on-3

It's the beginning of June 2018. I had expected this summer to be as uneventful as every summer had been in previous years. I was wrong.

On June 5, 2018, I received a direct message from someone with a familiar name: "IDNC". He asked if I could call, and because I could, I started a call with him. I was greeted with a voice that sounded oddly familiar. I shook it off and assumed that the person I was talking to was actually IDoNotCare21. He asked if I had figured out who he really was. I said no, not fully understanding the question he asked me. He then identified himself as the person I least expected to hear from again: Savnith. I was surprised, considering I hadn't heard from him for months. He explained to me that the real IDoNotCare21 was no longer interested in the server, so he gave his accounts to him. His intention was to have him get Senior Admin status.

With the information that was just given to me, I had to make a decision. I could start recording any calls I had with him for future use, or I could rat him out to an executive and have justice served right then and there. There were many pros and cons for both. If I recorded the call and waited, I would be able to have definite evidence that could be used in the future, but he might go rogue under the name before I could report him with the evidence. If I ratted him out to an executive, I wouldn't have enough definite evidence to get him in trouble and he could just deny my claims entirely. I decided to go with the former, assuming whatever got recorded would come in handy in the future. So I did, recording 3 hours of the first call and a few more calls after that. Here's the initial, 3 hour recording:

On June 7, 2018, I began talking to a telnet admin on the server, named Telesphoreo. We discussed the idea of updating the server's TF-Essentials to a new, up to date version of the plugin, which was given the name TF-EssentialsX. We could patch several Essentials-related issues that had been plaguing the server for years: nicking others, flooding peoples' inventories, mass-mailing, and giving other people crash items. All of that would be patched. It was an incredible idea. We believed our change would be revolutionary for the server.


I created the suggestion in the same night, noting a bunch of opportunities we had at the time to make the server a lot better.
Despite the objects from some of the higher ranks, the suggestion was successful and it was eventually implemented into the server. From my perspective at the time, it was a success.

On June 11, 2018, I heard about a server named BServer. I heard about its abusive staff, violations of the TFM license, and so much more. The perfect target for a shitstorm to unfold. Instead of leaving it alone, I decided to join some members of the TotalFreedom community who were all in a voice call, to see how things would unfold. I had originally expected them to just threaten the server and intimidate them into submission. However, that's not how things went at all. Instead, they were abusing exploits to crash the server and its players.

Mainly out of curiosity, I joined in on the fun of attacking the server, watching as several players ripped the server to shreds with every exploit in the book. I recorded everything I could as it unfolded, as I felt it would be an unforgettable moment that needed to be preserved.

After that, Seth, Robin, zekurt, and I tried to negotiate with one of the owners of the server: Soupris. I don't exactly remember the results of it, so I don't know if anything actually happened.


On July 6, 2018, Savnith (still under the IDNC alias) logged in as the username "savnith" on-server. People were confused. I, however, wasn't. I knew that a situation like this would happen. My memory of what happened gets a bit fuzzy, but from what I can remember, suprmn warned him strongly and Savnith went rogue shortly afterwards, dooming several admins over panel and logging in as Windows.


I got into a group with several admins who were online at the time. You can view the entire conversation in the spoiler below.

I also contacted StevenNL2000 over Skype, giving him the basic rundown on what just went down.


After that whole fiasco went down, I recieved a message from IDNC, asking me not to say anything. I agreed, mainly because I didn't feel like leaking anything at the time.



In the afternoon of July 11, 2018, the server was acting abnormally. According to a few administrators, plugins like WorldEdit, CoreProtect, and the TotalFreedomMod were not working properly (if not at all). I joined the server and the General Lounge voice call that was ongoing to see what the hell was going on. At first, Seth suspected the issue on hand to be related to a memory cache-related issue and told Windows to use a Unix command to clear the cache. However, Windows didn't do that, but instead started to delete plugins and reload the server. Eventually, he deleted the core plugin of the server as a whole: the TotalFreedomMod. When we told Seth what he did, he was pissed.

After Windows tried to fix the problem on his own, he gave up and created a thread that stated the issue was "more complex than first appeared".

Seth reacted to the thread with a contagious hysterical laughter. I ended up laughing with him.

After we had the laugh of the century, Seth decided to take matters into his own hands. After recieving FTP access to the server, he realized what the problem was (the server simply ran out of space) and restructured the server to ensure that an issue like this wouldn't happen again. The process took a few hours, but Seth's pissed remarks made it worth the wait.
With how chaotic things were becoming, something tragic happened. It's now the afternoon of August 11, 2018. I had joined the server to see a user talking about the death of a user with a familiar name, "LightWarp".

An apparent suicide, of some sorts. "How could this happen," I thought to myself, "I talked with the man weeks prior and he seemed fine." I shrugged it off, believing it to just be an imposter. So I contacted the real LightWarp over Discord to see what was up but to my surprise, the real deal reported the same thing.

So, with the information I was given and the fact that even the official account said it, I bought into it. I talked with some administrators about what happened. Some were confused, others seemed to be very mournful.

All of the admins at the time decided to band together to create a memorial for him or at least create a gathering of the community to mourn the passing of our seemingly-fallen comrade.


News of the man's death spread throughout the community like wildfire. One hour later, Seth created a thread on the forums discussing the death of the man. He noted that while the authenticity of the news isn't 100% confirmed, he personally believed it was true.


Of course, there were people who were suspicious of it. People started asking questions. Was this an actual death, or an elaborate joke? Nobody knew. However, it started to become abundantly clear that things just weren't adding up.





Eventually, the whole thing fell apart. It was a hoax. He never killed himself. When I learned about this, I deeply was disappointed in him for doing something so incredibly insensitive.

-- More coming soon --