Elysiumgate: Evidence against Vitaliy

The paramount question that inevitably comes up in all the discussions about Elysium project is the question of evidence - namely, the perceived lack of solid evidence despite the general acknowledgement of shadiness and a severe lack of transparency.

I can fully understand how an average reddit user, let alone average Elysium player, who does not have the time nor the desire to keep up with literally hundreds of threads and dig through a ton of evidence scattered across this subreddit over the course of multiple weeks, may feel that all the recent drama is based on a very shaky foundation and is largely baseless, i.e. falls into the domain of tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists, who are unable to present any hard facts to back up their claims.

This notion, however, could not be farther from the truth – while it is impossible for us to go through Elysium GM logs (they have been deleted) or to have a look into Vitaliy’s private bank account (that would be illegal), it is well known that Elysium’s team is laughably inadequate when it comes to PR, damage control and containing the leaks, so we can largely work with their own statements.

I’m not going to discuss in detail other Elysium’s false statements and shortcomings, such as their promise to cease the use of Nostalrius core, which they did not follow through on, for example, as there are numerous, and would rather exclusively focus on the controversy surrounding Vitaliy, which essentially was the starting point of the entire drama and has effectively led to the collapse of LGN and the exodus of a number of key people from Elysium’s team.

I would not dare to ask anyone to take my words as some sort of universal truth – I strongly believe that the overwhelming majority of people reading this are intelligent enough to be able to connect the dots and draw their own conclusions, given that they are provided with all the necessary facts.

And that is exactly what I’m going to do – I will provide a list of incriminating facts against Vitaliy, followed by the links to the supporting evidence. While a lot of these facts may be already well known to some people, I still think that it is beneficial to have a convenient opportunity to look at the full picture.

 

So, without further ado, let’s go down the rabbit hole and set Vitaliy’s record straight:

  

**Vitaliy, a close friend of Shenna, has a 100% ownership stake in Elysium-project.**

All the server equipment is rented under his name, he has full core access although he does no actual development, and Shenna would rather shut down the project then see his access rights restricted.

Let’s hear a bit of evidence from Shenna herself:

[«He is the project owner, I am the project manager. We are hosting on his hardware.»](https://soundcloud.com/user-497661891/elysium-staff-meeting#t=1:02:00)

[«Well, he actually stepped down, he is not active, he is doing his real life stuff, he does not even log into the discord.»]( https://soundcloud.com/user-497661891/elysium-staff-meeting#t=07:12)

[«You actually propose me to cut his access? He has ultimate access to everything.»](https://soundcloud.com/user-497661891/elysium-staff-meeting#t=1:04:13)

["I have bad news for you. If you will keep demanding cutting his access, it means only one thing - it means that I'm leaving, and the project is dying. Because I can't demand to cut ultimate access from the project owner"](https://soundcloud.com/user-497661891/elysium-staff-meeting#t=1:06:48)

  

**Vitaliy used to run an openly for profit P2W server – Valkyrie WoW - for 7 years prior to the inception of Elysium.**

This is confirmed by their advertisement on /wowservers just a year ago: [«you are able to donate for an instant level 60 with blue gear on Valk. As well as for max professions
»](https://www.reddit.com/r/wowservers/comments/33t4q4/valkyriewoworg_from_the_admin_to_you/cqo9fmv/)

This is confirmed by Suzerain, their former lead CM: [“Yes, they openly took donations for rewards”]( https://www.reddit.com/r/wowservers/comments/5vb5qd/correcting_the_record_elysium_valkyrie_project/de0olnz/)

This is further confirmed by Shenna:[«Sure, he (Vitaliy) used to run a commercial project»](http://imgur.com/phkCnC2)

Fun fact is that they were not only offering freshly generated max level characters, professions, gold, gear, name changes, etc. for sale, but they did also manage to organize everything in the most non-transparent way possible – Valkyrie did not have an official cash shop with a list of published prices. Instead, all the deals were made under the table through a couple of GMs, who were personally close to the owner, Vitaliy – [GM Aenelle was the most involved one](https://forum.elysium-project.org/profile/13123-aenelle/?do=content&type=forums_topic&change_section=1) – her account is apparently still even tagged with “Administrator” title xD.

Given a system like that, it is hardly surprising that Valkyrie WoW was plagued by accusations of GM/Admin corruption and favoritism.

 

**Vitaliy has publically admitted to unbanning known Chinese exploiters**

This happened as recently as 26.07.2016, just 3 weeks prior to the launch of the original Elysium realm – at that time, [they were already boasting an international team and were supposed to be «strictly against any sort of paid incentives»](https://www.reddit.com/r/wowservers/comments/5vb5qd/correcting_the_record_elysium_valkyrie_project/de0olnz/).

[Here is a screenshot from Valkyrie-WoW forum from 26.07.2016]( https://2ch.hk/wow/src/76015/14697693873890.jpg) – unfortunately, it is in Russian (this thread had obviously been already deleted by the admins).

And here is a link to [2ch Russian World of Warcraft board on which this screenshot has been posted]( https://2ch.hk/wow/res/76015.html) – you are looking for post #36.

You can find the transcript of the conversation involving Vitaliy [in the following pastebin](http://pastebin.com/RgqMZq0F) – feel free to copy-paste it into any online translator.


What happens is basically a player confronts Vitaliy about a number of Chinese honor exploiters who have been just banned for abusing mechanics. He states that he encountered the supposedly banned player on the very next day.


A response is given to him by Vitaliy himself - Vitaliy evidently has zero problems with openly admitting that he unbans known bug-abusers for their supposed promotion of Valkyrie server. He goes even further by calling it a great deal for the server!

 

** Vitaliy has been caught discussing paid unbans in Chinese wechat**

The first major crisis occured when Vitaliy [got busted by u/mister_legacy in Chinese RMT WeChat](http://imgur.com/a/vOcK2) (the original screenshot was edited by me to not include any personal information).

The majority of Elysium staff has never spoken to Vitaliy - yet Nost100 gold selling company had a pretty good idea where to find him xD

Surpsiginly enough, Elysium did not try to outright deny this accusation - in fact, they have admitted that Vitaliy indeed [«was in those chats. He said things that are incriminating»](https://www.reddit.com/r/ElysiumProject/comments/5vkjhn/closure_another_farewell_for_now/)

It was claimed, however, that [«the conversation in Wechat had sarcastic overtones that aren't particularly clear due to (Vitaliy's) weak proficiency with English»](https://forum.elysium-project.org/topic/37939-a-frank-address-and-statement-on-recent-events-and-revelations/), and that is somehow [«was taken horribly out of context»](https://www.reddit.com/r/ElysiumProject/comments/5wts2n/q_a_transcript/).

At this point you may be wondering, however - even if everything was indeed taken out of context, what was the owner of Elysium project, who supposedly "stepped down, was not active and did not even have time to log into discord", doing in Chinese RMT WeChat?

Well, it turns out that...

 

** Vitaliy was in fact accepting payments on his private bank account from WeChat users**


You see, Vitaliy was actually running the entire WeChat scheme - this, once again, was exposed by u/mister_legacy.

This is how it all worked: Vitaliy created «elysium-project» chat room in WeChat - it was supposedly running since the inception of the original Elysium realm back in August 2016.

This chat room was private, so, [if you wanted to get in, Vitaliy had to personally invite you first](http://imgur.com/a/4jU8N).

WeChat was used by the Chinese in order to [conduct RMT transactions](http://i.imgur.com/cnvGvmz.png) - this guy, for example, was selling his gnome with 400g in bags - someone offered him 1888 yuan for it.

[Donations to Elysium](http://imgur.com/a/ZR0nC) could also be made there, including the [«red envelope» donations](http://imgur.com/a/p40sJ) for undisclosed amounts.

Once again, Elysium did not even try to deny the fact that money have been actually transferred through WeChat - according to [Elysium Chinese GM](https://www.reddit.com/r/wowservers/comments/5wtfdd/elysium_further_lies_a_message_to_shenna/decyrmr/),[«Elysium use webchat for Chinese donate. because paypal is inconvenient in China»](http://i.imgur.com/PIXONH2.png), and according to Shenna,
[«We translated the WeChat logs and there is nothing about gold selling - its just discussions about donations.»](https://soundcloud.com/user-497661891/elysium-staff-meeting#t=01:18)

What they fail to mention, however, are a couple of critical issues:

First, in order to cash out and withdraw any money from WeChat, [you have to link your credit card to it](http://imgur.com/a/ePD4b) - so, all the payments received via WeChat were going directly into Vitaliy's bank account under his real life name. Needless to say, no figures have ever been disclosed, and absolutely zero transparency is possible given such arrangement. Was it actually the same credit card that was recently used in order to make a [€1865.94 payment to OVH?](https://forum.elysium-project.org/topic/42482-your-donations-and-you%E2%80%A6/)

Second, just like in Discord, you are able to have private 1 on 1 conversations in WeChat - [direct money transfers to any of your WeChat contacts](https://wechat.co.za/faq/how-do-i-send-money-to-my-wechat-contacts/) are also possible. Would it really be a stretch to assume that not everyone will be comfortable with public money transfers in WeChat room, opting for private 1 on 1 transactions instead? Furthermore, no logs of such transaction could ever be possibly checked, since no one but Vitaliy could have any access to them.

Well, it turns out that server donations might not be the only reason why someone would want to make a direct payment to Vitaliy, the owner of Elysium project, who has unrestricted core access...

 

**Vitaliy WAS in fact UNBANNING PLAYERS in WeChat**

This is probably the most overlooked piece of evidence against him.

Let’s hear the testimony from Shenna herself: [«About some unbans I can explain it - Vitaliy could unban someone, but not for money. He could just go over the GM team and listen to some players in the Wechat and decide they are not guilty.»](https://soundcloud.com/user-497661891/elysium-staff-meeting#t=12:39)

And now let’s hear it from the former lead GM Haydes: [«the logs have been removed, and the accounts have been unbanned, and the logs of unbans taking place have been removed»](https://soundcloud.com/user-497661891/elysium-staff-meeting#t=54:37)

And back to Shenna once again: [«Well he can do mistake interfering to GM work. If you can't forgive this mistake - OK»](https://soundcloud.com/user-497661891/elysium-staff-meeting#t=55:04)

This is what former lead CM Suzerain was referring to when he said that [«We will try to reverse any services he provided, though it may not be possible since the logs have been deleted»](http://i.imgur.com/ZENIqJg.png)

This was also the last straw that broke the camel’s back and caused Crestfall to pull out of LGN [«due to strong evidence of corruption in high-ranking  members of their staff»](http://forums.crestfall-gaming.com/index.php?/topic/1869-regarding-crestfalls-withdrawl-from-legacy-network/).

So, as you can see, Shenna was not even trying to deny these allegations against Vitaliy internally – she knew she could not. However, the players were told a completely different story: [«Vitaliy will remain on the team, as we still have absolutely no evidence of any wrongdoing… The only evidence we really have is of multiple images posted by a random individual of a chat log.»](https://www.reddit.com/r/ElysiumProject/comments/5wts2n/q_a_transcript/)

 

**Bonus Content: Elysium-project - taking ~~emulation~~ damage control to the next level!**

A lively discussion on how to cover up all of this mess also took place during the leaked staff meeting – I believe they have been having a lot of these discussions lately xD

Here, for example, they are talking about faking an investigation and ignoring the legitimate concerns: [«The issue isn't whether or not Vitaliy did or did not do anything, it's how we responded to it. All we had to do is ignore the drama. All we had to do is to have Crogge come in, look at the logs and go "He did not do anything".»](https://soundcloud.com/user-497661891/elysium-staff-meeting#t=28:15)

[«The playerbase does not care about this. If it was openly on our website, that we were selling stuff, then yeah, that might be a problem.»](https://soundcloud.com/user-497661891/elysium-staff-meeting#t=30:18) – That’s some nice transparency you have there! Would be a shame if someone did expose you, wouldn’t it be? xD

Apparently, it is also not just Alexsensual who is calling die-hard Elysium fans sheep: [«Once we give them something positive, for example, the war effort release date, they will instantly forget about this drama, cause our players don't care about drama, Vitaliy, goldselling - they just want to play.»](https://soundcloud.com/user-497661891/elysium-staff-meeting#t=28:55)

So next time you are presented with another upbeat damage-control announcement from Elysium team - for example, something along the lines of [«The remaining scripting of AQ is going tremendously well… We can confidently say that AQ is around 80% done.»]( https://www.reddit.com/r/ElysiumProject/comments/5wts2n/q_a_transcript/), you should be able to see right through their bullshit and not be surprised to learn that AQ was in fact [«almost untouched with no Elysium devs working on it»](http://imgur.com/a/fyZn5) just a week before this announcement was made (Asura’s message has not yet been removed from Elysium’s discord btw)

Furthermore, at this point you may be wondering why so little of this ongoing bullshit does actually get leaked out and exposed, given that Elysium’s staff turnover is essentially a revolving door.

Well, former lead GM Haydes gives you an answer in his resignation speech: [«We have no intentions of this going public - us leaving, or any information we know. **We know that you are capable of things you have done in the past to other people who have left the project, and we just want to leave this project in peace and be done with it.**»](https://soundcloud.com/user-497661891/elysium-staff-meeting#t=39:31)

 

**TL:DR - Let’s set Vitaliy’s record straight:**

 

* **Vitaliy exists - he is the sole owner of Elysium project with unrestricted root access** (yet «he is not active» and «does not even log into the discrord», according to Shenna)
* **Vitaliy has been running a commercial P2W server for 7 years** (yet he «has not sold a single coin», according to Shenna)
* **Vitaliy has publically admitted to unbanning Chinese exploiters in the past** (yet he is «an honest man» who «cares about you, assholes», according to Shenna)
* **Vitaliy was caught in Chinese RMT Wechat discussing paid unbans** (yet «a post he made in Wechat was a joke», according to Shenna)
* **Vitaliy, who was inactive elsewhere, was actively receiving direct payments to his private bank account through Wechat** (yet all of those payments were exclusively server donations, according to Shenna)
* **Vitaliy was in fact unbanning people in Wechat ** (yet no money were involved – he just “listened to some players in the Wechat and decided they are not guilty”, according to Shenna)

 

**P.S** u/Shenna_Elysium, I’m calling you out on your bullshit. You are by far the worst this community has to offer. How dare you [privatizing the notion of Legacy Movement](https://forum.elysium-project.org/topic/41905-recent-issues-future-plans/), in the name of which, albeit somewhat naively, Nostalrius project was sacrificed,  and running it as your own business venture? How dare you stealing the Nost core, all their hard work and years of development, and then [having the audacity to present it as the work of your own](https://forum.elysium-project.org/topic/32701-our-official-response-to-nostalrius-%E2%80%94-elysium-will-prevail/) after slapping a small number of hackfixes on top of it, which broke more things than you were intending to fix? How dare you lying straight to the face of your community time and time again, while actively devising better ways to conceal the truth from your players? How dare you claiming that there was ever any sort of financial transparency to your project, yet you have been accepting private donations through paypal and wechat starting from day 1, while never disclosing the figures or publishing donation lists [despite all the promises made by your staff]( https://forum.elysium-project.org/topic/41696-anathema-pvp-%E2%80%94-unexpected-downtime-update/?page=4
)? How dare you [threatening your own staff](https://soundcloud.com/user-497661891/elysium-staff-meeting#t=39:31), the unpaid volunteers, to the point of them no longer feeling comfortable to speak out publicly against your “leadership” even after leaving the project? How fucking dare you?!

 

**P.P.S.** A message to the numerous former (and current) Elysium staff members: I’m certain that the majority of you, [with the exception of a couple of bad apples like Tyche (Ajinn)](https://soundcloud.com/user-497661891/elysium-staff-meeting#t=49:09), are honest and trustworthy people, truly passionate about legacy WoW. I’m also certain that most of you genuinely wanted this project to succeed  and become the go-to place for all the vanilla lovers. This is fully understandable - why else would you volunteer to spend countless unpaid hours and so much effort on it? Some of you still probably hope that the project may yet correct its course, overcome all of its internal and external woes and become the true legacy champion that it so desperately claims to be.

Unfortunately, the time has come to acknowledge the fact that there is literally a zero chance of this happening while Shenna and Vitaliy remain at the helm of the project. Some of you probably feel that by refusing to speak out against Shenna’s shady practices and failed decision making you are somehow protecting your fellow colleagues and the remaining player base by not «stirring up drama» – however, the reality of the situation is that you are not doing anyone (except Shenna and Vitaliy) any favors by choosing to withhold the truth from the community. As the saying goes, a terrible end is better than an endless terror…

 

**P.P.P.S.** Please be respectful of reddit rules and this subreddit’s mods and don’t post ANY personal information, no matter how insignificant it may seem.