When it comes to popularity contests in the realm of the MMORPG icon
Ragnarok Online, there are very noted few that are mentioned not only based on their skills and greatness as a player.
But because of the mere impact and change that they have contributed to the game and its society, they themselves become the very core of its Online Soul.
To name a few: We have at first GM Preator and GM Joe who started it all.
Then there’s Goenitz, my good partner ( and sometimes headache) who strived the hard fight against the botting problem. Then we have GM Phage, well loved for her Charisma, Lilith too who did not only extends her charm in pRO but also in pROSE. And who can ever forget the name Carlo Ople aka Waukeen former WOE vet now LUG manager, GM Tristan and acquaintance of mine gamer turned gamer blogtologist Diwa de Leon.
I am sure that there are many more in both the community and the industry that have carved out their names in Philippine Online gaming history. However, if there is one dark
horse that his name has become a household impact and a sworn enemy of most anti-botting propagandas. Only one name comes to our mind.
KALIWANAGAN
I respect the person behind the name. Often a discussion between me and Goenitz, we found him as like many rumors come, as the founder and some even say the creator of Openkore itself.
However I begged to disagree on his general public portrayal as the connoisseur of the MMORPG sin as most players would view him as an arrogant if not mad scientist of sorts, and other rumor marveling mythos that can label him. Many who are pro-botters/botting see him as a god.
Yet I noticed that Kaliwanagan must have more than just the title of Bot Master than he is generally portrayed. I read Master Diwa's first interview with him. I even have the rough draft of the original interview. And though I would say my friend's article on him was groundbreaking I felt there is a lack explanation on other issues that surround his personal character, WHY he does his work and how Mr. Kali is a normal person. In my observation, (and G-man will hate me for this) He had a sense of humility and noble pride on what he does. He carries good knowledge as a consultant to
his craft ( Openkore) and like us GMs and mods of the game, try our best to help our customers. In some weird way we are both alike.
So I decided to go ahead and speak to him. I tried contacting him through his blog which unfortunately shut down the same time my mom passed away. The shutting down of his blog caused massive disarray of issues and rumors. Some even saying he was fired on his status on the Openkore team. But we were able to converse again mere days after my
Mother’s burial which Ill have to admit kept me alive emotionally while coping with the grief. He agreed to an interview to clear some mythos about him and the much despised if not coveted Bot Program Issue. I decided for months to keep this from Goenitz (though I know this for him is an act of betrayal on my part since I have never kept a secretfrom him) . Not to mention I actually enjoyed speaking to Kali as a person despite us being in the opposite sides of the fence.
You will find in this article an account of our conversations over the past weeks
The Interview
Kali I wanted to still know if you would still be interested in a interview or just doing comments on some stuff that you wanted to clarify. It would be of great help if you still would like to get some of your points across or clear your name in other misunderstandings the public eye has upon you. I thought that Diwa may have left out some stuff that could clear your name maybe a more in dept discussion between us can
give us a more clearer side.
One issue is the rumors circulating why you shut down your blog.
Kali: I'd love to do a commentary or interview, but I'm afraid I am hard-pressed for time right now. I am not sure about the incident you are talking about, but I took down the blog because botters are somehow twisting my words to make it seem as if I am their champion.
That, plus the fact that I barely have time to update it. Also I don't really want to create that much fanfare over my online personality.
The number one question now is that a lot of the Bot supporters and even anti-botters were taken aback after your sudden shut down of your blog and very vague announcement of it that you posted in a commentary section of a pRO players blog.
This sudden disappearance of yours speculated a lot of rumors, the number one was that you were " fired" in your role under the Openkore team.
Kali: The rumors, though untrue, are perfectly acceptable for me. I took down the blog because I'm unable to maintain it. I was afraid that if I let it stay up without any updates, people will use it as a rallying point for the wrong reasons. I don't intend to fan nor quench the rumors; remaining a mystery is just fine. Who knows, maybe someday
I'll spread a rumor that the persona "Kali" was actually many people taking up the name (ala Phantom) and that the current Kali is the successor of the previous one.
Tell me about your current position in the Openkore community and your teammates. Besides you, there are other major names in the Opnekore society. Three of them being Don, Heero and Chaotic good. And the VCL too. Are their roles similar to yours or better yet, what are their representation in the upper hierarchy in the Openkore organization?
Kali: You'd have to understand that this is a very informal project, not some formal corporation. As such, there really isn't any "hierarchy" in the strict sense of the word.
I'd describe it more as a meritocracy: the more you contribute, the more authority you assume. Don and Chaoticgood are one of the Administrators of the local support arm of OpenKore in the
On the Openkore website VLC says that he is the Openkore project leader. But is he also one of the main developers? And the Myths that claim that Openkore was developed in the
Kali: It's VCL, and yes he's the project leader and one of the main developers too The Openkore website can answer that question.
Have you been conversing with any Level Up employees about what they can do to better do the anti bot issue? What has been the outcome so far?
Kali: Not including this one, nope not directly. The latest would be the blog (hope it woke up some people).
Waukeen has stated in his blog that the Gravity game developers themselves came down here now to address the Botting situation in
Kali: I'll address a very serious misconception. We're not here to battle with LU - to us LU is just a simple franchisee of the Ragnarok game. That said, Gravity's design with Ragnarok is *really* sloppy to say the least, and it's about time they went ahead and fixed it. Fix the bot issue, and they'll fix the entry of third-party programs (and with that I mean crashers, duping scripts, force deal, exploits, etc.)
Like I mentioned before, bots are only the tip of the iceberg - you'd think the iceberg is huge based on what you see floating in the ocean, but if you chop away that symptom, you'll find out there is something even more huge that will surface.
Our manual MP catching techniques has its limits, depending on the situations. Any advice you can give on how to summon a player or catch difficult bots?
Kali: You are right, the RO client is very limited when it comes to those things. Unfortunately, the only way I can think of to easily summon characters is through a third-party program. Actually, one of the developers made a bot-catching plugin for OpenKore specifically made for GMs.
The GM-bot will teleport itself to different maps while in perfect hiding mode (the mode where even a bot will not know there is another character with it in the map) and creates a database of which characters were seen in which maps, whether it was moving or attacking or just sitting down, and how long has it been staying in the map. It's very effective in profiling a certain map - you can easily spot a botter through the patterns
Does your peers in the Openkore family share the same sentiments you have that you are willing to help out with the anti bot situation?
Some pRO players question your alliance and how does this affect your disposition with the openkore team.
Kali: Since we're a very diverse team with different ideals, I cannot say that we share the same sentiments regarding botting. On the other hand, we all share the same drive in making OpenKore the best AI for Ragnarok there is, and to continually improve it.
You also moderate the Darkmoon forums. How is it different from the Ragnaboards? I mean besides the basic support/ assistance and updates you give your forumers, what type of rule implementation do you do there?
Kali: I'm just a guest in the Darkmoon forums. It's just a local support arm of OpenKore anyway. I don't really have any business there, but I sometimes help out by trashing posts (my favourite job)
Is the Openkore team creating a Bot for RO2? 2. If no, do you know of any news that LUG should be ready for the possible Bot threats for RO2?
Kali: No.
What’s you’re comment on this website that are making claims that they are associated with you http://ragnarokfiles.blogspot.com/
Kali: Okay I have skimmed through the link you posted. It looks like a demolition job of Heero and RB. I think this person is just causing a lot of drama to stir up the whole community. It's happened in iRO. He might also be just twisting words. A person "participates" in an OpenSource project merely by using it - so if you replace
""nagpaparticipate sa" with "gumagamit ng" you have a perfectly acceptable statement. I control who receives write permission in OpenKore - having write permission means that you have the privileges to actually modify the program being downloaded by other people. Thus,write permissions are only offered to certain trustworthy and skilled
individuals, not just some 2005-2007 CS graduate. Besides, *very* few Filipinos are granted this privilege - most of the OpenKore dev team are from International countries.
If he were even part of the group to begin with, he would have already been kicked out long ago. He doesn't possess the professionalism we require (as well as basic English communication skills).
Kali: For one thing, I'm not that interested in vindicating myself - people have seen me as a bad guy, and rightly so because that is the persona I've taken up. Just like the DeathNote analogy, Light might be helping the world by killing criminals, but he's still committing murder. It all boils down to a moral question, and I'd like to keep it at that There is a thread in Ragnaboard thread before that claims the Bot programs is to blame for disappearance of items.
Kali: On the day that topic came up I have tried monitoring who else will be trolling on the boards. The safety of OpenKore is guaranteed by the fact that all the source code is freely available for anyone to view, inspect, and even modify. this is again another case of pRO players getting too big an ego and thinking that OpenKore was made for them. In fact, pRO is just small fry - the real target market is iRO and euRO.
It just so happens that Gravity (and LU) implements the same technologies throughout their licensees, so it's a safe bet that whatever anti-bot patches they put in the Asian servers, they will also be placing in the American and European servers (and they did). If there was rogue code
I am not discounting the fact that some shenanigans have taken OpenKore and made modifications to it, and then disseminated such modified versions to the public. Oftentimes these modifications include a "kill-steal" capability (something we have taken great lengths to prevent.)
Or some hacking ability that we have not included in OpenKore, or a new version that will work with a new patch (mostly seen during server updates). However, these modified versions are usually compiled and thus nobody is unable to inspect the source code (there have been times that the modified kores have their source codes available - we have acted on those reports by proving that certain lines will cause the username and password to be sent to a certain address). These versions are not in our control, and we have always reminded people to only download OpenKore from official sources.
In my opinion, this is a simple demolition job against OpenKore to try and convince people not to use it.
Personal Question: Are you Married?
Kali: No I'm not married. Though I prefer girls who are spunky and not kikay; someone who can go on a mountain expedition date today with me while still being gorgeous in a backless gown for a date tomorrow night.
What kind of foods do you like
Kali: I like spicy foods (Bicol Express, Laing) and sweet foods (Ice Cream)
Hobbies that you enjoy? Like types of movies? Sport or things you do to relax?
Kali: I enjoy just sitting or walking around aimlessly. I don't really watch movies (but I liked Return of the Condor Heroes). When I want to relay
I just lie down and sleep :P
Tell me a funny joke : -) I know u have a sense of humor
Kali: Actually I don't :(
End Notes:
The plans of this article started on December 2007 and ended June 2008. In which I had a chance to get to know Kaliwanagan on a different level.
* I would like to thank him for the time and patience he had with me in the making of this article. We both had a busy schedules. The article would have been longer but there are better things left unsaid
I would not say that we are close but I have gained a new sense of respect for the man. Naturally he and my friend G and myself as well are on different sides of the war fence. Yet in some sense, the fact he finds a great purpose of what he does, gives him that “ Light” of nobility that perhaps is worthy of his name of Kaliwanangan.
This my dear friends is one of the last articles I will be doing for RB/ and RO. After this article I will be taking my leave being a Ragnaboard Moderator by early July.
No comments:
Post a Comment