I am deeply disappointed that I have to make a statement regarding this.
As some of you may already know, there has been a video circulating with some serious accusations against the Return of Reckoning team that I would like to address.
First of all there have been accusations about us trying to use a funeral as an opportunity to advertise for the server. When an unfortunate event like this happens we usually get contacted by a guild member, friend or sometimes a family member of the person in question. We usually try to do some due diligence and ensure that friends and/or family would be okay with us creating a memorial. We then work with those representatives to get a quote for the gravestone and have one of the designers create the relevant objects in game and link everything for the next patch. Players then usually organise a date where they hold a ceremony, we try and organise Game Masters to be on call to ensure that people do not act disrespectfully, etc. In this particular situation, the event was recorded by another player and ended up on social media from which a news reporter picked it up. The reporter got in touch with us in discord and asked a few very specific questions:
Our house writing style is to refer to people by given name, unless they prefer to be known by their handle. Can I ask what your IRL name is? What pronouns should I refer to you by?
I'd like to summarise RoR for gamers who aren't familiar: 'Return of Reckoning is a community project that runs servers for the Warhammer Age of Reckoning MMO.' How many active players are there? How long has RoR been running? Has GW helped the project at all?
What pronouns should I use for Zuna?
Was their IRL name public?
What race / class did they main?
How long were they part of the community?
What made Zuna so beloved?
When did Zuna die? Do you know their age at the time?
How was the funeral organised?
How many players attended, and how long did it last?
What happened at the funeral - I've seen short recordings of a procession.
Any screenshots are extremely welcome.
Thank you!
I'd like to summarise RoR for gamers who aren't familiar: 'Return of Reckoning is a community project that runs servers for the Warhammer Age of Reckoning MMO.' How many active players are there? How long has RoR been running? Has GW helped the project at all?
What pronouns should I use for Zuna?
Was their IRL name public?
What race / class did they main?
How long were they part of the community?
What made Zuna so beloved?
When did Zuna die? Do you know their age at the time?
How was the funeral organised?
How many players attended, and how long did it last?
What happened at the funeral - I've seen short recordings of a procession.
Any screenshots are extremely welcome.
Thank you!
To which we responded with:
…
Return of Reckoning is a Rogue Server of the old Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, that shut down in 2013. We are currently celebrating our private server's 10th Year Anniversary in fact. It is an actively developed and maintained project to not only fully resurrect Warhammer Online in its full glory but further develop and enhance it.
Here is our About Section: https://www.returnofreckoning.com/about
Here is our 10th Anniversary: viewtopic.php?t=53265
We have no public numbers available about total playerbase, but we peak around 800 - 1000 players every day and steadily growing after some major updates and advances this year.
Chris "Zuna" Buechter - he / him, was not only a Return of Reckoning regular but also a well known E-Sports player - https://liquipedia.net/heroes/Zuna
He was a very passionate and hardcore player who played many of the careers, likely all of them to be fair, while constantly looking for ways to perfect his playstyle and help others.
Zuna has been part of the RoR Community for many years.
He was an extremely passionate player, not just in E-Sports but in other hobby games he played like RoR and it reflected in everything he did. He was always thriving for perfection in every way possible, while also always helping others where he could, giving him his charm.
Information: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-chri ... l-expenses
For more accurate information regarding how players felt about Zuna, I'd personally recommend reaching out to players who were also recommended in chat from what I've seen, they will be able to give more accurate and personal opinions.
The Funeral was mainly organized by his former Guild Members of Nightmare Guild and a lot of other big Guilds on the Server.
There were over 100 players attending the Funeral, and they've marched from the in-game city of Praag's iconic Martyr's Square, to the Praag Graveyard where we keep Gravestones of some of our players who are no longer with us.
The funeral was very touching, it was streamed on Twitch and players gathered on a Voice Call where anyone could share stories about Zuna, and several people have talked for quite some time, while player characters were emoting /pray on his gravestone.
It was a heartfelt, well organized event.
Return of Reckoning is a Rogue Server of the old Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, that shut down in 2013. We are currently celebrating our private server's 10th Year Anniversary in fact. It is an actively developed and maintained project to not only fully resurrect Warhammer Online in its full glory but further develop and enhance it.
Here is our About Section: https://www.returnofreckoning.com/about
Here is our 10th Anniversary: viewtopic.php?t=53265
We have no public numbers available about total playerbase, but we peak around 800 - 1000 players every day and steadily growing after some major updates and advances this year.
Chris "Zuna" Buechter - he / him, was not only a Return of Reckoning regular but also a well known E-Sports player - https://liquipedia.net/heroes/Zuna
He was a very passionate and hardcore player who played many of the careers, likely all of them to be fair, while constantly looking for ways to perfect his playstyle and help others.
Zuna has been part of the RoR Community for many years.
He was an extremely passionate player, not just in E-Sports but in other hobby games he played like RoR and it reflected in everything he did. He was always thriving for perfection in every way possible, while also always helping others where he could, giving him his charm.
Information: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-chri ... l-expenses
For more accurate information regarding how players felt about Zuna, I'd personally recommend reaching out to players who were also recommended in chat from what I've seen, they will be able to give more accurate and personal opinions.
The Funeral was mainly organized by his former Guild Members of Nightmare Guild and a lot of other big Guilds on the Server.
There were over 100 players attending the Funeral, and they've marched from the in-game city of Praag's iconic Martyr's Square, to the Praag Graveyard where we keep Gravestones of some of our players who are no longer with us.
The funeral was very touching, it was streamed on Twitch and players gathered on a Voice Call where anyone could share stories about Zuna, and several people have talked for quite some time, while player characters were emoting /pray on his gravestone.
It was a heartfelt, well organized event.
It confuses me that these claims have been made, because the player themselves said they had been asked to be interviewed by the journalist and asked us to provide screenshots of the event to provide to the journalist. I am saddened that a member of the community has made claims like these, especially only after their ban appeal was denied.
I can also reiterate that nobody has been banned for “mara pulling”, in relation to Terrible Embrace. Anyone claiming to be banned for doing so is spreading misinformation. We had stated that this was not a bannable offence multiple times. This is a PvP focused game, with achievements for in-game killing of Guild Leaders.
There is a claim that a community manager is “personal friends” with someone making a report. This is categorically untrue and people who have mentioned this have been told as much. Despite this, people continue to spread this misinformation. I have tried to see where this rumour has come from and from what I can see a player made a joke in which he stated “we get drinks when we attend conferences together in Davos”. I can only assume it was meant to be sarcastic, as Davos is famous for hosting major worldwide conferences such as World Economic Forum (WEF) which brings together business leaders, politicians, and journalists once a year to discuss current global economic and social challenges.
There has also been a claim that I do “not want to get involved” and “give free reign over the server” to specific members of the team. This is factually incorrect and I review many ban appeals and check which thresholds have been met, which almost all of them are undisputedly justified. In rare cases where I have found what I feel to be ambiguity or reasonable doubt, bans are lifted. Internal reviews of bans are essential for ensuring fairness, accuracy, and consistency in enforcement, building player trust, and maintaining a positive community. They help correct mistakes, allow us to update the code of conduct, or generally improve moderation practices.
In some cases incidents regarding players go through me and I review before any action is taken. This case was one of those. In this particular case I had had a call over nine months ago, in which I had stated that the threshold for a ban had been met and explained that continued harassment would result in a permanent ban. I have very rarely, if ever, had to have a call with a player and explain to them that their behaviour is unacceptable. I have reviewed every report since then. I can only conclude that my warnings had clearly been ignored. I was sent an appeal, I spent a long time reviewing it, verifying claims, and found a large amount of information in the appeal to be irrelevant or untrue. whether that be claims about why they were banned being untrue or screenshots with false information.
I am deeply concerned that private internal messages from Game Master chats have been deliberately leaked, actions have been taken and I am taking further measures to ensure that this does not happen again.
In any case, we do not disclose specific details about bans. This is standard practice in the games industry. Why? Sharing details might inadvertently disclose sensitive data about players who create reports. We want to ensure their privacy is respected. Keeping specifics confidential ensures the integrity of the investigation and the measures in place to detect and handle violations. Providing specific information in one case would lead to inconsistent practices, whereas this standard approach helps maintain uniformity. Finally, as we are all volunteers, we do not necessarily have the resources to filter and provide specific information, ensuring all personal details are redacted and no identity can be assumed, and all other things that may be required.
While I have not addressed every small detail, I am confident that most if not all of the claims are either false, misconstrued, exaggerated or just irrelevant. For example, I have been told that someone screamed and verbally abused me in a Discord call. I do not recall any such encounter.
Claims have also been made that former members of the team have been kicked out in the last few months. I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to comment on the personal circumstances of team members. However, the most common reason people leave or as I usually say to “take a step back until you have more free time”, is because their personal circumstances change. Usually these are new milestones in their lives, such as changing jobs, moving country, buying a house, starting a family or anything in between, which takes up a lot of time and they aren’t able to commit the time they would like into the project. There have been a lot of people deliberately spreading misinformation regarding these team members. This is not fair.
I want to make this absolutely clear. Harassment is not tolerated. We will never accept nor condone any form of prejudice, hatred or abuse. Our goal is to build a strong community that offers a comfortable atmosphere for all of our players. This means ensuring that players are able to feel comfortable making reports about harassment. If you feel the same way, wherever and whoever you are, we're glad you are part of the community. If not, you will not be missed. We have an explicit Harassment Policy in our Code of Conduct ( code-of-conduct ). Additionally, while we do not moderate services that we do not operate, we strongly advise against using those platforms to harass, doxx, or target others in real life.
We have been making considerable effort to move Return of Reckoning to be more professional. We have introduced a support portal so we can easily handle support requests related to accounts, etc. Some of you may have noticed the new Code of Conduct we released at the beginning of the year and more recently we have got legal counsel onboard to help us with Terms of Service and Privacy Policy among other things.
I can assure you that the team behind Return of Reckoning is filled with people who are absolute mega fans of the game, and some of the most talented developers who I have worked with, who put in thousands of hours of free time in order to keep the game alive, who are filled with pure passion for the game. I love and care for them all deeply.
See you on the battlefield,
Max
