The HWID part is partially true.
In late
2023-ish, edit: it was late 2021, early 2022 when I first learned of it, several groups reached out to me after their HWID bypass was detected. They had me update a plugin (MQ2HWID) from one of the MacroQuest devs, and told them to not share it with the other group. These were splinter groups in two of the biggest guilds at the time that were using it up until this point.
I did what any fine, upstanding mischief maker would do and updated it for both, and told the other group that I didn't update it for them, so they would piss in each other's cheerios.
FF a few months, 64-bit came out, and they had me update it with the 64-bit build of MQ. I had originally thought that eqmule was behind the plugin's creation (he was acting out of malice at the time) but it turned out it wasn't him.
Months later, I also reached out to the original developer at MacroQuest's community who created the plugin after deducing who left it would be. He said that he refused to update it, and so it was no surprise that they went to other people to have it updated again.
Basically, we conferred and found out that these two groups had two different intents: one was jealous the other had it, and the other was unable to update it on their own.
In terms of whether or not it works now? I don't know. After I found out that the developer didn't want it updated, I stopped updating it, and gave both groups the source code, instructions for updating it, and said 'figure it out, it is no longer my problem'.
After a month or two after that, I reached out to Darkpaw Games and reported the plugin to them and its source code so they could reliably catch everyone and remove them in one fell swoop. Haven't touched it for ~3 years since. It's not my problem anymore.
Unfortunately, I don't think anything was ever done about it. Or cheaters are very good at lying to each other about when they got caught, which is understandably more likely. And now we're here.
The monetization bit is completely false - there was never anything taken in on Project Quarm for anything in return ingame, and that continues to be the case to this day.
This reads of conspiracy tier, and given that screenshots are easily faked, I would take anything said in public with a grain of salt.
You'll see people screeching about the gofundme I made for myself to survive, or how I made a Patreon, or how I stream on Twitch and people can tip there, but no one got anything in return for that ingame or otherwise resulting in a reward on Project Quarm for a donation. That's called a payment if it results in a reward and is a distinct, clear difference.
By the way, it was Tyen (Salty) who reported THJ to them.
He shared this in a Discord. Upon that being shared, I checked the original server it was shared in (THJ's) and it was obvious it was Tyen who posted it there.
The date he sent the email matches up with the court evidence. Of course, he could have faked it for attention, but given that he has
literally done this before to Project 1999 back in 2014, I am instead inclined to believe that he's telling the truth, because his forum spam on Daybreak's forums later led to the P99 agreement to begin with according to Rogean.
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