u/Cheap-Desk-4778

Warren Williams is one of the lieutenants for the Vice Kings but is better known publicly as a signed artist turned executive of "Kingdom Come Records"

Of course, Aisha had three in-universe songs recorded for the game which makes sense that Sy Smith is a real-life R&B singer. I think we all agree that Aisha's music is great but does anybody wonder what the rapper Warren "EZ Money" Williams would had sounded like? I get why he didn't get any in-universe songs since we're meant to think that he's a joke or a fake rapper but since he is made out to be this big deal celebrity in the general public, it still has me curious.

I like to think it would sound somewhat like mid-2000s radio-friendly Gangsta rap with light-hearted lyrics about being rich and partying (hence his stage name). The deeper album cuts might be more traditional gangsta rap inspired by the Vice Kings but Warren himself is essentially a "studio gangsta" that was only loosely affiliated with the real-life stories (eg. Grew up in the projects).

Does anybody else wonder about this? What is your take on it?

Yo . . .

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As I'm sure a lot of you know, I have been heavily involved in the ZedekGate™ controversy surrounding the "reTHAWed" mod for "Tony Hawk's American Wasteland", in which the lead developers (Zedek, Drake, Uzis) have allegedly perpetuated in:

• Rascism, bigotry, and harassment
• Fake firings in order to appease the community
• Dodging accountability for the harm caused
• Harassing critics via burner accounts, loyalists, and shills
• Cybersecurity attacks on perceived offenders

I have been commenting on the controversy from literally day one but I only seriously took the helm once Zedek was quietly reinstated. Since then, I have campaigned against the lack of accountability on 10K Rising's part and generally refusing to take responsibility for their actions. Needless to say, this has been an uphill battle and I have faced a great deal of opposition over it, especially thinking people that it has already run it's due course. To me, it is not just about the phobias and the -isms because that's been covered well enough. I believe that accountability and holding those responsible is just as (if not more) important.

In between the usual spam comments about unemployment, psychiatry, and personal bests, several of you have expressed genuine concern for my mental health and personal wellbeing. In case I haven't clearly expressed it, just know that I hear you, and I got mad love for all of you. I won't name names but they know who they are. I can assure you my personal wellbeing is intact but there are other factors I must address.

It has been pointed out both constructively and destructively that my involvement in ZedekGate™ has become a sunken cost fallacy or a diminishing return. In other words, each new topic I cover makes less and less difference in the grand scheme of things. Plus, whenever I do make a post, I have to weigh the perceived impact, annoying the rest of the community, and putting myself in harm's way via the personal attacks. In short, I just do not think it is worth my energy anymore. When even The Annoying Cat thinks I'm pretty annoying myself, that surely means something.

I was already prepared to write a big piece on Lakitu Zen. They were a former dev at 10K but continues to contribute to "reTHAWed" as a third-party. Even though there is a Grey area I wanted to cover, both Crooks and myself believe that Lakitu is innocent so doing a post on them when they haven't actually done anything wrong feels like I would be "Jumping The Shark" (assuming I hadn't already with the 'Secret Police' talk)

I have been keeping a close eye on both the 10K and THPSX Discord servers and once you look past the low-brow shit, I can see that somewhere, there is a commitment to change. Even if Zedek has done bad things and holds anti-LGBT viewpoints, I still believe that a redemption arc is possible for "reTHAWed". Earlier, I saw Zedek's response (1, 2) to the Cybersecurity allegations. I won't take it as hard proof but I accept that it is sincere for what it is. Of course, it is still far too early to see whether this redemption arc comes to fruition but from now on, I want to focus on the positives, not the negatives.

I'm going to be doing a raw, unfiltered personal retrospective on my involvement in ZedekGate™ at a later time. I will also be archiving my ZedekGate™ materials as planned but only because The Wayback Machine does not capture images and video from Reddit. I'm not going out of my way to do a major time capsule of the saga.

Zedek, my man. I know you blocked me but if you see this, I want this to be an apology for stirring the pot. I hope that you will accept it and that we both strive to do better in the future.

Peace

Yes, I managed to dig up another testimony regarding what I call The 10K Secret Police, which refers to the "reTHAWed" developers allegedly using burner accounts, loyalists, and shills to stalk and harass people who openly criticize their mod, even for honest, constructive reasons.

For the full context, I suggest reading my earlier posts:

• The 10K Secret Police - Left4DayZGone's testimony
• The 10K Secret Police

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Something that always stood out for me throughout the ongoing ZedekGate™ controversy is how reTHAWed itself is allegedly malware, or at least has the potential to exploited as malware. So far, I don't think this has been outright proven or disproven but the fact that RegionSame posted it to begin with has triggered the ire of this 'secret police'. Some of the comments on that thread are legitimate discussion both for and against the allegations but the vast majority of them are spam comments attacking RegionSame, most likely perpetuated by the secret police. A lot of the comments were removed (automatically or otherwise) which means they most likely contained hate speech or at least keywords that triggered the automated filters. I don't think words alone is enough to remove a post but you can use your own judgement on that.

I x-posted my own version of RegionSame's post to the THPS sub, as well as linked some of my own threads from his. RegionSame replied to one of my comments specifically and basically said "Just let it go, man. Its dead. There's nothing we can do". From an IRL perspective, I fully agree with Region but at the same time, I still feel the need to post this purely for the archives. As an aside, I noticed that I have a fascination with internet archeology or internet noir which I think explains why I latched onto ZedekGate™ far longer than most people. Not only I'm intrigued by the mystery itself, I also want to leave a clearer trail for future archeologists and detectives.

Last time I checked the Discords, I believe that both 10K and THPSX have taken steps to objectively prove or disprove the malware allegations but so far, I don't think they have released hard evidence. Therefore, I can't comment further on it. What I can say though is that even though "reTHAWed" may not be malware in and of itself, I believe the devs do have the knowhow to implement malware-like functionality and weaponize it against perceived offenders. Hence, we should be wary of it.

I also included a screencap of another user's testimony but since it is just the lone comment at this stage, think of it more as a bonus.

Yes, I managed to dig up another testimony regarding what I call The 10K Secret Police, which refers to the "reTHAWed" developers allegedly using burner accounts, loyalists, and shills to stalk and harass people who openly criticize their mod, even for honest, constructive reasons.

For the full context, I suggest reading my earlier posts:

• The 10K Secret Police - Left4DayZGone's testimony
• The 10K Secret Police

---

Something that always stood out for me throughout the ongoing ZedekGate™ controversy is how reTHAWed itself is allegedly malware, or at least has the potential to exploited as malware. So far, I don't think this has been outright proven or disproven but the fact that RegionSame posted it to begin with has triggered the ire of this 'secret police'. Some of the comments on that thread are legitimate discussion both for and against the allegations but the vast majority of them are spam comments attacking RegionSame, most likely perpetuated by the secret police. A lot of the comments were removed (automatically or otherwise) which means they most likely contained hate speech or at least keywords that triggered the automated filters. I don't think words alone is enough to remove a post but you can use your own judgement on that.

I x-posted my own version of RegionSame's post to the THPS sub, as well as linked some of my own threads from his. RegionSame replied to one of my comments specifically and basically said "Just let it go, man. Its dead. There's nothing we can do". From an IRL perspective, I fully agree with Region but at the same time, I still feel the need to post this purely for the archives. As an aside, I noticed that I have a fascination with internet archeology or internet noir which I think explains why I latched onto ZedekGate™ far longer than most people. Not only I'm intrigued by the mystery itself, I also want to leave a clearer trail for future archeologists and detectives.

Last time I checked the Discords, I believe that both 10K and THPSX have taken steps to objectively prove or disprove the malware allegations but so far, I don't think they have released hard evidence. Therefore, I can't comment further on it. What I can say though is that even though "reTHAWed" may not be malware in and of itself, I believe the devs do have the knowhow to implement malware-like functionality and weaponize it against perceived offenders. Hence, we should be wary of it.

I also included a screencap of another user's testimony but since it is just the lone comment at this stage, think of it more as a bonus.

This is a brief follow-up to my post from yesterday: The 10K Secret Police. You may want to read that post for the full context but I will explain below.

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This is a screencap of comments from a (since auto-deleted) post of u/Left4DayZGone giving me his testimony about what I now call The 10K Secret Police. In other words, there is evidence that 10K Rising does not respond to "reTHAWed" criticism very well, even if its constructive feedback, reporting a bug, or suggesting that a port of old THPS content might be inaccurate. Rather than taking the feedback for what it is, 10K chooses to stalk, harass, flame, and dox the perceived offenders. Anything that would intimidate them into silence. I would even go so far as to say that suggesting Zedek is a mortal being just like you or I is grounds for retaliation...Where could I have come up with such a stupid idea?

Even if the news itself broke recently, the DayZ incident took place well before anything resembling the ZedekGate™ we know now. There isn't a spike in activity due to 'damage control'. All evidence shows that they have always been like this to some degree.

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Something I forgot to mention in my previous post is that on the THPS sub, posts are auto-deleted after 3 reports. Obviously this is to discourage spam or anything too off-topic. I understand why some of you might consider this post either/both but mass-reporting posts is a tactic that the 10K Secret Police has employed in order to silence criticism. It does not even have to be a coordinated effort. If a post has already been reported twice for honest reasons, all it takes is one bad actor to file their report and suddenly the post goes down, no questions asked. A fellow supporter DMed me encouraging me to appeal to the mods over one of my posts being unfairly reported but I really don't want to test their patience any more than necessary. In any case, the jokes on you because I can still see all of my old posts, and will be making archives of them in the future.

I've been wanting to make this post for a while but I was worried that things would be too 'scattered' to make any real sense. I'm ready now so here goes...

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You're probably thinking this is another "reTHAWed" or ZedekGate™ controversy post...and you're not wrong...but there is more to it than just outrage farming or lolcow milking. I have reason to believe that this stretches back well before ZedekGate™ really kicked off in as we know it now.

Now, I'm going to preface by saying that "reTHAWed" is a good mod on a technical level. What the 10K team has managed to achieve and will likely continue to achieve is very impressive. Zedek and/or Drake reverse-engineering THPS2 itself to implement more accurate physics as opposed to guesswork takes an incredible amount of skill. Essentially, nobody will deny "reTHAWed" is a good mod. However, for all of their success, the 10K team has one fatal flaw...Their ego. I'm not just referring to them being proud of themselves (as they are right to be), I'm referring to how they respond to criticism and being contradicted.

I could point to a few different sources for this as they're fairly dispersed but I chose to go with a comment thread on a post that u/Left4DayZGone made a few months back. The screencapped comments explain themselves but in summary, it alleges that 10K Rising goes out of their way to spam or harass people who publicly criticize "reTHAWed", even if its constructive or to report a technical issue. This did not just stop at "unemployment" or "having two dads" or your "minneapolis pb". I'm sorry to say but that is basic rookie shit. Anybody can just spam generic insults and act like its doing a lot of damage. What happened to Left4DayZ in particular is that somebody from 10K went out of their way to 'dox' him by creating a burner account with a username containing DayZ's personal details, and harass them across Reddit (presumably even in unrelated communities), trying to intimidate him into silence or to retract his comment.

Of course, harassing somebody over minor criticism is quite petty but from what I have seen across the entire scandal, I'm afraid that this testimony is not isolated. I have been commenting on ZedekGate™ from literally day one and I've made both friends and enemies in the process. However, it was only when I pointed out that Zedek was reinstated I started getting serious backlash. I don't just mean people disagreeing with my views or asking me to step down, I'm referring to obvious burner accounts spamming me with hostile comments. What DayZ and I have in common is that we have both been targeted by what I call "The 10K Secret Police"

I went through my notifications and managed to capture some comments that most likely came from the secret police. They weren't particularly offensive but still convey the style and tone. You will see many comments like these throughout posts related to the ongoing controversy in order to divert attention and drown out anti-Zedek viewpoints. Sometimes, members of the secret police will make stand-alone posts promoting "reTHAWed" in order to draw negative attention away and/or provoke outrage on both sides. Fortunately, most of these posts have since been auto-deleted but there is one that is still publicly readable. The tricky part about these posts is that the content itself is mostly benign. For all a casual reader knows, maybe it is a legitimate post praising "reTHAWed" and having a good time. Those posts do exist and those people are innocent but once you pick up on the vibe, you'll notice it when you feel it. That's why its 'secret', because nobody from 10K would be dumb enough to say "We are the secret police", or "We're gonna dox you". That's why they operate under burners or civilian personas. By the time you notice the secret police, they're already here.

Last week on r/rethawed, the admin there made a post asking if ZedekGate™ subject matter should be banned and there were strong arguments coming in from all sides. What I do want to point out is that multiple comments were referring to the existence of this "secret police" or "Discord army" as DayZ might call it.

Zedek himself commented on that post suggesting that 10K's staff be brought in to moderate r/rethawed. This makes sense on paper if you consider a r/rethawed board being moderated by "reTHAWed" staff. However, I believe this represents a conflict of interest as Zedek could easily direct his staff (or his people in general) to only allow positive discussion and ignore or silence anything that can be considered negative or contradictory. Of course, at least one other person saw through that...

If Zedek's reply to the "secret police" label was any indication, It is likely that he either does not know what a 'secret police' actually is, or is distorting my words in order to invalidate them. Zedek is very smart so I will give him that and assume the latter. For those of you who do not know, a 'secret police' is not necessarily a literal police force. I'm referring to more like an underground spy network employed to serve the interests of a factional entity. In this case, 10K Rising having burner accounts and shills at their disposal to go after detractors or silence any negative sentiment. It has happened to DayZ. It has happened to me. If you even so much breathe wrong around 10K, chances are they'll be after you too.

So that's about it for now. There is only so much I can write in a single post so if there is anything that I missed or anything you want to discuss, I'd be happy to do so in the comments.

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Disclaimer:

I am not affiliated with reTHAWed, 10K Rising, THPSX, Kobraworks, or any similar trolling group, gaming clans, or other factions. I am a civilian reporting on public information for other civilians. Please take this into consideration before commenting or DMing

I have never been diagnosed with any developmental or psychiatric conditions and I have never been prescribed any medication related to those conditions so I reserve the right to ignore any comments suggesting that I am unmedicated or otherwise mentally unwell.

This is a stand-alone repost since the original x-post from r/THPS was removed, most likely because the 10K secret police was spam-reporting again. I have deleted the original r/rethawed post since the link is now dead

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Wassup...its me again

This is a follow-up to one of my earlier ZedekGate™ posts regarding the (still ongoing) controversy surrounding "reTHAWed", the mod for Tony Hawk's American Wasteland. If you haven't already read Zedek Was Never Fired, I suggest you read it and get the full context before continuing.

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During the initial backlash, the 10K Rising Discord server was nuked in an apparent attempt to destroy any evidence of the alleged behavior. I'm not a Discord user myself but I lurk around topics that I'm interested in and I have been keeping an eye on both the THPSX and 10K Discords. From what I'm seeing, 10K's Discord is pretty clean. There is still a lot of drug, edgelord, or goon humour going around. I don't condone it personally but its not worth kicking a fuss as long as nobody gets hurt.

In one of the channels, I did catch a discussion about ZedekGate™ itself. It is essentially Zedek and Goat announcing upcoming editor tools for the mod, and a "normie fan" inquiring about the controversy and where the developers currently stand.

Even though it is a serious discussion on all sides with no direct attacks, I still took the initiative to screencap the messages and share them publicly for reasons I will explain below.

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I believe it is important to be having discussions about the issues surrounding ZedekGate™ regardless of your personal beliefs or what side you're on. Obviously I can't fault others for simply having opinions. Nevertheless, the messages themselves carry a lot of that subtext I have been trying to hammer in for weeks now. Even if they are at a stage where they are ready to discuss the issues in a serious, adult manner, I'm still not fully convinced they are genuinely remorseful for any damage caused (assuming said damage even registers). For instance, Zedek himself admits to being a transphobe (and possible racist) leading one to suggest that the banter was not entirely banter. There is a major difference between risque banter among friends and genuine hate speech targeted at specific people. Even if they do know where one ends and the other begins, they have not publicly demonstrated it.

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You could look at THPSGoat as relatively mature and well-adjusted but his reaction to the whole thing displayed in the messages is somewhere between "Some of my best friends are X" and "If you don't like it, well GTFO". He even rationalizes the culture implying that this is Neversoft-style humour just like in the original games. Although Neversoft took pride in being edgy and politically incorrect (even by the standards at the time), they were by no means hateful or discriminatory. It was all in good fun. You can think of it like watching "South Park" where they make fun of everything and everybody equally. You could make cases where they go out of their way to target a specific demographic but I can guarantee you that they have equally made fun of the opposite demographic in another episode.

Goat does bring up the Zedek was never fired topic at one point when Dreamer calls out secretly adding him back after he was 'exiled'. Goat says that "nothing was secret" and that "if it was secret, it wouldn't have been announced". Whether this was intentional or not, Goat essentially admits that Zedek was never fired. There is still just one problem though. I am completely unaware of anybody making any formal announcement that Zedek came back. As far as I'm concerned, he was just silently added back thinking that nobody would notice. If not for my earlier posts, they might have gotten away with it. Now go eat your 'Scooby Snacks' and think about that for a while. Previously, I referred to this as a shadowdrop. This is basically a Schrodinger-type situation where Zedek 'returning' was secret and not secret at the same time.

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It is obvious that the 10K team has taken the time to reflect on the controversy, are trying to learn from it, and move forward. This is great, but the accountability does not mean much if they keep it within their inner-circle without going (actual) public. They need to publicly demonstrate that the team has learned from this, the allegations do not reflect their values, and are committed to maintaining an open and welcoming community. Zedek on the other hand more or less stands by his behavior. Even if the rest of the team don't 100% agree with it, the fact that they're keeping him around and almost bending to his will shows you that they prioritize walking on eggshells over standing up to it.

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There is more that I want to say but I think I've gone on long enough for now. As always, I'm happy to elaborate on anything in the comments.

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Disclaimer:

I am not affiliated with reTHAWed, 10K Rising, THPSX, Kobraworks, or any similar trolling group, gaming clans, or other factions. I am a civilian reporting on public information for other civilians. Please take this into consideration before commenting or DMing

I have never been diagnosed with any developmental or psychiatric conditions and I have never been prescribed any medication related to those conditions so I reserve the right to ignore any comments suggesting that I am unmedicated or otherwise mentally unwell.

I will ignore comments asking about my "minneapolis pb". It was only funny the first couple of times. I am not Technickels.

After Wojack was away for most of April to visit extended family, he put out this video a few days ago on his initial reaction to the ongoing ZedekGate™ controversy surrounding the "reTHAWed" mod for "Tony Hawk's American Wasteland"

Out of respect for Wojack and not wanting to speak over the top of him, I have held off on making any new commentary regarding ZedekGate™. I thought it would be best for the video to spread and people to react organically. I did leave a comment on a similar thread summarizing the video, which I am quoting below:

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>The video is basically Wojack's live reaction to the racist/transphobic Discord comments that initially triggered ZedekGate™ as well as those stupid AI beheading jokes about Daff. Fair enough that its a lot to take in and he was having time off so it makes sense to just cover the essentials.

>He does briefly touch on the "Zedek Was Never Fired" side of it (assuming he hasn't fully seen it). The YouTube comments call it out more specifically (assuming they have)

>No doubt he was (intentionally or unintentionally) involved to some degree but his reaction on it seems sincere for what it is :)

>If Wojack (or somebody else) makes a future video, I would personally like to see something about the ongoing lack of accountability on 10K's part, not just the initial backlash.

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I think Wojack's opinion (regardless of his side) carries a lot of weight since not only he is a popular YouTuber, he also has direct ties with 10K Rising and can be considered the 'spokesperson' for "reTHAWed".

I have always believed that Wojack was more of a bystander than a direct participant. In the video, he basically admits himself that he has been exposed to the offending material and that culture was basically 'normalized' within the THPS community. However, I don't believe Wojack is guilty on a personal level and never suggested that he is. I think most (if not all) of the guilt belongs to those who were knowingly perpetuating that culture, not just being assimilated into it, like Wojack implies that he was.

Even though most of the comments (understandably) focus more on the offending material, there is also a decent number of comments that call out the lack of accountability on 10K's part, not just the incidents themselves. I will do a follow-up post some other time with the highlights but for now, I will leave this here.

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Disclaimer:

I am not affiliated with reTHAWed, 10K Rising, THPSX, Kobraworks, or any similar trolling group, gaming clans, or other factions. I am a civilian reporting on public information for other civilians. The fact that I even have to clarify this just shows how dangerous the whole situation is.

I have never been diagnosed with any developmental or psychiatric conditions and I have never been prescribed any medication related to those conditions so I reserve the right to ignore any comments suggesting that I am unmedicated or otherwise mentally unwell.

I will ignore comments asking about my "minneapolis pb". It was only funny the first couple of times. I'm not Technickels (the guy who made the other video). I'm definitely not Wojack either but I do know his PB is probably better than yours.