I remember some facts:
I joined this community back in 2005, there were no 1.0 versions by that time, the only existing versions were 97d, very stable, and 99b+, that contained the DarkLord char, that version had a bug that every time you met another player, it laugh, if I remember correctly that version was created by CT Team. SkyTeam (lorencia.com) site was shutdown, so I can't really tell about their devs, but I used some of their softwares, there were many members, some of them were BlurCode, KaraK, Cyberlove, LordLinux, and other ones. Here I remember Akaruz was an active member, he translated the very first launcher, the only one that can create a window mode to play (MU was a full screen game in 97d). In Other words, the legends, that made the private servers possible, started to quit from the scene.
The goal at 2005-2006 was to complete the first server with maps 31 and 32, I mean the Castle Siegue event, there were lots of teams created by that time, and many communities that contributed with this like CZF, UG, MX, etc.
One of the most representatives coders that lead the development of 1.0 series was AndrewMG, a chinese guy, he/she created the most stable public packed 1.04d version available. Since it was packed, that year was the boom of unpackers
Most of teams released their work packed, Armadillo was surely one of the most popular at that time. There were guides to edit memory, changing licenses, tons of cracks and nearly zero unpacks.
The next team that released the generation of servers was MX, the most successful one was 1.01E+, with many bugfixes, and some events like ChaosCastle that were introduced.
By 2006 or 2007 (don't remember very well) and interesting annoucement was made "Coeus Emulator in VTM 1.0N Client - Bugless", I tested myself, and it was bugless indeed, but it wasn't an emulator, it was a leaked VTM version, the 0.99.60T, an original server, the only public (time later) away from the 97 series in those years.
Coeus Team: LordLinux (a.k.a bet0x) as a leader I guess, BlurCode, KaraK, ThoR. The community was exited, because their server was indeed 99% bugfree, with the CastleSiegue event, the very first on muonline history, and many other bugs solved, but soon community realized that they won't share it to public, that was the start point that another team used to grow very fast: CZF (CoderZFactory).
CZF: FeN$x (leader, founder), Unforsaken (was leader when FeN$x quitted), []MG[]KILL, Wolf, eventually many members joined like Unicorn, Toxic (a Delphi coder), RoRRe, myself, and many others that were against Coeus Team.
FeN$x managed to obtain those VTM files uncracked, and eventually he cracked them, releasing them for free to the community, was the start point to many developments, like new editors, launchers, game servers, etc, etc.
There were many individual members that contributed during this phase: MG-StaT, a great friend of mine, help me with sources when developing the CzFEditor and in many other projects; sobieh (don't know if he was on other team), he created the very first 3D cam, he made such progress in client mode, was the king, wansoft, a developer for small projects in spanish forums.
But after that release, WZ made another huge step, Season 2 with Crywolf event and many other functions. Coeus Team managed to obtain those VTM server files, and presented them as an "Emulator". that was a lie obviously, those file were 0.99.96 VTM leaked files (not sure about the last two digits).
By that time FeN$x started an internal war in CZF team, he quit, and Unforsaken took his place as the new leader. VTM Season 2 uncracked files were released, and cracked by myself.
With the new version, many projects started, there were some independent coders: (2008-2009)
goe (a korean guy): Started to create the modifications for the incoming webzen versions, he was part of CZF, worked with ASM language, a very respectful member, he was the main coder during this years until the JPN version.
FeN$x and Holy: Worked on client modifications, as a new branch for creating new characters, new skills, none of them got finished.
TimTrucho; created the next generation of Editors of all kinds, a very nice person, always wanted to contribute to the community
BoR Team: S@nek, zergNM: Created a large set of tools that allow a better perfomance for server management, I guess there were from Russia, most of their tools were the core for many private servers, intense development at that time.
Pentium: A Java developer, created also a large set of tools for server editing, and created the very first tool for 3D model editing in client side, available to public.
wolfulus: A great coder and a friend of mine, he contributed for many many projects, including CZF ones, emulators, client mods, security system, reverse engineering, etc, etc.
Dios: Owner of Jamaika mu, part of RZ community, one of the main servers out there.
Gembrid: A soul reaver fan
, created very nice skins about LoK series, as well as mane projects like eDataServer, etc.
_hitman47: released the source code of packet decryption/encryption
But the community realizes that there were long distance from WebZen, S3 showed up, and Kanturu event was the goal for this time, but there were no progress, coders focused on private sales, leaving the community in most of the cases.
When 2009 arrived, another exiting news appeared: the JPN 1.00.18 version with PDB was public and cracked, those files contained the Kanturu event and many other bugfixes from webzen. It was again the impulse to continue the developments that were stucked for many coders. At the same time, Pentium discovered the Key that help developers speed up their projects: The PDB dump, with this file, all Structures, enums, functions names and var types were decoded, everyone may have access to PACKET structure, gObj (that some coders kept in secret).
In 2010, there were another important release: eRRoR and myself made public the first source code of GameServer. The project was a full decompilation from the original GameServer VTM 0.99.60T and recreated and adapted with 1.00.18 JPN, this project started on 2008 with the help of luizj, MG-StaT and myself, and continued and finished in three years by eRRoR and myself. With this, the idea of Dlls for the gamesevers was discontinued, since developers could made their modifications directly on the source.
With the release of the sources, many teams started to create their files for sale, the main teams were IGN, SCF Team (aka TitanTech, his leader bet0x), MuEngine. At this point, developers started to quit the scene, leaving only those teams as the only one way to have an updated server.
It was 2011 when people started a "war" against SCF team, the most representative was a guy that you may know: plasma32, he literally attacked every SCF release for his private customers, releasing cracks and cracks and cracks for the community for free, no matter how protected, exploited, or secured, the crack always shows up as there isn't a tomorrow. Soon a new guy, a friend of plasma32, that help him and continue their legacy: tomatoes, he also attacked almost every SCF release, restoring faith in community, that there are people that want to contribute for free. SCF changed name to TitanTech, but that wasn't a problem for them, since they didn't stop not even now in cracking files
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From 2011 to date, I don't know for sure, I've moved to RE forums...
That was my little contribution, as for me, I'm the author of: GameServer Source code (Decompilation along with eRRoR, see above), CZF Editor, How to create your own Mu AutoUpdater, Main Checksum Generator, WZAG crack for 0.99.96 VTM files, Guides for decompilation from ASM to C++ (4/4 see Azhmodeus thread), How to bypass WinLicense check until 1.9.9.5 version, Code Unvirtualizer, Decompilation of source codes (related to virtualize function) from Themida and WinLicense, GameGuard crack, eDataServer (along with eRRoR, a tool that mixed all servers in one), Mu Advance Client Emulator (an automated hack, that bypasses GameGuard adn emulates client on official servers), and my latest contribution: Oreans UnVirtualizer 1.8
Hope you like the description, i'm not sure about the exactly date, you may search on RZ post for an exact date. Until next time (Ire Sanctio)
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