Koman Locke Thread

I don't know, that's a hard thing to say. I had more than a few staffers during this time who were actually great to work with. I wouldn't say they gave me any help IC really, but, they were nice to work with.

There are more than a few staffers and some certainly were less invested in helping Locke than others. Some were certainly a lot more invested in blocking him or stopping him than others.

But, that's just people being people. Anytime you have Dungeon Masters who also play characters in their own game you are going to have issues with some of them trying to shut you down for numerous reasons.

I wouldn't say I ever got any help from staff. I would say the MOST HELP I ever got was usually just them telling me, "We won't support you in any way, but, we won't intentionally get in your way.". This was an ideal outcome for me with any staff interaction I ever had. It was either this or be shutdown every time.

The number of times they did intentionally get in my way or shoot me down through animations of various sorts is too high to count. 

I won't say those weren't justified, only that when they happened they were usually pretty blatant and often times discouraging. 

Most of the time if I got shotdown or shutdown on something I was basically told, "Just do it. You don't need an IC reason and you aren't getting one.".

A good example of this would be when I requested promotion to a Byn Lieutenant after being ridiculously successful for over half a decade. I was told I would not be promoted because despite what happened in character, if they promoted Locke it would send the OOC message to the rest of the playerbase that staff approved of the way I was Sergeanting. 

Staff in the T'zai Byn had serious issues with the fact Koman Locke developed strong bonds of friendship with the other Sergeants and had every Sergeant work WITH him instead of AGAINST him to get jobs. Ideally they want Sergeants to be in competition with each other for jobs.

Locke wasn't interested in that and every single Sergeant, a total of three others during his time who came and went all allied with him immediately and worked fully with him and basically under his command, more or less. 

The other issue they had was that Locke had a habit of negotiating major payouts for his contracts, and then following through and delivering. This meant that Locke's mercenaries made A LOT of money. A WHOLE LOT. It wasn't unusual for a typical Trooper in Locke's unit to draw down five large a year salary or more. They did not approve of this and actually told me I needed to try and make less money as a mercenary. I came from the era of Tlaloc in terms of playing a T'zai Byn Sergeant. Anyone from that time knows that the T'zai Byn was founded on one principal. "Make as much money as you can because you might not be alive or all in once piece tomorrow. That's mercenary life. Live hard. Live gritty. Money matters more than anything and is the measure of your success.". Then again, I had staffers over me who never even knew Tlaloc because they were so green, so they wouldn't remember that era or what the T'zai Byn is ACTUALLY about. Only what they wanted it to be about.

Every single thing Locke did was IC and made sense, so Locke was NEVER ONCE actually punished or even reprimanded in-game. Not once.

The reason for that is there was no IC reason to reprimand or punish him. ZERO. Every single thing he did was perfectly in-character, and in all actuality made him a shining example of how to be a obscenely successful mercenary.

However, he wasn't playing the cookie-cutter T'zai Byn Sergeant he was "supposed" to be. So, I was told that I wouldn't be promoted because they didn't want to promote my brand of leadership. 

That was probably one of the best examples I can think of for being shot down OOC'ly for no other reason than, "We personally don't agree with your choices, so, regardless of what's IC, it's our way because we said so.". 

The short version was that I wasn't given a Lieutenant promotion because I was far too successful as a Sergeant, which is of course, laughably silly.

(I don't want to sound conceited, but I do feel I played a great leader here, and have played a handful of other great characters that got traction and that people will remember. That breeds jealousy, especially when some of the staff over you are people who have been playing the game for less than half the time you have. Hell, there's been staff in the past I personally introduced to the game and wrote their first characters for and taught them how to play. To say that some of them might resent that they never had "that great character people know" would be short-sighted. People get jealous. Some people aren't happy unless other people aren't succeeding. I'm sure that comes into play more often than people would expect, but that's just human nature.)

Pleeeeeeeeease?

Mallor is hella old. Takes me back. I miss the Scorpions. <derails>

I was told I would never be promoted to Lieutenant because, "Staff didn't want to give the impression to the playerbase that they approved of the way I was playing my Sergeant.". (Please see above for more in-depth details.)

They did this while simultaneously forcing me to disband my unit because, "You have more players in your unit than the rest of the clans in the game combined currently.".

They did THAT while simultaneously moving Locke to Tuluk to, "Put the grit back into Tuluk and attract players to that location.". 

They did THAT while simultaneously forcing me to ONLY recruit people who agreed to go and work for Salarr and Kadius after their year because Salarr and Kadius couldn't attract common players at the time.

In short, they turned Koman Locke into a recruitment NPC for all of the clans/locations/leaders at the time who couldn't attract their own players. 

I warned them that if they did these things my entire unit would be empty in less than six RL weeks (I even told them exactly how long it would take.) because that's the way turnover worked.

They did not care and told me to do it anyways.

I gave them their six weeks and truly did put my best foot forward to try and make it work. However, you can't really hold up the base of the pyramid if the top of the pyramid is intentionally crushing you.

After six weeks Locke's unit was empty, just as I said it would be, and I was playing in Tuluk alone and nobody would come and work for Locke, and I didn't blame them. 

Locke retired at that point to do his own thing for many years to come and Tuluk ended up closing shortly after anyways when their remaining efforts all failed to save it. 


These are not speculations. I confirmed with staff at the time that this is exactly why these things were happening. I didn't like it. But I had to do it. 





(I apologize to all of the players that I was forced to fire around that time. I also apologize to all of the players I was forced to give shitty recruitment deals to. I did not want to do these things. But, I was just a staff ran NPC at that point really dishing out their orders that were never even given to me IC'ly for IC reasons. There were no IC reasons. Everything I was told to do I was told to do for OOC reasons via the request tool for "the health of the game". I was basically playing the shittiest staff ran avatar ever at that point against my own will.)

I will say that the decisions staff handed down to me that caused "the end" were decisions made because they truly thought it was good for the game. They obviously weren't trying to hurt their own game/the game. 

But I also feel obliged to point out that for 8 RL months straight I could walk into my sparring hall on a standard weeknight and have all three halls full of people. It wasn't uncommon for me to have 15 - 20 people online actively playing with me on any given night of the week and to see 70 - 80 people on almost every night. I remember thinking, "Wow, player numbers have been awesome for months now and at any time I have 25% of the online playerbase actually visibly WITH me.". 

(There were no wars or anything globally major happening during this time. Nothing. It had nothing to do with HRPT's, and considering it was steady for 8 RL months, it had nothing to do with school, holidays, or seasons. It was simply for "WHATEVER REASON", a more enjoyable time to play the game for everyone. Locke also had the greatest Troopers, First Troopers, and co-Sergeants ever during this era which just made it the perfect concoction for awesome times. It wasn't just Locke.)

Now they are lucky to have 40 - 45 players online in total on a busy Saturday night and it has been this way for months.

It is what it is.


I've always been of the opinion staff needs to focus less on "Making people enjoy what we think they should enjoy.", and instead focus on, "Providing more of what they have shown us they enjoy/has been proven to give them enjoyment.". 

Staff still isn't on board with that however. It's that ongoing control issue they have.

pretty sure this approach died out with one of the newer gen of staffers who didnt play during the mid 90s to early 00s golden age of interactive creative player feedback driven staffers

total 180 from then and now and u can see it in the system that was built basicly to control or manage playerled plots

Thing is, none of them (save Nessalin) were there at the beginning, and all of the serious development and building was long done before they were parachuted into their positions. So just what is it that makes it "their train" more than anyone else's who has been with the game for a long time?