CLOK BBS

Considering the recent events around the mine I decided posting what I thought about this situation to be a waste of time. If any of you who worked on the mine have questions for me please contact me in the game or send me a PM here. To give you an idea of what may or may not have happened here is a situation that…may or may not have happened.

Imagine coming to the realization that it will be pointless to argue why the mine should not have been out-right destroyed while trying to contact the GM who is steering this ship. They make it apparent they are going to remain mute on this issue. The GM involved with the event to destroy the mine contacts you to talk but is not really interested in hearing what you have to say. During the entire time they try to hide their disdain, for you and your disagreement, behind platitudes and vague threats all the while ignoring your direct questions and assuring you that you are not being targeted because deep in the back of your mind you know that GM’s have never in the past targeted players or were involved with showing favoritism. The conversation finally comes to the generic response all GM’s tend to give when argued into a corner and the real reason this GM wanted to talk to you: This is their server, their game, you are a guest here and they can do as they please so deal with it. Then, suddenly, the GM ends the conversation leaving you to feel like a cheap date and an itching suspicion you just caught an STD but that depressing feeling is suddenly washed away with laughter by the revelation that these GMs should probably spend more time working on getting people to play their game than listening in on your TELLS. At least this time the GMs held their temper and didn’t ban you from their game for the night.

I find it pretty hard to believe the GMs currently running Clok behaved in quite so poor of a manner. It sounds more like someone is upset with the GMs and is throwing a tantrum common to those who play muds to "win" and get upset when they don't get their way

To Gad: You could have expressed your beef in a more professional manner than you chose to.

To the GM's: Gad still needed to express something. [It publically appears Gad was given quite the unnecessary slap in the face in having his mine collapsed. I had guessed maybe Gad had decided prior to retire Gad, and collapsing his mine went with that retirement. Apparently this was not the case.]

Case in point why there should be a senior's board for frustrated senior players to express their beefs without frustrating newcomers.

Mines collapse, guilds burn, homes get robbed, towns get destroyed, unique armor breaks, NPCs die, friends leave. The only permanent thing you have in CLOK is you. Appreciate what you had while you had it.

I don't count myself as an expert but perhaps I can offer a fresh perspective on the subject. Before, I dig into the heart of the matter, I feel I need to explain a little of our background. I have been with this game pretty much since the beginning and I remember when it was only one small town and a few baddies to kill. We have grown quite a bit since then and if you take a look at what Rias set out to do, I think he did pretty well. In fact, if you are curious feel free to take a look HERE at the forum post that started it all.

With that said, we are not perfect. We have made mistakes along the way and at times have publicly admitted as such. Please try not to forget that the GMs, as all powerful as they are, are still just normal people who take time out of our day to work on a project that we love for free and as all humans do, we tend to notice certain patterns in our players. Some of our players earn a reputation for outstanding role play and show that no matter what is thrown at them, they can maintain a positive attitude, even if just from an OOC standpoint. However, it is hard not to act differently towards a player when they earn a negative reputation. Often for being sarcastic, disrespectful, entitlement and when they spread that attitude to others. I am not singling anyone out on this but rather saying in our history we have had a few players who have become this way.

This brings us to the subject of "favoritism". As a GM team we always strive to maintain good PR and treat all of our players equally, regardless of the GMs personal feelings or how long the player have been with us. This however can sometimes become strained as emotions run high. For example, it can become increasingly difficult to be calm and logical to help someone resolve a concern when that person is essentially throwing manure at your face by having a negative attitude or insulting the time that you spent out of your day to interact with that person in character. Now ask yourself this, do you think you would jump out of your seat to quickly help such a person when called or do you think you would be as eager to resolve their problem when their bug report is something along the lines of, "Fix this you idiots, it has been broken for 3 months now." Think about it.

With alllll that said, now let's move on the Mine situation. As we have mentioned in several other posts, as a GM team we were never quite happy with the current player mine system, as it stands, the player mines are too exploitative. Gad's mine was becoming super popular and as time ran along we noticed certain problems. That being that many players were avoiding the other mines we had out in the world altogether and were just going to Gad's mine exclusively. His mine was super easy to get to, pretty much no danger from critters roaming about, only required simple maintenance to keep it going and was a one stop shop for all your ore and gems needs. Why go anywhere else? This defeats the entire mining system as a whole and was not the original design we wanted. It is true that Gad's mine was the first to go via RP means but as we decide on the subject, others may soon follow.

In truth, the main reason behind the fall of the mine was not specifically due to this problem (even though the idea was probably greenlit because of our future plans in that area) but really it came to pass from the storytelling and creative work of one our GMs who were trying to create more events, interactions and stories for our players. This was a work of love for that GM and the fact that one of our players seems to be so sour over it is really depressing.

I know all of this is a touchy subject but one thing I have learned over the years, is that you can never make everyone happy, no matter how much you try. I hope you will all take this calmly and with a teaspoon of salt and know that the staff DOES try super hard to make this the best game possible. Many man hours, sweat and time away from our loved ones have been used to make it what it is today.

See you all in CLOK!

What about the woman hours?

I'm sure they feel left out.

#Politics2016

I don't know how anyone would have expected destroying his mine would go well with Gad, unless he expressed his full support for the event.

Wouldn't we all like to believe we would never react the same way if something that was "ours" in game was taken away against our wishes? Sure we would, but we won't know until we're there ourselves.

I think Gad and the GM/s who organized the event are probably feeling much the same way for much the same reasons. Two sides of a coin.

Jaster wrote:I don't know how anyone would have expected destroying his mine would go well with Gad, unless he expressed his full support for the event.

Wouldn't we all like to believe we would never react the same way if something that was "ours" in game was taken away against our wishes? Sure we would, but we won't know until we're there ourselves.

I think Gad and the GM/s who organized the event are probably feeling much the same way for much the same reasons. Two sides of a coin.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

I just hope everyone learned from this and this could be used as a prime example of how things can affect a playerbase and turn south, no matter how good the intentions.

I'm inclined to agree with Jaster. Mines have long been a contentious and controversial thing. It's entirely likely neither side is going to see eye to eye at first, and I could only think that the best solution in these cases is to release the fix before destroying what's already in place, and ensuring the replacement is well received. This allows the continued existence of present mines to continue, until they're believed to be obsolete by the player base, and then opted to destroy the old mines.

Why? Because this gives such players a chance to offer input on a new system and implementation against the present. There can be some cooperation and tweaking before all of a sudden players are left in a lurch of, "we took X, but Y won't be ready for a few months", which can turn into a few more months, depending on development and RL considerations. And when that's complete, old mines could be completely removed with less of a "sting" to existing players.

I don't personally use that mine myself, but that's how I'd probably feel if all mines were deep 6'd all of a sudden, which is expected. Haiban's mine is actually pretty ok, but I've been unable to convince for wagons to be passable into Haiban's mine, or I'd probably be happy enough with that.

Mines are presently, more or less a necessity for artisans maintaining workrooms, as paying for those two weeks (max) can run around 7000 riln, and with current 'reasonable' pricing schemes that players are willing to pay, is subject equally to random demand of the market. I'd concede that foresting will become the new mining, as profitability vs effort will shift in it's favor, but I'm rather getting off on a different tangent. Suffice it to say, I believe the first 3 paragraphs to be entirely more relevant to discussion and reasoning/explanation of a more amiable resolution to change over a "change happens, deal with it" approach.

Gad had that mine for many years.I doubt there was any contract when he got it saying that the mines would stay forever and never be ruined or exhausted or removed. It might have been less controversial if the mine just dried up and stopped producing ore instead of being destroyed but I don't get this mindset that people think once they have something that it is their inalienable right to keep it forever and for it to never run out or become less useful. We have seen evidence since the beginning in this game that nothing can be expected to last forever and anything could be lost at any time. For me that's part of the appeal but I understand some people don't like that. For me it makes things matter.

There are other mines people can use. Not all of them are even dangerous. Of course they're not as good as Gad's mine was. It was said several times by GMs that they thought player mines were broken. It was going away one way or another, and I can't believe anyone didn't see it coming. Gad, you and your friends got years of use out of that mine. You got your money's worth out of it and then some many times over. Somethingnice reaching its end of life isn't the end of the world. This goes to anyone who left because of this. Did anyone really leave because of this? I'm not asking for vague third party reports saying "I know people have left over this" because I've been around the last little while and players online was very low well before there was even a hint of Gad losing his mine. I've actually seen higher numbers after it happened than I have before it happened in the last month or so but that might be due to my weird schedule.

I'm not saying don't be upset when you lose something. I have lost things important to me on this character and others. None of them were things considered broken by GMs but it's always sad to lose something nice. But I don't understand the anger that something was taken away that had been useful for a long time and could reasonably be seen as reaching end of life, especially when it was something that has been hinted at for literal years. The GMs have said for years they dislike the player mines and want to remove them. Sure there is no new player mines yet, but there are still mines that you can mine in. I don't see a reason to leave in losing something broken just because there's no replacement yet. Broken is broken. If I had some special Dunwyr wood and crafting process that was producing bows that could do 5x damage and I had a history of making these 5x bows for people, and after a few years the GMs finally took it away until they could make something more reasonable, should I complain that they didn't leave this overpowered bowmaking in the game until they could come up with something better? Of course not. Those 5x damage bows would be ridiculous, and I could still make bows with the other woods in the game in the meantime. Would I miss the 5x bows? Yes. But I couldn't fault anyone for them being removed while a more reasonable alternative was being worked on.

If the unprofessional manner a GM handled things in that Gad described is true then that is a problem that should be addressed. I agree with that. But the removal of the mine while unfortunate, because it's always sad to lose a nice thing, is not a reason to claim that this was a bad decision or that it caused things to go south. The only things that went south seem to be tempers.

Skjotur wrote: But the removal of the mine while unfortunate, because it's always sad to lose a nice thing, is not a reason to claim that this was a bad decision or that it caused things to go south. The only things that went south seem to be tempers.

I'm going to have to go ahead and tell you you're wrong, Skjotur. I know you *think* you're right, but that doesn't make you right.

A reason given above for singling out Gad's mine was that too many people were going to it. Let's look at what this means. It means that Gad was generous and consistent with his RP, and permitted almost anyone who was not a serial killer to use it. For this, his mine should be crumbled, and the selfish people's mines be left open? If mines were no longer wanted in game, then all should have been collapsed together. Not only Gad lost something, but so did all the other player's who are not welcomed in the two other existing player mines.

No, singling out Gad to take his mine (and leave everyone else's alone) was in fact a bad and costly decision, Skjotur, and if you want an estimate of that cost, just type 'Who'. Sure, people stopped playing prior to the mine collapse, but it's not just the collapse of the his mine, but it's part and parcel of a mentality that says, "People come in and play, are enjoying the game, let's take something away from them and see if they still play." This has been happening since mine guards were taken away. Lets' take away mine guards and see what happens. Let's take away the ability to purchase mine stakes. Let's take away access to Stone Canyon. Let's take away Valeria. Let's take away some towns like Keth and Emleth and the infirmarys they offer. Let's take away Chat and names on Who. Let's take away a warhorse's ability to pull a wagon. Let's take away 90% of the meaningfulness to the Mercenary Guild, but not allow Mercenaries to re-select a guild. Let's tweak something so that it's not technically taken away, it just essentially doesn't work anymore. (eg leathercrafting snake and crocodile skins, and leather backpacks/clothing that isn't monstrously heavy). And I haven't covered everything.

It means more and more people were utilizing a broken mechanic, making it a bigger problem.

Like I already said, this was already a ghost town before anything happened to Gad's mine.

Maybe change ain't easy, and sometimes your got to hurt a little to learn a little

You're focusing on all the taking away and not on the adding, Kent. Anything will look terrible if you only look at the pruning and not at the new growth. The game world changes, so does the game's mechanics. If they didn't, the game would be stagnant and dead from a technical and story standpoint. If I knew there was no chance of an Emleth or a Keth happening, or a Valeria, where the world can actually change, and not just be the same old same old forever, I wouldn't be here. I'm sure other people don't like it. And guess what. Emleth and Keth and Valeria weren't there at the beginning. They were added, and later they were removed. Through story.

Just so you know, Dunwyr have lost access to places as well, including some that were dunwyr only because they were attacked by others and abandoned. So I know the sting on a personal level too. I have lost a lot more than just being able to mine. As you know, Dunwyr have trouble finding any places that will not shoot them on sight. I could choose to be angry and resentful and think that the world is out to get me and say I'm going to quit the game because I got something useful taken from me through something I had no control over. Or I could think that's cool and makes this a living world we play in where things happen and change. I choose the latter.

As for mechanics. I've had useful mechanics taken from me as well. I miss being able to do big damage with tactic marksman. I miss wilderness stealth. I miss some unique crafting recipes Dunwyr had. But this is a changing game. Poultices got added. Tracking got added. Cool new spells got added. General abilities got added.

If you keep dwelling on the things you lost and refuse to acknowledge the things you've gained in this changing environment of ours you're going to fester, you're going to hate, and I just don't know what else to say. Yes I think you should fight for things you think should be kept or not removed, but you don't always win those fights, and there's no point in beating the dead horse. If you can't accept that then enjoy your festering I guess. It seems to be the only thing you enjoy anymore because that's all I ever seem to see you and some other people do.

I was being negative. I am sorry. You guys are right. I have been asked to be more respectful. I will try to look for the positive in the situation. I can look at it this way: Enough people have quit playing CLOK that the number of players logged in to GMs has dropped down to a 1 to 1 ratio and I think that is amazing.

Coming here to air your dirty laundry isn't going to help, Gad. It's going to make things worse if people come here and see all the negativity and how terrible you think the game is. Trying to be clever and sarcastic won't stop that. You should share your concerns yes, but even Kent thinks you could go about it better. If you have personal problems with a GM then talk to the lead dev about it. Coming here to do some ranting public service victim complex announcement won't help anyone. The GMs will resent you and the players who read it and believe you will be turned off to the game. For someone who keeps saying you want to see the game thrive, you sure do a lot of damage to it. You can't speak constant poison and expect the situation to get healthier.

Of course there are problems. We can all see that. If we want to help we should be constructive and careful about how we present our concerns. The only time you ever post is to be smug, rude, complaining, and superior while calling everyone else stupid. You are part of the problem, Gad.

Skjotur wrote: Just so you know, Dunwyr have lost access to places as well, including some that were dunwyr only because they were attacked by others and abandoned. So I know the sting on a personal level too. I have lost a lot more than just being able to mine. As you know, Dunwyr have trouble finding any places that will not shoot them on sight. I could choose to be angry and resentful and think that the world is out to get me and say I'm going to quit the game because I got something useful taken from me through something I had no control over. Or I could think that's cool and makes this a living world we play in where things happen and change. I choose the latter.

Um, I have played the game steadily for the past three years. I have not encountered Skjotur in any fashion in over a year. Are you trying to tell us you have been quietly playing the game in some hidden corner the past year?

I honestly can't come up with any good place to mine other than gad's mine, rather than just stick to town mines which I think are pretty boring at time. Although I never use his mine myself (mainly because I chose something more challenging by mining around the abandonned mine), I still can't come up with any good natural mines out there we can use. But well, things come and go, rise and fall anyway. I have no personal opinion about that. Just dropping by.

Kent wrote:

Skjotur wrote: Just so you know, Dunwyr have lost access to places as well, including some that were dunwyr only because they were attacked by others and abandoned. So I know the sting on a personal level too. I have lost a lot more than just being able to mine. As you know, Dunwyr have trouble finding any places that will not shoot them on sight. I could choose to be angry and resentful and think that the world is out to get me and say I'm going to quit the game because I got something useful taken from me through something I had no control over. Or I could think that's cool and makes this a living world we play in where things happen and change. I choose the latter.

Um, I have played the game steadily for the past three years. I have not encountered Skjotur in any fashion in over a year. Are you trying to tell us you have been quietly playing the game in some hidden corner the past year?

That's 100% possible. No one had even met Lysse for the first like... Month, maybe six weeks of me playing her. It's very, very possible to play in places that see almost no traffic.

Kent wrote:I have not encountered Skjotur in any fashion in over a year. Are you trying to tell us you have been quietly playing the game in some hidden corner the past year?

Yes. As I previously mentioned Dunwyr are KOS in almost every city or settlement in the game. That is why you and I don't bump into each other at your local tavern. I also choose not to use the amulet ESP communications. That is why you don't hear me there. Friends know how to contact me and I get along just fine without it. On top of all that I will often have option rphardcore on or just choose not to participate in chat. So you don't see me there either.

Dunwyr have a few places we can find refuge in, some you have been to yourself, others you have probably never seen or heard of, or you have walked through them and just assumed it was just another part of the wild lands outside your towns. And even when I go out into the areas other people go into more often, I usually stick to creeping along behind cover and only come out if it's someone I want to talk to. As much as I enjoy our battles we've had in the past Kent, I don't want to just ambush you every time I see you or hunt you down if I know you are about. Part of that is it would get old and annoying and I don't want to harass you, and yes part of that is because I know you have a good chance of taking me down so I would only do it if I had a good reason to take that risk.

But I'm still around, and despite being intentionally cut off I know how to gather news and information when I want to. I'm not as regular as you I am sure, and yes I have taken breaks. Sometimes from CLOK, sometimes to play around with an alt.

I've spent several days trying to think of the best way to reply to this, because I know you'll tear apart anything I say. Unfortunately, I don't really have much to say. The group that attacked your mine needed resources and saw opportunity. It was in a prime location, and had enough activity that it would be lucrative for them to not only gather the mined resources themselves, but also extort people wanting to use the mine. They were met with violence and gave an ultimatum, which was not met. The result was the loss of the mine. This was a pretty easy result to come to, as we wanted to get rid of it anyway. Not just yours, but the others as well. We'll likely come up with similar plot lines or natural disasters to close off the remainder of the player mines over the next year, or simply code in a way for the resources sto be exhausted. Yours was merely targetted first due to it's prime location and the level of activity. As someone who played CLOK before player mines were a thing, you seem to have forgotten that they are not the only place to gather resources. You talk about the mine as if it was the only thing in CLOK that ever brings people together, but those same people would still need to stick together and work as a team to mine in an area that actually includes danger.

Yes, Lassyn was a little blunt with you. This was likely triggered by your overwhelmingly negative attitude. While I probably wouldn't have put it in as straightforward a way as he did, he is correct in that there is no right to privacy in CLOK. However, contrary to what you may believe, I do not just sit and monitor tells obsessively rather than doing actual DEV work. It is your exceedingly toxic attitude towards CLOK, and more specifically, me as a DEV, that raises concern and prompts frequent monitoring. You log in to do nothing but complain about the "amateur hour" that is my attempt at keeping CLOK running, talking about how downhill the game has been since I've been put in charge, and about how you're unfairly being targetted. You are seriously poisoning the community atmosphere with your attitude, and that is a cause for concern, which leads me to monitor your tells more closely than I would others. Frankly, from my point of view it seems like you just want CLOK to shut down, why else would you have such a vehement attitude towards it?

I don't blame Gad for being upset, but I do think the GMs could have handled it better.
For those who don't know and wonder why I left the game I'll just tell you it here. I got bored. Everyone is more concerned with grinding than rp. And what rp that there is 99% of the time requires grinding. If I don't have rp to hold and keep my attention, I quit.
good luck to CLOK, but the few times I've logged in. It's not looking promising.

*Off Topic* RP is easy enough to make. If things are quiet then poke the ESP network. People are generally spread out doing their own thing so stumbling into RP can be hard, but I've done this a few times recently just asking people if they want to hang out or catch me up on things and every time I've had at least 3 people show up just to come hang out and RP a bit. I'm sure we would all love to see you and your alts back in-game if you're willing to give it a shot.

RP is a two-way street.

Both people need to make an effort.

Games are a lot more fun when you can enjoy yourself for your own reasons and efforts instead of expecting to always be accommodated by someone else. I play entire sessions without interacting with anyone else, and yeah they're not always as fun as when I do interact with others, but I still enjoy myself because I have an idea of what my character wants, what he thinks, tasks for him to do, I imagine things he's doing that can be assumed background activities. Things like that. It probably doesn't work as well for people who are more into socialization though and who want to be logged in more regularly and recognized members of the community. I will admit I'm not one of those people who needs to socialize or be considered a big part of the community to have fun. And I can see how a low number of interactions would make the game not fun for those people. Nothing wrong with that, different people with different needs.

I will say whenever I have gone out looking to interact and RP with someone else, when I catch people I have never found the interactions lacking or disappointing. Some are more fun than others sure, but I'm not going to get upset because so and so wouldn't RP with me the way I wanted them to, or as much as I wanted.

And yeah use that ESP pendant. It's a lot harder to find people to interact with when you literally have to track them down. But I like that concept for my character. Ydia, I hope you can find a way to enjoy the game, if not I wish you well wherever you go next. I don't get your comment about 99% of RP requiring grinding, majority of my RP interactions don't involve any dice rolls. But I probably just miss all the really fun parties.