Who was Herne?

Herne began his career on Rod in late '95, progressing up through the ranks of the Rangers slowly until he finally Avatared some 3 or so months later. He became a guilded Ranger around Level 9, and later became one of the first four members of the "Newbie Council" when Brittany (one of the original immortals) first introduced the concept to Rod Early in the summer of '96. Soon, I took an interest in the workings of Realms and I was soon given permission to build an area of my own -- I spent most of the summer trying to figure out how all the online building commands worked, since the help files were very short on information and I ended up writing my own building guides in the end.

By the end of the summer of '96, I was asked to become a member of the Immortal ranks for Realms, and after some thought, I decided to agree. Once I became an Immortal, I spent most of my time expanding the ranks of the Newbie Council until I eventually became the Head of the Newbie Council when Brittany had to take some personal time away from the MUD, and I continued to expand on the process of area building. After lots of hard work, and after I managed to get a few levels under my belt, I eventually left the Newbie Council, and joined the Area Council. Once again, my ambitions paid off and I was made Head of the Area Council when Vaiza decided that her time was up. By this time, I had achieved L57 and had written 3 areas for Rod, and I had plans for many more.

So why did I demote back to L50? Well, I do not wish to practice sedition, although I've probably been accused of worse offenses -- at that time, the Immortal structure of Realms was flawed. Immortals are supposed to be volunteers who have proven themselves to be above and beyond the regular players of the MUD, those who are actually mature and intelligent enough to make real contributions to the whole, and these volunteers are supposed to get promotions as a reflection of how much they actually contributed. In the past, Immortals who built or coded for the MUD were given preference in promotions as they did, in fact, contribute the most to the MUD. But then promotions started being given largely on whim rather than anything else.

I demoted back to the Avatar level because I decided that fair promotions were no longer possible on RoD, and I was told that I would never be promoted past L57 unless I 'lost my attitude' (read: sucked up). So, rather than continue to bash my head into a glass ceiling, I decided that it would be best if I just stopped giving any of my time to the MUD. Several other good Imms had also found what I said to be true and they too have decided to leave the Imm ranks of RoD, which left the MUD with a surplus of "play" Imms. RoD was well on the road to stagnation, and only time will tell if they will make the required changes to stop it. Basically, politics sucks.

Herne the Hunter - August 1997

Since I wrote this in 1997, several changes have been made to RoD, including an overhaul of the immortal structure and the loss of several Imms who were less than impartial.

In July of 2000, after being asked a couple of times, I decided to try my hand at being an Immortal again... We shall see what happens.

Herne the Hunter - July 2000