sugarvalves [1963573] —
Original article
As you might expect given his time here, Tezwar has achieved many individual feats and milestones during his eight-year stay in Torn City. He owns a unique property in Silo X17, he currently stands as our 10th richest citizen, he was placed 5th in Proxima's Powerhouse Index, and Tezwar also ranks highly for respect gained (7th), attacks won (17th) and stealth attacks won (17th).
Tezwar's 2702 day marriage to Rockin_Robin is a testament to his loyalty, and his business acumen is also demonstrated through his ownership of one of the top ten farms in the city. On the 3rd of December 2015 Tezwar became the 20th citizen to reach Level 100, and with a current haul of over $200billion Torn City Dollars, Tezwar is, without a doubt, the greatest mugger this city has ever seen.
But none of this would have been possible were it not for the initial encouragement of IVIatteh; for this is Tezwar's son, and it was he who was responsible for initiating his father in the ways of Torn City.
"I was introduced to Torn by my son who at the time was about 13, it was approaching Christmas that's how I remember it and he said hey Dad you have to play this game, he and his friends at school were all playing it at the time. He was always trying to get me to play games with him but pretty much all the time they were in and out of his life in a matter of a week or two. Torn was the same for him he pretty much didn't play much after a short time but for me for the first time from his introductions it held my attention."
Tezwar's seed proved responsible for two further citizens of Torn in the form of Ladypaws and Lukiwar007, and while his children seem content to dip in and out of our way of life, Tezwar has remained a regular visitor in spite of what his offspring may think.
"He [IVIatteh] does know I still play and I guess he now thinks I'm sad still playing after all these years. He has come back a few times here and there.
Knowing full well what horrors our community is capable of, I wondered if Tezwar had considered the potential for retribution against his Torn-based family by identifying them so egregiously. I didn't dwell on this for too long, mind, as you can tell by the fact I've published links to their profiles.
So let's gloss over my possible culpability and move on swiftly to find out whether Tezwar ever managed to avoid paying out real pocket money by instead funding his children with Torn City Dollars.
"I tried to help him in the early days but of course the IP block was always a problem stopping us from interacting in any way so I could not help financially unfortunately. I was always an advocate of getting them to make their own way in Torn. Even once they lifted the IP block we see people being fedded or being accused of it so I continued to let them fend for themselves as much as possible to be safe."
This was probably for the best because we've all seen how well those with a sense of entitlement do in Torn City. Raising his children to look after themselves will stand them in good stead should they ever return to Torn life full-time; and if they do, I'm sure that dear old dad could teach them a thing or two about how to earn a crust.
After taking his son's advice and settling down in Torn, Tezwar established himself financially by learning how to play the stock market. The purchase of a few donator packs helped him along in the early days, but it was Tezwar's real life expertise which truly allowed him to truly master Torn's commercial opportunities.
"Being an accountant in real life and knowing how the real stock market worked got me on my way and I soon turned little money into a good profit. Of course stocks were different back then and I still see now people referring to the old system as a cash cow."
"Yes it was different but it was certainly not as easy to amass a lot of money in short periods of time like some people seem to think. It was still down to skill and just like trading now; stocks were actively traded pvp as stocks were not added by the system like they are today. There were also the very large cash benefit stocks to have, these were out of the reach of a lot of players back then unlike today and the payouts were very overpowered."
I realised just how overpowered these stocks were when Tezwar shared some of his old dividend logs with me from 2010-11. His records show two payouts of over $330million being awarded to him from TC Music Industries in the space of just 12 months. But with the markets more heavily regulated now, the system lost its lustre for Tezwar, and these days he only purchases stocks for the benefit blocks.
Tezwar lamented how much the stock market had changed from its heyday, and he seems to miss the time when the stock market forums were busy and full of trading. Such nostalgia would come to be a recurring theme throughout this interview, especially when we discussed Tezwar's most successful activity in Torn - mugging.
"I had to try and find another way of keeping my interest as I found myself getting more distant from Torn. I then came across mugging and again I threw myself into it and again it was a pretty exciting time. As some will know back then you could check all the attack logs and I would find myself going through log after log becoming very fast at doing it too."
"Of course the RSI would kick in and I would pay others to check them for me giving them of a cut of anything I could mug. Back then the revive setting either didn't exist or people would forget to set it to off and it was possible, after stacking energy to mug someone nearly dry. Now I know this is not everyone's cup of tea but to me it was a lifeline and kept me playing."
"My mugging then snowballed from there with an army of spies who would literally spy people every day or would give me the heads up from a target they had heard of. We must remember that back then any stock sales did not go to the bank it went straight to the wallet so there were some very good pickings at times."
"Of course it was the same for me and on a number of occasions I had 1 bill plus taken from me, but it was all part of the game and it did not put me off. There was a point that I would get 10 to 20 mails every day of potential targets and people log searching along with people offering revive services to me, it was real fun."
The days Tezwar describes must seem alien to those who were not there to experience them. This was a time when someone could be absent for no more than a few hours, yet still return to find themselves completely destitute and back to square one. Tezwar's $200billion+ mugging haul was gained via the process of chain mugging, whereby someone could be mugged, revived and mugged again until either your energy or their cash reserves were spent. If you had a bazaar this could be completely cleaned out as well, with your entire stock purchased and the proceeds relieved from your account before you knew what was going on.
Such a practice makes our modern buy-muggers look relatively harmless in comparison, but despite its obvious potential for making enemies, Tezwar claimed that asset-stripping his fellow citizens actually gained him most of the friends he has today.
"Mugging gained me a lot of friends strange as it may seem, but I guess there were a gang of regulars who ended up helping each other as well as often crossing paths too. For me it was a great deal of fun, researching targets, organising revivers, spies and the final sting brought a big adrenaline rush!!"
"I did make enemies along the way of course, those who I chain mugged or caught off guard with their revive settings. But it was part of the game and I saw no wrong in it, if someone had not put their revive setting off then they were fair game in my opinion. As I said before where I did cross the line was via trades, I can safely say I never trade mugged anyone and I challenge anyone to prove otherwise."
"Sadly once mugging was changed most of them quit or just got bored and faded away. Mugging now is not exciting, I know there are still mugs going on but the rewards are nowhere near what they used to be. From what I see the only real mugging that goes on now is from bazaar buying and a few inactives. Of course there is now a cooldown on mugging making it impossible to chain mug anyone, shame really it was fun!!"
A quick glance at Tezwar's mugging graph shows just how quickly his habit was brought to an end, with his street robbery proceeds having completely flat-lined since September 2014. This means that barring a significant change in Torn legislation, it is unlikely that anyone will surpass Tezwar's $204,378,957,955 haul in the next few years without expelling some considerable effort.
I have no doubt that many envy Tezwar's title of Torn's greatest ever mugger, and if they cannot take it from him legitimately it seems there are some who would seek to strip him of it by instead questioning his integrity.
"It turned out that I had become the player with the most money mugged and talk was rife at the time of scripting as it is still today, where anyone who does very well at something and others don't become the targets of jealous people or those who really do not understand what they are talking about."
"I will say this, I always took pride in that I never trade mugged anyone, bazaar buyouts, yes, but never during a trade. I still see this as something I would never do. Of course due to my previous mugging success others spout off things that are not true as they try to think they know more about my game play than I do!!"
"But it doesn't worry me, I play my way, that's how I'm sure Ched wanted everyone to play as long as everyone sticks to the rules and I am a stickler for rules as most would know from the factions I have been involved with."
It is Tezwar's faction life which seems to be the most consistent source of joy for this grizzled veteran, as while his favourite pastimes of stock selling and mugging have been reduced in efficacy, the friendships he has developed through his work with Wolf Pack are still as strong as ever.
Tezwar's first faction was Plan A, but this group was destroyed after its leader became inactive. Tezwar decided against joining another faction and instead purchased his own in the form of Wolf Pack, which already existed albeit as a much smaller faction than the one it was destined to become. It was here where Tezwar met his future wife, Rockin_Robin, and with the help of her and a few others, Tezwar transformed Wolf Pack from a backmarker into one of the best factions in the city.
"It was very slow at the start as anyone who has started a faction from scratch would know. But we managed to find a few good people and over time it blossomed from there. I have to say I was very lucky to come across a few good people who helped make it happen and some of them are still part of Wolf Pack today, Hammer and Bosstweed being 2 of them. We all had things in common and I guess just clicked and Wolf Pack became over time a force in Torn."
"As with all my game play it took up a big part of my time here but it was enjoyable to say the least. Again the time and effort paid off and WP eventually become a HOF faction, going on to be in the HOF top 10, to temporarily holding the longest chain standing at impressive 10,819. This again was a time I will never forget, we have a great team and managed to chain 6 days straight to get to that record."
Tezwar is adamant that the friendships he has acquired through Wolf Pack are the main reason for him remaining here in Torn, although in recent months his dwindling activity levels meant he had to step away from WP management. Tezwar decided that Wolf Pack needed a new lease of life, and having handed over the reins he believes that the faction is in more than capable hands.
"From what I have seen so far they are doing an amazing job. It was very early in its existence that I decided that I did not own WP anymore, but the members do and they still do to this day. Having given up leadership at WP I thought it was time to move around and see outside of WP, having been there in the main for pretty much all of my Torn life I have lead a sheltered existence!! Time to go see friends I guess, but whatever happens WP will always be my home."
Over the past few weeks Tezwar has joined and subsequently left Subversive Alliance, and he now finds himself settled with Tascon's Memento Mori - a faction firmly allied with Wolf Pack and its subsidiaries. Whether this will prove to be his home in another few months is anyone's guess, but one faction where you imagine Tezwar may never be welcome is Helvetes In Vegas since he was responsible for destroying the original Helvetes several years ago.
But before we get to the annihilation of one of Torn's most famous factions, we must first hear the story of how Tezwar came to acquire a dirty bomb in the first place.
"I will always remember the time where another mugger and I bought out a dirty bomb from a bazaar having first checked the guy selling was revivable. We knew it was slightly overpriced at the time but we did our homework, we stacked energy, had revivers on standby, watched the times the guy came online and picked a time to do it."
"Of course it was all a big guarded secret and I have to be honest at the time I was as nervous as hell. But all worked out well for the muggers (not the guy selling it of course!) I think having bought the bomb for like 20 billion, we must have mugged 15 billion back from him before we ran out of energy."
Tezwar's accomplice in this endeavour was a man called Core, who was later placed in federal jail for reasons we may never come to know. At the time Core and Tezwar were mugging buddies, but while Tez was busying himself with building up a faction, Core had become embroiled in a brutal faction conflict. And while Tezwar wondered for what purpose he might deploy his newly acquired weapon of mass destruction, Core knew exactly how it should be used.
"He [Core] had caught himself up in a bad faction war with both sides eventually kicking all their members and waiting for the war to time out. This was Trigger Happy v Helvete. Core messaged me one morning, I will never forget it was a Saturday and he updated me on the kicking of members and told me Helvete had left one guy in charge who had in fact flown to South Africa to go inactive and let the war time out."
"You cannot be hit once inactive for 24 hours abroad. He put a proposition to me knowing that I had a DB to blow up Helvete and destroy it in retribution for that they had done. He told me he would contribute half of the cost of it and I would be able to use it and get the merits etc."
"I have to say it was a good job the guy who went inactive stayed inactive as he could have saved Helvete gaining a war hit or 2 before it was destroyed but he failed to come online and it was destroyed. I did hear after that members of the faction were frantically trying to track him down in real life to phone him to tell him to come back online and save it, only knowing his surname they trawled through the phone book trying to phone him but to no avail."
"The faction and all its items and money were destroyed, I never found out how much it was but it was satisfying to destroy it all the same, one of only a handful of times a DB had been used and a decent faction destroyed."
The Helvetes faction was resurrected soon after and lives on today as Helvetes In Vegas, with Sticky taking charge and eventually leading the survivors back to their place in the upper echelons of the Hall of Fame. But surprisingly there were no repercussions for Tezwar, and nor does his victim Sticky harbour any ill feeling towards his assailant.
"Well was a good move we didn't think of back in that war. As we got jumped n were winning ( of course ) lol, and they kicked all their members out we tried to get the war draw n move on. Didn't think of the db, and we did upgrade st 7 so it was a good n smart move to db us that time."
"No I don't hold a grudge and personally I didn't had the idea of revenge as Helvete 1.0 wasn't my faction at all. It was tittentei tingelings mojomofos faction. No point in saving 25 Bil for db n toss it lol rather eat gloves."
Tezwar seems to have gotten away with this brutal assault completely scot-free, and if the following quote is anything to go by, it seems he does not regret the actions he took on that fateful day.
"Nothing came of it, it wasn't personal, well from me it wasn't, but it certainly did cause a bit of a stink in Torn. I probably see this as one of the better things that I have done. The outcome was one of the better uses of a DB to this day."
So having made his fortune, mugged half the city and bombed a faction out of existence, it is understandable that Tezwar may struggle for goals at this stage in life. Tez is currently endeavouring to train more and increase his stats, with his physical attributes rumoured to make him one of the top 20 strongest in Torn. But you can't help but think that someone like him longs for a different kind of challenge. Something statistics-based, perhaps, since this would allow him to showcase and test his obvious talents for scouring data, as he demonstrated when he chain-mugged strangers and made millions on the stock market.
Tezwar remarked to me that he felt skill is not as important to success in Torn as it used to be, and that the city has been streamlined in order to accommodate the needs of newcomers. In turn, he says this has made Torn feel stale for veterans like him, and aside from training, warring and chatting with friends he is yet to find a new goal to replace those which drove him on so eagerly in his youth.
Wealthy and strong players like Tezwar often feel targeted by changes in Torn legislation, and while the city always needs new blood to replenish that which is spilt daily on the streets, nobody could argue that it also must give veterans something interesting to strive for in their later years.
That being said, anything which keeps someone's attention for eight years can't be doing too much wrong. Tezwar's comments are fair, but they are also personal to his situation as one of Torn's outstanding players. So does the real problem lie in the unchallenged hegemony of the Torn elite? Are our veterans simply too comfortable? Should something more be done to chip away at their power?
This is a debate many in Torn have had several times over, with options posed including making stats reducible, having high impact crimes that can destroy a legacy, and allowing players to reset once they've reached a certain level. But is that the right way to go about providing our oldest and most loyal citizens with the challenge they so desire?
"I can see the argument that it has made me lazy, but to be fair I had earned 100 bill very early in Torn and I still enjoyed it a lot. It was rough round the edges and things weren't perfect, and people got upset about being mugged or there was some real drama with one faction destroying another; in my opinion that's when I enjoyed playing Torn the most, regardless of how successful I had been."
As time goes on every system becomes refined and has the edges rounded off, but it is difficult to discern whether Tezwar's concerns are justified enough to warrant widespread changes, or if he simply needs to find an area of Torn which he hasn't mastered where he can showcase his skills. He has excelled in areas where one must be organised and efficient if they are to achieve anything, and these are traits Tezwar shares with many of his contemporaries.
In recent months we've heard from traders, muggers and faction leaders who all made their names by obsessing over data and acting accordingly. But when these talented people push so hard they dominate the system it makes it hard for the average player to compete, so something must be changed to allow a form of equality to be maintained. The question is, which area of Torn City can data-driven citizens obsess over today? And where will these challenges come from in future?
Will crimes 2.0 offer a new layer of complexity to our veterans? Perhaps the impending overhaul of drugs 2.0 might shake up the established order too? It is hard to say, but one thing we can all agree on is that Torn should not be safe. Nothing of note should be easy to achieve, and this applies equally to both newcomers and the old guard.
Whatever changes are made, Tezwar believes that they should benefit all players and not just the new ones. Because it wasn't safe for him when he was led here by his son all those years ago, and it shouldn't be safe when someone else's kid recommends Torn to their father today.
For that is why he's still here eight years later, with Tezwar's friendships forged in the fires of faction conflict and in the midst of merciless muggings; both of which had real repercussions for real people. And hopefully, with ever more challenging additions on the horizon, these feelings will be reignited, and gifted veterans like Tezwar will remain in Torn City for many years to come.
Although knowing him, Tezwar will probably master anything Torn City can throw his way.
Thanks to Harley for proofing, and to Illusionist for supplying the story of Helvetes' destruction, which you can read about here.
Tezwar's 2702 day marriage to Rockin_Robin is a testament to his loyalty, and his business acumen is also demonstrated through his ownership of one of the top ten farms in the city. On the 3rd of December 2015 Tezwar became the 20th citizen to reach Level 100, and with a current haul of over $200billion Torn City Dollars, Tezwar is, without a doubt, the greatest mugger this city has ever seen.
But none of this would have been possible were it not for the initial encouragement of IVIatteh; for this is Tezwar's son, and it was he who was responsible for initiating his father in the ways of Torn City.
"I was introduced to Torn by my son who at the time was about 13, it was approaching Christmas that's how I remember it and he said hey Dad you have to play this game, he and his friends at school were all playing it at the time. He was always trying to get me to play games with him but pretty much all the time they were in and out of his life in a matter of a week or two. Torn was the same for him he pretty much didn't play much after a short time but for me for the first time from his introductions it held my attention."
Tezwar's seed proved responsible for two further citizens of Torn in the form of Ladypaws and Lukiwar007, and while his children seem content to dip in and out of our way of life, Tezwar has remained a regular visitor in spite of what his offspring may think.
"He [IVIatteh] does know I still play and I guess he now thinks I'm sad still playing after all these years. He has come back a few times here and there.
Knowing full well what horrors our community is capable of, I wondered if Tezwar had considered the potential for retribution against his Torn-based family by identifying them so egregiously. I didn't dwell on this for too long, mind, as you can tell by the fact I've published links to their profiles.
So let's gloss over my possible culpability and move on swiftly to find out whether Tezwar ever managed to avoid paying out real pocket money by instead funding his children with Torn City Dollars.
"I tried to help him in the early days but of course the IP block was always a problem stopping us from interacting in any way so I could not help financially unfortunately. I was always an advocate of getting them to make their own way in Torn. Even once they lifted the IP block we see people being fedded or being accused of it so I continued to let them fend for themselves as much as possible to be safe."
This was probably for the best because we've all seen how well those with a sense of entitlement do in Torn City. Raising his children to look after themselves will stand them in good stead should they ever return to Torn life full-time; and if they do, I'm sure that dear old dad could teach them a thing or two about how to earn a crust.
After taking his son's advice and settling down in Torn, Tezwar established himself financially by learning how to play the stock market. The purchase of a few donator packs helped him along in the early days, but it was Tezwar's real life expertise which truly allowed him to truly master Torn's commercial opportunities.
"Being an accountant in real life and knowing how the real stock market worked got me on my way and I soon turned little money into a good profit. Of course stocks were different back then and I still see now people referring to the old system as a cash cow."
"Yes it was different but it was certainly not as easy to amass a lot of money in short periods of time like some people seem to think. It was still down to skill and just like trading now; stocks were actively traded pvp as stocks were not added by the system like they are today. There were also the very large cash benefit stocks to have, these were out of the reach of a lot of players back then unlike today and the payouts were very overpowered."
I realised just how overpowered these stocks were when Tezwar shared some of his old dividend logs with me from 2010-11. His records show two payouts of over $330million being awarded to him from TC Music Industries in the space of just 12 months. But with the markets more heavily regulated now, the system lost its lustre for Tezwar, and these days he only purchases stocks for the benefit blocks.
Tezwar lamented how much the stock market had changed from its heyday, and he seems to miss the time when the stock market forums were busy and full of trading. Such nostalgia would come to be a recurring theme throughout this interview, especially when we discussed Tezwar's most successful activity in Torn - mugging.
"I had to try and find another way of keeping my interest as I found myself getting more distant from Torn. I then came across mugging and again I threw myself into it and again it was a pretty exciting time. As some will know back then you could check all the attack logs and I would find myself going through log after log becoming very fast at doing it too."
"Of course the RSI would kick in and I would pay others to check them for me giving them of a cut of anything I could mug. Back then the revive setting either didn't exist or people would forget to set it to off and it was possible, after stacking energy to mug someone nearly dry. Now I know this is not everyone's cup of tea but to me it was a lifeline and kept me playing."
"My mugging then snowballed from there with an army of spies who would literally spy people every day or would give me the heads up from a target they had heard of. We must remember that back then any stock sales did not go to the bank it went straight to the wallet so there were some very good pickings at times."
"Of course it was the same for me and on a number of occasions I had 1 bill plus taken from me, but it was all part of the game and it did not put me off. There was a point that I would get 10 to 20 mails every day of potential targets and people log searching along with people offering revive services to me, it was real fun."
The days Tezwar describes must seem alien to those who were not there to experience them. This was a time when someone could be absent for no more than a few hours, yet still return to find themselves completely destitute and back to square one. Tezwar's $200billion+ mugging haul was gained via the process of chain mugging, whereby someone could be mugged, revived and mugged again until either your energy or their cash reserves were spent. If you had a bazaar this could be completely cleaned out as well, with your entire stock purchased and the proceeds relieved from your account before you knew what was going on.
Such a practice makes our modern buy-muggers look relatively harmless in comparison, but despite its obvious potential for making enemies, Tezwar claimed that asset-stripping his fellow citizens actually gained him most of the friends he has today.
"Mugging gained me a lot of friends strange as it may seem, but I guess there were a gang of regulars who ended up helping each other as well as often crossing paths too. For me it was a great deal of fun, researching targets, organising revivers, spies and the final sting brought a big adrenaline rush!!"
"I did make enemies along the way of course, those who I chain mugged or caught off guard with their revive settings. But it was part of the game and I saw no wrong in it, if someone had not put their revive setting off then they were fair game in my opinion. As I said before where I did cross the line was via trades, I can safely say I never trade mugged anyone and I challenge anyone to prove otherwise."
"Sadly once mugging was changed most of them quit or just got bored and faded away. Mugging now is not exciting, I know there are still mugs going on but the rewards are nowhere near what they used to be. From what I see the only real mugging that goes on now is from bazaar buying and a few inactives. Of course there is now a cooldown on mugging making it impossible to chain mug anyone, shame really it was fun!!"
A quick glance at Tezwar's mugging graph shows just how quickly his habit was brought to an end, with his street robbery proceeds having completely flat-lined since September 2014. This means that barring a significant change in Torn legislation, it is unlikely that anyone will surpass Tezwar's $204,378,957,955 haul in the next few years without expelling some considerable effort.
I have no doubt that many envy Tezwar's title of Torn's greatest ever mugger, and if they cannot take it from him legitimately it seems there are some who would seek to strip him of it by instead questioning his integrity.
"It turned out that I had become the player with the most money mugged and talk was rife at the time of scripting as it is still today, where anyone who does very well at something and others don't become the targets of jealous people or those who really do not understand what they are talking about."
"I will say this, I always took pride in that I never trade mugged anyone, bazaar buyouts, yes, but never during a trade. I still see this as something I would never do. Of course due to my previous mugging success others spout off things that are not true as they try to think they know more about my game play than I do!!"
"But it doesn't worry me, I play my way, that's how I'm sure Ched wanted everyone to play as long as everyone sticks to the rules and I am a stickler for rules as most would know from the factions I have been involved with."
It is Tezwar's faction life which seems to be the most consistent source of joy for this grizzled veteran, as while his favourite pastimes of stock selling and mugging have been reduced in efficacy, the friendships he has developed through his work with Wolf Pack are still as strong as ever.
Tezwar's first faction was Plan A, but this group was destroyed after its leader became inactive. Tezwar decided against joining another faction and instead purchased his own in the form of Wolf Pack, which already existed albeit as a much smaller faction than the one it was destined to become. It was here where Tezwar met his future wife, Rockin_Robin, and with the help of her and a few others, Tezwar transformed Wolf Pack from a backmarker into one of the best factions in the city.
"It was very slow at the start as anyone who has started a faction from scratch would know. But we managed to find a few good people and over time it blossomed from there. I have to say I was very lucky to come across a few good people who helped make it happen and some of them are still part of Wolf Pack today, Hammer and Bosstweed being 2 of them. We all had things in common and I guess just clicked and Wolf Pack became over time a force in Torn."
"As with all my game play it took up a big part of my time here but it was enjoyable to say the least. Again the time and effort paid off and WP eventually become a HOF faction, going on to be in the HOF top 10, to temporarily holding the longest chain standing at impressive 10,819. This again was a time I will never forget, we have a great team and managed to chain 6 days straight to get to that record."
Tezwar is adamant that the friendships he has acquired through Wolf Pack are the main reason for him remaining here in Torn, although in recent months his dwindling activity levels meant he had to step away from WP management. Tezwar decided that Wolf Pack needed a new lease of life, and having handed over the reins he believes that the faction is in more than capable hands.
"From what I have seen so far they are doing an amazing job. It was very early in its existence that I decided that I did not own WP anymore, but the members do and they still do to this day. Having given up leadership at WP I thought it was time to move around and see outside of WP, having been there in the main for pretty much all of my Torn life I have lead a sheltered existence!! Time to go see friends I guess, but whatever happens WP will always be my home."
Over the past few weeks Tezwar has joined and subsequently left Subversive Alliance, and he now finds himself settled with Tascon's Memento Mori - a faction firmly allied with Wolf Pack and its subsidiaries. Whether this will prove to be his home in another few months is anyone's guess, but one faction where you imagine Tezwar may never be welcome is Helvetes In Vegas since he was responsible for destroying the original Helvetes several years ago.
But before we get to the annihilation of one of Torn's most famous factions, we must first hear the story of how Tezwar came to acquire a dirty bomb in the first place.
"I will always remember the time where another mugger and I bought out a dirty bomb from a bazaar having first checked the guy selling was revivable. We knew it was slightly overpriced at the time but we did our homework, we stacked energy, had revivers on standby, watched the times the guy came online and picked a time to do it."
"Of course it was all a big guarded secret and I have to be honest at the time I was as nervous as hell. But all worked out well for the muggers (not the guy selling it of course!) I think having bought the bomb for like 20 billion, we must have mugged 15 billion back from him before we ran out of energy."
Tezwar's accomplice in this endeavour was a man called Core, who was later placed in federal jail for reasons we may never come to know. At the time Core and Tezwar were mugging buddies, but while Tez was busying himself with building up a faction, Core had become embroiled in a brutal faction conflict. And while Tezwar wondered for what purpose he might deploy his newly acquired weapon of mass destruction, Core knew exactly how it should be used.
"He [Core] had caught himself up in a bad faction war with both sides eventually kicking all their members and waiting for the war to time out. This was Trigger Happy v Helvete. Core messaged me one morning, I will never forget it was a Saturday and he updated me on the kicking of members and told me Helvete had left one guy in charge who had in fact flown to South Africa to go inactive and let the war time out."
"You cannot be hit once inactive for 24 hours abroad. He put a proposition to me knowing that I had a DB to blow up Helvete and destroy it in retribution for that they had done. He told me he would contribute half of the cost of it and I would be able to use it and get the merits etc."
"I have to say it was a good job the guy who went inactive stayed inactive as he could have saved Helvete gaining a war hit or 2 before it was destroyed but he failed to come online and it was destroyed. I did hear after that members of the faction were frantically trying to track him down in real life to phone him to tell him to come back online and save it, only knowing his surname they trawled through the phone book trying to phone him but to no avail."
"The faction and all its items and money were destroyed, I never found out how much it was but it was satisfying to destroy it all the same, one of only a handful of times a DB had been used and a decent faction destroyed."
The Helvetes faction was resurrected soon after and lives on today as Helvetes In Vegas, with Sticky taking charge and eventually leading the survivors back to their place in the upper echelons of the Hall of Fame. But surprisingly there were no repercussions for Tezwar, and nor does his victim Sticky harbour any ill feeling towards his assailant.
"Well was a good move we didn't think of back in that war. As we got jumped n were winning ( of course ) lol, and they kicked all their members out we tried to get the war draw n move on. Didn't think of the db, and we did upgrade st 7 so it was a good n smart move to db us that time."
"No I don't hold a grudge and personally I didn't had the idea of revenge as Helvete 1.0 wasn't my faction at all. It was tittentei tingelings mojomofos faction. No point in saving 25 Bil for db n toss it lol rather eat gloves."
Tezwar seems to have gotten away with this brutal assault completely scot-free, and if the following quote is anything to go by, it seems he does not regret the actions he took on that fateful day.
"Nothing came of it, it wasn't personal, well from me it wasn't, but it certainly did cause a bit of a stink in Torn. I probably see this as one of the better things that I have done. The outcome was one of the better uses of a DB to this day."
So having made his fortune, mugged half the city and bombed a faction out of existence, it is understandable that Tezwar may struggle for goals at this stage in life. Tez is currently endeavouring to train more and increase his stats, with his physical attributes rumoured to make him one of the top 20 strongest in Torn. But you can't help but think that someone like him longs for a different kind of challenge. Something statistics-based, perhaps, since this would allow him to showcase and test his obvious talents for scouring data, as he demonstrated when he chain-mugged strangers and made millions on the stock market.
Tezwar remarked to me that he felt skill is not as important to success in Torn as it used to be, and that the city has been streamlined in order to accommodate the needs of newcomers. In turn, he says this has made Torn feel stale for veterans like him, and aside from training, warring and chatting with friends he is yet to find a new goal to replace those which drove him on so eagerly in his youth.
Wealthy and strong players like Tezwar often feel targeted by changes in Torn legislation, and while the city always needs new blood to replenish that which is spilt daily on the streets, nobody could argue that it also must give veterans something interesting to strive for in their later years.
That being said, anything which keeps someone's attention for eight years can't be doing too much wrong. Tezwar's comments are fair, but they are also personal to his situation as one of Torn's outstanding players. So does the real problem lie in the unchallenged hegemony of the Torn elite? Are our veterans simply too comfortable? Should something more be done to chip away at their power?
This is a debate many in Torn have had several times over, with options posed including making stats reducible, having high impact crimes that can destroy a legacy, and allowing players to reset once they've reached a certain level. But is that the right way to go about providing our oldest and most loyal citizens with the challenge they so desire?
"I can see the argument that it has made me lazy, but to be fair I had earned 100 bill very early in Torn and I still enjoyed it a lot. It was rough round the edges and things weren't perfect, and people got upset about being mugged or there was some real drama with one faction destroying another; in my opinion that's when I enjoyed playing Torn the most, regardless of how successful I had been."
As time goes on every system becomes refined and has the edges rounded off, but it is difficult to discern whether Tezwar's concerns are justified enough to warrant widespread changes, or if he simply needs to find an area of Torn which he hasn't mastered where he can showcase his skills. He has excelled in areas where one must be organised and efficient if they are to achieve anything, and these are traits Tezwar shares with many of his contemporaries.
In recent months we've heard from traders, muggers and faction leaders who all made their names by obsessing over data and acting accordingly. But when these talented people push so hard they dominate the system it makes it hard for the average player to compete, so something must be changed to allow a form of equality to be maintained. The question is, which area of Torn City can data-driven citizens obsess over today? And where will these challenges come from in future?
Will crimes 2.0 offer a new layer of complexity to our veterans? Perhaps the impending overhaul of drugs 2.0 might shake up the established order too? It is hard to say, but one thing we can all agree on is that Torn should not be safe. Nothing of note should be easy to achieve, and this applies equally to both newcomers and the old guard.
Whatever changes are made, Tezwar believes that they should benefit all players and not just the new ones. Because it wasn't safe for him when he was led here by his son all those years ago, and it shouldn't be safe when someone else's kid recommends Torn to their father today.
For that is why he's still here eight years later, with Tezwar's friendships forged in the fires of faction conflict and in the midst of merciless muggings; both of which had real repercussions for real people. And hopefully, with ever more challenging additions on the horizon, these feelings will be reignited, and gifted veterans like Tezwar will remain in Torn City for many years to come.
Although knowing him, Tezwar will probably master anything Torn City can throw his way.
Thanks to Harley for proofing, and to Illusionist for supplying the story of Helvetes' destruction, which you can read about here.
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