mehtastic
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Posts: 1,337
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Post by mehtastic on Mar 7, 2023 13:58:55 GMT -5
bUt if StAFf canT plAy thEN wHy WouLD tHeY jOiN sTaFf??
I don't know, to run the game and make it better? To serve the players? To animate scenes and bring life to the world?
You can tell that the people against banning staff avatars expect so little of staff, to think they need an incentive beyond the above.
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Post by Prime Minister Sinister on Mar 7, 2023 14:15:11 GMT -5
bUt if StAFf canT plAy thEN wHy WouLD tHeY jOiN sTaFf?? I don't know, to run the game and make it better? To serve the players? To animate scenes and bring life to the world? You can tell that the people against banning staff avatars expect so little of staff, to think they need an incentive beyond the above. i feel like there's really no reason to not just have like a rotating cast of storytellers like when you get made a storyteller or whatever, you're on storytelling duty. tell stories. your PC is the whole world, make it alive. be a dm. work with other dms to make cool shit happen for the players but if you want to play a character of your own, that's fine too-- you just lose access to your storyteller tools until you're done with that character, and you will also face harsher scrutiny and harder paddlings for any metagaming that's how i'd do it
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Post by eukelade on Mar 7, 2023 14:23:20 GMT -5
i feel like there's really no reason to not just have like a rotating cast of storytellers like when you get made a storyteller or whatever, you're on storytelling duty. tell stories. your PC is the whole world, make it alive. be a dm. work with other dms to make cool shit happen for the players but if you want to play a character of your own, that's fine too-- you just lose access to your storyteller tools until you're done with that character, and you will also face harsher scrutiny and harder paddlings for any metagaming that's how i'd do it Term limits on storytellers (which I agree is a good idea) means a lot more boring management overhead. You would need a cap on staff and a defined cooldown period and a way to keep track of who everyone was and the last time they'd been "upstairs" and you'd also need to be willing to do a lot more training and have a better plan in place for clan assignments as people rotate in and out. I think with the right admin-minded spreadsheet-loving personality type who wasn't in charge of anything else but managing staff rotations you could maintain it pretty well, though I think you'd eventually run up into the problem of not having enough people if your cooldown period was too long.
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Post by rahnevyn on Mar 7, 2023 19:51:07 GMT -5
I’m a pretty big fan of the rotating Storyteller concept but it would probably mean big changes in the game or the ST role. The best way I could see it working is to restrict the access STs currently have to see all the info about everything in the game. Maybe they don’t have access to see PC stats, skills, guild anymore. If you could change their POV to “what NPCs know” versus “what an omniscient eye in the sky knows”, then you could have a lot more people able to run plots and animations while theoretically not even knowing well kept PC secrets.
Would that work or would it just make more mess? Not sure. I like the concept because you could greatly expand the people able to bring the world to life without also having to expand the circle of trust as much.
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Post by paladont on Mar 7, 2023 22:28:25 GMT -5
i feel like there's really no reason to not just have like a rotating cast of storytellers like when you get made a storyteller or whatever, you're on storytelling duty. tell stories. your PC is the whole world, make it alive. be a dm. work with other dms to make cool shit happen for the players but if you want to play a character of your own, that's fine too-- you just lose access to your storyteller tools until you're done with that character, and you will also face harsher scrutiny and harder paddlings for any metagaming that's how i'd do it Term limits on storytellers (which I agree is a good idea) means a lot more boring management overhead. You would need a cap on staff and a defined cooldown period and a way to keep track of who everyone was and the last time they'd been "upstairs" and you'd also need to be willing to do a lot more training and have a better plan in place for clan assignments as people rotate in and out. I think with the right admin-minded spreadsheet-loving personality type who wasn't in charge of anything else but managing staff rotations you could maintain it pretty well, though I think you'd eventually run up into the problem of not having enough people if your cooldown period was too long. Term limits and other such static barricades are nasty things when applied to the creative process. Just allow storytellers to be storytellers, but if they are acting as a storyteller, they cannot play simultaneously. So allow them to play characters as much as they want, but if they want to run a story or plot arc, then they're storytellers and cannot play until the arc is concluded. Easy peasy.
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Post by lechuck on Mar 8, 2023 4:48:06 GMT -5
He became an avid Armageddon player, discovering a stat roll exploit that guaranteed him OP characters. While I was taking a break from Armageddon in high school and focusing on grades, this old friend of mine was flunking out of school IRL but "winning" in Armageddon, fucking Templars and the like because of the stat roll exploit. Heh! I discovered this stat exploit by accident a couple of years ago and thought to myself, "this is too simple--there's no way nobody else knows about this." Basically, the exploit allowed you to boost your stats almost as much as you wanted. You could start with 4x AI if so desired, or HG strength on a human, although I imagine that'd be too detectable. As long as you were careful about keeping the numbers within your race's legal parameters, you could have insane stats on any character. I had already pretty much quit playing by the time I discovered this and didn't really use it on any serious characters, but I'm not at all surprised to hear that others have. It got fixed sometime last year, I think, when somebody else reported it. Goes to show how flimsy the legitimacy of this game is. There's every chance that you've encountered numerous characters throughout the years who had all-exceptional stats or whatever, thanks to this exploit; and either staff never noticed or they looked the other way, possibly because they were using it themselves. I mean, anytime someone used this trick, it was plainly broadcast to any staff members who had 'monitor reroll' on, so if people have been using it for years on end without anybody ever finding out, it says a lot about how little of a shit staff traditionally gives about anything that doesn't directly concern them.
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mehtastic
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Posts: 1,337
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Post by mehtastic on Mar 13, 2023 9:26:34 GMT -5
Halaster writes: Halaster says Shalooonsh abused his position as staff and says that allowing it to happen for so long was essentially a mistake on staff's part, for failing to notice patterns and staff trusting each other that everyone's following the rules.
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delirium
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Post by delirium on Mar 13, 2023 9:57:05 GMT -5
Apology is nice but way too late. 7 months too late in my case. Where's the acknowledgement for being assholes to me and Jon and FORCE STORING OUR PCs when we called out Shalooonsh? Or for all the other times y'all lashed out bc you didn't like me calling out abusive shit bc you got annoyed at the idea of having to deal with it instead of blissfully ignoring it? I say sorry for overwhelming you with how overwhelmed you've made me, I come to you with honesty about Shaloonsh and I part with you on polite terms despite you being utterly dismissive... and you flip out and call me toxic on the GDB during That One Thread.
Cool apology bro, hard pass on returning to the game. Fool me twice, etc. We got this apology after about two weeks because players mass resigned and raised hell. As soon as things "calm down" it'll be the same old fucking same old, I guarantee it.
It's like the abusive ex showing up with flowers at your door and repeating what all your mutuals told him to apologize for. Thanks bud but we are never ever ever getting back together.
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Post by bangbangskeetskee on Mar 13, 2023 10:11:58 GMT -5
Genuine question, what would make you all happy?
What could staff do to redeem themselves in your eyes?
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bebop
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Post by bebop on Mar 13, 2023 10:13:13 GMT -5
Halaster writes: Halaster says Shalooonsh abused his position as staff and says that allowing it to happen for so long was essentially a mistake on staff's part, for failing to notice patterns and staff trusting each other that everyone's following the rules. It's a start. If they unban the people they've banned and reach out to people to make things right after the harm that's been caused I'll be impressed. The screenshots I've seen show that they said they'll unban people and start fresh but when people have inquired they maintained the bans anyway. (See Oleupata telling Pooch he'll stay banned because he's on the shadowboards.) Right now I'm one of the people at the receiving end of this apology, I assume? But I am banned and no staff have reached out. I am also the person who filed the initial complaint so it's interesting to hear what went on behind the scenes. I'm processing that information and how all of this was caused due to a lack of transparency on every level and a general authoritative tone towards those already being harassed. I'm also processing everything I've found out since going forward with talking publicly about all of this,how deep the cheating went. I maintain that diminishing and removing these rules of secrecy are healthy. Talking about this openly would have ended this sooner and maybe spared some women from abuse in person. On one hand I'm glad to see some level of accountability. On the other hand it's hard to feel like it's genuine when myself, my husband and Hazel are banned. You can't get mad at people for not knowing what they don't know. No one knew Shalooonsh had been fired because of the constant culture of secrecy. People were angry, betrayed and hurt. I feel calling out the culture that enabled this was necessary. I don't regret it at all. But it's odd to apologize for players having an awful experience and then continue to ban them. Trust goes both ways. There is also still the matter of the allegations of abuse and sexual assault that occured. I get staff not wanting to touch those with a ten foot pole and unfortunately what's done is done. We need to make sure this doesn't happen in the future. But what about staff like Hestia referring to non binary people as it's and advocating for no gender neutral options? Going forward I'd like to see a strong stance about how hate based on gender, sexual orientation or race won't be tolerated. Staff need to be held to a higher standard. And there's the matter of the moderation board still being overruled by staff and bans staying in place. So I'm waiting on that culture change. I guess my initial feelings directly after reading this are that this entire thing is unfortunate. I don't think Halaster needs to step down. I wish staff would have more empathy in general and realize that a harsh IG culture does not require a harsh OOC culture. It's also not all on Halaster. I complained about Shalooonsh and his creepy behavior for years. This apology is good but I hope staff realize that it's deeper than just this whole mess with Kitanius. The conversations on the GDB around the game right now makes it clear that the remaining players don't overly value roleplay. I feel like a lot of the players that valued role play and demanded agency for players have been snipped from the garden. I'm not sure where that leaves Armageddon. To me it seems like you're pruning the people who want to see a safe, role play oriented community. If you only keep and foster players who want less consent and roleplay you're making a very conscious shift as to what kind of game you're cultivating. It's not one people like me would feel safe in. You've got Hazel who was banned after playing a great Borsail noble who was sidelined by Kitanius. You've got Delirium and Ender who were cornerstone players who were force stored over their Shalooonsh complaints. You've got myself and the clan I was running who was affected by Shalooonsh's actions. You've got my husband gone because he was rightfully disgusted, who was playing a reliable leader. You've got people here on the shadowboards that loved the game but just feel extremely put off and betrayed that staff continue to other and infer stupidity by calling it the derp boards. If staff are really sorry, I'll be interested to see if they try to make things right by us. I know those of banned and impacted by this are in agreement we won't be pursuing a return but we'd be amenable if genuine effort was made on staff's part and we were given a voice to continue to protect players from this kind of harassment. I'm not holding out hope though and I've very mixed feelings at the moment.
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delirium
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Post by delirium on Mar 13, 2023 10:27:11 GMT -5
Genuine question, what would make you all happy? What could staff do to redeem themselves in your eyes? Genuine question, how do you redeem literal years of abuse? If they want a better community they should create one. Not to lure back the good people who rightfully called them on their bullshit and left, but because they realize it's the right thing to do. Go read pride & prejudice or something, idk. Stop putting the onus of explaining the bullshit and how to fix it on those who already had to put up with it and left because of it. Show some emotional and mental maturity and fix it yourselves, goddamn. If you can't figure out how to without us there holding your hand, THAT IS WHY WE LEFT.
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ask
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Post by ask on Mar 13, 2023 10:31:02 GMT -5
It's really not that hard. Ban staff avatars and any staff that doesn't like it can go, if they only play for that reason then they aren't worth having as a dungeon master to begin with. Next get rid of anyone who supported shaloonsh's weird behavior or is his friends, birds of a feather flock to whatever the fuck, just get rid of them. Execute them in public that's what the mob wants. They could just do that and they'd be fine. Then put me in as producer, in charge of public relations and making sure no one is being a fuck tard "behind the curtain". They're fuckin' out and I'm fuckin' in, that's the only way to do this. I've been saying this shit for years, and I *was* Arm staff. I've seen it all. Staff are MEANT TO BE THERE FOR THE PLAYERS. Instead, they're there for themselves. Halaster's "apology post" is bullshit. No policy changes mentioned, nothing but, "bad man gone, we only received a complaint recently about his PC," which is utter bullshit, considering what people have been saying about him for FOREVER. Anyway, yeah. Nothing is going to change, and any players who stick around thinking it will, you're gonna be banned the next time you report abuse happening to you. And I'm sorry for that. Edit: Also, Hal saying no one noticed Looonsh's patterns is silly. I mean, I noticed when Silteyes/Brokkr was cheating, reported it as staff, and nothing got done about it. It's their MO, baby. If they don't get incentives, they don't want to be staff. Also, lol, Rika/Gyn being given a MMH by senate decree VIRTUALLY is hilarious. They really care about you, the player, who tried for years to make their own MMHs work. Gyn has been staff for little over a year now and is just gifted it. Absurd.
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Post by Azerbanjani on Mar 13, 2023 10:31:55 GMT -5
Ironic Halaster is, today, talking bad about someone's resource PC
When he...you know.
That.
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Post by actuallyender on Mar 13, 2023 10:32:22 GMT -5
Genuine question, what would make you all happy? What could staff do to redeem themselves in your eyes? Honestly very little. All this really has done for me is proven the juice was never worth the squeeze. Proved that literal decades of gaslighting about abuses were just that, gaslighting. It's great that there's finally some transparency about it, but after quitting I realized how much happier I am without all the stress the game provides. To play the game in the way that I enjoy takes far too much time and effort. It means playing the game to an unhealthy degree which is already reason enough to quit, but knowing that on top of that staff can and have so easily abused the system is just icing on the cake. As it was a big part of my life for so long I've been following all this out of a sort of morbid curiosity, but I can't bring myself to want to play again. I hope others that continue to play are treated well by staff and treat themselves and others well. I'd be happy to see the game change for the better, but it's just not for me anymore. I think a lot of us feel this way, and no amount of apologies of wrongdoing are going to fix that, but it is nice to see that we at least weren't crazy and the shitty things done to so many players over the years were real and not just us overreacting. Obviously what was done to me is pale in comparison to what others have endured, but it was enough to make me quit over it and has given me no desire to spend my free time playing a game I no longer enjoy.
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mehtastic
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Posts: 1,337
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Post by mehtastic on Mar 13, 2023 10:42:41 GMT -5
Genuine question, what would make you all happy? What could staff do to redeem themselves in your eyes? Commit to not cheating and making sure the community is a safe place to be. On the former, they're currently all pretending Shalooonsh was the only cheater ever and now that he's been fired, cheating is no longer a problem. On the latter, they're claiming not to have any jurisdiction on outside matters when much of Shalooonsh's sexual abuse happened in-game.
If staff can't do the bare minimum, they should resign en masse and close the game. It doesn't need to be open if it's just open to let staff abuse players.
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