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Post by gringoose on Mar 29, 2023 10:43:58 GMT -5
I was thinking about how Arm can even be saved at this point. And really, I think it can't be saved. But I'm going to think of ways it can anyway. The two immediate problems with saving Arm are that the trust between players and staff has been damaged probably to an irreparable degree. That's such a huge mess, that I don't even know how to fix that problem. The other immediate problem, the playerbase being too dispersed, is something that I do have some thoughts about some solutions. This will probably be an incoherent mess so forgive me. I have to hurry with it and get back to work soon.
Arm was on its last leg even before the latest scandal. The players are too dispersed, because the numbers are too small as it is inside of this large playable area, with a large number of factions, and a large number of commons. Staff have time against them, because even without any more new problems popping up, the players numbers are being bled out at an accelerating rate from lack of interaction with other players. People are getting bored. So, I think, the playerbase needs to be consolidated immediately. That means closing down all the playable tribes and giving the people that are currently playing a tribe PC some sort of compensation, and give them an opportunity to transplant their current PC into one of two spheres. Tuluk has to go and the players with Tuluki PCs need to be given compensation and the opportunity to transplant to one of the two playable spheres. The two spheres should be Allanak, and some other new sphere where staff build a new city, and write up new lore for this civilization that pops up. At the very least, Luirs or Red Storm should become fully playable areas and the opposition sphere to Allanak, but this isn't really good enough to save Arm. Independents need to be forced to pick a side. People that are playing Tulukis, tribals or independents won't like their small hangouts being forced to close but it's something necessary to consolidate the playerbase. A few will quit but for the sake of the game most should understand it's necessary and compensation will help with dissuading too many from quitting. All these heavy measures need to be taken pretty much immediately, and it needs to be rolled out swiftly. If it gets announced that half of player's plots are going to be coming to an end in six months as Arm Final gets rolled out, many are just going to quit. Because there's not much incentive for them to continue playing their current PCs if those PCs aren't compatible with a consolidation. Arm can't afford losing many players. And Arm can't afford to continue going with the players dispersed and isolated from interaction as they currently are.
Here's some ideas. Make Mal Krian be restored with magick or something, and make it like a city the size of Allanak minus the Rinth with lots of mages and even commoners being literate. Or make Luirs get taken over by aliens, that begin building a new city, and lots of very strange objects begin to get introduced to the world with potential beneficial consequences and negative ones. They can get really creative with those magickal objects but should be careful not to make them game breaking, and a magickal arms race starts between this city and Allanak. Let an advanced civilization in the sewers of Allanak be discovered that have easy access to metal that even the common soldier has metal weapons, think of them like dwarves in Lord of the Rings but humans instead. What's the big tribal area in the northwest called? I forgot. Anyway, have a contact incident with the outer reaches of the world, from far to the northwest and some new arrivals show up and build an outpost, and these new arrivals have iron and gunpowder, and can even use that gunpowder with muskets and pistols. As for Allanak itself, it wouldn't be completely cut all from all the new stuff popping up in the world. Allanak will have ways to access these new objects showing up in the game too, whether it's stealing for them, killing for them, or finding ways to copy them.
The roll out of the new sphere should be huge and impactful both OOC, to make players excited, and impactful IC like no event in the game history ever had. It should be something huge like these examples and every character should feel like the world will never be the same again, and the amount of change, for better or worse from the perspective of the characters themselves should be great. That's what I think. Something big, and impactful happens in the game to set up a dynamic of two conflicting spheres and consolidate the shrunken playerbase.
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mehtastic
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Post by mehtastic on Mar 29, 2023 12:41:00 GMT -5
Player consolidation through closing areas in RPIs just doesn't work, but I don't think that's the fault of the process of player consolidation, but rather how it's implemented. Compensation for displaced players in the form of first dibs on special role opportunities or something like that is a nice idea and has been promised before on Arm and other places, but the staff inevitably fail to come through, or exclude certain players from it for arbitrary reasons. That leads to (understandably) hurt feelings. Additionally, the staff almost always fail to actually concentrate on the remaining areas and instead try to downsize the staff workload. Which leads to less stuff happening in the remaining areas and staff foregoing metaplots for the sake of very small stories concentrated on select players. As far as regaining trust, that really just takes staff consistently behaving in a trustworthy manner. They are starting from rock-bottom right now but that doesn't mean it's impossible to climb back up to the top. It just requires an extreme level of diligence and care that I personally feel the staff are not capable of. I think Halaster is too hot-tempered and Brokkr too robotic. They are not good stewards for the game. As for the admins, Ath seems like he has good cheer but when he responds to player concerns, it's hard to tell if he's intentionally deflecting player concerns or if he simply has poor reading comprehension. Haldol put out that embarrassing statement the other day. Gynesis's status is inexorably tied with Shalooonsh's abuse and cheating. And I have no opinion on Usiku. Staff really need to be better at asking for help from people who are better suited to roles, but at the same time, they have burned so many bridges that it seems impossible to get genuinely talented people to come back. A big part of the problem is that the people best suited to being staff, are either burnt out over here, or they have gone entirely radio silent. A big part of the problem staff find themselves in is that they treated both players and staff as expendable, and now everyone's scratching their heads wondering where everyone went.
Edit: I'll add that it's very much not a good sign that the remaining players are resistant to change when it comes to increased staff transparency as well as basic QoL stuff like showing where people vaguely are from the "who" command. Arm has always had a very curmudgeonly pbase that generally does not want the game to change. I would go so far as to say that the pbase holds the game back as much as the staff do.
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Post by Azerbanjani on Mar 29, 2023 13:16:10 GMT -5
Arm needs to stop supporting isolated clans. Like, full stop.
I know we don't want to close shit but things need to be changed.
Outright close a few of the clans, they aren't able to actually sustain themselves regardless and the few people can cope or get better roles.
I don't think re-closing Tuluk is going to help. I hate Tuluk and I'm saying it should likely stay open But the game needs a massive 'vibe' rework.
Roles and cultures should support intermingling in some fashion.
You don't have to fuck the elves.
You don't have to fuck the humans (For you elves out there)
You don't have to fuck the city goers (For you tribals out there)
But holy hell do groups in game need supported lore accurate cooperation.
The City States in Dark Sun actively traded with each other.
Keep in mind, they fucking hate each other. They are active enemies. Yet they trade. Officially, through the merchant houses (Who weren't citizens of any city state), and through independent merchants.
The trade keeps peace. When there is no trade, when famine shows up and the kings can't pay the slave tithe, then war happens. They war for slaves, for food, and for anything not nailed down.
Allanak and Tuluk having this never ending war-vibe that just ends suddenly and isn't talked about until staff force another war leaves the two major players at this 'Haha I sure do hate the north/south people' culture.
Having clans who basically live in isolation aren't helping this.
Look at Black Wing. They are isolated as hell. YET EVEN STILL they have an outpost.
This is a good thing. It's lore friendly, it encourages 'They still interact with the world'.
Put a damn embassy in both city states, encourage trade, let player templars fued with more than just the nobles of their own city so we can have actual conflict. Let player templars have various rankings that let them pull or petition for specific resources, let them have favors they can call on so they can petition for even more. If war happens let it happen naturally. Have systems in place that don't let one templar decide to asspull a war when their higher ups likely wouldn't support it, let them try and bypass those through in game methods, support other player templars who think it's a stupid fucking idea and work to stop that templar from being Grumble in character.
Let this be an actual game.
For clans that aren't closed, come up with reasons for those clans to be more interactive.
Example: Assume we didn't kill the halflings all off because we have an IQ above room temperature. We still have an entire race that's isolated. So, we close them for a bit (Or assume they've been closed), and we open them. The event that opens them: The halflings have to leave the forest due to a threat, they must seek refuge in Tuluk.
Congrats: We have forced interaction. We aren't giving people halflings then 2 weeks later rug pulling their isolation status and causing OOC conflict with the characters because they expected different, we are having these people GO INTO THE CONCEPT with the understanding they are going to be fish out of water and having to interact with people.
Now we see how it goes. How do the two cultures clash? What do the halflings bring to the city that the city lacks? (Likely: Really good forest scouts)
It's a bit harder to do this with open tribes without it feeling really forced, and you don't need to literally push a clan into the city or even nearby it (Getting them closer would be nice), but this is the sort of thing I'm talking about.
Imagine staff opening up Thri-Kreen again Arm Thri-Kreen are just kill on sight cannibals. They add literally nothing. They aren't even antagonists, they don't have goals they just want to live in their valley. The fuck are they adding to the game?
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mehtastic
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Post by mehtastic on Mar 29, 2023 14:38:37 GMT -5
It's probably not a coincidence that the biggest RP MU*s right now in terms of player count also have the vast majority of players concentrated in one play area, where intercultural mingling is strongly encouraged. A lot of the older games like Armageddon just didn't keep up with the times from a design standpoint.
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Post by Azerbanjani on Mar 29, 2023 14:43:16 GMT -5
Dark Sun, despite I guess 'pop culture' belief, has several lines talking about how there isn't really 'racism'. Yes, there's distrust of the elven roaming nomads but that's the same distrust they'd give others, it's just humans don't really have the biological ability to have a huge family survive the wastes. Anyone outside that's human in a large group is also going to be: Raiding, herding, or other activities Not that racism is the secret cause of the issues, it's just that gets backdropped into most things as the reason we should hate each other in game. Dark Sun: Had psionics as a valid magic alternative Had sorcery feared, and most people didn't know preserving was a thing. Some did, but many did not LOVED the clerics of the world. They could help you, provide healing, and were generally not pricks (But could be) Had many races that could interact and survive together. The curious halflings, the loyal clutch building Thri-Kreen, the independent but social half elves, the...uh...whatever elves did (Run good), the hardy muls. Etc. Armageddon: Psionics: EVIL BAD GO AWAY Sorcery: EVIL BAD GO AWAY (Basically the same tho) 'Clerics': EVIL BAD GO AWAY (Unless you're one of the 50 fucking tribes that see them as blessings....so why did every tribal and their mother develop a love for magic but the cities didn't? ) Other races: EVIL BAD GO AWAY (Half elves are biologically broken, elven tribes are dog shit and city elves get no support, muls got steroids for some reason and have to have a bond mate which was never a thing, thri-kreen aren't a fucking playable race, dwarves are perma-stuck in a stupid focus....) There's a reason the fucking tabletop wasn't built like Armageddon...because then every game is us trying to find 40 reasons why we should help each other and that isn't fun. It's one of the things I kinda dislike about Apoc. Get rid of the psionics hate, get rid of the cleric hate. Actually make them clerics I'm so tired of 'B-but if someone can be strong we-we-we should fear them'. God what a boring fucking trope. I'm not going to kowtow a half giant because he's bigger and stronger than me, or a dwarf, or a mul. They could snap you in half faster than most mages can. I live in the God damn united states and I see people carry actual weapons all the time. And I don't piss my pants just seeing them. You live in a setting where the average human is Conan the Barbarian and you have a fucking axe I beg you man up. You should really be scared of the Bards instead.
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Post by gringoose on Mar 29, 2023 16:46:46 GMT -5
The social environment on Arm is like the social environment of an undeveloped country. In a first world country, paranoia is seen as something that's irrational because most people in such countries live in safe environments. In the undeveloped world, paranoia is rational because crime is so wide spread. It's a good thing to live in a safe environment and more people should be able to have this privilege but because you live in a safe environment you're not scared of strangers. Players being scared of other PCs on Arm isn't just something that's roleplay. They're scared of other PCs out of character too. On that level. When players express and show paranoia of other PCs, it's less of an act, and more of real paranoia because of how invested people are in their PCs. Arm players have little trust between other players. I really don't think they're playing up the act too hard.
I remember when I first started playing Arm, and I didn't really understand what a magicker was other than trying to imagine them like some fantasy mage. But then, I heard some horror stories about them, saw a little of the power they had, and had friends of my first PC die to them. I was genuinely scared of them, and there was so much mystery about them back then that I did not understand.
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Patuk
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Post by Patuk on Mar 29, 2023 20:54:58 GMT -5
I think you could close iso clans well enough if you did it cleverly. The bad way to do it is as with old Tuluk, or with some more blunt closures: culling RPTs, straight-up 'ya'll are gone now', or sorcerous excuses.
No, just.. Let them die. Every now and then again, a clan gets so anemic it has nobody. Just throw in the towel at that point. Move on. I reckon the whole DON'T CLOSE X AND Y CLAN thing will lose a little oomph if you do it to clans that do very literally just bleed to death.
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spyguy
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Post by spyguy on Mar 29, 2023 22:00:39 GMT -5
It's probably not a coincidence that the biggest RP MU*s right now in terms of player count also have the vast majority of players concentrated in one play area, where intercultural mingling is strongly encouraged. A lot of the older games like Armageddon just didn't keep up with the times from a design standpoint. Luir's should have been the hub after Tuluk's reopening. Make Tuluk need something virtually like spice or flour from Storm, whatever. Make part of the new consensus that Luir's no longer welcomes declared magickers due to Tuluki pressure. Still get rid of the Garrison and Council, so that it's more each House playing off against both city states than them having to deal with getting blamed for what the Garrison does. Storm's End should be a shady bar where half the visitors want to kill each other.
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Post by lechuck on Mar 29, 2023 23:58:37 GMT -5
There's nothing to do inside Luir's, so unless they massively expanded the place and essentially turned it into a full-fledged city, it can't serve as a major gameplay hub. In its current state, it's literally just a market and a tavern. It offers even less gameplay than Red Storm which at least has some lawless alleys, moneymaking scripts and a somewhat interesting clan operating out of it (if the CW is still open, I don't know). Luir's serves fine as a pit-stop for hunters and tribals and such, but the place offers nothing whatsoever to anyone playing a more social role or a criminal. It's like a bigger version of the Blackwing outpost. In terms of everyday gameplay, Luir's is absolute trash.
I've never understood everyone's infatuation with Luir's. For all the significance that people give it, it has always stood out to me as perhaps the most boring location on the playing field. It was dull as shit even when there were apartments, and those are now gone. It's a glorified clan compound that's open to visitors, with some shops and a tavern. If you go to Luir's at any given time, the odds of anything interesting happening there are very close to 0%. If not for the fact that a number of HRPTs have taken place there due to staff fiat, the location would have literally no relevancy whatsoever in the grander scheme of things. Nothing whatsoever happens there on a day-to-day basis. Its role in Zalanthas' history stems entirely from the fact that staff has simply decided to make it the staging area for a number of HRPT over the years. None of them were the result of actual emergent events that stemmed from Luir's merits. It has always felt kind of jarring and artificial to me that so many HRPTs have revolved around the place when you otherwise hear nothing at all about the place since nothing happens there of its own accord. Luir's sucks.
The place doesn't even really have a culture. Most demographics of Zalanthas have a distinctive culture. What do you picture if you think about 'a person from Luir's'? Uh... there's a high chance they work for Kurac? That's about it. For being the literal center of the Known World and the ground zero of so many historically significant events, Luir's has essentially no culture at all, nothing that sets its inhabitants apart, no distinctive character types or anything that lends some nuance to the place. It's just a market with an adjoining tavern. It doesn't even have its own accent. There's nothing interesting about Luir's at all. The place and its inhabitants are boring, neutral and frankly insignificant. When you run into a PC and ask where they're from, and they say they're from Luir's, your reaction is probably something along the lines of "ah, alright, I don't care about that. Let's talk about something else."
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spyguy
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Post by spyguy on Mar 30, 2023 0:43:30 GMT -5
There's nothing to do inside Luir's, so unless they massively expanded the place and essentially turned it into a full-fledged city, it can't serve as a major gameplay hub. In its current state, it's literally just a market and a tavern. It offers even less gameplay than Red Storm which at least has some lawless alleys, moneymaking scripts and a somewhat interesting clan operating out of it (if the CW is still open, I don't know). Luir's serves fine as a pit-stop for hunters and tribals and such, but the place offers nothing whatsoever to anyone playing a more social role or a criminal. It's like a bigger version of the Blackwing outpost. In terms of everyday gameplay, Luir's is absolute trash.
I've never understood everyone's infatuation with Luir's. For all the significance that people give it, it has always stood out to me as perhaps the most boring location on the playing field. It was dull as shit even when there were apartments, and those are now gone. It's a glorified clan compound that's open to visitors, with some shops and a tavern. If you go to Luir's at any given time, the odds of anything interesting happening there are very close to 0%. If not for the fact that a number of HRPTs have taken place there due to staff fiat, the location would have literally no relevancy whatsoever in the grander scheme of things. Nothing whatsoever happens there on a day-to-day basis. Its role in Zalanthas' history stems entirely from the fact that staff has simply decided to make it the staging area for a number of HRPT over the years. None of them were the result of actual emergent events that stemmed from Luir's merits. It has always felt kind of jarring and artificial to me that so many HRPTs have revolved around the place when you otherwise hear nothing at all about the place since nothing happens there of its own accord. Luir's sucks.
The place doesn't even really have a culture. Most demographics of Zalanthas have a distinctive culture. What do you picture if you think about 'a person from Luir's'? Uh... there's a high chance they work for Kurac? That's about it. For being the literal center of the Known World and the ground zero of so many historically significant events, Luir's has essentially no culture at all, nothing that sets its inhabitants apart, no distinctive character types or anything that lends some nuance to the place. It's just a market with an adjoining tavern. It doesn't even have its own accent. There's nothing interesting about Luir's at all. The place and its inhabitants are boring, neutral and frankly insignificant. When you run into a PC and ask where they're from, and they say they're from Luir's, your reaction is probably something along the lines of "ah, alright, I don't care about that. Let's talk about something else."
By hub I should mean to say, trading hub. The neutral zone where Allanaki and Tuluki might meet. What I love about Luir's is that it is a meeting point. When it was one of the more popular locations you had employees from two GMH houses there, tribals of all sorts and indy hunters. People from Morin's and Allanak would come to visit, smoke spice, etc. It's just such a central location that gutting it and trying to de-emphasize the location while promoting isolated tribes made no damn sense.
I'm biased though. I played there when it was Luir's PCs that killed the sorcerer Olek. Shit on it if you want but that was the high point of my Arm experience. That and the later Garrison action before the Allanak war were both fun RPTs that involved a ton of different clans, partly because Luir's promotes tribal interaction with GMH.
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Post by Barsook on Mar 30, 2023 4:39:09 GMT -5
When I played Hostess Songbird Mags, I tired to make Luir's a fun place to be in but I don't really think that lead to anything else aside from trying to move the ex-Kuraci plot in the end. I still like Luir's is just like Vegas in the olden days when the Mob ran the city is sense. Which I think is the wrong idea since it's in the middle and like everyone else said, should be used as a meeting point.
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Post by Azerbanjani on Mar 30, 2023 8:02:25 GMT -5
Sorry, the two cities are in a never ending death battle and you are legally obligated to shit on the other side of the world's city state. Continue your isolated roleplay or beatings will continue
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jenki
Clueless newb
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Post by jenki on Mar 30, 2023 11:59:32 GMT -5
I'm torn. For a long time I wanted the game to "burn to the ground." I was bitter because I felt like I was forced. I felt as if all my of my contributions had been stolen from me. I failed to realize at the time that everything I put into Armageddon was my "charitable" contribution to the Producers (the owners of the game). I can't repossess my contributions my contributions so I just wanted it all to die. "Fuck those guys!" Now I'm indifferent, I don't really care about if the game succeeds or not. I consider all my time and contributions towards building and supporting the game a write off/a waste. And for a long time I was bitter about this because it was a considerable investment but I was foolish of me to invest so much time and creativity, and I've come to terms with this.
As far as ArmageddonMUD as a game, there are plenty of other ways to kill time in this modern age that are much better. All things come to an end. The question I ask myself is will it burn out or fade away?
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mehtastic
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Post by mehtastic on Mar 30, 2023 12:57:15 GMT -5
Conventional wisdom says that cycles of abuse where the abuser apologizes to get back into the good graces of the abused, only to abuse again, tend to shorten in length over time. It used to be that the game went through times like these once every few years. Now it's a few times a year. Sooner or later the cycle will spin too fast for the game to handle and it will explode, sending bits of Armageddon all over the MUD community. I hate when it's obvious that I'm RPing with a former Armer on a MUSH. They grunt and want to spar me.
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delirium
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Post by delirium on Mar 30, 2023 21:46:23 GMT -5
Sooner or later the cycle will spin too fast for the game to handle and it will explode, sending bits of Armageddon all over the MUD community. Pretty sure that's what just happened.
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