Restoring the Glory Days: What would it take?

No, Delerak got shat on because he was being an asshole and a pest. Instead of discussing the positive aspects of the game, he was trying to shut down discussion. And yes, he was definitely being a hypocrite.

Do you understand why people dislike the closure of Tuluk? Because staff didn’t do anything with it. They didn’t bolster activity in Allanak in any meaningful way. They took away a section of the game without providing the players with... anything. Like when they removed sorcerers. Or halflings and kanks. Checks and balances, people.

You’re right - motivation is a problem in Armageddon. But you’re being completely insincere if you don’t recognize any of the problems that have been listed, or if you’re implying that motivation of the playerbase is solely up to each player. The -tools- that characters have to interact with each other are limited and dictated by staff. By and large, plot lines are initiated by staff. Everything is highly dependent on staff. Clans, requests, animations. The attitude among the playerbase is largely influenced by the game’s culture... and how do you think that is developed? Staff have the largest hand in it, I’ll tell you that. They monitor the gdb, they handle relations with the players, they largely handle how players and clans interact, and what is considered acceptable. Remember the ol’ “code is roleplay” statement? What about the outbursts from staff members like Nergal or Nyr?

I’m not sure why I’m even humoring your post, qwerty. For you to speak of negativity and motivation is pretty hilarious. All you do here is dismiss, degrade and throw in your snide quips. But fuck us, right?

I don't think that this is it. You can have all the motivation in the world and no solid plan on how to improve it. Besides, you'd need to construct a plan to boost motivation and that's just... convoluted. We're creating a plan to boost motivation so we can create a plan to improve the game. What?

The "ennui" has been there since the days of Armgeddon 2.0, when everything was frozen to allow for a winding down of the world that never came. Armageddon never shook off that feeling of winding down because they never unfroze the game.

Tuluk would still be boring if it opened, but the reason for calls to reopen Tuluk are pretty clear: People want conflict. They think that opening Tuluk would reignite that conflict when it won't. Armageddon Staff seems so determined to avoid conflict in a setting that advertises itself on its conflict. I don't get it. What do they think stories are? You don't have to be Brandon Sanderson or Matt Mercer to know that a story without conflict is just people hanging out -- which is what Armageddon has become.

Honestly, the fact that we're still talking about Armageddon as a game to be DMed instead of a cooperative story-telling game really shows where we've gone wrong. Armageddon is not a MUSH that lets you read a plot synopsis, sign on, and then teleport to it to do your dice rolls. It has never been and never will be that kind of game. RPIs operate differently than MUSHes, and they require a sandbox approach to story telling.

this is patently false, but since when has that ever stopped qwerty from building a soapbox to stand on?

I think players are more conflict-adverse than staff are. I start conflict and in my pk/character reports I often get very encouraging remarks from some of the staff. "More murderz plz thanks in advance".

But the players I interact with go absolutely ape-shit. "Stop being a murder-hobo! Don't pick fights! What the hell do you think you're doing? You're going to get me killed!"

The change to karma was a huge step backwards to fostering more conflict. Oh, you get to wait for 2 months to play a thing you like again if you make an enemy who kills you ... most people see that on the table and are like "Nope, no thank you."

And you've got very strong, highly skilled and uber-competent characters running around who engage in almost zero conflict that isn't extremely tilted in their favor. There's characters in their weight class in canonically opposed groups ... but they simply won't ever engage in any meaningful risk behavior. I'm not entirely sure I blame them for it either ... what's the incentive? If Sergeant Clobber of the Jade goes out and singlehandedly decimates a raider group and brings back Evil Egg the shiny-domed leader of the Red Fart, the most notorious raider in the land ... what's the reward? A pat on the head from the nearest Templar, who by the way was appointed that role because they wrote an interesting app.

I'd like to see something like that sergeant of the Jade having taking such risk upon themselves, be given the opportunity to become a Templar themselves. Or be granted the hand of the daughter of some noble house and become a noble themselves.

That's where I personally lack motivation. The game doesn't let you progress from Conan in chalton-boots fresh out of chargen to King Conan, ruler of the kingdom of Monrovia. Sure, you can twink all your skills to master and become known as the baddest badass around and everyone calls you Sir, but you're still then reduced to sitting in bars and looking for mudsex because there are no worlds left to conquer.

If I was a storyteller, and I confess to having wanted such a role at numerous times during my Arm lifecycle, then those are the sorts of plots I'd be trying to push. It wouldn't even have to happen every week. Just once every now and then instead of "one time ... back in 2003, a staff avatar became this."

They shut down the delven tribe, did they do it with active playerbase in it? When they shut it down, they did it so they could open up 'another' tribe. Which from what I understand was mired with plenty of conflict. Although I'll be honest, I'm not privy to details regarding this.


Garrison. Garrison was an odd thing. The idea of the garrison was to create conflict and yet at the same time, consolidate the playerbase to numbers that would make the conflict possible. The whole gith invasion was an ongoing problem that garrison had to fix. But it's likely very much of a failed project. Happens, I suppose.

They created a Gith war, participated in by PCs, there was a "lot" of conflict there, or am I wrong?

There is something going on right now amidst the clans that is producing a shitton of MCB and conflict. But I'm not going to discuss it right now.

The whole idea of making Crimson Wind a standing clan is to create conflict between Crimson Wind and Dust Runners > Luirs > Allanak. Although this wasnt per se a staff initiative. It was majorly created by an ex staffer, but staff supported it a 'lot'.


I mean, yeah. Closing down an aspect of the game does sort of prevent potential conflict. But that's hardly the ultimate goal. When Delven Nation was running strong and active, they created an entire Gith thing just to entertain them and bring up the conflict. When things changed, they did something else in an area that was populated.

This thread wouldn’t have been complete without the great prevaricator. I can wait to see how far off kilter he manages to derail the topic.