Why I Quit - Burning the Final Bridge

I don't know what he's attempting. Many of the little hand signs and greetings and such were my own development. They weren't in the clan docs so I adopted some Choctaw stuff to the desert elf side that I'd picked up from my Oklahoma kinfolk. The Two Moons always seemed to me to be part Comanchero with their foot in both worlds ... the city and the tribal life.

They accused me of "ruining" the Two Moons with Greedy One there at the end. But I'd felt that I'd made it relevant and memorable.

I'm done too.

Someone summed it up pretty well somewhere on this site. You spend 95% or more of your time trying to find that moment of fun. The payoff just isn't worth it.

In my particular case, more like 100% of the time. Grinding for six weeks to try to become strong enough to reach a certain place in the wilderness and achieve a magick-related goal, only to have the character perish to someone's single typed command so that they could have two minutes of excitement. With no means to defend against it (save perhaps never leaving the city at all).

Before that, grinding for eight weeks with a miraculous sparring partner, only to realize that even having a close to maximum weapons skill doesn't help all that much. Those apprentices and journeymen will still strike you (and not only through criticals). Seems they've coded in some hole to shield use and parry lately so that no one is a fortress anymore. Which means all that matters is numbers now, more or less. You need to be a part of the bigger group. That's what the game is reduced to. If you want to survive, you need to be a part of the bigger group. You might as well be faceless.

Not to mention I made the mistake of creating a female character that time (inspired by a song and an image, of all things). Hit on relentlessly for weeks until suddenly it all stopped (probably got doxxed and people spread the word OOCly). Bleah.

Before that, grinding for eight weeks and joining a Merchant House, only to find it utterly lifeless. Maybe the top guy was busy doing things, but the peons got maybe three minutes of action a RL day, if that, and were let in on nothing.

Before that.. well, I hope you see the pattern here.

Speaking of weapons skills, the whole progression business is just another mark of the malaise lying upon the staff. Why did they set it up so that most people will never surpass journeyman? Basically so they can kill PCs using NPCs without having to break a sweat. It was just another way for them to do less work. Brokkr more or less openly admitted it on the GDB.

And the lack of things to do. It's so mind-numbing. It's like they've done all they can to suck any enjoyment out of the game for anyone except PKers and social types and PKers disguised as social types. (PKers only of unimportant PCs though, don't touch one of the precious sponsored roles because that means the staff would have to do some work again). No one can find something special, no one can stand out except the sponsored leaders. Gotta maintain the stale old status quo with the stale old GMHs and noble houses.

I could rant for pages about this, but what's the use. A lot of it's already been said on these forums anyhow.

So, I'm done. All of that time spent. It's depressing to think about, but now the monkey is off my back.

Lol what a garbage fucking post.

"But it would take time" is a nonsensical argument. And it gets thrown around a lot whenever people on the GDB suggest something staff should be doing. Nyr's "we're volunteers" defense is derived from this argument.

The staff volunteered to spend their time on the betterment of the game. Full stop.

If multiple players are suggesting that a particular staff effort would improve the extremely poor player-staff relationship in Armageddon, then you'd think the staff, whose purpose is to volunteer time towards the betterment of the game, would consider it. Staff and players mutually benefit from a good relationship between both parties. The problem is that players have been conditioned to accept the occasional staff meeting, sponsored role call, and character report response as "good enough", when in reality, that feeling blockades actual dialogues. And staff are happy with that contentment, because it means less work for them.

Currently, if you want to have a one-on-one live talk to a member of a 14-person staff body presiding over a game with about 200 players, you have to submit a ticket and hope that they decide to schedule something with you. There is, as far as I know, no policy for staff to follow when a player requests a meeting at Denny's. In fact, OOC rooms where players and staff can talk exist for two purposes, primarily: punishing players (or rather, explaining to players the punishment they're about to receive) and interviewing prospective staff members, keeping the cycle of the bad player-staff relationship going endlessly. There is no justification for that level of bureaucracy. There is no other game of roughly equivalent size with a staff body as large as Armageddon's that comes to mind, and there is no other game of roughly equivalent size that handles its players this way.

(threadjack)

A lot of the time, the more that you say no the more that they'll pursue. It's not even about you but about having something they can't get. The trick is to look just needy enough that nobody bothers you about it, but not so needy that you get a reputation. Excluding my dwarves, the big-chested chars I play get seriously pursued less than others, and I can only assume that it's because people assume they're open for business.

The worst sexual harassment I've had was on my massive, Brienne-esque, one-eyed arm soldier who was meant to be very nonsexual. There was a mage player who would pose erotic S&M-like stuff during subdues, and the templar PC I was subduing them for would go along with it. I don't mean that the person being arrested ACCUSED my PC of those things, I mean that they would pose moaning, getting their hair pulled by my char, or arching their back while getting pinned to the wall. Stuff like that. It made that character feel like she throwing people into the Jail House Rock prison instead of Guantanamo Bay.

(/threadjack)


I'm not saying that Arm staff don't put in the hours. It's entirely possible (and probable) that the sheer amount of stuff that isn't automated on MUSHes means that staff have created very efficient ways to handle requests, and leave much more in the hands of players. I think that Arm staff could do to leave more in the hands of players. Something like Karma Review, which cannot be automated, is rare and important enough to players that it's worth taking time to sit down and discuss things.

Honestly, I don't think that an interview would be productive in the sense of allow players to defend themselves or justify their actions at all. Staff are too bullheaded to be convinced that they might have been wrong. But I do think staff approach karma with a one-size-fits-all mentality that requires players to do things they find extremely unfun, and an interview would allow for an exchange that might remedy that. Players have strengths and staff should be aware of that and encourage those strengths. There's also the issue of staff awarding karma for blowing smoke up their ass, and I think that an interview might help to cut through some of that nonsense by giving players tangible things to work on, but maybe not.