I'll just leave this here

Astute observation.

Why do you think we (those cultist followers) fall into the trap?

I know quite a few players of Armageddon who just played the game casually and when things got weird, they quit and went elsewhere. A few (like myself) got sucked further and further down the rabbit hole.

I can look back and see that through much of my life, I wouldn't have put up with much nonsense from my game community for very long at all. I'd have just walked away years ago. But I have a hard time now looking back at this situation rationally and understanding why I allowed what I feel was abuse to continue as long as it did.

These people aren't 'better' than us. They're not gifted in any way. I've run muds before at every position available in Armageddon, from head admin down to basic storyteller. Not in a single one of those situations did I excel at something and then get chosen. I didn't even always excel IN those positions. As a head admin I was ridiculously inept. I was far more interested in the intricacies of the code and what I could do to simulate a real ecosystem than the actual enjoyment of the people playing the game.

So why do we put up with abuse from people who are, for all intents and purposes, just in some position of power over a meaningless hobby? And a hobby that we could literally exercise anywhere else we wanted.

I have mentioned both recently and in the past that Armageddon and its community exhibit some cultlike tendencies. I've also been thinking about how similar Armageddon is to many cults that exist today. I would not go so far as to say that Armageddon is a cult itself, but it's pretty clear that there is a lot of cultlike behavior surrounding the game.

Looking at this list, I would add in addition to your own observations:

1) The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members: There was a point in Armageddon's history where the players considered Arm to be the best RPI (if not the best MUD) mainly because it had a huge playerbase compared to other RPIs and the most stuff going on. Some of this elitism is still there, in the form of veteran players getting more attention than newbies.
2) The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society: I mean, the quotes are already on this shadowboard, like: "I would rather have hydraulic fluid injected into my hands than type anything on that forum." Then there was the victimhood thing they pulled over getting caught cheating on the Top Mud Sites rankings and lashing out over getting unlisted.
3) The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members: Remember to vote on TMC; post positive reviews only or we'll reply to them and provide weak refutations. Also be sure to talk about Armageddon in every thread on r/MUD asking for a MUD to play, even if Armageddon is the opposite of the game the poster is looking for. Admittedly this is more tenuous than the other points, but the more players they lose, the more aggressive they tend to get about recruitment.
4) Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities: Hardcore players have an easier game than casual players, are able to advance more quickly up the karma ladder, the sponsored role ladder, and even the player-to-staff ladder, and ideas involving making the game more "casual-friendly" are usually shot down. The recruiters don't need mere players; they need addicts.

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shakes asked: So why do we put up with abuse from people who are, for all intents and purposes, just in some position of power over a meaningless hobby?


The Crackageddon is real. The community regularly uses peer pressure to try and keep players playing, even if those players are clearly unhappy with the game. They also use peer pressure to try and get players back.

I have a friend who has been away from Armageddon for 3 years. She left due to staff abuse, under similar circumstances as you. A couple of weeks ago she got a message in her email from Armageddon. By all appearances, she had gotten a new kudos from another player for a character that was, at this point, long gone. It even included a message saying: "A fellow player misses [character] so much, and what she added to Zalanthas, they decided to send you a kudos after all this time!"

A few days back she was thinking about that kudos again, and told me she thought it was familiar. I suggested she pull a sentence from the kudos and conduct a search in her inbox to see if she'd gotten the kudos before. Lo and behold, she had gotten it in the past, word-for-word. The staff were basically sending her a recruitment message disguised as an old kudos she had gotten, further disguised as a new kudos that has been recently submitted.

People naturally seek validation and approval. Armageddon offers that, as long as you're a "good player" and leave a good impression on people. You get to share who you played and people will tell you how awesome you were, and wish you could play with them again.

People naturally seek an identity. If you feel like you don't belong in the real world, Armageddon will welcome you. Although realistically speaking, Armageddon is a very hierarchical system, the game at least tries to present a world where every PC is more or less on equal footing (relative to the power NPCs can hold).

Some people have moments of weakness, or even don't value themselves highly. Armageddon gives people the power to play someone stronger and better than themselves. With enough hours per day into Armageddon, you can be that person for more time than you spend being yourself. That can be liberating to people with depression, or various physical or mental disabilities.

At best, staff don't realize that their players need these things so much, and just think they're running a fun game for people to enjoy. But they can't truthfully turn a blind eye to the people who are hooked on the game, who the staff can abuse however they want and they'll never leave because they need the dopamine hit that Armageddon gives them. Sure, other games can provide that too, but Armageddon is what they found first, and if you change your game, you risk losing the foothold you established on Arm. It's almost like taking the risk of quitting a job before finding a new one: you don't really know what the future will hold, and the present is safe enough - not perfect, but acceptable.

I haven't played for years, not going to play again and long ago deleted any emails associated with that place.
Whatever arm is now has no meaning to me.

But, I'm not a fan of demonizing "the other" and giving them super-evil powers. They are just people doing their people thangs.

Instead of a cult, I saw arm as a bunch of cliquish "mean girl" clubs. On the GDB, there are many posts like "OMG, I lurve playing with your characters."
followed by snide comments like "Don't you hate it when..." where they are really criticizing other people's current in game RP (usually against indies). Mean girl bullying.

The very few times I talked to someone outside the game, it was obvious that they could call on others to logon if they needed something. So that fight you pick might not just be IC but also with an OOC clique.

As long as I thought they were in the minority, I played. But, I don't think you are playing with people who want to collaborate and create interesting stories anymore. So what's the point.

It’s not hyperbolic. There is no need to shoehorn or exaggerate any example into those indicators listed. I’m not saying it’s Scientology or something like that, it just has some things in common with cults. They’re pretty hard to deny too.

To shakes question: I wouldn’t try to become a psychoanalyst on this. I think you’ll find there are some common threads of people not being where they want to be in life, disabilities and NEETs. It’s a cheap, easy form of entertainment that can eat up a lot of time. I don’t think it was intentional, it just sort of works out that way. Between the gratification of leveling up, pretending to be someone else who is powerful and attractive and a sense of belonging somewhere, you have what you have.

I never said that nor implied it.

Sure it can be a nerd game populated by nerds doing nerd things too. I agree with what sneazy said 100%. It does have an element of mean girls to it too.
It can have other elements too. I’ve said many times it has strong bro culture too, because well...it just does. It’s different things to different people.

I get that you have one foot in and one foot out of the game. I’m not saying people sit in front of their pc wearing a black hood screaming “Hail Paimon!” I’m just saying there’s a lot of negative reinforcement in there that should make you reconsider trying to hop back in with the intent of changing things or playing in your own bubble because the game just doesn’t work that way.

Saying that something is a cult is different from saying that a group has cult-like characteristics, and just because Arm is mostly "nerds being nerds" doesn't mean they don't behave in a way that one might expect a cult to behave. If anything it says volumes about how Arm's players behave that their community can be compared to a list of properties of a cult. But you can believe that and also believe that Armageddon is not a cult.

I don't think it is a cult, per se, and I don't think anyone would reasonably say that they are. Nessalin probably isn't going to start a farm in Guyana and shoot a Congressman. Probably. But that doesn't mean Arm is not an exclusionary, elitist group that doesn't tolerate dissent, rejects communicating with people who leave, etc.

I value your input. Don't be afraid of making people defensive. Let Lyse be Lyse. It's worth a little drama from time to time.

I've known people who have been in cults. I've been friends with cult leaders. I didn't realize they were a cult leader until much later. I just thought they were a charismatic dude with opinions. But it turned out that his followers, the guys living on his ranch, WERE fully in the cult. It's an interesting story that ends in a shoot-out (as all interesting stories should). Suffice it to say we're not buddies anymore and he blamed me for several of his followers breaking out of his control and leaving.

But universally they all had that "aha" moment where they did realize they were in a cult.

Is Arm a cult? Kind of. There is certainly a hard central core who are more or less acting as a cult. But there's lots of people on the fringes who aren't at all in that cult-like following. They just enjoy the game. I suppose it's kind of Scientology-esque. You can be on the fringes without going down the Tom Cruise jumping-on-the-coach crazy.