I'll just leave this here

1 - No Tolerance by Staff, but I think plenty of players feel fine questioning things in relation to themselves. They just think Jane over there shouldn't open her dirty mouth and complain.



2 - I think plenty of people have left with 'fond farewells' and some 'crackageddon' remarks. Taven left because she recognized she had gaming addiction and she couldn't be a writer if she was always playing Armageddon. I've seen plenty of IRL has come and I leave you now posts get positive feedback back in the day and sure someone says crackageddon you'll be back but the posts are censored or edited or someone told YOU FOOL HOW DARE YOU LEAVE FOR A STEADY GIG.



3 - This is accurate but unhealthy relationships can represent this too.



4 - I would argue this since there are definitely those who are 'good enough' they're in the clique either as staff, former staff, or the chosen players. I would also argue whether karma is really a measure of 'good enough' I don't remember it being that big a deal when I played but then I liked human rangers the OP class.



5 - This is accurate but once again not all instances of this mean cult-like.



6 - I think some of the things like the sexual harassment and harassment of Nergal were not so much justified as they were denied as fabrications or overblown to what really happened. I didn't follow these to much but I can't imagine the game would continue to exist if staff publicly tried to say it was acceptable both instances 100% happened and they did them for this justifiable reason. Stuff like banning players, killing characters, etc etc. Yes that seems to be explained away very easily. I would probably point out a lot of people don't give full accounts with names and details for others to really condemn staff. Notable that one tale about someones wife being threatened by Nyr didn't see much defense did it?



TLDR - for #6 a lack of mainstream reading of actual acts done by staff that are questionable leads to a lack of condemnation. Silence isn't always defense, it's just not their problem to fix for the reader.



7 - Maybe? I don't know I feel like a lot of MUDs when someone stops playing you lose the topic of conversation you used to share and drift apart. I might say it's the people who manage to get away from Armageddon who avoid getting to close to people who are adamant about it.



TLDR - Armageddon is definitely unhealthy for some and unfun for me specifically. I quit long before I got banned and I don't miss it. I've never felt the 'cult-like' vibe that you're discussing and there was even a thread asking why I was banned on the GDB during the whole kerfuffle. They called me a creature of low cunning </3 so I feel like I might be in the demographic to have experienced all these points.

Because it is pointless and discredits legitimate criticisms.

It also pushes away people whose behavior you wish to inform and possibly change.

I disagree, that's exactly who it's for. Everybody doesn't have a copy of the DSM-V on their bookshelf and you wouldn't find very much on something like this anyway. There has been debate about how severe something like this is going way back to the 90's, because people don't know how to quantify it.



I didn't say it was a literal cult. I said it had some characteristics of cult behavior.

I mean, sure you can ask "What does kick do and how do I do it?" I would say that's not really a critical inquiry. There was a time when even something like that wasn't even answered. Often times though, when someone does make a true critical inquiry, its not staff that answers, it's mostly players, maybe a helper. They speculate, hm and haw...if it gets its a little heated, staff might shut it down. Usually, a critical inquiry gets ignored by staff or shut down.

I'll concede this one, with an asterisk. Sure people leave Arm with no hard feelings, but it depends on how they leave and what they say when they leave and who knows who they are. Someone just stops logging on one day. No hard feelings. Someone leaves and starts posting logs or smearing the game, perceived or real...that's a little bit of a different story. Isn't part of the reason you made a sticky about protecting your identity on here because of how staff can be punitive?

That's not even what that said. So, in all these years, you haven't noticed a pattern of complaints? A pattern in the complaints? Abuse doesn't have to be sexual or physical to still be abuse. In this case, I'd take it to mean more of an abuse of power. Yeah, its nerds and a video game, but so what? Abuse is still abuse. That word wasn't misused.

I mean, come on its a video game. In this context....people have said "I don't feel my ____________ is good enough. Be it roleplay or their character and they say it often.

See my previous about abuse. You made a whole forum where people end up, justified or not, to air shit out. Maybe that wasn't your intention, but that's what people do. It doesn't have to be sexual or physical at all. You yourself compared the game to an abusive boyfriend.



Maybe you don't but, have you seen the number of views some complaint threads get on here? It's not the same three people reading them. Overall, in a world sense....who gives a fuck? I mean, you basically created a "fan" site for a game on the internet because nobody gives a fuck, right? On the scale of wrongness in the world, sure Armageddon doesn't even register. Even on a scale of MUDs....it's a blip...maybe. This is all relative though, which was my point to begin with. Are there any other MUDs with a "fan" site where people come to shoot the shit and just talk about a game they love? I get it, none of this is very serious, its just a game. Yet, people take it seriously enough to be here because they don't give a fuck. OoooKay.

You can't be all, it's a game it's not that serious its just nerds being mean and then be all hyperbolic rhetoric is pointless and discredits legitimate criticisms. You're drawing the line here? Now? Which one is it?

"Hyperbolic rhetoric is pointless and discredits legitimate criticisms." writes man that implies another user is the kind of person to cover up for a child rapist based on their posts about an online game.

Comparing what lyse is saying to a baseless comparison to Armageddon staff as Nazis is itself hyperbolic, especially considering there are actual fascist movements in politics throughout the world today that affect millions of people as opposed to the couple hundred players Arm staff lord over, and lyse hasn't even asserted that Armageddon is a cult. All lyse ever said was that a line can be drawn between some layman identifiers of a cult, and Armageddon, and I think lyse is accurate within that specific context of their statements.

Armageddon is not actually a cult, of course, and you won't find anyone here saying otherwise. I'd compare it more to a high school in a typical shitty teen drama. You have your in-group, various cliques, and outcasts. The Arm staff are nothing better than bullies, and any criticism of Arm should be considered within that context.

Hahaha. This thread is a perfect example of my primary point during my whole staff defense concept. We're all weirdo nerds. Staff. Players. Myself. You.