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Post by sirra on Oct 31, 2019 21:02:31 GMT -5
The total lack of any kind of follow-up to the closing of Tuluk is particularly perplexing. When it happened, even my cynical ass thought it would at least lead to an increase in southern staff activity, but I never saw the first sign of that. It felt more like when a franchise simply shuts down one of its stores because it wasn't profitable. It left such a gaping void in the game, and while I never liked to play in Tuluk very much, its existence as a fixture of the playing field was really fucking important for the game's general dynamic. Hell, I didn't even feel like its closure led to an increase in character density in Allanak, even though player numbers haven't changed much. You'd have thought that whatever portion of the playerbase resided in Tuluk would be shifted into Allanak, but either that didn't happen at all or it did so in a manner that failed to bring any appreciable change in activity levels. They probably shouldn't have left Morin's open as a pseudo-sphere, because anytime I've bothered to go there, there's always a handful of players sitting around being completely worthless to the game as a whole. I suspect what happened was that without two cities to alternate between, players just grew more insular instead of congregating in Allanak's public scene. Many players used to switch cities when moving on to a new character just so they could be around new faces, and without that option, they may simply have started to play behind closed doors instead. It's no secret that players have increasingly done that in recent years, especially nobles who nowadays barely set foot in Allanak proper. Luir's is only a suitable sphere for members of Kurac, and Red Storm is really more of a suburb to Allanak. I agree that the oddest thing about Tuluk shutting down was that it did not lead to a noticeable uptick in staff activity elsewhere. Although, the truth is, staff largely did the minimum regardless of how many clans there were at any given time, with very few exceptions. (A couple staffers have always been more active than others at times). anyone who believed arm reborn was going to actually happen was a sucker. i think they claimed that it was going to be done in like...2 years? a completely new codebase AND a completely new world. not a single city, or region, but an entirely new world. it was ridiculously ambitious for a paid team to make happen, let alone the one or two volunteer coders and hodgepodge of builders. the design documents and blog posts seemed completely random; it was a smattering of brainstormed ideas that people thought seemed cool but in reality were unfun and disjointed. there never appeared to be a cohesive theme or vision of things, just off the wall stuff like cat people (but totally not furries!!!) and overly complex systems about mundane shit like digging through mud or light sources. the weird thing was how adamant that staff was about it really happening. they blew past the deadline, blog posts got thinner and thinner, then you stopped hearing anything for 6+ months and staff were still saying no it's totally gonna happen! before things poofed. IIRC, originally they said they'd be shutting Armageddon down in 6 months. That's why I stopped playing my dwarf Bynner at the time, Drake. It made it hard for me to enjoy him when everyone was suiciding and apping mindbenders. |
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mehtastic
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Post by mehtastic on Nov 1, 2019 5:58:35 GMT -5
"Armageddon Reborn" talk lasted from like, 2006-2010, and radio silence on the project lasted for about two years. Armageddon Reborn got officially canceled on May 15, 2012, where Adhira said Morgenes and his team of coders would continue to work on a MUD codebase called "JavaMUG", and Armageddon would be ported over to it. The codebase obviously never manifested; attempts to search for it lead to other things called JavaMUG, but they're not MUD codebases.
I think the people working on it probably really did think they would be able to finish a project in the early stages of it, but as time went on they realized they were not capable of the task. In other words, they bit off more than they could chew. They also probably disappointed a lot of people who don't know how software development works and how much time hobby projects actually take. To compare to similar projects, Evennia is a Python MUD codebase that had its first release in 2014, and still has not been released out of beta. It is still actively developed and is open-source, which are two points that probably work in its favor, since it can draw help from random contributors.
Armageddon's player count peaked in the months following the announcement of Reborn's cancellation, and new players increased by a sharp amount as well - probably because the game was projected to last now that Reborn was not happening. But the player count dropped back to previous levels a few months later, and took a nosedive year after year.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2019 7:47:59 GMT -5
Yup.
But none of it matters these days. Doubt it affected gameplay in any significant way for the last five, six years. I dont think we'll ever recover from it, but I dont think we should allow the damage that failed experiment caused to continue affecting things.
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mehtastic
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Post by mehtastic on Nov 1, 2019 8:10:11 GMT -5
To stop the damage of a failed experiment from continuing to affect things, you need to address the problems that failed experiment revealed in a thoughtful and reasonable way.
For example, one thing that Arm Reborn's failure did was make staff think twice before making big promises. It's understandable that staff would be extremely shy about making big promises about their work. That said, there has been no significant narrative direction for the game since Armageddon Reborn's "End of the World" plot. The Tuluk closure plot could have amounted to something, but it fizzled out. Staff's fear of public failure has led to mediocrity on their part. They do the bare minimum to keep the game running. They don't introduce metaplots more complex than "gith bad". A reasonable observer can draw a direct line between Armageddon Reborn's failure and staff's present-day hesitance.
This is the most charitable possible view of staff's inaction. They can be called lazy or self-serving, and perhaps they are. But at best, they are afraid to try because they failed once before. That's why it matters. You can continue to believe it doesn't matter but the game will continue to suffer for its lack of hindsight.
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Post by lechuck on Nov 1, 2019 8:30:41 GMT -5
Doubt it affected gameplay in any significant way for the last five, six years. I dont think we'll ever recover from it That's quite the contradiction. Did it or did it not affect the game? It's possible that the stagnation that has befallen Armageddon in the last decade is not in fact the result of the Reborn fiasco, but if not that, then what? Finding a solution is more important than identifying the cause, but both matter. I'd like it to once more become a game that I care to play, but years of attempted analysis have led to nothing. At the end of the day, the fact remains that this is an RPI MUD where fuck-all happens and people flounder around in self-destructive apathy because the game itself provides nothing on which to base one's roleplay. Players have to build everything up from scratch and have nothing to work with, and aside from a select few endeavors that succeeded with a heavy helping hand from above (e.g. Crimson Wind), it's clear that the playerbase as a whole does not have the tools with which to keep the game fresh and engaging. I make a character once a year and play for a couple of months or however long it takes before I give up again. In the last six or seven years, it has always been the same: I see no signs whatsoever that anything meaningful has happened since last time, and nothing on the horizon, either. Sure, new classes and whatnot; but these things are not what sustain roleplay. I think it's been three years now where the only thing going on at all is gith being belligerent, with no result in sight. There was that time when they made gith playable for a while, but if I hadn't read about it on the forums, I'd never have known it happened because it made no waves whatsoever outside the Tablelands. I literally never heard about it in-game despite playing during that time, as a character who was closely involved with all the Allanaki templars as well as the Guild. There's just nothing to work with. This needs to change. It is not changed with a mentality like "I dont think we should allow the damage that failed experiment caused to continue affecting things." That's how you get another five or ten years of rot until the game is down to 25 players at peak. |
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delerak
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Post by delerak on Nov 1, 2019 8:46:41 GMT -5
There is something that should be recognized about Arm and that is the circumstances that led to its early successes and continued interest. It's a combination of several factors that were just random as hell, the setting, the players, the staffers and programmers that have touched it over the years. It's like a perfect storm and I think Arm got really lucky early on with some great staffers/coders. To me it's awesome that the thing has survived this long but we can attribute that to a lot of my aforementioned points.
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mehtastic
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Post by mehtastic on Nov 1, 2019 9:05:17 GMT -5
I agree, and from what I've seen, Armageddon coasted on those early successes in the hopes they would have the same success rate in perpetuity, when in fact they realized they actually had to work to maintain those successes. Whether they have a fear of failure post-Armageddon Reborn or they are just lazy doesn't really matter when both possibilities lead to the same result: continued stagnation and eventual loss of interest in a game without a cohesive storyline.
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delerak
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Post by delerak on Nov 1, 2019 9:15:21 GMT -5
I agree, and from what I've seen, Armageddon coasted on those early successes in the hopes they would have the same success rate in perpetuity, when in fact they realized they actually had to work to maintain those successes. Whether they have a fear of failure post-Armageddon Reborn or they are just lazy doesn't really matter when both possibilities lead to the same result: continued stagnation and eventual loss of interest in a game without a cohesive storyline. I'm not pessimistic to think the game can't be as successful as it was in the past, I wouldn't be here if I was that cynical. I guess it depends on what you define as a success, I think player population is the most popular metric to use and seeing only 20-40 players on during the week means not many people are playing actively. You'll see 70 during an RPT which would be 100+ during the golden age of the game so of course bringing old players back and stuff would be nice. Kind of hard to do that when you have an entire forum full of ex-players which are ignored and even posting a link to it gets immediately moderated. It's a draconian strategy that will only make things worse in the long run. |
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Post by jcarter on Nov 1, 2019 9:17:54 GMT -5
arm reborn made me lose all faith in staff.
it's ok to fail or not finish a project. but it was so obvious from the very beginning that what they were proposing was unrealistic and wayyyyyyy outside of the realm of realism that i would have expected that kind of naivety from a child, not a bunch of adults who should know better.
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delerak
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Post by delerak on Nov 1, 2019 9:23:12 GMT -5
I mean what do you need to have faith in staff for? I've never had faith in anyone I know on the internet I play games with, it's a crap shoot regardless of how you feel. You don't need to have faith in them for the game to be fun. I never had faith in plenty of staff but I had a lot of fun over the years so I don't know how that's relevant to enjoying a game.
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mehtastic
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Post by mehtastic on Nov 1, 2019 9:35:10 GMT -5
I agree, and from what I've seen, Armageddon coasted on those early successes in the hopes they would have the same success rate in perpetuity, when in fact they realized they actually had to work to maintain those successes. Whether they have a fear of failure post-Armageddon Reborn or they are just lazy doesn't really matter when both possibilities lead to the same result: continued stagnation and eventual loss of interest in a game without a cohesive storyline. I'm not pessimistic to think the game can't be as successful as it was in the past, I wouldn't be here if I was that cynical. I guess it depends on what you define as a success, I think player population is the most popular metric to use and seeing only 20-40 players on during the week means not many people are playing actively. You'll see 70 during an RPT which would be 100+ during the golden age of the game so of course bringing old players back and stuff would be nice. Kind of hard to do that when you have an entire forum full of ex-players which are ignored and even posting a link to it gets immediately moderated. It's a draconian strategy that will only make things worse in the long run. I wouldn't be here if I didn't think Armageddon was worthy of being discussed, but at the end of the day it's a piece of media that can be criticized, and either take that criticism and do something about it, or ignore the criticism. You correctly acknowledged that they've publicly ignored the criticism thus far, and when they do take suggestions here to heart it is begrudgingly at best. As someone who agrees and 100% relates with jcarter's message I would suggest not reading into the word "faith" too much. "Trust" and "confidence" would be valid words to fit in its place and still describe the sentiment adequately. And it's perfectly valid to have confidence (or not have confidence) in someone running a game, and it's fantastical to think that the quality of the game and the attitudes, opinions, and work ethic of the people running said game aren't inexorably linked. |
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Post by jcarter on Nov 1, 2019 9:52:05 GMT -5
I mean what do you need to have faith in staff for? I've never had faith in anyone I know on the internet I play games with, it's a crap shoot regardless of how you feel. You don't need to have faith in them for the game to be fun. I never had faith in plenty of staff but I had a lot of fun over the years so I don't know how that's relevant to enjoying a game. the game is billed as anything is possible, you can achieve what you want hence it requires faith in staff for the follow through. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2019 18:35:38 GMT -5
Doubt it affected gameplay in any significant way for the last five, six years. I dont think we'll ever recover from it That's quite the contradiction. Did it or did it not affect the game? It's possible that the stagnation that has befallen Armageddon in the last decade is not in fact the result of the Reborn fiasco, but if not that, then what? Finding a solution is more important than identifying the cause. I'd like it to once more become a game that I care to play, but years of attempted analysis have led to nothing. At the end of the day, the fact remains that this is an RPI MUD where fuck-all happens and people flounder around in self-destructive apathy because the game itself provides nothing on which to base one's roleplay. Players have to build everything up from scratch and have nothing to work with, and aside from a select few endeavors that succeeded with a heavy helping hand from above (e.g. Crimson Wind), it's clear that the playerbase as a whole does not have the tools with which to keep the game fresh and engaging. I make a character once a year and play for a couple of months or however long it takes before I give up again. In the last six or seven years, it has always been the same: I see no signs whatsoever that anything meaningful has happened since last time, and nothing on the horizon, either. Sure, new classes and whatnot; but these things are not what sustain roleplay. I think it's been three years now where the only thing going on at all is gith being belligerent, with no result in sight. There was that time when they made gith playable for a while, but if I hadn't read about it on the forums, I'd never have known it happened because it made no waves whatsoever outside the Tablelands. I literally never heard about it in-game despite playing during that time, as a character who was closely involved with all the Allanaki templars as well as the Guild. There's just nothing to work with. This needs to change. It is not changed with a mentality like "I dont think we should allow the damage that failed experiment caused to continue affecting things." That's how you get another five or ten years of rot until the game is down to 25 players at peak. I'll reply more later when I'll give it more thought. You take a paragraph. Cut a sentence that came before the quoted text. Cut off half of sentence from what was quoted and found the left overs incongruent. Full quote. Yup. But none of it matters these days. Doubt it affected gameplay in any significant way for the last five, six years. I dont think we'll ever recover from it, but I dont think we should allow the damage that failed experiment caused to continue affecting things. Does this still puzzle you? Let me use one of my super accurate analogies I like so much. I used to be really good at sports. Things just came to me naturally and without effort, plus I knew how to work it as well. People began to even quietly utter things like scholarships and talent scouts. I liked it, but never thought of it seriously. At some point, I got myself tackled. It wasn't in the field even, it was just us being stupid and my knee fucking popped. I didn't lose mobility, a year later no limp, no pains. But there were no more talks of my future in sports. My uncle was heartbroken. I don't think I ever recovered from that day. This injury has not affected a single decision, action, thought, deed, word of mine in the last ... Let's say 18 years. |
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faroukel
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Post by faroukel on Nov 1, 2019 20:55:32 GMT -5
Honestly, I like analogies.
However, frankly, I think that injury probably has affected you more than you'd imagine. Brains are funny like that. I have nothing to cite, and I dont know you, but really...if you've never recovered, then it surely has played some role in your life.
Again, not sure how that ties to muds, but I'm sure we can grasp at some straws.
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Post by mehtastic on Nov 2, 2019 5:11:43 GMT -5
@qwerty's reaction to lechuck's post would be unnecessary if we weren't splitting hairs between "did Armageddon Reborn affect gameplay" and "did Armageddon Reborn affect the game", a hairsplit directed by qwerty's distinction on gameplay while everyone else here is discussing narrative. Who cares what affected gameplay in the context of discussing Armageddon Reborn's effect on the narrative? The gameplay is just a set of discrete systems: the emote system, the combat system, the skill learning system, etc. It can constitute part of a "gameplay experience", of which narrative is a big part. If qwerty is referencing gameplay in the context of the gameplay experience, then yes, Armageddon Reborn affected the gameplay experience, because it had a huge impact on stalling the narrative. Did it have an impact on whether a player can log in, emote at a few people and log out? Of course not, and it would be absurd to suggest otherwise. I don't expect a narrative decision like the End of the World plot to affect coded systems. I do expect it to affect the gameplay experience someone has while playing the game. The real problem in qwerty's post, which lechuck correctly identified and qwerty failed to properly address in their ostensibly indignant reply that they were being taken out of context, is this: "I dont think we'll ever recover from it, but I dont think we should allow the damage that failed experiment caused to continue affecting things." These are conflicting statements. 1) I don't think we'll ever recover from [the failure of Armageddon Reborn] 2) I don't think we should allow the damage that [Armageddon Reborn] caused to continue affecting things Well, pick #2 and then take actions to ensure the game will recover. Reflect on why Armageddon is narratively broken and fix it instead of wallowing in Armageddon players' collective misery that nothing will ever change. |
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