I'm actually considering trying out Arm

#thenorthwillriseagain

The main cause of the problem with players ignoring eachother is that there's just nothing going on that brings people together. It's like people in a supermarket--you have absolutely no reason to interact with them because nothing has happened that warrants it. Meanwhile, if you've read/watched The Mist... alright, that's an extreme example, but you know what I mean. You see a random stranger in the bazaar and what exactly are you supposed to talk about? The game is so uneventful that interaction almost becomes jarring and awkward because it's so forced. Unless you're brought together by clanning or shared associates, there's just nothing that ties characters together. There's a few things that always lead to interaction, like playing in the Guild or a sponsored role, but that can't be held as an expectation. Most characters come into the world with no inherent property that leads to roleplay, so it's all up to the individual player's own creativity, and that clearly hasn't been enough.

Imagine if Allanak and Tuluk were at war. Even if you weren't involved with it at all, you could start conversations about it, ask strangers if they had news from the front and so on. Or if there was regular and visible conflict within the city, you could interact on the pretense of seeing which side someone's on. Anything other than the total absence of ground-level story that has been Armageddon for years now. I honestly can't even fault people for ignoring strangers given that there's simply nothing to talk about. There's only so many times you can strike up a hamfisted conversation about the weather before you just grow sick of every interaction being borne exclusively from the OOC desire to roleplay. If you're sufficiently experienced with the game, you'll know how to get involved just because you've been through the treadmill enough times, but that's not gonna help a new player, nor does it change the fact that Armageddon lingers in a bizarre kind of narrative stasis.

There's nothing to work with. If you have to bring everything to the table yourself, it doesn't take long before the apathy sets in. It's like trying to act in an empty room with no script, no story threads or anything, just pure improv without anything to draw inspiration from. Even truly creative and inspired actors would eventually fall flat if they had to come up with everything all by themselves every time, and a new actor would never stand a chance under those circumstances.

The onus is on the game to provide some building blocks that inspire interaction. You can't just completely absolve the game itself of any and all responsibility. It's not meant to be a chatroom, it's meant to be a living, breathing world with events on which to base one's roleplay. For quite a few years now, Armageddon has basically been a novel where every page simply reads "use your imagination." The game and its staff has a responsibility to provide a general narrative, and it hasn't done that to any meaningful extent.

Firstly, just want to say... I can go solo to a party w/o knowing someone, drink all your booze, and bang your girlfriend before leaving. Thats not the problem. Its going to a party, to you know, socialize, and no ones doing that. They're too busy going through the couch cushions for loose change, or maybe rummaging a dresser for a new pair of socks, to bother even returning your greeting.

Don't really care if no one wants to RP on an RPI. It just makes me less interested in playing, or getting past that initial learning curve.

Who knows..maybe I was in the wrong spot? Maybe I looked funny? Maybe I emoted instead of using a social and freaked them out? Don't know. As a player of other muds, were the tables turned, I wouldv'e taken some slight effort to at least ignore the other character through RP.

To delerak's point. Sure, maybe a newbie is a nobody...the character. The player, I think most people would agree is a different story.

Anyways, to sum it up. I play RPI's to, you know, RP. If it's lacking, I typically fuck off...

The party analogy is terrible. An RPI is not a party it's supposed to be a representation of a fantasy world. Nobody is obligated to roleplay with you or socialize with you. Ironically I'm the type of player that prefers to do none of those things, however, Arm is typically full of socializers so I'm surprised that you didn't at least get into a conversation (if that's your goal), but typically clans are full of them hence my previous point - trying Arm and not starting with a clan is probably not the best idea, if your goal is interaction and socializing. You can't expect players which all have different goals and time frames to even play to stop and talk to you every time, everyone has their own shit going on as it should be.

Contemplating my own actions and tendencies, I think I myself would probably not engage a character who is clearly fresh from chargen and is in a bazaar. Double so, if the character shoots off an emote that shows him as someone capable. The reason for this is that a trip to bazaar is almost like part of chargen. It's less so these days with the implementation of the noobie shop, but still. A new character gets created, their first step is to buy some clothes, establish a little, etc. So I wouldnt interact with them, because they do not 'want' to be interacted with. I would be on a lookout for them in the tavern, so I could properly drag them into some scheme that'd get him properly killed.

But in general. Plant yourself in a tavern and I'd be surprised if you dont get questioned with name/profession/station, a couple of soft touch, and at least one hard touch recruitment within that day.

I'm sorry, Faroukel. But somehow I suspect your sixth sense told you, "Traitor! go back to the mud you belong, you shit! Get out of here, before you get sexually molested in hemotes without you even noticing it."