mehtastic
GDB Superstar
Armers Anonymous sponsor
Posts: 1,699
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Post by mehtastic on Oct 6, 2019 7:05:42 GMT -5
gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,55150.msg1038688.html#new After three impressive, Real-Life, years of ringing the bells almost every other week - the time has come to temporarily close the doors on the Allanaki Gladiators in order to free up opportunities for new blood (so to speak) to rise. I want to personally thank the Players and Staff that have made this such an amazing success, from Champions, to Doyens, to the loyal crowds that came to support your Reigning Gladiators. "Always go out wanting more." is a word of advice I've followed since I was summer camp counselor, so here we'll pause. Until next time the bell tolls, Blood and Glory! For those with Penned Gladiators still in the cells. Those will be, for now, stored. You do not need to take any action. This will probably be completed before the end of the weekend. Thank you very much for your support and we hope you enjoyed the blood and sand as much as everyone did watching you splatter each other! ,53935.msg1038689.html#msg1038689 As you all may have seen from the announcements here, Allanak Gladiator is closing temporarily. As such, this thread will no longer be maintained by myself or any of the others who generally posted updates on events. Since the primary PC members of the clan opted out of a farewell event, I was asked to send out a thank you to the playerbase. You've all been super amazing on our journeys by allowing for the clan's integration, and supporting us as we transitioned from PC to PC within the bloodsport rankings and within Allanaki and even Zalanthan culture. Without the fans and the support of the playerbase the clan would have probably run out of steam far faster than it did. Thanks is also due to the folks who participated in the clan, because without all of YOU, the clan had zero chance of survival. Its been a 3-year run, I hear, and that's pretty badass for such a niche clan. To share some statistics, the clan hosted over 70 all-inclusive bi-weekly events during its time of activity, making it the most PUBLIC event-heavy clan Arm has seen. And that was all thanks to the players and the staff who dedicated their time to it. You are all rockstars. Please do not send me PMs about the clan or its closing. I'm not the local PR guy, I'm just a familiar face on this GDB thread and was asked to do the deed. If you have a favorite gladiator and want to praise their performance(s), or want to give credit to staff for their badass management of gladiator culture, do send in a kudos request. I know I will be. Rest assured, gladiators will be making a return before you know it. (all emphasis mine) What happened here? The clan's closure seems very sudden, and the PCs refused to participate in a farewell event, so that suggests a closure on the more forceful/unpleasant side of things. The final post by Sedora almost comes off like it's being made under duress.
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delerak
GDB Superstar
PK'ed by jcarter
"When you want to fool the world, tell the truth." - Otto Von Bismarck
Posts: 1,670
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Post by delerak on Oct 6, 2019 8:34:05 GMT -5
The fuck are you talking about lol. Most likely the interest was waning and they weren't getting enough gladiator applications and interest. Also the attendance seemed to be lower. Good decision to close them down for now they had a great run.
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mehtastic
GDB Superstar
Armers Anonymous sponsor
Posts: 1,699
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Post by mehtastic on Oct 6, 2019 8:57:14 GMT -5
Yes, it's always a good idea to take away content from a game without explanation, and everyone should just not question it.
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Post by Prime Minister Sinister on Oct 6, 2019 9:14:32 GMT -5
eh, idk
the gladiator thing seems like it would work much better as a seasonal sort of deal anyway
emotes and combat scroll can only hold interest for so long at a time
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jenki
Clueless newb
Posts: 156 
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Post by jenki on Oct 6, 2019 15:31:26 GMT -5
Weird, they just closed the roll-call for new gladiators. Maybe things didn't turn out as expected?
The gladiators seems like it requires a lot of resources (player/staff, time/energy) that maybe could be utilized elsewhere. Personally I didn't enjoy the gladiators but I'm curious if they just didn't get the kind of responses from players that they wanted because they can't do it on their own (they need players to fill the rolls).
Spending staff resources on things that where independent of player commitment would probably have a better, or at least more guaranteed return.
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Post by shakes on Oct 6, 2019 17:09:16 GMT -5
That whole penned thing wasn't very good. I never saw it manifest as anything and it probably did take a lot of resources to run.
A better approach would be to let people volunteer to fight either to the death or to fleeing, or use the arena to settle duels.
Dueling would do a lot. Smarmy aide mouths off, challenge him to a duel. He says, sure, we will use our house champion. In comes big, buff guy who is an active player and who was hired by the house to be the house champion.
People would go around challenging each other to stupid duels, like some Bynner challenging a rinther, but there's hardly any shame to be had by refusing to duel in such a situation.
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Post by Prime Minister Sinister on Oct 6, 2019 17:23:48 GMT -5
bring back the gan zein fight club
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Post by shakes on Oct 6, 2019 18:17:01 GMT -5
Yeah.
A penned gladiator ... there's no skin in the game for anyone, you never interact with them, so who the fuck cares when they get offed?
I need some more Thunderdome in my grimdark desert world.
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Post by lechuck on Oct 7, 2019 8:44:48 GMT -5
I always saw it as a failure. Totally artificial and irrelevant to the game as a whole. These were template-made characters with literally zero agency, they were created to fight in the arena and could never do anything else. Noone knew them before, noone had any serious investment in it. Back in the day, gladiators were actual PCs that ended up fighting in the arena, and while they were seldom slaves, people cared because they had seen these characters around for months or years. Remember Paryl who rose from a basic 0-karma AoD recruit to lieutenant and champion gladiator, the Highlord's executioner, etc.? That's something to care about. Some random cookie-cutter PC that appears out of nowhere with a cringeworthy name? Who gives the remotest of fucks? It's essentially an NPC that some player is allowed to animate once in a while.
Speaking of NPCs, remember when staff made an NPC champion? Can't remember what their name was but it was so stupid. Whip up an NPC with AI strength, give it an overpowered weapon and maxed skills, and let it two-shot other gladiators for a few weeks before killing it off-screen. How was that supposed to make people more interested in the games? It really exemplified what plagues today's Armageddon: artificially propped-up garbage to replace the organic, emergent roleplay that we had back when the people behind the game actually cared about its well-being. Most of the players behind gladiator PCs didn't even take it seriously, it was some of the very worst roleplay I've ever seen. Rock-bottom emotes, meme-speak, the level of quality I'd associate with RP-Encouraged games. You'd see gladiators shouting in all caps, no punctuation, shit you'd expect to hear in WoW. I'm not surprised they eventually shut it down, but I don't even trust that this is the reason. The reason was probably the crippling workload of the twice-a-month arena games.
You'll continue to see this kind of jarring shit, too. In place of events and figures that are memorable because they occurred naturally, you'll get "plots" that are fully written in advance and just grafted into the game for handpicked players, an all-NPC cast of world villains, etc. Players aren't behind anything anymore, they're spectators, and these arena games are the most prominent example of that. It felt about as real and important as roleplay on a WoW RP server. Some of the hardest I've cringed in my life was when the "important" gladiators would walk into taverns and emote about their cheering fans, then just sit down and pick their nails for a little while and leave because nobody had anything to talk to them about.
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seuly
Clueless newb
Posts: 103
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Post by seuly on Oct 7, 2019 9:18:29 GMT -5
Someone really liked WWE.
Only the Reigning mattered, Penned were spam and there was zero reason to play one. Only Saturdays at 7-9 EST cut out a chuck of players. I couldn’t have gone if I had even wanted to.
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mehtastic
GDB Superstar
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Posts: 1,699
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Post by mehtastic on Oct 7, 2019 9:44:50 GMT -5
If it was largely recognized as a failure, and players/staff who decided to cut it were among those people, that makes sense to me and I'm good with that explanation. (Incidentally, that also explains why there was no explanation from staff: inability to admit a 3-year-long effort was a boring failure in their eyes.)
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Post by lechuck on Oct 7, 2019 11:36:34 GMT -5
It is pretty amusing that they send out a rolecall for gladiators and then shut the role down right after. Did they not get any apps or what?
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baobob
Clueless newb
Posts: 119
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Post by baobob on Oct 7, 2019 11:44:06 GMT -5
It might have been my app.  |
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mehtastic
GDB Superstar
Armers Anonymous sponsor
Posts: 1,699
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Post by mehtastic on Oct 7, 2019 11:58:55 GMT -5
It is pretty amusing that they send out a rolecall for gladiators and then shut the role down right after. Did they not get any apps or what? They almost certainly didn't get enough interest. Three role applications were resolved last week, and they were looking for two gladiators as well as a Borsail noble from September 30 to October 5. That's a pathetically low amount of interest in both roles. It might even be that poor baobob was the only person to request a gladiator role.  |
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my2sids
Displaced Tuluki
Posts: 341 
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Post by my2sids on Oct 7, 2019 13:06:47 GMT -5
I really shouldn't bother with a reply, but...
I played both Reigning and Penned gladiators. Penned are temp, less interesting side characters -- that's a given. About Reigning: I found the role to be fun if frustrating in some aspects, but that had nothing to do with how staff were running things. (It had to do with other players, which is what most of Arm's issues or lack of fun are caused by, imo.) I rotated through I believe 3 staff over the course of my play there and the support for that clan was amazing.
As a Reigning there was room to have fun in some politics (depending on your owner/handler,) combat fun, personal RP, etc. One of the major things that I found to be annoying is that despite putting my PC out there with the intent to engage in interesting RP, a lot of players were primarily interested in sexytimes. I would say that's my PC's "fault" for putting out that vibe, but that seemed to be 90% of what other glads dealt with too regardless of their personality/aesthetic. I guess that's par for the course to a lot of the social scene, though. So it really just depends on who your gladiator's fans were. My gladiator had a short-lived "fan club" along with some cool rivalries. My gladiator actually won the championship by tricking the opponent into using a weapon other than their signature blade and then getting them into trouble with handlers so they entered the fight injured. There are a few mini-games that I found to be fun: Acquiring gear from fans being one of them.
There were some fantastic roleplayers, some of which I only interacted with minimally before my era. The caliber of play was really high for a lot of the time the clan existed. Some of my most memorable scenes and relationships were had as I played my gladiator. I've played since 2007 and this was a cool experience.
Interest just faded. No apps. I whipped up a role call effort for staff and let them use it for one such role call. Not a lot of response, unfortunately. It's not a role for everybody and without engaging storylines between fresh gladiators piloted by great roleplayers... there's no point to the clan. Also, not a lot of players are willing to go out of their way to interact with Reigning, unfortunately. NPCs were only window dressing so that the PC Reigning could shine, from my experience. Staff closed it most likely because no one wants to play a glad and it's a ton of work to keep open. Why not divert efforts to other clans who want love, too? Seems like a win-win.
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