jkarr
GDB Superstar
Posts: 2,070
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Post by jkarr on Jan 16, 2020 14:38:32 GMT -5
I realize that I've been branded as the only one who is bitter enough to is not benevolent to your apologies and I'm sorry for that, Nergal. ur branded that because ur the only idiot who dismissed his apology literally made shit up and lied to him to try and trap him and then only 'accept' his apologies and apologize for not doing so after he makes the rational decision to ignore ur stupid ass for being a manipulative lying bitch I just find the matter insufficient and very disingenuous. boo fucking hoo cry to someone who cares Please understand the situation. You've done a lot of unfair things in your time. You know this and are owning up to it. Thank you. But the time has passed and people forget. People learn to sharpen their pitch forks at people who are relevant 'now', instead of years ago. Sometimes for real reasons, sometimes for reasons imagined. bullshit ppl like najdorf and punished ppurg and others are bringing years old real shit up to him now because they didnt fucking forget despite that time passed and nergal is facing all of them meanwhile ur stupid ass actively lies to to try and trap him then tell him abt it and then act is if u somehow still deserve his ear for anything else You show up and do a blanket apology. Which, if one is to be benevolent and accept it, clears you of all the misdoings, from mild to significant. no it doesnt thats ur fucked premise he doesnt agree and neither do many others quit inserting ur bullshit ideas where they never applied At the same time, you portray yourself a victim of circumstance and point out people that are relevant 'now', and blame them for things. if they dont like being called out the same way hes been called out for years then like him maybe they shouldnt be doing that bullshit in the first place What's happening in practice is that you show up and say "my bad, folks!" And since everything you've done was years ago, everyone just hand wave you. more like u and current staff are just pissed off and angry as shit that it didnt backfire when someone with his reputation and clout came here and exposed ur bullshit Then you proceed to excuse your deeds, blaming people that are doing things 'now'. doesnt sound like any of the players he addressed felt like he was excusing himself with his explanations So what is the purpose of your writ here? whatever the fuck he wants it to be What good came out of it? lol aww is squirty angry that his sleepover buddies got put on blast  I know it looks ugly when a person refuses to be benevolent to another when they are in a supplicant position. But I find the apology disingenuous. If you genuinely want to make amends, speak of them in detail, instead of glossing over. And if you can't tell which of what you did deserved apology and what was righteous, then you aren't really apologetic. Disillusioned maybe, but not apologetic. u dont determine whether or not hes being genuine and ur the last person anyone needs to convince I don't know whom you are apologising to. everyone else does But I do not believe it is to the playerbase of Armageddon. A small band of people who are filled with hatred that originated before you even began playing the game. You are apologising to them. lmao sorry u cant have it both ways u either know or u dont also this site includes former players current players and ex staff whove accepted his apology what a shitty try at the set up lol And validating practices like fake logs, fake accusations, the making up of stories just to make shit appear bad, leaking code, creating stat prioretized dwarves just to kill a PC in a suicide attack. These are the things you've just justified right now. Was that your intention? as much as u want to bait an answer from him u already shot urself in the foot with ur idiotic and badly failed attempt at manipulating him remember hes got to give a shit abt u to bother answering u |
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nergal
staff puppet account
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Posts: 46
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Post by nergal on Jan 16, 2020 14:56:25 GMT -5
Lets ask some Qwerty themed questions in a non-asshole manner. Nergal if you please... 1. Do you believe the staff act maliciously or is it something else? 2. Do you believe that any single individual on staff is specifically responsible for the different eras of ups or downs (positive or negative)? 3. Do you think that the statement "necessary or useful" is akin to previous dismissive statements you have made as a staffer? 4. If you could say anything to staff publicly while this is a hot topic and people are looking, what would it be? 5. If there is any player(s) you specifically want to apologize for that you have not been contacted in PMs who would they be? 6. In your opinion does 'to many' hours logged in as a player or staffer cause a problem on any game not just Armageddon? If yes is there some threshold of hours you personally feel like you saw a distinct shift in personality or behaviour in yourself? Ooh, the lightning round. Here we go: 1) Well, I don't think it's intentionally malicious. I think when staff behave poorly around the game, it's due a heavy reliance on Armageddon as an expression of personal agency, emotional support, or simply to feel powerful in a world where most people are relatively powerless - this is a reference to both Zalanthas and IRL. Most roleplaying games enable escapism, and escapism can either be healthy or unhealthy. When it's unhealthy, and someone contradicts you or challenges you, I think the automatic reaction is to lash out. 2) No. 3) No, I think there's an important contextual difference in saying "I don't think responding to this is necessary or useful" to a staff complaint and using the same phrase to respond to trolling on a message board. 4) Think about whether staffing on Armageddon gives you joy or if it's stressful. If it doesn't give you joy, consider why. If you cannot directly change those reasons, consider resigning. You will be a happier person for it. 5) The player that went by Beethoven comes to mind. I won't explain what happened publicly but I think they understand what I'm referencing, and my actions in that event were severely heavy-handed and unjustifiable, and I deeply regret that it ruined a player's experience of the game. I can't immediately think of anyone else specifically. 6) I think when it hits a point where all you do is work, Arm, and sleep, you need to step back and consider what's going on in your life. If your work or grades are suffering, or if you're paying less attention to a side-project or productive hobby, because of Armageddon, that also should be a trigger for introspection. I'm not going to say a specific number of hours because it's different for everyone. The term "Crackageddon" is just a bit too true. |
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nergal
staff puppet account
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Posts: 46
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Post by nergal on Jan 16, 2020 14:57:45 GMT -5
Look, Nergal. I'm going to lay this out as best as I can. You were mean and you hurt some nerd feelings. You've apologized. Not everyone will accept an apology, but some will. What's important is that you did what IS in your control and you apologized. An important part of your growth as a human, and you got my full support in that. As perspective, some of my previous actions led to a lot of dead people. Not game dead people. Real dead people. Dead men, women, and children killed at the hands of a foreign government when I not only could have prevented it (for a little while, at least) or at least not participated in it. I can't apologize because they're dead. I can't apologize because they're in another country that doesn't even exist anymore and they'd shoot me if I even showed up to try. So don't feel so fucking bad about something you did in your youth. Nobody died. You've apologized. It's done and you can't undo it. We're happy to have you here and we'd like to discuss game mechanics, problems with running a mud, or specific to an RPI, or whatever. Some of us are going to try out new muds, some of us are starting a new one, and some of us just like the concept of muds and like to discuss the systems involved. You have interesting experience in all of that shit, so welcome to the conversation. Anyone who wants to continue to dwell on your past misdeeds past the point of your apology needs to work on their own soul, not be poking at yours. Thank you very much for this post. It definitely provides some much-needed perspective. |
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Post by gloryhound on Jan 16, 2020 15:13:33 GMT -5
I think when staff behave poorly around the game, it's due a heavy reliance on Armageddon as an expression of personal agency, emotional support, or simply to feel powerful in a world where most people are relatively powerless - this is a reference to both Zalanthas and IRL. This is what Sirra has been saying all along. |
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Post by shakes on Jan 16, 2020 15:47:03 GMT -5
I think when staff behave poorly around the game, it's due a heavy reliance on Armageddon as an expression of personal agency, emotional support, or simply to feel powerful in a world where most people are relatively powerless - this is a reference to both Zalanthas and IRL. This is what Sirra has been saying all along. Did I ever tell the story of how I destroyed my own mud "Wolf Days" back in 99-2004? It never really was a big thing. We'd have maybe 10-15 players online at a time. I didn't track accounts, only characters. It was RP but not permadeath. Post-apocalypse setting. I had several builders and was the main coder. For whatever reason, I got hooked on making it as survival-related as possible. You had as much trouble dealing with the environment as you did dealing with hostile enemy factions. I kept making the PVE harder and harder, not in the combat engine, but in just getting water and food and not dying from heatstroke. Players complained. They didn't like that much realism. I didn't listen. In the end, I made a game that was ENORMOUSLY fun to code ... and terrible to play. There were no arguments, no big blowouts, nothing. I just looked up one day and found that everyone was gone. |
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Jeshin
GDB Superstar
Posts: 1,516 
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Post by Jeshin on Jan 16, 2020 17:24:46 GMT -5
nergalSome random thought questions don't really care if you don't answer these... 1. In your experience what level of engagement did staff have with these forums? Watched them, read them, just tracked who was there, knew of them and didn't like them? 2. I appreciate and accept the apology about the TMC / Wikileaks / Jeshin likes hacker thing. Can you tell me why that was posted on TMC and not somewhere else? Were you the only one involved in that decision? 3. Can you provide any insight into the boosted voting that occured on TMS/TMC? Was that during your tenure and to your knowledge was that a hit job by someone or something the staff knew about?
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nergal
staff puppet account
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Posts: 46
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Post by nergal on Jan 16, 2020 17:50:48 GMT -5
nergal Some random thought questions don't really care if you don't answer these... 1. In your experience what level of engagement did staff have with these forums? Watched them, read them, just tracked who was there, knew of them and didn't like them? 2. I appreciate and accept the apology about the TMC / Wikileaks / Jeshin likes hacker thing. Can you tell me why that was posted on TMC and not somewhere else? Were you the only one involved in that decision? 3. Can you provide any insight into the boosted voting that occured on TMS/TMC? Was that during your tenure and to your knowledge was that a hit job by someone or something the staff knew about? 1) Depends on the staff member. I checked the spoiler subforum occasionally because my primary concern was plot related leaks and I didn't really care about anything else except for the wiki leak. Others would read everything and post about it on immchat, so even if you were avoiding the forum you'd see it anyway. 2) I did it unilaterally IIRC. I think I severely misread your post or something and flipped into a rage about it. 3) That wasn't during my tenure, it happened afterward apparently. I had to do a bit of searching to see what happened once you mentioned it. All I can really say on the subject is that one of the things I moderated on the GDB was people who would say shit like "make sure to vote from home and at work and from your phone!!" which is clearly cheating per TMS's rules. And before I was staff I posted daily reminders to vote, so I think it's fair to say I cared about the game's perception on those sites and wanted to be sure that if we got into a lead, we did it fairly. |
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Post by bloatedfiresergal on Jan 16, 2020 17:51:18 GMT -5
Hi, I have 2 questions for Nergal.
1: How are players intended to be successful and liked by staff on Armageddon?
2: How are players actually successful and liked by staff on Armageddon?
I guess I'm sort of looking for what the vision of having a great and memorable time on Armageddon is supposed to be, and how this differs from reality.
I've had 5 or 6 characters over the past year and I'm still trying to get something meaningful out of the time spent on Armageddon. I'm trying to enjoy the journey, but when the journey moves at a snail's pace and I get killed without warning before any meaningful storyline happens, I just have to ask myself, what is the point?
I want to enjoy Armageddon, but it seems to try its hardest to sap away all potentially fun stories.
Is it me, or is it Armageddon?
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nergal
staff puppet account
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Posts: 46
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Post by nergal on Jan 16, 2020 18:01:23 GMT -5
Hi, I have 2 questions for Nergal. 1: How are players intended to be successful and liked by staff on Armageddon? 2: How are players actually successful and liked by staff on Armageddon? I guess I'm sort of looking for what the vision of having a great and memorable time on Armageddon is supposed to be, and how this differs from reality. I've had 5 or 6 characters over the past year and I'm still trying to get something meaningful out of the time spent on Armageddon. I'm trying to enjoy the journey, but when the journey moves at a snail's pace and I get killed without warning before any meaningful storyline happens, I just have to ask myself, what is the point? I want to enjoy Armageddon, but it seems to try its hardest to sap away all potentially fun stories. Is it me, or is it Armageddon? First off: nice name, made me laugh To answer your questions: 1) I think the official answer to this question is to follow the karma guidelines. Play within your means, show that you can roleplay well and make things interesting for other people. If you feel comfortable with it, take positions of leadership within a clan or make a leadership position yourself. It takes a lot of patience. I played for 6 months before I got my first karma point for my Kuraci Fist recruit that got killed on a silt sea expedition. Adhira gave it to me and said my character put up a good fight. I played for 2 or 3 years before I got to play Raleris, and I played the hell out of him. But I can see the argument where that upward mobility doesn't really exist until you get a foothold on the ladder somehow, by landing in an important clan position or getting lucky enough to get accepted for a sponsored role. 2) I think the answer to #1 applies here, but I think there's more to it than that too. Nostalgia plays a big part. If you've been around Armageddon for decades then a lot of people have probably interacted with you and like you. Being able to share stories is a big thing in a community around a game that's about telling stories. Being able to meet players and staff IRL probably helps a lot too, but I only did this once and only after I was staff, so I don't know this personally. To answer your last question: I don't think it's you. By its very nature, the game leaves some people behind. If you can't play a lot, especially at peak times, you're going to be at a big disadvantage. You'll be at a disadvantage for applying for sponsored roles if you don't play around the same time as the staff member over the clan or you don't meet the required hours/week (for the rare sponsored role calls that have such requirements). If you feel the only barrier to entry is that you're getting killed off, consider playing in a non-combat position which will probably allow you to live longer unless you get PKed. There are also different games with different cultures/expectations on PK, so I might also suggest shopping around a bit if you haven't already, unless you're really attached to Armageddon specifically for its theme or players, or something. |
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Post by lechuck on Jan 16, 2020 18:27:49 GMT -5
What's your view on Armageddon's stagnant story? For quite a few years now, hardly anything's been going on. It's been what, three straight years of Gith vs Kurac? No end in sight and no way to work with that whole premise outside of staff animations. No player agency whatsoever, just waiting around for the next batch of gith to attack. I think the gith snoozefest is all from after your time on staff so I don't expect any comments on that specifically, but this kind of non-story rut has frankly been there since Reborn fell flat. This used to be a game of rebellions, wars, cities changing hands and evil sorcerers laying waste to the world. Obviously these things didn't happen every year, but there was definitely a certain momentum and impactfulness to the world. For the last decade or so, Zalanthas as a setting has been spinning its wheels.
I pointed out in a recent discussion that since Tuluk closed five years ago, there have been no entries on the History of Zalanthas page that players had any real influence on. A senate meeting to restore House Borsail, some NPC templars feuding, and then five entries about the tepid gith storyline that players can't really do anything with because it only exists at all for a few hours a month when staff animates the gith for a battle. In your opinion, how did the game end up like this? What went on behind the scenes story-wise when you were on staff? How much did the Reborn fiasco affect things? Am I right in my perception that ever since then, staff has just been out of ideas?
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vex
Clueless newb
Posts: 133
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Post by vex on Jan 16, 2020 18:27:52 GMT -5
I take it back qwerty is a piece of shit. I like to think of him, as the price of having an open mic. |
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nergal
staff puppet account
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Posts: 46
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Post by nergal on Jan 16, 2020 19:32:06 GMT -5
What's your view on Armageddon's stagnant story? For quite a few years now, hardly anything's been going on. It's been what, three straight years of Gith vs Kurac? No end in sight and no way to work with that whole premise outside of staff animations. No player agency whatsoever, just waiting around for the next batch of gith to attack. I think the gith snoozefest is all from after your time on staff so I don't expect any comments on that specifically, but this kind of non-story rut has frankly been there since Reborn fell flat. This used to be a game of rebellions, wars, cities changing hands and evil sorcerers laying waste to the world. Obviously these things didn't happen every year, but there was definitely a certain momentum and impactfulness to the world. For the last decade or so, Zalanthas as a setting has been spinning its wheels. I pointed out in a recent discussion that since Tuluk closed five years ago, there have been no entries on the History of Zalanthas page that players had any real influence on. A senate meeting to restore House Borsail, some NPC templars feuding, and then five entries about the tepid gith storyline that players can't really do anything with because it only exists at all for a few hours a month when staff animates the gith for a battle. In your opinion, how did the game end up like this? What went on behind the scenes story-wise when you were on staff? How much did the Reborn fiasco affect things? Am I right in my perception that ever since then, staff has just been out of ideas? It's hard for me to comment on the current state of things because I don't really know the current state of things. The lack of extensive use of the chronology page always disappointed me though, and I wish it got used more to document events, particularly events where players made contributions to how an event turned out. I felt like a good OOC reward for a player would have been to name them on the history page, but PC names never really make it there. Story-wise, we tried to focus on starting plots that players would be interested in getting involved in on their own. What we didn't really do and probably should have done was get a metaplot going for the entire world in a similar vein to the end-of-the-world plot when Arm 2 was in full swing. I feel like Arm lost a big part of its storytelling chops when Arm 2 was cancelled, simply because we lost the narrative device of a metaplot as a driving factor for storytelling. I don't think the staff are out of ideas. There are plenty of creative minds on staff and they did (probably still do) a lot of good work. If they don't seem active, they probably just need more time to write or more space from the other staff to flourish. A lot of effort can get lost in the red tape. |
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Post by lechuck on Jan 16, 2020 20:15:15 GMT -5
How much work ever got done on Arm 2?
When and why was it scrapped? Was it really abandoned years before staff announced its cancellation?
I can't remember exactly when you were on staff so that might have preceded you. I seem to recall that Arm 2 was announced in 2007ish and officially cancelled in 2010 or '11.
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nergal
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Post by nergal on Jan 16, 2020 20:22:53 GMT -5
How much work ever got done on Arm 2? When and why was it scrapped? Was it really abandoned years before staff announced its cancellation? I can't remember exactly when you were on staff so that might have preceded you. I seem to recall that Arm 2 was announced in 2007ish and officially cancelled in 2010 or '11. I don't actually know the answers to any of those questions unfortunately. I joined staff a few years after Arm 2 was officially cancelled. I know at least one staffside tool made for Arm 2 was used on Arm, a map making tool, but unfortunately I'm not otherwise familiar with the work done on that project. |
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nergal
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Post by nergal on Jan 22, 2020 19:07:31 GMT -5
So I got a private message on Discord asking about addiction to the game, and it seemed worthwhile to answer it publicly.
Of all the memes surrounding Armageddon, "Crackageddon" is the one that made me, and still makes me, the most uncomfortable. It speaks a certain truth about the ability of the game to hook its players. But it also highlights a trend of players becoming dependent on the game to the point that it's unhealthy. It represents a consistent urge to search for a high that's better and longer-lasting than the last one.
Armageddon is hardly unique as a game which people grow attached to, and overly reliant on, for entertainment, escapism, or human interaction purposes. But I think Armageddon is particularly dark in that regard, because it presents a number of paradoxes in its culture and its design.
The game is, by its very nature, competitive. PCs compete on multiple levels for attention and interest from other PCs, limited pools of minions, allies, resources, and even things like getting to a shop before everyone else to sell your stuff. On an out-of-game level, players compete for attention from staff, sponsored roles, the first chance to praise staff for some new thing they added to the game, etc. But, paradoxically, players are also told that Armageddon is a game that can't be won. And maybe that's true. But clearly, players can earn small victories along the way and come out with more victories than another player. That is, after all, the essence of competition. And while some competitions within the game and outside of the game make sense, there are some competitions that simply shouldn't exist.
The nature of these competitions leads to certain battle lines being drawn. And there is a clear direct relationship between the amount of time you invest into the game, by logging in, writing reports, contacting people, setting up meetings, etc., and the output you eventually get in return by way of minions and allies to play with, resources, staff attention, sponsored roles, and more. And there are some obvious diminishing returns to this. If you're playing 16 hours a day, many of these hours are going to be off-peak, and you may very well never even see another PC in those hours. But in my experience, that did not stop players from regularly putting in 16 hours a day.
I hesitate to call this behavior "addiction", because the field of video game addiction has not yet been thoroughly researched. But I do think this seemingly endless pursuit of dopamine from little successes here and there in a game is unhealthy. And I think it is immoral to intentionally design a game around forcing players to spend their time doing it if they want to get anywhere or if they want their PCs to mean anything, by impressing staff and players enough to interact with you, to get to resources before anyone else does, etc. And to be clear, the game is clearly designed in this manner. The only question is intent. Do staff members enjoy wielding enough power over the game to decide how your experience as a player will go, or do they see it as the consequence of the game lacking automated systems to enable players to do what they want and what their PCs are able to do, within reason? This is a question I don't know the answer to, but I think the answer is different for each staff member and quite important.
And to be clear, there is no magic number of hours where you're putting in too much time into a game. What actually matters are your life conditions. Are you neglecting your educational, social, and career prospects? Are you neglecting medical concerns (gaining weight, losing sleep)? Then the game is unhealthy for you, full stop. Stop playing and do other things. You will thank yourself later.
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