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Post by shakes on Jan 15, 2020 15:31:40 GMT -5
Managing a mud isn't that hard. People volunteer for staff. You try to feel out what they'd be good at (and interested in). You give them small projects at first and see how they do, gradually pulling them into more.
It's easiest with people who have played your game awhile and know you, but often I pulled in people from previous games I'd played. (Hey, man, did you know I am working on a new mud? Would you want to come help me?)
There's also a subset of mud aficionados who go around from mud to mud as staff only. They are often well-recommended and you can go see their work on other muds. I used a couple of those to build out the mud I ran called "Wolf Days" (before I drove it into the ground). It worked out really, really well.
I have no idea how Armageddon staff culture turned into this. When you say they're rude and abrasive or dismissive, well, that's a personality thing. When you say some of them are perverts who sexually stalk players, I consider that an aberration and I assume someone in control is going to rein them in.
But now I've learned a lot of these abuses are simply policy. It's a special clique of buddies saying, "Hey, come join us while we pretend to admin this game but in reality we're just going to run around and abuse people with our max-power toons."
I'm just done for now. One of my buddies has decided to walk away due to this revelation, and I think it's time I do the same.
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ShaLeah
Clueless newb
Sooth Saying & Seeking Clueless Vet
Posts: 65 
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Post by ShaLeah on Jan 15, 2020 15:35:27 GMT -5
Okay so ShaLeah if you are out there in the ether. Are you part of the problem? Does it take two to tango? Have you ever been uncharitable or abrasive in your interactions with staff? Have you perhaps broken or bent a rule at some time? Have you made a mistake? For what it's worth I have done... 1 - Walking from Nak to the Arabeti camp on my way to Luirs within 1 hr of creating an elf because I wanted to play in the post but wanted a southie accent to start. (spam walked like I pre-entered all the commands) 2 - I have spam crafted to run to the merchants after reboot for $$$ money. 3 - I have apartment murdered, shut the door bebe the knife will take you away. 4 - I have gotten crotchey with the staff either because I was in a mood or inferred tone into their written response. 5 - I've discussed IC things OOCly! 6 - I've coordinated playtimes OOCly! But not for murder. 7 - I don't think I've twinked but I'm sure by the staff standard I have twinked which is hunting regularly and without needing skins or bone or meat just for ze fighting. Huh? I haven't read all this - Gimme a bit. So I went and read shtuff - Not all shtuff, just where I was mentioned: Can you give an example of someone who is playing currently who has not taken responsibility for their own shit? Obviously those of us who quit it doesn't matter whether we are accountable for our behaviour years ago or not. Though I suspect a lot of us have admitted to varying levels of culpability. EDIT - I ask for an example because if you have not read the entire board (as a new user who would expect you too) you may find them posting here admitting they overreacted or they were in the wrong about something. i don't know if shaleah is off or on. it's a good example of one of arm's more vocal/engaged players presenting a very questionable take.
What "very questionable take" am I presenting? Of all the people in the community terminal , I am the first to own ALL my shit. From noob to now. What exactly are you looking for? |
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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 Jan 15, 2020 15:35:31 GMT -5
Managing a mud isn't that hard. Managing an unsuccessful mud with no players, sure that's easy. There's nothing to manage. Managing a mud that has a pbase of hundreds or even thousands is insanely difficult. You're basically running an organization at that point. Darksun wasn't that successful, 5-10 players at max, 10+ staff or so, and still it was fucking hard. It takes a lot of time, effort, and management skills to do anything from the top as the number one guy. If it were so easy everybody would do it. |
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Post by shakes on Jan 15, 2020 15:43:31 GMT -5
It doesn't take a lot of effort to not simply shit on your playerbase with policies like this.
Hey, watch me load up special gear and stats on my max karma character to go kill fuckers. Oh, and if I can't find any fuckers I'll log on my wiz in another window and type "/at look player" and locate them first.
And that doesn't matter if you have ONE player or the alleged thousands.
And I'm beginning also to suspect Arm doesn't have nearly the playerbase I thought it did, since all those staffers are playing between 1 and 5 alts, sometimes simultaneously.
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Post by gringoose on Jan 15, 2020 15:45:46 GMT -5
I have no experience admining but games that make cheating a feature are unplayable for me or if I can find some exploit in a system I'm going to abuse it. I can't help myself and will cheat and abuse until I've removed all challenge from the game then quit playing very shortly after. Cataclysm DDA is one such game and I always tell myself I'm not going to cheat but the game has a neat debug menu for developers and it's too tempting for me to not use. I always use the debug menu for something that's not going to remove the challenge at first like if I forget to grab something then I teleport back to go get it then suddenly I'm teleporting everywhere because I don't feel like walking around anymore then five minutes later I stop playing. Happens every time. If I were ever Arm staff I'm 100% sure that I would cheat
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vex
Clueless newb
Posts: 133
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Post by vex on Jan 15, 2020 16:00:42 GMT -5
It doesn't take a lot of effort to not simply shit on your playerbase with policies like this. Hey, watch me load up special gear and stats on my max karma character to go kill fuckers. Oh, and if I can't find any fuckers I'll log on my wiz in another window and type "/at look player" and locate them first. And that doesn't matter if you have ONE player or the alleged thousands. And I'm beginning also to suspect Arm doesn't have nearly the playerbase I thought it did, since all those staffers are playing between 1 and 5 alts, sometimes simultaneously.
Really, I think you're jumping to extremes, here.
I'm not seeing the, "loads special gear, adjust stats, killing spree ensues", nor do I think it would go unnoticed by players, as there simply isn't enough player agency in the game anymore, for us not to notice such a well-dressed elephant in the room, lighting everyone on fire for funsies. What I'm seeing are two former staff, both of whom are owning their own short comings, and explaining things from their point of view, which includes exposing some of the rotting going on below the surface of the game, that... shouldn't really surprise anyone, really.
It absolutely reveals and confirms a lot of what players have suspected, and vindicates a LOT of reviews and posts, that cited staff abuses.
I'm really, just not seeing "staff policy is to dial abuse to eleven", like you're saying. |
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Post by gloryhound on Jan 15, 2020 16:22:37 GMT -5
A fairly happy medium might be for staff to be required to rotate to being just players after six months, and then back to staff later. No PCs while on staff. It could help to prevent burnout as well.
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Post by shakes on Jan 15, 2020 16:27:41 GMT -5
There's part of the conversation you're not seeing, Vex, which is two other people on Discord telling me their experiences with staff avatars. I won't share that as both still play and it's their story to tell, not mine.
That's why my response may seem extreme. From my vantage point, it is not only "this could happen due to your bad policy", but also "this HAS happened and they didn't do shit about it." In fact, the one guy's experience as relayed to me was not just that staff used wizlevel shit to track him down and kill him, but they punished him for filing a complaint.
The game is rotten to the core. When I thought it was just "Shalooonsh is a dick" I could tolerate the game knowing I'd just avoid that guy. But the entire administrative staff is out there fucking people over as a matter of policy. There's no oversight and filing complaints (as I've seen personally) just gets you on their radar for further punishment.
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vex
Clueless newb
Posts: 133
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Post by vex on Jan 15, 2020 16:39:21 GMT -5
Do encourage them to tell their stories. Silence is the great enabler.
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Post by lechuck on Jan 15, 2020 16:44:56 GMT -5
To me, it's like hearing doctors discussing how they routinely rape their patients and it's not only normal but it's approved of. What the fuck kind of comparison is this? Are you out of your actual mind? I've played like five different RPIs and a handful of non-RPI MUDs, and staff has been allowed to play mortal PCs on literally all of them. Why would this be an issue? The problem occurs only if their position as staff allows them to impart unreasonable advantages on their characters. The only way this has been a concern on Arm is in the way that admins and producers can have their immortal and mortal characters online at the same time. That's something worth discussing, though I wouldn't expect a change in that department since it's frankly common practice to allow it. But in what pants-on-head retarded world is it reasonable to compare staff having mortal characters to doctors routinely raping their patients? This is the kind of absurd idiocy that lets staff write this community off as insane. |
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grumble
GDB Superstar
toxic shithead
Destroyer of Worlds
Posts: 1,619
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Post by grumble on Jan 15, 2020 16:50:50 GMT -5
He's pissed off at the sudden shock of realization. I understand that feeling, it's like when your cousin's family is wealthy and yours is poor, and he makes you watch him play with his toys, but if you touch them he snitches and you get your ass beat.
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Post by lechuck on Jan 15, 2020 16:54:37 GMT -5
How can it even be a surprise? Staff having mortal PCs has been a well-known fact for the entire lifespan of this game, and is a normal thing across the MUD genre. Comparing it to a grotesque violation like doctors raping patients is just... what the flying fuck?
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Post by shakes on Jan 15, 2020 17:17:57 GMT -5
Ok, maybe that one was a stretch. But I was looking for an example of what we'd call professionalism being violated and that came to mind.
How can you say it's a well-known fact? Where is it posted? I never knew. Several other people have also expressed that they didn't know.
From the Armageddon discord just a few minutes ago:
RathustraToday at 12:02 PM
I mean, I'm not going to mince words: Why would I be accountable to players?
You couldn't be any more clear or concise there. So I'm just done. Buh-bye.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2020 17:17:59 GMT -5
Jeshin mentioned how I'm the only one to shit at Nergal and well, I actually stand by that. After Nergal's departure, a lot of these things improved. Staff is limited to 2 apps per year like any other. So they cant play back to back sorcs and psies. There was once a point when Anaiah went through 3 or 4 sorcs/psies in a span of 2 months. She wasnt abusive specifically, she just died easy. Needless to say she didnt feel like there is anything wrong with this then.
Nergal describes policies and events in such a fashion like he's a new storyteller without any influence, or authority. At the point of his reign, he was the "only" Producer who logged in. He literally had 100% authority and decision making power. He could've done "anything". In a way, he was the only one who could ever have changed things. Nessalin doesnt care about such aspects and Adhira is too pliable and gentle to make sharp angled changes of direction. But now he's portraying himself like he had no power to improve things. He now talks about how toxic and abusive staff are and yet somehow skirts all the toxicity and abuse that he himself have originated and performed. He apologized for being unfair in the most loose and vaguest of terms, while accusing everyone else in detail. Whenever I, or others asked for some of his deeds in greater detail, no proper explanation, or a proper discussion of these events. He defended and reinforced the sexual harassment of Anaiah's character, but now he talks of other staff like he was forced to helplessly observe.
It's true. If Shalooonsh tomorrow would post here and start talking ill of staff, these forums would welcome him with open eyes and he'd become the "good guy" again.
Of course, this allows others to jump from "Staff can have PCs" to "Staff edits their stats and loads uber powerful items on them".
I'm still puzzled about the 5 avatars per staff. When I was on it, it was 3 avatars. Unless I'm misremembering. I dont think I ever reached the max either way.
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Jeshin
GDB Superstar
Posts: 1,516 
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Post by Jeshin on Jan 15, 2020 17:20:53 GMT -5
I think the presumption that the community cannot forgive and forget is part of some obvious bias you have Qwerty.
Nergal didn't have to have a criticism of staff to get the reception he did. He just had to say hey I did some wrong stuff, I was in a situation that led to those decisions. I regret those decisions. He could even had said PS - Some of you are super assholes. It's not criticism that did it, it's just some hey I made a mistake I can admit that.
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