More Meat for the Grinder

IMO this circles back to the crux of Armageddon's problem over the years: the world is static, and the relative lack of change - and the relative lack of staff support when players respond to those rare moments of change - cripples the ability to be unique.

The way I look at Armageddon: it's written more like a traditional sitcom, like Cheers or The Simpsons, than a genuinely compelling story. Generally, a sitcom's setting doesn't really change (though it can change drastically at the end of a show's run). The eponymous bar in Cheers is always there. Springfield's layout stays the same. Sometimes the character cast changes dramatically and/or unexpectedly (e.g. Maude's death in The Simpsons) but for the most part, the characters' situations at the start of an episode and at the end of the episode are the same. There's a reason for this kind of writing: it creates a sense of familiarity. You can miss a few episodes, and still sit down for the next one and enjoy it. It's comfortable.

Armageddon is also comfortable in the same psychological manner that a sitcom is comfortable. The setting rarely changes drastically, although when it does, it's usually destructive and players try to rebuild or make sense of the situation, only to be rebuffed by staff a lot of the time. Players try to use their PCs to return to the familiarity, taking a cue from how Armageddon is generally written and described. But at the end of the day there's only so much staff can do that would impact the world and every single player in the game, and drive a plot forward. And a lot of those ideas involve destruction, which triggers the players' desire to resist or rebuild. If staff were so inclined, they could expand parts of the world instead of destroy it... but creating always takes more work than destroying. And a sense of comfortable familiarity with the world's order and how it works would be gone, too. That is good for an evolving, player-driven narrative, but bad for a narrative where staff insist they have a stranglehold on it.

In his GDB announcement, Shabago promised more information on the cause and aftermath of the event, and individual story hooks for characters to pursue. I'm skeptical that this will pan out. Armageddon's created a scenario where people are comfortable with their characters. People often don't pursue things if it involves risk to their PC. The staff are going to hand the remainder of this event to players and players are, by and large, going to prefer to be comfortable and do nothing about it.

yep one of the most persistent examples of shitty metagaming i would be surprised to not see ppl still doing on arm

I'm more inclined to think that it's because everyone knows that PCs have accomplished nothing and never will, so there aren't many scruples in PKing. At the risk of becoming the guy who always harps on about the old days, I remember when this was not the case. While there has always been a good deal of PvP on Arm (it's kind of integral to the game, after all), players used to have some respect for eachother. There was a time when you usually only got PKed if you did something that would realistically cause somebody to want you dead. Exceptions have always existed, but what used to be the exception has become the norm.

We had characters like Magistrate Otikus who rose from lowly aide to the highest position a commoner can attain. He didn't walk around with a guard; in fact he was known for idling a lot and could effortlessly have been killed any day. Or Paryl who rose from recruit to AoD lieutenant and served as the Templarate's executioner, having put countless criminals and rogue mages to death. He was just a basic human warrior during the days of Sandman, Black Tembo, Lord of Storms, etc. He could have been summoned and snuffed out a thousand times, or taken out by a Tuluki assassin--this was, after all, in the days when there were still wars between north and south.

But when everyone's just a random nobody who hasn't done anything noteworthy, there isn't the same kind of respect between players. Instead there's a kind of embittered disillusionment, and with the lack of story and opportunities for PCs that defines today's Armageddon, putting a notch on your belt has become one of the only ways you can feel like you actually did anything noticeable in the game. I don't necessarily think players are intentionally trained to play that way, but I'm convinced that a decade of neglectful management has caused this situation to develop naturally. PKing is pretty much the only remaining thing you can do that you know others will care about.

There was definitely a lot more random PK back in the day. Think of, when Krathis and Whirans were what 5 karma? They would just run up on you, with no past history with you, and demonfire you or drop a Bahamet on you. Have had both of these things happen to me right out of chargen. That was really common and these were the people entrusted with some of the highest karma roles. And back then mundanes just sucked at PK because only a privileged few knew how to skill up to be good enough to kill someone before their victims can run. There was not much (successful) mundane PK unless they outnumbered you or you were locked in a room with them. Back then the most successful mundanes at PK were d-elves since they could get an endless supply of sling stones and train archery to master in a few days played; slings and bows cross trained at that time. If you got attacked by some slasher 10 years ago at random, he'd land a few light hits on you then you flee which was really common too just people survived it. Random PK doesn't seem nearly as common as it once was.

If you get random PKed now, it's going to be by somebody double reeling you with clubs. If it's not clubs then it'll be poison but I don't think anyone would want to waste poison on a random PK.

not only was there that shit but it happened far more than whatever it is ur talking about now and as i said before the only reason it seems that way now is because for a long time ppl had normalized giving a shit about pcs and i am telling u that u started playing some time after the standards had been set and the fuckery dropped a lot after staff did way more regulating

u r also dead wrong about templars executing at the drop of a hat in fact but again ur timeframe starts after way more regulating was going on

ur strawman of rogue mages and delves has nothing to do with what im talking about and gringoose brought it up directly (and hes talking -after- the time period u started playing so maybe ur debate really is with him since ur exp during that time period apparently wasnt shared) talking about mundane killings so dont act like our point was abt delves and rogue mages who have themed licenses to get away with more of that shit (and even they did it way more than delves and rogue mages now)

lets be clear the shit were talking abt is literally random runthru killings by mundane ppl uve never seen before there was just less regulation then except for if u went at pearl or some other staff friend

the only thing right abt ur post is that ur normal has been that way for so long that ppl lose their damn minds and think the sky is falling when u get two maybe three ppl randomly attacking ppl within a couple weeks

tldr dont conflate us telling u about the much higher accts of random mundane attacks with another argument of urs about their being more 'proper pvp' back then because we have shit all to do with that point

if u want to avoid undermining ur argument abt the lack of reasons for pvp then u should completely avoid comparing the earliest and most current game eras in terms of random mundane attacks

In this thread are two totally overblown conclusions, that luir's is gone, that the RPT had anything to do with content removal (opposite, it is content addition), and ends with assertions that Templars PK too much.

The rate of templar PK hasn't significantly changed since I started playong over a decade ago.

Think there is the effect of a noob's looking glass here and honestly ya'll are starting to sound like MAGA hat wearers shouting for YER FREEDUMS up in here.