mehtastic
GDB Superstar
Armers Anonymous sponsor
Posts: 1,699
|
Post by mehtastic on Apr 29, 2020 10:09:37 GMT -5
There's an interesting thread on the GDB Bebop posted called "Playability vs Gameplay". I won't quote the whole thing here because it's huge, but I recommend reading it for yourselves: gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,55670.0.html It's a long post, so here's the main thrust of it: There's about a page of decent exchange, until Brokkr steps in to make sure the problem is squarely on players who log in just to get Way messages: Bebop is currently trying to bring the discussion back to game-related reasons why players self-isolate, and suggests players should come up with reasons to interact. This is a fairly common attitude among RP-focused MUDs: the expectation that players establish "hooks" for their characters, and even advertise them OOCly, to give people ideas on how to start interacting with their character. She does also suggest that "the game needs to do something to encourage them to stop [isolating]", which would clearly be a staff-related effort. She also notes "Allanak is becoming more and more like Tuluk", where "social norms are subverted and those trying to drive player conflict are shafted". The world "needs to build [reasons in the game for clans to clash, go to each other for resources, or care about interacting with one another]". This seems plainly obvious to most RP-focused MUD developers, in games like Apocalypse, After Earth, Arx, and more. Why doesn't Armageddon grasp it? |
|
|
|
Post by lechuck on Apr 29, 2020 12:46:30 GMT -5
Staff unsurprisingly chooses to hold the view that completely divests them of any obligation to do anything about it.
Is he seriously trying to say that this decline began when people transitioned from computer labs and telnet clients to personal computers and Windows in the fucking 90s? Or that alt-tabbing away from your MUD client is something people only started doing in the last six years or something?
|
|
jkarr
GDB Superstar
Posts: 2,070
|
Post by jkarr on Apr 29, 2020 13:38:37 GMT -5
thats right mud clients for over two decades have had warning flashing tab capabilities his argument is fucking stupid but the only thing he got right is sponsored roles holing up away from others because their idling has become that fucking long and iresponsible and unsafe due to using their fuckphones which means 2/3 of their actual playtime is spent from behind a compound  |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2020 20:13:20 GMT -5
I dont think phones are the only culprit.
Why "risk" your sponsored role interacting with the unwashed 0 karma masses?
If that sounds like an angry indictment of a play style, it really isnt. Once you lose a few pcs doing something, you just dont do it anymore. Add in the value placed on character longevity and the relative difficulty in getting another sponsored role, and some risk averse behavior is likely.
Let me be more direct.
I dont get much out of playing with the social players on their turf. I'm not going to get my turn playing a noble. If so, that would have have happened 5+ years ago. I played my share of short lived pc aides. I played a couple gemmed who seemed to only be valued to feed a literal torture porn fetish.
I dont get much out of playing with the "haha bang fuck you are dead" griefer crowd. I've documented the reasons well elsewhere.
Cry all you want about other players not coming to play on your "home turf". If I dont trust you to collaborate on story, I'll keep my pcs somewhere in the wilderness.
|
|
vex
Clueless newb
Posts: 133
|
Post by vex on Apr 30, 2020 3:52:52 GMT -5
Cry all you want about other players not coming to play on your "home turf". If I dont trust you to collaborate on story, I'll keep my pcs somewhere in the wilderness.
Pretty much, exactly that, 100%
It tends to be the people who drive others away, that go to the GDB to champion "come out and rp more!". It reminds me, of a thread I read a while back, where someone more or less said "There needs to be more good guys and softies", which essentially translated to me as, "please come be the victim to my power fantasy". There is no small number of people there, who want to make themselves out to be the voice of reason, or the good/honest RPer, who just wants to make the game better for everyone, but are actually some of the worst fucking hypocrites, you'll ever encounter. The GDB, is especially rife with them.
The best rp, tends to be in the wilderness, where there aren't really any clans, or sponsor roles, or people with npcs to weaponize or immunity to said npcs. Everyone wants a little RP out there, and typically, the people you run into way out there are complete unknowns. They could be sleeper badasses, who grind in secret, or some sorc, or few witches hanging out for the mudsex/magick rps, without some so-boring-it-hurts templar telling them they aren't allowed to have mudsex/rps, or some other random thing that can totally ruin your day. So, lots of those people, tend to having really relaxed murder boners. Lots of tension, but usually, people just want to do a little rp and get back to whatever they were doing. Sometimes, it turns into something cool, and sometimes it's just a little flavor for your day.
While, I won't actively ignore / avoid aides and other socials/sponsors, I do have my own strict little rule, of never engaging with garrison/aod/templars, because experience has shown that time and again, for every one of them, that is actively interested in playing out that role in a reasonable manner, there are half a dozen more, who just want to basically grief you under the pretense of "corruption". The worst, tend to be the Sergeants / Captains, who basically get handed a free pc w/ good stats and piles of skill bumps without actually having to work for them, and decide to go flex their borrowed muscles on anyone they can conjure up a reason, to mess with.
Just, its not worth taking the chance, of hanging out with someone who will just surprise stand, draw and attack, with 4-8 npcs instantly rushing to assist them, without a hint of warning, in the middle of a tavern.
I didn't START like that, and would rp with anyone, even hang out with people who were potentially dangerous, but time and experience have shown, Arm is NOT a game mature enough, where you can trust people on the honor system, or to strive for any kind of mutually engaging story. It simply isnt how it works, at all.
They press every shady advantage, run with the flimsiest of excuses, and metagame hard, in their pursuit of a win. That's how it is, and I can't foresee it changing.
I had lots more fun, before I realized how fucking crooked every aspect of the game really was.
Its one of the few games, however, that (usually) don't care if you're gay/bi/weird/whatever, so I still hang around, but it isn't fun like it used to be. |
|
mehtastic
GDB Superstar
Armers Anonymous sponsor
Posts: 1,699
|
Post by mehtastic on Apr 30, 2020 5:24:42 GMT -5
And to be clear, that aptly summarizes a big point made in the thread: the game world punishes play considered to be "good play", in the sense that it's the kind of play that meets karma requirements.
The game doesn't punish you for just playing on your own. It does eventually get around to punishing you if you're interacting with people who have no qualms about using coded power to eliminate you as soon as you possibly become a thorn in their side. It does punish you if you threaten the NPC hierarchy somehow. It does punish you if you try to request virtual resources afforded to you by your clan instead of coded resources.
Also, to be clear, Brokkr's "it's kids these days and their newfangled phones" defense is a poor excuse and ultimately a distraction for what amounts to a problem caused by staff inaction in some cases, and staff overreaction in others. Mudding on mobile devices is probably the least convenient way to MUD in general, and Armageddon is probably the worst RPI to idle in on a phone. The chief reason being the hunger/thirst code. God forbid you don't get an alert for your starvation messages and idle yourself to death on your phone... the risk is not worth the reward. What Brokkr's really talking about are the people who play Arm on their computer and play another, more fun game on the side while they wait for something to happen on Arm. And the only reason for that is that they can't find anything worthwhile to do on Arm. They're logging in to show they're present, and that's it. Compare to any other RP-focused game on the "market", many of which have smaller playerbases but host them in a more condensed manner, to ensure interaction is always available, a staff that tries to find a way to say "yes" or "yes, but" to any player that asks about plot assistance, and a friendlier, more trusting, and less griefing community.
|
|
|
|
Post by lechuck on Apr 30, 2020 5:43:35 GMT -5
It wasn't always like that, Vex. The character types that you identify as the kind you want to avoid are the ones that depend the most on the existence of an overarching story in the game. Soldiers, templars, nobles, aides, sergeants--these roles have been tarnished by the death of genuine stories in Armageddon. They were pivotal to the game during times like the Tuluk occupation and liberation, the mantis invasion, the Copper War and even the ill-fated Reborn escapades. They had a real purpose back then, so their players weren't constantly compelled to flex their advantages all over other players just for the sake of feeling like they had a reason to exist. While there have always been shitty players who think it's funny to fuck with others, most were focused on the things happening around the world. That was the outlet for the desire to play a templar or military leader.
If you roll up a noble or templar today, what the fuck are you even supposed to be doing? There'll be the occasional cardboard mini-plot cooked up for the purpose of making people feel like there's something going on, but those things aren't satisfying for any real length of time. You can only "deal with the cannibal raiders" so many times before you realize that none of it mattered, it was just a sidequest to occupy your mind. With no wars, political intrigue or meaningful crises, you just end up combing the city for things you can do that make you feel like it even makes sense to play a templar instead of a raider/rukkian who can waltz around the world at will and do whatever. That means inspecting everyone's backpacks and punching all the elves and shit, and one day you find a lockpick in someone's underpants and you go HAH, NOW I GET TO BE A TEMPLAR! IT'S BEEN WEEKS!
The phenomenon that you describe is (sorry for the cliché) a product of its environment. That trigger-happy garrison sergeant probably doesn't see himself as a griefer and didn't have any intentions of ruining things for you, but when he finally finds something that lets him step into his role, after all that time with nothing to do, he approaches it like a junkie finding an unattended ambulance. Players did not just decide one day to become shitheads who make people steer clear of them. Armageddon has become a game of 190 junkies in plot withdrawal and 10 that are buddies with the right people who supply them with premium heroin so they can tell everyone else how wrong they are about the shortage of good drugs in the area and they should just get better at finding the good stuff. And then staff blames smartphones for everything.
|
|
mehtastic
GDB Superstar
Armers Anonymous sponsor
Posts: 1,699
|
Post by mehtastic on Apr 30, 2020 6:49:34 GMT -5
When I read about players not having anything to do in a game, I think back to a post on r/MUD posted by a user called Clear-Guide, about how they quit Armageddon. Basically, they requested plot assistance from staff and were told by staff that they would have to keep at it for at least 3 more RL months (or to put it another way, 2 IG years) before anything happened. They broke down in tears and decided Armageddon wasn't the game for them.
Staff's pattern of behavior, designed purely to slow down player progress, has been around for years. I was around for the Tuluk rebuilding plots in the early 2010s, and it was absurd and embarrassing that it took 20 IG years to clear rubble and build a few tents in a part of Tuluk. But it wasn't the fault of the players involved at all - if anything, we were a bit too patient with staff.
At this stage of the game you'd have to be incredibly naive to think that, as soon as it's "your turn" to be in the spotlight as a noble or templar, that you'll get assistance from staff on a level that you never got before. Players are doing what they can with the roleplaying tools they're given. And if all you're given is crimcode immunity, a few Dragon Shouts, and the ability to order soldiers, and told to make your own fun, then you're going to use the tools you have. If all your tools allow you to do is arrest people and magically banish people to the Arena, then you're going to arrest people and banish people to the Arena.
And in some cases (like playing a GMH family member) you're not even given that much. The only thing you can do with RW cavilish is keep a diary.
Staff could solve this by giving players plot hooks and things to investigate, but I'm not in the business of designing a game for a bunch of lazy assholes, so I'll keep my comments at that.
|
|
|
|
Post by lechuck on Apr 30, 2020 7:32:49 GMT -5
I don't even think they need to pamper individuals with plot hooks and shit. We know they won't do that, and it can be argued that it's beyond reasonable expectations. But something like a fucking story that affects the world as a whole and that players can participate in beyond the twice-monthly animation of gith or whatever the fuck this game has devolved into. I keep bringing up wars because that serves as a prime example of what I mean. If staff hadn't unceremoniously erased Tuluk from the map, all it would take for them to instantaneously amplify the tension in the game by 5000% is to have one of the god-kings declare war on the other.
Overnight everyone would have something to care about, and every character could find some angle to interact with something like that. Soldiers would need to prepare for time at the front, merchants would need to decide which city to side with, nobles would need to find out ways to finance the war effort, criminals could spy on the enemy or feed them information, tribals would have to decide which population is welcome in their lands, and so on. It could take no more effort from staff than a few echoes and board posts informing the playerbase that there's now a war, and then players could decide the outcome. No need to write up elaborate storylines and whatnot. Players could decide when and where to fight, and it might play out like a small-scale version of EVE Online. Even those who don't care for the unsightly spam of mass DIKU combat could find a way to take part in a war effort without joining the actual battles.
But that shit can't happen anymore because some idiot once decided hey, let's focus on player-run plots; and staff then realized that this meant they didn't have to do anything, and if players complained about anything, they had a ready excuse. When the game then falls apart because players can't run plots without any fucking support, we'll just blame phones and the fact that the playerbase is supposedly getting so old that they can't have their characters step outside their barracks and apartments. I guess everyone's just alt-tabbed. Jesus fucking Christ.
This entire setting is built on the idea of wars. Almost every major event in the history of Zalanthas revolved around it. Two cities locked in eternal struggle was the literal essence of Armageddon until fucking Nyr decided that he needed something to be remembered by. Ever since then, Armageddon has been garbage. You can't build a game around the concept of two warring city-states, then remove one of them and expect things to continue along at a steady pace. It's ridiculous. If people didn't like playing in Tuluk, change it into something they like. If people didn't like 15v15 DIKU combat, invent coded systems that make it more playable. Don't just chop off half of the game and leave it to die.
Players and their RL age did not cause this to happen. This used to be a trailblazing game that sired a genre, and then idiots let it turn to shit.
|
|
mehtastic
GDB Superstar
Armers Anonymous sponsor
Posts: 1,699
|
Post by mehtastic on Apr 30, 2020 8:45:33 GMT -5
Agreed 100%, and I've stated multiple times in the past that a metaplot of some kind would serve the game well. The open display of staff's attitude that game inactivity is largely the players' fault, as evidenced by Brokkr's phones/idling comments, paints staff's view of the state of the game quite well, IMO. The staff don't see their own role in the game's stagnation, don't care to see how other games are innovating off of Armageddon's old ideas while Armageddon in particular stagnates, and the end result is what we see today.
And to be clear, this is Brokkr's opinion we're talking about - a producer, and a junior one at that, meaning he likely has the largest responsibility over the game, as it's traditional for junior producers to be saddled with the most responsibility while the other producers kick back. So you effectively have a situation where the people responsible for the general direction of the progress of the game world believe that there is nothing they can do to move the game along and that it is players' responsibility to create something from nothing.
|
|
|
|
Post by lechuck on Apr 30, 2020 9:07:08 GMT -5
I've noticed for quite a while that Brokkr always happens to step into whatever sphere of opinion allows him to say that nothing can be done about it. Time and time again, his responses to GDB discussions fall into that category of bullshitting players with half-truths and questionable anecdotes. Remember when he said he'd made a character that effortlessly maxed out several weapon skills and everything, as a counter to the complaints that characters stopped missing their attacks at journeyman? I stopped taking him seriously then. He's a real bullshit artist whose first goal is to kill the discussion. I have no idea who he is beyond his role as coder, but he is to ArmageddonMUD what Fox News is to America.
|
|
gdbjohn
staff puppet account
Posts: 25
|
Post by gdbjohn on Apr 30, 2020 9:47:59 GMT -5
I've noticed for quite a while that Brokkr always happens to step into whatever sphere of opinion allows him to say that nothing can be done about it. Time and time again, his responses to GDB discussions fall into that category of bullshitting players with half-truths and questionable anecdotes. Remember when he said he'd made a character that effortlessly maxed out several weapon skills and everything, as a counter to the complaints that characters stopped missing their attacks at journeyman? I stopped taking him seriously then. He's a real bullshit artist whose first goal is to kill the discussion. I have no idea who he is beyond his role as coder, but he is to ArmageddonMUD what Fox News is to America. |
|
gdbjohn
staff puppet account
Posts: 25
|
Post by gdbjohn on Apr 30, 2020 10:32:27 GMT -5
On the subject of Brokkr, another classic move in the mount spam thread.
Staff close the thread. Reopen it so Brokkr can have the last word. Then delete the evidence that it was closed before Brokkr made his last post.
Stay classy Brokkr. Stay classy.
|
|
mehtastic
GDB Superstar
Armers Anonymous sponsor
Posts: 1,699
|
Post by mehtastic on Apr 30, 2020 10:37:29 GMT -5
I've noticed for quite a while that Brokkr always happens to step into whatever sphere of opinion allows him to say that nothing can be done about it. Time and time again, his responses to GDB discussions fall into that category of bullshitting players with half-truths and questionable anecdotes. Remember when he said he'd made a character that effortlessly maxed out several weapon skills and everything, as a counter to the complaints that characters stopped missing their attacks at journeyman? I stopped taking him seriously then. He's a real bullshit artist whose first goal is to kill the discussion. I have no idea who he is beyond his role as coder, but he is to ArmageddonMUD what Fox News is to America. There's another thread on the GDB, "New mount spam is AWFUL!", which plainly shows staff's role on the GDB is to belittle, distract, and feign apology. The OP starts like this, pointing out a problem. Admittedly very bluntly, but not rudely: Staff overreact and take offense at the slightest of criticism: *sigh* Some of you really know how to make a staffer feel motivated. One of the team spent a LOT of time working on this to give you all something new/interesting to work with or use. Nice. Submit a bug/report - it'll get fixed. They use sarcasm when people use the GDB to report discrepancies with the code instead of the request tool, even though the staff are clearly reading the GDB and able to address issues: Hmmm, lets see...oh, nope, no bug reports in the request tool. Must not be that big of an issue! *don't report bugs here, don't report them in Discord Non-apologies are always fun. Note, when choosing a subject for your apologetic sentence, it should always be you or someone you're apologizing on behalf of, not the person you're apologizing to. I apologize if you felt I belittled. And still half of the posters in that thread are defending these staff members and their behavior. This is how they always communicate. The staff were not at all ready for the uptick in veterans returning to the game in the wake of COVID and are apparently eager to push back and ensure people know their place in the game. |
|
punished ppurg
GDB Superstar
Why are we still here? Just to suffer?
Posts: 1,098 
|
Post by punished ppurg on Apr 30, 2020 17:58:39 GMT -5
In the time it takes Shabago to whine, bitch, and moan on the GDB, a competent developer could have turned down the frequency of mount echoes.
Armageddon is not a game with competent developers.
|
|
