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Post by desertsexsimulator on Jul 22, 2020 5:10:43 GMT -5
God, Heade gave off such rapey vibes in that OP. And in general. Both on the GDB, and when he plays characters that lock people in offices and not-so-subtly suggest that they can't leave until they RP giving a blowjob to his power fantasy character, or refuse and get ostracized by him and his frieng group. #NoConsent is a stupid hashtag created by a stupid player who shouldn't be allowed to play the game, but is favored enough by staff that he skirts by.
As for the argument in this thread about civil rights, censorship, and free speech... what the fuck are you talking about?
1: Not all ideas deserve equal air time, especially when they're as stupid as Heade's.
2: Armageddon is privately run and can do whatever it wants to control discourse on their site. Even if they are snowflake morons about it.
In fact I'd go so far as to argue that retards like Heade give cover to the staff when they go on their censorship campaigns, because Heade's rampant stupidity provides an obvious reason to shut a thread down. He is too much of a moron to use the GDB without parental supervision. Maybe if players expressed a modicum of intelligence when arguing against staff, their threads wouldn't be as blatantly stupid, and it would be harder to justify shutting them down within ten total replies.
Now let's look at what happened in Bebop's torture thread, where Bebop pointed out an obvious example of staff corruption and her thread got shut down. That is more comparable to government censorship you're laughably comparing staff's censorship efforts to, since authoritarian governments tend to censor criticism of the government, not some lunatic standing on a street corner yelling about how he should be able to rape people in an edgelord's sand-filled fantasy. But the reason why Bebop's thread was locked was not because Bebop was criticizing staff policy. It was locked because Triste, Heade, and Thomoto hijacked the thread and made it about their own stupid argument about voting or some nonsense.
The other threads that were locked were absolute shitshows. I agree staff shouldn't be locking threads they don't like left and right. But if Armageddon players weren't such absolute dumb assholes on average, they would go about expressing criticism in a way they'll actually be heard. They're not going to be heard on the GDB, ever, because staff silence intelligent criticism of the game as soon as one person fucks it up for everyone else. People should be posting their criticism here or on Reddit.
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Post by desertsexsimulator on Jul 22, 2020 5:53:20 GMT -5
Maybe just ban sex entirely from Arm? If you want to have mudsex you can just play a smut game. I guarantee you that Producers know this is the right move in terms of starting to repair the game's toxic culture, but they also know that if they do this they will lose a significant chunk of their playerbase, and their most active storytellers will walk away. The immediate loss in players will be so big that the player count will spiral downward as people who never mudsexed before anyway fail to find people to play with and decide to leave. Armageddon will become a ghost town like SoI within a year of mudsex being banned. That's the only thing stopping Armageddon staff from doing the right thing. Fun fact: I logged into Shangrila exactly one time in my life, with a character named Shalooonsh. I did it for a laugh (was hanging out with an ex-staffer who brought the idea up). It took 10 minutes for someone to page me to ask if I was from Armageddon. I expected it to take about half an hour. The point is, RPIs and smut games have a sizable chunk of player crossover. I don't think there's anything wrong with smut games and frankly, I appreciate their existence. I'd rather that you pretend to fuck a dog on the internet than fuck my dog IRL. In that regard, at the end of the day the existence of smut games is a necessity. But half the game's players treat Armageddon as a smut game already. Ban smut and there's nothing for them to log in for. |
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Post by terminal on Jul 22, 2020 7:12:31 GMT -5
seems more likely the player base will die out due to the fact that everyone wants to just continuously blame everything else.
attempting to address toxic culture and then launching into a tirade about heade, mudsex and staff is pretty tone deaf.
we probably benefit from taking ourselves a bit less serious.
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jkarr
GDB Superstar
Posts: 2,070
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Post by jkarr on Jul 22, 2020 9:31:13 GMT -5
tldr ppl must have sex to keep the world populated plus i dont give two shits why someone plays the game or what gets their rocks off and neither should u because 1 how is that my chars problem 2 why r u making that ur problem if ur here to roleplay ur char and not ur ooc issues and 3 if ur a bitch about absorbing the full effect of some of the horrible things that can happen to ur char in game then it doesnt help ur argument to use weak char assassination (no not pk lol) attempts on someone arguing to return shit that staff has been perfectly fine supporting for entire decades if u could actually argue his pts u wouldnt be focused on attacking him and appealing to others ooc moral conventions to justify cherrypicking that from a whole buffet of other themedefining and fucked up elements of the game world that ur meanwhile perfectly fine letting others play out in graphic detail much less at all #makesomeactualpointsorgtfo oh also re laughably limited slave roles #letthemplaytheother60%ofallanak |
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punished ppurg
GDB Superstar
Why are we still here? Just to suffer?
Posts: 1,098 
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Post by punished ppurg on Jul 22, 2020 11:12:27 GMT -5
There was an interesting point raised in the Shadowspeak. Armageddon has an issue of sponsored roles or characters in a position of power leveraging said power to gain sexual proclivities with their surrogates. I distinctly recall a response on the GDB from Nyr that was outlining the staff team's definition of rape (that has since been deleted to my knowledge); and I'll try to summarize it in short. Basically, use of force to commence sexual activities is considered rape; but the ultimatum of, "You will have sex with me or I will kill you" is fine. Not only is this loophole employing a blatantly wrong definition of the concept of rape — it has proliferated the exploitation of this loophole by the mudsexers that, if left unfettered, would be the ones pursuing rape scenes in the game.
Is Heade a text rapist? That doesn't particularly matter to me, personally. What bothers me is that the Armageddon staff team's lackadaisical tagline of "Murder, Corruption, Betrayal" becomes perfectly encapsulated in these scenarios of locking your lackey in your office and telling them they can either put out or die. These are, by definition, the themes that Armageddon is attempting to summon in its world-building. It does not surprise me at all that this loophole has gone unaddressed for so long. This is the pinnacle of the experience that Armageddon purports to offer its playerbase — it's the tagline!
In a perfect world with ethical leadership in the Armageddon team, any such players that somehow slipped the screening process and employed this sort of fantastical "office rape" scenario would be immediately stored and blacklisted from any position of leadership over other players. And let me tell you why. Sponsored roles especially form the face of authority structure in the game: code and MUD building serves as the backbone, but it is generally understood that sponsored roles are to operate at a higher role of bringing certain themes alive in the game environment. This is without a doubt a relatively important responsibility to the integrity of the game world. For someone to pursue this position of power (and be placed in it!), only then to use this position in pursuit of fantastical office rape scenarios — it shows a fundamental betrayal of trust on the part of the would-be text rapist. And the general understanding that the staff team allows these interactions to happen unimpeded dictates, to me, that even the caretakers have a fundamentally rotten position on the integrity of the game.
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gristle
staff puppet account
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Post by gristle on Jul 22, 2020 14:37:27 GMT -5
This is a desert sexgame you're talking about.
Tbh, that isn't really relevant.
I suppose, I may be on the extreme fringe, but I'm of the opinion that censorship, or any other means of curtailing personal expression, is criminal. You're as entitled to your voice as I am, and even if I disagree with you on whatever subject, I wouldn't support any degree of gag order, on your person. Even if all you're talking about is elf buttsex in the desert. I'll argue with you (but, not about elf buttsex, thats fine, do elf buttsex today) if I feel like it, or just throw fuel on whatever fire happens to be burning if it'll be fun, but I won't ever, ever support someone forcing you to keep your views to yourself.
Like, my fan from the GDB, who came over hiding behind a random name, to tell me his happy feels about my GDB political ban. I like that he can. I like that, you know... even as a coward, he can still say what he wants to say, and nobody here is going to moderate it, if it isn't axing into someones personal space. Its important that he doesn't get moderated. It matters, for everyone.
Not to go all USA politics? I know, its rather a tired thing by now. But, lots of people are forgetting how much, and how valuable, basic freedoms of expression are, for everyone, everywhere. Everyone deserves it, and it shouldn't be taken away, because you're him or her, or what God you believe in (or don't), in this or that, or you're from this place and not that one. It doesn't matter colors, or politics, or what you conceal under your clothes, or what you identify with. Even if its on some dysfunctional discount forum, for some past date game, that like maybe fifty people in the entire world, actually even play anymore. It still matters.
Even little things, inconsequential today, build trends, and most first world countries are trending towards a really, really bad, dystopian place, imo. Its people being OK with censorship when it isn't affecting them or only used against those with opposing opinions, and mainstreaming of things like government surveillance, information farming, profiling, and others, if it gets them a discount or saves them a minor troublesome situation later, or provides the illusion of security, that is enabling that direction. I'm not one prone to fright. You know, I've seen some shit. But, that direction we're going in, by choice no less, is utterly terrifying to me. It's the worst possible destination for the species, yet we pick up speed towards it every single day.
It's little allowances, that make people think its OK, or even normal to give up their freedoms bit by bit. Even on the internet. Especially, on the internet. That what they give up now, won't cost them later, or that the cost is worth the short term gains, even if the gains are imaginary. But, it always costs too much. Always, always, its too much.
I don't support any of this pro rape shit on the GDB, or that we should be pushing people into stuff they don't want to be involved in, but, you know... I'm content saying I don't agree with it, and calling them all pedo cunts for their degeneracy. I don't agree with moderating them into the ground, or trying to fight their ideas and opinions with gag orders and passing it off as "keeping things civil". Fuck that. Fuck ALL of that, its total bullshit. There is nothing civil about that.
Only a desert sexy time game, but, it's still people playing the game, and trying (and usually, failing) to speak up with their opinions / thoughts and be heard. It still matters. Its still an opportunity, to push back against those trends.
No, it really doesn't matter. |
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punished ppurg
GDB Superstar
Why are we still here? Just to suffer?
Posts: 1,098
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Post by punished ppurg on Jul 22, 2020 14:49:50 GMT -5
Bad take. Of course it matters. If you're staffing a game with a niche community (especially a MUD) and you're not accepting input from your community, the only people you're going to maintain are the loyalists. Everyone else is going to leave. Look at Shadows of Isildur. Big schism in the community, staff shut down all discussion. Game dies. Many such cases in the MUD community. The moment people realize that their voice doesn't matter or isn't allowed to matter, they are at immense liberty to pick up and move elsewhere when they cease deriving enjoyment from the game.
Desert Sex Game clearly has issues, and those issues need to be discussed publicly. It has been made plainly obvious over the past five years that the staff team is incapable of resolving these discussions internally. Better, more logical and reasonable minds exist within the community than anybody on the team could hope to approach. If one ignores the vector of those voices or censors the platform for those voices, then they are rejecting that resource for improvement of the game. Matters a lot.
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gristle
staff puppet account
Posts: 26
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Post by gristle on Jul 22, 2020 15:21:38 GMT -5
Well yeah, it matters in having a good community. Not in whatever sociopolitical impact Vex is having a schizophrenic break about.
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Post by pinkerdlu on Jul 22, 2020 15:37:58 GMT -5
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MartenBroadcloak
Displaced Tuluki
It's not a shit post if you spell check (tm)
Posts: 370
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Post by MartenBroadcloak on Jul 22, 2020 15:44:59 GMT -5
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jimping
staff puppet account
Posts: 32
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Post by jimping on Jul 22, 2020 16:00:01 GMT -5
1 how is that my chars problem 2 why r u making that ur problem if ur here to roleplay ur char and not ur ooc issues and 3 if ur a bitch about absorbing the full effect of some of the horrible things that can happen to ur char in game then it doesnt help ur argument to use weak char assassination (no not pk lol) attempts on someone arguing to return shit that staff has been perfectly fine supporting for entire decades One, it would be your character's problem if you tried to join House Jal and the leader in place happened to be a pervert. Two, it would be an OOC issue regardless of your OOC feelings because the pervert in question is doing it to get their OOC rocks off, like you mentioned. Three, the shit isn't happening to your character for world building reasons, it's happening because some old retard is horny. You are putting too much stock into the intentions of text game rapists. Yeah you could argue "just go somewhere else" but that's far from a good solution. If you've played the game recently you'd understand how hard it is to get actual game shit done due to the archetypes of leadership right now. Guy who never logs on, ESL 3WPMs who go afk every half a minute, grimdark losers who look for any excuse to kill anyone, and finally the inconsolable pervert who is too busy erping or chasing erp to fulfill orders or even show up in public. Of all of these morons to spur further, I'd say giving the pervert justification to rape would lead to and even more inaccessible game and game world the most. |
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jkarr
GDB Superstar
Posts: 2,070
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Post by jkarr on Jul 22, 2020 17:00:28 GMT -5
1 how is that my chars problem 2 why r u making that ur problem if ur here to roleplay ur char and not ur ooc issues and 3 if ur a bitch about absorbing the full effect of some of the horrible things that can happen to ur char in game then it doesnt help ur argument to use weak char assassination (no not pk lol) attempts on someone arguing to return shit that staff has been perfectly fine supporting for entire decades One, it would be your character's problem if you tried to join House Jal and the leader in place happened to be a pervert. that would depend on how ur char felt about the pervert the terms and what they end up trying to do with them Two, it would be an OOC issue regardless of your OOC feelings because the pervert in question is doing it to get their OOC rocks off, like you mentioned. if they arent breaking game rules and are playing in line with docs then ur focus on their ooc motivation is a personal prob Three, the shit isn't happening to your character for world building reasons, it's happening because some old retard is horny. one theyre not mutually exclusive and two roleplaying is done for its own sake and world building or quenching dat thirst or whatever impulse the player has to animate their char to do shit is irrelevent if theyre playing realisticly in line with docs and not breaking game rules You are putting too much stock into the intentions of text game rapists. id say thats ur root problem right there since all ive been doing is trying to encourage u to stop giving so many fucks abt why any player is motivated to do or play anything Yeah you could argue "just go somewhere else" but that's far from a good solution. it worked just fine for ness and co until they started changing their hustle post 2010 If you've played the game recently you'd understand how hard it is to get actual game shit done due to the archetypes of leadership right now. this should be good Guy who never logs on, ESL 3WPMs who go afk every half a minute, lololol grimdark losers who look for any excuse to kill anyone, if ur a leader in a fighting clan those can be fun to correct and finally the inconsolable pervert who is too busy erping or chasing erp to fulfill orders or even show up in public. yep so be the change and enforce what would happen to any clanmate who isnt doing their duty or making appearances regardless of why Of all of these morons to spur further, I'd say giving the pervert justification to rape would lead to and even more inaccessible game and game world the most. rape steal betray torture murder cannibalize all of these are thematic and appropriate things that create conflict and develop stories its fine to not like one of the more than the other but it doesnt make a case for removing it on any other grounds than staff caring too much about complaints in the 1st place and then finding the most hamfisted but expedient way to solve their overcaring issue |
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jimping
staff puppet account
Posts: 32
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Post by jimping on Jul 22, 2020 17:18:56 GMT -5
It sounds like you're cool with people pulling their dick out at your expense, and if that's your thing then okay but I'm good on that. In the end I'm not even coming from it in a "that's wrong and gross" aspect but with a high suspicion introducing that sort of roleplay again will only further the game's stagnation caused by people taking up cool roles and using them to get off, while not doing much else. I can name upwards of 5 current leadership PCs who are borderline inaccessible at peak because that's primetime dick sucking hours. There is absolutely room for such themes in a better world, but I don't trust the current player base with it in the slightest.
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Post by gringoose on Jul 22, 2020 18:22:59 GMT -5
Unfortunately, I don't think the toxic culture of Arm can be fixed. Arm is high investment and high stakes due to permanent death and that brings out the worst in people. People are able to exert a lot of pressure on you that they can't do in other games. That's why extorting and sex works and it's in such a gray area that any rule against it can't be enforced. People that do it now already carefully toe the line and maintain plausible deniability.
Here's an example:
A Templar has accused you of a serious crime and starts making sexual advances on you. The implication is have sex with him or die. He's not directly threatening you and he has lots of plausible deniability but both you and him know, that if you refuse him that he's going to kill you, or kill you at some later time. Due to the power imbalance he may as well be some ruffian holding a knife to your neck and making direct demands. The intentions are the same, the power imbalance is the same and the only difference is one is explicit and the other is implicit.
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Post by pinkerdlu on Jul 22, 2020 19:54:13 GMT -5
One of jkarr's many inane opinions Reading it is like listening to nails on a chalk board Sorry jkarr, we've had some good times together, but that's unfortunately a shit and le cringe post that you just made. I agree with jimping and gringoose. I don't necessarily think removing adult content/mudsex would be the best solution, but I do believe that the toxic and possibly reprehensible behavior that we see largely stems from boredom, lack of content to pursue and poor game design that has resulted in this poorly balanced power structure where most sponsored roles are nigh untouchable simply because of the virtual authority and staff backing that they inherited by taking the role. If characters were on the same playing field/facing the same issues and had to rely on each other like in an actual collaborative storytelling experience or tabletop game, you'd see less unreasonable behavior. But people know they won't get slapped on the wrist (or at least to a level that deters them) by staff or the playerbase, so they carry out these questionable acts. The example that gringoose brought up with the Templar is quite common, not just among Templars, but with any role that has a level of virtual power that most other characters can simply never obtain through IG means. Minor Merchant House members (Instructors), Merchants, Dealers, Templars, and perhaps more commonly, animated NPCs and staff avatars. That example doesn't even cover the levels of jealousy and spite that also come into play. Could these be IC reactions to IC acts? Sure, but they're unsavory, questionable (often skirting around the rules), I don't think anyone enjoys playing these situations out or suffering the consequences of what they entail, and we see this play out way too often. Yes, it actually makes sense for people in positions of power to leverage their position and authority in order to attract the opposite sex. However, most players in sponsored roles tend to do this in a downright odd and creepy manner, often focusing solely on it, whilst lacking any competence when it comes to catering to the rest of the game world, being active and available, and failing to demonstrate real leadership skills and ability. Armageddon is not a meritocracy. When you put shitty players in powerful roles and don't give them any reason to be competent and skillful, no wonder they drag their minions off and focus on some virtual fucking. Even worse, often times a large chunk of the playerbase will recognize that said sponsored role character is trash (be it Dealer, Templar or Instructor) but the virtual monopolies and power structures backing up such roles make it so that players have NO OPTION but to interact with them. This is often the only thing propping up shitty chars in such roles... others have no choice but to go through them and interact with them if they want to play in said sphere where the role is present. Such roles have been scaring off players since the dawn of time. Ways to possibly fix this? 1. Balance the power structure and remove as many glass ceilings as possible. (Won't happen in Armageddon.) 2. Put people on the same playing field or give them IG/IC reasons to be as reasonable and well-liked as possible. (Won't happen in Armageddon.) 3. Automatically reveal who played who, 6 months after a character's death. This would work to increase player accountability, as each player would be aware of other players and what type of characters they are consistently playing. This would work to open up transparency between both the staff and players. (Won't happen in Armageddon.) 4. Have staff members carefully watch sponsored roles for behavior that is considered highly questionable or harmful to the playerbase. Of course, this would entirely depend on how observant the staff members are, and their own personal interpretation of what's acceptable and what's actually happening between the characters and if they feel like it's something where action needs to be taken. As far as we know, this is what already happens. This allows plenty of room for poor decision making and favoritism, and fails to address reoccurring issues and themes that we see IG. (Do better??) There's also the idea that Armageddon has long lost most good/competent players who were interested in storytelling, good conflict and a fun game. And that a good chunk of the remaining players are just there to get their rocks off and enjoy some good ol' desert sex simulator gameplay with a side of bone swords. I agree with this take for the most part. I think players tend to get the staff team that they deserve, and well, things have been going downhill for a long time on both sides of the coin. |
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