pinkerdlu
Shartist
The evil bad guy of a desert sex simulator. Real Necker
Posts: 521
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Post by pinkerdlu on Mar 26, 2023 15:10:26 GMT -5
I sympathize with Baron, but ultimately I do feel like the frustration is a little misguided. There were characters that I considered 'staff pets' until I got onto staff and saw how they were almost always fighting tooth-and-nail with staff to get the tiniest bit of traction for their efforts. Some recent examples that come to mind are Sicorra and Menkaura. Both were great, inclusive characters that you would've thought were favored from outside, but they actually struggled with getting staff support and happen to be very outspoken critics of the staff team.
Another older example, but still relevant, would be desertman and his character Koman Locke. That thread is floating around here somewhere.
At the end of the day, you really don't know what type of relationship players have with staff, regardless of what type of character they're playing. Are sorcerers and templars more likely to be fart huffers? Probably, yeah. But not always.
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Post by Barsook on Mar 26, 2023 19:50:17 GMT -5
So... while I think that "staff pets" most certainly exist in games, there's often a tendency by players to see some other players "getting cool things" and just assuming that those players are "staff pets". Sometimes this is true, but it is usually only true when you see a discrepency between effort and outcomes. For example: Rika getting the Savvy Spiders to become a mini-house, while Virshal's similar efforts with Eastrook rendered no such progress. It's a bad idea to just say that other players are staff pets because they're enjoying a cool story. More often than not, the cool story is due to the efforts of the players. And more often than not in any case where cool story is due to the efforts of players, especially where bad staff are involved, this cool story is *IN SPITE* of staff rather than because of any staff pet situation. Corrupt staff build resentment against the players who are putting in effort to make their own cool stories, because any railroading intentions or attempts at giving themselves or their pets things tend to get waylaid by the genuine players' efforts. And that's literally what you see in front of you with Ender and Delirium. Totally agreed here. I also experienced that when I played Mechant Phinna Salarr. I always felt overshadowed by Crew Leader, then promoted to Agent, Masa (who was a mindbender). I'm pretty sure that Masa was staff pet and while he tired to help Phinna, he ended up betraying her via hiring the Byn to "escort" her all the way back from Tuluk to Allank without stopping in Luir's only to get assassinated by the breed Lt. and the Runner with him while Sarge Laek was watching. Later I was told, by another member here, that the staff talked badly behind my back on how boring she was. Look I tired and they just didn't give a fuck. Also, on a unrelated topic, the staff is completely ignoring that three of the four Great Merchant Houses are northern founded- Kadus, Kurac, and Salarr.
What's funny though, I think I was the staff's pet back when I played Advisor Durik. I was allowed to be the face of House Tenesshi. Durik was going to get training to read and write but Tuluk closed.
It's weird what the staff does and how fucking dumb it is. I honestly think it's the same people over and over again cheating by using different names and roleplaying different avatars acting like staff.
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spyguy
staff puppet account
Posts: 14
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Post by spyguy on Mar 26, 2023 20:04:26 GMT -5
So... while I think that "staff pets" most certainly exist in games, there's often a tendency by players to see some other players "getting cool things" and just assuming that those players are "staff pets". Sometimes this is true, but it is usually only true when you see a discrepency between effort and outcomes. For example: Rika getting the Savvy Spiders to become a mini-house, while Virshal's similar efforts with Eastrook rendered no such progress. It's a bad idea to just say that other players are staff pets because they're enjoying a cool story. More often than not, the cool story is due to the efforts of the players. And more often than not in any case where cool story is due to the efforts of players, especially where bad staff are involved, this cool story is *IN SPITE* of staff rather than because of any staff pet situation. Corrupt staff build resentment against the players who are putting in effort to make their own cool stories, because any railroading intentions or attempts at giving themselves or their pets things tend to get waylaid by the genuine players' efforts. And that's literally what you see in front of you with Ender and Delirium. Totally agreed here. I also experienced that when I played Mechant Phinna Salarr. I always felt overshadowed by Crew Leader, then promoted to Agent, Masa (who was a mindbender). I'm pretty sure that Masa was staff pet and while he tired to help Phinna, he ended up betraying her via hiring the Byn to "escort" her all the way back from Tuluk to Allank without stopping in Luir's only to get assassinated by the breed Lt. and the Runner with him while Sarge Laek was watching. Later I was told, by another member here, that the staff talked badly behind my back on how boring she was. Look I tired and they just didn't give a fuck. Also, on a unrelated topic, the staff is completely ignoring that three of the four Great Merchant Houses are northern founded- Kadus, Kurac, and Salarr.
What's funny though, I think I was the staff's pet back when I played Advisor Durik. I was allowed to be the face of House Tenesshi. Durik was going to get training to read and write but Tuluk closed.
It's weird what the staff does and how fucking dumb it is. I honestly think it's the same people over and over again cheating by using different names and roleplaying different avatars acting like staff.
I've got to defend Masa here. Having played basically his best friend in playing Wren, the dude was awesome. He was not a mindbender, I believe he was a crafterclass / slipknife as far as I could tell from his skills. What he is is a very smart PC with a smart player behind it, I saw him go through a lot. He and I both also had our share of troubles with staff, we weren't staff pets. Why Phinna was killed I don't know, I was on break. I did feel bad when you entered that position because I believe the idea was to have Salarri family lead the diplomatic push to Tuluk since Masa was a known Allanaki partisan and Wren had been Captain during the Occupation of Luir's. But Tuluk was designed to be the death of RP for all outsiders and so Phinna was set up to fail. For what it's worth, Wren was going to leave Salarr to make room and so I didn't have to deal with Shalooonsh's bullshit.
As I said before, Arm most respects age of a character. I'm talking live a RL year of active play, do some shit (not necessarily a lot or too much because then you're a problem) and then maybe staff will start taking more of an interest in the PC. Most of the PCs who people look at as 'staff pets' were already very long lived by the time they achieved that status.
Edit: That said, I too am pissed. It's pretty clear some cheating was going on with Shalooonsh and that implicates all staff: those that enabled him, those who didn't supervise the process and those who didn't question why a resource PC was allowed to dominate one aspect of the game.
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Post by Barsook on Mar 26, 2023 20:40:25 GMT -5
I'm sorry but I really don't know who to trust anymore and I trying to not mean offense to anyone here. But perhaps it's my mistake on not waiting for Tuluk to open to see if I can get Chosen role instead of spec/role apping Phinna. I also am aware that Tuluk is set up to be SUPER xenophobic, but they shouldn't really forget their own history. Although you could ague about Tallis's Respite and even Yashia's Way from way back, that these characters were misremembered.
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baron
Clueless newb
Posts: 54
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Post by baron on Mar 26, 2023 21:32:18 GMT -5
I tried hard to avoid knowing the OOC side. It could be, for all I know, that my absolute all time favorite characters were played by Ender. I have no idea if that statement is true or false. All I know for certain is that he helmed one of all time least favorite plotlines, one that caused me to quit for almost a year. I learned that factoid...when I read the first post of this thread.
But therein lies the source of my complaint. I was actively trying to be a good little nerd, not engaging in OOC, not reading the leaks. It was only after I started metagaming that any of my characters achieved any traction. I got more karma and better roles after I started "cheating" than I ever did playing by a strict interpretation of the rules.
The staff says, "Find Out IC," but rewards, "OOC Politics and spoilers." I have to believe that the people with the most important and most "trusted" roles were the ones most engaged in the OOC side. From everything I've seen, that is almost certain to be true.
It's all too late now, but the solution is transparency, so that the community itself can check and balance the decisions of both staff and anointed players in trusted roles. For example, years too late for it to matter, I have learned that Ender played the key PC of a plotline I vehemently disliked.
Wouldn't have been nice if I were able to offer specific public feedback as to why I disliked that entire plotline ten bloody years ago? That would have been a healthy game. More importantly, it might have also been a community that was able to check and remove an abusive staff member like Slanoosh, because we'd be openly talking about his bullshit.
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Post by eukelade on Mar 27, 2023 0:39:18 GMT -5
I have never understood why staff run plots with the expectation that people won't leak info.
that's a guaranteed road to failure and resentment. Why would they not just write stories/run plots that don't rely on MAINTAINING ULTIMATE SECRECY in order to be cool and memorable? OR treat everyone like an adult who can make the choice about whether or not they want spoilers for their chosen form of story-based entertainment?
Making a story that falls apart if there is a leak, tossing it to a bunch of random unknown internet personalities, and then screeching about the leaks that happened (WHAT A HUGE SURPRISE!!!!!!) seems emotionally inefficient.
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Post by Barsook on Mar 27, 2023 4:43:12 GMT -5
I tried hard to avoid knowing the OOC side. It could be, for all I know, that my absolute all time favorite characters were played by Ender. I have no idea if that statement is true or false. All I know for certain is that he helmed one of all time least favorite plotlines, one that caused me to quit for almost a year. I learned that factoid...when I read the first post of this thread. But therein lies the source of my complaint. I was actively trying to be a good little nerd, not engaging in OOC, not reading the leaks. It was only after I started metagaming that any of my characters achieved any traction. I got more karma and better roles after I started "cheating" than I ever did playing by a strict interpretation of the rules. Cheating is just using your resources, which in my book, is okay to a point where it gets unfair to others. The staff playing multiple characters and having staff pets is true cheating because it not allowing others to have fun or sponsored leadership roles. That's abuse, which is true cheating. I had to ask to play Phinna Salarr instead of apping for her. And I never had success on even getting one in the first place just from a role call.
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mehtastic
GDB Superstar
Armers Anonymous sponsor
Posts: 1,328
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Post by mehtastic on Mar 27, 2023 4:55:54 GMT -5
I have never understood why staff run plots with the expectation that people won't leak info. that's a guaranteed road to failure and resentment. Why would they not just write stories/run plots that don't rely on MAINTAINING ULTIMATE SECRECY in order to be cool and memorable? OR treat everyone like an adult who can make the choice about whether or not they want spoilers for their chosen form of story-based entertainment? Making a story that falls apart if there is a leak, tossing it to a bunch of random unknown internet personalities, and then screeching about the leaks that happened (WHAT A HUGE SURPRISE!!!!!!) seems emotionally inefficient. This is just a guess but I think it's because of one of a few reasons:
- Staff just don't know what they're doing. Occam's Razor for the win.
- Staff are pursuing a plot half-heartedly and are looking for an excuse to stop supporting it so they can go back to playing Tax Heaven 3000 or whatever it is the staff are doing with their time these days
- Staff genuinely have high expectations of the playerbase and think that they can keep a secret as well as they can themselves. This is one I actually have more to say about, because I talked with Nergal a while after he quit and he basically told me that he burned out on running a plot (and, eventually, on staffing) for the same reason. His last big character was Raleris Winrothol and he said he was able to keep certain things about him a secret OOCly for years, and just assumed everyone else was able to do that too. When it became obvious that the initial plot details had leaked from a storyteller and then spread across the playerbase - not even a plot secret, just the element of surprise about said plot beginning - it sort of stole his thunder. He was prepping for the big reveal, and the impact would no longer be effective. But Nergal was like 25 at the time. I would expect the old men running the game today to have a little bit more experience with Arm's playerbase.
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Post by Azerbanjani on Mar 27, 2023 10:11:48 GMT -5
I'm 25 and I can't imagine playing the game in a way that involves keeping massive details secret. My last major Arm character had a single person I would tell everything too, because I knew they'd leak it to someone else eventually or their boss.
I also find it funny the staff might have high expectations of players in a game they barely give a fuck about outside of events they lead. They write plots and run them in ways that make me think they'd all use npcs and nothing else if they could.
I'm surprised they aren't already doing this but I suppose they are with how many plots have, in the past, involved staff npcs running the show.
There was a newer rollcall where staff said 'Oh for transparency I /wont/ play a PC for this!' ....How fucking boring are the staff plots if I need a guarantee staff isn't playing a PC in them?
This was also the plot that involved the 'Oh I let the bad guys win once and then I had them lose the second time!' which is literally not a plot, as I consider it. A plot in a game like this isn't a predefined story, you don't write 'Then this happens, and then that happens, and then this happens' with no range at all. Why are people trying to write their books in armageddon?
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Post by Prime Minister Sinister on Mar 27, 2023 10:31:09 GMT -5
This was also the plot that involved the 'Oh I let the bad guys win once and then I had them lose the second time!' which is literally not a plot, as I consider it. A plot in a game like this isn't a predefined story, you don't write 'Then this happens, and then that happens, and then this happens' with no range at all. Why are people trying to write their books in armageddon? it's like sitting down with an inexperienced dm that's constantly up your ass about "cheating" because they know you've played the adventure path with a different group previously and has zero tolerance for anything going off-rails ever
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Post by eukelade on Mar 27, 2023 11:40:04 GMT -5
- Staff genuinely have high expectations of the playerbase and think that they can keep a secret as well as they can themselves. This is one I actually have more to say about, because I talked with Nergal a while after he quit and he basically told me that he burned out on running a plot (and, eventually, on staffing) for the same reason. His last big character was Raleris Winrothol and he said he was able to keep certain things about him a secret OOCly for years, and just assumed everyone else was able to do that too. When it became obvious that the initial plot details had leaked from a storyteller and then spread across the playerbase - not even a plot secret, just the element of surprise about said plot beginning - it sort of stole his thunder. He was prepping for the big reveal, and the impact would no longer be effective. But Nergal was like 25 at the time. I would expect the old men running the game today to have a little bit more experience with Arm's playerbase.
I do think it's this last one. Staff, esp. storytellers, are very idealistic and all of them have some kind of Vision for their own personal version of Armageddon that they discuss with nobody and get little to no group buy in to achieve. Yes, I was guilty of this also when I was a storyteller. I had like 2-3 staffing pals and we all sort of had an idea of how we wanted things to go, but this was not shared by the wider group. As the game itself does not have a central vision/creative direction this goes about as well as you'd expect. And I remember in the past people like Adhira trying specifically to break up/discourage group efforts and asssign storytellers to different places if it seemed like people were getting too chummy or working together too much. Never understood that siloing, this isn't an accounting firm, nobody is going to lose productivity if we spend time hanging out at the watercooler. Having been on staff, I do believe that many of them have the intention to at least try to entertain, it's just there's no real training in place about how to do this effectively or fairly and everyone gets hung up on the most inane shit that can't actually be affected due to the nature of how humans play games. I wish they'd learn to care less about the things they absolutely can't control (plot secrecy, ooc communication, players using the functions of the game code in the ways they are able to advance their characters), and more about the things they can (story quality, their own interactions and behavior, general community health.)
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Post by minmaxer on Mar 27, 2023 11:51:17 GMT -5
Yeah, I have to agree with Spyguy on Masa. I played with him, and Wren, with my PC Al (Yes supertwink I know).
Can someone help me understand something, because I honestly do not know. If our previous PCs have stored and/or died, do staff have to ask our permission to use them, or their story, at any point in time? I always assumed, in my 20+ years of playing, that they could use any of my previous PCs.
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baobob
Clueless newb
Posts: 100
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Post by baobob on Mar 27, 2023 12:57:57 GMT -5
Yeah, I have to agree with Spyguy on Masa. I played with him, and Wren, with my PC Al (Yes supertwink I know). Can someone help me understand something, because I honestly do not know. If our previous PCs have stored and/or died, do staff have to ask our permission to use them, or their story, at any point in time? I always assumed, in my 20+ years of playing, that they could use any of my previous PCs. The answer is a bit murky and staff have had shifting positions about this over the years. As a general rule, yes, staff have said that to advance a plot point or to provide continuity for other PCs, that yes they might pilot a player's previous PC if necessary. I can only think of a very few cases I ever heard about. Usually staff would speak to the character's previous player in advance, if possible. Policy or not, it was the considerate thing to do. Ender's beef, I believe, was that he wasn't asked and that the ending history of that particular "reanimated" character combined with the much more recent unsavory experiences from staff that ended his decades long adventures with Arm felt like a deliberate fuck you than some kind of fanboi tribute.
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Post by minmaxer on Mar 27, 2023 13:30:12 GMT -5
Thank you for explaining that to me.
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Patuk
Shartist
Posts: 441
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Post by Patuk on Mar 27, 2023 19:23:15 GMT -5
Yeah, I have to agree with Spyguy on Masa. I played with him, and Wren, with my PC Al (Yes supertwink I know). I'm gonna hijack this thread wholesale now: what the fuck were you thinking setting half the northlands on fire? What the hell was that all about?
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