|
|
Post by uncoolio on Jul 31, 2024 9:07:11 GMT -5
For the most part, people with normal brains either find a better game to play, or play Arm in a kind of ironic way where you know it's shit but it's a convenient pastime when you're at work and can't play something more engaging. Sort of like how Farmville is an objectively bad game but some people play it because it's something to fiddle with. As such, the community is split between deeply weird people who suffer from one or more personality disorders, and people who don't actually think the game is good but it serves as their Farmville.
|
|
|
|
Post by generality on Jul 31, 2024 13:38:49 GMT -5
Grebville, but yeah.
Arm is like Harshlands but you don't need to talk to staff about anything, unless you're one of the chosen ones.
|
|
|
|
Post by pinkerdlu on Jul 31, 2024 21:05:17 GMT -5
For the most part, people with normal brains either find a better game to play, or play Arm in a kind of ironic way where you know it's shit but it's a convenient pastime when you're at work and can't play something more engaging. Sort of like how Farmville is an objectively bad game but some people play it because it's something to fiddle with. As such, the community is split between deeply weird people who suffer from one or more personality disorders, and people who don't actually think the game is good but it serves as their Farmville. I'm extremely thankful that I didn't waste more than a week on Seasons. There was some good roleplay, but most of it was genuinely bad. The sponsored roles were unengaging and it became clear that staff's level of involvement and their approach to the storytelling was going to be incredibly lackluster. It's the same game as always, that feels barely alive with 40 people online, where trying to find a good scene is like dragging your balls through a field of broken glass. Grindy, recycled, a minefield of discord cliques and staff enforcers who will fuck with you on a whim while the sponsored roles get fed the only plot points and proceed to hoard them while e-fucking all day. It was genuinely bad enough that I couldn't condemn myself to weeks of the worst grind imaginable or muckbanging the mentally ill. If you're still playing at this point, I promise you that dropping Arm and adopting just about any other hobby/community/game will be better for you. Otherwise... God bless you soldier. Good luck in the mean streets of Allanak. |
|
delirium
Clueless newb
grumpy cat
Posts: 113
|
Post by delirium on Aug 1, 2024 1:32:28 GMT -5
Something about this game breaks people's brains. There's always been a few people that play the underhanded OOC game, but I guess some of them got rusty during the temporary closure. Between gangbanging Arion to death and this post, there are some very angry but stupid people playing Arm. Alwayshasbeen.jpg |
|
mehtastic
GDB Superstar
Armers Anonymous sponsor
Posts: 1,695
|
Post by mehtastic on Aug 1, 2024 5:54:29 GMT -5
True. The very first secret IRC channel I got invited to was a hate group for Kurac where several nerds tried to figure out ways to kill Sargax. Then when AIM became the thing all the kids were on, someone invited me to a Raleris hate chat that Sargax's player was also in. The worst they did was use alt accounts to join Winrothol to pilot their wagon off a cliff and junk all their sparring weapons.
It's hard to imagine that players pushing into their 50s would be so bitter over a game, until you realize that the game is literally the only thing they have.
It reminds me of this bit from Always Sunny:
|
|
|
|
Post by gringoose on Aug 1, 2024 11:23:13 GMT -5
Something about this game breaks people's brains. There's always been a few people that play the underhanded OOC game, but I guess some of them got rusty during the temporary closure. Between gangbanging Arion to death and this post, there are some very angry but stupid people playing Arm. Arm either has a lot of people with psychological issues or vulnerable people are getting real trauma from the game or both. I've never been part of any other community where I regularly interacted with people that I could tell were in the midst of a psychotic break except Arm. It's sad what the game does to people. |
|
mehtastic
GDB Superstar
Armers Anonymous sponsor
Posts: 1,695
|
Post by mehtastic on Aug 1, 2024 12:45:40 GMT -5
Something about this game breaks people's brains. There's always been a few people that play the underhanded OOC game, but I guess some of them got rusty during the temporary closure. Between gangbanging Arion to death and this post, there are some very angry but stupid people playing Arm. Arm either has a lot of people with psychological issues or vulnerable people are getting real trauma from the game or both. I've never been part of any other community where I regularly interacted with people that I could tell were in the midst of a psychotic break except Arm. It's sad what the game does to people. It's definitely both.
There are games with significantly larger playerbases than Arm's where people go through breakdowns. MMOs have plenty of obsessed people who are playing 18 hours a day and throwing a fit whenever they feel like they have lost. There are plenty of news articles about these people harassing their rivals, going to their home with a gun, swatting them, and whatever else you can think of doing to make someone's day objectively worse.
They're more impactful in games Arm's size because the game is intertwined with a tight-knit community. It's much easier to notice 10 psychos in a community of 200 people who mostly have high playtimes and are highly invested in their character, than it would be in an MMO with millions of players, the vast majority of whom don't play every day or have any personal investment in the game.
Part of building and maintaining a community is knowing when to cut people out of it, temporarily or otherwise. One of the roles of staff should be that of the bartender, cutting people off when they have clearly had too much to drink. There should not be people playing 18 hours a day. I have no idea where the line should be, but there's a point where it's obvious a player is treating the game as an alternate reality, and that is the point a player starts to come up with creative ways to fuck with other players OOCly.
|
|
alleys
Clueless newb
Posts: 87
|
Post by alleys on Aug 1, 2024 14:23:03 GMT -5
This discussion is going somewhere really interesting. How can you cut people off from an intellectual hobby. I am not saying gaming addiction is not a thing, but it's something really hard to monitor. Especially by a group of amateurs like game staff and players.
I wonder if any of those huge MMORPGs or PvP games with their professional staff monitor such things.
PS. Actually I am not really sure if this can be done legally by the way. You know a game's staff you play saying "you had too much." It's much easier in a physical location like a bar, its landlord may have a legal say on that.
Edited to add: By the way, I think the inherit problem with an old school RPI game like ARM is people gets too much interaction with each other OOCly after a long time sharing this rare hobby. More personal OOC communication means more problems to resolve. Also adding the fact, we are a -very- small group of people with only a handful RPI games out there, enjoying this hobby with rarely seeing new faces makes this problem even more complicated.
I'd suggest anyone to rarely speak with other fellow staff/players in personal level unless they also see each other face to face. Some people really handles online relationships pretty good, but a lot obviously can not.
|
|
punished ppurg
GDB Superstar
Why are we still here? Just to suffer?
Posts: 1,098 
|
Post by punished ppurg on Aug 1, 2024 15:51:35 GMT -5
What ever could you mean, it can't be done legally? Ginka the server is a private server. Traffic and communication from that server is at the discretion (and responsibility) of the server owner. Nobody is entitled to any bit of communication from that privately owned internet server beyond the discretion of the server owner. There are maybe some peripheral privacy clauses like in the EU, you can't "gather data on under-13s", but that's all irrelevant in an American hosted private server with no commercial liability to anybody.
|
|
jkarr
GDB Superstar
Posts: 2,070
|
Post by jkarr on Aug 1, 2024 16:32:35 GMT -5
What ever could you mean, it can't be done legally? Ginka the server is a private server. Traffic and communication from that server is at the discretion (and responsibility) of the server owner. Nobody is entitled to any bit of communication from that privately owned internet server beyond the discretion of the server owner. There are maybe some peripheral privacy clauses like in the EU, you can't "gather data on under-13s", but that's all irrelevant in an American hosted private server with no commercial liability to anybody. yup the only real leverage players had that has worked sporadicly and only on some staff was them leaving or too many threatening to |
|
|
|
Post by generality on Aug 1, 2024 16:50:50 GMT -5
Almost all of the leverage players have over Ginka is expressed by refusing to play the game. There is literally nothing else players can do to influence Arm.
|
|
alleys
Clueless newb
Posts: 87
|
Post by alleys on Aug 2, 2024 1:54:59 GMT -5
What I meant was; I am not a legal expert, but worked as an internal auditor for a while. Obviously game staff can say; "I don't like you. This is my personal/free to play game and your IP is banned. You can't play."
On the other hand I am not sure if they can say this: "You can't play because you have an addiction and/or psychological condition."
Most of you are living with US laws (First Amendment!), so you know how your legal system works better then me. But in my country, second type of response from a group may create legal problems.
|
|
mehtastic
GDB Superstar
Armers Anonymous sponsor
Posts: 1,695
|
Post by mehtastic on Aug 2, 2024 6:00:25 GMT -5
What I meant was; I am not a legal expert, but worked as an internal auditor for a while. Obviously game staff can say; "I don't like you. This is my personal/free to play game and your IP is banned. You can't play." On the other hand I am not sure if they can say this: "You can't play because you have an addiction and/or psychological condition." Most of you are living with US laws (First Amendment!), so you know how your legal system works better then me. But in my country, second type of response from a group may create legal problems. What country do you live in? Just curious.
In the US you can say "you can no longer use our services" for a wide variety of reasons, one of them being that you suspect you will be liable for harm done to the customer or to someone else if you continue to service them. That's what makes it legal for a bartender to tell someone to walk home rather than order another drink. I have broken up shouting matches between nerds in my shop over MTG cards and Warhammer 40k figures and board games, and told them to leave and not come back without being sued. I hold onto CCTV recordings of incidents in case I am ever sued, and I keep them for as long as my lawyer advises me to do so.
For Armageddon specifically, it's really easy: there is no ToS, so there is no expectation of services. PR is the only reason staff follow their own rules. But it would not be illegal for staff to tell someone to take a break from the game and enforce it with a temp ban.
What would be illegal is discrimination. "We don't serve people who have PTSD" is discrimination. "You yelled at Charlie during your Vietnam flashback and created a situation that we are not comfortable with and you have to leave" is fine.
In Armageddon's case, they COULD just say "you're an addict so you have to leave". They could also say "you play 19 hours a day, completely imbalance the game with your skill and money grinding, and we suspect you're telling people on Facebook that you're going to kill their character, so we're banning you for a month to see if these problems go away".
|
|
alleys
Clueless newb
Posts: 87
|
Post by alleys on Aug 2, 2024 9:40:37 GMT -5
Hello mehtastic . I like this kinda of detrailments. It's Turkey (As I understand very similar articles exist for many countries). "(Article 125 "Offenses Against Honor – Defamation" ) (1) Any person who attributes a concrete act or fact to a person that may offend his honor, dignity and dignity (…) or who attacks the honor, honor and dignity of a person by cursing is punished with imprisonment from three months to two years or a judicial fine. In order for the insult to be punished in the absence of the victim, the act must be committed with at least three people. (2) In the event that the act is handled by a voice-over, written or video message, the punishment referred to in the above paragraph shall be imposed." This article does not mean people are paying fee to each other constantly for every curse on internet in Turkey or similar countries.. This article just opens some doors. So if an amateur staff says to a player "you are addicted", there is a chance it may be considered curse/defamation in Turkey. |
|
|
|
Post by Prime Minister Sinister on Aug 2, 2024 11:23:35 GMT -5
So if an amateur staff says to a player "you are addicted", there is a chance it may be considered curse/defamation in Turkey. i cant fully express how much i would love to see an arm staffer v player defamation case put in front of a turkish judge |
|
