Armageddon MUD crumples to the ground.

those people are immediately banned and ran off from here, whereas arm makes them staff and allows them to continue membership.

the suggestion that the shadowboard community and the armageddon community at large are differentiated in any meaningful way is pure fantasy

the shadowboard leadership team has zero complaints of sexual assaults and grooming against them. I consider that to be a very meaningful distinction!!!

Eh. I think a lot of people want their own game, in one way or another.

People haven't ran off and made their own MUD, because it's very difficult. That is the main reason from my perspective.

It turns out that a MUD with 30+ years of history, player contributions and hundreds of different staff members (some of them programmers) has an advantage in that regard.

It IS infinitely easier to complain. No one with an understanding of human nature and how lazy + petty we can be would deny that.

mehtastic

Were any of the leaks directly from a staffer or were they all friend of a friend or passed through cliques before they got to you? It would be funny if it was multiple staffers leaking to their friends and not even the leaker knows if it was themselves or not. If so, Arm players, if you don't want the game to shut down time to turn in your friend.

i think it just comes down to ego and a need for a dependent playerbase. there's many, many things that could just be streamlined and automated that never have been. there's never really been a push to make the game something that could be player-driven for creation and plotting besides what crumbs get thrown down.

the game was built and developed by both players and staff. according to usiku, there were over 600 staff members through the 30 year course of the game. i think that the current staff have about as much claim to the codebase and wiki as anyone else. but they've got the keys to the kingdom, so there's not much anyone can do about it.

i don't think Arm is going to shut down. last time halaster said he was quitting for good he never actually did. finding and applying 'corrective behavior' to this leaker is like plugging a single hole in a slice of swiss cheese -- it's not going to solve the problems they're complaining about. arm's staff are as much a slave to the game as the playerbase. shit, you have my2sids on staff despite claiming they were quitting and it was a rape culture.

my prediction, based on me pulling things out of my ass, is that the game stays closed beyond whatever deadline they claim and then opens up within a couple weeks with some post about how 'after much thought and consideration from the playerbase, we've decided to reopen...'

You're absolutely right in that there are more resources, templates and source material to work with than ever before.

However I think that's outweighed by the rest of what we encounter in modernity.

In 2024, the creative, innovative workhorse "nerds" that would've been experimenting with MUDs, Diku and Java in the 90s, are now building games with Unity and Unreal engine instead. They're delving into data science and advanced AI learning algorithms. They're making visual games using the vast libraries of openly available 3D models. The only people concerned with MUDs nowadays are niche hobbyists like Griatch w/ Evennia or Japheth w/ FutureMUD, etc. And those guys are the shining stars of the community. The rest of us are degens lingering amongst the RPI ruins and stagnant MUSH sex-topias.

Yes, there are more resources available; but there's also less incentive.

You could also argue that our attention is "stolen" and more divided nowadays than ever before with social media, our smart phones & apps, the steam storefront and so on. While back in the 90s, MUDs were one of the few online mediums where one could attain a similar escape from reality. Very few kids nowadays would pick MUDs over a GTA roleplay server. Very few DEVELOPERS would choose MUDs over GTA roleplay servers and assets.

These are excuses at the end of the day, you're right in that the resources and potential is there for an individual(s) with the right motivation and desire to innovate. But over-abundance of choice, analysis paralysis and the coding acumen required for a MUD compared to other mediums are all a real bitch to deal with, that much is for sure. I think you give Armageddon MUD too much credit, but I could be wrong. I am still posting on this forum after all these years, after all.