Random thoughts and comments

Where? /r/mud? I frequest /r/mud and post there periodically. Also it looks like Arm has a subreddit but it's private. Why?

I'll just throw a little wood on the fire.

www.reddit.com/user/OutrageousPlay

What happened? Who did what to who?

Couple of interesting discussions going on over at TMC

The state of RPI as a concept

www.mudconnect.com/SMF/index.php?topic=81446.0

What actually was damaging to the mudding community

www.mudconnect.com/SMF/index.php?topic=81430.0

Bronn is incredibly mature and level headed. I admire greatly his perspective.

Yet the unique logins for this week are a record-low 182. I reckon you checked during a scheduled arena match or something.

I spent like 11+ hours reading back through some of the major threads on this forum today.

I reflected on a lot've my own posts, reflected on other people's thoughts, and burnt a day of my life musing over the rights and wrongs/ethical quandries of a text-based roleplay game.




I still think Nyr is was an asshole who was allowed way too much power.  Compared to the first half of almost 20 years of Arm, I also saw more references to Nessalin, tenfold, than I ever did in my first half.  Why?

Because Nyr was such a fucking asshole that, frequently, he needed someone to back him up.  When Sanvean was staff, Nessalin rarely interfered at all because, despite her imperfections, Sanvean was at least not an uncouth jerk and was diplomatic.

I don't know if it's an age difference thing, or what, but she was at least capable of delegating/mentoring/recruiting staff (for the most part) in a way that didn't involve driving players away.

I don't think Nessalin has really relished having to step in and back Nyr up.  It was never his job, and, historically, when you were having to deal with him, it was because you did something Really Bad.  But when Nyr came to power, it seems like, more or more, he would just get Nessalin to back him up more and more often.  No bueno for anyone.

This was almost never the case when Sanvean was the face of the game and stands as a testament to her ability to mediate without resorting to unleashing nessalin, a producer (but really, a coder), on a player.

Nyr was just allowed to run amuck for too long.  So many problems could have been avoided had there just been a more diplomatic/less of a jerk to act as basically the end-all-be-all mediator of the game.  But here we are.


I feel genuine sympathy for anyone trying to clean up the mess Nyr made.  I would give Nergal a hug if I could, despite some of the things he wrote/people he banned, or anyone else attempting to legitimately try to repair things in the wake of Nyr. Because, what a fucking shit show.  I have a ton of sympathy and support for staff members that are trying to make things a little bit better without resorting to the same heavy-handedness that became par-for-the-course for Nyr.  He set a plethora of bad precedents - some of which Nergal unfortunately seemed to follow, maybe because that's what he thought he was "supposed" to do - and the damage to not only the game, but the community as a whole, will leave permanent scars.


Current staff members/players who look back on these forums and see example after example after example of Nyr's behavior and still think that he was mostly in the right?  I simply can't wrap my head around it.

There is just no excuse for the excessive, unnecessary shittiness that happened during his tenure, and it blows my mind when I read, for instance, someone like Barzalene claiming that the only reason these forums exist is to "harm ArmageddonMUD."  Given the plethora of examples of misconduct, I cannot see how a thinking person, especially one I respect, writing off attempts to staunch abusive behavior as "attempting to hurt the game."

If you spend 11 hours reading some of these threads, well, that narrative dissolves quick, fast, and in a hurry.