|
|
Post by lyse on Mar 15, 2014 15:31:58 GMT -5
I'm going to try to make this topic as broad as possible to include as many people as possible. So, like the topic says....why?
I'll go first. I've walked away from Arm, several times in about a 12-15 year time frame, so it's happend a few times and I always end up back at it. Some of them, looking back were silly, other times I just said funk dis ish. These may not be in order, I'm just writing them as they come to me.
The first time I walked away from Arm was when the karma system was implemented. I started playing Arm when you could walk into a tavern in 'nak and see a mantis, halfling and dwarf sitting at a table together, because you could play whatever you wanted. It was kind of cheesy, but fun. I got to play a couple of types of magickers and wham karma. I stopped playing, because I felt you should be able to play whatever you wanted.
Ok, I came back, got my karma, felt a little limited, but got over myself. The next time I think I got kind of burnt out. I played a noble, managed to get something done that's still in the game. But got told no a lot too, some of which didn't make sense to me or some of my questions about certain aspects of the house just weren't answered clearly enough for me. So I got a little tired of the role and just needed a break.
Ok, I came back, I felt fresh again. Somehow I ended up in a clan of awesome RPers right off the bat. Awesome! It looked promising. I'm not sure what kind of twinking they were doing on the side, but the whole clan got shut down....right after I joined. I promptly stopped playing again, the entire hierarchy of the clan collapsed.
Back again, joined a clan, but this time there was one of those war plots going on. Spent a lot of time RPing and grinding, got a nice promotion. I was somebody! Off to the war, the war itself was great, good RP, good echoes, I really enjoyed myself...until the culminating HRPT. I wish I had my old PC with the logs I had. Looking back on it, I randomly attacked someone very important and was winning. Then my client froze from all the spam and at the end of it...I was dead. I can laugh now, but when I scrolled through, what killed me....a single tear rolled down my cheek. Stopped playing....butt hurt? yeah a little.
I came back. This one is almost a repeat. Joined a clan, awesome RP, great characters. Not sure what happend, I know it was a problem with the staff, not sure if this player was twinking this time or if it was something the player couldn't have. But (s)he quit, clan fell apart again. This time I stuck it out, except RL reared it's ugly head and I had to take care of a family member, so I left again.
Hope I didn't give too much away to out myself, but I feel a lot better putting it out there. I randomly cut and pasted my paragraphs, so they aren't chronological. I really do enjoy Arm despite its flaws, and I feel there is still great RP to be had there, but I'm not a fan of the secrecy and some of the rules.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2014 20:05:00 GMT -5
A combination of two things:
First of all, the roleplaying environment has become garbage in the last four or five years, and especially the last three. It just completely ground to a halt and the game is covered in a blanket of utter apathy, passiveness and lack of ambition. There have always been these players who just don't do anything and play boring, worthless characters, but where they used to comprise less than half of the playerbase, these days they're over 80%. The game has simply become boring as fuck, nothing worthwhile is going on, and very few make any kind of effort.
Secondly, Nyr. He has made the game untenable for me. I'm not particularly a hated player nor have I had major personal confrontations with him (just the minor unpleasantries that everyone will experience if they try to talk to him about anything other than pure praise for him and the game) but the way he behaves both on the GDB and in private correspondences with others, including some of my friends, made me lose all respect for the game and faith in its future. Adult people shouldn't tolerate being treated like that.
He is driving it into the ground, in my opinion, and his tenure as head admin is best known for the stifling bureaucracy that he has imposed upon the game, making it impossible for anybody to do anything that doesn't please the few people at the very top. Even storytellers are complaining about this, and as a player, trying to do anything remotely significant will quickly teach you a lesson about how things do (or, most often, don't) work on Armageddon.
In short, this game has grown stagnant as all hell and is headed by an abusive coward of a man who clearly has no motivation for leading the game other than to feed his own unhealthy ego, and most of the quality personnel - players and admins both - have left.
I haven't played very seriously since 2009 or so, and though I still do give it a half-arsed shot once or twice a year, it is increasingly futile as the game is a little more dead each time. The numbers remain vaguely stable, but since they've been advertising actively in recent times and getting a lot of new players without the numbers actually going up, it's easy to conclude - if one is somehow not convinced by the in-game evidence - that the seasoned players are steadily leaving. Despite a succesful recruitment drive and a complete lack of competition, Armageddon is falling apart.
|
|
|
|
Post by lyse on Mar 15, 2014 20:22:00 GMT -5
A combination of two things: First of all, the roleplaying environment has become garbage in the last four or five years, and especially the last three. It just completely ground to a halt and the game is covered in a blanket of utter apathy, passiveness and lack of ambition. There have always been these players who just don't do anything and play boring, worthless characters, but where they used to comprise less than half of the playerbase, these days they're over 80%. The game has simply become boring as fuck, nothing worthwhile is going on, and very few make any kind of effort. Secondly, Nyr. He has made the game untenable for me. I'm not particularly a hated player nor have I had major personal confrontations with him (just the minor unpleasantries that everyone will experience if they try to talk to him about anything other than pure praise for him and the game) but the way he behaves both on the GDB and in private correspondences with others, including some of my friends, made me lose all respect for the game and faith in its future. Adult people shouldn't tolerate being treated like that. He is driving it into the ground, in my opinion, and his tenure as head admin is best known for the stifling bureaucracy that he has imposed upon the game, making it impossible for anybody to do anything that doesn't please the few people at the very top. Even storytellers are complaining about this, and as a player, trying to do anything remotely significant will quickly teach you a lesson about how things do (or, most often, don't) work on Armageddon. In short, this game has grown stagnant as all hell and is headed by an abusive coward of a man who clearly has no motivation for leading the game other than to feed his own unhealthy ego, and most of the quality personnel - players and admins both - have left. I haven't played very seriously since 2009 or so, and though I still do give it a half-arsed shot once or twice a year, it is increasingly futile as the game is a little more dead each time. The numbers remain vaguely stable, but since they've been advertising actively in recent times and getting a lot of new players without the numbers actually going up, it's easy to conclude - if one is somehow not convinced by the in-game evidence - that the seasoned players are steadily leaving. Despite a succesful recruitment drive and a complete lack of competition, Armageddon is falling apart. Interesting, that's around the time I stopped playing too. I've been messing about on there for a bit, and I'm not finding the RP too terrible, but I'm also not taking it too seriously this go round. |
|
|
|
Post by shade0of0ishahan on Mar 22, 2014 6:35:01 GMT -5
My major thing is I love the independent that grows. I accept there are virtual people in a clan, but if I grow enough to be a thorn in their side I should be allowed to keep that status I worked for. I could if I screw with anything a clan is doing, they know when I log-in, they know where I live, they know who I hang out with. I accept on occasion they have a drovian checking me out, or a whiran invis'd following me, or a psion (because every clan has one or more of each of these), I don't believe that is always the case though. Over time I came to realize if I screwed with the work an admin did to up his clan, he would use means out of IC probability to screw me over. Over nearly fifteen years I had it happen every few months.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2014 7:48:44 GMT -5
So why did you keep playing the same MO? Why not switch it up? If I kept playing characters who did stuff to become a thorn in a clan leader's side over and over and over again, I'd get burnt out no matter what the result was. Getting screwed over would be more of a mercy-killing after awhile. But I'd take the hint after the first couple of times and just stop trying to do that. I'd do something different. Like play someone who tries to do right by the clan. Or play someone who the clan doesn't give a shit about one way or another. Or play in an organized group on the opposing team (such as Allanak Arm vs. Tuluk Legion) so that I'm not singled out.
I guess what I'm saying is - you keep doing the same things and getting the same results, doesn't that say more about you than it does about them?
|
|
|
|
Post by shade0of0ishahan on Mar 22, 2014 11:17:02 GMT -5
I don't get burnt out though. I enjoy clan play, but I can do that on any game. When I play roleplay intensive games I truly want to see my character grow. Even my 'tossers' my characters with some quirk, personality, focus, ect that will surely get them killed, but they should grow with in that issue. In a clan I feel like I log in to do what the admin's plans are, and my character is nothing more then an npc, even worse is the admin is not around now I have to roleplay being a member of a group where I NEVER see my commanding officers, agents, shadowy figures. Also my wording might have expressed itself incorrectly, I say thorn in their side not because I am aiming to grief a group, but because I am trying to do whatever it is they do better. I've had a merchant that regularly traded between the north and south. I had a breed that handled spice trade without Kuraci influence, I had a d elf that hunted down magickers in the north. One of my favorites was a vigilante in Allanak that hunted down criminals, and I will say he did a better job then the militia. Eventually though someone would dislike the success I was having and as soon as I was logged in powerful people were on my jock. It would start to ruin the game, or force me to RP steer. I would purposely try to take work from a clan where I knew the admin was being lazy.
Sending this to my computer through my tablet in between stop lights, please ignore if the writing is horrendous, will fix it when I get home XD.
|
|
delerak
GDB Superstar
PK'ed by jcarter
"When you want to fool the world, tell the truth." - Otto Von Bismarck
Posts: 1,670
|
Post by delerak on Mar 22, 2014 22:38:40 GMT -5
The day all the dirty laundry got aired about Arm in general is the day I really stopped enjoying the game. I guess I preferred my ignorance over what really went on behind the scenes. Once I found out thru the grapevines about Halasters avatars, Bhags avatars and the amount of manipulation that went into them pulling the strings for their own personal enjoyment and gratification of their own plots I didn't enjoy the game anymore. I can say I'm officially done with it though and probably won't ever login again.  There's just plenty more fun to be had with other games. Currently playing Banner Saga and its fantastic. |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2014 23:49:56 GMT -5
I frankly preferred that to the way things are done these days, with stifling bureaucracy and admins who don't seem to care about the game at all, just about being in charge of something that lets them treat people like filth. Staff used to truly care about the game, which led some of them to take liberties they shouldn't have, but also made sure there was some passion and ambition behind the wheel instead of a bunch of selfish power-trippers who just sit around shutting down people's ideas and basically trolling their own forum. The game has simply grown so paralysingly boring under Nyr and his people.
|
|
jkarr
GDB Superstar
Posts: 2,070
|
Post by jkarr on Mar 23, 2014 2:58:01 GMT -5
I frankly preferred that to the way things are done these days, with stifling bureaucracy and admins who don't seem to care about the game at all, just about being in charge of something that lets them treat people like filth. Staff used to truly care about the game, which led some of them to take liberties they shouldn't have, but also made sure there was some passion and ambition behind the wheel instead of a bunch of selfish power-trippers who just sit around shutting down people's ideas and basically trolling their own forum. The game has simply grown so paralysingly boring under Nyr and his people. this man said it all. |
|
delerak
GDB Superstar
PK'ed by jcarter
"When you want to fool the world, tell the truth." - Otto Von Bismarck
Posts: 1,670
|
Post by delerak on Mar 23, 2014 9:13:00 GMT -5
I have no doubt that Halaster/Bhag/Naiona cared about the game. But history speaks for itself. The game IS the way it is today because of them. Once all the veteran players started leaving because of all their bullshit things changed. They are the reason the game is the way it is today.
The current staff had to take measures to ensure things like multiplaying, slaying players with impunity and making yourself magical items whenever you wanted would never happen again.
|
|
|
|
Post by jcarter on Mar 23, 2014 11:22:36 GMT -5
I have no doubt that Halaster/Bhag/Naiona cared about the game. But history speaks for itself. The game IS the way it is today because of them. Once all the veteran players started leaving because of all their bullshit things changed. They are the reason the game is the way it is today. The current staff had to take measures to ensure things like multiplaying, slaying players with impunity and making yourself magical items whenever you wanted would never happen again. @anaiah how common was the stuff delerak mentioned because I thought you mentioned a few times that you saw it, or cheesey shit in general. my favorite is Nyr playing a psion in Tuluk and using OOC knowledge to not include anything about her psionic powers in her background since he knew Lirathans would be able to read it, and not once thinking or feeling about it. Because a budding psionicist would obviously not give a single thought or be nervous that if they were discovered they would be executed immediately. Not on the same level as Halaster and Bhag's avatars but still a case of skirting around the rules that he would come down on players for. |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2014 11:38:54 GMT -5
I have no doubt that Halaster/Bhag/Naiona cared about the game. But history speaks for itself. The game IS the way it is today because of them. Once all the veteran players started leaving because of all their bullshit things changed. They are the reason the game is the way it is today. The current staff had to take measures to ensure things like multiplaying, slaying players with impunity and making yourself magical items whenever you wanted would never happen again. @anaiah how common was the stuff delerak mentioned because I thought you mentioned a few times that you saw it, or cheesey shit in general. my favorite is Nyr playing a psion in Tuluk and using OOC knowledge to not include anything about her psionic powers in her background since he knew Lirathans would be able to read it, and not once thinking or feeling about it. Because a budding psionicist would obviously not give a single thought or be nervous that if they were discovered they would be executed immediately. Not on the same level as Halaster and Bhag's avatars but still a case of skirting around the rules that he would come down on players for. It's mostly stuff like Nyr's psion that you'd see. Or Niamh, for example, had a psion who was an AOD clerk for -ages-, with no repercussions, but let a player (Acct blizzard, aka 'oldways' here) do it, and they are subject to being killed for no reason after a reason for them to die is -superimposed- by staff. The biggest problem is not that staff cheat, imo, but that staff and players are not held to the same standards when it comes to what is acceptable to play and what is not, and IC repercussions for comparative things. |
|
delerak
GDB Superstar
PK'ed by jcarter
"When you want to fool the world, tell the truth." - Otto Von Bismarck
Posts: 1,670
|
Post by delerak on Mar 23, 2014 15:01:10 GMT -5
I don't think anything can compare to Bhag multiplaying on Ihshan. Bhag would literally fuck up and sometimes do shit with the wrong character and walk in on shit with his imm instead of being on isahn. Pretty funny actually.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2014 16:11:17 GMT -5
I dunno, I liked watching Uruz playing Kiven - he'd raise a bunch of undead, storm Tuluk, then once the Lirathan managed to get a party of pcs assembled to come for him, he'd log Kiven out, while logged in with Uruz his avatar still. >.>
Because it's not that staff can't be logged in with their pcs and their staff avatars at once. It's that STORYTELLERS can't. Admins still can.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2014 17:00:22 GMT -5
Was Niamh's clerk ever found out ICly though? I wasnt around all that much at the time, so I must've missed that part. But is that the psi who never used active psionics and only had passive stuff branched? No real way to find a psi like that out. Oldways psi was known by Kurac and Tan Muark, probably Icumen. Icumen twisted TM any way he wanted, so I wouldnt be surprised if he knew as well.
Uruz though, yeah. He definitely monitored his own character. I never could figure if Kivan was an avatar, or a story character. He've done a lot of fun stuff, but he also killed people freely. Then again, soon after Kivan, Uruz resigned.
|
|
