zalanthan obsidian is actually metal

Don't tell me that I missed my chance and that the right way to do things is with a hindsight concerning a date where some of us were in no state to know what obsidian even is.

I can retroactively point out that obsidian, as it shows up in the game, makes no sense. It's not a gamebreaking matter, but that doesn't mean it isn't somewhat silly at least.

Yeah and people can travel the equivalent of one end of Tennessee to the other in 1 second and everyone can speak to each other's mind, regardless of the language barrier, for these reasons, why shouldn't obsidian exist the way it does in ARM.?

Travel is a gameplay issue. There's two options in creating a reasonable travel atmosphere: either give players the freedom of choosing how fast/slow they want to traverse things with less overall rooms (creating predictable chokepoints and leading to more outdoor interaction) or make a massive number of filler rooms that you can only reasonably cross the room through speedwalking and takes way longer than anticipated for those who stop and smell the roses.

Psionics is a lore as well as gameplay thing. In Dark Sun, everyone possessed some psionic talent. In arm this is replaced by everyone having access to the contact skill, which also doubles as the 'tell' function that's featured on other MUDs.

As far as obsidian goes, in the state of the game now it's literally metal except it has a different name. It functions just like metal in creating sharp and hardy weapons (can't remember the last time I saw one splinter), making tough breastplates, formed into replacements for metal coins, used as keys for locks, etc. Why call it obsidian if it's going to function exactly like metal?

By this logic they should have never retconned sandwiches.

Obsidian coins aren't pressed.

You're investing a lot of fire into a decision made a very long time ago by someone who could barely manage his own life. No one sat there, pondering the the gravity of decisions on future generations, taking into account that twenty years in the future the game would be populated by middle aged malcontents who invest their time into dissecting the scientific integrity of fantasy land obsidian.

The average decision was made on such whims as, "That sounds cool." and "Why not?"

At one point there was a jewel-encrusted, solid gold sarcophagus that was a fantasy copy of one pulled from an pyramid in Egypt, when things like that were still considered moderately interesting. It was intended to house a vampire styled war-mage NPC that would spawn upon someone entering the room that housed it. This has no place in the game now, or even then, but it existed at one point because people were far more free with both ideas and letting people run with them. It was more about something being "cool" and "interesting" than about how scientifically valid the properties of gold are in the construction of a burial receptacle in a low-gravity desert world.

Metal being rare is a byproduct of other franchises at the time, but there was still a need for deadly weapon materials. Obsidian weapons, also a borrowed idea from other settings, fit the need and here we are. At no point (even now, unless something has changed in the past few years) has obsidian been impervious to damage or comparable with metal beyond damage potential.

The small gripe I had was that we never followed through with weapon and armor degradation. Obsidian weapons are perfect, then shattered and disappear as items. There is no chipping down, fractures or breakage other than total and utter destruction. The intent was for them to be far more durable, but not unbreakable and to still be far less reliable than wood, bone and stone, but as is often the case, it's evolution into the more elaborate states noted above were never completed.

Bone and wood were intended to crack, splinter and break. It never happened.

Armor was intended to break down rather quickly from wear and tear to stimulate player economy and interaction. The idea was as armor became worn, you could have it repaired by an NPC professional for a high price, or track down a player to do the repairs for you at a more agreeable price. It's the original reason for the armor repair skill and why merchants are still required to invest inane amounts of time into the skill before progressing into something less masturbatory.

Like many things, this was never followed through on as staff became progressively more interested in self-promotion over service to the game and it's lifeblood, the players. This is why you have scores of half completed projects, defunct skills and a game world that features a number of inconsistencies that have been the source of complaining for a long time.

I'm sorry some of what exists doesn't measure up to the all-powerful slayer of the imagination, but "realism" is little more than a buzzword that was never given serious consideration until relatively recently. No one really expected this would snowball into the long-standing monolith it has become.

Unfortunately, without an extreme turn about in the priorities of the current administrators, none of these projects will be completed and this hunger for "realism" never sated. The sheer effort in going through the games sprawling inventory of items alone would take several people the better part of a year to adjust to scientifically sound obsidian. That isn't counting the reshaping of the entire world, from doors to gargoyles, wagons to gates, even some exotic NPCs would have to be changed or removed entirely, provided they haven't been already.

Armageddon is like a sandwich. It's been built in many layers over the years, each layer a different flavor from a different 'era' if you will. The reason behind Armageddon Forever was not exclusively to complete the move away from potential infringement issues, but also because the game is a tangled mess of code, projects and items, to the point it is beyond all hope of being untangled.

A completely new slate with a refined direction and sense of purpose is necessary at this point, as there is only so much that can be done with the decrepit, patchwork game, now older than most of it's players. If that were to happen (and it won't), many of these changes could be implemented without issue and the world brought more up to date with popular themes.

I've complained on Arm about the lack of breakage on the shitty weapons especially. I remember having a crude bone scimitar and it lasted my Bynner his whole career. I fought tons of shit with that weapon and went off after the Byn with it and fought more shit. The story was the scimitar was his fathers weapon so he refused to give it up. We all know how easy it is to get the elite loot swords from Salarr if you really want it. Anyway after I retired the PC I complained that the thing never fuckin' broke and the response was that there is code in place for weapons breaking. I've seen the code and I know it goes off the strength modifier but even then I rarely see weapons break. Probably 1 in 100 chance or even worse then that. People will shout playability vs realism but the game remains playable, you just have to repair/maintain your weapon. That's why its an RPI and not a MUSH.