Introduction Thread (Optional)

I guess they're trying to open up more avenues for player-created clans? I'm a little ambivalent on the matter. On the one hand, it kind of screws up what I've considered to be an important historical part of the game, on the other, it removes an option to simply join a merchant house and go about throwing your weight around and stomping on people who just a day or two ago were of somewhat the same social level. It's hard to have conflict with so many institutions that are "too big to fail". You don't see that kind of thing so much from merchants because the risk/reward is different. It's like, sure my house will back me up on this, but the reality is if this comes down to a straight up fight I could seriously get hacked to bits.

If you bring this concern up on the GDB, they'll tell you that none of those things are gone. You can still be an elementalist or a sorcerer. What they won't acknowledge is that these archetypes have been turned into laughably watered-down subclasses that are a shadow of their former selves. The new elementalists just give a handful of spells on top of mundane guilds, and while they can be powerful in combination with master combat or stealth skills, they're no longer really mages. The days of scary, distinctive mages are over. And sorcerers may as well not exist anymore, because while you can make one, the fact that you have to pigeonhole yourself into one school of magic (transportation, destruction, illusion, etc.) means it just isn't viable. The whole reason sorcerers were viable despite being universally kill-on-sight was that they had access to the full arsenal of spells. With that gone, you can't really be the kind of sorcerer that used to fuel plots and legends.



Nothing goes on in the game anymore. You will virtually never encounter anyone anywhere. Players have been conditioned to wait around in taverns and apartments until the next arena games or some other similarly unimaginative event, and then they briefly come out and peform some arbitrary but ultimately meaningless show of roleplay just to stake their claim to relevancy. It's excruciatingly rare that anything of real importance happens organically anymore. It all has to be planned and mediated and scripted to the point where participation isn't even appealing.



Despite all that I've just said, I suggest that you make a character and see for yourself. I'd like to hear a report of your first 48 hours in-game and see what you think of it. If you're bedridden anyway, you can do it at no real cost, because the time between conversations (let alone actual meaningful roleplay) is so long that you can sit online for a full evening and barely have to devote any time to your MUD client. I say this as someone who wants Armageddon to one day bounce back and be a came I can play again in good faith, and the more people express their dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs, the more likely this will happen. Not that I'm holding my breath.

In short, try it out and tell us what you found. It's always interesting to hear an old-timer's perspective.

I'm not salty for a lot of changes, thinking about it. If they went for route A or route B, that's great.. But going both routes... Why?

Let's see.. They closed up Tuluk because they wanted to bring the characters together. Great! Now with only Luir's, Allanak and Red Storm numbers will rise. But then, watching my wife I see North Road seems to have disappeared if you're not willing to brave gith. Not so great. Why?

Even though I played one gemmed after another, I was disturbed all plots being magickal. So pure elementalists, sorcerers and psions are gone. Great! Instead staff moves volcanoes and does big magickal shit and mundane classes simply die.. Just die. WHY? Why remove magick if it would change nothing for mundane classes?

Even mundane plots look forced. I read the logs of the withering of the tree of life. So aides, soldiers etc are spies, in a fucking city state where half the templars are mindbenders?! How? Fucking how?! I had a jihaen templar friend who scanned, then spammed "contact 1.blur;<take note of sdesc>;contact 2.blur;<take note of sdesc>".. Didn't any single lirathan templar wonder about any of the spies?

But there are good stuff, too. "threaten" was my code suggestion. Seems it's been implemented after years

Even though I was a twink, I RPed pretty well. My RL friends had always said I even imitated facial gestures and even rubbed at the wounds my character took reflexively. But it was unfair. I was a fucking twink with 7 karma just before I stopped playing and I played much less than many better RPers with less karma. Maybe the new karma system solves the problem of "oh this scene was great, two karma points!" problem. What I proposed was a much more dynamic system but maybe this will do.

I was around when Tlaloc rocked Byn, Halaster stole our boots and Sanvean was the firm but generous mother for us all. Maybe when I played, staff were more mature and more dedicated or maybe I was a staff pet because I mudsexxed anything that walked. There was one post, I remember, a man saying "I'd rather mudsex with <my> female rather than a real life woman's character any day".

I don't know, I hope it goes well for ARM.

Yeah I came back once in a blue moon but it's quite possible I didn't play for five years. I stopped playing frequently - read 40+ hours a week - in 2004 I guess. 

You are definitely correct. Taking it all in all at once was... shocking.. But again as I said, there are good things. I would LOVE to play again. But first of all, I seem to have forgotten my password and my mail I used then, the college mail of course has been deleted ages ago. And second, I have fucking three projects as the sole senior developer and I need the monies.

I wouldn't care about virtual lirathans, even Muk himself. There used to be a rule - virtual templars harassed virtual citizens, virtual nobles fucked virtual aides and you were supposed to care about the PC ones. I never had 8 karma, but if I had, I'd use my skills non-stop in every opportunity. When I played, I'd try every single situation I could think of for every single skill of mine, of course after a studious session of twinking and branching nearly everything. If I ever had a psion I'd have all history entries of every single PC in notepad++, refreshed every RL week. I had OOC contacts, listening to them brag about their psions wasting their skills invading buxom aides' minds in couples and giving her sexual feels. I wouldn't waste time. Feels weird not to have a curious lirathan at that period and also feels weird about the Allanaki part for lack of foresight. Didn't any single high-ranking PC think, "Uh, wait a minute, we're planning to send spies to a hole of mindbenders.. Sorry, brainfart, abort mission."?

Edit: Or at least tell Allanaki spies; "Become Amos #18.. Become unimportant. Do not hang around in taverns when a lirathan is around. Do not, for the love of Tek, become aides fucking soldiers right and left."

Yes, but you lose half of your karma for years if you are a Nilazi in the same city state and believe your spells will protect you from detection.

It happened to me. It's like the staff member automatically assumed I knew everything Lirathans were capable of when, in reality, I knew *next to nothing.*


So, those characters changed the game for something that I was karma-docked for years for.

That is part of the reason I started posting here.

I invite any staff member to discuss the matter over video or audio chat and see what they have to say about that. I really want to know what the difference is besides one group being staff-coordinated and my PC being... not staff affiliated.

Basically, this:

You're losing your karma because you thought Nilazi spells would shield your character when, in fact, they couldn't. So, we are going to try to kill your PC with HG soldiers, but we fail. Still, we are docking half of your maxed karma.

Five years later:

Mundane PCs with no concealing or mind shielding spells are able to exist in Tuluk and alter the course of the game.



What is the difference?