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Post by firekank on Nov 19, 2014 15:56:29 GMT -5
they have said over and over that the game is in alpha. they are gonna do whatever they want to balance the game and conflict in the way they want the game to exist. no matter what game you are playing in alpha or even beta (a MUD, a MMO, etc) you are not a player, you are a test subject at the mercy of the GMs. the only mistake the soi people made is not saying that outright. or did they? I don't know.
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mike
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Post by mike on Nov 19, 2014 16:27:41 GMT -5
Well Firekank, I hope the goal of an alpha test is learning from mistakes. I'm not sure staff see any of this as a mistake, considering how they lashed out at me.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 19, 2014 22:36:33 GMT -5
It really does seem like nearly every problem the game is facing is related to that clan, which is amusing because for quite a while the game itself was contrived to revolve around that clan. Ultimately it's staff's fault for letting that into the game even though it flew so fiercely in the face of both the rules and common sense, but also the players behind it being manipulative, exploitative and selfish. Both sides should have known better, but one was ignorant while the other was arrogant. Now they're trying to untangle the mess it has left behind but have lost most of the people who are equipped to do so, both staff and players. However, I would give their new admins some leeway as they are largely first-timers and probably haven't got very good material to work with, or seniors to help them.
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rivean
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Post by rivean on Nov 20, 2014 12:44:25 GMT -5
I've got several things to say on this topic, re: SOI's admins and current woes, but lets start with this: they have said over and over that the game is in alpha. they are gonna do whatever they want to balance the game and conflict in the way they want the game to exist. no matter what game you are playing in alpha or even beta (a MUD, a MMO, etc) you are not a player, you are a test subject at the mercy of the GMs. the only mistake the soi people made is not saying that outright. or did they? I don't know. This is an absurd argument. Without going into laborious detail, let's just put it this way: If your plot is designed to achieve your goals, and succeeds (most of the time), but only in the most egregiously wrongheaded way possible, resulting in all sorts of side complications and IC implications that you obviously hadn't wanted, accounted for, or just plain EXPECTED, then it doesn't matter whether the game is in ALPHA, BETA, or OPEN - the problem is not the state of the game, the problem is that you are a bad RPA. I cannot stress this enough - quality of decision-making, particularly when it comes to plot, RP, and the internal integrity of the IG world, is NOT a matter of what state your game is in. It is simply a reflection of your ability to manage these things effectively. That having been said, what with mike's unhappy experience with SOI, we have another round of admin bashing - quite justified, I feel, in many ways - but I think it needs to be said that despite ALL OF THE ABOVE (my post and others' included), it is undeniably true that the current roster of Staff at SOI is probably the most honest, hands-clean bunch of people we've ever had. Not a single one of them has a pet clan, pet sphere, pet PC. Not a single one of them is or has ever abused admin privilege for the IG benefit of their PCs or the PCs of their friends. I would bet my bottom dollar on this, particularly on Nimrod, Frigga, and Alcarin, as I have known these people as players and staff for nearly a decade now. They're honest, they're hard working, they're sincere and dedicated. They're pretty awesome people, actually. But they're also just plain BAD at certain aspects of mud admining, particularly the RPA and story-creation/theme side of things. They have perspective issues, and can very easily be blinded to how their IC and OOC actions translate. For all of these reasons, in my hypothetical perfect mud, neither Frigga nor Nimrod would be heading RPA duties, though they're both perfectly capable of competently running with plots and story threads so long as they're given the right parameters.
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mike
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Post by mike on Nov 20, 2014 19:16:40 GMT -5
They're honest, they're hard working, they're sincere and dedicated. They're pretty awesome people, actually. I'm not sure the evidence supports that statement.
Nimrod wrote: "No staff member punished you for anything. You were dealing with players."
My character had a job in the game. The day before she was killed, her boss demanded she stop discussing the matter of the hill folk, when she refused she was fired. He told my character that he was instructed to make the demand and fire my character if she didn't comply by the "usurer" of the owner of the whole settlement. Both the owner and the "usurer" are staff run characters. So that calls into question Nimrod's statement "No staff member punished you for anything. You were dealing with players." Those two statements of Nimrod do not disprove each other. Staff punished me <I>using</I> players.
Nimrod's hair-splitting goes past the point of deception. Was the sergeant-of-the-guard also acting with staff blessing/urging? I don't know but the evidence seems to fit there as well.
And it's also just sleazy: setting up senior players to 'take the heat' for staff's reckless, or bullying behavior. Sorry, all that's not honest, and it's far less than what I'd expect from "pretty awesome people."
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2014 19:55:46 GMT -5
Well, they're not all of those things to a man. Some of them definitely weren't hard-working, for instance a lot of the early problems stemmed from the fact that Frigga took weeks to do anything at all but still insisted on being included in all sorts of decisions. Not all of them are impartial as they hired the player of the original hillmen chief immediately after their death and assigned them to RPA which resulted in every human-side plot revolving exclusively around that clan while the rest of Utterby fell apart, both from stagnation and from the ways the setting was destroyed by staff catering so ferociously to one clique that never even belonged in the game. Not all of them were honest, Icarus is known for saying whatever he thinks will appease people even if it's total bullshit.
They generally aren't corrupt or cruel the way Armageddon's staff are, though. Unfortunately it seems hard to find admins who are both reasonable and competent. I'm also not sure who all is left anymore, but I know I'd have a hard time putting my faith in Nimrod after he wanted to get rid of permadeath and basically ragequit staff when the playerbase told him how wrong he was. However, the good thing is that he's a coder, which sort of gives him a carte blanche to be silly.
I think they'll have a very hard time due to the really poor start the game had. It's difficult not to identify SoI:Laketown with a) incompetent staff, b) horrendous favoritism, and c) arrogant scumbag players whose sole mission was to be the center of attention and win the game by exploiting naive admins. People could live with the narrow setting, the lean craftsets and the less than ideal PvP situation, but I think a lot of players were so turned off by the bad decisionmaking from staff and the unapologetic abuse of the game from certain players that it'll take a huge effort to turn the game back into something succesful again. Maybe they can, but they'll need to show that they're aware of what went wrong and know not to make the same mistakes again. I'm not yet convinced of this.
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Kronibas 2.0
Displaced Tuluki
this account will go inactive once I hit 420 posts
Posts: 389
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Post by Kronibas 2.0 on Nov 21, 2014 9:55:06 GMT -5
Hi
Would rather nimrod give his char a golden dick than being a baddy admin along with the Frigga. I think the RPAing has less of an impact than shitty management. How much experience do you even have -playing- shit SoI, rivean? Your whole arguement is: "uh lol guys no they're not bad people they're great. Yes, focus on the disappointing roleplay. The roleplay is the only issue! *rubs hands and cackles*"
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Post by anoobarak on Nov 21, 2014 11:31:10 GMT -5
This is an absurd argument. Without going into laborious detail, let's just put it this way: If your plot is designed to achieve your goals, and succeeds (most of the time), but only in the most egregiously wrongheaded way possible, resulting in all sorts of side complications and IC implications that you obviously hadn't wanted, accounted for, or just plain EXPECTED, then it doesn't matter whether the game is in ALPHA, BETA, or OPEN - the problem is not the state of the game, the problem is that you are a bad RPA. I cannot stress this enough - quality of decision-making, particularly when it comes to plot, RP, and the internal integrity of the IG world, is NOT a matter of what state your game is in. It is simply a reflection of your ability to manage these things effectively. Lol wut. Plot plot things happen. Otherwise it's called railroading. Maybe you'd prefer if they just dropped a lolcano on things?
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elali
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Post by elali on Nov 22, 2014 8:58:47 GMT -5
They're honest, they're hard working, they're sincere and dedicated. They're pretty awesome people, actually. I'm not sure the evidence supports that statement. I think they (Nimrod and Frigga) are in the wrong here. But I think they're sincerely in the wrong. I think they've genuinely convinced themselves that you and/or your pc wilfully misinterpreted an unfortunate but relatively minor ic event, making it far bigger and uglier than it ever should have been. I'd say, of course, that the staff-posted ic descriptions of the event were asking for pretty much exactly your pc's reaction, and that most of the reasons we didn't see more characters respond similarly involve either (a) their players' ooc knowledge (about the actual number of coded deaths, the identities of the characters killed, the long saga of ooc drama surrounding the affected clan, and so forth) or (b) their ic awareness of in-game events from (I believe) before your pc's arrival on the scene (most notably the fugitive-harbouring angle). My character had a job in the game. The day before she was killed, her boss demanded she stop discussing the matter of the hill folk, when she refused she was fired. He told my character that he was instructed to make the demand and fire my character if she didn't comply by the "usurer" of the owner of the whole settlement. Both the owner and the "usurer" are staff run characters. That's an interesting npc! I mean, if you read his wiki blurb, he's obviously a jerk, right? Or an antagonist, in plot terms. But players have an unfortunate tendency to take npc directives as staff directives, of which, of course, staff should be well aware. "Fire any troublemakers" might have been the icly logical and in-character position for him to take, but everyone probably would have better off if he hadn't happened to take notice, much less intervene. He's a bit too influential (both icly, because of his position, and oocly, because everyone knows he's staff-run) to be used lightly.
Anyway, I wish your pc hadn't died in the way that she did.
I wish staff had said, "Wait, there really wasn't a genocidal massacre and forced relocation ic. What happened to make your pc think there was? How can we correct and clarify the ic impressions our handling of the event has created? Oh, right, there was no news from the camp survivors themselves. There were no reports from neutral third parties. There were no numbers; the gossip sounded somewhat racially charged. We said 'under guard' when we should have said 'with the assistance, protection, and support of the soldiers'. We left the survivors' ultimate destination suspiciously mysterious. Oops. Let us fix that."
Things being what they are, though, I wish you the best of luck wherever you find yourself rp'ing.
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mike
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Post by mike on Nov 22, 2014 10:38:40 GMT -5
Thank you for you well-wishes. And I think you are on the mark with all that, elali.
After reading what you, and I, and others have said about it all, do they remain "sincerely wrong"? If they don't recognize what they did wrong, they'll likely keep doing it. What you just described was a massive IC/OOC crossover issue on the part of the admins.
IC/OOC crossover is the bane of any RPI MUD.
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Kronibas 2.0
Displaced Tuluki
this account will go inactive once I hit 420 posts
Posts: 389
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Post by Kronibas 2.0 on Nov 22, 2014 12:04:05 GMT -5
Thank you for you well-wishes. And I think you are on the mark with all that, elali.
After reading what you, and I, and others have said about it all, do they remain "sincerely wrong"? If they don't recognize what they did wrong, they'll likely keep doing it. What you just described was a massive IC/OOC crossover issue on the part of the admins.
IC/OOC crossover is the bane of any RPI MUD. Of any legitimate roleplay, really.
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Post by anoobarak on Nov 22, 2014 12:15:37 GMT -5
I think the only thing staff did wrong was rez you. Nobody liked Special Sue setting up her own sphere in what was supposed to be a two sphere game. Mistake rectified.
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elali
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Post by elali on Nov 22, 2014 13:53:55 GMT -5
After reading what you, and I, and others have said about it all, do they remain "sincerely wrong"?
Hopefully these things settle over time; people feel less defensive, they feel more reflective. Hopefully things go better the next time a major staff-mediated ic event rolls around. Cross fingers? I think the only thing staff did wrong was rez you. Nobody liked Special Sue setting up her own sphere in what was supposed to be a two sphere game smacking somebody with a sword in the middle of a busy inn and facing virtually no ic consequences.ftfy More seriously, I wonder if a 24-hr waiting period for any rez wouldn't be worth giving some consideration. I don't think anyone's judgement is clear in the first few hours after a controversial pc death.
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mike
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Post by mike on Nov 22, 2014 22:51:32 GMT -5
I think the only thing staff did wrong was rez you. Nobody liked Special Sue setting up her own sphere in what was supposed to be a two sphere game. Mistake rectified. I have no idea what that means: "setting up her own sphere". I wasn't attempting that, no one was implying that at the time to my knowledge. That seems to be some kind of red herring being thrown into the discussion.
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Kronibas 2.0
Displaced Tuluki
this account will go inactive once I hit 420 posts
Posts: 389
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Post by Kronibas 2.0 on Nov 22, 2014 23:15:52 GMT -5
Mike's char does sound like she was a bitch, tho.
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