Shadows of Isildur: Laketown RPI

Yep, agreed.

The best kind of documentation is like a barren tree. You have the trunk and limbs, but the leaves are for the players to bud out IG.

In these instances, there's so many leaves that the vision is blocked.

I was a long-time player of SoI before this new regime and thought I'd break down and give it the old college try.  I'm still trying but unfortunately my hopes are not very high at all after what's happened to me.

Here's a quick run-down of my time so far:

Create a character, got disconnected, logged back on, finished the application and submitted.  Waited 36 hours only to be rejected because I didn't have a background.  I was not prompted for a background at all during generation.  I'm not sure why.  If one is required, how was I able to submit an application without one?  I finally get accepted after another 24 hours.

I'm playing a character that has lost everything and was robbed and beaten by highwaymen, so I junked ALL of my coin and possessions except for my pants.  (Nobody wants to see someone running around naked).    I finally get logged in to the game and find my way to the tavern and bump in to another character.  Awesome!  Roleplay.  We rp for a while, they lead me off to the hospital where my character lays down.  He's confused and talking nonsense (of course he has a concussion after being beaten, so it seems right to play him as concussed).
 
The other player runs off to get the Sergeant of the Guard and when he comes back he just stares down at my character like an annoyance (which he literally told him he was being!  LOL).  My character is acting confused an talking nonsense, giving all the literal signs of having a concussion, one pupil a pinpoint, one large. When the Sergeant bent to smell his breath, I played it as his breath stinking but carrying no scent of alcohol.  I did everything I could through play to inform him of my character's state except to go out-of-character and tell this moron.  Anyway... he just ignores all the evidence and tells me he's going to toss me in a cell for the night so I can sober up.
Not being one to break character, I went along with it.  He dumped me in a cell and informed me that if I acted normal he'd let me out and that he would bring me a blanket and food later if I was a good boy.

I ended up waiting for THREE real life days to get out of that cell and got yelled at for petitioning to be let out by Rishte.

I complained about the player ignoring all of my emotes regarding the concussion emotes as well as the unfriendly attitude of staff thus far.  I used the acronym 'wtf' if my complaint about the player and was immediately chastised for swearing at staff.

In the end it came down to them deciding that the other player had not done wrong by ignoring my emotes because my character was not injured according to code.  i.e. the diagnose command revealed no concussion, therefore my character does not have a concussion.  I felt that was unbelievably obtuse and voiced my objection to it as well and was summarily dismissed.

I was also informed that my character should have healed up with his time in a gaol cell.  wtf?  (Whoops!  Pardon my horrible cursing, I hope it did not upset your delicate sensibilities.)

So far, all I see is a couple of folks on a power trip.  Don't get me wrong, I like some sadistic roleplay and evil gaolers just like the other guy, but don't throw a newbie in a cell within an hour of him starting just because he's not acting exactly how you want him to.

Shame on them, my background says he was beat up and it was accepted, I'm an experienced player and have been roleplaying well when other people are around.  Now they tell me that I should probably not have been approved.  Once again... wtf?

I'm not giving up on my current character without a fight, but I was hoping the fight would be with the environment or other players rather than staff and a player that's supposed to be helping.  I appreciate the invitation, Faroukel, I will take you up on it with my next character.  I agree with you about Rishte, from what little interaction I've had with him, he seems to be a huge control freak.  Not good for someone that's supposed to be nurturing players that are roleplaying.

Two things that happened to me last night were very sad.  First I was in the local tavern earlier in the day, roleplaying with a few people trying to scrounge up a few coppers to clothe and feed my character.  Unfortunately I had to leave, so I wrapped up the play and logged off.  When I came back, there was a handful of coins sitting on the floor.  I thought they may possibly be left by the character I had previously interacted with and that he may have left them for me, since my character was seeking charitable contributions.  Rather than just snatch them up, I thought I should at least roleplay it a bit, so I did a think.  Think Hrm... there's some coins here.  I continued to try to roleplay with the coins again, but could not target them for some strange reason.  I did a LOOK and guess what?  Now there are no coins!  Too funny.  I used the WHO command, I was the only soul in all of the game, so it wasn't someone snatching them out from under me.  The only explanation was a staff member picking them up.

So rude, and immersion breaking by staff to do such a thing to a poor beggar!

Next, I noticed a little something added to the room description about LOOKING at the RULES of the tavern.  (I checked my log from the previous day and there were NO RULES).  Now the rules list 'NO BEGGING'.  This was added the very day after I began roleplaying my character begging a few coppers.  Talk about immersion breaking.  One day it's okay, and now it's against the law and I'll likely have my character tossed in a cell again for trying to scrape together a few coins.

After I saw the new rules I changed my pmote from 'stands near the door begging for coins', to 'stands near the door speaking pleasantly to those that walk by'.

I think I'll take your advice, Faroukel and just laugh off this moronic administrator.  I really don't understand him at all.  

I hope I can get my character back in shape to visit the woods; perhaps we'll run in to one another Faroukel.  

Thanks for the warning, Mike.  I've never been one to shy away from a fight, and frankly, playing their game isn't the end all be all for me as it once was.  However, I'm a firm believer in non-violent protest.  If they want to keep shitting on me, I'll continue to post it here.  I'm just waiting for a couple more players to step up and play along with me, no matter what, the staff can't keep us from interacting together unless they full out ban us, which I think would be a pretty stupid thing to do.

I'm out in the open, unafraid of what they may do to me, for I am righteous in my cause.  

Nimrod is a great admin, but I agree he could hold the reins a bit tighter. In brief discussion with him, he is planning on taking more on in regards to the orcish sphere, which is great news.

Rishte too, is hard working and a good person, but has wildly differing views on adminning than (what seems to be) most of us and does come off as caustic in my own opinion.

Frigga to boot. Good person, great knowledge of Tolkien canon, but I think she's been beat up by years of adminning and is hesitant due to all the strife taking action can bring.

Ultimately, the game is a great one, it could be just so much more if staff was more involved and in tune with what the majority of players want as opposed to their own vision.

You know what might make more sense than than bemoaning the shortcomings of SOI and Harshlands?

I think we might fit in better as a group over on a MUD that has permadeath, but isn't RPI.

Think about it for a second. Back in the day, before my buds and I even knew about Arm or RPI, we would just roll up zany characters and go roleplay in other MMORPG. Occasionally people would pop in and make fun of us, but overall the quality of our experience was pretty good. I understand that this is counterintuitive, having a police-heavy game is counterproductive to creating an environment where creative people can express themselves. And if needed, PVP is pretty straightforward in hack + slash games.

Edit: Most of all, staff are pretty much going to leave you the fuck alone, which will usually be a boon.  I like that old coder guy that Arm has and Nyr and Sanvean, despite what others say of their lot but overall these cats were less helpful to me on the balance than they were constraining.  That weekend when the staff all went to the beach was one of my best Arm experiences.  

I guess my point is that if I were honest I've generally had better RP out of random situations in games like World of Warcraft than in Armageddon. It pains me to say that, but most of the time that I was playing Arm the quality of the roll play was not all that good. I'm not saying that to sound like an elitist, but it was hard to help people boost their RP skills in an environment where I'm not allowed to criticize my fellow players because I'm not staff. I've often felt that the staff mostly scan RP logs to find examples of stuff that they don't want, rather than try to provide suggestions, or better yet dialog, about how people can get better.

I'm not writing *any* of this to look down on the people that still run/play Arm and as far as I'm concerned they certainly have my permission to hang out there and have a good time, if indeed that's what they're doing.

But I kind of feel like we're the cooler kids over here anyway. I think there's more creativity and fraternity in our bunch, than there is back in what's left of the game that we all used to love.