drunkendwarf
Displaced Tuluki
SUCK IT, NYR AND ADHIRA
Posts: 211 
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Post by drunkendwarf on Oct 30, 2014 13:43:57 GMT -5
Steinal is my new hero.
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Post by pinkerdlu on Jul 9, 2019 12:26:38 GMT -5
Interested in hearing where some of you would take the game if you had control, nowadays.
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Jeshin
GDB Superstar
Posts: 1,515
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Post by Jeshin on Jul 9, 2019 12:30:51 GMT -5
I think it's probably tempered by the fact these are 5 years old.
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Post by jcarter on Jul 9, 2019 12:43:40 GMT -5
Interested in hearing where some of you would take the game if you had control, nowadays. to wherever files go after you empty the recycle bin. |
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Post by pinkerdlu on Jul 9, 2019 13:13:43 GMT -5
I think it's probably tempered by the fact these are 5 years old. Yeah, I think this would be an interesting thread to revive and discuss re: the state of the game, current plots and game direction, etc. |
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mehtastic
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Posts: 1,695
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Post by mehtastic on Jul 9, 2019 13:33:33 GMT -5
Interested in hearing where some of you would take the game if you had control, nowadays. to wherever files go after you empty the recycle bin. His Shadowrealm. |
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mehtastic
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Posts: 1,695
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Post by mehtastic on Jul 9, 2019 13:58:43 GMT -5
Interested in hearing where some of you would take the game if you had control, nowadays. Given complete control (i.e. above the Producers), I would: (regarding the staff body and bureaucracy) - Investigate every staff member's in-game activity for impropriety and dismiss staff members that used their role/power improperly, and post an explanation and evidence on Staff Announcements as to why staff member(s) in question were removed. - Prevent the staff from playing PCs anonymously. They can either animate NPCs exclusively, or announce the name and sdesc of the PC they are playing. - Consolidate the staff into a small, non-hierarchical structure that can do their job without requiring one or two layers of approval. Instead, ideas and new building projects that are put forward would undergo a week-long peer review period. Peer review would strictly be focused on continuity of game lore, how fun an idea would be, and spelling/grammar issues with regards to building. After the period is over, the staff that put forward the new idea/object can choose to make it go live or not. - Adopt a flexible maximum size for the staff team, about 1 staff member : 30 players, and replace volunteers that don't do the job they volunteered for with people who are willing to do so. (regarding plots) - Shift back to a staff-led system for large plots and have meaningful plotlines ongoing constantly, aiming for plotlines to last 2-3 months with a 1-2 week break in between plotlines - Involve as many players as possible by tailoring staff-created plots around large groups of existing characters (regarding worldbuilding) - Expand the world, gradually adding new areas and making them relevant to plots. It should be doable to expand the borders of the gameworld in a significant way at least once a year TL;DR: Change the system that encourages staff to be lazy into a system that encourages players to work hard to improve a game they enjoy. In other words, do the impossible. |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2019 15:33:50 GMT -5
I like it, Mr Meh. The only change I would suggest is a specific organizational method that tends to drive content delivery on a desired timetable. Something like using an agile board on the storyteller side to coordinate stories told, and storyteller time invest/spend.
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Post by pinkerdlu on Jul 9, 2019 18:07:59 GMT -5
I like it, Mr Meh. The only change I would suggest is a specific organizational method that tends to drive content delivery on a desired timetable. Something like using an agile board on the storyteller side to coordinate stories told, and storyteller time invest/spend. Yeah, this is incredibly important. Something that would promote efficiency and ease of collaboration. |
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Post by lyse on Jul 9, 2019 23:38:15 GMT -5
(regarding plots) - Shift back to a staff-led system for large plots and have meaningful plotlines ongoing constantly, aiming for plotlines to last 2-3 months with a 1-2 week break in between plotlines - Involve as many players as possible by tailoring staff-created plots around large groups of existing characters (regarding worldbuilding) - Expand the world, gradually adding new areas and making them relevant to plots. It should be doable to expand the borders of the gameworld in a significant way at least once a year TL;DR: Change the system that encourages staff to be lazy into a system that encourages players to work hard to improve a game they enjoy. In other words, do the impossible. I don't think anybody could argue with any of this. It's not even an ideal, it's just how a well oiled game should run. I'd like to dig into this a little bit. Why do you all think the game doesn't run like this? |
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mehtastic
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Post by mehtastic on Jul 10, 2019 8:18:13 GMT -5
Armageddon is primarily held back by two things.
Staff structure dictates that the staff body be filled with people, for the sake of redundancy - having warm bodies in case more hands are needed. This leads to "group project syndrome". Many staff are there for the benefits that being staff brings, and want to do as little as possible to meet requirements for maintaining their position, just as if staffing was a school project. The "staff are volunteers, so don't expect anything from us" attitude exacerbates this issue because without expectations, staff can literally do next to nothing and still be praised for their work. Yes, staff are volunteering their time; but this is not an excuse for not doing work, and it shouldn't be, yet it has become one over the years, largely thanks to Nyr.
Secondly, you have the vocal portion of the playerbase on the main forum, which is generally quite sycophantic and more than willing to accept less than the bare minimum from the staff, if not outright abuse and mistreatment at times. Armageddon is a very large game insofar as MUDs that ostensibly require roleplay go, and attracts new players on the basis that there are already many players. Many players don't know what a better Armageddon would look like because they haven't seen it before.
By the way, these two things are the reason why my response focused on an upheaval of the staff structure. The staff body has become too large and inactive, and the players too complacent with an unchanging game, that the game needs a shake-up at the topmost levels to remind people what an actual evolving game looks like. But I'm not going to say that I came up with these ideas entirely on my own. This is how successful games are run, no matter the genre. Arx, a game I reference here regularly, consistently has engaging, world-spanning plotlines that last a few months each, and can potentially involve each and every of the 200+ active characters. Path of Exile has leagues, and its designers figured out three months is the optimal time to hold the attention of players with new features.
If Armageddon players could see how a real game was run, they would balk at this years-long period of almost perpetual inactivity.
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ibusoe
Clueless newb
Posts: 176
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Post by ibusoe on Jul 11, 2019 12:36:02 GMT -5
Interested in hearing where some of you would take the game if you had control, nowadays.
Good question, Mr. Pink. A major obstacle that I see is an unhealthy interest in theater on the part of staff when they decide to implement changes in the game. This doesn't necessarily pertain to current staff - some would argue that there is no change in game, rendering this criticism moot.
To clarify what I'm saying, imagine if we lived in a small town in Alaska. Maybe with 12 people. If the mayor were planning to roll out a change - even a major change - it might be adequate for the mayor to simply send an informal text message to everyone announcing the decision. Presumably if anyone had a problem with the decision, they could stop by the mayor's trailer.
Now contrast this against policy change at the national level. Americans culturally want a lot of theater. They want a press conference. They want a ceremony. They want an RFC and a chance to formally and publicly register complaints. They want to be personally mailed a document announcing the change. Remember when the FCC cut off the older/analog television broadcast signal about ten years ago? It was very formal, although I understand there are a lot of older people who probably needed help or their television would just randomly have stopped working one day if someone didn't mail them an adapter.
My point is that I think with Armageddon we have more in common with the small village in Alaska, then we do with Federal Communications Commission. How does this impact anything that anyone here is doing today?
I think that if the staff make a decision - for example if they decide to close Tuluk - rather than pretend that there is anything that players can (or should) do to stop something like that, I would rather that they just be upfront that Tuluk is closing. That lets me know as a player to just move out of the way. If their minds are made up, I'd rather just go with the flow. I think that players get in trouble sometimes in game for interfering in staff projects, without knowing which plots are run by staff, which plots are *fait accompli*, and which plots carry OOG political sensitivities. Like if Tuluk is closing, just say it's closing.
I honestly don't care enough about the (in game) politics to want to risk OOG trouble for backing the wrong side. And in my opinion, given the proliferation of favoritism that yes still does occur in the game, it's still too easy to get in trouble for crossing the wrong person. I hope that my point was clear, it is fairly abstract.
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ibusoe
Clueless newb
Posts: 176
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Post by ibusoe on Jul 11, 2019 12:50:52 GMT -5
I also want to make the point that people don't communicate out of game enough. People who aren't sync'd out of game, de facto aren't sync'd in game and so trying to role play with people that you don't have working relationships with is daft. |
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mehtastic
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Post by mehtastic on Jul 11, 2019 16:26:32 GMT -5
I also want to make the point that people don't communicate out of game enough. People who aren't sync'd out of game, de facto aren't sync'd in game and so trying to role play with people that you don't have working relationships with is daft. I agree with you. It's worth mentioning that people don't communicate out-of-game enough (at least, not openly) because the game's rules actively discourage it, in the interest of the "spirit of the game". This leads to out-of-game communication being seen as a forbidden fruit of sorts. People take their communication to channels not controlled by the staff, particularly private channels and this very shadowboard. The best RP-required MU*s around today have open OOC chat channels and unrestricted use of the OOC command to discuss avenues for roleplay. This is their substitution for the tabletop equivalent of talking to your friends about how the campaign is going, the cool things that are happening and when you'll be able to get together next time for another session. By contrast, Armageddon puts such a fierce focus on letting everything happen ICly, bizarrely including things that can't be done ICly, such as finding out mechanical information. This leads to hidden OOC communication, player cliques, and the hierarchical structure to Armageddon's culture that rewards players who have friends on staff (mostly current and former staff). And that is another reason that structure needs to be torn down. |
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Post by pinkerdlu on Jul 12, 2019 8:25:06 GMT -5
I think that if the staff make a decision - for example if they decide to close Tuluk - rather than pretend that there is anything that players can (or should) do to stop something like that, I would rather that they just be upfront that Tuluk is closing. That lets me know as a player to just move out of the way. If their minds are made up, I'd rather just go with the flow. I think that players get in trouble sometimes in game for interfering in staff projects, without knowing which plots are run by staff, which plots are *fait accompli*, and which plots carry OOG political sensitivities. Like if Tuluk is closing, just say it's closing. I honestly don't care enough about the (in game) politics to want to risk OOG trouble for backing the wrong side. And in my opinion, given the proliferation of favoritism that yes still does occur in the game, it's still too easy to get in trouble for crossing the wrong person. I hope that my point was clear, it is fairly abstract. Thank you, sir. I had mixed feelings about your post until this piece, and then it clicked: Yeah, I completely agree and I think this is a great point. Let's see if I can successfully elaborate on this in my own words. The majority of staff-ran plots aren't very accessible for 90% of the playerbase. Either they are "world plots" where staff has already decided the outcome, very niche (often politics of some sort) plots for a select few or the "favorites" or... Well, that pretty much covers it. In the "world plots", you better spam your best reaction emotes and hope you don't get smited - or stay completely out of the way to avoid getting ganked by staff as they demonstrate how "realistic" and "harsh" the gameworld is. In the niche plots, they're tailoring it to a very select group of players/characters. If you're close to one of them, you might be lucky and get your foot in the door. What's left for everyone else? Bandit & Gith rpts for the Byn? You're right, they put on these mysterious theater-esque performances that may satisfy and amuse a portion of the playerbase (who are starving for content), but some of us don't want that... Look, you don't have to tell us any super sekrits or juicy details. But if something is tailored to a specific group, you can be clear about it. If something is already set in stone, you can be clear about it. Some clarity and a bit of transparency would be much appreciated. A lot of us are tired of getting our characters killed over plots that we can have no impact on. (I will note, recent staff seem A LITTLE better at this but there is a lot of room for improvement. I'll point to that rolecall where they asked for people who would be willing for strange things to happen to their char. That was a fun little way for people to get involved.) |
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