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Post by hyperion on Oct 3, 2014 4:16:03 GMT -5
It seems to me that the death spiral of a MUD game is pretty predictable. A owner/administrator gets a hold of the IP and begins to shape it mercilessly in their own image, regardless of player wants. This causes many players to find new outlets, dwindling the population below critical mass. The remaining population becomes insular, even cliquish while acting mostly sycophantic towards the one shaping the world, preventing the addition of the uninitiated masses.
Slowly, but surely, the due to the administrator finding it incomprehensible to realize the IP is actually indeed about those who participate in it, and not themselves or their own microambitions, they grow increasing frustrated and malicious until even the until then groups willing to tolerate them begin to migrate. Its about then that the game simply implodes based on the whims of its operator, or the population becomes so miniscule it cannot be reasonably sustained.
How many RPI/MUD/etc have you seen pass through this cycle? I can count out 5.
How close is Armageddon to passing the drain?
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Post by lulz on Oct 3, 2014 4:33:44 GMT -5
If Nyr and Adhira are not replaced: within 3 years, I'd wager.
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Post by BitterFlashback on Oct 3, 2014 6:22:11 GMT -5
How close is Armageddon to passing the drain? 14 months. |
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Jeshin
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Post by Jeshin on Oct 3, 2014 8:43:32 GMT -5
Armageddon is shielded by being one of the few fully realized RPIs and having critical mass of players. I'm not saying Armageddon can't implode. I'm saying that it can limp on for a long time.
1) I have had several friends who play arm get banned or quit only to return within a months time. Despite realizing they do not actually ENJOY their time on ARM. They are seduced by the potential ARM has to be fun and forget entirely about the reality of what trying to do things normally leads too.
2) Armageddon has a simple skill system and world, if you're an oldbie it's like riding a bike. You login, you grind a little, you're heads and shoulders above the noobs and likely have a strong enough grasp of things you can influence noobles and templars with your usefulness. Immediate gratification on the short term.
3) Armageddon has enough players that you can normally find RP (if you aren't where Nyr is) this is top 3 things when considering a MUDs survivability. This is the critical mass of players I'm talking about.
Until a true alternative to ARM exists, I don't think ARM will implode short of them fucking with their 3 city formula. Like we have SOI which might have staff more passionate and willing to help, but the gameplay is in an alpha state and Arm is better codedly. You have Haven RPG (not technically an RPI) that has interesting code options, interesting player vs player code, but is starbucks simulator online with super ooc cliques. You have Sindome which has possibly the most retarded staff I have ever seen, worse than ARM. Gameworld is fun, but they take the find out IC thing to such an extreme level I made 5 character concepts that all meshed with the setting but had 0 support code wise despite the code existing. Then you have the other games in our Other Game forum which have all fallen short judging from the lukewarm threads about them.
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Post by BitterFlashback on Oct 3, 2014 11:02:36 GMT -5
Armageddon is shielded by being one of the few fully realized RPIs and having critical mass of players. I'm not saying Armageddon can't implode. I'm saying that it can limp on for a long time. I was actually just talkng about critical player mass the other day. lemme partially quote and link that... I do believe were seeing a tipping point. OR possibly critical mass of discontent. Arm runs the risk of eliminating enough of their old playerbase they'll be unable to sustain the game. even with the idiotic streamlinging Arm is a game with a harsh learning curve. A large part of that is from so much of the game's information being IC only in a world designed to kill anyone who hopes to do more than play miniquests for their water money. if they lose enough vets there will be no one to introduce most games to the good parts of Arm culture and that precious "learn IC" info. And as they drive away some of the people who have been around for years with staff stupidity and "streamlining", they also risk losing more vets who just can't find people they enjoy playing with. ... so obviously i agree with you that Arm's vets can hang in there as long as arm's vets hang in there.The danger is in too many of them burning out at the same time.
Until a true alternative to ARM exists, I don't think ARM will implode short of them fucking with their 3 city formula. So now i have to make a MUD again. Dammit. |
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Jeshin
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Post by Jeshin on Oct 3, 2014 11:16:00 GMT -5
Fun fact: This forum actually assists ARM in avoiding brain drain. Just because oldbies retire no longer affects the game. This site is ranked above ARMs own forums meaning the odds of newbs finding it while playing ARM is high. We also provide all the information and education any newbie would need to survive in the gameworld without requiring veterans to educate them ICly.
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Post by BitterFlashback on Oct 3, 2014 11:43:19 GMT -5
That's a valid counterargument. But we can only introduce them to the mechanics.
we cant teach them all the backstabbing bastardly rp stuff that you really do have to learn in game. I say in game instead of ic because there are ooc elements to it. Everyone thinks they canbe the top dog manipulator given the chance, but until you actually see someone experienced with the ic side and staff side of getting shit moving, the only way you can learn is by hitting those brick walls yourslf
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2014 11:43:25 GMT -5
Arm won't die as long as there's no other RPI worth playing, which has generally been the case since the original SoI closed like four years ago. There was Atonement for a while, but it was shut down by its creator (no idea why) and then a few temporary efforts such as Black Sands. Since the old SoI - when Arm was in a much less nebulous condition - nothing has challenged it. It's the only stable, dependable RPI, for all its errors. The new SoI seemed to have potential but I couldn't stand playing there, it's really bad and I don't think it has any future as a major RPI.
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Jeshin
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Post by Jeshin on Oct 3, 2014 12:45:39 GMT -5
Atonement is actually an example of the creator making something and stepping away from their project. Please correct me if I'm wrong but...
Creator: Songweaver
Songweaver helps develop the RPI+ engine which Atonement and its spinoffs are run on.
Songweaver is the lead creator of the setting and content
Songweaver is lead during the first 2 phases of the game
Songweaver steps away passing on leadership to 2 other staff Icarus and Tiamat
Atonement goes through phase 3 & 4 and begins to bleed numbers
Songweaver returns in phase 5 to cycle the game down because he sees the writing on the wall
Atonement ends both storywise and gamewise and the engine is given to the players to do with what they want
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Post by gloryhound on Oct 3, 2014 13:15:44 GMT -5
It's not something I could see the Armageddon staff doing if they decided to close up. There was discussion of letting people read bios and game information from the original game after the transition to Arm 2.0 and my take on the staff view was a big "no". They'd probably say the same thing on closing up i.e. peoples privacy must be protected. Which is sort of joke given the number of players that have been made staff and had full access without the other players consent at some time or other.
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Post by BitterFlashback on Oct 3, 2014 13:23:22 GMT -5
There was discussion of letting people read bios and game information from the original game after the transition to Arm 2.0 and my take on the staff view was a big "no". They'd probably say the same thing on closing up i predict arm's closing would go a little more like this. - Arm closes. this is done by replacing the opening of the game with a message telling people to get stuffed
- Someone posts on the gdb that the game says it's closed. Others complan there was no warning.
- Nyr posts that the game is now closed and this (his post) is your advance notice.
- several people are banned from the gdb out of habit, even though it couldnt make a difference
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Jeshin
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Post by Jeshin on Oct 3, 2014 14:30:32 GMT -5
Arm can make its codebase public without risking any personal information being leaked or previous character histories. Unless they have some very bad programming structures in there it's just a matter of wiping the databases which keep track of accounts / passwords / PCs / etc and put the clean source up on github or something.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2014 22:06:12 GMT -5
Now... a year ago, this time of year (a year and two weeks to be real exact), 50-60 at that time of night was the usual. And this is multiple times something like this has come up, up there so... there might be a critical mass currently, but it's about half of what it was a year ago.  |
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Post by hyperion on Oct 4, 2014 8:55:05 GMT -5
There seems to be a consensus of some degree that until there is an alternative, Arm won't close for lack of any other outlet. Would that outlet have to be an RPI styled game? Is there some other crucial element that would be required?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2014 9:56:02 GMT -5
Well, nothing but an RPI would fill the same need, unless you're talking about something graphical with similar roleplaying principles. Since we can pretty much rule that out, I'd say that yes, it has to be an RPI.
In order to really challenge Arm, it would also have to be a similar game in several respects. It would have to be a large, persistent and fully fleshed-out world with a stable in-game society and at least a pretense of freedom for the players, allowing you to play in many different areas even if most people choose the same two or three. The original SoI was closest to this and also had numbers that nearly rivaled Arm's until bad management eventually led to SoI's closure. Atonement was too transient, going through various phases and eventually closing. The new SoI has no freedom at all, forcing you to play in exactly one location.
Something like Harshlands might actually be closest to the mark design-wise, but it's so old and has been anoynmous for years, so I have no idea if it's still in a state that's worth playing.
Are Arm's numbers really down to 35ish at peak? I haven't logged in since the start of the year, but if it's that low, that's really dire. For all its failures, the game has at least always had very stable and static numbers. It has been 50+ at peak for the last eight years or so.
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