|
|
Post by jcarter on Oct 27, 2014 8:06:09 GMT -5
one time I remarked to a friend of mine that was an imm that I was thinking of retiring my merchant house character because I just wasn't having fun in the role anymore. Players were just shitheads about getting their stuff and would ICly get mad if I wasn't logged in 24/7 for them to the point where it would bleed over IG. I think I was like 15 at the time so I had like nothing better to do than Arm anyway which made it more ridiculous. My friend ends up mentioning it offhand about how I wanted to retire on immchat or something like that. I check my email the next day or so and I've got one from Sanvean in there accusing me of wanting to store my character to avoid an assassination plot against him. I had no idea anyone was planning on assassinating me and honestly wtf do I care if my guy gets murdered or retired anyway? She ended up apologizing but it was still weird to see that attitude and distrust.
|
|
jkarr
GDB Superstar
Posts: 2,070
|
Post by jkarr on Oct 27, 2014 8:43:46 GMT -5
legendary and @steinal are pretty accurate in their descs, who u dislike more i guess is matter of personal pref and playstyle jcarter lol yeah mustve been disappointing to see that kneejerk attitude and what ur friend did is the reason i never took issue with the dont share ooc info rule esp with living chars
|
|
forarm
Clueless newb
Posts: 100
|
Post by forarm on Oct 27, 2014 11:46:31 GMT -5
The real sad part about this is that Morgenes seems to have gone the way of Adhira. It does feel like neither of them do much anymore but pop in once in a while to see if the game is still running without them. I agree that it has been Nyr and to a lesser degree probably Nessalin running the show for a while now. The reason i say lesser degree with ness is that I just think after the guy will lose interest again like he has before and join adhira/morgenes in the afk club. The other reason this might have happened is because people were probably beginning to tuluk just to get away from nyr, potentially collapsing allanak...now people have nowhere to run to.  All that said, it feels like Nyr has some more plans for the games, but considering how tuluk turned out, its not necessarily a good thing then again I don't know. Its kinda like the game is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The game is currently stale and boring, with very little change or variety, however the change we have seen recently in tuluk practically killed the area for a while. Damned if you do and damned if you don't, scenario it seems.  |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2014 12:12:17 GMT -5
It isn't really. They have options - very obvious ones - that aren't plague or cholera. It's so easy to see what the game needs, but staff isn't interested in doing that because it would take more than the absolutely minimal work effort they're willing to put in lately. Everything they do seems to come from a place of either reducing future workload or requiring almost no work to do.
Armageddon desperately needs the kinds of improvements that make baseline roles relevant again, which means working on crafts, building and low-level clan maintenance (shit like ensuring soldiers go on patrols etc.), but staff gives them either nothing at all or these ridiculous easy-fix revamps like the whole Tuluk retcon which can be slapped together in an afternoon and shoehorned into the game without any actual process or testing.
There's a whole spectrum of changes they could make between the rock and the hard place, they just aren't good enough at game design to pull it off, or perhaps too lazy/apathetic to bother.
|
|
Jeshin
GDB Superstar
Posts: 1,515 
|
Post by Jeshin on Oct 27, 2014 12:19:45 GMT -5
I don't think the staff as a whole are apathetic, I believe they are misguided. I also believe that a lot of staffers put in a lot of hours but you have to examine what they are doing and why they are doing it and what those systems are best at supporting. Someone above me (to lazy to quote) said Adhira turned Armageddon into DMV. This is accurate, I believe the staff are incorrectly identifying workload they are creating for themselves with over reporting and over monitoring of the playerbase. What is the point of sending in character reports if reading, responding, and discussing them sucks up all the staffs time they could be running organic storylines?
Armageddon's staff structure is designed and best suited for a holding pattern. The request tool and the way they post reports to a forum to allow all staff to read and comment are clearly tools of monitoring and knowing whats going on. But we've seen time and again this is used to prevent 'unneeded work' and to 'correct' gameplay which goes against staff vision. The staff need to let go of their self-imposed busy work and focus on the game. If some staff like... PRODUCERS want to be dedicated to the request tool since they have final veto power anyway, then let them. Let storytellers tell stories and look at reports if they want too.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2014 13:17:08 GMT -5
As for the numbers not being down too much, keep in mind that LaketownRPI has all but died in the last couple of months, and aside from a few people giving EOE a shot, there's basically no other major RPI around. It's Armageddon or nothing, more or less. In fact, this has largely been the case for several years now as the only lasting alternative since SoI closed in 2010 has been Atonement, which lasted something like a year. Despite no competition, Arm remains in decline, but it isn't going to happen in 12 hours (still laughing at that). It's quite alarming or a game to gain nothing from the removal of all competition.
|
|
|
|
Post by BitterFlashback on Oct 27, 2014 13:37:40 GMT -5
I don't think the staff as a whole are apathetic, I believe they are misguided. Hell, i wouldn't even guess half the staff are apathetic. The problems often been that the people who have the right ideas or the enthusiasm get shot down from above. And they usually quit before moving beyond being STs. Armageddon's staff structure is designed and best suited for a holding pattern. The request tool and the way they post reports to a forum to allow all staff to read and comment are clearly tools of monitoring and knowing whats going on. But we've seen time and again this is used to prevent 'unneeded work' and to 'correct' gameplay which goes against staff vision. The staff need to let go of their self-imposed busy work and focus on the game. If some staff like... PRODUCERS want to be dedicated to the request tool since they have final veto power anyway, then let them. Let storytellers tell stories and look at reports if they want too. The game world is also a problem. there's not much you can do but make work for the staff, the way it's set up.
This might explain seeing numbers in the 20something range on other muds that've only been getting about 75% of that prior. >.< I somwehow missed the post earlier. time to roll out ShadowBoardMUD, methinks. |
|
|
|
Post by latrineswimmer on Oct 27, 2014 18:55:01 GMT -5
I'm happy for him tbh. Staff not caring too much is fine with me as I and others are free to play our characters without getting murdered by bored staffers. I have never had any trouble with the guy whatsoever. I can tell he really loves the game even though sometimes it may be hamfisted.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2014 20:41:32 GMT -5
I would by no means say that anything is 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' about the situation.
Considering that the reason all the changes emptied tuluk is that they were unplayed/made little sense, disregarded things people as players managed to do or tried to do (like taking out player created taverns to put in new staff taverns), disregarded things that drive people to the roles they often play (my secret aide/assassin for lord winrothol now is actually owned by the templarate, and can be used to kill him, but you know by the time he's that good, he'll have life oath'd, or would have before the new shartist rules), or slapping a bow on what's already there and calling it progress (how about deleting massive chunks of a city to 'compact' travel in it), regardless of IC call for it or not.
That's your damned if you do.
Consider all the people who've left over game stagnation and what they actually want, and you can fairly easily see that 'changes' doesn't mean that it's going to be more fun, more playable, or what people want. The evidence for that is pretty damn blatant. People want their raider group to be able to succeed (god forbid we load any already existing mdesc covering masks to help with that), or to be able to after many years of time and effort and work make a store (but warehouses, which are only open when you go sit in them, also they aren't in the market and have no shopkeeper, even if you as a player could pay someone 25k/IC year from NPC-land to tend it, you will never get that), or to be able to actually give other elves IC tests of trust to invite them into their tribe (but tribal role changes, right? wrong, this is exactly how it was before. you and your family of pcs could have been from a tribe as well as a family, you're still fucked when any of them dies, you can't recruit IC ever so its still a background tool, but now, bonus points, you're expected to get staff approval for your background tribe, oh joy the fun and totally not unnecessary new workload).
And those are examples of damned if you don't. You know, old problems that people keep having, that they keep making fixes on the edges of that don't actually fix the problems, or do anything substantial to change the world, all it does is make more paperwork and staff workload, but of course.
So I guess if THAT is what you mean, I could see damned if you do (make a bunch of shitty and unwelcome changes), damned if you don't (listen to any feedback or opinions but your own while changing things) as a situation that staff is in.
Unless the thing being suggested is that the phrase is being used in a different context, etc.
|
|
punished ppurg
GDB Superstar
Why are we still here? Just to suffer?
Posts: 1,098
|
Post by punished ppurg on Oct 27, 2014 22:47:53 GMT -5
I think the Tuluk shrink was a good move, seeing as the spreadsheets showed the empty space between things as huge to the point of being silly. I like it when MUDs do things to maintain / improve content from its past, instead of ignoring it or accepting it as the way things are. Armageddon does this sparingly, and should do it more. I could wish that the producers (which is now apparently Nyr, the one and only) would open up a development branch of staffers. The developers get unfettered access to a dev-shell that I know is running, and are encouraged to break / fix things to their heart's content. Dev accounts don't get playability or access to characters, and get kicked the fuck out if they observably change something for the sole benefit of their character. All of the MUD's secrets are outted on this very forum, anyhow - there's no real reason to not allow some inspired individuals to direct their efforts towards improving the MUD with new ideas, and without being encumbered by the overwhelming bureaucracy that's been established. The Immortals / Admins are removed from the coding aspect, and can fully focus their efforts on running PLOTS and character maintenance. Storytellers are extensions of an Admin's will that can do their own thing - make the world seem alive, and all. Just give Storytellers more permissions and capability to do their own thing, with the tradeoff of preventing them from playing characters. Golly gee, all the fears that the staff permit themselves the incestuous ability to further their own Mary-Sue characters could be cured with just disallowing staff from playing PCs. By extension, Storytellers could actually do things without the disabling fear of them using their powers to further themselves (which I think has been done in the history of the MUD). But I'm a random person on the internet and I have no idea what I'm talking about, to be honest. EDIT: Also,  THE PLOT THICKENS. |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2014 23:49:58 GMT -5
You know, I'd be a lot quicker to jump on this wagon of 'lets make all the people on staff unable to play' if it weren't for the fact that 80% or more of problems that come about are the result of people who DON'T play not knowing what the experience is like anymore, and making wildly uneducated decisions because they literally (not playing) don't know fuck all about the result of what they're doing (and how it fucks playability or player enjoyment).
But lets keep railing against that point, like it will somehow make things better.
As if it's EVER going to happen.
And if you think the mud pisses through storytellers now, lets keep them paper pushers in charge of rejecting everything and unable to implement anything without the consent of a boss, but then ALSO make them unable to play.
Because that makes sense.
Not.
|
|
forarm
Clueless newb
Posts: 100
|
Post by forarm on Oct 27, 2014 23:55:11 GMT -5
Unless the thing being suggested is that the phrase is being used in a different context, etc. I should have probably come up with a better phrase, since I wasn't thinking in terms of what the staff should do but rather what the players can expect. If the game doesn't change, it'll remain boring an stagnant but tuluk used to have a small but healthy population. If the game changes, we might see it die quicker. While shrinking tuluk was alright, the shadow/agent change and tribal levies were terrible. Assassins forced to work under the templarate was such catastrophic bad idea. Not to mention they created a double standard with the spy plot and other recently plots. It seems the staff has been trying to send the message that stuff can still happen under the watchful eye of the tuluki temperate and that they aren't all knowing and seeing mind-benders (all the time). However, partly thanks to Nyr's posts on the subject, what it really seems like is that tuluki temperate lose their mind-bending powers only in regards to staff approved plots, however if a player who isn't in the good graces of the staff tries to do the same, you can bet suddenly the templars become all knowing again. Its stupid, they aren't clear about it and it isn't a setting I would want to invest time in and it seems I'm wasn't the only one, given how they are still struggling to rebuild even a small population (though granted it became easier once Nyr had gone south). Its all moot I suppose, at the end of the day the staff have made it clear that they don't care what the players think, and they'll do what they want, mostly dependent on their level of laziness on any given day . |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2014 0:12:47 GMT -5
It's a bad idea to completely bar staff from playing PCs. SoI did that and the result was that staff had no fucking clue what playing the game was actually like, what it needed, and what did or didn't work. However, Armageddon's staff should be restricted to common races and roles, probably nothing above 3 karma. It's not their job to play powerful characters.
|
|
delerak
GDB Superstar
PK'ed by jcarter
"When you want to fool the world, tell the truth." - Otto Von Bismarck
Posts: 1,670
|
Post by delerak on Oct 28, 2014 0:31:39 GMT -5
When did SoI do that? Because last time I checked during Kite's tenure a few years back staff definitely played. Kites wife played and Kite played and it was a huge fiasco that led to the Atonement break off. How do you not know this?
Also how do you think letting staff play the game gives them insight to what it's like being a player? I would venture over 90% of staff came from the player base. This isn't rocket science here, you play, you staff, whatever, it's like saying a DungeonMaster can't run a D&D campaign if isn't playing because he just won't know what it's like. Give me a fucking break man.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2014 0:50:10 GMT -5
They made it a rule for the recent remake. I don't know why, but they did. Kite isn't involved at all anymore.
You can't compare an RPI to fucking D&D, dude. That's absurd. It was a big deal on SoI (Laketown version) because the admins hadn't played PCs at all in the new setting, and since Armageddon has a number of admins who have been on staff for years, it's also fairly relevant there.
I hope you're not seriously claiming that someone who might have played their last PC in 2006 will automatically know exactly what the game feels like today. Some of Arm's staff play PCs and some don't, but if none of them had the option at all, it wouldn't take very long before they lost touch with the game (even more than they already have).
You cannot get the same perspective from staff side. It simply doesn't work that way. The ability to see everything that goes on everywhere and read thoughts, read players' mail, and have access to all the plots via staff forums, will not give an accurate impression of what it's like to play a regular character if you don't occasionally do so yourself. It can suffice to get the information from other admins, but someone has to actually see it from the ground.
|
|
