japheth
staff puppet account
Posts: 31
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Post by japheth on Jan 18, 2015 23:51:31 GMT -5
Also given that FutureMUD has been mentioned a few times right now, I should probably mention that for the last couple of months I have been in the process of setting up a Flagship MUD to test it out. I'm getting close to FutureMUD being ready for a proper Alpha release to the general public and I've reached a point where I need a real live game being built, run and played on to test a lot of the stuff (but not a dozen real live games at once, so I can actually have a hope of having development time rather than just support time). I am tentatively estimating two months until we're ready to open but like all such deadlines a billion things can get in the way.
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Post by hurrrrrrrrrr on Jan 19, 2015 0:08:04 GMT -5
I'm not sure why people would be so up in arms if we did store/suicide after killing someone. I was informed that if you did that after a PK it would be retconned to avoid exactly that abuse. Now LYING to someone ICly that you would just leave town for awhile after offing them as an example of logical proof that they shouldn't expect the understanding to protect them. That would be perfectly allowable and we did that. The biggest reason we carried out the execution, besides the fact we said we would multiple times on clan chat and no one told us not too. The super impossible to interrogate normal human wouldn't even lie to us. She didn't even attempt to make something up or give us a half truth or anything she just went YOU CAN NEVER BREAK ME AND YOU WON'T KILL ME SO AHAHAHAHA and she actually laughed. So we killed her and knew the bloodaura was coming and I got bloodaura'd and tried to hide out until it'd blow over but I got caught. Big surprise. I spent awhile trying to negotiate with my captors because my character valued his life he was just a sociopath. PS - During our interrogation we used the illusion power or whatever to try and scare her into talking which caused enough psychological damage that it violated the understanding the the player even said as much OOCly but by then we'd already decided to kill her. We even counted down for her and over clan comms and still she didn't break and no one ordered us to stop. I used to have a log, not sure if I do anymore. Yeah, don't get me wrong, I know that player's crap. You're not on the stand here. Take it as me pointing out how gullible some people are. The 'retcon' rule isn't common knowledge. They took what your PC said at face value and spread it around to all their Skype buddies, and yeah, they stormed the forums about it. |
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Jeshin
GDB Superstar
Posts: 1,516 
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Post by Jeshin on Jan 19, 2015 8:41:24 GMT -5
I think this might be my last post on the topic, just because I don't want to turn the other RPIs thread solely into a Haven one... The Understanding has been acknowledged by staff as a tool to control conflict on a META/OOC/GAMEPLAY level. They have stated on their own forums that the Understanding is to prevent PK abuses and griefing and promote RP. It has also been said on their forums by many people, including me, that the Understanding as an OOC control mechanism hurts their game on various levels. Other RPIs have no Understanding by which to artificially control their player population and they're not teeming cesspools of PKers plotting every moment of their life around revenge and grief.
It is my opinion that Haven (like a lot of MUDs) has a lot of potential as a survival horror game. It has interesting code. It has quality RP when people get their head out of their ass (like a lot of MUDs). The biggest thing holding that game back is the player culture which is reinforced by the Understanding which artificially pushes conflict to weak levels or extreme levels. Now on a side note the Understanding only applies in the titular town of Haven and the game is designed so adventures and plots can and do take place outside of Haven regularly. It is possible that if you treat Haven as some kind of base where everyone returns to after fighting out in the big bad world the game could work better than it did during my time. I would still be of the opinion the Understanding would be better off gone, but hey I'm not completely stubborn.
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MartenBroadcloak
Displaced Tuluki
It's not a shit post if you spell check (tm)
Posts: 370
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Post by MartenBroadcloak on Jan 19, 2015 15:19:41 GMT -5
They PK'd me on an OOC presumption, without actually needing me to BREAK a RULE, because they 'assumed' that I would.. despite having no real evidence or track record of abuse to support it (wasn't my first PC, I had played the social type for months prior)...then they sob about griefing.
Also,
The Understanding is a paradox.
Bad things you do = Violates Understanding = you get PK'd because you have a Red Aura
I kill your puppy in front of you = You suffer deep psychological trauma = Violates Understanding = I am Blood Aura'd and become a free PK
I kill you in front of your puppy = You are now Perma-Dead = Violates Understanding = I am Blood Aura'd and become a free PK
Does anyone else see a fundamental flaw in that scale for antagonists? That PK has the SAME OUTCOME as essentially ANY OTHER kind of truly antagonistic behavior you might do? Really?
When I played SHAVING someones HEAD could get you blood aura'd.
When given the choice between probably dying over:
1) shaving a bitches pigtails off
2) stabbing a bitch in the mouth until she's dead
Well you tell me what makes more sense to you.
tldr for my entire opinion; Fuck Haven and their uber-meta-gaming OOC crap.
**drops the mic**
**goes and plays like a DBZ mud or something**
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Jeshin
GDB Superstar
Posts: 1,516
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Post by Jeshin on Jan 19, 2015 17:19:43 GMT -5
Quick clarification. If you enjoy ARM, play ARM. If you enjoy Haven, play Haven. If you enjoy SOI, play SOI. So on and so forth. All that I am re-iterating with my posts throughout the board is enjoy those games while you can because these are the flaws I believe that they have. Due to these flaws I believe they have limited enjoyment and I could no longer enjoy them. My posts are more for the undecided than the already set to try out.
O.O no where in my posts did I say -you- shouldn't play it!
EDIT - Now I dare you to find a post where I say otherwise!
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MartenBroadcloak
Displaced Tuluki
It's not a shit post if you spell check (tm)
Posts: 370
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Post by MartenBroadcloak on Jan 19, 2015 17:42:31 GMT -5
EDIT - Now I dare you to find a post where I say otherwise! Fuck you Jeshin you can't tell me what to do bro!!!!! |
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Post by lyse on Jan 20, 2015 3:06:30 GMT -5
What ever happened to Harshlands? I know it's still open and actually I remember when it opened. It was during the time Arm got hacked and was down for six months or so (?). A lot of Arm players went over there to play for a while. I loved the crafting system, that's the only MUD where I played a crafter a few times without wanting to kill myself after a few hours. This was a time when I would roll up an Arm character, lose her, roll up a Harshlands character lose her, roll up a Four Lands character lose her, play some random H&S Mud till I got bored and repeat.
Anyway, I played a Town-watch member in Tashal when it first opened. I think I got killed by a member of their version of the Guild, the Kia Vir or something. I played an Ivinian shield maiden, some twinked-up viking dude wanted to marry me, challenged me to a duel and beat me and I ran away and became an Agrikian. I also played a Kath hunter, can't remember what happened to her, pretty sure something nasty in the woods ate her.
Anyway, where did this MUD go wrong? It had a big world, lots of different styled places to play. I remember the last time I rolled up a character there were about 12 people online. I feel like over time, it went from more like a MUD to an online version of SCA. What was Harshlands story?
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Post by legendary on Jan 20, 2015 17:27:08 GMT -5
Cliques socially destroyed the community.
Staff became increasingly overbearing, meddling and petty.
Some code overhauls caused the game to go from stable and enjoyable to the equivalent of having a pineapple kicked up your rectum.
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Post by alphabet on Jan 20, 2015 17:56:27 GMT -5
Cliques socially destroyed the community. Staff became increasingly overbearing, meddling and petty. Some code overhauls caused the game to go from stable and enjoyable to the equivalent of having a pineapple kicked up your rectum. There are cliques, but they don't appear to do much to impact the world. There were two meddling staffers in 2010-2011, sure, but the current crop is superb. Also, it's pretty stable: Current Uptime: 1 day 4 hours 55 minutes Harshlands is still going strong enough. I'd say maybe seventy to a hundred active players, with about 25 online at peak. 10-15 off-peak, at the same time when Armageddon only manages about 5. PC populations in Trobridge/Heras are on the rise, there's a fresh population in Leriel that didn't even exist two RL years ago, though it's still the smallest population centre IG, while Tashal's declining (probably due to stagnation and Tashal resembling a chat-room at times). |
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Post by legendary on Jan 20, 2015 18:36:27 GMT -5
The last time I tried Harshlands, I was harassed for almost forty minutes by staff for having a criminal PC do criminal things to other PCs. First with direct confrontation and later with what was either an NPC or their PC, who proceeded to follow my character around and (poorly) act the menacing criminal.
I can only assume they intended to 'show the noob how it's done'.
I wish I still had the logs, but the jist of it was:
"Why are you doing X to Y?"
"I want their Z."
"It isn't thematic or sporting to victimize other players without a solid reason."
"I'm a playing a criminal, it's what I do."
"Don't do X to Y again without a damn good reason."
"What?"
"And don't talk back!"
"lol" > disconnect
This was 2012-2013.
At best, it's aggressive, power tripping staff. At worst, it's staff protecting friends or clique.
It's possible the game changed and these overbearing staff have moved on, but I stand by my assessment of the game. I've tried the game a few times over the years and it seems to get worse in a myriad of ways, rather than better.
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dcdc
Shartist
Posts: 539
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Post by dcdc on Jan 20, 2015 18:59:17 GMT -5
Hey asshole, there will be no role playing here unless its light hearted and cooperative to all people involved.
You know shallow and uninteresting!
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2015 19:35:36 GMT -5
Doesn't Harshlands have that ridiculously enormous game world with fifteen cities?
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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 Jan 21, 2015 11:27:07 GMT -5
The McDonalds down the street generally has 30 players off-peak
The walmart has more like 200
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Post by BitterFlashback on Jan 21, 2015 15:19:50 GMT -5
The McDonalds down the street generally has 30 players off-peak The walmart has more like 200 ^ THIS it's a shame you didnt post that on the gdb. |
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mesuinu
staff puppet account
Posts: 30 
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Post by mesuinu on Feb 13, 2015 16:08:47 GMT -5
This thread is depressing. Are there any muds in development that have any potential outside of waiting on FutureMUD?
Of the OP's list, I've given the Inquisition and Haven a good chunk of my time. I found the former to be pretty boring, although thinking about characters in the world was interesting. The latter was fun during its end of the world sequence (which was basically no-holds-barred fucking around), but since going to its new iteration I've pretty much lost interest in it.
Both seemed to put a lot of emphasis on player-driven stuff, which is only really good when there are a lot of motivated players on the ground getting admin support. Haven leans toward coded mechanics as a replacement for imm support, i.e., offscreen/downtime systems, coded breaking and entering/abduction and strong emphasis on PC antagonism through mind control. Sounds good in theory, in practice leads to PCs seriously fucking around and a lot of crying and bitching about it IC and OOC. IC/OOC separation is a major problem there. The Inquisition was less so with the IC/OOC separation, but it felt like a lot of the time I was spending was spent on grinding, coloring clothing strings or uninteresting tavern RP and thus failed to hold much of my interest. (This was awhile ago, though.)
I've given Harshlands and Sindome basic tries but failed completely to get much past chargen.
The last game I really enjoyed was ARPI, although I only started playing at the last phase of it. I'm a bit sad to have missed Arm's apparent golden years.
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