Jeshin
GDB Superstar
Posts: 1,516 
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Post by Jeshin on Jan 30, 2015 10:03:23 GMT -5
Really Grinds my Gears: I suspect that the staff of not only ARM but a lot of MUDs are not foreward thinkers. Your game will be operating for years even decades (hopefully) and you need content. You can't just rely on emergent content which banks on players all being in the right place at the right time to enjoy it. No you need to create a 'roadmap' or perhaps a 'story' which you can push to provide ambient content.
1. Why have we gone so long without a war are the city states exhausted from conflict? Are the templerates sekritly in a stalemate because their Kings are in reclusive and haven't given orders? What is the reason, why isn't the reason even a rumor, why aren't there signs both obvious and subtle?
2. What is going to happen to Luirs? It has now been on both sides of a war between Allanak and Tuluk and they clearly accept the higher bid between the two. Don't you think someone unofficially or officially might decide that Luirs would do better to be completely under the thumb of another city state? Counter point why don't Luirs and Red Storm team up and form some free city-state crap thus creating social conflict?
3. Just in general what is happening on ARM or any game? Do you know what will happen in a month? 6 months? a year? Do you just shrug and go, oh we'll think of one off plots and half-baked ideas with no greater context and just string that shit along until we create a railroad cutscene to make everyone think we're still progressing the MUD
TLDR - MUDs with staff who don't proactively plan/create/guide the story on a longterm basis annoy me
EDIT - I thought of this annoyance after reading the Northlands Blog which was linked in another thread. One of the early complaints was the departure from tolkien cannon which the original SOI had been using since creation as their storymap. Which reminded me all games should have a storymap of one form or another!
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Patuk
Shartist
Posts: 552
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Post by Patuk on Jan 30, 2015 10:29:41 GMT -5
I really don't blame staff for not keeping any longtime wars going. Permadeath MUDs are a very bad place to have any such things in place.
If MUDs were made like counter-strike, constant war would be fine, since you could app in a character and join the war effort with a character as strong as any other no problem. Death would be no big deal despite its permanency, and you could have constant (or even frequent) war just fine.
Armageddon is no counter-strike, however. A new character in Armageddon is codedly useless against anything that has been around for a month or longer. It has a skill system so complicated and shrouded in secrecy that even with an entire site of self-admitted twinks and people with nothing to lose, it is hard to even know just how you should do well at skilling up.
The reason this is relevant is that if you were to have a war in Armageddon, said war is going to be decided in the first battle already. If one side manages to kill off the other side's long-lived dudes first, they will have an advantage that cannot be outpaced by anything short of skill bumps to anyone who asks. It doesn't matter if virtually speaking, their city-state still has a thousand grizzled soldiers left ready to fight, their PC population of buff warriors/rangers will be gone.
So yeah, I can see how it is a shame that staff appears to lack a future vision or a good number of plots they can initiate, but all-out war is something that Arm just isn't suited for.
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Post by jcarter on Jan 30, 2015 10:35:12 GMT -5
i don't think the game needs another war. by and large, the actual act of fighting battles seems to be received as pretty unfun because the combat system can't support tactics, low impact of the playerbase on outcome, and general railroading of plot, as well as a 'return to normal' afterwards.
a much more active and fun option is small-scale covert operations. tuluki sabotage of Allanaki obsidian mines; Allanaki hit squads taking out Tuluki lumberjacks. actual players can have effects and there are repurcussions, i.e. increase in food prices if a farm is destroyed. some sort of dynamic changes in the power structure of the game. a lot of this would require substantial code work as well as handing some power to players, which staff have repeatedly shown they are not interested in doing.
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Jeshin
GDB Superstar
Posts: 1,516
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Post by Jeshin on Jan 30, 2015 11:40:00 GMT -5
Just to clarify I'm not promoting that they have an all-out war. What I'm questioning is are there story/plot/character elements which justify a lack of war which can inform current story/plot/character things going on now.
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mood
Displaced Tuluki
JOHN DARNIELLE #1 FANZONE
Posts: 335
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Post by mood on Jan 30, 2015 12:07:48 GMT -5
really chaps my ass
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delerak
GDB Superstar
PK'ed by jcarter
"When you want to fool the world, tell the truth." - Otto Von Bismarck
Posts: 1,670
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Post by delerak on Jan 30, 2015 12:27:26 GMT -5
Luirs was once under Naks "rule" they had a political agreement to allow 'Nak thru. This all happened during the previous wars in the north when 'Nak occupied Tuluk.
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delerak
GDB Superstar
PK'ed by jcarter
"When you want to fool the world, tell the truth." - Otto Von Bismarck
Posts: 1,670
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Post by delerak on Jan 30, 2015 12:27:41 GMT -5
Oh then Kurac backstabbed the nakkis in Luirs during the HRPT of what.. 2002? 2003?
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Post by lyse on Jan 30, 2015 12:39:22 GMT -5
i don't think the game needs another war. by and large, the actual act of fighting battles seems to be received as pretty unfun because the combat system can't support tactics, low impact of the playerbase on outcome, and general railroading of plot, as well as a 'return to normal' afterwards. a much more active and fun option is small-scale covert operations. tuluki sabotage of Allanaki obsidian mines; Allanaki hit squads taking out Tuluki lumberjacks. actual players can have effects and there are repurcussions, i.e. increase in food prices if a farm is destroyed. some sort of dynamic changes in the power structure of the game. a lot of this would require substantial code work as well as handing some power to players, which staff have repeatedly shown they are not interested in doing. I would argue that most people that played would simply be happy with a bunch of small one off plots that dealt with a larger story arc and perhaps lead to a big event. It would still be railroading, but it would be more of a Choose your own Adventure styled railroading. Of course this is all wishful thinking from me but it would look something like this (it won't make sense, it's just an example) Main Arc: the 20th Tuluki-Allanak war Smaller Arcs: House Kadius discovers an ancient weapon (a ballista) but they have to move it through gith country. Who are they going to sell it to? How do they keep it away from the other gmhs in the meantime? Can they find someone to duplicate it? Meanwhile: a Templar in Tuluk has come up with a type of non-magical Fire that is difficult to put out. The ingredients are rare, some are even in the south. How do we get them? What are these rumors of this thing House Kadius has? We're going to need to send in some people into 'nak to get the rare juju flower that we need to make this fire stuff. and so on with all of the different spheres involved in overlapping plots, but their own little ones too. Depending on what they've achieved, that more or less decides the outcome of the war. Allanak has the ballista, the Greek Fire, the magical flute that can raise sand elementals? They have more tools at their disposal during the battle of Vrun Driath (the culminating battle). But Tuluk has more twinked up pcs. Now different units have different objectives during the battle, the side that holds the most objectives at the end wins. an arc like that could take years to achieve and probably grow the game, because there would be something going on everywhere. TL;DR if smaller plots were going on for spheres/clans, there would feel like movement is going on in the world, people would want to play in them and staff could move forward with whatever the hell they're trying to do. They could be doing all that right now though.....  ? |
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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 30, 2015 14:56:01 GMT -5
I really don't blame staff for not keeping any longtime wars going. Permadeath MUDs are a very bad place to have any such things in place. If MUDs were made like counter-strike, constant war would be fine, since you could app in a character and join the war effort with a character as strong as any other no problem. Death would be no big deal despite its permanency, and you could have constant (or even frequent) war just fine. Armageddon is no counter-strike, however. A new character in Armageddon is codedly useless against anything that has been around for a month or longer. It has a skill system so complicated and shrouded in secrecy that even with an entire site of self-admitted twinks and people with nothing to lose, it is hard to even know just how you should do well at skilling up. The reason this is relevant is that if you were to have a war in Armageddon, said war is going to be decided in the first battle already. If one side manages to kill off the other side's long-lived dudes first, they will have an advantage that cannot be outpaced by anything short of skill bumps to anyone who asks. It doesn't matter if virtually speaking, their city-state still has a thousand grizzled soldiers left ready to fight, their PC population of buff warriors/rangers will be gone. So yeah, I can see how it is a shame that staff appears to lack a future vision or a good number of plots they can initiate, but all-out war is something that Arm just isn't suited for. I agree and disagree. In terms of the present, you're exactly right. But in terms of what's possible , staff could definitely run an extended all-out war scenario without completely demolishing either side. It'd take actual storytelling, which is a real rarity with the current staff . But with roleplay you could definitely portray an extended war-- which would only appeal to the players of the soldiers and the higher ups ordering them around from afar. Like real war, really. Except less roleplay and more pain and suffering. Anyway, each side would have a forward base. Which staff have gotten right. But from that base, they have just had the whole playerbase march out to a final huge battle find of deal. No prep, no roughing it. No terror and long nights. Just insta death from a gicker or half-giant. Make the units of soldiers feel small. Make a NPC Captain force the unit into graveduty, sent to a quiet battlefield filled with the bodies of NPC soldiers from a previous conflict. Make them drag bodies abs loot corpses and throw up grisly emotes and echoes . Have them patrol and run into a small enemy patrol. Don't go straight to code. Make the unit rangers guard a ridge for days at a time, or spy. Everything doesn't have to be insta death or obvious bullshit from the staff. Importantly, too, make PC choices matter. Even in ways that doesn't have to be deciding an entire war. |
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Patuk
Shartist
Posts: 552
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Post by Patuk on Jan 31, 2015 17:32:57 GMT -5
What grinds my gears is this one phenomenon you see everytime a gdb discussion thread gets heated.
It isn't the fawning or people being yes-men, I can brush that off as the silliness that it is just fine. It isn't the strawmen or the people going THINGS ARE FINE AS IT IS CHANGE IS EVIL, those are everywhere.
It isn't even people breaking out the alt accounts. I can understand that. Some random dude's opinion on why it sucks to play a celf is important, dammit!
No, it's the people going 'wow dude alt account so brave why not use real account huh?'
Really, people?
Seriously?
Saying this proves that you don't care about shut but the gdb pecking order at all. It makes it painfully obvious to anyone paying attention that you're not trying to improve the game or discuss a point, but instead prefer to silently judge and point and laugh at people for being part of that silly group saying X.
Fuck right off. If you want to gossip and go all mean girls on people, go back to school or start hosting parties or whatever. If you can't even pretend to pay attention to substance rather than form or context, your opinion is as valuable as a rock's is.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2015 16:50:02 GMT -5
Maybe HG soldiers should get this feature:  Perfect. |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2015 16:51:05 GMT -5
I'd be all on the HG bandwagon but Albie is a pretty good example (in my opinion) of a well played HG that enriches the byn. That being said you need to remember that Tuluki Legion according to the docs are mindbended by the faithful and Sun King. The docs describe them as fanatically loyal and disciplined. PCs obviously don't get the same mindbender treatment even though that'd be fucking sick. I mean could you imagine if joining the Legions 100% meant a Templar mindbender was going to begin conditioning and molding you? Think how good that RP could be and how good it could be for tuluk if the PC mindbenders actually tried conditioning prominent citizens behavior like they should be. Anaiah if you're reading this mind chiming in with any precedent or contradiction to my doc inspired idea? <3 Albie |
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