Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2015 17:27:50 GMT -5
Thanks for the thread and the response.
You're right that he didn't invent them... though I don't recall the caps being enforced very often at all before he joined staff.
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alleys
Clueless newb
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Post by alleys on Apr 24, 2015 17:41:44 GMT -5
I wanted to make a small contribution to this very good and fun-reading thread. I had a Jihaen around 15-18 months, somewhere between 2003-2005. OOCly I was a bit frustruated when I noticed all Lirathu Order, mind-bender templars were NPCs. There was one active Lirathian, and that was NPC. She got even promoted to High Templar for no good reason while I was running a templar. I thought it would be much better to have a PC then an NPC for a Lirathu.On the other hand, after I found this forum, I read how PC Lirathians affected Tuluk, after my PC's time. Like any RP game probably some roles are best suited as NPCs. It's not .. beatiful to set a templar role for NPC level, but again..
PS. I want to say a few words about all Nyr thing. It's rarely realistic or smart thing to contribute every event or result to single person. Even when one person(which is not the case, but even if s/he would) seem to have total autority on a matter, results are usually work of many factors.
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Post by RogueRougeRanger on Apr 24, 2015 17:49:30 GMT -5
I agree with you 98%, and I'd only make this change: not only are players not being encouraged to let it flow, they're not even allowed to let it flow. I have no confidence that things will change. I came to my conclusion about the game years ago, while playing Dragean (who entered the game in January 2010 IIRC), but I thought that maybe I was wrong or that things would change. All my play since then was an effort to convince myself that things would improve. November 2014, when I stored my templar Htaniya, was when personally I gave up. I've seen nothing since to make me reconsider. Put another way: closing Tuluk is to cities what clan caps are to clans. Yeah but that's the difference between you and I (and I'm saying that in a praising way to you), I have my ups and downs with Armageddon, always had, always will, but I also mostly play it on a "minimal" level, I have absolutely no goals when I create my characters anymore, I often try to make the silliest or weirdest characters I can think of and then just play it as it comes, taking breaks whenever I want to and because I still have "fun" just hunting once in a while, chatting with other characters about "stuff" and BS'ing my way into this crazy world. I also play a lot of Hearthstone on the side AND studying like mad when things get quiet, so I'm pretty easy to please. You're the kind of players that Armageddon definitely needs more of, the great leaders and the people that make awesome stuff happen, I'm not. Which is why it's sad to see you go, but I totally understand. If I were like you and I entered the game as a Chosen Lord or Templar with great goals and they were constantly squished down, yeah, I would have lost the fire long ago too. Thanks for the nice words, heh. It's certainly possible to have fun playing Armageddon as long as you know not to shoot too high - that was essentially my advice to gamerguurl earlier today. However, while I may have no desire to play Arm now, what about the next Sargax? Who will play the leader roles that will make the next "Tuluk 2006?" The answer is there will never be another Sargax. Never another Medichi Kadius, never another Sujaal, never another Iakovitzes Tor, never another Garrick the Red. Those greats and many, many more were the key to previous golden eras of Armageddon IMO. The way the game is currently organized such PCs can never happen again. |
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Patuk
Shartist
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Post by Patuk on Apr 24, 2015 17:57:48 GMT -5
I had the dubious privilege of acting as one of Qoriya's soldier cadre dudes, two years ago. It went something like this:
The rawboned, something templar sends you a telepathic message:
"Bro get over here and walk with me shit is going down."
You send the rawboned something templar a telepathic message:
"Aight, I'm down."
Cue my (human) soldier dude marching along with her, into an apartment building, past a door, and inside.
This is an apartment. Shit's cool, yo. Some random junk is on the floor.
The silver-haired f-me is here.
The rawboned, something templar gives the half-giant robot an order.
The half-giant robot subdues the silver-haired f-me.
em stares blankly off into a wall, not really in a position to do anything at all
The rawboned, something templar says, in sirihish,
"You should never have betrayed your city, now die."
The rawboned, something templar draws some knife.
The rawboned, something templar attacks the subdued f-me. Shit's nasty. Dem horrendous hits on low strength, yo.
Turning to face you, the rawboned, something templar says, in sirihish,
"Let this be a lesson to all who would oppose His Light, Private."
You say, in clueless-accented sirihish,
"Yes, Faithful Lady."
The rawboned, something templar says,
"Get the body cremated and you are dismissed."
em cheers wildly at getting something to do at last, despite bodies being about as interesting as a teaspoon.
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Post by RogueRougeRanger on Apr 24, 2015 18:10:42 GMT -5
I had the dubious privilege of acting as one of Qoriya's soldier cadre dudes, two years ago. It went something like this: The rawboned, something templar sends you a telepathic message: "Bro get over here and walk with me shit is going down." You send the rawboned something templar a telepathic message: "Aight, I'm down." Cue my (human) soldier dude marching along with her, into an apartment building, past a door, and inside. This is an apartment. Shit's cool, yo. Some random junk is on the floor. The silver-haired f-me is here. The rawboned, something templar gives the half-giant robot an order. The half-giant robot subdues the silver-haired f-me. em stares blankly off into a wall, not really in a position to do anything at all The rawboned, something templar says, in sirihish, "You should never have betrayed your city, now die." The rawboned, something templar draws some knife. The rawboned, something templar attacks the subdued f-me. Shit's nasty. Dem horrendous hits on low strength, yo. Turning to face you, the rawboned, something templar says, in sirihish, "Let this be a lesson to all who would oppose His Light, Private." You say, in clueless-accented sirihish, "Yes, Faithful Lady." The rawboned, something templar says, "Get the body cremated and you are dismissed." em cheers wildly at getting something to do at last, despite bodies being about as interesting as a teaspoon. Heh. So, positing that Qoriya was just the worst, do you think that if she never existed that Tuluk would now be thriving like it did in 2006? |
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Patuk
Shartist
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Post by Patuk on Apr 24, 2015 18:22:04 GMT -5
I started playing in 2012, and so have a lot less to weigh in than some other people. That said..
.. I really think it'd have helped if enough Lirathans just went and said 'fuck it.'
I'm not even saying they'd have to store, just find a way to not become the reaper of all that is subversive. I can think of a whole bunch of ways from the top of my head.
- Be a lazy, inattentive Lirathan. Dudes plot to murder a noble? Forget about them, RP not noticing them, whatever. Create as much off time as possible to drink brandy, play the fiddle, and drool over sparring Jihaens.
- Be a studious Lirathan. The templarate has a library, and so RP a Lirathan who has come to the decision that Tuluk's destruction was an outside attack/freak accident. Extort magickers inside the city for money to fund your latest orange frills outfit and leave them alone because fear of magic is for the plebes.
- Play a detached, haughty templar. Dude plotting to stab a Dasari? Fuck it. If he succeeds, that's a clear sign Dasari was a retard to begin with. Some guy thinking of how to get back at your sergeant? He's a tough guy. Keep him on his toes. No harm done.
Basically, Lirathans had some potential a creative player could have tapped into really well, but the end result was basically a homing kill button on everything not explicitly approved.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2015 19:18:31 GMT -5
In 2006 Armageddon Reborn was announced. IMO the whole game started going down hill about this time, with staff preferring to redirect creative efforts from Arm1 to Arm2. Some staff left because of the new game (at least one that I know). Many of the vivacious staff members (who seemed to drive the game world) were slowly replaced by more bureaucratic staff that were trained to not do too much and to make sure to get permission before doing anything.
Then the end of the world plots began, with crazy things happening that normally wouldn't be allowed because... might as well go out with a BANG! Staff didn't care as much about maintaining the game world like they normally would and as the end of the world plots dragged on and on, staff realized they couldn't keep up the "fireworks" so things went to the other extreme and became dull and things started to run on autopilot/life support.
More recently things have been getting better, especially with the announcement of Arm Reborn being canceled.
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Post by BitterFlashback on Apr 24, 2015 20:04:47 GMT -5
Either Staff does everything, and players are just puppets, or players do everything (but in a very limited way) and it makes everything stale and the same ol' same ol' type of RPTs that we've seen a million times in the past (again, bard shows, auctions and parties). This quote and the other one echo something I've been saying lately. Let me just post that before I get into it... Yeah but that's the difference between you and I (and I'm saying that in a praising way to you), I have my ups and downs with Armageddon, always had, always will, but I also mostly play it on a "minimal" level, I have absolutely no goals when I create my characters anymore, I often try to make the silliest or weirdest characters I can think of and then just play it as it comes, taking breaks whenever I want to and because I still have "fun" just hunting once in a while, chatting with other characters about "stuff" and BS'ing my way into this crazy world. ... so yeah, what this all amounts to is: if the staff kill everything but a handful of activities, that's what the people who don't quit will wind up playing. Superficial, meaningless RPTs/roles take very little staff work, so the staff doesn't oppose them. I say that with no insult intended and regret I couldn't find less potentially-loaded words to describe the situation. What's so bad about people just fucking around on their own while limiting their interactions to the trivial and short-term? Nobody is really role playing together anymore. They've given their character a neat quirk to stand out a little by pretending it's a real person between quests. It can also be entertaining. Sure, pretending their characters have personalities is a silly thing to do, but ithelps people forget they're basically playing the same things repeatedly between expansions. Nothing players do at present will matter on any level, even subjectively, in the long run or to anyone else. This breaks any hope of being immersed in the game world as it is written (a collective experience) and turns it into a single-player game with a shitty multiplayer option. At best they're socializing in an MMO that doesn't support allying/clans. This comes back to the topic. What made 2006 Tuluk so good? It had a 2006 playerbase and staff, just like the rest of the world. If you threw a rock into a pool of water, you'd see it ripple. At present you'd have the rock retconned, be force stored, and get negative remarks in your notes. Then a mid-to-upper staffer would chastise people who complain that the water's too still to BE THE CHANGE and try throwing rocks at it themselves. |
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Post by RogueRougeRanger on Apr 24, 2015 20:10:59 GMT -5
Either Staff does everything, and players are just puppets, or players do everything (but in a very limited way) and it makes everything stale and the same ol' same ol' type of RPTs that we've seen a million times in the past (again, bard shows, auctions and parties). This quote and the other one echo something I've been saying lately. Let me just post that before I get into it... Yeah but that's the difference between you and I (and I'm saying that in a praising way to you), I have my ups and downs with Armageddon, always had, always will, but I also mostly play it on a "minimal" level, I have absolutely no goals when I create my characters anymore, I often try to make the silliest or weirdest characters I can think of and then just play it as it comes, taking breaks whenever I want to and because I still have "fun" just hunting once in a while, chatting with other characters about "stuff" and BS'ing my way into this crazy world. ... so yeah, what this all amounts to is: if the staff kill everything but a handful of activities, that's what the people who don't quit will wind up playing. Superficial, meaningless RPTs/roles take very little staff work, so the staff doesn't oppose them. I say that with no insult intended and regret I couldn't find less potentially-loaded words to describe the situation. What's so bad about people just fucking around on their own while limiting their interactions to the trivial and short-term? Nobody is really role playing together anymore. They've given their character a neat quirk to stand out a little by pretending it's a real person between quests. It can also be entertaining. Sure, pretending their characters have personalities is a silly thing to do, but ithelps people forget they're basically playing the same things repeatedly between expansions. Nothing players do at present will matter on any level, even subjectively, in the long run or to anyone else. This breaks any hope of being immersed in the game world as it is written (a collective experience) and turns it into a single-player game with a shitty multiplayer option. At best they're socializing in an MMO that doesn't support allying/clans. This comes back to the topic. What made 2006 Tuluk so good? It had a 2006 playerbase and staff, just like the rest of the world. If you threw a rock into a pool of water, you'd see it ripple. At present you'd have the rock retconned, be force stored, and get negative remarks in your notes. Then a mid-to-upper staffer would chastise people who complain that the water's too still to BE THE CHANGE and try throwing rocks at it themselves. Very well put. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2015 20:29:09 GMT -5
Standing ovation for BitterFlashBack.
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Post by RogueRougeRanger on Apr 24, 2015 21:04:48 GMT -5
I started playing in 2012, and so have a lot less to weigh in than some other people. That said.. .. I really think it'd have helped if enough Lirathans just went and said 'fuck it.' I'm not even saying they'd have to store, just find a way to not become the reaper of all that is subversive. I can think of a whole bunch of ways from the top of my head. - Be a lazy, inattentive Lirathan. Dudes plot to murder a noble? Forget about them, RP not noticing them, whatever. Create as much off time as possible to drink brandy, play the fiddle, and drool over sparring Jihaens. - Be a studious Lirathan. The templarate has a library, and so RP a Lirathan who has come to the decision that Tuluk's destruction was an outside attack/freak accident. Extort magickers inside the city for money to fund your latest orange frills outfit and leave them alone because fear of magic is for the plebes. - Play a detached, haughty templar. Dude plotting to stab a Dasari? Fuck it. If he succeeds, that's a clear sign Dasari was a retard to begin with. Some guy thinking of how to get back at your sergeant? He's a tough guy. Keep him on his toes. No harm done. Basically, Lirathans had some potential a creative player could have tapped into really well, but the end result was basically a homing kill button on everything not explicitly approved. I get that you don't like Lirathans. But Tuluk had had Lirathan PCs for at least a RL few years by the time the 2006 heyday came around and their mindbending was no longer a secret among the playerbase then, so it doesn't make sense to me to blame Lirathan PCs for the fall of Tuluk since 2006. Now, their presence didn't help Tuluk from a fun standpoint overall, but they're a sidebar on the explanation of Tuluk's slide into being completely shut down IMO. |
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Post by RogueRougeRanger on Apr 24, 2015 21:42:25 GMT -5
In 2006 Armageddon Reborn was announced. IMO the whole game started going down hill about this time, with staff preferring to redirect creative efforts from Arm1 to Arm2. Some staff left because of the new game (at least one that I know). Many of the vivacious staff members (who seemed to drive the game world) were slowly replaced by more bureaucratic staff that were trained to not do too much and to make sure to get permission before doing anything. Then the end of the world plots began, with crazy things happening that normally wouldn't be allowed because... might as well go out with a BANG! Staff didn't care as much about maintaining the game world like they normally would and as the end of the world plots dragged on and on, staff realized they couldn't keep up the "fireworks" so things went to the other extreme and became dull and things started to run on autopilot/life support. More recently things have been getting better, especially with the announcement of Arm Reborn being canceled. I wholeheartedly agree that Arm Reborn led to the transition from creative collaboration to stifling beaurocracy from the imms, but what signs have you seen that the beaurocratic approach is loosening? I personally haven't seen any, which is why I ask. Or are the encouraging signs too specific to your PCs and it'll lead to you being outed? |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2015 22:28:47 GMT -5
In 2006 Armageddon Reborn was announced. IMO the whole game started going down hill about this time, with staff preferring to redirect creative efforts from Arm1 to Arm2. Some staff left because of the new game (at least one that I know). Many of the vivacious staff members (who seemed to drive the game world) were slowly replaced by more bureaucratic staff that were trained to not do too much and to make sure to get permission before doing anything. Then the end of the world plots began, with crazy things happening that normally wouldn't be allowed because... might as well go out with a BANG! Staff didn't care as much about maintaining the game world like they normally would and as the end of the world plots dragged on and on, staff realized they couldn't keep up the "fireworks" so things went to the other extreme and became dull and things started to run on autopilot/life support. More recently things have been getting better, especially with the announcement of Arm Reborn being canceled. I wholeheartedly agree that Arm Reborn led to the transition from creative collaboration to stifling beaurocracy from the imms, but what signs have you seen that the beaurocratic approach is loosening? I personally haven't seen any, which is why I ask. Or are the encouraging signs too specific to your PCs and it'll lead to you being outed? As far as improvement, I'm primarily referring to creative efforts in the way of additions to the game (the big Tuluk changes, wildlife changes, code additions, crafting additions, player created merchant houses), most of this has happened fairly recently. Though I'm trying to be positive. The character reports change seems promising, but the builder change does not. I see building as something important that shouldn't be delegated to someone without the experience and resources of a staff member. I'm sure they see it making time to do other things but if something is important you make time for it. I'm concerned staff don't see building as something important but as something they'll dictate and delegate to someone else while they supervise. Maybe I'm wrong and staff are about to launch a massive building campaign (and that'd be awesome.) Though to be really successful, with any of their efforts, they're going to need to learn to work with others better and communicate (asynchronous/one-way communication doesn't count) or they're going to run into problems with lack of player support. It'd be nice if staff collaborated better with players and got behind some of their efforts (and be obvious about it) rather than expect players to get in front of their own plans. I'm sure players'd be willing to support staff's projects if they had confirmation somehow that it wasn't going to be a one-sided effort, but a collaboration). I know staff try to be impartial and don't want to pick and choose who the special snowflakes are to lavish their attention on, leaving some feeling left out but frankly it feels good to get the attention. Maybe they can find some way to more randomly sportively of players so others don't feel like there is favoritism (totally going out on a limb here about staff motivations.) To answer the question, no. I haven't seen any changes away from the bureaucratic staffing approach but I try to avoid staff at all costs. I'm one to think that if a staff member were to, out of the blue start, doing ripple animations for my puddles... I'd be concerned water monsters were about to attack. But it'd be nice if it were just something nice to let me feel like I'm a special snowflake, at least for that brief moment. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2015 2:18:20 GMT -5
For those who dabbled in politics and intrigue, Tuluk became a place to be avoided because of the infamous Lirathan templar bullshit. Oh, a templar AND a psionic? Yes, please ass-rape me with your half-giant NPCs at your convenience! More people have had shittier PK deaths at the hands of Lirathans than anything else. Southern templars always seemed on the whole, to be of a higher quality, or at least more approachable and interesting. Jihaens had their moments. Lirathans were just too suffocating. Maybe this is unfair, but even though there were one or two good ones, it seemed like Lirathans and Jihaens had a much much higher wanker quotient than your typical templar. Seemed like a lot of them, aside from the infamous exceptions that everyone has heard about, were short-lived newbs that rarely anyone can remember. It always seemed to me that all Lirathan templars felt this pressure to live up to the stereotypical image of the mind-reading superpolice. I mean, when you think of them, you generally picture some robed chick who walks delicately into the bar and gives somebody an ominous look before taking them away somewhere never to be heard from again. The terror of not even having your thoughts to yourself, and so on. And then when the players of said templars find that there is in reality almost nothing going on that warrants carrying out this cliché, they just start looking for any tiny thing that can be optimistically interpreted as an excuse to do it. It's the only cool thing there is to the Lirathan order: that ability to detect your bad thoughts and make you disappear. It's literally the sole defining characteristic of that entire role. If the role had been given some more substance than that, they might not have had such a consistent tendency to become plot-stopping meddlers. If you look at the southern templarate: they can be military leaders and politicians, they can be overtly bribe-taking corrupt pricks, they can be personifications of the opulent decadence of Allanak's elite, they can be lechers or wealth-seekers or ambitious wannabe red-robes. But Lirathan templars were wrought to be so shrouded in mystery and so rigidly typecast into those dignified, transcended but secretly ruthless beings of perfection that the role just doesn't inspire the player to be anything else. Descriptions aside, I can barely tell two Lirathans apart in my memories of at least half a dozen of them, except for one overdoing the above cliché even more than the others had and becoming known for it. It was just a really badly designed role that could only be played in one way. |
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Post by sirra on Apr 25, 2015 7:47:05 GMT -5
For those who dabbled in politics and intrigue, Tuluk became a place to be avoided because of the infamous Lirathan templar bullshit. Oh, a templar AND a psionic? Yes, please ass-rape me with your half-giant NPCs at your convenience! More people have had shittier PK deaths at the hands of Lirathans than anything else. Southern templars always seemed on the whole, to be of a higher quality, or at least more approachable and interesting. Jihaens had their moments. Lirathans were just too suffocating. Maybe this is unfair, but even though there were one or two good ones, it seemed like Lirathans and Jihaens had a much much higher wanker quotient than your typical templar. Seemed like a lot of them, aside from the infamous exceptions that everyone has heard about, were short-lived newbs that rarely anyone can remember. It always seemed to me that all Lirathan templars felt this pressure to live up to the stereotypical image of the mind-reading superpolice. I mean, when you think of them, you generally picture some robed chick who walks delicately into the bar and gives somebody an ominous look before taking them away somewhere never to be heard from again. The terror of not even having your thoughts to yourself, and so on. And then when the players of said templars find that there is in reality almost nothing going on that warrants carrying out this cliché, they just start looking for any tiny thing that can be optimistically interpreted as an excuse to do it. It's the only cool thing there is to the Lirathan order: that ability to detect your bad thoughts and make you disappear. It's literally the sole defining characteristic of that entire role. If the role had been given some more substance than that, they might not have had such a consistent tendency to become plot-stopping meddlers. If you look at the southern templarate: they can be military leaders and politicians, they can be overtly bribe-taking corrupt pricks, they can be personifications of the opulent decadence of Allanak's elite, they can be lechers or wealth-seekers or ambitious wannabe red-robes. But Lirathan templars were wrought to be so shrouded in mystery and so rigidly typecast into those dignified, transcended but secretly ruthless beings of perfection that the role just doesn't inspire the player to be anything else. Descriptions aside, I can barely tell two Lirathans apart in my memories of at least half a dozen of them, except for one overdoing the above cliché even more than the others had and becoming known for it. It was just a really badly designed role that could only be played in one way. Great post. A dead-on analysis of one of Tuluk's many thematic failings. If anyone is ever in a position to design a future setting, they should read and internalize this. When amateurs try to write game settings, they typically get scenarios like this. Which are cool cinematically, but go nowhere dramatically in the sense of a shared roleplaying space. It's actually something of an art form to design a mud or mush with an emphasis on player conflict and real player agency. That's why Allanak works - because it's essentially a loving homage to one of the most well written and well designed game settings ever. |
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