The Armageddon Staff / Player Divide

Best I can see, from reading the posts, Person A said that there's no divide, and brought up debate, I suppose as a challenge to anyone risking saying there was a divide and giving proof. Asan said, "Yes there's a divide. There have been disagreements, and staff are unapologetic even when proved wrong. The best you can hope for is a quick 'Well, this is the way things are now.'" Asan expressed an opinion opposite to the poster, and on topic. A few people in the board suggested that he should submit proof, which he said was illegal at this point for being under the 'year policy'. He didn't agree with Nyr, Talia, or Cavaticus(sp?) and thinks they're all shitty administrators, with his primary disdain coming from the fact that none of these people outright apologized in a way that really covered the situation. He -did- keep pushing after the events were told to be dropped. And though it doesn't surprise me he got banned, and it shouldn't surprise anyone who has kept up with the story, it doesn't make it any less another decision showing the same casual 'we own this shit' personality found with staff members of muds. /I/ am not surprised. I've yet to find a single MUD that doesn't have staff that treat it as their personal sandbox/clubhouse to kick kids out of at their leisure. Stop thinking of this as a communal thing provided by someone. It's 'staff's personal property. It was built from the ground up almost by them. If you look at it more like that, you won't be as surprised in general when they treat it not with the indifference and indulgence to be expected of a proper administrator, but more with the personality of a couple kids who built a tree house and decide they don't like the new kid on the block to be playing in it anymore.

Right? Wrong? It hardly matters now. It's theirs, for one reason or the next, and at this point, it's the playerbase that is painting the illusion of fairness. We're talking about a group of staffers who have played a game for fifteen plus years in most cases where everything in the game is about going to psychotic levels of management of events, killing, and corruption, and personally, I begin to believe that the fact of them permanently enforcing the upper end of the glass ceiling in the game has given them a very serious complex external to the game. The fact that you have to listen to them and obey them at every turn and corner because they are the Head of House Borsail/Fale/Sath/etc, Tektolnes, Muk Utep, AND external to the game you must treat them a certain way would no doubt have had an effect upon their opinion of self-worth.

It's common that when people roleplay, or just 'in general' are in a position of power involving something that takes up a great deal of time in your life, you begin to have a casual expectancy of how you're treated. It's a shock to adjust from being a very established player who everyone listens to and defers to, to being the guy on the street again. And though everyone says they can adjust, there's no doubt to the fact there is a minor pull on the inside of having lost that influence. Imagine that, make it ten times as powerful, extending as far as EXTERNAL to the game, and then play that character for FIFTEEN years, and you know what it's like to be a staff avatar I'd imagine(think about how hard it would be to loose all that power). Their personalities in regards to Armageddon are permanently warped by having been a staff member of such a game for that long(specifically in regards to the game, I can't speculate external). I personally don't think anyone, shadowboards included, capable of being staff for something for that long, being the 'Head of this, Sorcerer-king/etc, any other my word is law dude, without having that go to your head. But my opinion doesn't matter. This is their tree house. You don't wanna play? Gotta bounce.

Now, were -I- Nyr, I would have solved this in a very different way I'll admit. Allow me for a moment to roleplay being Nyr to you Asan.

feel annoyed

think He just won't quit. Alright. Fine. Make a quick apology, let him know we have to uphold the policies we've been working so diligently to uphold.

talk (assuming his best tone of diplomacy) Look, Asan, this is how things went. There were mistakes here, on the part of players or staff members hardly matters at this point. I understand you're very frustrated, and the situation was obviously off-kilter some, and you feel very passionate about this. I'm sorry that things weren't handled in a way you felt was perfectly IC, and I will say that though the situation was strange, and might be roleplayed out as having been strange.

emote stops to take a deep breath, steepling his fingers on ~immaculate.staff.discussions.bar.

talk (allowing an exhausted sigh to escape) What needs to be focused on at this point is what we can do. If you're looking for more admittance to fuck ups, I can't offer more than that. Crime code isn't being worked on at this point, but as a leader for the game in an area where situations like this may come up in the future, you may now consider alternatives to make this not happen, to teach it to the playerbase.

talk While the code for this is not necessarily perfect, it is functional, and with the right prodding could have been used by your unit in the protection of the templar in question, or perhaps even handled on that templar's part better by battle promotion. They were recruits, 'civilians with a patch', not soldiers, and them fighting soldiers, even for a good cause as the line of duty could have reasonably ended poorly in such a corrupt military organization. Similarly, if staff were faster to react, or more considerate of possible reactions, we might have prevented this on that side as well.

emote draws in a deep breath through his nose.

talk We're sorry you lost what was obviously some personal investment in this situation, but it's happened, and we can't change that at this point according to our own policies, or we're essentially as corrupt as many claim us to be. We 'can' work on correcting it in the future. We've already updated the documents now as well some. We'll continue to work out the issues here, but it's important we don't show favoritism else wise for resurrections.

junk request (flicking the random request for a wagon away half-smoked as he begins to rise)

say (rubbing a hand back over his diminishing amount of red hair) Don't get so wound up about it. It's a game. I know you can't help it, and I know I'm guilty of my own aggressive, or emotional responses that are knee-jerk at times. 'I' can afford to do that though. I'm in the position of power. And when I overstep myself, too far one day, I might just lose that.

hemote flicks aside a few red hairs that had actually broken free of his scalp as he raked his fingers through.

feel a brief flash of annoyance.

think Already feel too old for this shit.

say You wanted an apology. You got one. If you want to keep fighting for something else, bring it up separately. I'm not approving karma, as it's specifically outlined to be about staff trust. Considering that Talia and I have had such poor experiences with you 'recently' I'm not going to approve more at this point. That's a decision based on my opinion as well as hers. While Karma is 'based' in criteria of roleplay, the key is staff trust.

emote turns, as if to walk away before hesitating.

say (glancing over his shoulder) Negativity is met with negativity. Insulting me while appealing for ban removal hardly shows a change in character of what resulted in the ban in the first place. You shouldn't be surprised it was denied. If not by me, then by Talia. Also, we outline not submitting request after request because the first wasn't answered in a timeline you prefer. It just adds weight to the pile. You don't 'need' forum access to do 'anything' in the game. A quick OOC of availability and arranged times solves things just fine. If they're not around, they're not around.

emote makes his way over toward the backroom door, behind the bar.

say (pulling it open) This is the way things are. While they're not necessarily the way you would like them to be, this is what I offer you. Again, I'm sorry things didn't work out perfectly, but it's done. Let it rest. Move forward, and focus on never letting bad events happen again.

emote slips through the door, closing it behind him.

-


Just an example of how I would've handled it. If you notice, I'm making sure to specifically appeal to the fact of what's to be expected, things that simply are the way they are, and things that are varying degrees of 'right' and 'wrong' with a real gray area in between. I'll address the rest of it in a later post. This was intended to be a partway satirical, part way opinion of events, partway just fun to write sort of thing, by the way. Lets not all get up in arms about it when the amount of fucks I give has been long diminished.

I do think a lot of older players have a tendency to try to push player complaints away from their point. 'You were complaining about this before, and they did this.' When the complaint -now- is how the issue was handled, and should be addressed with zero reference to the previous one. 'This is what we did.' -Says staff. 'This doesn't work out quite like what makes sense to me. Can we do this?' - Player. 'At this point, we're going to try this. If it fails, and we continue to see a lot of complaint or issues on staff side we'll consider whatever else.' I think everyone else, who's just chiming in with odd bullshit about what the people were calling for or weren't is silly. Because obviously not everyone was calling for this in specific, but by the same means, we should all give it a try and see what happens. I don't really agree with it, but I do think many PCs have waaaaay too much coin.

yeah he jumped too far trying to conflate app-in opportunities with vertical mobility. the only reason i could see them advertising this ceiling raise through a role app is if they didnt have any ranked militia pcs ig at the time to shoot for it otherwise they should just mention its availability in their clan board and let whatever sgts are around shoot for it while letting them prep their best juniors to be ready to take their place when theyre ready to promote

even if you every bynner in the clan died it still makes more sense to keep the lieutenant slot open and allow the next batch of pcs to aim for it

What bothered me most was Mord's suggestion that because they only got two Byn lieutenant apps, that somehow, people really didn't want vertical opportunities that much.

It's just a complete lack of logic. People didn't app for the Byn lieutenancy because it's an extremely difficult role to pull off without coming up through the system, making contacts, earning a rep.

It's nice that Mord and Xalle are all GO GO GO with some great new plot/story idea that suddenly requires a Byn lieutenant. But they need to acknowledge that for the last five RL years it was STOP STOP STOP with TONS of AMAZING and GREAT byn sergeants ultimately deciding to leave and go join another clan like Kurac or such.

No shit, there's at least ~3 former Byn Sergeants still living on the game right now, who would have stayed Byn if the lieutenant role was available, and would've been beyond badass.

I have a couple hours to kill in this dusty 120 degree desert. I walk into an air conditioned internet cafe and immediately come here to drink the drug of jadedness. Such a sweet libation after so long being deprived.