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Post by BitterFlashback on Aug 5, 2015 18:02:05 GMT -5
Given the messes discussed in many threads here -- particularly the recent GDB threads brought up in The Armageddon Staff / Player Divide
and Nyr sends: "IM IN UR BANK EATIN UR COINS" -- I thought it was high time we had a single thread dedicated to the current staff and their direction for the game. To be clear, this is a thread about deducing what the staff's end-goals are through observation. This is not a thread about specific instances of the staff fucking players over for not going along with where they want the game to be. Those instances have whole threads of their own.
It's been said the staff have no clear direction. I've certainly said it frequently in many contexts. It happens to be mostly true. The context that is an exception to this is the staff have a very clear direction in regards to one thing. The staff knows what they want players to want to be. The staff wants you, the players, to be willing actors in their stories. They want you to be either the witnesses to their world-shaping or some of the characters killed in the process. You will never shape anything in the world. You will never have your initiative rewarded. If you do ANYTHING of substance, you will either be frequently reminded -- through punishment or near-punishment -- that you are a frail, insignificant mote who should be afraid of the world or you will be chewed out OOCly for doing something to/with other motes without going through a 3 week approval process to calculate if it maybe might potentially possibly merit a "world response" to worthless pawns changing nothing. Temper your expectations. You are here to save the producers and admin the trouble of having to animate NPCs to do everything in their stories. You are here to be an audience to the wannabe writers who have totally overtaken the staff. Any other notion you have about what you should be doing will eventually draw the ire of the upper tiers of the staff. Have you ever wondered why Nyr fucking hates indies so much, or why so many code changes that go in are uselessly cosmetic or impact indies hardest? Because every non-clanned, self-motivated player is a resource not being used as part of some staffer's story. Worse, it could be a player who draws resources away from the Central Bureaucracy.
If anyone else has an opinion of the staff's direction, either on their goal for the playerbase (what I covered) or some other goals of theirs (e.g. the story, where they want Allanak to be in 2 years and why, etc) please feel free to chime in. It wouldn't be a derailment; I just covered the part of staff direction I understand best. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 5, 2015 18:50:46 GMT -5
I won't post anything about the game because I said I wouldn't so long as I am playing (because of what I've already said on the topic, doing so would make me a hypocrite). I just wanted to tell you how much I lurb you, Bitter. You're articulate and your thoughts are much more well organized than mine, on pretty much any topic. Keep being you.  |
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Post by sirra on Aug 5, 2015 21:53:16 GMT -5
A few staffers are great. A few staffers are shit. There's at least a half dozen staffers around who would facilitate doing things, like building outposts, warehouses, compounds, changing room descriptions, whereas four or five years ago, you were more likely to told to go fuck yourself.
The game's better run than it used to be. There's still some bullshit, and if you're one of those people obsessed with karma and special roles while simultaneously having a reputation as a troublemaker, then life will be tough for you. But you know what? It's the same in RL. There's no institution and no social organization where you can both rock the boat, get influential people (however despised) mad at you, and still thrive.
Gamers tend to have unrealistic expectations of how society should treat them, and it gets exaggerated in an online/gaming context.
If you're realistic then you can pretty much do whatever you like, short of repeatedly breaking the same rule four or five times in a row.
That's not to say just bend over and get fucked in the ass. Staff are people to, and all people respond to social pressure. Be clear, direct and honest in all your dealings, and if your ideas truly have merit, others will see it. In time it can effect a culture change. I think Armageddon's staffing culture is very different in 2015 from what it was in 2010, 2005 or 2000. It's better in many ways for the average person. Worse in some (they're much stricter on apps compared to either the early years, or after Arm 2.0 was announced).
If you don't like it, don't play. That's a good, honorable reason to not play.
If you don't like it, but want to play, then register your disagreement and move on with your life.
If you need to vent, do it here. But even if they're in the wrong, don't keep hammering them about it repeatedly on their own forum and expect them to react any differently than anyone at your job/social group would, if they had power over you.
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Post by sirra on Aug 5, 2015 23:18:04 GMT -5
If you need to vent, do it here. But even if they're in the wrong, don't keep hammering them about it repeatedly on their own forum and expect them to react any differently than anyone at your job/social group would, if they had power over you. um yeah but asan didnt do that he even admitted himself he knew going in that it would happen and still did it because he was already done with the game. he just wanted to make sure others would see his criticism before getting tossed and boom mission accomplished ur comment would prob more fitting if ud written it around when kron went off on their board It's not specific to Asan. He's far from the first to have a similar dust up. Anyways. I wasn't sure until Asan specifically clarified, what his intentions were. I took his request for a karma review as indicating he was still wanting to play. He's since explained his motives. |
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Post by BitterFlashback on Aug 5, 2015 23:25:42 GMT -5
sirra and jkarr: Did you guys mean to post in "The Armageddon Staff / Player Divide"? Because this is a thread about staff direction of the game, not specific examples of someone getting fucked over (like Asan being banned over staff conflicts) or how to deal with the staff. I was pretty clear about that in the beginning of the first post. Even bold-faced it.
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tedium
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Post by tedium on Aug 8, 2015 16:53:31 GMT -5
The Good: Staff are trying. That much is clear. They're doing it in an opaque, begrudging, and dismissive manner, but they're still trying. Those changes to Nenyuk are an example of them trying to repair the broken economy, even if their solution isn't great on its own. I cannot complain too much about the game stagnancy so long as they are trying. What complaints I do have tie into...
The Bad: Like Bitter said, they do not have vision or direction. None of the producers have shown they have an idea of where they want to go, or if they do have an idea, of how to get there. I think that they want Game of Thrones inspired betrayals, intrigues, and plotting, but are in denial over what attaining that would require (hint: Plotting happens when you stand to gain something worth plotting over). Because of this, they are...
The Ugly: What happens when the solution to your problem is the one thing you refuse to do? You deny the problem exists. Addicts deny they have a problem, not because they're all stupid, but because the solution is to let go of their addiction. Armageddon's producers are the same way. You will never get good intrigue if A) you cannot do anything of consequence, and B) every move of consequence must be focus-group staff-approved with a one week turnaround.
Staff have alluded to the fact that they are aware of the issues in the game. Tuluk's revamp and then closure was triage. But it isn't a solution that addresses the core problem. Until staff exhaust their options I think they will attempt band-aid fixes that skirt around the issue without addressing it in full.
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Post by jcarter on Aug 8, 2015 18:09:42 GMT -5
i disagree that you can't complain about stagnancy since they are "trying". stagnancy results in, from the player perspective, nothing new or substantial being added to the game. tuluk's closure isn't adding anything to the game besides forcing the pbase in the same old allanak doing the same old allanak things. bank tax doesn't add anything except lengthen the grind for money and maybe possibly cause players to carry more money around. you may as well argue that making skills harder to train combats the stagnant nature of the game. minor merchant houses were certainly a step in the right direction. it's very narrow in its focus and targeted player population, but it's something. if they expanded that towards other venues, such as players setting up clan compounds, it would be great.
in comparison to other games, Arm is really behind the curve codewise. did they ever actually add in NPCs in GMH warehouses to sell stock items so GMH PCs wouldn't have to have an imm load everything? this is something that should have been done a decade or more ago to reduce staff workload and increase commerce but it's 2015 and this is just now getting talked about being added.
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Post by BitterFlashback on Aug 8, 2015 18:48:03 GMT -5
The Bad: Like Bitter said, they do not have vision or direction. None of the producers have shown they have an idea of where they want to go, or if they do have an idea, of how to get there. I think that they want Game of Thrones inspired betrayals, intrigues, and plotting, but are in denial over what attaining that would require (hint: Plotting happens when you stand to gain something worth plotting over). I've totally been getting that vibe. It comes back to my initial point: the staff want players to serve as an audience and as background characters (instead of NPC pawns they'd have to animate) to their writing. They don't seem to have any clear vision about what they want to write or where things are going to go, but they do want players to be there to ooo, ahhh, and die appreciative of their opportunity to experience quality storytelling. That doesn't work if players are out there doing things. There would be some expectation that those things would have to be incorporated into the perfect clockwork of events leading up to the next mid-battle light show. in comparison to other games, Arm is really behind the curve codewise. did they ever actually add in NPCs in GMH warehouses to sell stock items so GMH PCs wouldn't have to have an imm load everything? this is something that should have been done a decade or more ago to reduce staff workload and increase commerce but it's 2015 and this is just now getting talked about being added. UNPAID VOLUNTEERS, YOU UNGRATEFUL BASTARD! Besides, they were too busy adding moon cycle animations and a bank tax to do something to reduce their own bureaucratic and service workload. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2015 1:48:31 GMT -5
There really isnt any overly long planned set of events that Producers mean for the game story to go along with. It's really all about bursts of creative (or forceful) energy in most cases and some times, pulling events by the ears in order to fit some coded/thematic change.
Players began to repeatedly complain that magick is too powerful. Not codedly, but plot power. Any major plot is solved by high magick. Any major plot involved demons that are bigger then 6 inches, or volcanoes, or Echri, or this, or that. Magick, magick, magick. Players even organized a movement of giving up karma, just to encourage mundane play (big chunk of whom later requested their karma back). Regardless though, there was a lot of complaining about this and ... for a good reason.
As a result things began to change. Elementals forgot Tatlum codedly and no longer taught it to PCs. Ways to learn new reaches began to lessen, lessen, lessen to a point of non-existance. Support gradually withdrew from high magick roles. Some plots which could've ended well, or badly for high magick rituals began leaning towards ending badly more often, then well. The Labyrinth got blockaded. The Guild was hammered a very anti-magick mindset. Haruch Kemad destroyed and replaced by a very anti-magick Pah. Extra support was given to an initiative to destroy COM, remove Red Cloak PCs. It took years, sometimes subtle and cool changes, sometimes harsh and idiotic changes, but in the end ... the level of high magick in Armageddon lessened. Admittedly, it's so much easier to be creative when you're dealing with high-fantasy magick, so when high-magick plots lessened, the staff 'and' playerbase creativity wasnt able to offer a good mundane replacement. Which is ... a failure and is dissapointing, but fact is all these changes, some subtle, some crude began happening after a long and proactive outcry of the playerbase about the sheer amount of high-fantasy magick based plots in the game.
People complain that it is difficult to change the gameworld. So staff is trying to create ways to make it easier. I'm not saying they're doing it well, not at all, but the direction is going there. Problem is that sometimes what is fun and desired by the playerbase and what should be possible in the game do not go hand in hand. Here's an example. A 'bad' one, because A ... I dont remember the details and B, this happened a few times, so I might be 'way' off on details, but the concept still stands. The fabled door of the Folley. I think 2-3 guild bosses tried replacing the curtain into the door and failed. They rped it out absolutely, they got the wooden door off of ... somewhere, they hired laborers, the works. And nothing happened. But here's the outline that I recall.
After the blockade and massive raids, the disappearance of Gin and Quick, the Folley got burnt and ruined. Since then the Guild did not recover for ... rl years. There were occasional bosses and occasional gangs, there was Proprietor of the Mantis who was also active at the time, but they were a pretty shitty/unlucky leaders who couldnt keep a clan active and mostly killed ... everyone ... who chargenned in the rinth. Then ... finally some reedy guy showed up, recruited the fabled green mutant as his co-boss and created a relatively long lasting gang. Suddenly with enough playerbase involved, the Folley got rebuilt. Not completely, it was a gradual process, but at least partially, it did. Then that gang died out, their plot ended, and the reconstruction halted. My point of this is that if you're a clan leader of 'one-three' people. You can go through the motions all you like. And realistically speaking, those motions 'should' leave a long-lasting effect on the world (something simple like rebuilding a freaking door). But unless you've got the clan hopping the odds of you succeeding are not high.
There are exceptions of course. Like for example the staff deciding to rebuild the Borsail. The Noble who did 2/3 of the work was shitty and boring and yet every construction project she did was supported. But that's an exception. It was pretty obvious that ... staff really did want Borsail rebuilt. There was a lack of a House that would oppose Oash and not be Fale, or Tor and Borsail was it. I personally thought it was a mistake, but whatever.
Indies. In reality, the independants are the main reason why people cannot leave a long lasting effect on the gameworld. There are plenty of indies out there who want to do it. But they shouldnt be able to. Not easily. Not by going through the motions alone. Realistically speaking? They can. I mean ... greb stones for a month and pile them up in one big mountain and by the laws of reality, there should be an object coded into the room, depicting a pile of stones. But it's not going to happen. Not unless you really really relaly enticed some staffer to support you. Not by being a 'pet', or a favorite, but by being ... awesome with all the other plots. But barring that, no pile of stones object for you. But ... hire Byn, hire 10 other characters to help you. Make it an event. Make it something more then 'forage stone' drop stone (emote) and the odds of you leaving a mark suddenly increases dramatically.
There is not enough conflict between clans. No competition between merchant houses. No interclan intrigue and scheming. The Main reason for this, is because it's difficult to scheme, and plan, and compete in a clan of .. 2-3 people. It's hard to make different clans compete for the same goal when if you put both of these clans in one room, you wont gather 6 players. People just prefer being indies 'too much'. People 'prefer' the freedom of telling some Templar, or a Sargeant, or a Noble to 'fuck off' and riding off into the sunset. It's a natural desire, but it's totally against theme. By theme, people 'do' grovel. People 'are' subjected to the unfairness of the corrupted state of the Sorcerer Kings. It's what Zalanthas is about. It's not about a dozen of people ... hunting and grebbing shit. It's not freaking WoW.
There are exceptions. There are times when a clan is booming. When awesome stuff is happening. But some dick shit idjit imm gets assigned to them and with a skilled hand, the imm manages to run the clan into the ground in the span of ... days. That shit happens. It's unfortunate and it's partly why I love that these forums exist. But overall ... the staff 'are' trying to work towards the benefit of the game. Albeit sometimes by a very unsubtle and deus ex machina methods. That's just a failure in imagination, patience, and storytelling. Alas.
My point overall is that no, the staff do not think of the playerbase as tiny toys that they get to play with. In the end, the world changes due to the playerbase overall views and opinions and desires. But Staff "does" have 'some' vision of the gameworld. Which in sum would be, "Murder, Corruption, Betrayal". And ... sometimes, often due to the playerbase outcry, they try to improve the gameworld via broadsword methods, which 'do' ignore the individual player's own actions. But most of the time, these 'improvements' were brought upon by the outcry of the playerbase itself originally. It's just ... either the change is too grandiose to implement it subtly, or staff lacks enough creativity to implement it seamlessly. The alternative to broadswording is using a warhammer. Aka close the mud entirely for 6 months and then re-open it with a complete playerwipe and rewritten, improved theme, and better code. Or you know ... try for Arm 2 and fail.
In the end, it is true that staff are players. There are some staff who havent played for ages, forgot what it is to play, and are so separated from the gameplay that just makes me bewildered, it's true. But in vast majority the staff are players. Most staff 'try' their best, but ... sometimes they fail. It's not that difficult for a staffer to overcome the Nyrness of the Nyrworld that is Armageddon. All one needs to do is dedicate even 'more' time, effort, passion, and energy into the game then Nyr is doing, for as long as Nyr has done it. Which ... unfortunately means you'd probably have no life, and probably have similar personality as Nyr himself.
In a way, the sheer beauracracy that's boggling down a lot of staff initiative is a direct result of sheer aversion of the playerbase towards Bhag's and Halaster's wild, crazy, and totally disbalanced, unbridled, and unrestricted creativity. It's up to you guys to decide which evil is bigger.
It's very late right now and I've been sick the last few weeks, so this post of mine is a little disorganized. I 'think' I've counterdicted myself once or thrice somewhere there. But I'm too lazy, sleepy, and tired to even reread my own post, let alone organize, or elaborate it. Consider this a stream of consciousness.
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