What the fuck is wrong with Armageddon?

Yeah, it's probably all of it, but I maintain that while the removal of Tuluk and sorcerors might have been bad for the game, the problem is ultimately the staff itself. They've just become so bad, lazy and arrogant that the game no longer really functions. The loss of Tuluk and sorcerors is a problem precisely because the staff is so inept that they weren't able to provide anything at all to compensate for the sudden removal of both Allanak's traditional enemy and the game's main source of iconic antagonists. I think if they had used all the extra time and resources that they allegedly got from removing those two things to instead enrich Allanak-based plots, clans and role options, things would have gone better.

Changes like those don't kill a healthy game. I remember Shadows of Isildur living through all manner of sphere shutdowns and world shrinkage. Those decisions were often questionable and didn't really end up benefitting the game much, but SoI's staff, while not perfect, generally had good intentions and could be reasoned with -- certainly compared to Arm's totalitarian bullshit. This meant that when a change was bad for the game, people talked to staff about it and then kept playing. From about 2006 to 2010, SoI went through a bunch of culling and tinkering, but the game remained stable. People trusted the staff to turn things around, and aside from the very end when the game had frankly run its course, they did.

Arm's staff stands out in stark contrast to that, being the source of so much controversy in recent years that they've destroyed any pretense of trust and civility between them and their playerbase. This means that players won't so readily trust in the potential long-term benefits of a controversial change. It becomes much easier to quit. It becomes easier for something to be the final straw when you don't like the people who run the game. I'm confident that this has been building up for quite a while, and that the effect has been delayed only by the fact that there's really no other functional, established RPI.

As such, Arm has had a lot of players who remained only for a lack of an alternative, and that won't last. Eventually the bubble bursts and you lose half your playerbase in a span of two or three months. Tuluk and sorcerors might have been the catalyst, but there's years of increasingly corrupt staffing at the root of it; and at the root of that is the Nyr/Nessalin constant.

Um, the fix is pretty simple: get rid of Nyr.  Those who defend him will leave with him, and the game will -finally- start to heal.

(I also think each staff should go on sabbatical and actually play every couple of years just so they don't forget.)

That's precisely right - the lag from Nyr's ascension to the throne and the massive dropoff is pretty easy to explain.  Class, please get out your yellow charts from mudstats, the seasonal one.  Now, note that Nyr ascends his throne in Fall, 2014, and they close Tuluk and have an HRPT in Spring 2015. (Nyr sperms all over us with the HRPT, which is the worst of the fucking worst in terms of laser lights - there's even a scene in the arena where a red or black robe or whatever chops off the head of another red or black robe and shouts something really stupid.  Just.  Fucking.  Stupid.  Oh, derail there.)  Right, so Nyr ascends the throne, hires on shits like Mordiggian, wakes up Nesselin to rule with him, and builds up his cronies -

then people start getting it: the boring stories, the disinterest in PC stories, the snarky reports, the shitheaded gdb responses, the bullying, the everpresent bullying, and last, but not least, the realization that if they wish to file a staff complaint or anything having to do with the producers: HE WILL BE THE ONE TO HANDLE IT.  And slowly, one after the other, they depart, with no alternative (no Tuluk), nowhere to hide, nowhere to go to get away from it with the next PC. 

I really do believe there's a silent majority out there who have left without saying a word. 

This, this here is bitching, but it's also a form of feedback: wake the fuck up.

nyr is a symptom of the problem -- tone-deaf administration that's turned what should be a fun hobby into the internet DMV for both players and storytellers. want to add a keyword? please write and submit a post opening a motion for discussion. if there are no objections it will go through an expedited process in which a producer-level member gives the ok and you will be allowed to add this keyword. seriously, straight from the storyteller who implemented it:

Storytellers do seem stifled. I suspect because they may feel they can't act in the moment, articulating the world on the fly while interacting with players (making the world come alive). Maybe senior staff don't trust their judgement? Or maybe they're concerned senior staff will disapprove so they don't do anything without first running it through the committee first. I'm speculating.

I find it funniest that when I pointed this very thing out on these forums (that a storyteller cant even change keywords or a word on an existing room/item/pc/anything) without admin or higher approval, Nyr made it out in an email when I came back as though I threw people under the bus. I revealed policy that Mord was referring to in the post as still being in place.

I dont read GDB? I hope this staff was trolling. I PREY this staff was trolling. Fuck my life.