What the fuck is wrong with Armageddon?

Strangely learning the meta made the game more enjoyable at least for me. Use to be, I didn't know what was viable and what wasn't.

The lack of joy comes from the dated mechanics and the utter lack of not only the staff but the community (besides this place) trying to deny the meta around stats/skill grinds/and even gear doesn't exist.

The GDB can come off vindictive almost in the way they push newbies into utter ignorance about the nature of the meta game, claiming only RP matters! Meanwhile their on their fourth try for good stats this weekend, driving their hapless PC's into certain death so they can reroll for that AI.

I roll my eyes every time I read "my favorite best PC had poor stats! IT was fun!" Knowing that's the biggest steaming pile of shit and is utterly mean spirited watching so poor sap try and use his average strength warrior flounder about on the Byn sparring room floor.

Partial quotes I can't do so good. Anyway: 
1. Players are glorifying each other, whether their plots were staff-assisted or not.
2. How do you know these were staff plots and not player-created plots that staff helped with? Or they could've been staff plots that those groups picked up on and got involved with? It doesn't mean that the staff is running plots *for* that group. Though sometimes it does. But you alwasy seem so sure that any time anyone has any fun in the game it's because the staff created fun for them. I doubt very much that's the case.
3. It's intended to indicate that your PC didn't do much in the context of the report you sent. Your report probably read something like "This happened, that happened, the other thing happened. My character tried to get info about this. My character started gathering data about that. My character collected some gear." And the staff's response was a summary: Your PC didn't do much.
4. You never have to participate in clans. Roll up a breed with mommy issues, and no one will want you. Even if you have a loyal human warrior living in Allanak you don't have to join the Arm. You have to RP your way out of joining if you're pressured but that's up to you to do.

@rgs

does this help?  it's my favorite one.



ender has some nice graphs up in the Why do you vote thread on the gdb too

it doesn't have to do with arm itself, it's more to do with what the admins do with arm. there's a shit ton of cool stuff that can be added which would make the game more dynamic. set up coded traderoutes that influence prices of goods in areas if they get disrupted. add dynamic bandit spawn camps that attack them and need to get periodically wiped out by Militia PCs or GMH employees that need to keep routes clear. allow players to set up structures with quit-rooms and save rooms but make it require maintenance so it's not necessarily a forever thing. randomly add caves to the world that are worth exploring because they've got artifacts worth a shit ton.

codify the fucking game. give players a reason to take a ranger over a warrior - maybe a reduction to MV cost in outdoor rooms or w/e. codify the instrument playing skills and have them add bonuses to regen so that bards are useful for something besides spamming a screen. give massive boosts to learning rates of warriors in noble houses - lore-wise a Tor scorpion, trained in the finest combat facilities, should be able to tear apart a Bynner but lol that never happens in-game. now you actually have justification for life oaths and all that jazz.

as a game, arm sucks. i don't think there's anyone except contrarians who will say that they think arm has interesting mechanics or code (leaving out a small fraction of some of the magick stuff). combat is boring. exploring is boring because there's nothing to find. logging in to do anything is boring because there's nothing to achieve. the minor merchant house stuff was a step in the right direction for coding things, but the game is decades behind the curve compared to existing RPI and non-RPI muds.

as a roleplay setting, it's ok because of the players. but I don't particularly see a reason to play it over any number of MUSHes out there that have the same quality of players and more involved staff and plots.

Dude, JCarter, I'm not massaging stats. And if you really can't understand what I'm saying at this point, no explaining is going to help. I never said the average for this year was 250. I never said the average for this year is higher than last year. I'm not cherrypicking months, they are the months that are the least affected by 2013 that happen before the downswing in numbers.

You apparently think I'm taking a position I'm not if you think I said those things. That or you're aggressively trying to misunderstand. Either way I don't think there's much point in discussing things further.

Why would you respond that way? "You didn't do much" isn't a criticism, or a complaint, or a suggestion or demand. It's a statement. If a staffer told me in response to my character report "you didn't do much" I wouldn't take it as a "you should've done more" or "I expected something else" or "You're lazy." I'd take it as a "you didn't do much." I'd re-read my report and see if I actually DID something other than try to do something, or send other people out to do something. If I discover that hey - all the things I did, involved getting other people to do things, but I didn't actually do any of it myself - then yeah the assessment would be correct. I didn't do much.