Coming soon... announcment... let the bitching begin

This is long post, but it addresses a question that deserves a serious response. I think it's important to show why my statements have nothing to do with vitriol or negativity and everything to do with pragmatic realism.

1) I don't think he's as bad as Nyr. I simply postulate that he is the exact sort of person that might conceivably rise to Producer in a Nyr-dominated staff hierarchy. If you can imagine, in your own mind, what such a person might be like that Nyr would want to replace him...Well. There you go. There's no doubt that Rath is much more polite than Nyr. But that doesn't mean that philosophically they're that different.

2) So in order to determine what Rath's philosophy might be, I have to set it alongside known facts (i.e, the aforementioned indisputable fact of Rath being chosen to replace Nyr in a Nyr-dominated political hierarchy) and what few statements he has made. Such as his known views of the Tablelands, his seeming lack of recognition of the fact that it was staff who drove the Tablelands to where it is now, and his seeming, instinctive view of players as more 'audience' than actors. He's probably - much like Nyr is - much more slanted to seeing big plots and machinations in the game as being the preserve of NPCs.

3) Then we can extrapolate from that, how most staffers in the past have behaved, when they were known to favor a 'top down' approach to storytelling. A 'top down' approach is when the storyteller (rarely even including the very highest echelons of player leadership such as templars) assume the full responsibility of being the plot engine. Unfortunately, it's doomed to failure since they'll never be able to keep everyone entertained. Instead, it kills player logins as people assume nothing interesting will happen that isn't an RPT. It also encourages staff burnout. Those who try the hardest burn out the fastest.

4) Similarly, I'm sure logins will spike when Rath does his big choreographed RPTs, but there will be deep troughs. Another test of Rath will be how he acts when people eventually begin having trouble with this. Since it's not so much about him, as him epitomizing a system of game management that is inevitably bound to collide with the interests of the majority of the playerbase. Since it's hard to be as toxic a personality as Nyr is, I'm sure Rath will respond to it in a less infamously aggravating way. But it will still lead to mediocrity.

These might sound like a lot of assumptions, but it's pretty much what the State Department does every day. 'Oh, great, General Baboonfucker has replaced Potentate Wubulu in Equatorial Shithole. Quick, what do we know about General Baboonfucker?' And they're forced to make similar assumptions and predictions based on the relative known cliques and attitudes of the individuals involved. In this case, what we have is a very orderly succession.

5) Those who think that the majority of staff suddenly realized Nyr was driving players away and rose up and deposed him in a coup lead by Rath, are dreaming. Rath is Nyr's handpicked protege, and would eagerly and happily step down the moment Nyr deigns to return. Rath has probably consoled Nyr in the past and offered him support and encouragement, when others criticized him. And as my2sids said, he hates this board and all the personalities on it. If he's told my2sids that, one almost shudders to imagine what he's confided to those who really feel the same way. Since I know my2sids is a friendly bloke and likes most everyone here.

In conclusion:

So yes. Far from making assumptions, I feel that my viewpoint of Rath is the obvious one, and that most others are blinded by hope. But hey, if the only thing bothering you about Armageddon was that Nyr was snarky on the forums, and otherwise loved how it was managed and run, then you should love Rath.

If you didn't care much about Nyr being snarky on the forums, but wanted a game that was well run and well managed, and which saw players as its most valuable resource, than you are likely to be quickly disillusioned. Of course, Nyr earned everyone's hatred because he was both arrogant and incompetent. You typically don't get a forum devoted to ripping on you by being only one or the other. You have to be both, and at the same time, somehow luck into a position of supreme authority that most feel you only earned by manipulation and attrition.

Lol I know your precious baby has been hijacked by others and myself jcarter, as we fuel the angst of the people we criticize with our frustration.

I've got hope for Rath because he strikes me as a tumblroni, and would probably back down if he screws up instead of doubling down again and again.

The docs and content you contributed to, right?

My contributions are relatively minor when compared to what work staff put in, imo.

I think a lot of this criticism is inherently self-defeating.

The best way to get staff to enable the world-changing ideas that PCs want to do is to let the staff be world-changers themselves. Staffers should be playing this game, too, and the demise of Arm has coincided with the atrophy of its lower-level staff.

The only way to let players be actors is to let staff be actors, too. It's common cause, and that is the core of communication.

I do believe we can advise staff to an extent, and for events like this, I think we can learn from the past :

A. Reactionary responses to player actions are bad. Decide what forces are going to be applied to an event beforehand and extrapolate reasonable responses from there. Dropping in a hoard of NPCs just because the PCs suddenly find themselves at a disadvantage is a big no-no.

B. When planning these major RP plots, describe them in terms of the forces at work, rather than events that must happen. Because we all know that when someone focuses on the end rather than the means, bad things happen. Mmkay?

I view this as a direct response to the complaint that, since Tuluk is closed, there's no "alternative" to Allanak. The alternative will be the ArabetSeik or whatever it is. That's nifty.

Shhh! First rule of RSV is that you don't talk about RSV.