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Post by sirra on Apr 8, 2016 22:10:27 GMT -5
Did you ever stop and think why you got no support? Look at how you handled this assassination of a Borsail noble? You stalked him, hit backstab, stole his ring without missing a beat, and hid again. If he had done it any other way, he would have been caught and killed. The staff has allowed OOC cliques (especially among the templar/noble crowd) to flourish, and given that threat, the only way to protect the integrity of your PC is to ensure they have as little OOC info as possible. IC/OOC separation of info is only enforced against newbies. Anyone whose been playing this game for a little while knows how laughable it is. Too many of us have been burned expecting the best of high karma/special apps. It's extremely disingenuous when longtime players and staff try to peddle the garbage that other players aren't RPing well enough, because they know they don't adhere to the same standards. I've had two deaths to a templar and a noble. My first death was while playing as a noble. I was inviting over to another noble's estate, and since I was a dumbass newbie who assumed that the situation would be handled somewhat realistically, I went. As soon as I was behind the gates, I had NPC guards sicced on me, and killed me. No RP. I had another Bynner die to a templar who had his half-giant guard subdue me, and then the other kill me. Without any kind of RP. I've had repeated encounters with staff animated NPCs whose only emoting was 'grunts', or 'squints while darting forward' and spam-fled, walked, ran, to their heart's content. At the risk of repeating myself I cannot express how strongly I abhor this drivel that tcbz is spewing. It's just a misleading agitprop designed to keep others down by holding them to more stringent standards than those in actual positions of power.
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jesantu
Displaced Tuluki
Posts: 339
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Post by jesantu on Apr 8, 2016 22:45:38 GMT -5
You said it, sirra. It's never enough.
You only emoted once before you killed lord borsail, it should have been twice. You only emoted two times before you stole that useless item in mister kurac-di's backpack, it should have been three times. You were being chased down by a raider who wasn't bothering to emote at all and you jumped on your inix and rode off without an emote, bad player, bad player!
Players and staff can't have their cake and eat it too. Either emotes do not equal RP or they do. Always. Not when it's convenient for you. The average npc animation these days is almost completely emote free and devoid of any expression what so ever. That anyone would come here and demand newtwink use even more thinks and more emotes when killing a noble (which would have only resulted in his failing to accomplish his task) is absurd.
I repeat, sometimes people die in the dead of night by cloaked assassins who disappear before anyone can respond to the situation. This kind of act has been featured in countless movies and novels, both fiction and non. But that's not what players are really arguing here, what they're really trying to say is they just don't want you to pkill nobles, period. Or anyone for that matter.
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Post by sergeantraul on Apr 9, 2016 0:43:36 GMT -5
30 days played in two months is insane, I gotta say. You don't have to be a twink to max out when you have that kind of play time.
I generally have arrived at the same conclusions as newtwink regarding the 'rinth and the Allanaki "underworld." This part of the game world is not set up to be self-actualizing. No matter how many active players you have in Westside, for them to have something to do, you need active, GM-like immortals, a well-played and not stupidly homicidal elf leader on the Eastside, and/or active cooperation from leader PCs Southside acting as antagonists, informants, and buyers. Preferably, you'd have all three. In my experience you're lucky to have one of those things, and it never lasts.
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Post by sirra on Apr 9, 2016 0:47:44 GMT -5
30 days played in two months is insane, I gotta say. You don't have to be a twink to max out when you have that kind of play time. I generally have arrived at the same conclusions as newtwink regarding the 'rinth and the Allanaki "underworld." This part of the game world is not set up to be self-actualizing. No matter how many active players you have in Westside, for them to have something to do, you need active, GM-like immortals, a well-played and not stupidly homicidal elf leader on the Eastside, and/or active cooperation from leader PCs Southside. Preferably, you'd have all three. In my experience you're lucky to have one of those things, and it never lasts. The 'rinth will never have any of that without an active and viable spice trade, with real in game incentives to engage in. For example, Kurac is supposed to smuggle 95% of all its spice into Allanak via the 'rinth. But the reality is it smuggles 100% into Allanak via a merchant's backpack riding on the wagon. Nor is there any real benefit or incentive to getting spice addicted (to make it a desirable sid sink for the wealthy and decadent) as to encourage any PC to try. Spice RP as it exists is boring and trite.
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Post by sergeantraul on Apr 9, 2016 1:00:18 GMT -5
I think the solution has to be far more than just spice. Spice has always been a half-baked (ha!) thing in the setting. Why is it in the game? What purpose does it serve? What theme does it reinforce? Why on earth does Allanak prohibit it, anyway? Forget the word "spice," the stuff is basically cocaine. Why exactly are we trying to insert the modern drug trade and prohibition into a post-apocalyptic desert survival fantasy game?
Perhaps that's one reason why the rinth sucks: it's just not fully fleshed out enough, and the one pillar we do have, spice, sucks big hairy salty donkey balls.
Needless to say, the fact that Staff is apparently doubling down on spice with the Dust Runners is not encouraging.
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OT
Displaced Tuluki
Posts: 257
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Post by OT on Apr 9, 2016 2:08:34 GMT -5
They are making baby steps toward improving the spice trade. This is probably the only thing they have done, basically by fiat-decision that spice is now suddenly cheaper (it's a very recent change). You know, the kind of thing that takes no actual work. The idea is alright but probably futile as the reason people don't use spice isn't because it needed to be a bit cheaper. The reason is stuff like the character-destroying addiction code, the insta-rape if you accidentally walk past the gate with a grain of spice on your collar, and the fact that people in clans are paradoxically the ones who can't afford to spend money on something like that because clan design remains so ass-backwards that getting a job is the least lucrative thing you can do.
What they needed to do, along with the intention of better supporting the spice trade, was actually support the players expected to maintain that aspect of the game. Not ignore them and stonewall their ambitions. When you can't get a key loaded up after a month of frequent asking - a key that you're meant to have, not some obscure shit that needs to be built first - then what's the point? Why bother devoting a character to this shit when not even the clan admin of the Guild can take a moment to load up a key which lets the Guild PCs start supporting more players? Or when he literally doesn't react when the Guild instigates the biggest Allanak plot of 2016? Why should they have faith that the spice trade will be well-supported?
Who's gonna play in the 'rinth under those conditions, when there's already literally nothing going on in the place? There's no one on the eastside, there hasn't been any conflict in the 'rinth in such a long time that it might as well not even be part of the game's lore. The westside had a grand total of three active players, now one or possibly zero if the last one also gave up. The place is a total dead end and nobody is doing anything to revive it. Just some random pet project about reducing the price of spice, with good intentions but a total lack of understanding how the game works.
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Post by vintrius on Apr 9, 2016 3:26:19 GMT -5
Assassination roleplay is some of the most intriguing from a political standpoint and can lead to further plots by surrounding players. It affects not only the person you killed, but their aides, soldiers, concubines, and whoever else was involved with them. They suddenly find themselves looking for a new job, or revenge. It affects players directly in an overreaching arc because their attitudes and goals will affect their friends, and so forth.
I highly encourage political intrigue and assassinations and while it's nice to let staff know you're going to thump a PC, I don't believe it should be -required- nor will I ever ask that on AthasMUD. I would never allow a member of my DM team to criticize your hit on a political figure solely based on that PC's perceived 'status' of being a noble, or even a sponsored role. There may be IC repercussions if you sucked at the hit - from that log, it was done in the dark/gritty sand/etc and was pretty elegant.
While killing a noble bears more weight and risk of getting caught, it's no more than killing a commoner PC. You run the risk of being accused of the hit - while a commoner someone might shrug it off, a noble you may have a lynch party at your door. In either case, Sponsored Role / Perceive Power does not trump the overall plot that will come of a hit like that.
A hit contract is a hit contract, be it commoner, noble, templar, heck, the sorcerer king himself. You want that money? Need to buy your kid some food? You're going to do it. Who gives a crap about their power when you're lining your pockets with coin made from the hit.
My 2 cents.
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jesantu
Displaced Tuluki
Posts: 339
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Post by jesantu on Apr 9, 2016 4:01:51 GMT -5
I think the solution has to be far more than just spice. Spice has always been a half-baked (ha!) thing in the setting. Why is it in the game? What purpose does it serve? What theme does it reinforce? Why on earth does Allanak prohibit it, anyway? Forget the word "spice," the stuff is basically cocaine. Why exactly are we trying to insert the modern drug trade and prohibition into a post-apocalyptic desert survival fantasy game? Perhaps that's one reason why the rinth sucks: it's just not fully fleshed out enough, and the one pillar we do have, spice, sucks big hairy salty donkey balls. Needless to say, the fact that Staff is apparently doubling down on spice with the Dust Runners is not encouraging. No offense my friend but if you can't think of a reason spice would or should be illegal that's your lack of creativity. Alcohol was forbidden in Islam like how long ago? It makes perfect sense for some corrupt dictator to ban a substance that makes you high as a kite. Not on the grounds that he's looking out for you but because he wants to more easily control the masses. That's the ic reason for you. Then there's the ooc purpose. having something, anything illegal creates conflict and that's what we should be striving for. Look at tuluk. Even stealing and killing people is legal (sort of). Consequently nothing happened and everyone was everyone's friend more or less. I do agree spice should be way cheaper though.
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Post by gloryhound on Apr 9, 2016 10:14:44 GMT -5
Too many of us have been burned expecting the best of high karma/special apps. The epitome of this was during the Copper War. That Lirathuan templar, (was it Quoriya?) (sp?), losing her psionic frame in the middle of the Allanaki camp and dropping out of the ethereal plane. There she was. Solid as can be, smack in the middle of an armed camp full of hostile templars, soldiers, and mages. The white-robed templar starts running. > The white-robed templar leaves the encampment. > How is that for roleplay?
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Post by jcarter on Apr 9, 2016 10:59:37 GMT -5
IC/OOC separation of info is only enforced against newbies. Anyone whose been playing this game for a little while knows how laughable it is. Too many of us have been burned expecting the best of high karma/special apps. The epitome of this was during the Copper War. That Lirathuan templar, (was it Quoriya?) (sp?), losing her psionic frame in the middle of the Allanaki camp and dropping out of the ethereal plane. There she was. Solid as can be, smack in the middle of an armed camp full of hostile templars, soldiers, and mages. The white-robed templar starts running. > The white-robed templar leaves the encampment. > How is that for roleplay? the templar was eunoli, who was a staff member's PC. i think the staffer was naionia? also nyr's pulled some even more meta bullshit by rolling up a psion in tuluk without ever once thinking, feeling, or including in his character's background anything about being a psion. so yeah it's pretty dumb to criticize someone for not emoting enough as they were attempting to perform a coded surprise attack on a high value target. if we play the hypothetical game and say that newtwink did, and then the noble actually didn't take the opportunity to spam flee away but instead emoted something in return, exactly what would have been different? nothing.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2016 12:26:16 GMT -5
I think the solution has to be far more than just spice. Spice has always been a half-baked (ha!) thing in the setting. Why is it in the game? What purpose does it serve? What theme does it reinforce? Why on earth does Allanak prohibit it, anyway? Forget the word "spice," the stuff is basically cocaine. Why exactly are we trying to insert the modern drug trade and prohibition into a post-apocalyptic desert survival fantasy game? Perhaps that's one reason why the rinth sucks: it's just not fully fleshed out enough, and the one pillar we do have, spice, sucks big hairy salty donkey balls. Needless to say, the fact that Staff is apparently doubling down on spice with the Dust Runners is not encouraging. I'd missed this time detail. I dont know about you guys, but I have found a minimum time played to get 99% of the imm attention. If my pcs arent 4-6 real months old, forget it, no matter how much playtime they have on them. Have any of you also seen this as a pattern?
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slink
staff puppet account
Posts: 7
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Post by slink on Apr 9, 2016 12:42:24 GMT -5
Or they moved on with their lives. Or they're playing differing roles. Or they're squelched by the current player administration. This is an absolutely worthless reply. We were discussing players who were driven off and you list among your hypothetical excuses, "maybe they're just playing another role." Really? The players I mentioned who stopped playing are still hypothetically playing? That's brilliant, but no, they were driven off. Everyone I know who quit Arm --myself included-- was driven off. Everyone here who quit listed their reason for quitting as being driven off by the staff (save for one person who quit over the GDB). You're facing a massive credibility gap when you start making shit up that doesn't match the experience of all but one person in the entire group you're addressing. I'd also add that being able to come up with a reply is not the same thing as having a valid response. If you have some vast wealth of knowledge of actual players who just up and left, please share it. Otherwise drop this bullshit that's only one step removed from invoking an argument from ignorance fallacy. Vitriolic ranting is not indisputable evidence. Yes, and hypothetical allusions are worthless. How about you show off some of that mountain of proof to the contrary that you're probably sitting on? You know, actual proof. The thing where you're not effectively saying "maybe" in every sentence to try to imply your guesswork is backed by actual data, but actually present that actual data instead. Did I say "actual" enough that you can grasp that when you evade this request for information we both know you don't have, no one will be confused into believing you secretly have it? Staff want you to have fun. Believe it or not. Guess which I chose, you contrarian jackass. Sorry, took me a moment to figure out how the bbcode worked. So. Hold on. My experiences is different from yours and therefore my opinion is different from yours. I didn't attack anyone, I didn't set out to invalidate anyone else's experience. But I'm a contrarian jackass with worthless opinions. *slow clap* If this is the tone you generally take in your interactions with staff or virtually any authority figure, then you can expect and deserve to get slapped around for it. I think it was actually a mistake to post here. This place is a shitheap.
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Post by sergeantraul on Apr 9, 2016 12:42:52 GMT -5
I think the solution has to be far more than just spice. Spice has always been a half-baked (ha!) thing in the setting. Why is it in the game? What purpose does it serve? What theme does it reinforce? Why on earth does Allanak prohibit it, anyway? Forget the word "spice," the stuff is basically cocaine. Why exactly are we trying to insert the modern drug trade and prohibition into a post-apocalyptic desert survival fantasy game? Perhaps that's one reason why the rinth sucks: it's just not fully fleshed out enough, and the one pillar we do have, spice, sucks big hairy salty donkey balls. Needless to say, the fact that Staff is apparently doubling down on spice with the Dust Runners is not encouraging. No offense my friend but if you can't think of a reason spice would or should be illegal that's your lack of creativity. Alcohol was forbidden in Islam like how long ago? It makes perfect sense for some corrupt dictator to ban a substance that makes you high as a kite. Not on the grounds that he's looking out for you but because he wants to more easily control the masses. That's the ic reason for you. Then there's the ooc purpose. having something, anything illegal creates conflict and that's what we should be striving for. Look at tuluk. Even stealing and killing people is legal (sort of). Consequently nothing happened and everyone was everyone's friend more or less. I do agree spice should be way cheaper though. Lol wat. Spice doesn't create any conflict. Conflict arises at the intersection of incompatible interests. The problem is, nobody has an OOC interest in using it. And no, "prohibition because prohibition = oppression" doesn't do the job. We're talking about what is (supposed to be) a deep, intricate fantasy world. If spice conflict is supposed to be a core theme of the game, you need to give players a better reason for prohibition than a teenager's understanding of The Man vs. Dope.
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Post by jcarter on Apr 9, 2016 15:40:41 GMT -5
This place is a shitheap. which aspect of it do you find to be a 'shitheap'? the part where posters are allowed to disagree with you and vocalize unpopular opinions without repercussions outside of the board?
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Post by BitterFlashback on Apr 9, 2016 16:05:10 GMT -5
That's because most of the active, ambitious, and self-driven making-their-own-fun players got driven off by the staff over the last few years. Or they moved on with their lives. Or they're playing differing roles. Or they're squelched by the current player administration. This is an absolutely worthless reply. We were discussing players who were driven off and you list among your hypothetical excuses, "maybe they're just playing another role." Really? The players I mentioned who stopped playing are still hypothetically playing? That's brilliant, but no, they were driven off. Everyone I know who quit Arm --myself included-- was driven off. Everyone here who quit listed their reason for quitting as being driven off by the staff (save for one person who quit over the GDB). You're facing a massive credibility gap when you start making shit up that doesn't match the experience of all but one person in the entire group you're addressing. I'd also add that being able to come up with a reply is not the same thing as having a valid response. If you have some vast wealth of knowledge of actual players who just up and left, please share it. Otherwise drop this bullshit that's only one step removed from invoking an argument from ignorance fallacy. Vitriolic ranting is not indisputable evidence. Yes, and hypothetical allusions are worthless. How about you show off some of that mountain of proof to the contrary that you're probably sitting on? You know, actual proof. The thing where you're not effectively saying "maybe" in every sentence to try to imply your guesswork is backed by actual data, but actually present that actual data instead. Did I say "actual" enough that you can grasp that when you evade this request for information we both know you don't have, no one will be confused into believing you secretly have it?Staff want you to have fun. Believe it or not. Guess which I chose, you contrarian jackass. Sorry, took me a moment to figure out how the bbcode worked. So. Hold on. My experiences is different from yours and therefore my opinion is different from yours. I didn't attack anyone, I didn't set out to invalidate anyone else's experience. But I'm a contrarian jackass with worthless opinions. *slow clap* If this is the tone you generally take in your interactions with staff or virtually any authority figure, then you can expect and deserve to get slapped around for it. I think it was actually a mistake to post here. This place is a shitheap. Ah, so not sharing any evidence from "experience" but still alluding to it totally existing, as I predicted. I appreciate you following through to prove I was right. Some people wouldn't go the extra mile for me like that. I didn't attack anyone, I didn't set out to invalidate anyone else's experience. You referred to the entirety of people's recorded experience here as "vitriolic ranting", you lying sack of shit. That insulted everyone and invalidated their experiences.
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