An Actual Open Discussion On The Culture Killing Armageddon

Call it whatever you like, but I won't object to the idea of you playing the hero... he was trying to be all humble or some shit... but given the circumstances, it would be good for him to do so.

I once had a PC commit suicide. He was tortured on the cuddler, ears cut off, like a 1-year city elven warrior with Byn training and good connections, but though I could have salvaged it, I was not sure if he'd recover from his wounds or not, so he asked a friend to kill him quickly and painlessly.

EDIT: The friend was like... I really, wish you wouldn't do this, I can help you... but first, put down the knife, then... eat this black tablet, but please, don't eat it.

"The sun's going down, time to decide."

"It's, a nice sunset."

eat tablet

Hey,

So I've had a few conversations with Bitterflashback about his theory regarding the two primary factions of PLAYERS and the issues they cause with the game. Due to personal inability to sufficiently consolidate his idea into something concrete from a game design perspective, I will instead be offering an alternative outline of the Armageddon culture and what is 'killing the game'. This isn't a dissenting opinion from Bitters since the player archetypes he laid out can still be a social cause of these problems, but alas I find myself unable to really write up a compelling post within that speculative framework.

TLDR - Jeshin can't jive with cliquey retards and driven individualists and has to make up his own ideas because he sucks.



Armageddon is a long running game and like most things that have over a decade of time hanging on them, it has issues. These issues are not static and with the turnover amongst staff they are set in stone either. It should be noted I have not played Armageddon in years. I have kept up with the game and I do take many of the stories on these boards (and others) with a grain of salt. That's one of the reasons I am a big proponent of logs and revealing request tool transcripts. I don't want your story. I don't want the staffs story. I just want the logs. Sadly that isn't always possible so you use incomplete and probably biased information to make assessments. Despite my grain of salt approach to things it should also be noted that where there is smoke there is often fire.

1. Dwindling Player Numbers

The engine that drives any game is the player population. This is a cyclical benefit and problem. When you login and see a game with a high number of players you think there is a good chance of interaction and it is popular. If you login and see a game with a low number of players you think you might not have much interaction when you're free to play or maybe the game is dying. If Armageddon is avging 30 people it's not "to low" but it's certainly not the 70+ it used to be.

Low numbers but high quality isn't really a good thing. It might be for a short period of time but players have real life happen and if you're not replenishing your playerbase with new curious users than you're going to continue to slip down the avg user count as you "age out" of your players. This is why quantity has its own quality, as someone said, somewhere.

2. Problematic Staffers

There is a difference between a staff culture and problematic staffers. Armageddon has decades under its belt and a cheating admin or a textual asshole or an apologist isn't enough of a blip on the radar to affect the likely 50+ staffers that have worked on the game at one point or another. The biggest problem with problematic staffers is that historically they have been fairly prominent within the hierarchy of the staff. If they did not hold significant position themselves they had the blessings of the higher ups with their actions (such as the plot to invade luirs).

Problematic staffers have ruffled feathers, burnt bridges, and put other staff in the position of supporting via silence or supporting via actual support of their questionable actions. We all know the famous, Nyr moderates the boards because if he didn't do it no one else would. Yet once again Nergal is the primary responder and moderator of the boards and the other staff are silent. Yet again a single person (who happens to be a producer/higher up) is the only one interested in moderating the boards and engaging with players?

3. Staff Culture

Staff culture is separate from problematic staffers because their individual mistakes no matter how bad or how prevalent in their tenure doesn't affect the staff culture of the problem. The staff culture is what shapes these staffers to act and speak in a certain way. Anecdotally I liked Euoryonomous (or however you spell it) for a month or two when he first became staff. I was playing Elrum 'banished' Irofel at the time and thought he was positive and upfront. However during that same tenure Nyr was admining the north and I could see Euro's responses beginning to mirror the same sentiments that Nyr would send me. This isn't surprising. Staff talk, they share stories, they band together as people running the game. I've been on staff, it's part of being staff. I've joked about players not getting the big picture before on private staff comms. I've pointed out this player doing this ridiculous thing before to another staffer. The difference is that I always promoted nuturing players. The staff culture during my time as a staffer (on another game) never taught me to be a dick to players. It never taught me that if they don't like it they can leave. It never taught me that I should ignore a complaint.

In this way Armageddon has had a fairly consistent staff culture, but it has evolved over time. The staff have withdrawn from the players, learned less is more when discussing sensitive topics or dealing with player complaints. They've adopted a "rip the bandaid off quick" approach to sensitive problems. They've adopted a single voice approach when they need to depict the staff as united on a topic. The staff culture has evolved to protect its shortcomings instead of removing them.

4. RP Culture

This is the player portion of the game. RP culture is more or less what the norm is. Do people say (nodding) Yeah. Lets spar. or do people say (looking from right to left, his hand against the hilt of ~obsidian.sword) We need to get off the street and findout what shit we're in. I think they're watching us... Do people go out and spar every 90 min or hunt beetle #984731290874097 or drink beer #417329471278041 hoping for something to fall into their laps? Do they turn hunting beetle #infinity into an adventure? Do they say fuck beetles lets find steinal, or go on a long hunting trip for some character development or gather a bag of spice to smuggle into Lord fancybritches for some money to buy an assassin for Bynner Dickweed.

RP culture is important because when you go from proactive to reactive, everyone is waiting, everyone is at a standstill, and the onus falls onto staff and sponsored roles to provide content instead of people driving content themselves. A wait and see RP culture can be ineffective at hooking newbies to staying with the game and cause veterans to turn into bitter vets (as EvE Online refers to burnout players).

5. Uncompetitive

I do not mean uncompetitive in the sense that the game doesn't promote competition. I mean uncompetitive because Armageddon is no longer playing to its strengths. MUDs are a unique medium they offer all the creativity of being writer within a setting with none of the drawbacks of having to render 3D or even 2D models of these stories. It is the high of storytelling. It is the feeling of being able to talk to people about an RP scene from years ago and have them talk back to you about it like it really happened... Because it was a shared memory, something unique at some point that is a shared experience.

How does Armageddon push stories and character moments? How are the RPTs and HRPTs run by staff really branching away from repetition and cliche to try and do something different? Why can't spider nest RPT #9841709437 really not be about spiders at all but mcguffin or some mercenaries stirring up trouble to bribe the templerate, or whatever...

When you play Armageddon you should never feel like your time would be better spent playing another MMO or single player video game. You should always feel like the MUD you are playing is exactly the kind of experience you're looking for. Not a game, not a book, but something where you have agency to tell your story.

Conclusion

You can have shitty staffers. You can have a poor staff culture. It won't help you. It will make everything harder. It will lose you some of the people you need most. But the thing that is killing Armageddon is that its RP culture is failing and it's not longer competing within the space it should be competing. Bureaucracy is not how to create compelling moments or even a compelling game world. People do not forgive bureaucracy. People will forgive earnest and passionate staffers who can admit a mistake and have the story at heart. When people see the story is above all else, they will forgive a lot.

I ordinrly realize any normal dicourse I can gve you will suffice, brace for insanity...

I think horrible sick shit is a bit strong. At worst they harassed Anaiah and were offensive. At worst they resorted to calling a female they didn't agree with a slut (ICly). To imply that staff wanted "sexual favors" or something from there would be pretty misleading and inflammatory. Let us not forget incident #1 of elf dying in arena was probably a player. So the staff did a fuck you animation (one they have done many of times, remember Elrum 'banished' Irofel was banished?) and then the staff did an inappropriately sexual animation. Like each one by itself is just bad form but not a huge deal. Only taken together with the numerous times the word slut/whore is used does it even blip on the radar as not okay. Why isn't it okay because it seems to be following the PLAYER and not the CHARACTER around.

I like Anaiah but Grumble, you shouldn't be conflating staff mistakes/misconduct with crimes or sick shit because that is like using a gun in a knife fight. It was inappropriate. It was offensive (to the player). It was mismanaged when complaints were brought up.

EDIT - Like whoever Clearsight is on TMC - www.mudconnect.com/SMF/index.php?action=profile;area=showposts;u=77777 - isn't doing anyone any favours. They aren't smearing Armageddon effectively (if that is their intent). They aren't bringing to light any complaints they have with the game. They aren't making a case anyone will believe, understand, or care about. In reality they just provide fuel for identity politics to lump all Armageddon dissenters in with them, then ignore us "for being the same"

A lot of the things I was seeing (from Grumble) and TMC from Clearsight seemed to be drawing attention to the sexual nature of it. Thus my concern that the wrong issue is being brought up. Essentially this board operates on "Name and Shame" which is where the misconduct of people are brought to light and they are publicly tied to it to be held accountable. The effectiveness of name and shame relies on the "shame" or misconduct being properly represented when brought to the public. But I may have just been focusing on the wrong parts of the posts.

I have never heard of a staff code of conduct, if someone has a link to it that'd be awesome. If a former staffer would like to enlighten me as to the line items of it that'd be awesome too.

Now to the scandal! What is worse the questionable duo of animations? The Nergal treatment of Anaiah when the complaint was brought? Or the sweep it under the rug and preventation of it being brought to the publics attention by Nergal on the GDB? Personally for me it'd be in reverse order with GDB coverup being worse than complaint handling which was worse than the animations. If anything this was a problem that grew worse over time not because the initial incident was so terrible but because of Nergal's handling of a player complaint and then coverup on the GDB when the player tried to point out him throwing the doublespeak.