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Post by yourvisiongoesblack on Jun 21, 2018 12:03:31 GMT -5
While I was writing the previous post, others arose talking about the negatives of "community" in relation to a game like Arm.
Cliques form, and those cliques involve both players and staff. The impartiality we would expect from a game like Arm fades when X knows who's playing Y, moreso if it's staff who used to be friends with a player.
If players A and B started out as scrubs at roughly the same time but player B makes staff because they put in more time, are more personable, or roleplay well, but OOCly they still became good friends... then, do we think that Player B will be entirely objective when it comes to decisions related to something Player A is trying to do within the game? Whether we're talking animations, OOC support for plot, better mastercrafted objects, etc.
Some of the worst instances of unfairness have arisen from these type of relationships. In my case and I'm sure many, many others, I haven't really had that experience, despite people I INTRODUCED to the game becoming staff. One staff member I showed the game when we were teenagers comes to mind; when he made it to that point, I didn't ask him particulars about IC stuff, AT ALL, nor did I EVER hit him up for roles or special treatment. Then again, he worked for the White House Communication's Department Joint Command, intel, so he had been extensively *trained by the government* to not reveal things or allude to shit that he had no business talking about to someone who shouldn't know.
Unfortunately, most staff aren't government-trained secret holders. Unfortunately, they're going to have friends who are still players. Unfortunately, those staffers will be prone to give preferential treatment to certain players, or, y'know, do something like pass along a database or two.
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mehtastic
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Post by mehtastic on Jun 21, 2018 12:08:57 GMT -5
Your post is so all over the place, and I think you know this, that I don't know where to start to respond. I will just say I played Arm from 2004 to early 2017-ish, and that I am not angry at anyone currently or formerly associated with Armageddon in particular, just sick of the deception that takes place on all levels of the community in general. Yes, I know not everyone is responsible for it. I know people who are current or former members of Armageddon staff and talk to them on a regular basis. They're jaded. I don't blame them for being jaded. They have a unique perspective on where Armageddon went wrong, and where the community surrounding the game went wrong. I just paint with a broad brush because I can't be bothered to spend more than a few minutes per day thinking and writing about how bad Armageddon has gotten. Like I said, it's a lost cause. Like lyse said, the problems with Armageddon run so deeply that it's impossible to fix without knocking the whole thing down and starting over, something that will never happen. |
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Post by yourvisiongoesblack on Jun 21, 2018 13:03:24 GMT -5
Yeah, sorry, I am just sorta writing out loud.
I'm glad you admit you use a broad brush.
"Impossible to repair" is something that deserves more attention. No game is perfect. But when we have transparency, work can be put toward eliminating less-desirable aspects of the game. Jcarter made these forums quite some time ago, and as we've conceded, repairs have been made as a result... but it took some time and, I think, multiple changes in administration for that to occur.
I was working for a millionaire with a failing business not long ago. He had exhausted all his funds for a project, fucked himself as hard as others had fucked him, and said to me one day:
"What I need... is a visionary."
And he was right. He needed an extremely smart human, or group of humans, with a wide breadth of knowledge: experience with human relations, experience with governmental dealings, experience with working with rich and famous people, experience with repairing structures, and experience with coordinating and controling thousands of people. Desperately, he needed someone or multiple someones to with the vision to achieve his goal. Instead, due to his lack of experience in that field of business, one ripe with hustlers of every shade, he mostly acquired people who took positions which they could easily exploit, bleeding him of cash like a stuck pig as his dream dissolved before his very eyes.
All I could do was watch the train wreck, comment every so often, and help when I could... because I was most certainly not the required visionary.
Similarly, the game needs true visionaries, ones who are savvy enough to navigate the byzantine network of problems.
Unfortunately, bright people like that, well, it's hard to get them to stick around. Harder now than it was a decade ago, for sure.
We could go into how a game like ArmageddonMUD might attract and keep people like that, just like there have been multiple discussions on how to keep and retain players, period. I think you'd need some cash. I think you'd need to restructure the way that administration works. In a way, I guess that is "starting over," or at least an overhaul, something that isn't likely to happen without a lot of luck and hard work (provided for free), so you aren't entirely wrong.
Maybe we'll all be saved when a visionary, Jesus Christ figure of coding and player relations comes to help, 10 hours a day, for free. Isn't that a nice thought?
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mehtastic
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Post by mehtastic on Jun 21, 2018 13:36:34 GMT -5
It's fine, I just can't respond to every point.
I think your comparison between your anecdote and Armageddon is on point. Every member on staff lacks something, whether it is a will to actually work on the game, an ethical balance with respect to what running a game is about, or skill in what game management is about.
The point of forming any kind of a team is that the members balance out each other's weaknesses with strengths of their own and take on duties suited to their strengths. With the Arm staff, everyone is just thrown together and told to run it. There is a facade of order, in the different clan teams and rankings, but in reality it runs more like a school project group. The staff who want to do as little work as possible push the burden of making new items or responding to players to someone willing to put the time in. Then those staff burn out, sometimes quietly and sometimes in dramatic fashion, because they are pulling the team until they can't anymore, because almost everyone involved with the game on every level is either a shitlord or totally non-committal.
TL;DR: The game had people who could have been visionaries, now it doesn't.
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sneazy
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Post by sneazy on Jun 21, 2018 13:46:06 GMT -5
You see the problem but suffer from the same delusion. Your friend didn't need a visionary - hell it is his project so he is the visionary. What he needed to understand is when to stop throwing good money after bad. Learn to walk away from a bad investment and start over.
I don't play arm anymore. It's a bad investment of time and energy. I'm firmly in the camp that it can't be fixed.
Too many people there are playing a different game: mudsexy, git rich, being da hero, count up dem skills, master in da game/losa in da life, or Mr. Griefer. I imagine Mr. Griefer feels like a true winner right now - got a thread dedicated to him, got an easy kill, got to read someone whine about it like a little bitch. Fed him well.
Dude deserves a kudos for winning his game.
The game should be fun for players and imms. Arm imms spend too much time resolving conflicts. Conflicts that only exist because the code allows it.
Maybe the new mud will fix some of the problems.
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Post by lyse on Jun 21, 2018 14:26:45 GMT -5
You see the problem but suffer from the same delusion. Your friend didn't need a visionary - hell it is his project so he is the visionary. What he needed to understand is when to stop throwing good money after bad. Learn to walk away from a bad investment and start over.
I don't play arm anymore. It's a bad investment of time and energy. I'm firmly in the camp that it can't be fixed.
Too many people there are playing a different game: mudsexy, git rich, being da hero, count up dem skills, master in da game/losa in da life, or Mr. Griefer. I imagine Mr. Griefer feels like a true winner right now - got a thread dedicated to him, got an easy kill, got to read someone whine about it like a little bitch. Fed him well.
Dude deserves a kudos for winning his game.
The game should be fun for players and imms. Arm imms spend too much time resolving conflicts. Conflicts that only exist because the code allows it.
Maybe the new mud will fix some of the problems.
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julio
Displaced Tuluki
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Post by julio on Jun 21, 2018 21:03:31 GMT -5
Why don't one of you ass hats take the code dump and make an ideal version of Armageddon?
Fucking whiny biches.
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Post by nightshade on Jun 22, 2018 1:05:29 GMT -5
You see the problem but suffer from the same delusion. Your friend didn't need a visionary - hell it is his project so he is the visionary. What he needed to understand is when to stop throwing good money after bad. Learn to walk away from a bad investment and start over.
I don't play arm anymore. It's a bad investment of time and energy. I'm firmly in the camp that it can't be fixed.
Too many people there are playing a different game: mudsexy, git rich, being da hero, count up dem skills, master in da game/losa in da life, or Mr. Griefer. I imagine Mr. Griefer feels like a true winner right now - got a thread dedicated to him, got an easy kill, got to read someone whine about it like a little bitch. Fed him well.
Dude deserves a kudos for winning his game.
The game should be fun for players and imms. Arm imms spend too much time resolving conflicts. Conflicts that only exist because the code allows it.
Maybe the new mud will fix some of the problems.
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julio
Displaced Tuluki
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Post by julio on Jun 22, 2018 6:46:37 GMT -5
Anyone responsible enough to be on staff, is too busy with real life.
So who can be on staff?
Irresponsible people who appear responsible.
I say we hire a full time person from bangalor to be in charge. 4$ an hour.
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Post by nightshade on Jun 22, 2018 6:58:37 GMT -5
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Post by lyse on Jun 22, 2018 11:56:31 GMT -5
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ibusoe
Clueless newb
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Post by ibusoe on Jun 22, 2018 13:29:20 GMT -5
Anyone responsible enough to be on staff, is too busy with real life. I say we hire a full time person from bangalor to be in charge. 4$ an hour. This is spot on. At one point in time I'd done a fair amount of work regarding a MUD I planned to boot, and a lot of my design was based upon upgrading Armageddon - taking a group of people that I mostly liked and learning from a long series of mistakes. Mostly I could jettison evolutionary design problems. I even collected about $10k in development capital. I tried to get in touch with famous coder Jeff Lait because I really wanted to get a solid code base going. Lait turned out to be a tough man to get on the phone. Eventually I spent my development budget on bills, and I've made a personal choice that time spent on rigorous gaming (non-casual gaming) was distracting me from filial obligations. Maybe someday, but probably not. Anyway, if we had our own code base - and the more open, the better - then we'd be free to charge for the MUD. We *should* charge for the MUD. I think Armageddon's aversion to running a commercial MUD is that back in the day, commercial RPG were seen as low quality, while hobbyist RPG were usually quality games. Twenty years went by and I think that between kickstarter, Netflix and Twitch most of us can agree that commercial efforts are often quality. Millenials don't have an aversion to paying $10 for a quality game. Kickstarter has proven that the fan base is large enough that really cool, indie projects can be successful, both artistically and can produce a modest return. Arm 2.0 should be donor supported. Think about it, Alcoholics Anonymous is donor supported and it's a grass-roots effort that affects thousands of people's lives. Seriously, as long as every member chips in $2 per session, it's self-sustaining. You even get coffee with that. Coffee at Starbucks would be more expensive, and Starbucks isn't helping you to better your life. What would you get for your $100/year donation? One key component would be a dedicated arbiter. I like the idea of using an Indian. Cool thing about using a staffer, is that they have a vested interest in enforcing actual rules (this is the easiest way, in the long term) and no real motive to show favoritism.
It would allow us to play a game where most of us are more or less friends, but we still scam, hustle, beat and PK each other's characters.
This isn't even an option for Arm, because they're bounded by DIKU, and the nascent fear that some aging Scandanavian coders are going to track them down over the license for a geriatric code base that no one cares about. They're largely hamstrung over this simple issue. That, and the Darksun thing.
That prevents them from collecting money, that collects them from hiring professional coders, that prevents them from hiring arbiters, that prevents them from hiring clerks, that prevents them from renting a better server. All of this prevents the game from moving forward.
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Post by lyse on Jun 24, 2018 7:34:10 GMT -5
Why don't one of you ass hats take the code dump and make an ideal version of Armageddon? Fucking whiny biches. See, to me the code dump always seemed like a Trojan Horse. A tantalizing offering for a game that is already changing the way characters work with this new guild system. Since it's already nearly done, someone conveniently handing over the codebase from 2016 just seemed too easy to me. A couple of code nerds already pointed out while some things were just what they expected, some things just didn't make sense. Which tells me two possible things: It'll make whoever is attempting to use that knowledge very easy to spot and it's just not all that useful to them anymore, since you know...they they've already made changes to certain aspects of the code. All the code knowledge in the world is still absolutely useless against a staffer that decides to drop an uber kryl or carru in an adjacent room to you. Just some food for thought on the codebase. I think using the code dump would be a bad idea. A really, really bad idea cause flaws. Making an Armageddon clone wouldn't work because you'd just be taking the same game and staffing it with different assholes. Not only that, but we've already pointed out, the reason Arm has so many problems is because it has long standing code problems. Why roll back the clock to 2016 when...there's no brewing fix, crafting would be retarded again, basically everything that was wrong with the game would still be wrong with the game. But, challenge accepted? I'm pretty sure there's someone banging away right now at something with the codebase just because it's familiar. The only thing that will attract is people that want to play Arm but want to play Arm under their own terms. That probably won't last very long. No, the ideal version of Arm wouldn't be Arm at all. It would take the game back to basics, probably a true Dark Sun setting, have more balanced mechanics, use newer code and actually make sense overall storywise. And again....challenge accepted? |
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julio
Displaced Tuluki
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Post by julio on Jun 24, 2018 20:40:06 GMT -5
I would like to see the emote mechanics, walk sit stand wear we etc... Of Armageddon, in another game.
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