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Post by yourvisiongoesblack on Sept 17, 2018 15:00:21 GMT -5
Yeah, like you, I've been back and forth on the issue. As a leadership PC, the idea of having clan caps is kinda horrifying to me. It turns into an OOC thing instead of an IC thing when it comes to filling your clan's population cap. It's not a good position for a leadership PC to be in: do I pick the inspiring badass who logs in once a week or the guy who's online 5 hours a day? Having to make OOC decisions like that sucks.
In the past, caps have been imposed or entire groups have been done away with because they were *just too fucking popular* - and often too fucking powerful, as a result. Examples:
1. Kuraci Outriders
2. Byn during various times
3. Black Moon Raiders
4. Expansion Division
I'm probably missing some.
but, well, when players have a dozen options... but tend to congregate in one clan... it's probably because something Good is happening, whether we're talking supportive staff or a strong/multiple strong PC leaders.
It's kind've like voting with your feet. That, to me, is a good thing.
The very thing that I suggested "might" be a good idea could turn into a bad one if, for instance, PC clan leadership is subpar in a player's opinion, but players really don't have many other options.
It's a hard thing to think about, and there really aren't any easy answers.
I recall a time when myself, ourla, and manonfire jumped in right at the opening of a noble house in Tuluk. We're all solid players, but we had a rigid cap on the clan population. It was really frustrating to see a dude sitting at a bar for RL days on end looking for work, yet we couldn't hire him because of the cap. Situations like that suck. Pigeonholing combat PCs into just a few clans isn't really ideal, either.
There are just so many variables, like PC leadership, amount of PCs to interact with in a clan, staff support, and even more that make it really hard to think about.
I will say this:
If a player is a great leader or PC that draws minions into their clan and keeps them, forming a supergroup of sorts, then I don't think they should be closed, curtailed, or massacred (see: T'zai By, 2014). I mean, if players are flocking to one clan because there's a perfect storm of good PCs, good imms, good leaders... I don't think staff should interfere as much as they have in the past. That scorpion pit murder RPT that suspiciously happened right around the time Nyr was trying to recruit for his new templars and shartists was, uhhh... I mean come the fuck on, it was not a subtle move at all. It was fun as fuck for those of us who lived, but in retrospect it seemed OOCly motivated, which shouldn't be the case ever, IMO.
We've seen clans organically grow to become powerhouses before, even where there were 15+ options for joining other combat clans, and maybe that was because players were voting with their feet. If players only have 3 options, a large amount of PCs in a clan isn't necessarily reflective of good health. It could just mean players don't have any other options.
So, yeah, it's a complex thing. Lots to think about. In my selfish vision of Nak right now, I'd like to see more AoD and Byn PCs instead of hunters for GMHs or guards for nobles, because plots, but that is just my personal opinion at this exact moment in time.
To some degree, I think you're right about the case-by-case basis part, but when it comes to how many PCs a clan can have being at an imm's discretion, well, arbitrariness and OOC stuff has clouded that in the past.
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tedium
Clueless newb
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Post by tedium on Sept 17, 2018 17:28:11 GMT -5
Here are my thoughts on consolidation, especially as it relates to noble and non-noble military organizations. It's kind of long and seems like it goes on a tangent, but I feel like Armageddon has so misunderstood the fundamentals that I need to establish those first. Bear with me.
IMO, conflict generates roleplay. Conflict can be external or internal. When it comes to organizations, external conflict is the competition between two or more organizations with each other over a thing, while internal conflict is the competition between the members of an organization for power in that organization. Consolidation can hamper external conflict while increasing the capacity for internal conflict, while promotion ceilings and player caps hamper internal conflict.
External Conflict
Military organizations exist for external conflict. They are created to serve an authority, and seek to achieve the goals of this authority through physical force, specifically in opposition to the military organizations of rival authorities. That is their purpose. The AoD serves Allanak's ruling class and seeks to enforce their control over the Known. The Byn is a mercenary outfit who serves whomever pays them. These are the two major military organizations of the game, and ever since the consolidation of the game to Allanak, their aims are not in conflict by any stretch of the imagination. Both serve the same authority, which is Allanak's ruling class. On the rare occasions when the Byn does not serve Allanak, they serve the merchant houses or individuals against the wilderness, and are never in opposition to Allanak.
Neither has any opposing player organizations to compete with at all.
This is a massive issue, because it amputates a significant part of the setting's built in roleplay-generation in favor of consolidation. Consolidation is a viable solution when the problem in generating conflict is a low population. Armageddon has had some issue with that, but the primary reason why organizational conflict does not happen is because players are not allowed to create conflict on an organizational scale. They are not allowed to compete IC for a role that puts them in charge of other players. If in a role that puts them in charge of other players, they are not allowed to direct those players to compete with other organizations for control over whatever the organization cares about. Merchant houses are forced to 'stay in their lane' and cannot compete with another group's monopoly, while players of noble houses are denied competition for their share of power in Allanaki politics (control of the city, either in the form of the senate or the literal, physical streets).
Internal Conflict
Military organizations are designed to minimize internal conflict by their emphasis on autocracy and solidarity. You do not have much room to assassinate rivals or bribe leaders because of their inherent nature. When that kind of internal conflict arises in an autocracy like a military organization, it is considered a mutiny, rebellion, or civil war, depending on the scope of that conflict. Players are historically not permitted to instigate roleplay of this type. Someone who is particularly adept at pleasing the ultimate leaders of their organization can get away with it at the smallest scale, but even that requires an external conflict significant enough to justify a change in leadership.
Circumventing your Sarge to solve a problem for the Templars can net you the Sarge's spot, but only if the Templars have a significant problem. They're not going to kick out the Sarge because you caught the elf snatching weapons off belts. When external organizations that can provide that threat are removed due to consolidation, then internal conflict is actually diminished. Military orgs are one of the only venues where players can elevate themselves from nobody to leadership figure, and diminishing their ability to do so hampers what makes those organizations unique.
Armageddon cements the lack of internal military competition by greatly limiting the ranks within their military organizations, and eliminating the traditional distinction between enlisted soldiers and officers. You have the recruit, the full member, the leader's assistant and the unit leader. Recruits are promoted based on a time gate, and unit leaders are chosen from full members based on staff needs. There really isn't a ton of reward for competition, and there's a tremendous amount of risk to murder, corruption, and betrayal, considering that characters continue to work in life-or-death situations with their unit.
Conclusion, and thoughts
Without rival organizations to compete against, or greater heights for individuals climb to, existing military organizations will languish and become more dependent on staff RPTs for roleplay. Noble military organizations provide a tremendous amount of potential in introducing internal and external conflict to Allanak's RP scene. Noble houses compete with each other for coin and control of Allanak, and their military orgs would be a way for noble players to manifest their aims in the city and out.
If noble houses recruit from the Byn/AoD for their military, then it provides a way for soldiers to politic their way into a 'better life' without actually promoting players past Sarge. At the same time, the Templars -- through the AoD -- can be charged with ensuring that the competing noble houses don't risk hampering Templar goals, whatever that may be. This means that Templars and their officers/aides must keep an eye on the regular AoD soldiers, who noble houses will certainly bribe, corrupt, and cajole into looking the other way.
The Byn, meanwhile, would have more of a mercenary role, because the rival houses could use their wealth (giving coin an actual purpose) to employ the mercenaries in their games against each other. It would introduce slight conflict between the Byn and the AoD, which there should be, because the AoD needs to keep tabs on the nobles and the Byn are a way to 'launder' their activities and keep some of their military operations secret. You could even reintroduce the Atrium as a Tor-run military academy with a prohibitively expensive entrance fee that focuses on turning existing soldiers (from the AoD or Byn) into those qualified to serve the nobles, greater emphasizing the need for coin (and consequently non-combat characters). The Guild/Jaxa Pah could play a role as for-hire orgs willing to do what the Byn will not when the job calls for even greater detachment from official forces, IE, assassination, sabotage, and murder.
Once you introduce the idea of Noble military orgs in opposition to each other, it adds a level of complexity to the interpersonal roleplay of characters in that sphere, while emphasizing the strengths of the individual organizations relative to one another. Without that competition in play, the AoD and the Byn really don't have a lot to do tied to their core, fundamental purpose within the game world.
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Post by pinkerdlu on Sept 17, 2018 17:59:05 GMT -5
I completely agree - my thoughts exactly. Thanks for posting. Excellent analysis of consolidation and how Arm staff absolutely fail to pull it off. I agree with your conclusion as well. |
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Post by lechuck on Sept 18, 2018 4:52:44 GMT -5
It's a bit depressing to think about what this game could be if the people behind it had some interest, creativity, and a genuine desire to enrich the game. Instead they fiddle with the code, skim character reports and run the occasional invite-only plot that routinely fails to have a meaningful impact on the game as a whole. They've got over a dozen staff members and they get so little done that it makes a shitty game like Haven, with its three people on staff, look like Blizzard Entertainment in comparison.
Most aspects of Armageddon are still fundamentally the same as they were at the turn of the millennium. It's still the same noble houses and the same clans, minus the ones that have been culled from the setting. People still do all the same things, play all the same character types and have the same tired interactions, minus all the options that are now gone. They haven't moved the game forward in any productive way in over a decade. When I look at this game, there's pretty much nothing I can do now that I couldn't do in 2005. Stuff like new classes (all of which closely resemble the old ones) is not what this game needed, because they don't really do anything new. What Armageddon needed is new ways to play. And no, Lizzie, digging for clay or painting paintings does not count as a new way to play Armageddon, so fuck off.
One can only conclude that staff is deathly afraid of letting players have any kind of say in anything that happens. At least, that's what their actions and inaction has indicated for so many years now that there's no point trying to remember a time before that. The game's history is filled with all these non-events that didn't matter in the slightest. Oh, a volcano appeared and then moved or whatever. Some gith came out of the sewers one time. The #1 noble house literally collapsed, but hey, they bounced right back into the #1 spot without a hitch! Nothing fucking changes, nothing's new, nothing's different, except for the chunks of the game that have been hacked off to make it smaller.
Historically, what did real-life noble houses do? They fucking waged war on each other. They didn't exist for the sole purpose of throwing parties or making wine or clean the sewers. What did merchant houses do? They competed and ran each other out of the market. They didn't universally agree to stick to their corner of the business world and coexist. What did mercenaries do? They fought for the highest bidder, against the lowest bidder, and routinely determined the outcomes of wars. They didn't spend 90% of their time hunting animals and escorting apprentices across the land. There's nothing going on in Armageddon that would make a worthwhile addition to the most generic no-name fantasy novel.
So yeah, you could totally have merchant houses that competed in a meaningful fashion, or noble houses that could realistically move up or down the hierarchy, or mercenaries that could actually be hired to work against other players--but not in a game where players are only allowed to do things that have no real impact on anything. Armageddon's staff harbors such a deep distrust and antipathy toward the playerbase that they just will not let those mortal peasants have a say in anything significant.
Because if players matter and can make real decisions, suddenly being on staff starts to feel like you're working for those wretched plebeians instead of graciously permitting them entry into your glorious domain, and then it's really hard to cling to that soothing illusion of power that has clearly been the main attraction for far too many of this game's staff. They seem to have forgotten the purpose of officiating a roleplaying game. Today's staff wouldn't know what "story" meant even if you imprisoned them for life in the fiction aisle of a library.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2018 8:43:00 GMT -5
Lechuck: If you were on staff, how much time would you spend a week, and what would spend it on?
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Post by yourvisiongoesblack on Sept 18, 2018 13:26:06 GMT -5
Comments interspersed. It's a bit depressing to think about what this game could be if the people behind it had some interest, creativity, and a genuine desire to enrich the game. Instead they fiddle with the code, skim character reports and run the occasional invite-only plot that routinely fails to have a meaningful impact on the game as a whole. They've got over a dozen staff members and they get so little done that it makes a shitty game like Haven, with its three people on staff, look like Blizzard Entertainment in comparison. I don't know what a Haven is. But I would say that there have been meaningful plots that have affected lots of players, like the plot or plots currently going on around Nak, for an immediate example that's present almost daily. Do they have a dozen staff members? Yes, and at least some of those staff members have poured energy into at least a couple of clans, even if it's in the form of a lizard darting away from a caravan. Or attacking a large group with a mekillot. Or a roc. Or multiple defilers. Or a cannibalistic raiding group. Or a raiding group being investigated that was destroyed by something really terrible. Minions of powerful defilers. Exploration trips to new areas of the game, complete with staff animations.
I have seen tons of evidence of staff interaction in just four months. I have zero karma and haven't been playing social characters. I just did one simple thing: I joined a fucking clan.
If you join a clan, your chances of interaction increase exponentially. I would rather see this than staff members tailoring RP to individual PCs.
If staff choose to stir up RP for an individual PC, well, I don't know expect nor WANT them to do it for me or maybe anyone except newbies or templars. I will say a staff member plotting with me as a 14 y/o newbhelped hook me into the game. I think it's selfish for players who have been around for years to expect staff do to stuff just for them. No, put energy toward clans, leadership PCs, or newbies. Trickle down theories don't work with poor people IRL, but they usually do with nobles or templar PCs.
The fact that you maintain staff have not been supporting widescale RP is directly contradicted by the decently-long list I wrote above, and I even excluded some "Oh wow" moments because they're so contemporary.Most aspects of Armageddon are still fundamentally the same as they were at the turn of the millennium. It's still the same noble houses and the same clans, minus the ones that have been culled from the setting. People still do all the same things, play all the same character types and have the same tired interactions, minus all the options that are now gone. They haven't moved the game forward in any productive way in over a decade. When I look at this game, there's pretty much nothing I can do now that I couldn't do in 2005. Stuff like new classes (all of which closely resemble the old ones) is not what this game needed, because they don't really do anything new. What Armageddon needed is new ways to play . And no, Lizzie, digging for clay or painting paintings does not count as a new way to play Armageddon, so fuck off. Yes, the game has a lot of the same clans. But those, in the case of the Byn, there have been significant changes since at least 2014, which surprised me.
I disagree with you about the new classes. As someone who played merchants to death, I thought the changes to the classes, in retrospect, would have made previous concepts of mine FAR more playable than they would have been previously. People complained for years about how OP rangers were and how terrible classes like burglar and pickpocket were. It was a constant theme, the complaints about those classes. Staff listened, changed stuff around to directly address long-standing complaints, and yet here we are, with some people saying it isn't sufficient.
People complained about the grind more than anything, and these new classes directly cut away at that. Do you know how many times I branched armor crafting as a merchant and how mother fucking frustrating that is? How many time ranger players who aren't twinks failed at ever branching "parry" and thus becoming more survivable? From the very jump, new characters are 100% more survivable, all across the board, and the flexibility allows a far greater range of character concepts to be explored without extended subguilds or special applications. Don't get me started on guild-sniffing, an eternal complaint.
Yes, I do think that the staff should be open to tweaking these classes, but, personally, even though I have not yet played one, I am really, really excited to have a chance to play the new classes and have spent weeks theorizing about concepts to base around these new classes. I'm sure this is true for many other players. I am not trying to be mean, but anyone with a bit of imagination should be able to see how these new classes open entirely new avenues for how to play the game.
I totally agree with what you said about Lizzie. The last time she was under me in a clan, my character personally killed her PC because she was damn annoying. But hey: it takes all sorts to make a world.One can only conclude that staff is deathly afraid of letting players have any kind of say in anything that happens. At least, that's what their actions and inaction has indicated for so many years now that there's no point trying to remember a time before that. The game's history is filled with all these non-events that didn't matter in the slightest. Oh, a volcano appeared and then moved or whatever. Some gith came out of the sewers one time. The #1 noble house literally collapsed, but hey, they bounced right back into the #1 spot without a hitch! Nothing fucking changes, nothing's new, nothing's different, except for the chunks of the game that have been hacked off to make it smaller. Staff is deathly afraid of letting players have any kind of say in anything that happens? Well, they've definitely been burned by even sponsored roles and high karma players in recent past. What was that post I read about a Whiran and 3 sponsored roles getting busted for sharing OOC info? Fuck, these players were even dumb enough to talk about it on a Discord channel. And these are SUPPOSED TO BE SOME OF THE BETTER PLAYERS IN THE GAME, if they are accepted to sponsored roles or had the karma for a Whiran. If I were staff, I would be very careful if not paranoid about this kind of shit. It wasn't some random trolled who mucked up plots, like when Ramir was killed at the Gaj by a newbie dwarf with a bazaar club... It was fucked with by, again, the players who you're supposed to expect the MOST from.
Yes, the volcano thing was dumb, but you're reaching back to Nyr-era shit. Gith from the sewers? What, are we talking about something that happened almost a decade ago? As far as Borsail goes, well, I am not a noble aficionado, but they basically control the work force of the entire city state and contribute heavily to the arena. Allanak is like House Saud: they can take huge hits like being implicated in 9/11 attacks, commit genocide, and basically be one of the worst countries ever in terms of human rights, but they maintain their vast holdings and continuously grow more powerful, unchecked despite what could have brought them down, because they provide one of THE most essential components required for the leading world power (USA, USA, USA) to have an edge: oil, or, in the case of Borsail, *slave labor.*
I agree that more has been taken away than added. Nyr retconning shit like the Conclave was unacceptable. Removing Tuluk is inconsequential because the game worked just fine when there were only Naki soldiers, ruins, Freil's Rest, and the Sanctuary in the North. I am totally okay with pure-mage classes being removed except Nilazis. I feel like, and I keep seeing other players write this, that they should have kept Nilaz. I DO feel as though they should allow new groups to arise organically; I do NOT feel as though they should simply write up new clans to replace the old ones because it would feel ham-fisted. I DO feel like players should be able to add their own content like clans and wagons more easily. I am not entirely in disagreement with you on this matter.
Historically, what did real-life noble houses do? They fucking waged war on each other. They didn't exist for the sole purpose of throwing parties or making wine or clean the sewers. What did merchant houses do? They competed and ran each other out of the market. They didn't universally agree to stick to their corner of the business world and coexist. What did mercenaries do? They fought for the highest bidder, against the lowest bidder, and routinely determined the outcomes of wars. They didn't spend 90% of their time hunting animals and escorting apprentices across the land. There's nothing going on in Armageddon that would make a worthwhile addition to the most generic no-name fantasy novel. Here, again, I at least agree strongly with your third sentence. I do not like party RPTs. I always feel kinda OOCly awkward at them despite being very extroverted IRL. I just, personally, do not like them, unless there's killing involved. 30 PCs standing around drinking FREE ALCOHOL, half of them wearing fancy shit, is not my perfect vision of what a post apocalyptic world should look like, ESPECIALLY when parties that I've seen have included almost all PC types, from mercenaries to nobles, all *drinking free shit and eating free food.* Agreed. It doesn't really fit the theme, TO ME, PERSONALLY, most of the time. Exceptions to this include deaths of long lived PCs, celebrations of victory/promotions, and auction-type events.
RE: Mercenaries on ArmageddonMUD. You don't seem to have played one for a long time. Mercenaries cannot even take contracts to hunt animals unless under exceptional circumstances. But they do guide house-sized wagons through dangerous territory and participate in Cool Shit. Sometimes, they even fuck up and send house-sized wagons into chasms filled by gith. Yes, nobles can hire mercenaries to harm their enemies. Is this technically illegal? YES. But it CAN and DOES happen. Maybe not on the scale that you envision, but, hey, noble houses do not have their own city states to govern; they have glorified mansions. An Oashi can't hire a Byn unit to attack the Borsail estate. But it is realistic and possible to corrupt mercenaries to somehow sabotage rivals. I don't read many fantasy novels, but, uhh, when Arm veers toward high-fantasy plots, they tend to go either way. Again, I'm not a fan of volcano-esque type plots, but these TYPES of plots have been done well before. I do not blame staff for being reluctant to include these types of plots more often because the result is often ridicule.
They can also be incredibly badass. I'll never forget the time where the entire world went dark. I was playing a Drovian at the time, so I was like, haha, I can walk around and see everything. Might not seen significant, but as a player, the "Gee Whizz" factor kicked in hard then without anything having been directed exclusively at me as an individual.So yeah, you could totally have merchant houses that competed in a meaningful fashion, or noble houses that could realistically move up or down the hierarchy, or mercenaries that could actually be hired to work against other players--but not in a game where players are only allowed to do things that have no real impact on anything. Armageddon's staff harbors such a deep distrust and antipathy toward the playerbase that they just will not let those mortal peasants have a say in anything significant. Merchant Houses have and do compete with one another in meaningful ways. Did you miss the whole thing about the cave with the things? Very recent example that pit merchant houses against one another. And, AGAIN, at LEAST 4 trusted players involved helped fuck it up by spreading OOC info. Do I agree with how Noted Liar Nergal axed the plot? No, I agree with Bahliker's assessment of that situation, that it should have been allowed to play out. 15 years before the Garrison was created, I was a part of a plot as a Kadian to take over Luir's and form a Merchant's Accord, which would have been solidified by my character's marriage with a Nenyuki PC. Pearl wrecked that WITHOUT OOC INFO by sabotaging my PC via spreading incriminating rumors to the Nenyuki PC. So, it was interesting to see that Accord or its equivalent happen NEARLY 20 RL YEARS LATER.
You characterize Arm's staff as a single entity in your final sentence. It's not. ArmagedonMUD staff is not Sanvean, it's not Nyr, it's not Noted Liar Nergal, it's not Nessalin. It's not one single person. What you're doing here is the same thing that some players/staff would do to this forum as an entirety: characterize it as coordinating entity with one singular purpose, one singular agenda, and a hive mind of sorts, which is simply untrue. There are lots of staff members, and they should not be characterized as X or Y simply because some staff have acted like X/Y in the past. I feel like many staff members are cautious with how they go about their plots because of recent examples of TRUSTED players fucking up because they couldn't keep their mouths shut.
Why wouldn't they be a little more careful with events focusing on individuals? In answer, the plot going on is like a room reach spell instead of an "un" spell. Personally, I would rather them act to affect the world or large groups of PCs instead of pouring their energies into individuals or very small enclaves. And that seems to be what's happening right now. I can't see the fault in it.Because if players matter and can make real decisions, suddenly being on staff starts to feel like you're working for those wretched plebeians instead of graciously permitting them entry into your glorious domain, and then it's really hard to cling to that soothing illusion of power that has clearly been the main attraction for far too many of this game's staff. They seem to have forgotten the purpose of officiating a roleplaying game. Today's staff wouldn't know what "story" meant even if you imprisoned them for life in the fiction aisle of a library. Players can make real decisions. They can vote with their feet and join clans that are doing well, and they can walk away from shit that they don't like being put forth by the imms. Yes, I agree that players should have more room to plot, and I think this could be best accomplished through playing a leader or creating conditions to BE a leader; I recently made a post with ideas about how staff could better facilitate player-created clans. I feel like player-created clans are a main way that players can make decisions and affect the gameworld. As it stands, that is REALLY HARD to accomplish, and, personally, when Nyr was the face of the game, I felt like my attempt to do something like this was thwarted because Nyr had a grudge against me. Does that suck? Yes. It sucks bad. I believe the guidelines for creating clans should be totally revamped. I've written recently that I would like to take a stab at that personally because, you know, I haven't really seen players posting their own sets of revised guidelines that might be more workale.
As for your concluding sentence, I'll refer to what I've written already: even as a nobody PC, my current past two characters have been involved in plots and stories, both imm-starteed and player-generated. And guess what? I've had FUN. For the first time in a long time, I've been having FUN. I think I would be having fun WITHOUT the sufficient and consistent amount of staff support clans have received, but joining a clan is the best way to see storytellers, storytelling. If you are just going around hunting or sitting in taverns as an indie PC, the odds of you seeing cool stuff significantly decrease. That's fine with me; I would rather staff cater to clan or regional sets of players instead of individuals.
Again, I have been having fun with storytellers doing storytelling stuff. Not directly aimed at my character in most instances, but it has happened (even though they know that, yes, I'm Kronibas, because I told them). Even to the character of a player who is banned from the GDB and undoubtedly disliked by probably more imms than not, I've had at least a couple of chances to die, let other characters die, or otherwise experience Cool Stuff (no, not world-plot magick shit or anything REMOTELY close to that) because of staff doing X and allowing a reaction that could have went either way and resulted in deaths... as recently as like, ummm, two RL days ago?
You bring up good points, but it also, to me, seems like you characterize the staff as a hive mind when they aren't, just like these forums.
IMO, your most valid point relates to allowing players to be able to affect the game to a greater degree, and I think this could be accomplished most efficiently by revamping Nyr's fucked guidelines for building clans. They're fucked and have stupid caveats like, if the leader dies, the clan dies. It's not good. Players trying to change the game by themselves isn't that realistic because we have ~200 players. Players changing the game by allowing clans or groups to occur more organically would go a long way when it comes to having an "impact" on the gameworld. The more players involved, the more likely staff should be to allow a leader to have an "impact."
Unfortunately, as it stands, the OOC guidelines for allowing clans - while a good start - should be refined. In the mean time, joining clans is the best answer to this, and you WILL see storytelling happen if you are a part of a clan. That's not to say you can't change the course of events with a PC NOW, but, yeah, it's not as easy if you're playing an indie char.
EDITED TO ADD:
I believe full class sorcerers and Nilazis should be added alongside Psionicist at playable classes. Better yet, break down Nilazi into four separate subguilds. With the elimination of full mage classes, Nilazis, well, seem fit even better as a subguild, since their main threat, pure mage players, is now no longer a thing.
Nilaz is just especially interesting if you consider it being broken down into subguilds. I would go so far as to stay that, had I been given the choice of a pure Nilaz or a main guild warrior with a Nilaz subguild, I would have chosen the lattr. Why? Because part of being a Nilazi can sometimes deal with having access to corpses, and it can be hard to access corpses if you have basically 0 damage-dealing spells. So, being able to create corpses as a Fighter with a Nilazi subguild would be badass. It would be like GoT. Kill a bunch of fucking tough soldier NPCs and be able to animate them. Hilarity ensues. |
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tedium
Clueless newb
Posts: 164
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Post by tedium on Sept 18, 2018 13:48:16 GMT -5
I will say that I'm kind of amazed that they have so many people on staff yet manage to achieve so much less than MUSHes that have to respond to player jobs daily. My guess is that their delegation system sucks, and they heavily restrict what staffers are capable of doing based on trust level, or some other kind of red tape greatly slows down projects. They could probably stand to delegate to PC leaders more in general, if nothing else.
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Post by yourvisiongoesblack on Sept 18, 2018 14:05:09 GMT -5
How many MUSHes have hard-coded permadeath, ~200 PCs a week, or are as combat-oriented as Arm?
You're probably right that lower tier staff have restrictions, but let's take a look back at Asan/PPP as to why that might be the case.
(presumably) newb staffer makes a coded mistake; the aftermath is a complete and total shitshow, ICly and OOCly, generating no small amount of outrage and further complicated by, at the end of the day, Nyr being a dick to the point of *writing a fucking poem* to mock a player who had perfectly legitimate reasons to be upset in the first place. Just... so much unnecessary BS because an imm made a booboo while attempting (operative word, attempting) to do Something Cool.
Yeah, I can see why newb imms aren't running around doing coded stuff to PCs. It's because, if they fuck up accidentally, Really Bad, Not-Cool-At-All shit can happen.
I reread the entire 40-something page thread two days ago, every single word. If I were staff and read the same thread, I would be terrified of making a similar mistake.
edit: for hard-coded permadeath instead of consensual permadeath.
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punished ppurg
GDB Superstar
Why are we still here? Just to suffer?
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Post by punished ppurg on Sept 18, 2018 15:27:08 GMT -5
How many MUSHes have hard-coded permadeath, ~200 PCs a week, or are as combat-oriented as Arm? You're probably right that lower tier staff have restrictions, but let's take a look back at Asan/PPP as to why that might be the case. (presumably) newb staffer makes a coded mistake; the aftermath is a complete and total shitshow, ICly and OOCly, generating no small amount of outrage I've been summoned!
Newb staffer makes a coded mistake, he fixes it. The Immortal accounts on the MUD have control over the setting, the environment, the code. They are not beholden to anything that the code produces, as if the game is some mythical black box with its own, unchallenged agency. If there's a situation where the Templar's bodyguard codedly attacks the Templar's recruits instead of the assailant coming to kidnap the Templar, you fix it. That's a failure of the code to recognize you walking into an edge-case, and performing something "insane".
Which is a perfect argument, in my mind, against script kids and code-ignorant people from getting an Immortal role. Something like that happens, they just throw their arms up because they can't comprehend why or how. If you let the game do what it wants, then you de facto aren't exercising your control over it: you don't have control. And that's just pitiful. In retrospect, Nyr's grand and toxic efforts to defend how he and his cabal had no control over the game was just pitiful.
You stop the outrage by recognizing the edge case, going "Hey, this shouldn't have happened!" And you fix it. Period. Everyone's happy, and the integrity of the setting is maintained. The drama doesn't spiral. At the end of the day, the code is a vehicle for the story; and the story is what matters, what makes the game fun — it certainly isn't the code flipping bits and making pointer calls that makes the game worth messing with.
For any staffer who is terrified, arm yourself with knowledge. PM me for the code dump if you need to.  If they won't share it with you, I will.
If a staffer screws up, he needs to be held accountable. He needs to apologize; and most importantly, he needs to make things right. That's the only way he can learn. He can't go hide behind his supervisor's skirt and avoid all consequence of his screw up. This just makes the supervisor the big bad guy, because now someone probably completely uninvolved has to put on their mean pants and systematically squash the malcontent hopes of wronged players. It is objectively not a good administrative model, and there are better ways to handle it.
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Jeshin
GDB Superstar
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Post by Jeshin on Sept 18, 2018 15:36:04 GMT -5
Arx has hard code systems and permadeath and over 400 unique accounts with 5 staffers. It also has new systems being implemented every 6 months or so.
Haven has hard coded systems used to be much more populated and have 3 staffers of which only 1 actually does any plot and 2 others are just insane coders.
Armageddon does objectively have very little accomplished for its staff size. It is not debatable in any fashion if they have more than 5 staffers they exceed the staff count of most text-based games and the fact there is hardcode to assist them is a productivity multiplier not a negative.
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Post by yourvisiongoesblack on Sept 18, 2018 16:56:31 GMT -5
RE: Junior level staffer needing to "make things right."
Let's assume it was a junior level staffer who did the thing with the half-giant, ppp, and they DID request to rez chars but were denied by a producer. If that's the case, they aren't necessarily hiding under skirts; their hands are just tied.
Apologies don't have to be some big thing... even a "Ahh shit, sorry about that" - entirely depending on the situation because I have seen cases where staff purposefully loaded Scary, Powerful NPCs and the actions of lesser skilled PCs led to their death... at no particular fault of the staff, but because the character made a mistake. No apologies necessary when it comes to things like that IMO. Things are different when we're talking about the crimcode, though, especially in relation to militia/recruits. I would have felt really bad as an imm and would have tried to throw those players a bone in some way, but, again, storyteller hands are probably tied a lot.
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punished ppurg
GDB Superstar
Why are we still here? Just to suffer?
Posts: 1,098
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Post by punished ppurg on Sept 18, 2018 20:11:55 GMT -5
RE: Junior level staffer needing to "make things right." Let's assume it was a junior level staffer who did the thing with the half-giant, ppp, and they DID request to rez chars but were denied by a producer. If that's the case, they aren't necessarily hiding under skirts; their hands are just tied. Apologies don't have to be some big thing... even a "Ahh shit, sorry about that" - entirely depending on the situation because I have seen cases where staff purposefully loaded Scary, Powerful NPCs and the actions of lesser skilled PCs led to their death... at no particular fault of the staff, but because the character made a mistake. No apologies necessary when it comes to things like that IMO. Things are different when we're talking about the crimcode, though, especially in relation to militia/recruits. I would have felt really bad as an imm and would have tried to throw those players a bone in some way, but, again, storyteller hands are probably tied a lot. You don't know what you're talking about. Go back and re-read the logs I posted. Cavaticus had the gall to blame me for those characters dying, accusing me of not doing my job as a Sergeant to educate them on this fringe-lunatic behavior of crim code. From Cavaticus, to Talia, to Nyr, the entire thing was a cover-up. These three paid hundreds of dollars to fly out to a beach cottage and get drunk together. They were covering each others' asses, playing the game as their own personal sandbox; and the fact that they all left staff once one dropped out proves it.
Let's not assume it was a junior level staffer who did it. I know it was Cav. He didn't give a fuck. He was one of the voices arguing that I had no foot to stand on in making the request that my clan get rezs for his cock up. He was absolutely hiding behind his IRL friends' skirts; and Nessalin, being such a dull troglodyte, regurgitated whatever vitriol Nyr stuffed down his comatose throat. There absolutely was an apology deserved from the shameful behavior of those three. The game is genuinely better off without them, and I count it as a service.
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Post by yourvisiongoesblack on Sept 19, 2018 14:55:44 GMT -5
RE: Junior level staffer needing to "make things right." Let's assume it was a junior level staffer who did the thing with the half-giant, ppp, and they DID request to rez chars but were denied by a producer. If that's the case, they aren't necessarily hiding under skirts; their hands are just tied. Apologies don't have to be some big thing... even a "Ahh shit, sorry about that" - entirely depending on the situation because I have seen cases where staff purposefully loaded Scary, Powerful NPCs and the actions of lesser skilled PCs led to their death... at no particular fault of the staff, but because the character made a mistake. No apologies necessary when it comes to things like that IMO. Things are different when we're talking about the crimcode, though, especially in relation to militia/recruits. I would have felt really bad as an imm and would have tried to throw those players a bone in some way, but, again, storyteller hands are probably tied a lot. You don't know what you're talking about. Go back and re-read the logs I posted. Cavaticus had the gall to blame me for those characters dying, accusing me of not doing my job as a Sergeant to educate them on this fringe-lunatic behavior of crim code. From Cavaticus, to Talia, to Nyr, the entire thing was a cover-up. These three paid hundreds of dollars to fly out to a beach cottage and get drunk together. They were covering each others' asses, playing the game as their own personal sandbox; and the fact that they all left staff once one dropped out proves it.
Let's not assume it was a junior level staffer who did it. I know it was Cav. He didn't give a fuck. He was one of the voices arguing that I had no foot to stand on in making the request that my clan get rezs for his cock up. He was absolutely hiding behind his IRL friends' skirts; and Nessalin, being such a dull troglodyte, regurgitated whatever vitriol Nyr stuffed down his comatose throat. There absolutely was an apology deserved from the shameful behavior of those three. The game is genuinely better off without them, and I count it as a service.
I was trying to use the example of what happened to you, which I, like I mentioned, re-read every word of recently, but from a contemporary angle where we presumably do not have the same things happening that were happening under those imms. In the scenario I was trying to imagine, if this were to happen again, then, regardless of whether or not a storyteller was in favor of granting a rez, they simply might not to be able to because it's a call way out of their hands. I know this wasn't the case with you, and, for clarity's sake, I wasn't trying to make it seem like it was. Sorry if it came out like that, but imagining your situation if more reasonable parties were involved is part of what I was trying to think about, with one point being that, if it happened again, a storyteller still might not be able to do anything like a rez despite WANTING to. Does that make sense? |
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Jeshin
GDB Superstar
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Post by Jeshin on Sept 19, 2018 16:57:44 GMT -5
What you are describing is not a lack of storyteller's to make the call but a lack of policy review.
A policy review would be something like this...
1) What constitutes a rez?
2) What are the most common denied rez requests?
3) Is our rez policy common sense and addressing situations our players feel require rez?
Now if you get rez request like I attacked a gith and it killed me, rez plox. Obviously that is a bad request and doesn't need to be reviewed, buuuuuuuuut if you get a shitton of rez request for crimcode and people are very unhappy with how crimcode functions or the ooc feels of those deaths you might want to A) Fix crimcode B) expand rez policy to address fringe cases.
PS - Also unequal enforcement is an issue. I once saw Shalnoosh's tuluki elf crimlord die in the Kuraci bar in tuluk because of crimcode nonsense. He was rezzed in 5 minutes. I put in a complaint at the time for the fact I had seen other people permadeath for similiar mistakes.
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Post by yourvisiongoesblack on Sept 20, 2018 7:15:25 GMT -5
I would say the gladiator booboo that happened was a mistake. Might be wrong because I've seen at least one death faked in the arena before (Elf, Gowan, under Krrx who assumed a new indentity and secretly went to work for Kurac afterwards), but I don't think that was the case with those glads.
The thing with rezzes is that, over recent years, they have probably denied LOTS of rezzes. So, unless it's a major staff error, I could see staff terrified of one player who was denied a rez getting really pissed when they heard of another player getting a rez for something similar.
That's the fundamental problem with rezzes: people, denied rezzes, getting pissed when they hear of them going through.
I do think those three recruits died to staff error, regardless of arguments but forth. Had I been PPP, I would have been just as upset, but I think it was dialogue rather than the rez refusal that go him on one. It wasn't that they said "NO," but how they said it and how they acted.
Personally, I would have given the players of those PCs killed by a staff avatar 1 karmas, an apology (were those players apologized to?), and I would have hooked them up with a free special app or *something.* In the winter, I work for a Really Nice resort where the passion for service culture catering to people frequently millionaires is a very real thing.
Unless we're understaffed, when the kitchen, support staff, or servers make a mistake... We do everything we can to make them happy. Why? The hotel chain has a complex system where we compete with other resorts across the world based on a score generated by feedback and reviews via multiple platforms: Google, Facebook, OpenTable, the list goes on and on.
One ofthe absolutely worst things that hurts business and one of the quickest ways to get fired or hurt your standing is to do something that earns a bad review. On the other hand, staff who receive positive reviews on those review platforms can receive up to $100 cash rewards. Because management is acutely aware of how important reviews are.
ArmageddonMUD is not an exclusive resort nor a business. But one thing it has in common with those entities is the need for public, positive feedback. As much as Nyr focused on getting new players and higher playercount numbers, he ultimately sabotaged himself by acting in ways that frequently caused negative reviews to crop up. Is this because he was just being the pinnacle of fairness and a group of ungrateful players decided to pick on him? No. It's because he did not care enough about curbing his desire to lash out or curtail his hostility to help the game where it really needs it: keeping good players, playing.
No, staff should not kiss player asses. But when coded mistakes occur on their behalf, we not only need a codified set of rules dealing with the fallout of errors, but also a bit of humanity, too. Just like Malifaxis' GDB quote says, paraphrasing: We should all just try to be a little nicer to one another. Instead of giving you the finger, they should have acknowledged the mistake and, even if no rezzes occured, made concesssions of some sort: karma, "oh, hey, want to play one of the new magicker subguilds???," boosts to the next char... *something.*
No, I do not think it's a coincidence that those staff members left after that instance. Well, Nyr left months after it. Your story, PPP, was just fuel for an already-growing fire and served further as solid proof of the attitutdes held by some staff were just not in the right place. I'm sure that, in private (request tool, emails), just like many other stories on these forums, it spurred more players to come forward with totally legitimate complaints.
A leader is only able behave badly for so long until it catches up with them and causes harm to not only themselves, but the group they preside over as an entirety.
I've voiced frustration over Adhira, who I always mostly liked and have met IRL, and think it was awesome of her to reach out to you. No producers have done the same for me, although other junior staffers have, which prompted me to start playing again.
There is a lot that can be said for simply trying to meet someone in the middle and being nicer than you *are required to be*, and more than any voting website, this is how ArmageddonMUD needs to be if intends to attract new players and retain old ones. Personally, I think they're doing a better job of it now than they were when Nyr was in charge of "resolving conflict."
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If they won't share it with you, I will.