Armageddon MUD
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@faraday said in Armageddon MUD:
Hey, I love video games. But you're not going to convince me that Tomb Raider has anything to do with roleplaying when my "super-awesome adventurer/explorer" Lara Croft is constantly walking into walls and flailing around uselessly just because I the player suck at the game.
That's because if you want to be a super-awesome adventurer/explorer, you should be Aloy.
That, and I have a thing for Merida + dreadlocks.
so hawt
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I'm not surprised there are so many intense feelings surrounding this game. It does that. Gets to you.
I won't sit and justify anyone else's actions. During my tenure I have been fucked over IC'ly by staff and players alike. I doubt a single one of them would admit it. I doubt that players who's characters always hate mine no matter what would admit it's an OOC thing either, heh, but the point of all these accusations and claims is that all sides have HELLA FEELINGS for this place, its staff and players.
Armageddon isn't for everyone. It's not. It's for intensity and fear, adrenaline and hatred. It's for racism and superiority, for dominance and a very oppressive social structure. Armageddon is for murder, for corruption, for betrayal. If you wanna be a princess, you gotta earn that shit. She's still gonna die though and it's probably gonna be fly as fuck.
If you're into roleplay, if you read things and feel shit, if you loath the way that guy talks, walks, breathes Armageddon is for you.
Things change, people mature. The staff now communicates in a way that is emphatically NOT like the game.
I wish players who were burned would open up dialogue with staff IF THEY LOVED THE GAME. If they don't then, meh, let them stay butthurt and bristling with righteous indignation at the unfairness of it all.
Read all this and if you're feeling intrigued at all, come give us a try. The worst that could happen you're witnessing right here. But remember you're also witnessing the best.
Make up your own damn mind.
"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
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well, for starters, you're rolling up a brand new character to the game. you've never played before, let's say that - even if you have. so even if you rolled in a biography that said you were a 40 year old grizzled veteran, to us as players - and maybe to staff, i don't know - it wouldn't make sense to just tell you where everything is. you wouldn't expect to roll up a character in a DnD campaign who was 40 years old and had all the best skills and stats and was level 20 while everyone else was sitting at level 1, would you? it wouldn't work for the campaign, and it wouldn't work here.
you're expecting that because you, a new player, made the choice that your character knew all this information that you don't know that we, the players, should accommodate that. i'm sorry, but that's an expectation that won't get fulfilled. if that's not your thing, then i apologize for that as well. i believe you have already stated your position on this multiple times, so i'm not really sure what you're trying to debate here.
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@faraday said in Armageddon MUD:
@arkandel said in Armageddon MUD:
Roleplaying is an abstraction. You don't have (or you very rarely do) the information, experience or expertise your characters do. Do you suppose all those doctors on TV have graduated from medical school?
Yeah, both you and @Ganymede are spot-on. That's the whole point of roleplaying (and acting, for that matter) - going beyond your personal knowledge to take on the role of a completely different person.
Otherwise it's not RP, it's just a video game. Which is fine!! Hey, I love video games. But you're not going to convince me that Tomb Raider has anything to do with roleplaying when my "super-awesome adventurer/explorer" Lara Croft is constantly walking into walls and flailing around uselessly just because I the player suck at the game.
sure, but by that same token just because you roll into the game as a 40 year old veteran of hunting does not mean we should have to give you knowledge, because you the player haven't even done anything to earn that. you just jumped into a world that you are unfamiliar with, in a land you don't understand yet as a person, and you want to start at like, the height of a career.
you can't just walk into games like that and "expect" things to be handed to you on a silver platter because you're new, it doesn't work like that. we can give you the -basics- to get you started on your grandiose hunting career, but i'm personally not going to tell you where to find ginka fruits or where to get such and such shell that sells for like two thousand coins because it's so ridiculously rare. there's things you have to do yourself, you have to make mistakes and learn from them.
if you roll in as a new player into the game, you have to take into consideration this: can i, as a new player, believably portray that i am, in fact, a 40 year old hunter?
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if you want to portray a believable character, do something that would make sense. read a couple helpfiles, then go "yeah, i had to take a break because blah blah and i'm not sure where the chalton have roamed off to, anyone know anything about that?" and someone ic will go "oh, this guy probably is one of the many believable chalton hunters but he had to take care of his pa/ma/sis/brother" and they will point you in the direction. not only do you look like a new player, but you're also portraying a believable hunter...
as opposed to the extreme, rolling in (as a 40 year old grizzled veteran) and going, "so, has anyone broken my record for bringing down ten mekillots in a half hour yet?"
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@evilcabbage Yep, so, it's a video game with some emotes and not roleplaying a character with knowledge beyond your own. That's fine. Good luck to you.
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See...what I’m trying to get across is there are different examples being bounced around with very different possible outcomes.
What you quoted he’s saying you get punished for being in the wrong place. Yes, you can. The documents state there are places your character is absolutely not welcomed. That is not punishing a newbie, that’s punishing anyone that goes somewhere where they don’t belong. Ok, you didn’t read the documents. The room descriptions do a pretty good job of telling you “You shouldn’t be here.” So let’s say you didn’t notice the room descriptions either. You come across players that rob you (he said he’s ok with that kind of roleplay)That still isn’t punishing a new player, it’s a consequence any player would face for doing the same thing.
Now moving on to the next scenario. Your character can’t read. Same thing here asyou didn’t read any of the documentation, you don’t know your character can’t read. You’re humming along and you say “I was reading the message board over there and it says...” The record skips, players are going crazy...you didn’t know. When you say ooc “Geez guys...I didn’t know my character is illiterate.” Other players would understand that and play around it.
Now if you don’t say anything ooc. The other players have no idea you’re a new player. The signs are there, but you didn’t break character. Players might say something ooc, they might choose to keep it in character and warn you. Either one of those are likely to happen. That still isn’t punishing a new player for making a mistake. How would they know you felt uncomfortable by making a mistake in this case. Some people just roll with it.
These are unlikely scenarios by the way. Let’s play them out anyway.
Ok, last one. You did all of the above. You got corrected ic or ooc, players have moved on and then you say “gonna write this letter. Where do I buy scrolls?” Your newbie armor is now gone. Personally, at that point I would be thinking you’re ignoring the game world, not that you’re new.
When I point out there is a forum and a discord. I’m pointing out that the game is not all that opaque. Not that you should jump on chat in the middle of a scene.
Hopefully if you’ve applied for a character, you’ve taken some time to read the documentation. But if you haven’t, you said it yourself people don’t like to read. Then that’s another issue, but it’s not “Armageddon punishes new players.” -
@evilcabbage said in Armageddon MUD:
sure, but by that same token just because you roll into the game as a 40 year old veteran of hunting does not mean we should have to give you knowledge, because you the player haven't even done anything to earn that.
You (which I assume means 'staff') don't need to give anyone anything. What players have 'earned' is up to the game; some allow more experienced characters to be rolled, some not so much. The one caveat here is that it needs to be universal - if you went and told person A that they haven't earned their stripes so they can't be a veteran, but went ahead and approved person B's veteran character then it'd be a big no-no.
Either way you have got to make it clear what expectations are from newly rolled characters' skill level. It shouldn't be trial and error (especially if your players will get the impression it's subjective, erroneously or not), this sort of thing ought to be clearly stated ahead of time.
you just jumped into a world that you are unfamiliar with, in a land you don't understand yet as a person, and you want to start at like, the height of a career.
By nature newcomers to games don't know much about what's going on, but unless you only roll newcomer characters as well then the latter's IC experience will be greater than their players. For instance if I rolled a peasant on Arx, knowing nothing about Arx OOC, my character will still know way more than I do about the world. You can't escape that fact, even though a well documented friendly web site for your MU* can certainly help.
but i'm personally not going to tell you where to find ginka fruits or where to get such and such shell that sells for like two thousand coins because it's so ridiculously rare. there's things you have to do yourself, you have to make mistakes and learn from them.
You get to choose what you tell players, sure. It's your prerogative.
if you roll in as a new player into the game, you have to take into consideration this: can i, as a new player, believably portray that i am, in fact, a 40 year old hunter?
A better expectation to have is this: "Am I, as a new player, allowed to roll a 40-year old hunter?" If you make your game's rules what they need to be, ensure they are visible and keep them fairly applied universally then no one gets to complain; they might choose to not play there, that's their prerogative, but you'd have done everything from your end to help them make an educated choice.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@thugheaven said in Armageddon MUD:
When I point out there is a forum and a discord. I’m pointing out that the game is not all that opaque. Not that you should jump on chat in the middle of a scene. Hopefully if you’ve applied for a character, you’ve taken some time to read the documentation. But if you haven’t, you said it yourself people don’t like to read. Then that’s another issue, but it’s not “Armageddon punishes new players.”
We have dedicated a couple of threads to problems many of us have had getting into new games.
What I believe many of us are talking about are common barriers to entry on a game. You have a forum, but how does a newbie know what information is relevant? You have a discord, but how does a newbie know who is credible? You have material to read through, but how does a newbie know how to interpret the ambiguities and vagueness that will inevitably arise?
Your fellow player(s) (staff?) have by implication highlighted a common sentiment coming from existing players: what have you as a newbie done to earn anything? But the question a newbie is going to come in with is: what has the game done to warrant my time, attention, and interest?
Punitive or not, the demonstrated attitudes from the players supporting the game's structure have not been inviting. What I have heard has been:
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Don't be surprised if you're murdered, mugged, or abused once you come onto the game; and this is totally IC and thematic.
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We'll be happy to answer questions you have, but we're not going to give you any knowledge that you have not earned.
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We have absolutely no problem with PKilling others to quiet them down, so we can help others.
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We want new players butchering people and going on murder sprees.
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Don't trust people, because you might end up getting murdered, mugged, or abused.
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But we'll help you out, really, maybe, perhaps.
All of the above is sort of antithetical to the direction MUSHes are drifting towards, which has been one of accommodation, invitation, and collaboration. And I think you need to understand the audience to which you are messaging.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@arkandel said in Armageddon MUD:
By nature newcomers to games don't know much about what's going on, but unless you only roll newcomer characters as well then the latter's IC experience will be greater than their players. For instance if I rolled a peasant on Arx, knowing nothing about Arx OOC, my character will still know way more than I do about the world. You can't escape that fact, even though a well documented friendly web site for your MU* can certainly help.
Yes, exactly. The Armageddon spokespeople seem to be making a false equivalence between "I want accommodations given for the things my character would logically know, given the sum total of their experience living their life in this world" and "I want to be super-awesome at everything without having earned it". These sentiments are light-years apart. One is just rational, like an actor wanting to know their character's backstory. The other is just a silly strawman.
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ganymede i did tell you to take what i said very much with a grain of salt because i'm not actually going to pkill someone when i'm helping players out.
you're also taking everything i say and drawing it down to its basic level, i.e. "we want new players butchering people and going on murdering sprees".
did you actually read what i wrote there, or are you just making these insinuations to make us sound worse than we are? how do you know we're credible? it's very simple, players are set into categories in discord: helper, staff, builders, online. i am one of the credible sources - in fact, pretty much everybody is credible, because we're not here as players to make you as a newbie feel unwelcome. we're welcoming you -into- an unwelcoming world. whether that means you get introduced to it at the point of the knife, or donning the brown hooded military aba of the t'zai byn, or the armpatch of the arm of the dragon, well, that's up to you and how you play, and a small bit of luck.
never once did i ever say i wanted newbies butchering and murdering new people in that context. i didn't even say i was going to pkill anyone (in a serious manner) when i was helping someone. go back and reread everything i wrote. the words "well roleplayed" and "take this with a grain of salt" were in some manner used. if a newbie just goes randomly murdering people, they're going to get caught and butchered themselves. there has to be roleplay behind it - good roleplay. good justifications. i personally played a pc who butchered people - who went on a murder spree. a few players died. before they died, they got a great scene.
this is mu*soapbox, not mushsoapbox. we're advertising for mudders, and maybe for mushers who want to play, to show them a new world. a dangerous world, where consequences can be immediately dire, or where the benefits can be outlandishly good depending how you play the cards you're dealt.
now, to arkandel. so, here's how it works. we have a karma system, as you know. this karma system serves a dual functionality - it allows you to play more powerful (i.e. magickal) characters, and races (i.e. half-giants, muls, who all have very in-depth documentation on how they should be played).
it also serves the function of allowing you (for now via request, until the chargen system is updated to reflect it) to bump up your skill points by a very set level, to reflect some kind of prior experience. all new players, and all characters who DO NOT apply in this manner start at the same skill level as everyone else - at the bottom. i'm a 8 year veteran of the game, i've done a lot in the game. if i were to roll up a new character, right now, and choose nothing but the basic subguild and races and guild, i would come in with the same skills as Newbie McChaltonboots who just rolled into the game and has NO IDEA what he's doing.
i have no advantage, other than knowledge. some of my knowledge i can use, because maybe my character has done things like hunting the area around allanak, so he knows a bit about that. some of it i don't use, such as where all the best spots are to get things i need, how to get through dangerous territory alone, where to find WATER which is so very necessary to survival. a new player "shouldn't" roll into the game as a grizzled veteran, for the simple fact that they - as a new player of the game - lack the required knowledge to actually put that veterancy to use and survive.
that's why many new players are icly told to join the t'zai byn. they're new, they're just stepping into the world, their character has bright clean blue eyes - and we're going to stain them the muddy, gritty brown of the byn. we want them to enter the byn to learn to fight, to roleplay, to spar, to survive, to make friends. to drink and laugh and have sex with strangers and band together when some elf says something nasty to one of their comrades.
it's not that we don't want to help a new player play as a grizzled veteran warrior, but they - like all of us - have to earn that. i still have to earn it, and the earning it is the best part of it for me.
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I have literally made a bowl of popcorn to eat while I read this thread and knit. Thank you all so much for the entertainment.
I didn't ask for this, it sort of fell on me.
Playlist here : http://musoapbox.net/topic/1935/layla-s-playlist -
@layla said in Armageddon MUD:
I have literally made a bowl of popcorn to eat while I read this thread and knit. Thank you all so much for the entertainment.
you should come play armageddon instead, it's more more fun than eating popcorn.
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@evilcabbage Sorry friend, I have played muds before, and I do enjoy them, but I'm currently involved in a game and having too much fun to split my attention. Good luck to you though!
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cool.
anyways, any information you as a player or character would "NEED" to know to get started can be found on our website, or in the ingame helpfiles, or via helpers accessed via discord or our help-chat client (if that still functions, i don't know, i never used it).
i'm just a regular player who goes out of my way to make sure newbies don't go sprinting out the gates and get murdered by the first big ugly thing they see that wants to eat them.
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@evilcabbage said in Armageddon MUD:
i am one of the credible sources - in fact, pretty much everybody is credible, because we're not here as players to make you as a newbie feel unwelcome.
I have no reason to doubt anything you say. But a piece of advice if you will - being either credible or welcoming is one of those things better shown than told.
it's not that we don't want to help a new player play as a grizzled veteran warrior, but they - like all of us - have to earn that. i still have to earn it, and the earning it is the best part of it for me.
Hey, to each their own. What you are describing wouldn't be fun for me - playing for eight years and still not 'having earned' something in a game doesn't sound great - but as long as you and your players are entertained more power to y'all.
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i can choose at any time to play a character with boosted skills or magickal powers.
i simply generally prefer playing without them.
i've earned my karma.
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LOL @layla
emote joins ~layla, plopping down on ~couch and reaching over to ^layla popcorn
"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
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@shaleah I might be misreading it, but please let's not ridicule games because they are played differently than what we're used to.
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@shaleah said in Armageddon MUD:
I'm not surprised there are so many intense feelings surrounding this game. It does that. Gets to you.
I won't sit and justify anyone else's actions. During my tenure I have been fucked over IC'ly by staff and players alike. I doubt a single one of them would admit it. I doubt that players who's characters always hate mine no matter what would admit it's an OOC thing either, heh, but the point of all these accusations and claims is that all sides have HELLA FEELINGS for this place, its staff and players.
Armageddon isn't for everyone. It's not. It's for intensity and fear, adrenaline and hatred. It's for racism and superiority, for dominance and a very oppressive social structure. Armageddon is for murder, for corruption, for betrayal. If you wanna be a princess, you gotta earn that shit. She's still gonna die though and it's probably gonna be fly as fuck.
If you're into roleplay, if you read things and feel shit, if you loath the way that guy talks, walks, breathes Armageddon is for you.
Things change, people mature. The staff now communicates in a way that is emphatically NOT like the game.
I wish players who were burned would open up dialogue with staff IF THEY LOVED THE GAME. If they don't then, meh, let them stay butthurt and bristling with righteous indignation at the unfairness of it all.
Read all this and if you're feeling intrigued at all, come give us a try. The worst that could happen you're witnessing right here. But remember you're also witnessing the best.
Make up your own damn mind.
Cool story.
However, I seriously doubt a game that is all about early 90s era edgelordian ooc politics offers 'the best' of either rp, or storytelling.
There's been mentioned player base is down, right? You're all here talking up this mud because you need new players to come, because murdering the same people you have a grudge against is getting old.
If you want new players, you have to do something to make your game appeal to new people. This isn't rocket science. But aside from @Thugheaven, no one in this thread talking up this mud is making it appealing at all.
