@twinprince said in Armageddon MUD:

@thugheaven

@thugheaven said in Armageddon MUD:
We’re now in the era where player complaints are taken seriously.

Which era? The one where headstaff pisses on players (literally, Zhaira), sends unsolicited dick pics to players (literally, Nyr), or the one where they go out of their way to play on their forums like they won't let you talk about your complaints to /keep from embarassing you/ rather than to preserve their false front of impartiality and equinamity when in fact they are literally animating npcs to malign and impugn and slander your character to their spouse, to try and sabotage their job, and to try and rob them, peppered liberally with the word 'whore' as an insult in a setting where the documentation itself says such should not be considered as much, to having them go so far as to tell the pcs that they were animating the npc guards so the dwarf could mug her without activating the crime code. (which is something from the past /year/ on the jcarter forums where, you know, supposedly no one has any problems to post about anymore.)

All the staffers that were mentioned, or implied in this post are gone. Though truth be said, I dont actually believe in the pissing/dick pics thing. Granted though Nyr, and the one responsible for that weird dwarf were each pieces of work. And were each peacefully ousted from staff authority. Admittedly, one other thing that describes 'both' of those staffers were an insane amount of work they did on the game. They introduced a shitton of content, changes, improvements, storylines. Not always wise improvements, not always best decisions, but the only one who doesnt make mistakes is the one that does nothing. They admittedly were dicks though and eventually their dickness overwhelmed the benefits to the game that stemmed from them being so prolific in terms of new content. And once that happened, they ... got gone.

Now we have an era of Rathustra and Calavera. Which are beyond awesome and the stories them and other staffers weave are absolutely beautiful. Or to be exact, absolutely horrifyingly stunning.

While I dont really enjoy the style ThugHaven writes in. "Fee Fees" and so on. I understand the general direction it is coming from (I hope). Basically, the theme of the game is dark. Dark, corrupt, and feral. There are races there that are universally despised. And often the players who play those races know and 'welcome' that attitude towards them. This is not the game where a band of many races band together to go out on adventures and live happily ever after. That's just the theme of DarkSun. To be all loving and all accepting without good reason is literally against theme. Which sometimes puts characters in a difficult position.

A templar. A being whom is supposed to be feared and dreaded by majority. Some new player does something ICly to affront him. Is the player of the Templar insulted? Of course not. Does the player of the Templar want to help the new player? Absolutely. Can he do it? Ehhhh ... not too often. If he is ICly too forgiving, he himself is against theme. So very often help comes, but it comes in ways of 'tough love'. The player wants to help the new player, but he does it in a way that reinforces the theme of the game. The Templar could ... enrage and enslave the new player. You'd think this is a bad thing, but in reality, the templar basically put the new player under his personal tutelage.

The whole 'fee fees' thing (If I understand correctly) comes from the fact that the darksun theme is 'not' a democracy. So sometimes, new players find it offensive to be so horrendously scoffed at by nobility/corrupted soldiers/members of antagonistic races, because every being has the right to be respected. They are offended because the civilized expectations of their players are broken in a game that is 'not' civilized. They are offended because their rights are violated, in a game where nobody has any rights and any commoner even implying such a thing will be looked at weird and probably soon reported to the Templarate as a dissenter.

I read someone mentioning how someone got beaten, mugged, and pissed on. That's horrible, but ... it's within theme of certain locations. Not everywhere obviously. It's not a game of griefers running around doing shit. But if you're in the depths of the desert and you encountered cannibalistic tribal raiders. Or if you're in the depths of the slums called Labyrinth, wearing nice shiny things, and encountered a gang of drugged out, desperate, angry, and hungry elves whose turf you've stumbled through. Well ... honestly. Anything you describe (beating and pissing included) is better then, "Suchandsuch hooded figure walks in from east. Suchandsuch figure kills you instantly." Yes, their treatment of you was unpleasant, but ... there probably was a reason for it. And before anything too gory and graphic was to be performed, they were supposed to ask for consent. And if you denied it, they would've faded to black and loosely described what happened.

Having said that. There was once an era in the game, when things just went beyond logical. The whole "find out IC" era, the whatever other power tripping shit that happened. But it's a 20+ years game. 15 years ago, the players who played it were 12-15 years themselves. Things happen, but it no longer describes the majority of the game. The game itself is full of stories, full of complicated destinies and plots. Full of totally awesome scenes and relationships. All of them permeated by theme of "Murder, Corruption, Betrayal".

That generally doesnt really happen. It used to. Years. YEARS ago. But these days, the players are good in displaying theme in a way that is not too punishing to new players.

I'd say the last example of this that I remember is this situation.

A noble is sitting in a tavern and some other PC walks in. That Noble is looking for something, some kind of service, or whatever. He addresses the PC that walked in and the PC responds in a way that clearly is not the way a commoner would respond to a noble addressing her. It was also done in a way that was pretty obvious that the character was ran by a new player. The reaction to this went somewhere like this.

The noble blinks in surprise and rueful amusement and chuckles it off with a wave of his hand. The newbie PC leaves.
The Noble scans the tavern and picks out a PC elf (the lowest on the society pole) in the tavern. A PC elf who is by emotes and so on, is clearly a non-newbie player.
A noble guard walks to the elf and tells her to pick a number.
Elf picks 10.
A noble guard indicates that he's going to punch the elf now, ten times and begins ... punching her, counting each punch out.
The elf rolls with it, because ... well. That's basically part of playing a city elf.
At fifth punch, the guard stops and tells the elf that if she wants to, she can 'delegate' the other five punches, to that upstart mouthy girl that walked out recently, or can remain and enjoy the rest of the 10 licks.
The elf agrees and runs off.
Half an hour later. The noble has already forgotten the event (seemingly). The newbie PC walks back into the tavern, hurries to the Noble, bows, and apologizes. The noble gracefully accepts the apology.

Obviously the elf found the newbie PC and explained the situation. Everyone got a little story of thematic oppression.

Is this really so bad?

@ortallus said in Armageddon MUD:

Suffice to say, my character got rolled. The gangers beat him up, took his paper nuyen, and left him in the gutter.

But the -players- had mercy. They posed looking at my gear and saying, "Man, this guy's got drek for gear. Not sure if we'd be doing him more of a favor getting rid of it, or teach him a lesson by letting him keep it."

In the end, they let me keep it.

Scenes like that are actually awesome and happen pretty often in game. I guess, judging by some mentions here, not often enough. But if one was to describe the game, a scene like what Ortallus describes fits it more, then what ... Hedge (I might be mistaken whom exactly. This thread tripled in size) then what some others described. Shit happens. In the end, the game is filled with players and the players are different. But I hope to strongly assure you that a scene like what Ortallus described is definitely predominant in Armageddon, then some whatever other weirdness.

I'm sort of curious to hear people's views on a certain log. That wasnt on Armageddon. That was on Labmud, but in the end, the log 'is' about a new player ... suffering. I dont know if good folks here would have the patience to read the log, but I'd be very curious to read their views. Who was more right, who was more wrong.

https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/1_Dbo8QV

@marsgrad said in Armageddon MUD:

I mean... People iron man Dark Souls. Mostly speedrunners, but...

Anyway, you're taking the comparison way too far. I simply meant that Dark Souls is an unforgiving and brutal game. So is Armageddon. I did not mean to compare an RPI MUD to a hack-and-slash RPG in every aspect.

Not really participating much in this discussion. Everything there was to say has been said. But that comparison of a hack and slash to RP(anything) MUD really made me shudder.

@marsgrad said in Armageddon MUD:

I mean... People iron man Dark Souls. Mostly speedrunners, but...

Anyway, you're taking the comparison way too far. I simply meant that Dark Souls is an unforgiving and brutal game. So is Armageddon. I did not mean to compare an RPI MUD to a hack-and-slash RPG in every aspect.

Not really participating much in this discussion. Everything there was to say has been said. But that comparison of a hack and slash to RP(anything) MUD really made me shudder.

@ortallus said in Armageddon MUD:

Suffice to say, my character got rolled. The gangers beat him up, took his paper nuyen, and left him in the gutter.

But the -players- had mercy. They posed looking at my gear and saying, "Man, this guy's got drek for gear. Not sure if we'd be doing him more of a favor getting rid of it, or teach him a lesson by letting him keep it."

In the end, they let me keep it.

Scenes like that are actually awesome and happen pretty often in game. I guess, judging by some mentions here, not often enough. But if one was to describe the game, a scene like what Ortallus describes fits it more, then what ... Hedge (I might be mistaken whom exactly. This thread tripled in size) then what some others described. Shit happens. In the end, the game is filled with players and the players are different. But I hope to strongly assure you that a scene like what Ortallus described is definitely predominant in Armageddon, then some whatever other weirdness.

I'm sort of curious to hear people's views on a certain log. That wasnt on Armageddon. That was on Labmud, but in the end, the log 'is' about a new player ... suffering. I dont know if good folks here would have the patience to read the log, but I'd be very curious to read their views. Who was more right, who was more wrong.

https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/1_Dbo8QV

@tempest said in Armageddon MUD:

Guys (Arm people), just for the record, I would really not waste your time defending Arm here or w/e is going on.

The market here who likes RPIs probably already knows wtf Arm is, the market who doesn't isn't going to make the switch from MUSHes to RPIs.

Valid point.

That generally doesnt really happen. It used to. Years. YEARS ago. But these days, the players are good in displaying theme in a way that is not too punishing to new players.

I'd say the last example of this that I remember is this situation.

A noble is sitting in a tavern and some other PC walks in. That Noble is looking for something, some kind of service, or whatever. He addresses the PC that walked in and the PC responds in a way that clearly is not the way a commoner would respond to a noble addressing her. It was also done in a way that was pretty obvious that the character was ran by a new player. The reaction to this went somewhere like this.

The noble blinks in surprise and rueful amusement and chuckles it off with a wave of his hand. The newbie PC leaves.
The Noble scans the tavern and picks out a PC elf (the lowest on the society pole) in the tavern. A PC elf who is by emotes and so on, is clearly a non-newbie player.
A noble guard walks to the elf and tells her to pick a number.
Elf picks 10.
A noble guard indicates that he's going to punch the elf now, ten times and begins ... punching her, counting each punch out.
The elf rolls with it, because ... well. That's basically part of playing a city elf.
At fifth punch, the guard stops and tells the elf that if she wants to, she can 'delegate' the other five punches, to that upstart mouthy girl that walked out recently, or can remain and enjoy the rest of the 10 licks.
The elf agrees and runs off.
Half an hour later. The noble has already forgotten the event (seemingly). The newbie PC walks back into the tavern, hurries to the Noble, bows, and apologizes. The noble gracefully accepts the apology.

Obviously the elf found the newbie PC and explained the situation. Everyone got a little story of thematic oppression.

Is this really so bad?

@twinprince said in Armageddon MUD:

@thugheaven

@thugheaven said in Armageddon MUD:
We’re now in the era where player complaints are taken seriously.

Which era? The one where headstaff pisses on players (literally, Zhaira), sends unsolicited dick pics to players (literally, Nyr), or the one where they go out of their way to play on their forums like they won't let you talk about your complaints to /keep from embarassing you/ rather than to preserve their false front of impartiality and equinamity when in fact they are literally animating npcs to malign and impugn and slander your character to their spouse, to try and sabotage their job, and to try and rob them, peppered liberally with the word 'whore' as an insult in a setting where the documentation itself says such should not be considered as much, to having them go so far as to tell the pcs that they were animating the npc guards so the dwarf could mug her without activating the crime code. (which is something from the past /year/ on the jcarter forums where, you know, supposedly no one has any problems to post about anymore.)

All the staffers that were mentioned, or implied in this post are gone. Though truth be said, I dont actually believe in the pissing/dick pics thing. Granted though Nyr, and the one responsible for that weird dwarf were each pieces of work. And were each peacefully ousted from staff authority. Admittedly, one other thing that describes 'both' of those staffers were an insane amount of work they did on the game. They introduced a shitton of content, changes, improvements, storylines. Not always wise improvements, not always best decisions, but the only one who doesnt make mistakes is the one that does nothing. They admittedly were dicks though and eventually their dickness overwhelmed the benefits to the game that stemmed from them being so prolific in terms of new content. And once that happened, they ... got gone.

Now we have an era of Rathustra and Calavera. Which are beyond awesome and the stories them and other staffers weave are absolutely beautiful. Or to be exact, absolutely horrifyingly stunning.

While I dont really enjoy the style ThugHaven writes in. "Fee Fees" and so on. I understand the general direction it is coming from (I hope). Basically, the theme of the game is dark. Dark, corrupt, and feral. There are races there that are universally despised. And often the players who play those races know and 'welcome' that attitude towards them. This is not the game where a band of many races band together to go out on adventures and live happily ever after. That's just the theme of DarkSun. To be all loving and all accepting without good reason is literally against theme. Which sometimes puts characters in a difficult position.

A templar. A being whom is supposed to be feared and dreaded by majority. Some new player does something ICly to affront him. Is the player of the Templar insulted? Of course not. Does the player of the Templar want to help the new player? Absolutely. Can he do it? Ehhhh ... not too often. If he is ICly too forgiving, he himself is against theme. So very often help comes, but it comes in ways of 'tough love'. The player wants to help the new player, but he does it in a way that reinforces the theme of the game. The Templar could ... enrage and enslave the new player. You'd think this is a bad thing, but in reality, the templar basically put the new player under his personal tutelage.

The whole 'fee fees' thing (If I understand correctly) comes from the fact that the darksun theme is 'not' a democracy. So sometimes, new players find it offensive to be so horrendously scoffed at by nobility/corrupted soldiers/members of antagonistic races, because every being has the right to be respected. They are offended because the civilized expectations of their players are broken in a game that is 'not' civilized. They are offended because their rights are violated, in a game where nobody has any rights and any commoner even implying such a thing will be looked at weird and probably soon reported to the Templarate as a dissenter.

I read someone mentioning how someone got beaten, mugged, and pissed on. That's horrible, but ... it's within theme of certain locations. Not everywhere obviously. It's not a game of griefers running around doing shit. But if you're in the depths of the desert and you encountered cannibalistic tribal raiders. Or if you're in the depths of the slums called Labyrinth, wearing nice shiny things, and encountered a gang of drugged out, desperate, angry, and hungry elves whose turf you've stumbled through. Well ... honestly. Anything you describe (beating and pissing included) is better then, "Suchandsuch hooded figure walks in from east. Suchandsuch figure kills you instantly." Yes, their treatment of you was unpleasant, but ... there probably was a reason for it. And before anything too gory and graphic was to be performed, they were supposed to ask for consent. And if you denied it, they would've faded to black and loosely described what happened.

Having said that. There was once an era in the game, when things just went beyond logical. The whole "find out IC" era, the whatever other power tripping shit that happened. But it's a 20+ years game. 15 years ago, the players who played it were 12-15 years themselves. Things happen, but it no longer describes the majority of the game. The game itself is full of stories, full of complicated destinies and plots. Full of totally awesome scenes and relationships. All of them permeated by theme of "Murder, Corruption, Betrayal".