SoI SOB's

[Jakahri]

Cute name packersfan.

I'll go ahead and state that yes, we have lost players to SoI. We have gained players from their ranks as well, though.

I even know of at least two players of ArmageddonMUD who have gone on to staff SoI.

I'm not so sure we're losing -that- many players to the other "RPI", but what are your opinions on the matter? Staff? Players?

[Vesperas]

Really, I'd never go over.  It's a theme-issue with me.  I'm quite happy with the way Armageddon's staff works through things, and I just don't feel like playing in a Tolkien theme.

[Moofassa]

The quality of roleplay on SoI is very lacking, in my opinion.


Edited, since I agree with Galdun: Not lacking because of skill or anything like that, I just don't enjoy a mud themed on tolkien.. not enough left to the imagination.

[Galdun]

I don't believe that this thread should be used to scoff at SoI or its playerbase.  Its totally uncalled for considering they are more or less our allies in that both muds offer perhaps the most immersive RP experiences out there.  We don't need to be the snooty older guys, we're better than that.

However, I do think this is an interesting question.  The thought of our mud losing players to other muds is definitely a concern.  Ultimately its the choice of the player - whatever mud is most suited to his or her likes.  However, we all know that there are a vast amount of improvements to be made in our own game.  I personally feel like some of the newer muds are a bit more ambitious at the moment in terms of developing code and implementing fresh ideas, but at the same time our staffers have been working hard to give us what we've been asking for as well.  Lets keep this discussion on track and try to figure out what it is that is causing us to lose players.  How we could perhaps prevent that in the future.  Its not 100% preventable as some people will inherently disagree with the rules or the theme.  But we can still try to pinpoint the exact aspects(be it code or world or player quality) and work as a team of dedicated and loyal players to solve this problem.

Lets do it.

[EvilRoeSlade]

I experimented with SoI a bit, but in the end it just couldn't compete with the game where I have the experience, the karma, and the time invested.  I also didn't want to have to go through the whole learning curve again, especially since it appeared that it would end up being harder than the Arm learning curve since the syntaxes were similar to Arm, but just different enough to be a headache.

It's a quality mud though, and a worthy game in its own right.

[Seeker]

Those were gracious postings, ERS and Galdun.

I like SoI's codebase, no denying that it is slick.  And there is a certain excitement because it is so actively building.  I imagine that a lot of players are having some direct input into what goes in next and probably even get to submit directly to their crafting codes and such.  That has got to generate buy-in and enthusiasm.

The ability to play some of the higher-trust roles does look pretty enticing too.  I guess I'd like to hear more comments about what else is being done very well by SoI and other MUDs in the RPI genre.  Could only help.


Seeker

[LauraMars]

So far, I have found it very difficult to break into SoI and really roleplay.  I just can't make heads or tails of their system and strike me for saying this, but it might help them to have a helper system like we do.  Unless they already do and I'm just not seeing it because of aforementioned cluelessness.

Whatever the case may be, I prefer Armageddon.  It's always raining in SoI.  Freaks me out.

[Rindan]

I don't think SoI leeches that many people away from Armageddon.  If they are, they have managed to do it without hurting the Arm playerbase, as it is as high as ever.  I have a feeling they probably help each other far more then they hurt.

I also think that SoI and Arm cater to two very different types of settings.  Middle-Earth and Zalanthas are night and day in terms of setting.  For a lot of people, I imagine the setting they want will probably decide which they play.  I personally find Tolken's world to be a little two black and white and traditional for my tastes.  Others on the other hand love the familiar and well developed world of Tolken.  The two MUDs are also very different in 'play style'.  SoI's "rules of engagement" in particular stand in pretty sharp contrast to Armageddon's "shank him in fucking kidney before he knows you are there" style.  

Honestly, I think SoI is GOOD for Armageddon.  Armageddon is a setting that kicks ass, but is rather obscure.  SoI on the other hand is built off a very familiar and popular setting that is certain to draw more new players then Armageddon can ever hope to on simple name recognition.  People brought into the world of RPIs through SoI will almost inevitably hear about Armageddon.  A few of those people are going to give Armageddon a whirl.  They will follow a friendly and wise elf somewhere, get whacked in the back of the head, wake up naked a few hours later, and realize that Armageddon kicks ass.

[Aldiel]

I've tried both of them.  They're both good.  I liked how I could write, swim, and dance in the rain in SOI, but I also like rationing water, hiding within the city, and eating rancid meat in Arm.  I think Arm has more -stuff- then SOI since it's considerably older, but I think SOI has some cool features too.  The thing that keeps me on arm is the charma system, the play-style, and its uncertain nature.  I don't like being surrounded by tolkien buffs.  Even if I played SOI for years and knew the game in and out, I would get some guy who studied tolkien for a living who'd come along and put me in my place. :twisted:

BTW, I really like how this thread is going.

[Aldiel]

One thing that I think would help make Arm more flashy like SOI is more branching skills, which take less time to branch.

[Gaare]

SoI is .... well.. -cute.-  Their playerbase is much younger, theme is ... well.. rather basic. Combat system is easier, clans I saw are young, and needs a lot of dept though easier to be part of. Emote system is.. not complete, but again rather easier to learn.

SoI is an excellent game, and much better then almost everything out there.. But I had perciluar feeling that for me, I would get much fun when I was sixteen or around that.

PS. OH, WATER IS FREE!!!! If you try that mud, do not ask where you can buy water. It spoils the scene!

[WarriorPoet]

SoI was very disappointing, in my opinion. I found the roleplaying bland and most of the characters only skin-deep. There was no soul to them. I was also snapped at, OOCly, for using a generic, passerby vNPC in an emote. On top of it all, I just don't care for the Tolkien setting enough to devote very much time to it.

However, the rooms I saw were well written, and the code was interesting. A kind of 'different but the same' feeling. Just not my flava. Maybe I need to play an orc or something...

I know that many players migrate from here to there, and even to Harshlands, which also seemed like a solid Mud. Of the three, Armageddon is where I make my home, but I wish the other two RPI muds much luck. Enforced Roleplaying is a niche that needs to grow, in my opinion. If the others leech a few of our players, it's all good, because Arm is sure to lure a few (hopefully all) of theirs away, in turn.

-WP

[da mitey warrior]

They also cater to two different playing styles.  Arm is more conflict oriented and ruthless, while SOI is more cooperative/cliquish.  So if you get bored/frustrated with one you can go to the other.

There IS conflict on SOI but it sucks. It's likes the Tuluk/Allanak conflict except with no travel between them and without the conflict between the clans in the same city.  There's a little, but not like here.

[jhunter]

Personally there are several mechanical differences I didn't like about it that Arm does much better in handling. Not a bad game really, just too many things that Arm does differently that I prefer along with the theme of Arm which I like much better.

[Dakkon Black]

I started playing SOI as a way to relieve my built up need on Saturdays for Arm.

I've always felt lost there because of the massive amount of knowlege one can need to know just to fit. It's different then arm, in arm the docs are here, you read them, they might be 80 pages, maybe.

In SOI, the world's been crafted by some loon fifty years ago, and it's got more rules then the hitler youth. Even still, there are bonuses.

Yeah, they are younger, but it's a place to go for RP. You can still find good RP there, and it's a hell of a lot better then any H&S.

As far as I'm concerned, Arm is was to unique and exciting a world to ever change from #1 now. But SOI has been a #2 for some years.

[Jiaro]

It's MUD Capitalism at work. Sure, players will go to SoI and vice-versa. But ultimately, it should make the staff and players work to make Arm the definative #1 (well, it already is in my book, but you get the point).

I mean, Armageddon is the only mud worth waiting 40 hours to play! Even with my first few characters: when I would wait a day, play an hour, die, wait another day.... Absolutely worth it.

So, while other muds may leech a small bit of the pbase from Arm, the competition should lead to great things in the future.

I thought this was a cyclops at first.  :idea:

[path]

I uhm.. went to SoI for a break from Arm. It was nice. I dug the sort of depressing constant rain. I think maybe my character was the only screwed up, non-beautiful female, so.. I apped a desc change to fit in. (the girls there are hot)

Then I sort of lost interest. A big thing for me is the emote code. It's just too important. I also like struggling for survival.

[SpyGuy]

I've tried SOI, I couldn't really get into it though.  Too many differences in code and no real desire on my part to learn it.  At the same time though I feel SOI does some things better than Arm, I particularly liked the certain sense of realism in the combat code that made it feel less hack and slashish.  I wouldn't mind seeing coded wounds in Arm that can't be fixed by sleep but need long periods of time (online or offline) or skilled bandaging to heal correctly.  I also like the karma system there, though I have mixed feelings about whether or not it'd work properly on Arm.  But I didn't get very far into the game and only noticed a few things I thought were a nice change from what I'm used to in Arm.

The biggest drawback for me was theme, I just couldn't get used to playing in an environment that wasn't a harsh desert based on Dark Sun.  But for many players I'm sure the Tolkien fantasy world is preferable.  The mere fact that there are 3 RPI MUDs out there helps the community as a whole I feel, Arm is so different in theme and style that we can trade players with SoI and Harshlands as a way to give players a break after a particularly disappointing string of characters or just a desire to try something new.  There is no crisis in losing players and if there ever is one then it is more a reflection that Arm is not keeping players' interest and SoI has become more fulfilling.  I'm happy that on the Arm website in the "other games" section there is a link to SoI, I feel it shows a certain sense of maturity that staff here knows they don't monopolize the RPI environment and that each game has their value.  I only wish SoI would link back to us as well somewhere on their website  :wink:

Edit: See, clearly I haven't explored the SoI website enough!  Thanks everyone for the correction  :oops:

[Kalden]

I play both SoI and Armageddon with some consistency. My characters in SoI are always long-lived leaders while my Arm characters are always short-lived indies. It's a good change of pace.

I must say that I generally do enjoy Armageddon more. Characters become more powerful. It seems like there's more code-based shit to do. In Armageddon I can assassinate, raid, pull in loads of sid in a few RL days, deal spice on the streets, shadow/eavesdrop on important people, ect...it's just more exciting. It's not, however, more realistic.

SoI is a lot more restricted to what's realistically possible. It's realistic in pretty much every way. That's not necessarily a good thing for the gaming experience. Because of that, the RP is typically more tedious; there's a lot of people RPing farmers going about their daily business, as well as a lot of newbs who loaf about the bars, looking for work. But there's not a lot of l33t pickpockets, burglars, assassins, magickers, sorcerors, and such. Most of the rogues are two-bit thugs who run a scam once every RL month, if that.

So, yeah. I don't think Armageddon is going to lose a lot of players to SoI (although technically Arm has lost me - for the moment). For some reason most of the people who like SoI/HL don't like Armageddon, and vice versa. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of SoI players preferred Armageddon after trying it. SoI has a lot of teenage twinks. There's a noticeable difference in maturity between the two forums.

But Armageddon has been getting worse as far as that's concerned...anyway, there's my two sids.

[HaiWolfe]

I only wish SoI would link back to us as well somewhere on their website

They do, actually, right on the front of their Community Links page.

I've played SoI, and staffed there for about a year. The game is younger in comparison to Arm, both in terms of how long it's been running and the average age of the playerbase. They don't have very much by way of on-site documentation, racial roleplay guides, etc., but it's a work in progress. The code is very slick, and a lot of the features such as wounds and archery bring a great amount of realism to the table. I can't say I'm a big fan of their implementation of RPPs (equivalent of karma), though, as it seems to create even more strife among players than karma does here.

Thematically, the world is much more structured, more black-and-white (though the staff did put a lot of effort into giving Morgul, the "dark" side, more depth, culture and interesting internal conflicts rather than just writing them off as a bunch of evil baddies), and the broad strokes of history have already been written. Some people dig that. Others prefer the more open-ended, shades of grey style of storytelling that Armageddon excels so much in, which is why we're here, after all.

[Rindan]

They don't have very much by way of on-site documentation, racial roleplay guides, etc., but it's a work in progress.

That is one thing that drove me nuts about SoI.  Does Gondor have nobility?  Is their watch corrupt?  How rampant is crime?  Can I bribe my way out of trouble?  How normal is literacy?  Are there certain people I need to bow to?  I walked in with a pile of questions and very few ways of answering them short of asking on the forums.  One thing that Armageddon has done a very good job of is documentation of culture.  That said, last time I looked, it looked like SoI was making an attempt to fill in the cultural blanks.  I imagine a lot of this has to do with their age.  I remember when Armageddon's cultural section was rather skimpy.

Thematically, the world is much more structured, more black-and-white (though the staff did put a lot of effort into giving Morgul, the "dark" side, more depth, culture and interesting internal conflicts rather than just writing them off as a bunch of evil baddies), and the broad strokes of history have already been written. Some people dig that. Others prefer the more open-ended, shades of grey style of storytelling that Armageddon excels so much in, which is why we're here, after all.

I think this is the thing that drove me away from SoI and Harshlands the most.  Armageddon is one big grey world.  SoI and Harshlands are more traditional in their flavor of fantasy.  In Armageddon there are no evil gods, dark lords, exc being opposed by the goodly kingdoms of whatever.  In the LoTR world, you can always point to righteous folks working for 'good' and the 'evil' raping and pillaging orcs led by their dark lord.  That is not to say that these games don't try and add their own shades of grey, but when they do, they are tacking shades of grey onto very black and white worlds.  In Armageddon there is absolutely no such luxury of black and white.  You can't point to a single organization or clan in the game that represents 'good', or even 'evil'.  Everything exists as shade of grey.

In my opinion, Armageddon's adherence to keeping the world as grey as possible is its biggest advantage over the other perm death RPIs.  A grey world is one that is naturally complex and deep in terms of plot and motivation.  Characters, organizations, and plots from 'grey' worlds are much more likely to be interesting and multifaceted simply because people are disallowed from defaulting to black or white.  If you want a lesson in futility, join an organization in Armageddon, rise a few ranks in status, and try and play a completely white hat character.  

There are a lot of things that I would steal from SoI and Harshlands in a second if I could.  They both have some great code in areas where Armageddon is weak.  For me though, I play for the story.  I don't even play to role play.  Role playing is boring in it of its self.  Role play only becomes interesting in the context of a story.  You role play not because role playing is fun, but because role play is the method that is used to tell a story.  It is like the difference between babbling random words and giving a speech.  Sure, you need to use words to give a speech, but what makes a speech interesting is the idea conveyed, not the fact that you are using words to do it.  Using good words certainly help to make a speech better, but good words babbled without meaning don't make up for a bad speech.

In my opinion, having a rich 'grey' world that avoids black and white distinctions like the plague is more valuable then even the most kick ass movement or combat code.  Armageddon's grey world, in my opinion, makes up and then some for whatever areas other games might have developed better code.   Armageddon's grey world is the reason why I stick around.

[Ghost]

One thing I did not like about SoI was the amount of youngsters.  An 11 year old told me not to use bad words after I went like "What the fuck?"  Well, it is not a bad side of things, but it looked like I was constrained in my idea of playing a dirty rogue.  

Another thing I did not like, was that the imms were very much picky in character creation.  After I apped for my second character, it was rejected four times and I gave up.  Each time, a different imm was pointing out a different mistake in the application, some of which did not make much sense.  Like my char was pale in description, an imm said in the background I was traveling a lot so I should make it a tanned one.  I made it, re-apped, and another imm pointed out I was coming from Rohan to Osgiliath in young age, and that since Rohan is not coded in the game yet, I could not use such a background.  And still I did not argue and changed as they asked me to, and in the end, my character turned out to be a completely different character from the way I thought of it (every word in the sdesc, 30% of the main desc, and more than half the background was different from what I had in mind at start) and after the final rejection, I realized I would not be able to play in SoI and did not re-apply.  

Anyway...  So that is my unique bad experience with SoI.  Still I hear it has a good code, and I kind of like Tolkien's story.  Also I probably would enjoy being an orc and raiding people or charging into orc ranks after I made my gondor warrior.   But well... Bad experience.  Baaaad experience.


Back to Vesperas bashing:

Really, I'd never go over.  It's a theme-issue with me.  

I bet you saw arm players fall into "SEX!!!!" trap more easily so you are easier, did not you?

And LauraMars, see this is your future as well.  Since you are in the list as well, I will be bashing you if I see an opportunity, till we get that "SEX!!!" you advertised.
:evil:

[Nao]

I only wish SoI would link back to us as well somewhere on their website

They do, actually, right on the front of their Community Links page.

That's how I got here. And in the ed, I like it much better here, going back to soi would be.. ugh.

things in soi that I'd like to see implemented in armageddon as well:

optional color
a wounds system. the wounds even stick to corpses - nifty, so in most cases you can tell whether some body has been murdered or eaten by a wolf.

things I don't want to see in arm at all:

the soi playerbase
'slow' game
their karma system
their emote system

[Agent_137]

I made a character in that MUD and he just stood on the bridge and watched the river go under it for days.

Then I quit and never went back.

Didn't dig the theme. I've read all of tolkein's books, and the trilogy + silmarillion I've read about three or four times. Loved it, but done with it. Thanks.

Now, as far as why we are losing players to SOI? I think it's a theme based issue, I wasn't impressed by anything there, but some people love tolkien more than they love harshness and grit. And that's fine, I'd rather have them in SOI then care-bearing up Tuluk anymore than it already is.

[flurry]

Are we really losing players to SoI?   Beyond just a few players migrating over there from here, and vice versa?  I hadn't heard anything like that until this topic came up.

I have tried SoI.   There were some things I was impressed by, but overall I much prefer Armageddon.  As one or two other people had mentioned, it also would take a certain time investment to "get it" enough to feel as comfortable roleplaying there.  Understanding the world, knowing how to get around, facility with the code, etc.   It didn't grab me early on, so I don't feel like I want to put in that kind of time (and take it away from playing here).

On top of that, I really love the theme and the emote code here, to name a couple major differences.