SoI SOB's

[spawnloser]

I dunno...I've seen fairly consistent numbers logged in.

Me, SOI was a watered down version of Tolkein's story.  You can't do much of anything until you've been there playing and getting bored for a while.  Their playerbase is just as elitist as ours, and less mature (in my opinion)...which makes having some discussion on some topics on their bulletin board quite annoying.

...and as others have suggested, where's the conflict?

[Dracul]

OP probally put it in the staff forum to avoid most of the SOI bashing that's bound to come (or has come? didn't read the thread yet).


buuuut...I like soi, even had a little fun with it. Buuuuutt....not nearly as much as arm. Don't like the tolkienequse even though it isn't too cheesy. Hate all the colors, even though you can disable them.

[Yokunama]

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

Raining or Snowing. :wink:

[Adhira]

Personally I haven't noticed that we're losing a lot of players to SoI. I think it's just the usual drift of players back and forth between the RPIs.  Armageddon seems to be flourishing at the moment, after staff uptime this week I saw 75 players in game, it made me rub my hands together in glee.

As far as SoI and other RPIs go I think it's just a matter of personal preference. I was a beta tester on SoI and enjoyed running around Minus Morgul and practicing my bad attitude. SoI, to me, is a lot closer in feel to Harshlands than it is to Armageddon. Now and then I go back to SoI to have a little play, I haven't played in some months now though.   Alas, my current pc there fell off a wall and has been stuck pounding at the gates in the rain for months.

[Halaster]

I'll second what Adhira said, in that we're not losing players to SoI no more than they're losing players to us.  Some folks want to play a harsh desert world, and some folks want to play a world based on Tolkein.  One's as good as the next, it's all a matter of preference.

So, there's nothing going on at all.  Neither MUD is losing a bunch of players to the other besides the normal shifting back and forth.

[Hot_Dancer]

Heh.. we're not losing players to Shadows of Isildur: I actually filled out my clan there from Armageddon friends because Armageddon players have a distinct feel to their roleplay (it's actually engaging)... then they went back to Arm after a few weeks or so, generally unable to be entertained.


Eh, we pwned SoI for a little while..(The two most prominent leading Morgul characters were played by those from Armageddon, and I'm sure Kalden has/had some crew on the Gondor side.)

Hot_Dancer

[RunningMountain]

Hehe, I'm gonna brave the beating of the masses on the board and state that I am playing soi right now.

[Moofassa]

*Beats RM with a stick*

I played SoI for a week.. It was just.. lacking. I'll try it again on Saturdays.

[Zep]

Oh, I don't think it's to bad, there are some other nice MUDs out there though.

[Gaare]

Thank you RM.

[Akaramu]

I am counting about 10 players less on average than I did a year ago. Consistently, and regularly.  

I have no idea if SoI is to blame, though.

[Gaare]

Do not blame yourself Akaramu. Be sure there is some mistake in counting.

[amoeba]

I am counting about 10 players less on average than I did a year ago. Consistently, and regularly.  

I have no idea if SoI is to blame, though.

I'm noticing the same trend, but I have seen a recent upswing which is encouraging.  My feeling is that the graphical MMORGS have more to do with the drain than SOI.  As these sites sneek into the RP arena the trend may increase a bit.  I have even seen on WoW some people -trying- to insert some ad-hoc emoting into the speech.  Stuff like "*sighing deeply* No I don't know where it is.".  

There are things you can do in arm you can't even come close to in these graphical muds.  I suspect of the five million accounts (yes five million), a much smaller percentage are into intensive RP, and of those  only a small number have even heard of MUDs much less Armageddon.  We tend to focus our efforts on the mudding and tabletop gaming communities, but I think there is a far greater audience that we don't get the word out to.  I wish I had ideas on how to do that, but I don't.

[mansa]

I don't notice any difference.  I like SoI and I wish them the best of luck.

Armageddon will always be my special place.

[ale six]

I am counting about 10 players less on average than I did a year ago. Consistently, and regularly.  

I have no idea if SoI is to blame, though.

I haven't noticed any decrease at all. Just a few weekends ago we had over 70 people logged in about three nights in a row.

Besides, it seems like most people who leave will come back eventually.

[Akaramu]

I haven't noticed any decrease at all. Just a few weekends ago we had over 70 people logged in about three nights in a row.

US nights, or GMT ones? I wonder if maybe the timezone distribution shifted around a bit.

Besides, it seems like most people who leave will come back eventually.

:oops:

[Marauder Moe]

I've been seeing 60-70 people online several nights (EST 10-12 PM) this week!  As in, week-night, not weekend.  Very cool... though also annoying because I have to work in the morning and can't stay up late.  :roll:

[Anonymous]

My feeling is that the graphical MMORGS have more to do with the drain than SOI.

This is probably the most dead on comment in this thread, in my opinion.

SoI and Armageddon are so divergent in every way except being Diku-derived and RPIs that there is little real competition for players between the two.  SoI is a much more black and white world in terms of morality and conflict.  When I played most everyone who was playing in Gondor was either happy go lucky or Aragorn Jr.  Goblins and orcs were, well, goblins and orcs.  Armageddon's conflict is much less cut and dried due to the (saddening) absence of real and present-seeming conflict between the two city states.  Most conflict is local instead of across the border and a large portion of that has to do with those in power within your own city state who are there to exploit you, not protect you.

Whenever there is a thread about other RPIs you find many more negative comments from people than you find positive ones, at least in terms of whether or not they enjoyed the alternative RPIs.  Graphical MMOs, however, see a much more even split in terms of positive and negative comments.  You'll find 20x the number of MMO players here then you'll find SoI players.

That's where the RPI players are gradually going, and will continue to go in my opinion.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I've been sucked into real life in a major way. Less than a year ago, I had the grand scheme of openning up a new experience for the RPI community. To be honest, I still do. I will, probably, one day, say, "Come see the world me and my folks built." Oh, and we had some great folks helping too. Some were from Armageddon, some were from SoI ....

In these modern times, where I don't have the time to do stuff that is frivolous and fun as much as I used to, I still sneak in a little Armageddon time. I will never forget Armageddon. I've played the others, and they just ... were not Arm. So now, I don't play them. And yes, now and then I sneak in a little time on my own leeching dream...

I feel like, as others have stated, that real RPI was too ... singular before the advent of SoI. Really, you only had Harshlands, some other thing, and Armageddon. SoI is a major interest in so many folks' lives, it draws in people who've never even heard of a damned MUD. Because of that single fact, SoI will bring more players to RPI MUDs than at any other time in MUDding's history.

Even if you don't like their game, please don't hate on them. They've done more for our niche than all of the things we've done together. They could be the reason we'll survive and flourish, I think, into the age of VR. Despite the upswing in MMORPGs, for instance, we're gaining more players than we had before. I think that says something for their contributions, if only in name power alone.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

And, uh, I think CRW is wrong, this time. Yeh, MMORPG's do suck out players, and always will. But there's folks who don't dig MMORPG's over RPI, and why would we want the folks who typically croon over MMORPGs?

And yes, I've played a MMORPG or three... Everquest, CoH and CoV, and Eve. Eve is the only one I still play, and seriously, if you've played Eve, you know there's all sorta Armageddon time in there. Now I don't have the sorta time I need to play the way I used to, but betcha MMORPGs will never steal me.

Besides, what's the whine about lose of players? When I started playing, I was blessed by God Almighty to see 30-40 folks online ... it's not hard now to see 50-70.