Observation

[jhunter]

My longest lived pc was "a nice guy". I like to play a little of both. Middle of the road types I think are my favs though.

[Cenghiz]

My current character is nice. The one before was mean. The one before was very nice. The one before was patriotic, so nice to only his own city's citizens.....

Sometimes people play too many elves, sometimes people play too many half-elves, sometimes people play too many mean people. It'll pass.

[jstorrie]

My characters really do tend to hover just above neutrality on the good-evil axis. The patriots, for example, are generally very good people until the topic of genociding the other guy's city comes up. They'll kill to prevent themselves for dying. It's not often that I play characters who are actually malevolent or sadistic, though - I find that to be a distastefully common newbie mistake. Malevolence and sadism are comparitively rare traits, even in Zalanthas.

Think of it this way - how long would your sadist have made it before someone rubbed him out? Zalanthas is a brutal place and it's very bad to step on toes. Unless your character has some specific advantage that lets him treat others badly, he or she wouldn't really have gotten into the habit.

Comparing my past 23 characters to the Dungeons and Dragons alignment grid, my most common alignment has been lawful good (7) followed by neutral (5) and lawful neutral (4), if that says anything. And only one each of chaotic neutral, chaotic evil, and neutral evil.

[Quirk]

I am concerned that others coming to play for the first time will be turned off by the overall meanness of characters in game.  

Who says that everyone has to be mean?  Wheere is taht written in stone.  How about ambition and hard wok rather than meanness and bullying?

Just a thought, I always say, "The more the merrier"
Meaning, more ppl = more fun = fresher and newer ideas.

I think the thing that will most help things make sense for you is to start looking at Armageddon as a story, or at least a backdrop where the stories of your characters' lives play out.

Now, it's possible to tell a story without mean people in it. It's possible to tell a story with no conflict in it at all. However, almost all of the best stories do have mean people and conflicts in. Conflict leads to interesting situations. What would Hamlet have been like had Claudius been a "nice person"? Imagine Oliver Twist without Fagin or Bill Sykes, Snow White without the witch-queen, Beowulf without Grendel. You could still tell stories, but think how boring most of them would be.

[Spud]

It's a really fine tightrope to walk because if you leave things too soft you'll have experienced players running roughshod over the game, slaughtering creatures by the dozens and ruining the economy.

You mean that doesn't already happen?

[jhunter]

On a side note, alot of people seem to try to play the wicked magicker part a little too much IMO. The ones I've played all are just trying to get along in the world, until someone else fucks with them and gives them a reason to defend themselves.

[adrien]

if i ever get a sorc or magicker i would be the nice kind.... I don't kill peoples PC I have been playing since 2001 and i killed maby 2 PCs
and they tried to kill me

[Cuusardo]

I've run into a number of magickers who were just trying to get by and live their lives.  I think the reason the wicked and eeeeeevil magickers seem so numerous because they are the ones who get noticed, whereas the laissez-faire magickers just sort of fade into the background.

[bardbard#4]

I think the reason that magickers seem to fall under this category of evil-doers and trouble makers is that players tend to be magickers first, and personalities second.  This is something that many players do on average, unfortunately, but I think it shows more from the magickers because their skill sets are so different from all the other classes.  Just my observation.

[Cenghiz]

I've never played an evil magicker.... I'll play one.

[manonfire]

Playing the rugged individualist hardass is fun for a few characters, but it gets old quick.

I've been playing arma for nearly 3 years, and I have tons more fun playing the diplomat.

[ianmartin]

I am the OP and I just made my point with what happened with my last char.  I won't go into details except to say that it was crap.  I hope the game goes well for everyone, you lost one more player.  It's not worth playing when at any point because they have the power, someone can snuff you out, waste of my time, I will play a game online somewhere.

Thanks for the exciting 2 weeks of hard work gone to shit.

[Cegar]

Well, that's kind of the point of Armageddon. We don't play to get phat lewt or powerful skills.

[ianmartin]

You play so you can die anytime?  This only adds stress instead of keeping it away.  While I won't badmouth things, because I don't know enough about them, I won't recommend it to anyone, I like to keep my friends thank you.  You can feel free to close out the thread admins, I won't be rehashing it.

[Olaf]

You play so you can die anytime?

Bingo.

[jhunter]

So what exactly is your complaint? You're upset because you died? If this early on you can't handle losing a character then the game isn't for you. There's nothing wrong with the game itself or the playerbase as a whole. You seem to expect that you can just create a pc and have them live forever from the start without them ever dying. Every character dies at some point, whether it is early on or later on depends on your character's choices in life and the choices of others that interact with your character. Likely, your character is dead because of a choice your character made that brought about their death.

[Lizzie]

I think it's an important topic to keep open for other new players. In all the documentation and especially the rules, the website stresses that this is a permanent death game, that it's a harsh world, that your character can die quickly and easily and probably will.

The players are very newbie-friendly. The game is not, it isn't intended to be, it's documented that way on purpose, and people looking for someone to give them a tour and starting gear and sids and hugs should definitely look somewhere else. This isn't that kind of game, and it definitely isn't advertised as that kind of game.

I'm sorry to hear Armageddon didn't meet up with your expectations, but I feel you were expecting the wrong things. If you had truly read the "coming from other games" link, the quickstart, and the rules, you would have known that before you even created an account. Unless you did read it and didn't take it seriously. Either way, it falls on you and not on Armageddon to create reasonable expectations for your playing experience.

L. Stanson, a semi-newbie who loves this game for all the reasons the OP doesn't love it.

[Marauder Moe]

Let it go, folks.  He's made up his mind.  Wish him well in whatever game he tries next instead of berating him for not liking it here.

Sounds like you had fun until your character's death, ianmartin.  That's something at least, eh?  Good luck.

[Dakkon Black]

Hey ianmartin,

If you ever do read this again, I hope you do come back. The real reason any of us actually stay here is to see, just how long we can manage to eek out a char before it's slain.

It's a challenge just to survive, that's the fun part. The rush of knowing that if things go sour during a tense holdoff, or whatever, you could very well die. It's like no other game out there, so I hope you give it a round 2.

[Ktavialt]

Nice posts.

I browse the forums of at least one mud I used to (and may) play, and
im always happy with the amount of maturity this forum has over
theirs.

Here's to you, Mr. Forum-Guy-Who-Doesn't-Flame-Everyone-Who-Says-
Something-You-Might-Not-Totally-Agree-With.

- Ktavialt