Dead Horse? Think again, sillies.

[Flying Erdlu]

You want people to slaughter magickers for flaunting stuff?  Go get people to do it.  Do it yourself.  Be the change.

I agree with SL on this. Magickers are more bold  and open lately because they are  becoming much more accepted and tolerated instead of being shunned and hated. And sure, some people may have IC reasons for being tolerant and accepting of those filthy finger wagglers, but for the most part, if you want them to change, change yourself. Pick a fight with one. Murder one. Steal from one. Spread a rumor about one. Etc

And the sekrit ones...how sekrit can they be if you know about them?

As for me, I absolutely love Arm's magick system. It's easily one of my favorite parts of the game. And I really get a kick out of seeing more people getting the chance to experience it and the depth that is there.  Just the other day, ICly I learned that a magicker PC had learned something that I personally have known for years and take for granted but to them, it was new and awesome. I was really happy that they got to experience it before Arm v1 is gone. I admit, I'm a card carrying member of the  Magick Lovers of Allanak Association. Love em both, always have. Only thing I loved more...was the Conclave.

That said, I've played my fair share of mundanes, including the most mundane weak guild possible, the merchant. I can appreciate someone feeling a bit useless as a mundane, and as someone I respect once told me...sometimes all that is needed is a, "Gee I can see how that would suck, I'm sorry".  rather than trying to find a fix for the problem. So Cale_Knight, Shiroi Tsuki, GimmyBear and anyone else...I appreciate your viewpoint. I can see how that would suck. I'm sorry.

[Tisiphone]

Wow, FE, you just gave me a great idea.

Watch the 'nakki rumour boards for more...

[Hek]

Exposure to supernatural characters will depend heavily on your playtime, style and area. If you're the off-peak spice sifter who never leaves Red Storm, you won't see much (of anything). If you're the newly-hired Kadius crafter who rarely leaves the compound, chances are you won't experience a whole lot of imposing magickers and probing mindworms. However, if you live in a lawless area with any kind of population, you're almost guaranteed near-daily encounters of one kind or another. The Labyrinth, the Tablelands, the grasslands, Under-Tuluk - you're going to see magick unless you close your eyes. One could argue that unwanted exposure to the non-mundane is to be expected in such places, but it's undeniable that lately this has far exceeded what the documentation states and, apparently, what a majority of the playerbase is content with.

Likewise, if you're in a clan that leaves the city often, or that deals with law enforcement, you're going to be knee-deep in plots and encounters that are almost exclusively based around, and run by, magickers or psionicists. How many serious, world-affecting plots are going on at the moment where non-mundane entities are not the antagonists, driving force or main participants? Ask any templar or militia soldier, any sergeant of a clan, any noble, any crime boss. There's so much magick-related going on that there's no time for mundane activities.

I know all too well the feeling of being a "useless mundane". Even as a very powerful fighter working for a clan that might normally benefit greatly from such, I found myself with nothing to do whatsoever. Again and again I was left out of activities, jobs, missions - all because I didn't have spells or special psionic powers. I probably got the extreme end of the stick, given this specific clan's nature, but it's not that different for most other players. If you're mundane, being involved in a Big Plot (tm) will often mean swift, unavoidable death. There are exceptions, naturally, but the general impression that many of us have is that there's no longer room for mundanes as anything other than social filling. If you want to "change the world" as the staff so vehemently put it when they announced the end of the current game, you're either going to be a magicker or psionicist, or one of the select few mundanes who are lucky, dedicated or code-knowledgable enough to survive long enough to matter.

Yeah, you can avoid much of the magick if you really try. It usually means leaving yourself out of many opportunities for interesting roleplay, and still, it will eventually come to you no matter how hard you try not to get involved. To anyone who claims to not have noticed any difference in the recent state of the game, I'm calling bullshit or freakish luck. It's not 90% of the playerbase seeing things.

[Lizzie]

I should clarify, mostly because of Hek's post. I've definitely seen a shift. No doubt about it. But, this shift has -enhanced- my gaming experience, rather than hindering it. Chasing after "magicker of the day" or investigating "this week's favorite mindbender episode" is what gives me SO much stuff to do. Between mindbenders, magickers, and mundane non-magick-non-psi raiders, I'm rarely bored - and in fact, actually look forward to the moments when I -am- bored, because it gives me a chance to catch my PC up on the more "administrative" tasks of her clan.

Personally I am absolutely loving all these "freaks" running around the world. For me, it isn't a problem at all. That doesn't mean I'm ignoring or oblivious to the fact that magicks (in general) are more prevalent than when I first started. It just means, that it IS more prevalent, and that I'm getting a kick out of all the myriad of plotlines involved in dealing with the prevalence.

[Mudder]

I have to agree with FJ on this one. I have lost the thrill of the game for quite some time now mainly because I see PC after PC with the same personality and traits played by the same person with just a diffrent set of skills doing what they did with their previous characters and doing whatever they can do hang out with a certain PC that they once was hanging with.

[Xio]

This is half random I guess but I felt like mentioning it.
When I came back from my hiatus I didn't check the GDB (blasphemy right?) and didn't even know ARM v1 was going to be replaced soon. So when my next 4 chars all ran into magickers, some dying because of said magickers, I kinda started to get scared/aggravated. I am in love with mundane chars personally. The Magick system is awesome imo, but I personally feel weird playing a magicker especially if I get said magicker strong. My personal pet peeve with magick is unless you do a certain thing, which I'm not going to mention, there's basically little to no room to RP with those you plan on slaughtering if you are that kind of magicker. Though there are always exceptions, with my experiences there either wasn't a way to RP without going to extreme measures or the chance for RP was so small it wouldn't have made much of a difference either way (though I do enjoy at least one emote or nasty phrase said at me before I'm killed to give my death some meaning)

[Malken]

What makes me sad, Forest Junkie, is that unless those who thinks like we do starts quitting the game, I have a feeling that nothing will change..

I mean, honestly, if you were a Staff member, would you take all of this complaining seriously when you still hit 45-50 players peak time a night?

The problem is that most of us are so addicted to Armageddon and we don't know any other games like this one that no matter how bad our precious Armageddon gets, we are still willing to give it a chance hoping that the next day will be slightly better.. And we keep hoping, and we keep hoping.. A year later, we are still complaining about the same thing.

So, until some of us who are really tired of it all and really feel like we aren't having fun anymore and it's all very stale quit for real, and by real, I mean not coming back everytime someone PMs you or coming back each time a Staff members promise us amazing exciting RPTs, then nothing will change.

Hey, like Spawnloser said, be the change you want to be, and if the change isn't coming, then maybe realize that it won't come until something drastic starts happening and those who are jaded start leaving for real instead of constantly fighting it yet logging still five to ten hours a day?

Just a thought.. It's a sad one, but I still think it's something that needs to happen before Staff members start taking this complaining seriously..

[jhunter]

I don't think a few people threatening to leave over it is going to change anything. In fact, I'm positive it won't.

As far as being the change: Spawnloser has it right. At one point I was really sick of desert elves constantly raiding -every- outdoor pc I had. So, I started a pc that paid people for elf ears and hunted them himself. I noticed the numbers of raiding d-elves dropped drastically during that pc's lifetime. So no matter how aggravated you might be with something, there is -always- the possibility of doing something about it.
You think there are too many magickers? Hire up some good solid rangers (who are IMO, the best mundane magicker slayers in a group)or even *gasp* a magicker or two to hunt down others.
Also, I'm sure the Tuluki would be more than happy to assist you in such endeavors.

:wink:

[Tarx]

You want people to slaughter magickers for flaunting stuff? Go get people to do it. Do it yourself. Be the change.

Some people are pursuing goals like this ICly.

[Malken]

I don't think a few people threatening to leave over it is going to change anything. In fact, I'm positive it won't.

It's not a threat, it's reality.. How is that helping that you say you dislike how things are with the game and you don't have any fun on it anymore for a whole year yet you still play it? (That's me, not FJ)

Be the change you want to be is the dumbest catchphrase I've heard on Armageddon in so long.. You can kill as many magickers as you want and notice, or ignore as many of them as you want, but if they just keep accepting them via special app and karma and they just keep pouring back it and you are the jerk because you're not friendly with the gemmed ones while everyone else is at the bar and hates you for picking on them, how is being the change you want to be helpful except for the fact that you are just digging a bigger hole around yourself?

[jhunter]

Be the change you want to be is the dumbest catchphrase I've heard on Armageddon in so long.. You can kill as many magickers as you want and notice, or ignore as many of them as you want, but if they just keep accepting them via special app and karma and they just keep pouring back it and you are the jerk because you're not friendly with the gemmed ones while everyone else, how is being the change you want to be helpful?

No, I'm telling you it's not. If you can maintain and keep things going long enough ICly, more and more of them will tire of being constantly hunted and move on to other things. It happened in the d-elf situation I posted about above. Or at least, they started avoiding raiding as heavily as they used to and staying away from non-tribals more.
What I'm saying is that even if some of them do remake mage pcs, they will be less open with them and more careful about contact with mundanes later on. I'm not honestly sure which it was but I know contact with them dropped off alot either way and the raiding slowed -way- down if it was still being conducted by them at all.

Edit: It's only the "dumbest catch phrase" if you don't believe you can bring about changes in the gameworld. If that's what you believe, then it wouldn't matter if there were a hundred magickers or one, you'd still feel useless.

[Xio]

I was actually thinking the same thing as Malken. If you were to slaughter every Magicker you came across, there is no stopping the player of that magicker from making another one, or someone else who died to something else making a magicker, so in the end the number of magickers may not decrease at all or very insignificantly.

Edit: Left this out, with the way some people are this could actually worsen the problem. With Magickers feeling 'enraged' they could go into hiding for a little while and you'll think the problem is solved till a gang of 10 insanely strong magickers travel -everywhere- together, kill anyone they come across.

[flurry]

Since I used to have "be the change..." as part of my sig, I want to throw in two cents here.

In this situation, I don't think "be the change" means that if you think there are two many supernaturals, kill them all.  Instead, I tend to think it means to fill in what you think is missing from the gameworld.

If you think there isn't enough hatred of magick, play a character that provides it.  If you don't like the way people are playing certain karma roles, go out and do it the right way.  If you think there are too few mundanes, play a mundane.  If so many people think we need more mundanes, and they all started playing one, then problem solved, right?

[Doppelganger]

If so many people think we need more mundanes, and they all started playing one, then problem solved, right?

Wrong. I am sure that most complaints about magickers come from the players who actually try to play mundanes once in while, hence they see the problem. I don't see what is solved by their pathetic attempts, because at the same time more players with staff's blessing, support and approval prove the point that rocket launcher is better weapon than teaspoon.

Spawnloser, darling, if you are such a fucking genious and disagree with people who say that it's impossible to be mundane change to Zalanthas in the current setting, don't you think that it's your task to prove them wrong, not theirs?

[Tisiphone]

I just wanted to post in here, since I think it syncs nicely with the above post:

If you see someone playing out the documented prejudices (against 'gickers/psi/elves/breeds/mutants/whatever), please, DON'T look at them like they have three heads. Unless, that is, they do.

[Cale_Knight]

If so many people think we need more mundanes, and they all started playing one, then problem solved, right?

Wow.

For the record, I have never played a non-mundane character and I doubt I will before the game ends.

[Salt Merchant]

No, I'm telling you it's not. If you can maintain and keep things going long enough ICly, more and more of them will tire of being constantly hunted and move on to other things. It happened in the d-elf situation I posted about above. Or at least, they started avoiding raiding as heavily as they used to and staying away from non-tribals more.

Or maybe it was one of those cyclical things. The desert elves lost an important leader or two for unrelated reasons, and suddenly things were less fun and less organized, and so the players drifted away. How can you tell?

[Salt Merchant]

If you don't like the way people are playing certain karma roles, go out and do it the right way.

The problem is that apparently playing a mage "the right way" involves living like a hermit and never being visible, whether you're gemmed or not.

Here was the life experience of a gemmed that was played "the right way":

My experience as a gemmed went something like this:

- Get gemmed, work out a schedule of practice and downtime
- Meet a couple other gemmed mages. Awesome.
- Other mages rarely log in. Get bullied around by a templar.
- Get bored of the routine of grebbing, casting, and being utterly ignored by mundane PCs. Being snubbed ICly is fine, having your existance entirely unacknowledged is hell.
- Start seeking a job. Told to get lost by templar.
- Get offered a job by noble. Ponder it, then get told they don't want <my mage class>. Fark.
- Meet a criminal that's actually willing to socialize with me! Yay!
- Fuck around with some spells and stumble on Something Cool (tm).
- Get told that succeeding at Something Cool (tm) is actually a bug. Oops.
- Suffer IC consequences of trying to fuck around with Something Cool (tm) that briefly renews my enjoyment of the character.
- Criminal guy never logs in or is dead. Damn.
- Get so incredibly bored and starved for interaction that I decide my character is going to strike out for sandier pastures due to IC consequences of Something Cool (tm).
- Driven out of the city by lack of interaction and options, it doesn't take me log to meet my fate at the hands of NPC #98135.
- Say "Damn, that sucked" and roll up a mundane character.
- Start having fun again.

[Kiri]

and you are the jerk because you're not friendly with the gemmed ones while everyone else is at the bar and hates you for picking on them,

This has been the hardest thing for me to accept. WHY should being part of the "bully crowd" be so unaccepted in a place like Zalanthas? Prejudice and bias and extremes are supposed to be part of the mindset... but it's damned hard to pull off when you do what -should- be the norm (ie sneer at  or ignore the gemmer at the bar instead of being their chat buddy) and everyone gives you a dirty look or a ration of shit. And then said gemmer (who is uber-powerful, and treated by the Templarate as a dangerous but well-taken-care-of guard dog) retaliates. And too bad, so sad... you're dead.

For me personally, it's not so much the -amount- of magickers... it's the acceptance of them by the populace, and the blatant "I can fry you with a look so you'd better not look at me funny" attitude. I always thought the social stigmas associated with magick users was the balance to their power, but this seems to have slowly eroded in the year and a half I've been playing.

[jhunter]

No, I'm telling you it's not. If you can maintain and keep things going long enough ICly, more and more of them will tire of being constantly hunted and move on to other things. It happened in the d-elf situation I posted about above. Or at least, they started avoiding raiding as heavily as they used to and staying away from non-tribals more.

Or maybe it was one of those cyclical things. The desert elves lost an important leader or two, and suddenly things were less fun and less organized, and so the players drifted away. How can you tell?

No way of knowing for certain. Is it pure coincidence that when I actively pursued such a change came about? I don't think it was entirely.  Besides, -someone- may have done away with those pcs.

[Gimfalisette]

I know I should stay out of this, but...like a moth to the flame...

Those of you who are saying, "Yeah I know a lot of non-mundanes, like five"...and those who are saying, "I don't know any"...Cool. I'm glad your game is so mundane right now, if that's what you want. My current game experience is markedly different.

I currently know, or know of, ICly, approximately 40 non-mundane PCs in game. As in, I can put names and/or faces together with guilds, I know their basic locational or organizational affiliation, and I roughly know what they can do. I interact with about half of them on a regular basis.

About a third of those 40 are gemmers, the rest are psionicists, sorcerors, or rogue magickers of various flavors.

I would say that about 10 to 15 of these non-mundanes are at the "frighteningly powerful" range.

I have, myself, played a non-mundane for approximately two weeks of the last 14 months I've spent on ARM. So as far as "play a mundane if you want to see more mundanes in game," thanks, I do that. I also put a fair amount of effort into making the game fun for the mundanes around me.

Useless? Yeah, I'm pretty much down with that feeling. Part of me is past caring. I'm not blaming the non-mundanes for not using me in their plots; in their defense, often it's because they don't want to get my character killed. And I know they use me when they can.

Beyond that, I'm just letting the high-magick stormclouds roll overhead and trying to avoid getting stomped on by the non-mundane giants on -their- playground. The non-mundanes own ARM now.

[jhunter]

and you are the jerk because you're not friendly with the gemmed ones while everyone else is at the bar and hates you for picking on them,

This has been the hardest thing for me to accept. WHY should being part of the "bully crowd" be so unaccepted in a place like Zalanthas? Prejudice and bias and extremes are supposed to be part of the mindset... but it's damned hard to pull off when you do what -should- be the norm (ie sneer at  or ignore the gemmer at the bar instead of being their chat buddy) and everyone gives you a dirty look or a ration of shit. And then said gemmer (who is uber-powerful, and treated by the Templarate as a dangerous but well-taken-care-of guard dog) retaliates. And too bad, so sad... you're dead.

For me personally, it's not so much the -amount- of magickers... it's the acceptance of them by the populace, and the blatant "I can fry you with a look so you'd better not look at me funny" attitude. I always thought the social stigmas associated with magick users was the balance to their power, but this seems to have slowly eroded in the year and a half I've been playing.

There was also the exact opposite problem before of mundanes showing -zero- fear of a magicker. Standing there and insulting someone who carries a gun when all you have is a toothpick isn't exactly smart or conducive to living very long. There is nothing wrong with showing disdain for magickers and things of magick. There is something wrong with walking up and spitting in their face and being openly stupid about it.

[jhunter]

I currently know, or know of, ICly, approximately 40 non-mundane PCs in game.

Unless a staff-member can confirm this I don't believe it for a second. That would mean well over half of the people playing the game are playing non-mundanes, and honestly...the notion is pretty absurd.

[Xio]

I had a PC who went on this massive rant about people being all buddy buddy with magickers. Because he had been out of contact for civilization for a while and when he came back he was surprised at all the talk about magickers and people actually talking -to- magickers. Anyone he knew of that even looked at a magicker without calling in the calvary he shunned completely.

I can understand some of acceptance of gemmed magickers in nak solely because if you were -best- friends with someone who suddenly became a magicker, after a while you get used to it.

I equate magickers to homosexuals irl as an example for one reason (please don't get mad either). If you, found out your best friend was a homosexual you would, at the least, a bit shaken up especially if it came as a complete surprise to you. But would you really stop being their friend? Or would you try to just move past it?

After a while of constant interaction with magickers a person might decide 'they are just like me, but with some neat tricks' or 'they are scum to be avoided as always, I don't care if they think we can be friends cause we can't'.

If someone gave your magicker friend an evil glare I don't see the problem with you getting uppety and defending them for being 'just a little different but still a good person' but I don't see the whole tavern going 'Yea! Back off asshole!'

[Coat of Arms]

"Be the change, kill the magickers" - so easy to say and so hard to do. Remember that these complaints come almost exclusively from players of mundane characters. Killing a magicker is, for most, a laughable proposal.