Re: I'd Like To Encourage-DERAIL

[Sephiroto]

Armageddon has timers, but nothing (save lag) to prevent spam practicing skills, spam lumberjacking/crafting, or spam killing gortoks/n00bs.  You're on to something if you suggest we should limit this twinkish behavior, but how could we accomplish this?  I haven't played any of the other games Malken mentioned.

[Jdr]

We have admin who kick your butt if you do?

[Ashes]

We have admin who kick your butt if you do.

... And make you eat coded poop.  I haven't seen anything truly bad happen in a long time, and even then, it doesn't last long.  We have an excellent group on Staff.

[spawnloser]

The problem with the, "Can youz be rangre plz?" question of, "So, are you any good at finding your way through the weather?" isn't that it's a yes/no question, because it isn't.  Sure, the person asking it may intend the question to be, "Are you a ranger looking for love?  Circle yes or no," but there are ways and ways to find your way through a sandstorm for those that aren't rangers.  Be creative and then back up the claims your character makes in some way.

Asking questions that are basically asking what coded skills someone possesses isn't guild-sniffing... it's appropriate interviewing.  Respond in kind.  If your character doesn't have the skill 'skinning,' and you're asked if you're any good at cleaning a kill, either you'll LIE in character or you won't.  It's an IC response to an IC question, simple.  Trying to second-guess the other player is stupid.

The real problem is real guild-sniffing... when the other person is trying to find out what guild you are or what guild you are not so that they can abuse the information.  The classic way that this occurs is when people ask questions and keep getting negatives and then decide, "HE'Z MUSST BE SOOPIR SEKRIT MAGIKKY MAGICKER!"  This is crap.  I played a secret magicker that suddenly had half the other people I came across decide I must be a magicker because my character had a particular 'job' as an independent, a job that revolved around NOT using most coded skills that make certain jobs possible.  No crafting (besides cooking), weapon/combat or hunting skills.  THIS is the abuse: people, no matter how accurately, assuming the worst and REACTING that way IC when they have no IC information suggesting that their conclusion is true... meta-gaming, the player using their knowledge of the system to use the process of elimination to condemn and harass their fellow players.

Stop trying to trick your fellow players.  Stop trying to interrogate your fellow players.  Keep it IC.

[staggerlee]

As a leader, I class sniff new recruits, especially if they seem new to the game.
For their own enjoyment. Because nothing is frustrating like getting hired as a hunter when you're a merchant, and being bored out of your mind. As a leader I want to know what kind of coded goals they intend to pursue, so that I can facilitate that.

If the player seems fairly experienced I'll do a lot less class sniffing and expect them to adapt on their own. But new players need some hand holding.


We're all here to have fun. Don't assume all guild sniffing is ooc and done with the intention of getting you killed or that every hidden magicker has to be found. Don't assume everyone is out to get you.  As much as it's competetive sometimes, it's also in many ways a cooperative game, and we are here to have fun.

[Clearsighted]

As a leader, I class sniff new recruits, especially if they seem new to the game.
For their own enjoyment. Because nothing is frustrating like getting hired as a hunter when you're a merchant, and being bored out of your mind. As a leader I want to know what kind of coded goals they intend to pursue, so that I can facilitate that.

If the player seems fairly experienced I'll do a lot less class sniffing and expect them to adapt on their own. But new players need some hand holding.

This.

I don't so much care about getting their coded skills up, but new players definitely need a palpable direction, instead of just being thrown into the mix. I tended to help them with one or two outings, to give them a routine to later go through on their own.

[Vessol]

The class system is the #1 reason why playing long-lived characters is hard for me. It doesn't play into the social classes of the game world at all, otherwise why would nobles choose the same 'guilds' as any common would? To me it's outdated, encourages metagaming, and limits the players and staff. How I say the staff is the whole "Just roleplay doing your skill and send it to staff!": 1. Staff actually have to read through this repetitive shit constantly which leads to 2. OOC measures are enforced so you can't get so much gains in a certain time. 3. It wastes valuable staff time which could go to building, running plots, etc. Instead of micromanaging PC's.

And cue the game's cheerleaders telling me how wrong I am and how I clearly must be in the wrong part of the game and if only if I was more like them I'd see how wrong I am.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Class system fale.

Armageddon wyn.

Can't fight it. Lord knows I wish we didn't have classes, but oh well.

[BuNutzCola]

Requesting skills is not as far out of reach as it would seem, but there has to be strong evidence for your character to have earned it. Even still, you can't as a player just get a bug up your ass to want something and then work towards it necessarily, it ought to make sense.

I had a merchant character who lived a good year and a half, and managed to actually get half-decent with swords, archery, and a variety of other skills via the request tool/roleplay.

That character also killed more people, got involved in more awesome shit, fought in more crazy battles, and accomplished more with the only really developed skills being
-Listen
-Barrier
-Contact
-Moderate swordsmanship
-Ride

He was my funnest of all, and easily the most powerful character I've had, if not codedly all that strong.

-Shrug- The class system isn't perfect, but it's fairly fun sometimes. I'm pretty sure over the course of that character's life very very few people would have guessed he was actually guild -merchant-. It's all in how you represent.

[Majikal]

As a leader, I class sniff new recruits, especially if they seem new to the game.
For their own enjoyment. Because nothing is frustrating like getting hired as a hunter when you're a merchant, and being bored out of your mind. As a leader I want to know what kind of coded goals they intend to pursue, so that I can facilitate that.

If the player seems fairly experienced I'll do a lot less class sniffing and expect them to adapt on their own. But new players need some hand holding.


We're all here to have fun. Don't assume all guild sniffing is ooc and done with the intention of getting you killed or that every hidden magicker has to be found. Don't assume everyone is out to get you.  As much as it's competetive sometimes, it's also in many ways a cooperative game, and we are here to have fun.

Agreed.

As for the class system limitations, it could do well to be expanded on but currently there isn't a problem with it and with enough practice at anything you can eventually learn it. I've had gicker guilds get skinning/tanning and I've had a guild ranger attain bash/kick/disarm and I've had non crafter characters that ended up with weapon or armor crafting through RP. In no way does the staff truly limit you on anything you can accomplish if you go about it the right way.

[jhunter]

I like the class system because it enforces coded strengths and weaknesses and prevents a "min/max" sort of character construction that you usually get with classless systems.
Trying to get an idea of coded skills is fine if it's for the purpose of aiding new players with the game. It's not fine if you're doing it to try and get some sort of advantage over another pc due to OOC knowledge.
Personally though, I've never had a problem with guild sniffing. I just answer questions on such things from the perspective of my character and don't worry about whether or not they are OOCly trying to figure out my guild. Treating it this way has never steered me wrong or left the player of the character giving the interview (afaik) feeling as if I was just OOCly dodging the questions.
I've passed off elementalists (with the right subguild) as rangers, merchants, thieves, and I'm pretty sure people didn't know my pc's true class. If they did, they did a good job of rp'ing around that OOC knowledge.

[a strange shadow]

I like the class system because it enforces coded strengths and weaknesses and prevents a "min/max" sort of character construction that you usually get with classless systems.

[Malken]

I like the class system because it enforces coded strengths and weaknesses and prevents a "min/max" sort of character construction that you usually get with classless systems.

Yah, it's just too bad there isn't any "min/max"'ing going on on the other RPI muds that use such a system. That's a total myth that people use when they want to defend the class system of Armageddon.

[a strange shadow]

I like the class system because it enforces coded strengths and weaknesses and prevents a "min/max" sort of character construction that you usually get with classless systems.

Yah, it's just too bad there isn't any "min/max"'ing going on on the other RPI muds that use such a system. That's a total myth that people use when they want to defend the class system of Armageddon.

Really? Beg to differ.

Seen it from the other side of the clouds, even.

Maybe I'm a masochist, but I like the fact that my character sucks balls at some things and has no hope of improving beyond mediocre at best, and the IC frustration that it brings.

[jhunter]

 That statement is exactly what people use when they want to defend the classless system of other games. I've seen it, it's -fact- that it does exist. I personally think that the addition of stat prioritization was more of a negative impact on the game than a positive one and I feel that changing Armageddon to a classless system would also be a negative impact but of a much greater degree.

[jhunter]

Maybe I'm a masochist, but I like the fact that my character sucks balls at some things and has no hope of improving beyond mediocre at best, and the IC frustration that it brings.

Yeah. I think characters have become more "codedly" cookie-cutter since the addition of stat prioritization too. I can't think of the last time I ran into a warrior pc that wasn't strong or fast, or a mage or merchant pc that wasn't smart as hell, or a crim class that wasn't agile and wise.

[Fathi]

I like the class system because it enforces coded strengths and weaknesses and prevents a "min/max" sort of character construction that you usually get with classless systems.

Yah, it's just too bad there isn't any "min/max"'ing going on on the other RPI muds that use such a system. That's a total myth that people use when they want to defend the class system of Armageddon.

Really? Beg to differ.

Seen it from the other side of the clouds, even.

Maybe I'm a masochist, but I like the fact that my character sucks balls at some things and has no hope of improving beyond mediocre at best, and the IC frustration that it brings.

I guess it just depends on the skillset. I mostly agree with this, but it does piss me off quite a bit that my characters of certain classes can't ever learn to do things that I consider completely unrelated to guild. I don't mind my mages not being able to disarm people. Don't really care that my merchants can't backstab.

I do, however, think certain things like climbing, cooking, digging for valuable rocks, getting a bit of meat off a carcass, and being able to accurately tell which of two items weighs more are some examples of skills that I wish any character class could eventually learn to do with a small degree of reliability, given enough training.

I think the biggest problem with Arm's skillsets for guilds is that they turn a lot of extremely general everyday tasks and knowledge into specialised "skills" that only some people can ever hope to become remotely proficient at.

[AmandaGreathouse]

I think the biggest problem with Arm's skillsets for guilds is that they turn a lot of extremely general everyday tasks and knowledge into specialised "skills" that only some people can ever hope to become remotely proficient at.

[a strange shadow]

Oh, yeah, I agree with that. I'm not against some broadening of the classes, to say, subguild-level abilities.

I'm against the jack-of-all-trade masters of everything who need no one else to accomplish anything they desire.

As much as I'd love to be able to, for example, rock a ranger/assassin and kick utter obliterating ass, it'd be a frighteningly unbalancing combination of skills with no social stigma attached to them (such as there is for a sorcerer, psi, etc etc).

[jhunter]

Yeah, that I do agree with. General skills I think everyone, of any guild should get just at a lower cap than if it were a "specialty" skill of the guild. Cooking, foraging, skinning, climbing, etc. Maybe make a "basic skill set" that every pc gets regardless of class that gets a boost to the cap for higher (wisdom/ agility/ str/ end) with no cap if it is a class specialty and perhaps a higher learning rate if it is a class specialty.

I'm against the jack-of-all-trade masters of everything who need no one else to accomplish anything they desire.

[Lizzie]

BuNutzCola:
If it was -that- character, then no I never would've guessed he was a merchant class. Not in a million years. In fact I was convinced he was some sort of hybrid semi-warrior/karma-restricted somethingorother that was specially approved just for the role. But then, it wasn't his skills that impressed me anyway, since I didn't really get to see them in action all that much. It was the roleplay, and all the weird shit he got into that made that character so bad-ass awesome

P.S. I even thought at one point early on, that he was a sorcerer. Even though I'd never seen him cast a single spell.

[SMuz]

I'd like to encourage people to play the fool sometimes. Yes, you are a PC, and for some hidden reason, are better than most NPCs and vNPCs in the area. However, maybe you are a TWAT at dancing. Emote it out.

Maybe you aren't great at hitting on people. Trip over your words.

Better, you aren't great at sex. Mudsex someone and emote simply laying there, making gutteral and unconvincing moans.



I bet there are a TON of RL relationships where one person is a dead fuck. BE THAT PERSON.

While, the first ideas were great.. that last one is pushing it a little. Dude, it's a fantasy game. Anyway, I think a ton of Arm players are bad at RP-ing sex; I'd just like to see them not FTB when that happens. Or you could do what most people on IRC do - emote in long detail the RP to the point where your partner gets bored IC and IRL. Shouldn't be too hard for most people to slow down and trip over the emoting syntax.

I do like seeing weaknesses though. I think I've kudos'ed just about everyone who's had a weakness and stuck to it, especially when it severely disadvantaged them.

[Ourla]

Anyway, I think a ton of Arm players are bad at RP-ing sex; I'd just like to see them not FTB when that happens.

Many of us have valid reasons for choosing not to roleplay out sex, such as respect for our RL significant others, being underage, fearing -you're- underage, etc.  It makes me laugh when people think FTB is 'bad' sex RP.

I agree with Riev.  Fools are awesome.  I wouldn't expect anyone to make a habit of playing them, but they sure lighten up the gameworld in between your mighty dwarven firemage or your sexy Kadian.

[WarriorPoet]

I don't RP sex because not only is it uncomfortable and cheesy, but because I play this game to pretend to chop muthafuckaz up with bone swords. Not to have virtual sex with some other smelly dude who is pretending to be the petite, delicately-snatched lass.

I like fools and fuckups, so long as they don't become comic-relief.

[Synthesis]

I don't RP sex because not only is it uncomfortable and cheesy, but because I play this game to pretend to chop muthafuckaz up with bone swords. Not to have virtual sex with some other smelly dude who is pretending to be the petite, delicately-snatched lass.

I like fools and fuckups, so long as they don't become comic-relief.

lol, sig'ed.