Casual Armageddon

[SMuz]

So, I saw it on ATS and after seeing the links I feel that a lot of people are approaching it all wrong. I've been playing Arm on and off for quite a while, I think a lot of people are going to play Arm more casually as they grow older, get more responsibilities (work/promotion/wife), less time, etc. So kind of a semi important topic for some people.

My definition: Not exactly low playtimes, but undedicated playing. Can't really define someone playing 1 hour a day as 'casual' because there's some devotion to it. More like someone  who might play this whole weekend without logging off, then not log in for months or may log in for an hour or two next week.


Now anyone who thinks that they're disadvantaged code-wise is getting it all wrong. I've played a few casual characters and none of them were really disadvantaged in skills. Really, the game is designed to be anti-grind. If you do like 5 mins of sparring a day, you'll already get your 'skill boost', compared to someone who twinks out 40 mins of sparring a day.

In fact, I'd say that casual characters actually get ahead in the long run with regards to skills. You can't beat someone in a race to be the best, but you can outlast them. Plus, there are some character types where you want to stay away and hide - those characters will survive better.



Main downside in casual Arm is that you don't make many contacts. Log in after 3 months and 80% of your friends are dead.

This affects a lot. Contacts will get you everything from jobs to promotions to (cheap/free) armor. In a roleplaying game, this is a really shitty situation, because you'd want to make friends. But it's just one of those things you'll have to deal with.

Yeah, logging on regularly helps in regards to contacts.

Not all hope is lost, though. The 20% who still live will often become very powerful and influential, good to keep in touch with.


Also, exploration and being outside the city really sucks. The game has a tendency to throw sudden 4-5 hour blocks of time at you if you don't want your character to die. This can become very frustrating.


Bad ideas for casual roleplayers:
- Politically based characters, you won't have the contacts for them.
- Economically based character who rely on charisma rather than politics.
- Non-ranger explorer type
- Dwarf that's reliant on social skills

Good ideas for casual roleplayers:
- Soldier/guard/grunt. The roles often attract other players into a small spot, so you're not idling as much where there's nobody. Training can be tough when you're not logging on often, fighters will usually always find someone to train with.
- Solo ranger. They can survive without others. They have fun skills. Usually you'll get a good amount of demand for something only you can find. Even if the contact is dead, the new agents will be looking for the same thing.
- Beggar. Tons of roleplay. Probably one of my favorite characters in this game was a mentally handicapped guy.
- Any kind of sneak. The dirtier the better. Sometimes you'll just want to wait out some heat on you. As a casual player you might even be able to go comfortably for a whole RL year.. enough to get most of those templars off your back. Don't really recommend it because if you log on after a year, you'll lose touch with the character and they get kinda old. But it's a major advantage casual players can work with.
- City elves. You've got the tribe thing to fall back on as an excuse to disappear for long periods of time, and you have a very good reason to stay inside the city at all times.

[A Large Bag]

I honestly wish casual players wouldn't join clans. By the definition of casual meaning: They only play once in great while and may not log in for months.  The ones who have a limited amount of time to play but make an effort to log in nearly every day for a little while or every weekend are fine though. The ones who don't log in for months create difficulties for clan leaders, take up a spot in a clan that they hardly have anything to do with, etc.

When I envision not logging in consistently, I don't join clans with my characters. When I've got time/interest enough to play consistently, then I'll join a clan. Because there is more to think about than just yourself when you are part of a clan. Your presence, or lack of it has an impact on others in the clan.

[Hot_Dancer]

Casual play is tough - I'm having a hard time adjusting to it as my priorities shift. I'm accustomed to a certain style
of gaming in Arm that was more applicable when I had either only a part time job or didn't work/play as hard outside
of game.

I'm rarely available in the game enough to make a significant impact. The reduced play schedule hinders my PC's
in forming relationships/rivalries of any depth with other PC's. It seems like I have a habit of introducing a flurry
of activity into the mud when I'm on vacation from work or sick - then fade out again just as abruptly.

Plot options hit curious reductions - I'm much less willing to permanently harm or end another PC, or even
engage in any sort of partnership with them because simply I will not be around enough to follow through or allow
the other PC's companions to seek revenge.

[Kalai]

I have a feeling this thread will be particularly helpful once I go back to school.

A Large Bag: Sometimes casual players really wish casual players wouldn't join clans too! I've near given up on them even when I appear in game often. Maybe I'm just a bad team player 

[Malken]

I either play a whole lot or don't play at all.

If I don't have a whole chunk of time to dedicate to Armageddon then I don't really see the point in playing, chances are that you won't be affecting anything or anyone if you don't have a whole lot of time for the game, and not many will be interested in getting to know you or trying to form some sort of relationship if they only see you in the tavern once a week for 10 minutes or so.

Playing a solo ranger for an hour or two a week? Eesh, what's the point? I'll just go and play Diablo 3 or something...

[Barsook]

Same here.  But I feel, for me, that is the lack of PC to PC interactions that is killing me (even at peak).  Almost always when I log in, I never can find someone to interact with and I tend to start to over craft if there is stuff to work with or just log out and not even play for some time.

EDIT: I have the same feeling on the other niche games (even the ones with one million plus players (Second Life and Furcadia).

[Rhyden]

Also, exploration and being outside the city really sucks. The game has a tendency to throw sudden 4-5 hour blocks of time at you if you don't want your character to die. This can become very frustrating.

This is one problem I'd love to see resolved. Whether it be the tedious sandstorm code, gates closing, or shops closing at dusk, these obstacles which force players to wait sometimes between 30 mins to 1 hour are totally unnecessary. Most players do not have even one hour to log in so having to wait half of that time for a shop to open is a real pain in the butt. Simple things like getting rid of these OOC time wasting obstacles would do wonders for the casual player who don't have several hours to log in each session.

[Harmless]

Please don't take away the risks of going outside.

Although I support casual gaming, I think that the outside is fine as is and don't change it, I disagree completely with the complaints about long times until quitting when dealing with being outside, locked out, etc.

If you want to be a casual gamer, there are numerous ways for you to do that here, in cities. The outside quit code simulates the harshness that this world requires.

I often wonder why people aren't filling up these cities. There's so much that would work -better- if we just had 10-15 more people milling around in the cities, at all times.

If you find the outside too hard to deal with, roll up a character who'd have no reason to. Or, maybe a ranger. Simple as that.

[Rhyden]

Although I support casual gaming, I think that the outside is fine as is and don't change it, I disagree completely with the complaints about long times until quitting when dealing with being outside, locked out, etc.

I welcome risks, conflict, and danger inside and outside the city-states. However, playability trumps realism in most scenarios. If you can tell me why forcing players to waste 30 mins to 1 hour or longer is an advantage to the players of ArmageddonMUD, then I may seriously consider your argument. Otherwise, I believe it's a detriment to both the casual player and the hardcore player.

My suggestions are simple. Keep the gates open even at night for Allanak and Red Storm. Use the same gate-code as Tuluk's gates. Keep merchants open 24/7 even if they are just a small shop. And for the love of Krath, Tek, and Muk almighty fix the sandstorm code. I think sandstorms are a great idea, however the current coding for them only wastes more time and irritates the players of characters without direction sense.

[boog]

Although I support casual gaming, I think that the outside is fine as is and don't change it, I disagree completely with the complaints about long times until quitting when dealing with being outside, locked out, etc.

I welcome risks, conflict, and danger inside and outside the city-states. However, playability trumps realism in most scenarios. If you can tell me why forcing players to waste 30 mins to 1 hour or longer is an advantage to the players of ArmageddonMUD, then I may seriously consider your argument. Otherwise, I believe it's a detriment to both the casual player and the hardcore player.

My suggestions are simple. Keep the gates open even at night for Allanak and Red Storm. Use the same gate-code as Tuluk's gates. Keep merchants open 24/7 even if they are just a small shop. And for the love of Krath, Tek, and Muk almighty fix the sandstorm code. I think sandstorms are a great idea, however the current coding for them only wastes more time and irritates the players of characters without direction sense.

[BadSkeelz]

By and large I like Armageddon's "fuck you" attitude. Inconveniences like being locked in our out of the cities, or unable to buy food, help remind players that your character is really an insignificant shit to 99% of the world (unless they're after your boots). Those things are just different challenges the game is going to throw at you.

Locked in the city for the night? Try to meet some people and build contacts that'll help you next time. People who'll join you another time, or provide work within the walls.

Locked outside? See if there's any others around, and whether you can trust them to hunker down together and wait it out.

Starving and all the shops are closed? Beg.

Logging in thinking "I really want to hunt today" is great, but if the game throws you a curveball you should adapt to the game world, not ask it to adapt to you. There are things like poor stat/skill combos really make me want to bang my head against the desk, but asking for a leg up is just going to diminish any sense of accomplishment I have when I do manage to work around them.

[Malken]

Locked in the city for the night? Try to meet some people and build contacts that'll help you next time. People who'll join you another time, or provide work within the walls.

Locked outside? See if there's any others around, and whether you can trust them to hunker down together and wait it out.

Starving and all the shops are closed? Beg.

I don't think you're getting the point of the thread.. They're asking things that would make it easier for them to log in and quit out when they want to without worrying about things like being locked outside at night or having to wait half an hour for the shop to open up again when they only have 45 minutes to play.

How is that going to help them if they're stuck outside the gate and they need to log out suddenly, if they're hunkered down with someone else?

And if you've been reading the thread, most of the problem is related to actually getting into relationships and building contacts when you're stuck on a casual schedule.

Why would that guy want to go out hunting with you when he knows you'll probably be ditching him suddenly within the next hour when he can go out with five or six other characters that he knows they'll be around for the next 2-4 hours easy?

[BadSkeelz]

If you get locked outside because you wanted to go tromping around the desert in the hour before leaving for work or class, that's a time management problem for the player. For me personally, I certainly wouldn't want to go outside the gates or commit to anything else that could require 2-3 hours of play time without actually knowing I have some chance of meeting that investment. But, we all want to be have some control over what we spend our leisure time doing.

I'm opposed to altering the game world and how the setting treats your character, butI would support an automatic idle log-out that would kick in after, say, an hour. Maybe have it penalize a character's stamina or hunger and thirst levels when it kicks off. That way you could walk away from your computer with the possibility your character may not die because RL ganked you. There's still a risk (and a pretty big one if you're in a particular area) but it would add something of a safety net.

[Malken]

If you get locked outside because you wanted to go tromping around the desert in the hour before leaving for work or class, that's a time management problem for the player. For me personally, I certainly wouldn't want to go outside the gates or commit to anything else that could require 2-3 hours of play time without actually knowing I have some chance of meeting that investment. But, we all want to be have some control over what we spend our leisure time doing.

Yeah, must be nice to have no children that starts crying, no girlfriend that decides to come and drag you away, no urgent business or phone calls ever to deal with.. Oh, these were the days.

Right, that's why if I only have one hour or two these days I don't even bother logging in anymore, but obviously, these folks are trying to find a way to still log in even with a casual schedule. I feel for them.

[boog]

I guess all of us people with RL obligations should just make tea-sipping, crafter non-coms that don't ever want to go outside the city or accidentally idle in the Gaj or wherever because they forget their window's open when their kid busts their lip on the table corner!

[RogueGunslinger]

I agree completely with Malken. There should be options for those who need them, to log out when they need to.

I'm still a big proponent of being able to log out anywhere with any guild. My latest character is pretty much relegated to only being inside the city. I put that constraint on him myself because there are times where I just have to go now, there's no waiting around for it, I don't have a choice, I have to go now.

It would be nice if I didn't have to limit my character to only being inside the city to do that.

(queue someone telling me to play a ranger if I want to go outside)

(queue rebuttal for classless/guild-less system)

This argument seems familiar.... Truth of the matter is Staff just don't want to make some of these changes, and they've got some good reasons, too, if you want to go look at previous threads.

[Riya OniSenshi]

[SMuz]

I either play a whole lot or don't play at all.

If I don't have a whole chunk of time to dedicate to Armageddon then I don't really see the point in playing, chances are that you won't be affecting anything or anyone if you don't have a whole lot of time for the game, and not many will be interested in getting to know you or trying to form some sort of relationship if they only see you in the tavern once a week for 10 minutes or so.

Playing a solo ranger for an hour or two a week? Eesh, what's the point? I'll just go and play Diablo 3 or something...

Yeah, that's the reason I brought up the thread. For some people, it's either too much Arm or no Arm at all.

You don't get the same level of roleplay in Diablo. I've had a lot of fun situations, even if it's just a light tavern conversation going on for a RL hour, or some "If you kill me, I'll kill you back" arguments in the 'rinth. People will still be interested in getting to know you. You can make very close friends. Maybe not monogamous romantic relationships (though dealing with limited contact romances would be fun roleplay). But you've got to realize that most of your best friends will probably be dead.

And I'm not sure how other people's patterns go, but for myself, I'd be playing 1-2 hours a day sometimes, then drop off to 1 hour a week or 1 hour a month, and then back to 20 hours a weekend. So, there are times when I would be active, when those skills actually come into use. But the point is that you just have to choose a role that you can actually play with 1-2 hours a day. It cuts out things like non-ranger grebbers and corrupt roles.

But hey, it's not like solo rangers are free from roleplay. You can be a solo raider - which is more suited for casual players rather than impatient ambitious ones. You can be a professional grebber or scout, stay in contact with some people. Or you can just peddle the stuff inside the city. Either way, there's plenty of roleplay.

Starving and all the shops are closed? Beg.

Uh, no. Your other points were debatable, but shop opening times are an OOC barrier. Most characters will be on the whole day. I can't buy the thingies needed for crafting right now because shops are closed, but my char would be able to buy it at dawn. So, he should be able to have it in possession despite the OOC barriers.

Though kinda agreed that these barriers do add some roleplay situations to work with.

[hatchets]

I can go both way on this subject. I have recently inherited responsibilities (sisters got heart trouble, I watch her two and 3 year old most of the time) So I can relate to those that have responsibilities and cannot play dedicatedly. I also enjoy the roleplay setting that the game offers with the time restraints. I also hate said time restraints when duty calls and I am sitting outside the city gate before dawn.

In every mud I have ever played, quitting out anywhere was always a possibility and these muds did not even have real death, just some minor punishment (loss of xp or some such). For the numerous folks whom have responsibilities, I would very much like to see folks be able to quit out anywhere. Ifn' its a problem with coding each room to be a 'quit' room, have them teleport to some void quit room, or to the gaj sleep room (or northern common sleep room area, never been north dunno nothing about it), or what have you, and they awake there when they return. It may seem a bit unrealistic, and yes, as anyone can imagine, it does seem to have a chance to be abused, perhaps charge characters a fee (still would be a bit like punishment for real responsibilities, but 100 coins over possible death seems a fair trade). And I am sure there are enough player police to help keep an eye on someone abusing said system, could even make it a forced, hour time wait before you can relog back on (or whatever the exact time is for 1 IC day to pass so it would prevent folks from abusing it just to get inside the gates real fast). Theres still the coded system that you cannot log out immediately after conflict, so it couldn't be used to escape imminent death.

As for shop times, I cannot imagine changing them or making special cases for anyone, sorry folks but night does not take that long (although it does seem like it when you are waiting)

There will always be draw backs for players whom play casually, but risking death cause they thought they might have enough time to go travelling on a dangerous mission or adventure and having to just 'stand around idly' really is to extreme and will cause players whom find themself with responsibilities to not play in ARM, and I would rather see someone for thirty mins a week, then never. Adds a bit of change just them showing up. That is my two bits.

On a lighter note, with the game the way it is currently, I would suggest, those players whom are casual players, take a few minor precautions, like... travel with someone you trust. Perhaps even set up triggers to respond to them (not sure how badly that is viewed in Arm, but haven't seen any rules on it, long as its not for skill powering) Something like... so and so whispers to you, hey follow me. (follow so and so) so and so says to you Hey maybe you should rest. (rest) (rest rest (if you have a mount) So they can attempt to take you back to town, and perhaps even in a room you can 'quit' out in in which So and so says Gawd you look like the dead, get some sleep. so you 'quit' Can come up with a million different phrases to match. I am not a huge fan of using triggers, but sometimes ya gotta do whatcha gotta do.

[A Large Bag]

Totally against allowing anyone to quit out anywhere as there are plenty of places to quit out and you can plan to deal with it decently for the most part.  Rather than doing this I could possibly see a subguild that can do it, maybe an extended subguild. (Maybe the subguild version of ranger quit would have a longer "just got out of combat delay" and a bit of a delay once the command is entered before you are logged out.) Also, if you really need I believe staff will force log you out in an emergency if you wish up, I could be mistaken though.

I do agree with coding Allanak and Red Storm's gates to work like Tuluk's and doing away with shop closures. I would rather see, instead of shop closures, a shift change where different npcs come in and relieve the shopkeepers and guards for the night shift. When you only have so much time to play and you logged out with things on your character you needed to trade because you had to go, then log in wanting to trade them but happen to have hit time when the shops are closed, it's a real pain in the ass OOC. You may have to log out before they open again, hoping the next time you have a chance to play, you will catch them open. It kind of sticks you in limbo.

[FantasyWriter]

Just make the outside gate rooms quit-safe.

[Barsook]

Just make the outside gate rooms quit-safe.

[jstorrie]

Oh, I think that's an excellent idea!

[Dar]

As someone who is too very constrained by time, I am completely against making it possible to quit out in the wilderness for everyone. Unless it's set up with some truly truly significant hoops.

Separation of labor and abilities does tend to facilitate roleplay. A merchant who cant go out into the wilderness "needs" a ranger to bring in supplies. A warrior "is" a walking machine of doom, but he is not going to survive very easily in the wilderness. Granted, with changes of direction sense and new extended subguilds, this is becoming less and less so. And makes me a real sad panda about it.

I am of opinion that if you cant handle some of the time requirements the game places on you. Be that leadership roles, wilderness trips, etc. It is your responsibility to be mindful of the game and others who may depend on you, and not get into such positions and situations. I've had plenty of situations where I ended up in such situations and felt super guilty about letting other people down.

[SpyGuy]

Just make the outside gate rooms quit-safe.

I like this idea a lot more than keeping the gates open all night.