Things you hate viciously- Metagamers.

[AdamBlue]

Now, now, before you think about deleting this, I'm not talking about other players or playstyles. I'm talking quirks or generally shitty things that nobody likes.
For example, let's say you get into a fight with someone who is absolutely terrible. They can't fight, but they do this.

The tiny, snaggle-toothed newbie punches you in the face, sending you collapsing to the ground and dead, saying "I win motherfcuker........"

That's right, people. Metaposing. Godmoding.
THE WORST THING EVER INVENTED IN ANY TEXT BASED GAME HOLY SHIT I HATE IT.

Do any of you have any bad experiences with this? Thankfully, I haven't noticed ANY of this on Armageddon, but I was reading through some old logs in an older game and holy -shit-, the stuff some people have done.

Such examples go from, some done to other people, some done to me.

Taking someone to a special area, totally unbound, and using a coded 'execute' command to simply kill them using the Vnpcs in the area instantly, like the person was up for trial, with no roleplay.

A person, as previously stated, 'metawinning' a fight. (though, this is easily solved and rather harmless if you simply just beat the shit out of them if they try this) [BONUS POINTS IF THEY COMPLAIN THAT THEY WON THE FIGHT AND THAT YOU LOST AND THAT BECAUSE THEY WON THAT YOU CAN'T DO THAT AND THAT ISN'T FAIR]

Anyway, I'm glad you bunch are all a responsible, amazing lot and I haven't seen a trace of this bullshit anywhere.  Just hope that some of you share my pain.

[Kryos]

Er . . . this seems to come out of nowhere, but I suppose I'll try and respond.

1) There's a phraseology for this, 'power-emoting', which has been around since the dawn of MUDS.  Typically when you inflict an action on another through the use of an emote that your PC does not have the power to do.  Could be putting someone in a finger lock while role playing an armless man or much more . . . creative applications.

2) Power-emoting isn't acceptable.  If this has occurred at some point, or recently, in game for you its the prefect situation to use the character complaint tool.  This tool will help staff investigate the situation, and if need be help inform the parties involved about what is expected / acceptable.

3) Any text based game where a number of actions or intentions are conveyed in a free from style such as emoting opens the door for abusive behavior.  Armageddon has a iron-clad rule however that code wins.  

4) The exchange of emotes requires a certain level of trust between parties involved.  Display your trustworthiness and typically, you'll get improved interactions/output from others.

5) If you read in a log that someone 'power-emoted', mayhaps you should consider the parties involved.  There are/were certain people in Zalanthas who can achieve or do amazing things.  It might not have actually been a power-emote in context.  Then again, I did see one particular action that I didn't agree with in a log once.  Bu 1/somelargenumber is pretty darn good.

Last but not least, I suggest a deep inhale, exhale, and then an attempt to relax.  The post reads like you just binged on a 6-pack of 4 loco.  

[jstorrie]

As always: if you have a complaint about another player, file it through the request tool so that staff can investigate. Do not air your grievances on the GDB. We don't care.

[armandhammer]

Thank goodness you both clearly read his post, in which he clearly refers to a specific incidence, and even broadcasts his PC's location, guild and favorite spice, to boot! 

I think what jstorrie means to say, Adam.. is that we do care. We just don't always know it at first.

To respond constructively, I'll say the worst instances of this I've seen in Armageddon occurred during those silly coded bar fights. But luckily, even those are backed up by 'code' that tells you who the better man/woman/elf is.

Other metawhatever I hate: When a PC knows something (you THINK .. and this is key) they shouldn't, and when a PC sees your PC do something sneaky, though still discreet, and has a fit about it.

More often than not it's best to give benefit of the doubt. If you can't deal, then file a complaint.

Best of luck.

[jstorrie]

In my decade of playing this game I have never, not once, seen one of these posts come up without it being a back-handed complaint about some specific incident.

Power-emoting is not acceptable and widely-frowned upon by the playerbase here. I do not consider it to be a significant problem in Armageddon. If you've encountered it in-game file a complaint about it. If you haven't encountered it in-game, don't bother complaining about something that doesn't exist.

[Kieandatu]

Do any of you have any bad experiences with this? Thankfully, I haven't noticed ANY of this on Armageddon, but I was reading through some old logs in an older game and holy -shit-, the stuff some people have done.

Since this is the part it seems people are skipping over, I just thought to reiterate it.

As for my thoughts:


In Arm, I definitely don't see this as often as I'd think I would with how many new players we get. Personally, I even have trouble accepted "The tressy-tressed female touches your shoulder." because I want a damn Bruce Lee skillcheck to see if I take that girl DOWN. In fact, I think the one time I can remember where someone emoted landing hits during a spar, even though every attack was a miss or a parry, I felt pretty good when they didn't do it again.

I've been playing MUDs since middle school (my god) but none of them were really big on the RP focus. EmeraldMUD, Devil's Silence, Dead of Night, Ancient Anguish. They all had potential, but never did someone come to me, emote stabbing my face, and walk away. Perhaps it was just luck?

[Lithium]

In Arm, I definitely don't see this as often as I'd think I would with how many new players we get. Personally, I even have trouble accepted "The tressy-tressed female touches your shoulder." because I want a damn Bruce Lee skillcheck to see if I take that girl DOWN. In fact, I think the one time I can remember where someone emoted landing hits during a spar, even though every attack was a miss or a parry, I felt pretty good when they didn't do it again.

I don't have a problem with touches at all. If the anti power-emoters had their way NOBODY would touch anybody ever. Some people are more touchy-feely than others. If someone's "touching you" "power emote" really bothers you, you can counter-emote or bring code into it to repel their friendly advances. Otherwise, I think this thread will serve no positive purpose whatsoever.

[IntuitiveApathy]

To respond constructively, I'll say the worst instances of this I've seen in Armageddon occurred during those silly coded bar fights. But luckily, even those are backed up by 'code' that tells you who the better man/woman/elf is.

Just thought I'd say that I've been in my fair share of bar fights, and seen plenty more, and I've never seen someone do something out of hand in a barfight.  It was a great addition to the game to introduce the barfight code, which definitely helps give people guidelines for these, and overall people have played these out wonderfully.

[warforged32]

...
Last but not least, I suggest a deep inhale, exhale, and then an attempt to relax.  The post reads like you just binged on a 6-pack of 4 loco.  

Lol, that stuff is delicious, but not to be taken lightly...
and yes, rage-posts typically do sound like that
Not sure if this quite comes off as a rage-post though.


If this has not actually occurred to you in the game, I don't understand what the purpose of this thread is. :/

[FantasyWriter]

I've OOCd for power emoting consent with a PC before with a very submissive long-time minion.
It was never anything abusive or that would otherwise require OOC consent.

[Lizzie]

One of the reasons I don't like the MUSH environment, is the power-emoting. In a MUSH, it's not power emoting, it's semi-cooperative storytelling where each person gets a turn writing a few paragraphs of something or other. I don't like that at all. Example:

Sue walks into the room and lazily gazes at the crowd. "Hm, I don't see Andy here." She wonders where Andy is, and checks her pocketbook, looking for a piece of gum. Not finding it, she heads up to the bar. "Just a stick of Spearmint," and the bartender hands her a pack and takes her money. She sits at a table chewing a few minutes, thinking about her life and how she got to this point of misery. No one notices her as she gets up and slinks back out of the building.


I've actually seen a very few people attempt to do this -style- of posing in Arm, but they either catch on to (and comply with) the differences, or they stop playing because Arm's style just isn't their cup of tea - just as the MUSH style isn't mine.

[X-D]

Power emotes are quite rare....unless you are playing a certain race which can do certain things to other races at will with near 100% certainty.

One that is a little less rare is the one I call "you notice" This is when somebody emotes like "The tressy tressed blond frowns as she thinks about the mud on her boots." But this only happens with newbs and they usually learn to not do it very quickly so I never have a fit.

Over all, in my 20 years of play I have found that the playerbase does an awesome job of policing itself on these matters...better then ANY other mud I've ever played or tried to play.

So I consider it a non-problem.

As to the rest of the OP...Eh, no, not really. I have seen some things over the years but in every case I know the player at least got a stern talking to from staff...so, I tend to not even think about it.

Unless you are talking about eyes in the sdesc and for me that is a totally different story....gggrrr.

[The Lonely Hunter]

Thank goodness you both clearly read his post, in which he clearly refers to a specific incidence, and even broadcasts his PC's location, guild and favorite spice, to boot! 

To respond constructively...

Best of luck.

First I would like to state that armandhammer's comment was great. Thanks! I feel this is a valid thread and isn't directed at any one person but blankets a subject.

I agree. I have seen it happen before and it is annoying. People used to use the 'touch' command for some things, like if they were trying to slap a PC and the PC wanted to try and dodge it. In general, Arm players tend to be pretty good about these sorts of things. I've mudded (and worked on muds) for a long time and in numerous different muds and I firmly believe that Arm players are the best of the best.

[Bogre]

I have only very rarely, if ever seen this.

Definitely can't think of examples well into 6 months-1 year.

[Kaineus]

I've been a metagaming piece of shit while playing this game. That's why I'm going to quit playing Armageddon for a while. I feel like I get too involved and have trouble adjusting my biases between characters. I've also stupidly given my AIM info, which has both lead to players harassing me and sharing IG info in an absurd way, as well as instances where I harassed other players and stupidly gave IG info. It's been fun playing, but I don't want to be a shitstain on the game anymore.

I think it's safe to say that Armageddon has the best roleplayers of any mud. Don't metagame, keep Armageddon realistic

[musashi]

That um, wasn't what the OP meant by meta game. 

[MeTekillot]

I've been a metagaming piece of shit while playing this game. That's why I'm going to quit playing Armageddon for a while. I feel like I get too involved and have trouble adjusting my biases between characters. I've also stupidly given my AIM info, which has both lead to players harassing me and sharing IG info in an absurd way, as well as instances where I harassed other players and stupidly gave IG info. It's been fun playing, but I don't want to be a shitstain on the game anymore.

I think it's safe to say that Armageddon has the best roleplayers of any mud. Don't metagame, keep Armageddon realistic

woah

woah
woah

hold on there.

have you tried not communicating ic information outside of ic channels instead of quitting the game and adjusting your ic biases in a way that distances you from the game?

perhaps this is a better alternative than outright quitting.

[valeria]

Totally dropping off of AIM after that one bad incident was the best thing I ever did for my Arm career.

AIM works well as a tool on other muds.  Not so much on Arm.

[Kaineus]

OK, thanks for the input.

[Kebron]

You know, I've never really had a big problem with metagaming on Arm funny enough.

I had an incident on another mud where I had a spectacularly powerful underworld character that became 'legit' and worked for the most powerful character in the game (it'd be like being Tektolnes personal bodyguard/senseshel) Some stuff went down and I was asked to handle a situation, so I did, My 'tektolnes' disapeared from game due to an Real life Car crash for a few months. During that time I had RL stuff come up so I had to go away for a bit too. When I came back, my IC house had been burned and I had been found 'guilty in absentia' of a bunch of crimes (pretty much the worst crimes in that mud) with no trial or anything else and was codedly set wanted on log in. I reached out to the staff and ICly to try and resolve the issue , pretty much "Hey, i was acting on orders ask Tektolnes over here." who when they couldn't reach my boss, said F* you you're going down.
Now I was a considerably powerful character (it'd be like being  a fully branched master warrior/slipknife with everything trained and quite old) So noone wanted to try and take me on 1 on 1. I aggreed to turn myself in to await a legitimate trial since I had been gone OOCly and was trying to arrange an RPT time for my bos to come on and pardon me. So I go to the meeting point, and here comes the person I'm supposed to meet... With 10 guards. Without a single say or emote, I was subdued, drug into a back room, the door was locked AND guarded, and then they all proceeded to attack me with an order all kill, kind of command.
I still managed to kill a couple of them. Which when I e-mailed he staff to ask what the hell that was about, how I could have all of this happen with 0 interaction whatsoever I was told "You killed two of their guards its your own fault." to which I responded "They twink attacked ME" to which staff responded "Yea it sucks, sorry, but people already heard how you died can't res you now!"...
Was probebly the worst bit of twinkery I've ever seen on any mud ever. At least offer some explanation for whats going on, or an emote, or a say, or -any- interaction. Not "We're going to flag you code wanted while you're offline then attack to kill with no roleplay."



This does give me the idea to create a character like the "Mescusy" Guy from euro trip and power-emote my way into peoples personal bubbles all the time as a pick-pocket. Emote Rubbing up against ~BynLieutenant from behind ~ wiggles his eyebrows seductively. Say (pelvic thrusting rhythmically) Very fine weather today! A short lived, yet impressive role.

[AdamBlue]

It was weird when I started this thread and people thought I was directing something towards people on Armageddon- Not at all, people. You guys are all fucking awesome.

I think the worst time I was ever poweremoted or metagamed or whatever you people think...

There was a game where, if you were a certain class, you could create illusions. The best illusionists were obtusely creative, and if you were untrained in detecting it, you couldn't tell an illusion from a real thing.

But on a text based game... Well, there were many instances where they could quite literally copy-paste the 'you have died' message, complete with color, and OOCly mess with you.
What's worse, some could do it -FROM A DISTANCE-. Which means, WHEREVER in the world you are, if they know your name...

Dear god. It was horrible.

Can you imagine you're playing around, and all of a sudden, the mantishead pops up? Out of literally nowhere, and you're staring at your screen for a moment, hands by your sides as you wonder what the fuck happens, then your buddy goes 'emote laughs at you.'

[Synthesis]

Metagaming is not the same thing as power-emoting.

Power-emoting is just stupid.

Metagaming, to quote Wikipedia: "is the use of out-of-game information or resources to affect one's in-game decisions."  It's a super-set including such things as powergaming, use of maps/skill trees/crafting tables, and twinking (which is not the same thing as powergaming, damnit).

Powergaming is the use of your knowledge of skill progression mechanics to extract maximal skill-gain per some denominator unit (usually time, but time isn't always the most important consideration).  Powergaming isn't necessarily a bad thing.  It becomes a bad thing when you start doing out-of-character things in pursuit of skillgain.

Twinking is the use of knowledge of the code to achieve a result that either probably or clearly unintended by the coders, or a result that grossly breaks away from the internal consistency of the gameworld.  I suppose powergaming could be considered a subset of twinking, but twinking would more properly be demonstrated by an example:

Let's say you find this new canned emote called 'squee.'  You go around typing > squee <NPC> and notice that some of them react in amusing ways.  In particular, one NPC giggles and then seems to walk in a random direction.  Using this reaction, you squee at this NPC until it randomly walks into the 'rinth, where you allow it to be assaulted by an aggro NPC that you are unable to kill.  Your squee-buddy dies in the process, but severely wounds the aggro 'rinther, enabling you to eventually kill it, after which you loot both of the corpses.  -That's- twinking.