A reasoned discussion of the current state of Armageddon vis-a-vis Olden Times

[manonfire]

Is it really that complicated?

If a player wants to plant a tree somewhere and sends in logs of them doing so, add a damn tree. Or a sapling. Or something.

If, as a staffer, you decide the soil is too acidic for that tree to grow properly, modify the description to reflect that. Kill their tree.

If, as a staffer, you decide some unruly mob decides they really, reeeeeeally hate this exotic tree that's popped up, send in an unruly mob and destroy it. Hell, animate an NPC and try to galvanize some of the vapid tavernsitters in the Gaj to tag along.

If, as a staffer, you decide that some templar was having a shitty day because of an unpleasant sexual experience the previous night and decides to burninate that tree, burn the shit out of it.

If, as a staffer, you decide that a Nilazi influence causes the tree to become sentient, sprout teeth, and attack the PC and scream for their blood, have at it.

Do something cool, you know?

[wizturbo]

When I see "if you try this, you might end up with the templarate coming down on your ass because reason #1, reason #2, and then this or that might happen" - that's when I get annoyed. Why? Because it looks like the staff is playing Armageddon in my e-mail instead of in the game. I'd rather find all this stuff out in game. And by that, I mean - I would really like to find out IC. I don't want it to be a mystery. I want to succeed in learning, through roleplay, why something will fail. I'm fine with the failure. And I'm fine with knowing why it failed. I just really want to find out through the course of play, and not via the request tool.

To be fair, it greatly increases the amount of work to respond to a request by having to create the situation in-game every time.  They have to catch you online, which might not always be easy.  Then they have to animate an NPC, or perform a series of echoes, and hope you the player understand what's going on.  What could take a few minutes to resolve via the request tool, could take an hour or more in-game.  Sure the in-game one is more fun, but if all requests were handled in-game, the queue for responses could be weeks long.

[Desertman]

When I see "if you try this, you might end up with the templarate coming down on your ass because reason #1, reason #2, and then this or that might happen" - that's when I get annoyed. Why? Because it looks like the staff is playing Armageddon in my e-mail instead of in the game. I'd rather find all this stuff out in game. And by that, I mean - I would really like to find out IC. I don't want it to be a mystery. I want to succeed in learning, through roleplay, why something will fail. I'm fine with the failure. And I'm fine with knowing why it failed. I just really want to find out through the course of play, and not via the request tool.

To be fair, it greatly increases the amount of work to respond to a request by having to create the situation in-game every time.  They have to catch you online, which might not always be easy.  Then they have to animate an NPC, or perform a series of echoes, and hope you the player understand what's going on.  What could take a few minutes to resolve via the request tool, could take an hour or more in-game.  Sure the in-game one is more fun, but if all requests were handled in-game, the queue for responses could be weeks long.

Yeah I was going to post this as well. Staff has to strike a balance due to manpower...which there really isn't an easy solution for.

It's a hard situation for sure for everyone on that front.

My solution was to give Storytellers more power, but apparently that isn't the problem...so I'm out of ideas there. Meh.

[Nergal]

For the third time, all of the above (in manonfire's post) is absolutely possible in the context of staff response to player efforts. I'm not going to keep repeating myself. I already know what my staffing style is. I am in charge of three clans and they all have plots that I support and monitor in the "keep us updated" style. I try to let players be as autonomous as possible. I think other staff operate the same way. I'm not posting here to validate staff shutting down plots from the get-go. I'm just here to get my own point across and attempt to explain why the message has changed over the years. Players got disappointed at staff for being less transparent and more bureaucratic. As a response, staff tried to be more upfront and honest. Now the pendulum is swinging the other way. Hopefully we will find a happy balance.

[Malken]

When I see "if you try this, you might end up with the templarate coming down on your ass because reason #1, reason #2, and then this or that might happen" - that's when I get annoyed. Why? Because it looks like the staff is playing Armageddon in my e-mail instead of in the game. I'd rather find all this stuff out in game. And by that, I mean - I would really like to find out IC. I don't want it to be a mystery. I want to succeed in learning, through roleplay, why something will fail. I'm fine with the failure. And I'm fine with knowing why it failed. I just really want to find out through the course of play, and not via the request tool.

To be fair, it greatly increases the amount of work to respond to a request by having to create the situation in-game every time.  They have to catch you online, which might not always be easy.  Then they have to animate an NPC, or perform a series of echoes, and hope you the player understand what's going on.  What could take a few minutes to resolve via the request tool, could take an hour or more in-game.  Sure the in-game one is more fun, but if all requests were handled in-game, the queue for responses could be weeks long.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand we're going back to my original post that started this whole thread, that Armageddon is now less of a "game" for many and more of a red-tape labyrinth that would put France's bureaucracy to shame.

manonfire asks if it's that complicated to just add a tree to the gameworld? Considering that just adding a simple keyword to a mob in game was a "team effort process", I'm going to say that yes, yes it is. - Please do prove me wrong

What I imagine Armageddon to be like these days is that a simple Storyteller isn't allowed to just go and add a small tree to the gameworld. They probably have to write a proposal on the Staff board and then have it talked about between other Staff members, and then if the proposal of adding a tree is accepted and signed on by Nyr, Adhira or Nessalin, then the Storyteller has the a-OK of adding that little tree to the gameworld, but first he has to write a report about it, about why that tree is there, who asked for it, it's description, it's purpose in the world and where that Staff sees the future of that tree in game.

Man, if it's anything like that, no wonder they don't want to add simple stuff to the game anymore and they are picky about their projects.

I hope it's not even close to what I just described...

(Sorry Nergal, just read your post after I wrote mine - Honesty from Staff is much appreciated)

[Nergal]

Adding the drov keyword to the beetle took merely a few minutes of discussion and a few seconds in-game to set the keyword. Overblowing it as a team effort process is an exaggeration. Yes, we discussed it as a team, but only to ensure that drov beetle was part of the PC vernacular for a while.

[Desertman]

Well now I'm curious because I get curious. 

Let's say a player wanted to "Dig a hole in the desert and fill it with snakes he captures.". (completely randomly picked idea)

The only thing he needs from staff is for them to read the log of him using his shovel to dig his hole over a few days. He can do the rest. (Subdue/knock out snakes and leave them in the hole. He needs no help here. The only staff involvement is adding the hole.)

What would be the process from the Storyteller standpoint on getting that approved/put in the game?

I'm just curious how the process would work for something basic and simple like that.

[nauta]

Sorry, this kept bothering me.

Eyeball's claim was that:

(a) "I've heard, for example, of a Vivaduan who couldn't get approval to plant a seedling agafari in an empty pot in the Vivaduan plaza [recently]."

which sounds the same as:

(b) "I've heard, for example, of a Vivaduan who couldn't get approval to plant a pymlithe tree in an empty pot in the Vivaduan plaza [recently]."

The bit that you appended to (b) about the riots and whatnot to make it look like he was getting it all wrong and being way off base actually could be appended to (a) as well.

I suppose you could fight the merits of agafari vs. pymlithe in the rarities department, but, yeah - (a) and (b) are prrrrretty similar.

Anyway, I've always been fine with the decision itself -- I guess I'm just pointing out that you were being a bit unfair there to Eyeball.

Maybe I'm not grokking this correctly but I'm confused by what you wrote. I'm not sure in what way you think I was being unfair.

Sorry, it was a simple point about the 'telephone' comment you made.  Basically, you said something like: and this is what happens when players play telephone, they misrepresent the facts terribly.  But, really, he got all the facts right (except the kind of tree) he just didn't know what the staff response was or would be (he didn't know - or was playing coy - that there had been a riot, etc. etc.).  I can explain privately if you want.

[Nergal]

Desertman,
- A storyteller would write the room for the hole.
- They would submit a Room Approval request to the Admin of their team. The request is to let the Admin know that a room needs to be checked over for things like: spelling errors, missing features (if the storyteller forgot to put an up exit in the room, for example). This doesn't take long for an Admin to handle. It's not red tape, it's just basic quality control.
- The storyteller would let the player RP digging the hole, then link the room into the game and let the player know it's there, maybe with an echo.

[Desertman]

Desertman,
- A storyteller would write the room for the hole.
- They would submit a Room Approval request to the Admin of their team. The request is to let the Admin know that a room needs to be checked over for things like: spelling errors, missing features (if the storyteller forgot to put an up exit in the room, for example). This doesn't take long for an Admin to handle. It's not red tape, it's just basic quality control.
- The storyteller would let the player RP digging the hole, then link the room into the game and let the player know it's there, maybe with an echo.

That is much simpler than the horror-story my mind had put together. Thank you. 

[Rathustra]

When I see "if you try this, you might end up with the templarate coming down on your ass because reason #1, reason #2, and then this or that might happen" - that's when I get annoyed. Why? Because it looks like the staff is playing Armageddon in my e-mail instead of in the game. I'd rather find all this stuff out in game. And by that, I mean - I would really like to find out IC. I don't want it to be a mystery. I want to succeed in learning, through roleplay, why something will fail. I'm fine with the failure. And I'm fine with knowing why it failed. I just really want to find out through the course of play, and not via the request tool.

To be fair, it greatly increases the amount of work to respond to a request by having to create the situation in-game every time.  They have to catch you online, which might not always be easy.  Then they have to animate an NPC, or perform a series of echoes, and hope you the player understand what's going on.  What could take a few minutes to resolve via the request tool, could take an hour or more in-game.  Sure the in-game one is more fun, but if all requests were handled in-game, the queue for responses could be weeks long.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand we're going back to my original post that started this whole thread, that Armageddon is now less of a "game" for many and more of a red-tape labyrinth that would put France's bureaucracy to shame.

manonfire asks if it's that complicated to just add a tree to the gameworld? Considering that just adding a simple keyword to a mob in game was a "team effort process", I'm going to say that yes, yes it is. - Please do prove me wrong

What I imagine Armageddon to be like these days is that a simple Storyteller isn't allowed to just go and add a small tree to the gameworld. They probably have to write a proposal on the Staff board and then have it talked about between other Staff members, and then if the proposal of adding a tree is accepted and signed on by Nyr, Adhira or Nessalin, then the Storyteller has the a-OK of adding that little tree to the gameworld, but first he has to write a report about it, about why that tree is there, who asked for it, it's description, it's purpose in the world and where that Staff sees the future of that tree in game.

Man, if it's anything like that, no wonder they don't want to add simple stuff to the game anymore and they are picky about their projects.

I hope it's not even close to what I just described...

(Sorry Nergal, just read your post after I wrote mine - Honesty from Staff is much appreciated)

You're pretty close up until the final part. We would have written the stuff about what it is, where it is, its history, etc. beforehand to make the proposal. Of course we wouldn't do this for a plant (but I wouldn't really do a plant at all - if the bar is so low for this sort of thing the game'd end up with 60 player's worth of stuff accumulating over time). Larger additions to the game make footprints of proposals and discussions that can be referred back to, so in X years time when someone asks about it or wants to use it for something else, we know what the deal with it is.

I wouldn't have it any other way. Comparisons to P&P RPGs don't really stand as not many RPG campaigns have what, 100+ unique log-ins per month, plus Armageddon isn't a heroic fantasy game revolving around simulating a world for 5 people. Vive la bureaucratie!

[Malken]

Those are reasonable steps, Rathustra and Nergal

I don't have anything else to add.

[Desertman]

Now everyone knows when they get "thrown in the snake hole", who is responsible.

I'm coming for you...coming to put you in my snake hole.

[Rathustra]

Those are reasonable steps, Rathustra and Nergal

I don't have anything else to add.

I sort of referred to something in one of my previous posts but one of the weirdest encounters I had on staff was following around some far-ranging PCs in a fairly rarely-visited part of the world, beyond the Known. We and the PCs came across a strange monument in the sands and, after working for a while with the tools we have for determining what things are I realized I had as much understanding of what the structure was about as the players.

In a way that is a cool experience - to play a game with so much history that deep down, buried in the strata of progressive eras of 'doing things a certain way' we can unearth nameless relics. But in another way, as a person who plays games like Arm to explore and discover - it was infuriating! The knowledge was lost forever and couldn't ever be used.

[Malken]

Now everyone knows when they get "thrown in the snake hole", who is responsible.

I'm coming for you...coming to put you in my snake hole.

When I played my Seik, I would go and knock out those three gortoks by the span then I would subdue them one at a time, drag them to that pit near the Seik camp and toss them into the hole (rinse and repeat a bazillion time) in the hope that someone, someday (and if the game didn't crash) would fall into the pit and end up facing 1000 angry and hungry gortoks.

To think that with just a simple report I could have made this pit o' doom permanent!

[wizturbo]

To think that with just a simple report I could have made this pit o' doom permanent!

A permanent hole in the ground with the bones of gortok's who starved to death?

[whitt]

Let's say a player wanted to "Dig a hole in the desert and fill it with snakes he captures.". (completely randomly picked idea)

The only thing he needs from staff is for them to read the log of him using his shovel to dig his hole over a few days. He can do the rest. (Subdue/knock out snakes and leave them in the hole. He needs no help here. The only staff involvement is adding the hole.)

What would be the process from the Storyteller standpoint on getting that approved/put in the game?

I'm just curious how the process would work for something basic and simple like that.

Well, I'll brainstorm, because I like brain-storming.

Basic and simple this... is not.  

Why?  What this would really be is a request for any player to be able to add a room by sending in a log of them digging in the sand.  As described that room is a "A hole in the sand" in this case, but could be a clay-walled hut or whatever just as easily so every player with a shovel and a dream can now add rooms whenever they want.  

But if that is true, whenever encountered, every other player should be able to fill in that hole making the room go away, but... how do we decide who is filling/digging the hole faster?  

If a sandstorm blows by does it (realistically) fill the hole right back in?  Who watches the weather to know if that happened?

How do we know the same staff member will handle both the digger and the filler's requests instead of each receiving reports that read "Hey I thought I dug/filled that hole!" why is/isn't it still there?  So staffer goes and adds/removes the room... again.  Oh... and rooms go in zones.  There's (maybe?) a limit to how many rooms can be in a zone.  What's the weather like down there.    

What if I dig a hole in the bottom of your hole?  Then dig a hole in the wall at the bottom my hole under your hole... logs and all... but dig it on the eastern side of the hole so it's more of a niche than a hole...

What happens to the snakes on a crash/reset?  The hole isn't likely to be added as a save room.  Now there's requests for what happened to all the snakes I piled into my hole?

Unless there is a immovable "hole" container that can easily be added to an area to hold things... but... creatures don't go into containers.  So you need a new container item called a hole that can hold... how many snakes?  And what happens when someone wants to fill the hole?  Junk the container?

Or... this player can just drop something with a desc of "a dusty shovel has been jabbed into the sand next to a hole full of snakes" and come back and junk their snakes with an emote of adding it to the hole.

Now imagine how many players, if this was a real feature would just wander about digging holes just because.  And realize this is not simple or easy to manage.

ETA: Nergal is much quicker at responding.. cheater knowing what actually happens...

[AdamBlue]

To think that with just a simple report I could have made this pit o' doom permanent!

A permanent hole in the ground with the bones of gortok's who starved to death?

The gortoks bred themselves out of the hole on the bodies and bones of their children.

[BadSkeelz]

Sounds to me that players need to grow some fucking balls and stop taking every reasonable explanation of why "Your plot might face opposition from the gameworld" as "Your plot WILL fail because Staff hate your fun!"

Your plot will probably fail. Most plots do. So stop worrying about the end result and instead focus on the steps taken to get there.

The problem isn't with staff shutting down plots. The problems with pussy players thinking every IC obstacle is an OOC denial.

[Alesan]

Sounds to me that players need to grow some fucking balls and stop taking every reasonable explanation of why "Your plot might face opposition from the gameworld" as "Your plot WILL fail because Staff hate your fun!"

Your plot will probably fail. Most plots do. So stop worrying about the end result and instead focus on the steps taken to get there.

The problem isn't with staff shutting down plots. The problems with pussy players thinking every IC obstacle is an OOC denial.

I'm sorry we're not all as hardass as you, man. You are the pinnacle of badassery. How can we even compare?

[BadSkeelz]

Stop worrying about Staff and just play the game. If you're playing in a confident, reasoned manner that takes the game world in to account and is respectful of the docs, you may find that favorable Staff attention will come to you. And even if it doesn't, that shouldn't be the metric on which you judge whether the game is fun or not. You should be playing and roleplaying with other players.

Also, stop actively trying to impart permanent change in the game.

The fact is that I'm not a hardass and tend to play fairly inoffensive characters. But reading 15 pages of people trying to justify why the game sucks in their own head, it's easy for me to understand why so much of our vaunted "Murder, Corruption, and Betrayal" is due to high school level pettiness and insecurity.

[Iiyola]

Stop worrying about Staff and just play the game. If you're playing in a confident, reasoned manner that takes the game world in to account and is respectful of the docs, you may find that favorable Staff attention will come to you. And even if it doesn't, that shouldn't be the metric on which you judge whether the game is fun or not. You should be playing and roleplaying with other players.

Also, stop actively trying to impart permanent change in the game.

The fact is that I'm not a hardass and tend to play fairly inoffensive characters. But reading 15 pages of people trying to justify why the game sucks in their own head, it's easy for me to understand why so much of our vaunted "Murder, Corruption, and Betrayal" is due to high school level pettiness and insecurity.

This.

[Eyeball]

You're pretty close up until the final part. We would have written the stuff about what it is, where it is, its history, etc. beforehand to make the proposal. Of course we wouldn't do this for a plant (but I wouldn't really do a plant at all - if the bar is so low for this sort of thing the game'd end up with 60 player's worth of stuff accumulating over time). Larger additions to the game make footprints of proposals and discussions that can be referred back to, so in X years time when someone asks about it or wants to use it for something else, we know what the deal with it is.

I wouldn't have it any other way. Comparisons to P&P RPGs don't really stand as not many RPG campaigns have what, 100+ unique log-ins per month, plus Armageddon isn't a heroic fantasy game revolving around simulating a world for 5 people. Vive la bureaucratie!

I think we're reaching the core of the issue here.

My interpretation of the response to nauta's request is that she could have endlessly emoted planting the seedling and caring for it, even setting out arranged seedling objects if such things exist in the world, yet each reboot there would be an empty pot. This response about not doing a plant at all just reinforces that.

Here is what I suggest:

1. Give the Storytellers the discretion to handle the little things (like minor modifications to room descriptions). They don't need to be documented in the game history, unlike a post-magick statue in the middle of nowhere.

2. The bar can be low where the effort required is low. How long does it take to modify a room description? Two minutes?

3. The Storytellers don't have to respond to every last request, just enough of them to give people that feeling that the world can change from their efforts and that anything can happen again. And something as simple as a little tree can be immensely satisfying to a player.

4. So that one player doesn't hog a disproportionate amount of the requests, note in that person's pinfo that some effort was made upon his/her behalf at such a time. If that person's been keeping staff busy, just reply "ask again in six months" or so.

[wizturbo]

+1 to bad BadSkeelz said...

And god I wish we didn't use this arcane GDB for these discussions.  Reddit would be SO, SO much better.  Stupid comments some people like to make would be downvoted into oblivion, and the comments people care about would rise to the top... Just this alone would be an enormous impact on the quality of the discussion.  People wouldn't feel like they have to explain why so and so is wrong, they just click downvote, and their comments would be marginalized to where they should be and ignored, or upvoted to show they're supported.

Fuck, I feel like I'd post probably 50% less than I do today if I just had a god damn up vote or down vote arrow to click on what other people have already said.

Can the GDB be added to the vis-a-vis Olden Times, and we move on to more advanced methods pls?

[Eyeball]

Stop worrying about Staff and just play the game. If you're playing in a confident, reasoned manner that takes the game world in to account and is respectful of the docs, you may find that favorable Staff attention will come to you. And even if it doesn't, that shouldn't be the metric on which you judge whether the game is fun or not. You should be playing and roleplaying with other players.

Also, stop actively trying to impart permanent change in the game.

The fact is that I'm not a hardass and tend to play fairly inoffensive characters. But reading 15 pages of people trying to justify why the game sucks in their own head, it's easy for me to understand why so much of our vaunted "Murder, Corruption, and Betrayal" is due to high school level pettiness and insecurity.

You're describing what makes you happy in the game. I hope you realize that not every player has similar affinities. Also, you're a relatively young player in game terms (you've been here four years?) and there's lots that's still new to you. You never got to experience the game as it was before the Arm 2.0 annoucement.