Player Magnet

[BadSkeelz]

There's definitely room for "shared storytelling" and "exploring" to co-exist. Sometimes I wish there was more of it, with House-sponsored expeditions to rare corners of the Known seeking out valuable resources. It does happen.

Armageddon's wildlife is punishingly unfriendly to the lone-explorer concept, however. Hell, it can be pretty punishing even to well-traveled prepared groups.

[Armaddict]

Miradus:  I think I've interacted with a few of your characters, and they were always fun to be around.  They amused me.  I've got a a -huge- number of characters that died before reaching 3 days of playing time because of the exact reason you stated.  Exploring.  It's dangerous, but also awesome.  20 years of playing this game, and there are still areas I haven't been, or have been few enough times that when I realize I'm hitting that area, my adrenaline actually spikes up just a tad.  Not to combat-against-players levels, but just enough that I have died in this way enough times that I -know- this is dangerous.  If you've been punished for this, then I think you're the first to be such, and I'd disapprove of such a thing.  I'd happily voice my complaint over it.  If it's true, post it over at that-other-place, because punishment for using the only means you have to learn the game is...not exactly conducive to anything.  This has been the system that people learned the game for a long time.  You lose characters doing it, you learn things, and that's that.  I can agree with the sentiment that your characters should act in a way of self-preservation, but expecting newer players to know -what- is in the interest of self preservation is pretty shady.

However.  As said by above posters, unless it was explicitly stated to you, I wouldn't sweat the 48 hour wait period.  While it's uncharacteristic nowadays, it's not particularly terrible, but that's me speaking as an old timer where I sometimes waited a -week- for characters to be approved.  Or I'd wait a week for a response to a special application, only to find out that I needed a change and would have to wait another few days for -that- to get approved, so that I could then apply for the actual character on the chargen and wait another 1-2 days after -that-.

Mostly, I'd say don't get pushed away by some silly sentiment of a staff member.  While I respect staff and what they do, they are still people who can get frustrated or overzealous in their endeavors (and thus slip into making poor judgments), and I plainly disagree with many decisions they make.  I also agree with many.  This different perspective on things is not a crime.  They just happened to want to run the game after a good portion of time playing it, while others don't.  That's the only difference between them and you.

I can say, with certainty, that you'd only enjoy the game more once your explorations were complete and you found new things to explore: the cultures, the interactions between groups, the politics, the economy, the nuances of code.  Exploring rooms is the very basic part of exploration in this game, but it's also the one that leads in the most meaningless-seeming deaths.  You've still got plenty more to contribute here, if you can stick through a bunch of nerds telling you that you're doing it wrong (myself included).

[Dresan]

For a regular character, with no special apps its been routinely less than 12 hours to get approval. Even during times of heavy work loads on the game HRPT, or stress on the game or even when staff had to contact me on concerns about how I described my character's testicular fortitude, it would still take less than 24 hours to resolve and get approved. This has practically been my experience since I started to play the game back when luirs was destroyed by the mantis (11-12 years ago? geez probably longer)


My current character took a little under two days to get approved, so its a recent thing, and not one that targetted to any particular player I believe. It feels long if you really want to get into a new character concept, but sure beats the 6 days I used to have to wait to play a warrior/grebber app with their vast amounts of testicular fortitude described in painstaking detail.

[Miradus]

Thanks for that, Arma, but the issue still stands. As to the wait, I received a specific email from staff stating that the reason for the delay was due to my going through characters at too rapid of a rate.

There were a number of things the staff member could have done besides giving me a 48 hour "timeout". And after you spent 30 hours hitting F5 on your email and wondering what's wrong, yeah, it kind of IS punishment. I don't believe I've ever had to wait more than a few hours (kudos to whomever has to sift through apps for getting it done in a timely fashion so often).

And while I don't really like to air my grievances publicly, here's the deal ... I don't see really any other way for me to do it. Is there an arbitration panel? A court of appeals? There's not even an easy way for me to respond to the request resolution (as to why my app was taking so long) and discuss it.

If my going out into the desert and getting killed frequently (which isn't by any means the sole tally of my deaths) while exploring and mapping is a problem, then it would have been proper to notify me prior to punishment.

The death that I think he's talking about is from me taking a brand new character out of Red Storm and [some things]. I had one particular day where I died 4 times, but most of that was due to nonsense like carru on the road north of Luir's and me not being able to get away fast enough. I know deliberately committing suicide is against the rules but taking a new character into a new place is not the same thing as suicide.

I'm not interested in going over to the other forum to complain about this. I'll air the complaint here or not at all. This mud is not explorer-friendly. I don't particularly CARE if I die because I'm having fun either way, but if a staff member thinks it is a problem that I'm dying this frequently then it's always going to be a problem and there's not really much future here for me. (And now that I've complained in public, there definitely isn't a future here for me.)

Anyway, that's the deal. Look, y'all have a game you enjoy. I'm not asking that you change the game to suit me or that you dedicate special resources to keep me entertained. I had found a way to enjoy your game within the coded constraints of your game. I would not enjoy playing your game as simply a glorified chat room with occasional combat.

[Edited out exploration detail that are best found out by doing it yourself.  - val]

[BadSkeelz]

If you feel you've been wronged, file a Staff complaint. There is a hierarchy to Staff, as well as multiple members at each position. So review is possible, as well as conversation.

[seidhr]

A game-related request is the proper avenue if Miradus would like to raise the issue for further review.  A staff-complaint request is also an option.

Miradus, we used to talk about these sort of between-the-player-and-the-staff things in the open air on the GDB sometimes, but we don't any longer, because almost always gets ugly and nobody needs their dirty laundry aired here.  See above - if you want to talk about it, send in another request.

Others, please stop conjecturing about what may or may not have happened in his particular case.  

[Delirium]

Taking a new character out directly to continue the explorations of the former is definitely wobbling around on the IC/OOC line.

I understand the desire to explore, but as I explained in an earlier post, there are definitely ways to go about it that, while they require a bit more patience, are less likely to result in a string of multiple dead characters per week. I suggest just sending in a request to clarify with staff.

[Miradus]

No, I'm not interested in filing a complaint into the complaint box. The fact that you didn't open a dialogue initially or before handing down a punishment tells me all I need to know about how that particular process would work out. And even if you decided to go ahead and approve my character then I'd still be left with always worrying about how many deaths is one too many. That sort of arbitrary high-handedness is a game killer.

So signing out. Hope this has been at least somewhat helpful as to know why you're not attracting or keeping explorers who are willing to also roleplay.

[Yam]

I think I'd file a staff complaint if I was told I was dying too much. Staff complaints aren't necessarily just to complain about staff but to also appeal decisions that you think need further review.

The most important thing though is to remain chill. Staff and players don't want to lose Armers over misunderstandings and you probably don't want to stop playing Arm.

[seidhr]

punishment

You're the only one using that word.  Open a request if you want to discuss it.

[Majikal]

Somewhats back on topic, also applies to our boy Miradus here in a way.

What really drew me to this game was the exploration, my roommate played and I watched him do some cool stuff and he told me cool stories and eventually it drew me in. When I started, the unknown was what I fucking LOVED about this game. I played in Tuluk forever and it wasn't until in my second year I think that I saw magick for the first time, I could have sworn I was at the epicenter of the biggest HRPT ever. It blew me away not knowing that there was just a spell X that did Y, but it was new and exciting to see a nilazi be all nilazi-y (that's right, the first time I saw magick was a full blown super nilazi going ham). I started making rangers and d-elves because I wanted to see things. I died. What kept me playing Armageddon was the community, good players, experienced player that took on the mantle of leadership and mentoring ig and showed me the world. This hardly made things safe, but it was so great exploring Zalanthas with players that knew how to make the most exotic parts of Armageddon come alive.

Opening up our world to newer players, be that a tavern brawl, putting an arrow in their back, blowing them to bits with a fireball or leading them on an exciting hunt... it's always about making a story together, the better the story, the stronger our community becomes, the more likely players are to stick around.

[SuchDragonWow]

Well, that was depressing.  Wasn't Miradus a newbie?  This thread fails.  I, too, enjoy exploring.  I had the good fortune of doing it on long-lived characters.  I'm guessing not everyone gets lucky the first time.

[Armaddict]

Having been exposed, I still find the action taken silly, but I do understand why.   In retrospect, when I was doing my whole exploration thing, the fact that I'd have to wait for a new character -did- make it so that I'd rather flee and get away than start over (it should be noted that according to Miradus, he wasn't trying to die, but just didn't know the dangers of different places he was exploring, and he was exploring a lot).  But in today's age, without good, friendly dialogue over it, of course it will feel like punishment.  It -is- punishment.  It's just punishment with an actual lesson in mind, which is kind of the purpose. I think the request tool cuts down on a good amount of dialogue between players and staff, at least in my experience, due to the whole need for the 'request closed!' side of things, and a bit more dialogue prior to the action taken in this case may have worked wonders, as well as the understanding that it's a permadeath mud and some people are risk-takers, and some people are literally being exposed to risks for the first time.  They aren't bar-sitting and getting to know people.  They're getting into the game and moving around and trying to accomplish their own goals right off the bat.  That's...something that could end up with a really awesome player who gets tons of cool IC things done once they know the ins and outs, or it could result in a player who gives no fucks and runs around killing things.  I don't think this case was the latter, so again...dialogue -prior- to the action, actual dialogue, instead of just a ruling...would have been marvelous.  

I wonder if there's some way other explorer-types of the game could get submissions together to allude to cool exploration things while also emphasizing the roleplay side of finding things.  I mentioned it above, that our big selling point was the opportunity to -be the character-, and there's a fair amount of fear/self-preservation involved in that.  So having cool stories of distant places, without giving too much information on it, or something like that?  Tales of hostile lands that lead up to the death of the character?  There's got to be something to be done that is positive reinforcement or even positive punishment rather than negative punishment.  It's been a long time since I was a newbie, but I remember being fascinated by a lot more than just the places I could go, and it kept me from wandering around until boredom set in.  In the case that someone is constantly bored unless exploring, perhaps this the inevitable resting place of that dynamic.

On one hand, I'd really like to be able to retain new players, particularly those whose interactions with other people seem to be awesome.  But if that interaction can't be carried over into development of the character as a whole, and thus the accumulation of knowledge through it, rather than purely the accumulation of knowledge to be used in -later- characters...it's kind of an impasse.  This game isn't for everyone.  That's okay.  Trying to make it for everyone can mess things up more than fixing it.

I feel pretty good about it being discussed in the open, because it's a clear case of good intentions on both parts being misunderstood by the other part, and where communication was the important part, not the action.  God knows how many times I would have left as a newbie if I didn't have Sanvean (and Zagren and other good staffers who sent me emails) guiding me patiently through their understanding of my part, and the explanation of what was expected of me and what should change and what would -be nice- but wasn't absolutely necessary.  Yes, I'm sure it gets old, but after all...it -was- a job that was volunteered for.

[Lizzie]

Sounds to me like one player taking up a lot of staff time over characters they don't even intend to TRY and preserve for a few days. If I had more pressing things to do, I'd give him a time out too. You know carrus kill your characters. So here's a tip - stop running out where carrus are by yourself. Or, go ahead, and chalk it up to you, continuing to do the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

That doesn't mean it's an explorer-unfriendly game. It's a "reasonably intelligent game player" game. If you keep sending your PC out on what you already KNOW are suicide missions, then don't gripe when your characters die. And then don't gripe when the staff gets tired of having to read apps from you several times in the same day and finally tell you to chill out for a couple of days.

Sorry - no empathy here. I don't know of ANY new player who has experienced what you've experienced, to the level that you've experienced it. The game was tougher 20 years ago and managed to do just fine, attracting explorer-type players the entire two decades. So no, it's not explorer-unfriendly. If it were, all those explorer types who've been playing throughout the last 20 years wouldn't have been playing it. That includes me.

[BadSkeelz]

Others, please stop conjecturing about what may or may not have happened in his particular case. 

[Armaddict]

Others, please stop conjecturing about what may or may not have happened in his particular case.  

Mine isn't conjecture anymore.

Edit:  Or, at the very least, I've been given more of both sides of the exchange, but not necessarily all of it.  Just enough to know what transpired and why that ended up pushing someone away.

[BadSkeelz]

On a Player Magnetizing note, I'm going to go back to something Majkal said:

Opening up our world to newer players, be that a tavern brawl, putting an arrow in their back, blowing them to bits with a fireball or leading them on an exciting hunt... it's always about making a story together, the better the story, the stronger our community becomes, the more likely players are to stick around.

I think most of us can agree that one of the strengths and draws of Armageddon is the immersive world and the sense of being a part of it. Engaging newbies in your plots, or even just conversations and daily happenings, is a great way for both engaging them with the world and keeping the world a living, breathing, immersive thing.

Don't be shy about doing things, and engaging other players to help you do them.

[RogueGunslinger]

Thanks for posting your experience Miradus.

[Reiloth]

Thanks for posting your experience assumptions Miradus.

FTFY

[Armaddict]

Toxicity noted.  Irony found in the thread dedicated to attracting people to play.  Disapproval earned.

Hope you come back and give it another go soon, Miradus, or find another game that gives you what you're looking for.

On a Player Magnetizing note, I'm going to go back to something Majkal said:

Opening up our world to newer players, be that a tavern brawl, putting an arrow in their back, blowing them to bits with a fireball or leading them on an exciting hunt... it's always about making a story together, the better the story, the stronger our community becomes, the more likely players are to stick around.

I think most of us can agree that one of the strengths and draws of Armageddon is the immersive world and the sense of being a part of it. Engaging newbies in your plots, or even just conversations and daily happenings, is a great way for both engaging them with the world and keeping the world a living, breathing, immersive thing.

Don't be shy about doing things, and engaging other players to help you do them.

I think there needs to be a way to emphasize that momentous changes and huge world-changing plots are few and far between, and that it really -is- about the little developments and the states between you and other characters that we work on to enjoy the game, rather than focusing on things like 'I want to make a permanent castle for people to visit.'

Edit: My quotes were wonky.

[BadSkeelz]

Thanks for posting your experience assumptions Miradus.

FTFY

Seriously, an attitude doesn't improve anything. Like Yam said, be chill.

[Case]

Players airing their grievances like this is always shitty - even if staff are in the wrong. Always the usual bickering between cliques over it.

Obviously would be solved by better communication on the part of both parties, but when one party refuses to because they feel the other wronged them - and refuses to publicly to try make a point, it goes all petty. Grow up people. If there's miscommunication, fix it like adults.

[RogueGunslinger]

I think it's likely the staff member who got his app was like "Hey, other staff, is this something we need to look at?" And waited for a response from others, which took a couple days. And they responded, "No, seems fine, approved."

I know we should stop conjecturing, but nobody has posted this entirely reasonable scenario.

[Reiloth]

I'm not of the opinion that the game is for everyone. If someone writes a rant about how Staff is out to get them because their character approval took "48 hours" ... Eh. I don't have much sympathy or think that's anything but a big assumption. Sure, I'd be happy with Miradus playing the game. I'd also encourage him to assume less and communicate more.

[Dresan]

I'm not of the opinion that the game is for everyone. If someone writes a rant about how Staff is out to get them because their character approval took "48 hours" ... Eh. I don't have much sympathy or think that's anything but a big assumption. Sure, I'd be happy with Miradus playing the game. I'd also encourage him to assume less and communicate more.

Others, please stop conjecturing about what may or may not have happened in his particular case.