Staff, I want an open dialogue.

[Raptor_Dan]

In Nergal's signature, you can find a link to vote, and, atm, we only need a few more votes to be bumped up to either 8 or 9. Player retention and dwindling numbers, and all that.

[Nergal]

I rarely make input on the GDB but that was quite well put Nergal, thanks for the insights on staff policy and your own opinions. I would like to state many players have taken slight in the past from staff policies and actions, not to drop any names, but would you be willing to address any of their general issues with the game/staff in a public forum (I.E the GDB) as long as it didn't delve into IC territory?

Sure, as long as it doesn't delve into IC territory or a specific player's account or information. Though I will also say that if it doesn't pertain to the current staff team's policies and actions then it's probably not relevant. We can't do anything about old conflicts and grudges, because they're old. What we can do is improve while moving forward.

[solera]

In the discussion thread about the plot lottery, a staff member (I don't remember who) asked players to keep negativity out of the thread and send requests instead. But I can't find that thread now, looks like it's gone. Oh well.

Anyway, thanks for all the detailed responses! I'm glad this turned into a discussion thread after all... see? De-escalation. I did it. 

Just so your statement won't be quoted as Truth,  the thread is still there. But don't unpeel your de-escalation, keep up the good work!

[pirren]

The game is unique. As a totally new player I can say - Armageddon may have RENAISSANCE! I joined after years of play in different muds from Iron Realms.
As for downsides: sometimes online client doesn't work and it makes wrong feeling the servers are down and game doesn't work. That's the reason I joined only now. Before that - when I was checking topmudistes and mudconnecter I thought the game is dead, because of not working online client.
Maybe you need to put warning for new players (somewhere on the page with online client), that if online client doesn't work - it doesn't mean game is not working. Or the best - fix it, so it'd work always.

[sleepyhead]

It's hard for players of this game. We don't really have anyone to talk to and gripe to. Most friends and family don't understand this game and never will. The only people who can really understand are other Arm players, but grievances against staff made on the GDB get met with "take it to the request tool," and grievances over the request tool often end in ways that are frustrating to the one complaining, since the request tool isn't really for venting. I understand that the GDB isn't really for venting, either, and that's okay, but it does cause people to look elsewhere. And that's probably a big part of why jcarter's forum is as salty as it is. A place to vent is one of the great unmet needs of the community, notwithstanding the fact that I'm not convinced the need is very meetable in an official capacity.

Staff have each other to gripe to, but players have to either reach out to other players or keep quiet about it, which is hard when you're angry or frustrated or sad. So I get where people are coming from when they run to jcarter's forum. I do. I would have probably done the same thing fewer years ago than I would like to admit. And during my most recent beef with staff (a beef that is still stewing in a delicious broth of hurt feelings), I reached out to (non-shadowboard) people I shouldn't have reached out to, and that actually lost me friends. Because it isn't all about you and your grievances, I've learned. Other people are affected when you tell stories--people who might take their privacy more seriously than you do. Tailoring them out of the story may not be enough, because people in this community are great at putting two and two together and filling in the missing pieces.

I don't really have an answer for people who need to tell their stories. I guess I just want to say that I feel your pain. I know what it's like to feel like you're being silenced because of the way this community is. But before you go and post all your problems with staff on jcarter's forum, I think you should ask yourself what it's really going to accomplish. Do you truly believe it will improve the community, or will it turn new players off from a game they might have liked because they got a biased picture of what player-staff relations are really like? (And yes, it is going to be a biased picture, because people feel a more urgent need to complain than to give praise, and they certainly don't feel inclined to post when they feel neutrally about a person or interaction.) Is it going to help those staff members or players you feel need improvement, or is it going to further divide players and staff and create distrust?

If you determine that these kinds of posts are damaging to the game, is it worth it to you? Is it worth it if you burn bridges with staff? Isn't it just a game that you should ultimately judge by its fun value rather than making it a moral issue?

Is it better to see the game suffer if it falls short? Is it even better to see it die than go in a direction that you feel is unfun, stifling, or whatever else?

I can't answer any of those questions for anyone, but those are the kinds of questions you should probably ask yourself before you post your latest unfair request log. And it really may be truly unfair, but you have to consider whether or not it's important to post it, or if it'll just feel good. And it does feel good, but validation is a fickle mistress, and it's likely you'll only work yourself up more.

I say all of this as a person whose problems with staff will probably never heal. I have to force myself to play now, even though my character is [deliberately] little more than a glorified NPC that pops in when the clan needs a little flavor. I will probably always have to swallow back a bad taste in my mouth when I go to log in. I have retired my main account forever and have cut myself off from the community. And yet I still don't think it's a good idea to go to jcarter's forum and vent--not that I think I'm better than anyone who does that. I just asked myself the questions above and decided it wasn't worth it. As certain staff like to say, the issue was resolved, albeit in a way I did not like. I have to weigh whether playing is still fun for me, and I have had to come to terms with all of that on my own. The people on jcarter's forum can't help you or me with that. Most likely, they will just rile us up so we feel emboldened to be even more rash to staff or to other players, and burn more bridges we may have not carefully considered whether or not we should burn.

P.S. More in line with the OP, I don't think it's a good idea for staff to "open a dialogue" on jcarter's turf. When I see admins from other games posting "officially" on third party sites as their admin handles, it always makes me cringe. It never looks professional, and often the content isn't professional, either. As much as I would like to see players and staff casting aside their differences and coming together over a game most of us would agree is great, I don't think it would do much more than harm the staff's image and give the saltiest posters over at the unofficial boards more content to pick apart.

[Akaramu]

It's hard for players of this game. We don't really have anyone to talk to and gripe to. Most friends and family don't understand this game and never will.

My nerdy D&D tabletop group is actually very interested in my Armageddon stories even though they don't play. Do you have a tabletop group?

Storage is used in accordance to the rules of the game, so random force-storage is not an issue here. When people say they were force-stored for no reason, they're generally lying. It also happens so rarely that it is practically a non-issue.

I was force stored twice, both times I hadn't broken any game rules whatsoever.

The first time my clan members wanted to PK me but couldn't because of my offpeak playtimes. Staff never told me the reason, they said 'we can tell you're not enjoying the role', which wasn't true. I would have been cool with this storage if staff told me the reason, but instead I quit the game and only found out the reason much later. I was also a total newb and way too inexperienced for this role, but too stubborn to admit it. Still, I liked the character.

The second time I was force stored, I also hadn't broken any rules whatsoever. I was frustrated with being lifesworn to a clan where everyone played other times than I did, and I had no idea what was going on with the clan. I was completely left on my own with my first ever military leadership role and a character who knew nothing about leading people because no one was showing her to do it. (I know how to lead, but felt it wasn't fair for that character to be really good at it unless she had a good example to learn from). I also wasn't allowed to resolve certain issues on my own without the leader PC who never logged in during my times. I was basically force stored because the staffer in charge didn't feel like helping me resolve the situation in a fair, enjoyable (for me) way, and I frankly felt kind of bullied for reasons I won't get into because... that's the stuff that triggered me 3 years ago and I'm hesitant to dip my brain back into it. It felt like the storage was to shut up my frustrated, desperate pleas of 'please help me enjoy this role again, because I love the character'.

That character was 100% loyal to her clan and the worst thing she ever did was to let a recruit act up with her because she didn't know how to be a military leader. Judging by the way she was treated by animated NPCs (and I was treated in request responses) you'd think she killed a templar.

One time I was threatened with forced storage because of something I didn't do and had no control over. I had been reporting (thing that was happening to me and I had no control over) for some time, but was told to stop seeing things until it escalated so much that a bunch of people complained. I had to appeal to the Producers so the actual ingame logs would get looked at - to prove my innocence. If I hadn't known that appealing to the Producers was even possible, I might have turned into one of those bitter, venomous players who vent against staff. Because I was 100% innocent and the logs, once someone actually looked at them, proved it.

I didn't want to bring this up but I felt I had to, to give a voice to everyone who was ever treated unfairly by staff. In my experience, it's not that uncommon. And it makes people quit.

[Nergal]

I only know how force-storage is used from my own experience as a staff member. If it happened more than two and a half years ago I'm not going to be able to personally recall situations where it was used badly.

Do I doubt that it was used badly in the distant past? Of course not - I know that the staff body as a whole has only become more fair over the years, not less. This is measurable in things like rules for staff avatar behavior, better-refined GDB and game rules, standards for building objects, rooms, and NPCs, helping all players with equal effort, and more. Over the past decade or so we've gone from a game that was essentially staff's sandbox to one where the staff are held accountable for what they do by other players on the GDB and by staff in private discussions. And I feel like players who have been here longer sometimes forget that the staff body has changed over the years, and attribute past injustices to the current staff team, or hold grudges that they are not willing to let go of, or remain suspicious that new staff just adopt the same behavior as the old staff (or that new staff are even the same person as old staff).

On the flip side, players need to be accountable as much as staff are. It's important to remember that staff are also players. That's why there are rules, and that's why they are followed and used carefully by the staff - now more careful than ever. Just as there can't be a situation where players are held accountable but not staff, there can't be a situation where staff are held accountable but not the players. Everyone needs to play by the rules, and trust that they're playing by the rules, unless legitimate evidence is presented otherwise.

So I would urge people who felt they've been treated unjustly in the past to give the staff a second chance, and hold dialogue with staff. If you want to appeal a ban or overturn a staff judgment, a polite message arguing your case can make a world of difference. If you have access to the request tool, feel free to use that. Otherwise e-mail producers(at)armageddon(dot)org, or e-mail me directly at nergal(at)armageddon(dot)org.

[Harmless]

I got force stored in a similar situation once akaramu. I was trying to have my PC join the bardic circles but she had some unfortunate events halfway through the process and when I wrote upset character reports saying I was so miserable as that PC that I was debating storing her. Nyr went ahead and just force stored me and added a helpful note that I was mentally ill and to seek help.

What that taught me is that staff are not good at dealing with player angst. The severity of unhappiness with a character is hard to measure when all you have are words describing the problems.

Never had a force storage since that character because I make sure to self evaluate my overall desire to keep playing before I write my reports now. I am unhappy with characters plenty of times still, for reasons often like you said; nothing happening, stagnant plot, loss of a key other character for a goal, etc. But rather than go into a long winded report about my suffering, I try to make my requests action oriented. "Staff, this character would be better for me if *blank.* Can that be possible?" Or just submit a storage request, or submit no request at all. Following this rule, for myself, has led to a much smoother playing experience as well as smoother interactions with staff.

[Akaramu]

But rather than go into a long winded report about my suffering, I try to make my requests action oriented. "Staff, this character would be better for me if *blank.* Can that be possible?" Or just submit a storage request, or submit no request at all. Following this rule, for myself, has led to a much smoother playing experience as well as smoother interactions with staff.

Just before getting force stored, I tried using my character's accumulated wealth (several thousand sid) to bribe clan NPCs and do something about her situation.

But whatever. It's old stuff, I eventually got over it and my current clan staff is great. If I submitted a request about it all, I don't know what the benefit would be except maybe to rectify potentially unfair and one-sided account notes, and I don't know if old account notes are worth having to go through it all again.

[Malken]

Maybe Staff should be made to pass some sort of psychological evaluation considering that staff comes from the pool of players we have left and apparently (from what I'm reading) a lot of our players suffer from one form of mental illness or another. As the pool of players diminish and that choices for future staff must come from that diminished pool, chances are there's a few "nutjobs" in there once in a while.

To assume that Staff are trained to deal with every players' mental issues as to not trigger them is absolutely ridiculous. We always see the bad stuff from Staff side when someone gets banned or kicked out of the game for a while - I'd love to see some cases where Staff had to deal with nutjobs completely losing it, I bet the ratio they have to deal with compared to what us players have to deal with when Staff completely loses it is insane.

Of course, they have and should still be held to much higher standard than us crazy peons simply playing the game.

[Nergal]

Re-hashing old things that former staff were involved in is fine (if somewhat irrelevant as we move forward), but let's be clear: misrepresenting what happened in the past, accidentally or on purpose, isn't going to fly if we want to have an honest and open discussion. Harmless, if you have some concerns about that situation in 2013 I'd suggest going over your requests from that time period and determining for yourself if that was really said to you. If you have additional concerns after that review, feel free to contact me and we can hash it out.

We do want players to have fun, though. If players are not having fun, using the request tool to ask for advice is acceptable. But there are also limits to what staff can do, here. We can't make a character "click" for the player. We can't reduce legitimate IC tension caused by other PCs.

As for old account notes, we don't pay them any mind if more current account notes or basic observation of a player countermand them. If a player was somehow bad in 2015, and good in 2016, we're going to focus on the fact that they're a good player.

[Akaramu]

To assume that Staff are trained to deal with every players' mental issues as to not trigger them is absolutely ridiculous.

It is, and no one said any such thing. All we want is for staff to use a neutral, level-headed tone of communication and be open to questions and feedback. Use simple de-escalation techniques where necessary. Which should already be the case. Because when someone like me feels bullied (and it took a lot to make me feel that way, I don't trigger over snark or being told no), I can't just walk away and feel fine. It's going to make me really miserable for a really long time. I've been bullied plenty in real life, I don't need more of it online now that my life is finally fine and comfortable.

[Nergal]

Maybe Staff should be made to pass some sort of psychological evaluation considering that staff comes from the pool of players we have left and apparently (from what I'm reading) a lot of our players suffer from one form of mental illness or another. As the pool of players diminish and that choices for future staff must come from that diminished pool, chances are there's a few "nutjobs" in there once in a while.

To assume that Staff are trained to deal with every players' mental issues as to not trigger them is absolutely ridiculous. We always see the bad stuff from Staff side when someone gets banned or kicked out of the game for a while - I'd love to see some cases where Staff had to deal with nutjobs completely losing it, I bet the ratio they have to deal with compared to what us players have to deal with when Staff completely loses it is insane.

Of course, they have and should still be held to much higher standard than us crazy peons simply playing the game.

When we put out a call for new staff, we typically consider their applications, interview a subset of the applicants, then determine who should be onboarded or not through discussion among staff. If a player is problematic in one way or another, that's a lot of hurdles to clear before they can become staff. Compare to some other MUDs where players can become staff as long as they can write and there's an opening. We have different needs, and those needs demand a more bureaucratic and careful process.

In any case, we're not going to display instances of where staff had to communicate with people who did not apparently want to communicate in a rational manner, for two reasons: 1) we respect their privacy as a player, even if they are now banned, and 2) copies of request tool correspondence can easily be dismissed as falsified. This goes both ways, of course - players who post their correspondences with staff are not always telling the whole story or posting the entirety of the correspondence word-for-word.

[Refugee]

I have old grievances.  I was treated unfairly.  If I think about it, I suddenly feel as angry and bitter as I did when it was happening, but it's been a few years now!

So I just don't think about it.

Except on the rare occasion that something brings it up, like threads like this, where I feel like I should contribute.

The thing is, in the years since, I have had a hell of a good time.

It was a close thing.  But I'm glad I stuck it out.  Staff's awesome now.  Game's awesome. 

I miss Tuluk.  I miss the war.  I miss things.... but there are still great things!  I miss players that have gone on...but there are still great players!

As far as being able to openly bitch about the staff or game on the GDB, that's one of those things that sounds good in theory but in practice won't work out well.  People are people.  And maybe it wouldn't all be bitching about staff or the game but there would be a lot of that, because when you are upset you want to vent.  We all like to have people validate our feelings.  Other people would join in...some would be on your side, but some would mock you.  That's just going to get ugly and really make no one feel better except the trolls.

Staff would get jaded.  Jaded staff isn't fun for anyone.

So for my part, I think the way it is is the way it will work the best.

[Harmless]

Thanks for the reply Nergal. I have absolutely no desire to rehash that incident, it isn't a problem anymore for me. Maybe I did take the situation too personally then anyway, I am not trying to say that staff were totally wrong for what they did. It was kind of a shock at the time but nothing even remotely like that scenario has come up since I began following my "no pointless bitching to staff" policy.

[sleepyhead]

In response to Akaramu: No, I do not have a tabletop group. I have never played a tabletop RPG because I never had friends who were into that kind of thing.

[Feco]

I feel like this is off topic now, but most of my tabletop group play Arm, so I can't talk to them about it

It kills me.

[Zenith]

I have just passed my two year mark and I have never once felt targeted or belittled by staff. Even when things are going absolutely horribly for me or the answer is a straight up no, staff have, I felt, gone out of their way to be supportive and/or kind. I've had some problems that needed staff involvement and I think they did a wonderful job listening and asking smart questions that made it clear they actually cared what was going on. I'm not saything this to brag, but because I want other people to know that you can have a positive staff relationship by being polite and expressing gratitude for what they DO do for you. Staffing looks like an enormous job, don't let it be a thankless one too.

Regarding the OP... if shadow board members want to come back and, as you have, open a PRODUCTIVE dialogue with staff, let them. You're here doing it. I'm certain others can find a way as well. That said, you get out of the world what you put into it. There's going to have to be a lot of self moderating going on, likely on both sides, to make such an attempt successful. From what I gather there just isn't the interest over there in coming back and being a productive and reasonable part of the game. There seems to be too much seething resentment and hostility for them to put aside and move on. If someone has been posting hostilely about a game for 1, 2, 5, or more years, is it really all that reasonable to think that their position will change once they are given a chance to return? That just doesn't feel likely to me.

[Lutagar]

staff once made me clean all the toilets in grand central station with my tongue and threw me into a swimming pool filled with double-edged razor blades

where do i seek compensation?

[Jingo]

Not that I want to air out my beef with staff.

But please don't be giving players the impression that we have a judicious even-handed process for complaint resolution and player discipline. I think that's just a recipe for disappointment.

I'm not even knocking staff here, as my own expectations are probably too high. I'm sympathetic to the fact that staff are vastly more interested in administrating and adding to the game. Staff shouldn't need to be play camp counselor when an aggrieved player is aggrieved.

[BrokenRomance]

I've been playing for about a year and a half now, off and on, and almost all of my interactions with staff have been pretty good.

Hell, I had something at one point that was really ruining my RP and I think staff had actually started handling before I even filed my complaint about it. I was like 'WOAH.'.

Not to mention the lengths staff have gone through in order to help me with some things and where it was me who gave up, not them giving up on me.

So, I personally think staff is open and there for us to the extent that they can be without ruining the game for us, and it is us who ruin it for us in the long-term by either expecting more from them or just refusing to work with what we are given.

[Kalden]

Really appreciate the calm and measured responses from Nergal. Emotions run high in this game. The investment is high and it feels real sometimes, which is why it's so fun. So I think it's important for staff to be thick-skinned and able to defuse tension rather than add to it whenever possible. Not gonna claim to be particularly thick-skinned or good at defusing situations myself.

Incidentally, it's also helpful to set expectations clearly and consistently rather than staffers randomly going by their own pet peeves. I remember a long time ago (must've been like 2007), I pickpocketed something, probably while hiding in a crowded bar. Some staffer flipped out about how I should've emoted it all out. I'm sorry, I've had tendonitis issues and I'm not going to emote all the time, especially if there's a 95% chance nobody can see my emotes. And I might even even avoid emoting if I think a player is going to flip out and make my character's already difficult task even more difficult because I drew extra attention to my character's unobtrusive maneuver. Typing out tons of stuff all the time is just tedious and unhealthy. Setting up a good mix of aliases to descriptive emotes for certain situations can alleviate that, although it can be difficult to make those fit the situation.

I know that I've heard some best practices about burglary, by the way, which involves not removing furniture. It might be better to circulate these types of things in OOC best practices guidelines rather than GDB threads or surprise account notes. Might be common sense, but still...

The whole weapon skill complaint is also interesting. I am getting the sense that some of the combat skills are worked in non-intuitive ways. Never cared much about it, but definitely felt the impact of playing characters for many days only to get rocked by probably younger characters who knew how to work their skills properly. But I never thought much about it, because I've never been real into grinding or sparring a lot.

[Hauwke]

On that note spend enough days played as a combat pc and you just end up being reasonably powerful. Its the nature of the code, it just happens.

[Nergal]

Not that I want to air out my beef with staff.

But please don't be giving players the impression that we have a judicious even-handed process for complaint resolution and player discipline. I think that's just a recipe for disappointment.

I'm not even knocking staff here, as my own expectations are probably too high. I'm sympathetic to the fact that staff are vastly more interested in administrating and adding to the game. Staff shouldn't need to be play camp counselor when an aggrieved player is aggrieved.

Staff do handle complaint resolution and player discipline fairly, though - with significant discussion among staff, poring over game logs, efforts to "connect dots" in more elaborate player breaches, etc. We don't have a rigidly-defined process for it, but only because every situation is different. Note that you (general you) not liking the results of this resolution does not mean it was not conducted fairly, though it could mean that the situation requires additional discussion so that it can be better understood.

But you are right in that we are definitely way more interested in making progress on the game and making fun things up for people to do in-game. The storytellers are consistently engaged in plots and they do not handle discipline at all, beyond reporting what they observe. Admins and producers only handle discipline when necessary.

At the end of the day, we're all adults here. Staff are going to presume that an individual player is open to reasonable discussion until proven otherwise. We do our best to maintain contact and dialogue with a player. It's on the player to meet staff halfway and not burn the bridge. That being said, bridge-burning in and of itself is extremely rare. So for the vast majority of cases, these awkward moments go very smoothly.

[Riev]

At least someone is attempting to quell the "uprising" that is "some people feel slighted". I have a lot comments about things, and how things "were" done, but I'll just drop this little anecdote.

I once played a Jihaen Templar, in Tuluk. There was a bit of a mess, the entire staff that "approved" me quit, and I was left to Nyr (who, honestly, was fine with me in that role). However, I stored because I felt I wasn't the person he wanted in the role, and I had no support as our times didn't match up.

A while later, there was another Templar call, and I was considering re-applying, since staff had rotated and it wasn't Nyr covering the whole sphere. So I poked onto the (then) online docs on the website that were password protected, to try and get some inspiration for the role, see if it really was something I wanted to do. Unbeknownst to me, some other people were accessing the online docs as well, who shouldn't have been.

I got imm-poofed by One Who Shall Not Be Named and it wasn't a questioning. It wasn't a calm interview. It was a staffer threatening to perma-ban me from the game, because they 'knew' I was handing out the password to people, and 'had IP addresses to confirm I was accessing them myself'. I felt both persecuted, and that nothing I was saying was taken into account. Staff "knew" this, and "knew" that, and even after I tried to explain, it seemed as though clearly I was an untrustworthy player.

This was some time ago, but this staffer still exists, and I'm sure the situation would happen again if the docs weren't "better" controlled by the GDB. I've had a real hard time trusting staff since then, and it isn't easy to "just get over it".