Back when I started Playing...

[LucildaHunta]

There was a mob called a Gith Captain (probably still is). That sucker was tough.

[Decadent Decisions]

Templars actually warred against their opposite faction.

[Hauwke]

Back when I started playing, breeds were breeds and elves were elves, and both were accosted merely for existing.

[Lizzie]

Back when I started playing,

PEOPLE VOTED FOR ARMAGEDDON!

http://www.topmudsites.com/cgi-bin/topmuds/rankem.cgi?id=sanvean


http://www.mudconnect.com/cgi-bin/vote_rank.cgi?mud=Armageddon

[HavokBlue]

Since I feel like this thread is the passive aggressive complaint thread, I counter with:

When I started playing

- Whirans could effectively instagib any PC in the game and you couldn't really do anything about it. If they wanted you dead, it was going to happen, RP be damned.

- Your warrior PC couldn't quit out in the wild when your kid starts crying.

- You couldn't play PC slaves.

- If you weren't a noble or a GMH family member, you had a zero percent chance of ever learning to read and write.

- You couldn't app for skill bumps.

- If you spec apped anything more outlandish than an extra toe, your app had a zero percent chance of acceptance.

- You would have been laughed at if you'd said "can we do playable gith?"

[Delirium]

I am so very glad That Spell is gone from the various skill trees. It ruined far more stories than it supported.

[Eyeball]

- If you weren't a noble or a GMH family member, you had a zero percent chance of ever learning to read and write.

Before this, there was a (fairly brief) time when everyone could read and write. But books would lose their content after a reboot if stored in a container.

[hopeandsorrow]

There was real gicker's around and you could play real 'gicks.  And it was always a meta-game to see how much Karma you can accumulate so you could play said cool classes.

Then they removed them, with me missing a chance to try a great number of them. 


Oh and I was around for that end of the world madness a bit.  Got murderized a lot by all kinds of weird shit.  Which motivated me to keep trying at the game for a little while.

Now game's actually a bit more boring now.

[tortall]

Contact wasn't at a high enough level for you to contact ANYONE, and you could had to practice riding in the city because no matter what class you were your ride was LOW.

Also, you didn't know what level your skills were at until you suddenly branched.

[Riev]

Contact wasn't at a high enough level for you to contact ANYONE, and you could had to practice riding in the city because no matter what class you were your ride was LOW.

Also, you didn't know what level your skills were at until you suddenly branched.

Or kept a spreadsheet of all your skills, how many failures you got in a pre-conceived time span, and tracked your progress that way.
The one time a magicker branched a spell at like 9 fails? I got super excited. All the others took sooooooo many more. I swear it was a fluke.

Back when I started, there were wars over resources like the Copper mine. Soh elves would wander up to Tuluk to challenge the Legendary Martial Fighters of the Jihaen Order. We had High Templars, and the PC Legionnaires were basically High Templar Elithan's personal guard. Allanak was difficult to survive in, and some clans didn't even offer free water, just food!

Muk Utep was asleep. Undertuluk existed as a rebellion, of sorts, against the oppressive government and seemed an awful lot, to me, like the subterraneans in Demolition man. Kryl were a dangerous exotic beast from far past the thornlands, and if you left Tuluk during Halfling lunch-time, Kust would try and paralyze you and eat you for later. One of my PCs actually got paralyzed by resisted quickly and ran away.

[LucildaHunta]

I remember when stun points were implemented. It was during a time I wasn't playing, so when I came back I was sitting in Trader's with my noble trying to see who was still alive when I came back. I knew about them, but I didn't bother setting up my prompt.

Passed right out in the tavern. I thought someone backstabbed me at first, because things like that used to happen in Traders. Then it came to me, losing stun must knock you out. Duh! So I set up my prompt while I was knocked out.

You always have to learn things the hard way on Armageddon.

[perfecto]

You always have to learn things the hard way on Armageddon.

I'm pretty sure this has been said before... BUT???

Mayyybeee not enough.

This feeling is also one of the best things since "anybody" started playing "ever" 

[Lizzie]

You always have to learn things the hard way on Armageddon.

I'm pretty sure this has been said before... BUT???

Mayyybeee not enough.

This feeling is also one of the best things since "anybody" started playing "ever"

It's the feeling of personal (player, not character) accomplishment. Yes our characters all want this that and the other thing and it'd be nice if our players didn't have to work so hard to figure out the hows and whys of it all.

But if the players didn't have to work so hard, then the players would have all that sense of accomplishment reduced or even eliminated. It's that two-punch combo that makes Arm work for so many of us.

[Armaddict]

Ha HA!  I have conquered you, dangerous code-based world!  I have vanquished the mighty hurdle you are programmed to put before me!

Oh, what's this new hurd--*beep*.

Goddammit, this is not newbie friendly.

[LucildaHunta]

I feel the need to point out, I wasn't saying "Arm is hard, boo Arm." I was just remembering something that is a cornerstone of gameplay that wasn't always there. It just happens to have a funny little story to go with it.

And this is why we can't have nice things.

[Dresan]

Ha HA!  I have conquered you, dangerous code-based world!  I have vanquished the mighty hurdle you are programmed to put before me!

Oh, what's this new hurd--*beep*.

Goddammit, this is not newbie friendly.

I think this is describing the reaction when the defense 'nerf' hit. Good times. People were so angry that they couldn't go out and solo gith after a couple of days. 

Maybe some people have stated some of this stuff but here it is again:

• two-handed skill sucked(it was so underpowed that no one used it, so not sure what bonuses, if any, it had)
• shield use skill sucked (you just got a bit extra armor bonus when hit if it activated, i think.)
• mounted combat did not exist. Everyone dismounted to fight. To flee you, ran, then ran back and got on your mount before riding off
• pull reigns/charge were broken/missing for the longest time until we got current skills
• Stealth was crap, you couldn't even sneak up on animals
• Poison was also broken on weapons at some point. Poison with throw didn't work.
• Mages had no 'teeth' unless you spent 40 RL days in a remote cave.
• Direction sense was not a skill, only rangers had this ability

Many of the basic aspects of the game we take for granted now were terrible, broken or didn't even exist, at least when i first start playing.

[HavokBlue]

Back when I started playing, there was pretty much no chance of new skills being added to the game.

I wonder what else we might get!

[Cind]

Before the current mage subguilds a lot of mages would begin play spamcasting for all their worth because they thought they had to in order to be able to do anything (I was called out for it once, and later told that it was alright to play a mage like that) and after that I didn't play like that--- and therefore did not use magick very much at all, and certainly not anything dangerous.

One time I met a man who was three days old and could (redacted.) I thought to myself, "God, this guy must need to eat and sleep bad." It was one of those second or third-tier spells, and was only really useful if you didn't understand what it did.

Thinking about magick, I kind of want to play a witch now. They are vastly improved, I think, although I wouldn't have considered them broken before--- just very hard to balance between the work you need to do with them and doing everything else.

When I started on my first couple of witches, the water temple was beautiful. I'd heard from someone that (clan) had paid for the gorgeous sculptures and everything and I believed it. Now its, you know, a hole, pretty much the way you'd think it'd be. I honestly wonder whether or not the fire in the quarter was started out of an OOC desire to revamp the 'niceness' of some of the temples back into a more expectable normalcy. I think that was one of the reasons.

My first cool death was to a staff-controlled Halfling who cut my stomach horizontally and spilled my colorful guts out onto the forest floor. It was awesome. It was right next to the Tuluk gates. Help was a few yards away.

[LucildaHunta]

Back when I started playing, there was pretty much no chance of new skills being added to the game.

I wonder what else we might get!

Dirt kick!

[Delirium]

Blindfold! 

[Eyeball]

Aggressive NPCs didn't rush in or pursue at one time. It was common to go out, attack one, flee, rest until healed, then go back in to finish the job (the NPCs didn't heal over time).

Then they switched on the pursuit. I think it was about half the player base that lost a character within 24 hours.

[CodeMaster]

These are more recent but I think they've changed the game the most:

There was no reel lock (I've died to it but I love the reel code).

Agility was king.  Blackwing came to town and their warrior killed the Gaj in the arena wearing only neck protection.

No crafting meant you either found employment, scavenged in the dessert, or travelled from settlement to settlement armed with your haggle skill.  As a result, the free food in the T'zai Byn - when it reopened - was a huge selling point.

There were no apartments.

Soldiers didn't experience any lag between when they entered a room and when they tried to subdue you.  Likewise there was no 'nosave arrest' or 'nosave subdue'.

The labyrinth's east-west division wasn't clear cut.

Muls were not peak karma (I think) and they were kind of just everywhere.

[Voular]

Merchant houses had hunters!

The gemmed had a council!

The senate was actually a thing that happened IG! (I think I went to one of the last meetings of it.)

There were way more metal items floating around.

Crazy magick shit(TM) happened everywhere!

Staffers actually had avatars/characters in clans that came out and did shit with the clan all the time! You could literally way them anytime and ask dumb stuff. (Some I never realized weren't players until much much later.)

Kank honey was a thing, I think.

The north and south lackeys had awkward staredowns in Luir's all the time!

People use to spar with bags filled with rocks! (Man we use to spar anywhere. I once sparred on a roof and out in the dunes. RIP.)

We'd have characters ride off to find Steinal all the time.

Hunt so much food you didn't have anywhere to store it and start junking flanks of meat!

BRACERS THAT GAVE YOU AN EXTRA ATTACK IF YOU WORE THEM! (Anyone remember those!?)

[LucildaHunta]

Ooooh, I have recipes with Kank honey written down somewhere!

We need a substitute for kank honey or make those recipes useable with marilla.

I remember the Byn got closed down because all the players did was spar. I was right there when staff snatched the two leaders off the grid.

Those bracers said something like "The buff muscular man smirks...." something something... pretty cheesy.

[X-D]

There was a potion vender.
Oh, and the server was so lame that if 5 people logged in at once the lag meant moving a single room could take a minute or more.