Estranged Veterans' Perspective

[Marauder Moe]

Hi, I'm Moe.  I've been playing Armageddon on and off since 2002.  Lately it's been off, with a character I haven't played in over a year.

Here are some things that have dampened my enthusiasm for the game or feel like barriers to my return:

*Firstly, I'll say the biggest reason I've been absent has been life circumstances.  I've had a job that's been half travel and half work-at-home for the last year or so.  While traveling I'm too busy to play.  Working at home, I've had to avoid open-ended time sinks like Armageddon and other games to help maintain the discipline required to get things accomplished.  Not much can be done about that, but I may have a lull in a work for a few months and might be able to play again.

*Changes to the magick system.  I actually really like the subguilds.  I kinda wish there was still something like a main-guild mage, though.  Like a magick specialist who trades mundane skills for more spell variety (even if just two subguild's worth of spells).  I still really really dislike the loss of Elkrans, Drovians, and Nilazi.  I felt that the appeasement of "their spells will be recycled into other subguilds" was borderline insulting and entirely missed the point.

*Lack of information about the state of the game.  Some statements from staff and on GDB have suggested BIG COOL THINGS have happened.  That's great, but what?  If I created a character, they'd have lived through them.  I have no way to figure out if/how these events would have factored into my character's background, or even what to expect until after I've logged into the game and gotten a look at the tavern board.

*Closure of RAT thread and subsequent threats of moderation to people who even mention it.  I get that it was a moderation headache for staff, but I think the payoff of fun and enthusiasm that came out of some free-form game-related discussion was worthwhile.  The followup moderations and threats after it was locked was just stupidly authoritarian and really damaged my faith in Staff.


Despite lacking the enthusiasm to play, I do still care about the game and want nothing more for it to survive and prosper.  Staff, my fellow players, do with these perspectives what you will.  Anyone else in a similar situation, please share.

-Moe

[Lizzie]

Addressing the RAT thread: We now have regular use of Discord, where both players and staff, and even people who don't play yet - or used to play and don't anymore, all participate. We usually have triple as many people logged into Discord then there usually are in the game during peak time. It gets pretty random, but it's also about the game, at times. It's also where new players can come and ask questions, and either get them answered immediately, or pulled into the "helper chat", or DMed by a helper or staff, or informed that their question is in regards to a current in-game thing that won't be answered outside the game (that last one doesn't happen often but it does happen).

In other words - we have a LIVE RAT, so the GDB version of it isn't really much of a loss anymore.

I won't post about the rest of it, I agree in some measure with it. Plus your #1 reason for not playing is your own personal availability, and isn't anything anyone can do about (short of presenting you with a really well-paying part-time job, or handing you the winning powerball ticket - which is mine, sorry).

[Heade]

*Changes to the magick system.  I actually really like the subguilds.  I kinda wish there was still something like a main-guild mage, though.

I'm sort of there with you, except, what I think would be good is to keep the subguilds, but also add in some way(that isn't incredibly/crazy difficult to discover) for sorcerers to get the full gamut of spells sorcerer's used to get. Maybe even adding some sort of a quest spell at the end of their skill chain to unlock a "quest" to find a particular tome or something that can potentially lead to unlocking other spell groups. Since that's what sorcerer's are supposed to represent...people who actively sought out and learned magical knowledge, it doesn't make sense that, at 24 years old, or whenever they max out their starting spell set, they just cease their curiousity and desire for magical knowledge and power.

I'm not really lamenting the loss of full guild elementalists too much. But not having sorcerer's be able to achieve the big nastiness is a bit disappointing.

*Lack of information about the state of the game.  Some statements from staff and on GDB have suggested BIG COOL THINGS have happened.  That's great, but what?  If I created a character, they'd have lived through them.  I have no way to figure out if/how these events would have factored into my character's background, or even what to expect until after I've logged into the game and gotten a look at the tavern board.

I completely agree with this. I think it would be cool to have something OOCly accessible that outlined the large happenings of the world that would be considered common knowledge.

*Closure of RAT thread and subsequent threats of moderation to people who even mention it.  I get that it was a moderation headache for staff, but I think the payoff of fun and enthusiasm that came out of some free-form game-related discussion was worthwhile.  The followup moderations and threats after it was locked was just stupidly authoritarian and really damaged my faith in Staff.

I'm not familiar with that thread. Got a link?

[Marauder Moe]

"Random Armageddon Thoughts".  I think the thread has actually been deleted. 

It was started as just a place for fun little game-related thoughts that were probably too small to deserve a new topic. 

Sometimes real discussions happened in the thread and players weren't often good about spawning off a separate, focused post.  That's when mods had to step in and cut out posts and transplant them to a new thread.

[Medena]

Hi, I'm me.  I've been playing Armageddon on and off since 2003.  I came back to Arm about three months ago after an absence of about four years.  None of my absences have had anything to do with the game.  The most recent one was due to a relationship which eventually ended but it took me a while to decide to play again.  I've been having a blast since I returned.

In the interests of full disclosure I must say that I have always had a lot of faith and trust in the staff.  Sure, I don't always agree with all decisions but I understand that they have probably come out of much discussion amongst themselves with, no doubt, lots of varying opinions and perspectives.  They've all been players themselves and understand what players like and need.

I came back to an incredible amount of changes some of which I am still trying to catch up on.  In the years I was absent, I never even popped onto the website or the GDB even once.  So many cool things have been added to the game such as the drawing skill.  I was thrilled to see people in the taverns in Allanak and what seemed to be a thriving noble house scene because often over the years that had not been the case.  I was wowed by all the work that had gone into a re-vamp of classes and sub-classes and institution of the spendable karma system.  Most of all, I was impressed with the new transparency on skill trees and skill levels which is something people had been requesting for a long time. 

Some of Moe's points:

* Changes to the magic system.  I've not yet had the chance to try out the sub-guilds or, more importantly, assess how the overall role of magick in the game has changed.  Having played both an Elkrosian and a Nilazi, I don't mourn the loss so much I guess as some others might.  I found the latter -really- hard to play and wouldn't have chosen to play another.

* Lack of information about the state of the game.  This one has been a bit of a concern for me.  There's been stuff that has come up in the game that I think my character would have known at least a little bit about but I couldn't find any info anywhere.  Staff were helpful on one thing I put in a question request about and seemed to agree with my suggestion that the docs could use some updating.

* Closure of RAT thread and subsequent threats of moderation to people who even mention it.  I never posted in the RAT thread or, indeed, on the GDB much at all.  I'd have concerns too though if the reaction was as heavy-handed as described.  I'm sorry to hear that happened.

I think you should come back to the game Moe.   I seriously do.  You've got so much to gain and so little to lose.  I mean after the thousands of hours you've spent on Arm, what's another few hundred hours spent sitting in front of a computer totally immersed in nothing but text which makes you laugh, cheer, cry, groan, scheme, betray and avenge.

[Brytta Léofa]

Addressing the RAT thread: We now have regular use of Discord, where both players and staff, and even people who don't play yet - or used to play and don't anymore, all participate. ... In other words - we have a LIVE RAT, so the GDB version of it isn't really much of a loss anymore.

I loved RAT and basically don't use Discord. I'm theoretically glad that Discord exists, but I much prefer conversations at GDB speed, where I can participate without being constantly connected and attentive.

[MeTekillot]

My feelings about the magick nerf (including the nerfs to magick not publicized on the GDB that would break rules about sharing game secrets) are well known.

The followup moderations and threats after it was locked was just stupidly authoritarian and really damaged my faith in Staff.

The bullheaded decision to power through the terrible decision to lock the most popular thread in the GDB, where newbies and veterans alike got a fair shake to take the piss about whatever, is still a huge sticking point for me, as well.

[Brokkr]

On page 2498 of the thread Random Armageddon thoughts

This thread is going to be locked the next time it has to be moderated for flaming/trolling. Way too tired of the quality of discourse on the GDB being dragged down by such garbage.

After many moderations, flaming and trolling, nearly a month later, on page 2545:

Now that I'm not working I figure I should post an explanation for why this thread got locked, especially considering how popular it was to players.

- It was a mess, obviously due to the nature of the thread. Without a defined topic, good ideas were lost.
- It was the thread most reported to moderators. Obviously part of this is because it was the biggest thread, but a major part is because it became tacitly acceptable to shitpost and vaguely complain in this thread.
- The final straw was a series of posts that aren't in this thread anymore. They were moderated (taken out of the thread). This was after numerous attempts at moderating this thread in the past.

Ultimately, this is a discussion forum. That concept clashes with the ability to leave a poorly thought-out comment with no intention to defend or discuss it, which is what this thread provided. It had a good run, but it probably should have been locked a long time ago. It's locked now, and it's going to stay that way. It's not a reflection of, or a direct response to, the players that posted in the thread - it is part of an overall attempt to clean up the GDB and enforce posting rules fairly and equally without being overbearing.

You are certainly encouraged to discuss the game, but let's move back to doing that in a normal forum's way: by creating a new thread for a topic and keeping threads on-topic.

Thanks.

The playerbase was told of the expectations and they ignored them.  There is a certain amount of responsibility for the closing of that thread that rests solidly on community behavior.

[Delirium]

Generally when I don't play much, it is because of real life demands or burnout, which is also due to real life demands. I get stressed when I feel like the game is sucking too much time out of my day. Overall I mostly wish there was more room and patience for those who can't play 6-8 hours a day, 7 days a week, and therefore can't keep up with the full steam ahead plot & progress pacing of those who can (or just those who do, whether or not they particularly should be, heh). It's very easy to feel steamrolled.

So I have to carefully tailor my roles and plot engagement to make sure I don't get drawn in too deeply with those who might put expectations on me that I can't or don't want to fulfill.  I don't always succeed at that, because you are all fun to play with and there's usually a lot of neat stuff going on, but on the flip side, maybe if portions of the game culture were less frantic about "winning" and more focused on just relaxing and telling a story, that would help things there a little too. I'm not sure there is a solution for that, save maybe a cultural sea change of how we all approach the game.. which seems unlikely.

I'm just rambling at this point. I miss the days when I could just play whenever and however much I wanted, but they are long past, and I think in this aging playerbase that is true for a great many of us. Sometimes when I have to choose which game I'm going to play, I go with the one that I can put down and walk away from at the drop of a hat, instead of the one where a 30 minute login session turns into 3 hours because all of a sudden, a routine trip to the bazaar turned into an interrogation scene.

It isn't a bad thing or a good thing, it is just the nature of the game, and that is why sometimes older/veteran players will just decide to play it safe if they don't have a big block of time to dedicate. We will just putter around in WoW or with a console game so that we can be responsible adults.

[MeTekillot]

On page 2498 of the thread Random Armageddon thoughts

This thread is going to be locked the next time it has to be moderated for flaming/trolling. Way too tired of the quality of discourse on the GDB being dragged down by such garbage.

After many moderations, flaming and trolling, nearly a month later, on page 2545:

Now that I'm not working I figure I should post an explanation for why this thread got locked, especially considering how popular it was to players.

- It was a mess, obviously due to the nature of the thread. Without a defined topic, good ideas were lost.
- It was the thread most reported to moderators. Obviously part of this is because it was the biggest thread, but a major part is because it became tacitly acceptable to shitpost and vaguely complain in this thread.
- The final straw was a series of posts that aren't in this thread anymore. They were moderated (taken out of the thread). This was after numerous attempts at moderating this thread in the past.

Ultimately, this is a discussion forum. That concept clashes with the ability to leave a poorly thought-out comment with no intention to defend or discuss it, which is what this thread provided. It had a good run, but it probably should have been locked a long time ago. It's locked now, and it's going to stay that way. It's not a reflection of, or a direct response to, the players that posted in the thread - it is part of an overall attempt to clean up the GDB and enforce posting rules fairly and equally without being overbearing.

You are certainly encouraged to discuss the game, but let's move back to doing that in a normal forum's way: by creating a new thread for a topic and keeping threads on-topic.

Thanks.

The playerbase was told of the expectations and they ignored them.  There is a certain amount of responsibility for the closing of that thread that rests solidly on community behavior.

Ok, so the thread is permanently locked? Do we permanently ban people for not-particularly-egregious violations of the rules?

[Heade]

On page 2498 of the thread Random Armageddon thoughts

This thread is going to be locked the next time it has to be moderated for flaming/trolling. Way too tired of the quality of discourse on the GDB being dragged down by such garbage.

After many moderations, flaming and trolling, nearly a month later, on page 2545:

Now that I'm not working I figure I should post an explanation for why this thread got locked, especially considering how popular it was to players.

- It was a mess, obviously due to the nature of the thread. Without a defined topic, good ideas were lost.
- It was the thread most reported to moderators. Obviously part of this is because it was the biggest thread, but a major part is because it became tacitly acceptable to shitpost and vaguely complain in this thread.
- The final straw was a series of posts that aren't in this thread anymore. They were moderated (taken out of the thread). This was after numerous attempts at moderating this thread in the past.

Ultimately, this is a discussion forum. That concept clashes with the ability to leave a poorly thought-out comment with no intention to defend or discuss it, which is what this thread provided. It had a good run, but it probably should have been locked a long time ago. It's locked now, and it's going to stay that way. It's not a reflection of, or a direct response to, the players that posted in the thread - it is part of an overall attempt to clean up the GDB and enforce posting rules fairly and equally without being overbearing.

You are certainly encouraged to discuss the game, but let's move back to doing that in a normal forum's way: by creating a new thread for a topic and keeping threads on-topic.

Thanks.

The playerbase was told of the expectations and they ignored them.  There is a certain amount of responsibility for the closing of that thread that rests solidly on community behavior.

I think I agree with Staff's decision, despite the popularity of that thread. I think I'd prefer that topics have their own thread anyhow. That way, we can ignore the crap we don't care about without cycling through a bunch of pages of nonsense to find the ideas we do care about.

Discord is a good place to chitchat about topics, but because of the fact that it would require constant monitoring in order to see everything said there, and is also full of junk posts, any real discourse that begins there and has merit -should- find it's way to the GDB so that it can be considered by admins and the community at large.

[MeTekillot]

Discord specifically makes statements temporary in a way that forums don't. Searching through the discord for old messages is a pain in the ass. Forum posts can be longform in a way that discord chatter can't. Just because Random Armageddon Thoughts was Random doesn't mean that it was thoughtless babbling. You've said yourself you don't know the thread, so it's really weird for you to make judgements on how it played in the forums.

We should consider everyone's opinion, though, but it's not like RAT was spitting flames that were nuking whole sections of the forums. Topics branched off of it all the time, if not every time.

[Brokkr]

There were egregious violations of the rules.  Multiple times.  Moderated.

Specific criteria were set forth for that thread, in order for it to continue.  They were not met, and it was closed.

Specific criteria are also listed for players, in order to continue to post on the GDB.  Those who do not meet them receive moderation/bans.

You may disagree with the rules.  You are still expected to follow them.  If you do not follow them, don't expect to not face consequences because you disagree with the rules.

Sorry for the digression, I only posted the quotes because a player mentioned not reading the GDB.

[MeTekillot]

It's not like the whole community dictates the actions of the rule breakers, so I don't see why a platform of discussion (and pointless shenanigans) would be removed from the whole community because the actions of a few.

[Brokkr]

Sometimes the whole community has to follow the rules to have something good.

Its like road stand fruit/vegetable stands with no attendant that work on the honor system.  In some communities they work, because everyone in the community of folks that stop abide by that honor system.  In some communities, they don't work.

[MeTekillot]

Yes but you can lynch or shun people in real life communities.

[Miradus]

I can't think of much more destructive to the continuity of a MUD than Discord.

You're a new player, you want to know something about an in-game topic. But it got discussed to death on Discord last year and there's no trace of it left anywhere. You're cannibalizing forum posts which could be perpetual documentation for the next generation of gamers coming into Armageddon, for some nebulous bullshit with limited research capabilities.

It also asses me off when I type 'who' in game and see 12 people but I go over to Discord and I see 58 motherfuckers talking about teletubbies.

[mansa]

Yes but you can lynch or shun people in real life communities.

What.

I can't think of much more destructive to the continuity of a MUD than Discord.

You're a new player, you want to know something about an in-game topic. But it got discussed to death on Discord last year and there's no trace of it left anywhere. You're cannibalizing forum posts which could be perpetual documentation for the next generation of gamers coming into Armageddon, for some nebulous bullshit with limited research capabilities.

It also asses me off when I type 'who' in game and see 12 people but I go over to Discord and I see 58 motherfuckers talking about teletubbies.

Discord is the same as Random Armageddon Thoughts, just speed up.


Personally, I'm glad that the memes and the bullshit has left the GDB and moved to Discord.   It shows that the GDB can actually have meaningful discussions rather than people trying to 'spruce up the mood because they perceive the GDB to be too serious, look at my puppy"

[MeTekillot]

Mansa, that's a pretty pretentious putdown of people who don't like being always-available on discord, or of people who don't want to use discord's pain in the ass search system, or who want to make a post or point longer than a few sentences or a wall of text that discord is going to format into abject ugliness and thus be passed over. I can search through a person's posts easily on the forums.

Forums and chatrooms are not the same thing AT ALL.

[Miradus]

Discord is the same as Random Armageddon Thoughts, just speed up.


Personally, I'm glad that the memes and the bullshit has left the GDB and moved to Discord.   It shows that the GDB can actually have meaningful discussions rather than people trying to 'spruce up the mood because they perceive the GDB to be too serious, look at my puppy"

Alright, if you say so. I won't name names, but the last time I popped over to look at the Discord, all I saw was someone mocking some newbie's poorly written bio by posting snippets of it. And I thought, "Man, I hope that newb isn't watching while they wait to be approved."

I think Discord has only limited utility and immense potential for fuckery. It's like celebrities using Twitter. What good can come of this other than shooting yourself in the foot?

ETA: And I wish fucking Moe would return to the damned game already.

[MeTekillot]

This is what happens when you give old people new stuff, they try to use it for everything. Look what they did with asbestos.

[mansa]

Discord is the same as Random Armageddon Thoughts, just speed up.


Personally, I'm glad that the memes and the bullshit has left the GDB and moved to Discord.   It shows that the GDB can actually have meaningful discussions rather than people trying to 'spruce up the mood because they perceive the GDB to be too serious, look at my puppy"

Alright, if you say so. I won't name names, but the last time I popped over to look at the Discord, all I saw was someone mocking some newbie's poorly written bio by posting snippets of it. And I thought, "Man, I hope that newb isn't watching while they wait to be approved."

I think Discord has only limited utility and immense potential for fuckery. It's like celebrities using Twitter. What good can come of this other than shooting yourself in the foot?

I'm equating the Random Armageddon Thoughts thread to the potential fuckery currently existing in Discord.  I'm saying if it returned to the GDB, it would lower the bar of acceptable posts on the GDB to include meme's and other celebrity postings.  You can definitely see the increase in quality postings on the GDB after it's been removed.   I'm sure there's data to correspond with the decrease in "report this post".

Mansa, that's a pretty pretentious putdown of people who don't like being always-available on discord, or of people who don't want to use discord's pain in the ass search system, or who want to make a post or point longer than a few sentences or a wall of text that discord is going to format into abject ugliness and thus be passed over. I can search through a person's posts easily on the forums.

Forums and chatrooms are not the same thing AT ALL.

Acceptable usage is based on the other published examples to follow.  If the community constantly posts about music, it becomes acceptable to post about music.   If you want to change what is acceptable you need to remove examples of what is not.  There are rules to follow on the GDB, and if a particular thread encourages people to break the rules, it should be removed.

I'm sorry if you feel that me saying memes and pictures of puppies are "bullshit" and that I'm putting people down for liking that.   I'm fine with Discord and I'm fine with the GDB.  I just wish a chat room wouldn't become a discussion board and a discussion board to become a chat room.

[Delirium]

I will say that as a player moderator the amount of 'report this posts' emails I got decreased exponentially when RAT closed. I still miss it, but I understand why it's gone. Discord has its pluses and minuses but I do like the casual camaraderie as opposed to the more formal GDB.

[MeTekillot]

Link the discord on the main page instead of the GDB then.

[Malken]

Hi. I play World of Warcraft.