Estranged Veterans' Perspective

[Decameron]

Guess I'm late to this party.

Biggest Complaint: My own playtimes. That's what it comes down to. Like the majority of veterans here, I'll mention that life gets in the way. My career took off and the amount of time I could dedicate to a game dropped significantly. Like Synthesis and a few others mentioned, not being able to commit to a high-level of playtime gives you patience, and you'll definitely need it. You'll see those who have the time to excel in the game quickly surpass you in skills, in connections, and any sort of long-term, long-lasting companionship is kind've tossed to the way side.

When I could dedicate DAYS to this, I felt my PC was the hero (or villain) of his own living story.  More recently, when I looked around, I realized that with the little amount of playtime I have, I am going to be (at best) an awesome supporting character. Background noise. What's-their-name. That realization really sucked. However, that's the way it goes, as leadership in this game essentially becomes a second job, and requires a huge investment. I admit that I can't do things like lead anymore, because it wouldn't be fair to players beneath me, but I applaud both those IC leaders who still bare with it and the staff. Both are thankless jobs, as they can both put in hundreds of hours for a simple game, with absolutely zero return on their investment when it comes down to it.

Glass Ceiling / That Old Feeling..: I am trying to put one into words and admittedly having a hard time. Excuse the rant here. I can imagine a lot of us want to 'change the Known', as some of the previous posters put it - to build and destroy Empires, to explore every portion of the Known, to achieve the enormous requirements to create a MMH, etc. As our scope of the Known grows narrower and narrower (i.e. The closing of Tuluk, the replacement of one 'big bad guy' with Gith, the lessening / elimination of certain classes) it feels like the Glass Ceiling still hasn't gone away, but almost that it's lowered gradually over time. We used to have Thrain, Samos, the Plainsman, the White Rantarri, there used to be senators and senator meetings and a bunch of different heroes and villains. It's hard to believe looking back that actual PC wars took place. I figure it's more nostalgia rather than fact, but I used to think there was something out there, that raising a PC army would just take PCs, that making a dramatic change would just require being that change. Now I feel as though there's a system in place that keeps innovation, exploring, building, etc at a stagnant point, and that may be OOC or it may be IC, but krath-damn, it is HARD to do anything, and it's been so long since I've seen anything like that done that I am wondering if it is still possible, or we're just not trying hard enough.

Enough of my negativity.

What brought me back: The same thing that always brings me back. It'll never stop. This time around it was the opportunity to try out the new classes. I don't regret it at all. Cool stuff, and thanks to everyone involved in that. The level of RP that I get in Armageddon is something that I can't get anywhere else, and as long as there are other PCs to interact with, then I'll always be coming back no matter how much time I take off. I've found myself just randomly thinking of character concepts 2 years into a break, and found myself unable to think about anything else. It's always amazing to me how concepts evolve and shift, thanks mostly due to the amazing role-players that we have a community. The staff is awesome, the players are awesome, we have Discord which I would've PKed for back in the day, we have a much more transparent approach with the staff through meetings / dialog there, and I really think it's added an additional layer to the community, even if I do mostly use it for 40k memes.

Two Misc. Thoughts:I agree with the sentiment that our history needs a little bit of an updating. I also feel as some consistency with what's going within the clan would be useful not only for new sponsored roles, but also for the transition of staff during their own rotations. It would give both the clan members and clan staff a good spot to catch up on the overall workings of their clan. Yes, clan should communicate ICly, but especially if you're a sponsored role, it would be nice to have some reasonable idea what is going on locally rather than having always been kept in a cage until Age 125 of Ruk's Quakening. If it were part of the GDB, there could be a reflective side on the staff area where they could comment / link various sections in relations to the plots involved, and give new staff / rotating staff the opportunity to catch up a little more quickly (supplemented with digging through character reports, etc).

Lastly, I wonder if the way we've divided staffing is beneficial or promotes scoped-vision and contributes to a higher turn-over rate. Staff are people (except for you, whoever is reading this) and obviously may favor or have interest in one aspect of the game over the other. Staff X loves political drama, and absolutely hates magickers. Staff Y loves magickers. All Staffer C wants to do is approve or disapprove characters / master-crafts. Under the current system, these staff members might get tossed into a variety of roles /clans / tasks, that they have no interest in doing. Dividing it along clan lines makes sense, but I am wondering if splitting it up in a different way might be beneficial and allow for more mingling of ideas. Clan leaders would still be required to make reports, but those reports would be viewed by all the staff, and then larger, overarching plots would be worked into to thread the clans / non-clanned, etc, together. It would be staffing based off plots, not clans. Completely talking out of my ass, certainly, but just wondering if there are better approaches than might work rather than just staffing based off clans.

[wizturbo]

The Gameworld

Dynamism is not only the addition of content, code and features. It also implies the loss of these things as well.  And in the context of Armageddon, the loss or closing off previously playable options is important to avoid bloat. Part of this is obvious. You can't reconcile Kurac control of Luirs with the existence of the Garrison. Some things only grow on the graves of what came before. It can be harder to be comfortable with things like Tor not being playable, or Elkros/Nilazi/Drov elementalists existing but not being playable.

The world changing is something I'm always 100% on board with.  Eliminating playable options in that world is what dilutes the fun of the game for me.  One of the things I enjoyed most about Armageddon is that it was the closest comparable experience to a table top RPG as I could get on a digital platform.  In many cases it felt better than a table top RPG because of the anonymity of the platform, the ability to play however much I wanted, and having hundreds of players instead of five or six. 

It doesn't feel that way anymore.  It feels limited.  It feels like a D&D game where I can only play a rogue, fighter or ranger and if I have enough karma I could throw in one or two levels of multi-class mage into the mix in exchange for being an abomination.  It just isn't that exciting to me from a character options perspective anymore.  And ultimately that's what stops me from playing more than anything else.

[seidhr]

I'm personally okay with karma regeneration. I'm absolutely not okay with now having 2 karma, no karma gained since 2011 (especially considering that one psi I played), and not being able to even spec app psis or sorcs anymore.

To point out the obvious, one surefire way to not get that third karma point is not playing the game and earning it.  No karma criteria for being a GDB warrior or achieving a certain post count.

There are a lot of new people with 3 karma, and it's more attainable to get full karma than it ever was on the old scale, by design.

[Heade]

I used to think there was something out there, that raising a PC army would just take PCs, that making a dramatic change would just require being that change. Now I feel as though there's a system in place that keeps innovation, exploring, building, etc at a stagnant point, and that may be OOC or it may be IC, but krath-damn, it is HARD to do anything, and it's been so long since I've seen anything like that done that I am wondering if it is still possible, or we're just not trying hard enough.

This. This is what normally causes my multi-year breaks in play. As an RPI, I would think that the actions of PCs could have impactful, lasting consequences for the gameworld, but time and time again I've heard "No" for no other reason than to maintain the status quo. It can get depressing when you've put a lot of time into the game.

I OOCly understand the work that would be required to have such a dynamic and responsive world, so I understand the completely valid OOC reason for maintainig the status quo, but it doesn't dampen the disappointment, really. It just makes me jaded, and generally sets my character's sights lower, making them a bit less interesting to me.

[MeTekillot]

The game let players be massive world shakers when we averaged like 20 at peak maybe we just need to ride it to that point

[seidhr]

Few comments:

Glass ceiling/promotions
You can absolutely get promoted in roles, it happens all the time.  In certain cases we'll even let people ascend to normally unplayable ranks, but usually just for a very short time.  More on that below.

Now with that said - Can you become a black robe templar?  No.  Because that wouldn't make any sense, in the game world.  Black robe templars don't walk around the streets and interacting with people, which is what the game is about.  They sit up in their villa and order their slaves to tell the red robes what to do.  The red robes do the same thing, mostly, to the blue robes.  There is not enough interaction for someone at that height of power to justify making it a PC role.  In the case of black robes, it's not even codedly possible to make an PC (or NPC) strong enough to really reflect how powerful a black robe would be.

At that level, played properly, you're just going to be interacting with staff animating your horde of minions.  And staff have a lot of other things to worry about rather than RPing with Tektolnes or black robes all the time.  If we had 5000 players, then yes - we could (social) stratify the playerbase out enough that everyone could get interaction, but it's a pyramid and the vast bulk of us are going to be down in the dung-sweeper category.  That one dude who is RPing Tektolnes is gonna be pretty bored.

The Artist formerly known as Mastercrafting - aka wah wha wah wah nobody can mastercraft anymore!1!!11
To quote the 'help custom craft' help file:

1. There are three situations that give rise to the ability to custom craft.  You choose the Custom Crafter subclass, you choose certain craft based extended subclasses, or you are guild merchant (legacy).

2. If you are a custom crafter, you may custom craft skills on your skill list, up to your current level of skill, with certain exceptions noted in the custom crafter subclass helpfile.  If you have a craft based extended subclass, you may have the ability to custom craft select skills, as noted in the helpfile for that extended subclass.

So yes, you can custom craft, you just have to pick the right (sub)guild - basically the same as it ever was.

Dwindling playerbase
I think the playerbase is aging because there's a lot of us - myself included - who have been playing this game for decades.  We grow older, get real jobs, get kids, get promoted at work, and find other things to keep us busy.  I think it's hard for Arm to appeal to the younger generation - we're a game with no graphics, no emojis, no microtransactions, and all the other stuff they're used to.  We do have some younger players, but by and large, this is a game that appeals to people who remember when the Internet was just starting out and this sort of thing was a novelty.

Enacting mega-change is hard!  whyyyyy
I think this dovetails with the above point about how we're all busy adults these days.  In a nutshell if you decide you want to.... I don't know - burn down Tuluk, someone has to not only do it ICly but also edit the 500 rooms this impacts, make appropriate NPC changes, make appropriate IC updates to clans, and do it in a way that meets the quality standards of the game in its current form.  Then we have to support it going forward, in perpetuity.

That is all easier said than done.  Back in the late 90s/early 2000s - someone like threw a torch into the Trader's Inn and some staff online just rolled with it and the game was like:  "Welp!  I guess the tavern that everybody hangs out in and quits out at is just gone!" and that sort of thing is continually held up on some kind of pedestal as being so awesome.  Traders was just a handful of rooms - but it also had NPCs, with clothing, and backgrounds, and stories, a bulletin board, scripts that run the merchants who sold wine, and food, and so on.  It also had multiple functions that were suddenly gone just because someone went to the bazaar and bought some oil and torches.

Most of these "effecting change" desires just boil down to people wanting to leave a mark on the world, but are more often than not destructive actions.  That or, they are completely innocuous and don't serve a purpose - beyond that player wanting to walk past that potted plant on the street, that they dutifully wrote up themselves, and submitted to staff and staff put it into the game, checking for typos and world fit and all that all along the way ...

I sound like a grumpy old man who doesn't want to do any work here, partially because I am, but you can still change stuff guys.  Let's not pretend it's impossible.

You can:
1)  Join staff, be the change you want to see
2)  Be a builder - do the same under staff direction
3)  Submit custom crafts - make items that you think fill the world out
4)  Participate in calls that staff make on the GDB for when we need writeups of NPCs, items, rooms, whatever
5)  And lastly - yes, participate in MEANINGFUL plots that will change the world in some manner or other.  You can look all over the map and find this stuff.

There's also a lot of save rooms in the world, which do a pretty awesome job of persisting stuff from today to tomorrow to next week, until someone else comes along and jacks all your stuff (in turn, impacting the world in their own way!)

The ability to change the world ad-hoc and on a permanent basis is something that many, many games (and written on a much more robust platform than a DIKU mud, I should add) have aspired to do.  I'll out myself and say that I played a lot of Everquest back in the day, and so when EQNext got announced, with the persistent worlds and all that - I was super pumped.  That project got scrapped, heh!  I also recently sponsored an Age of Conan server for Arm players that some of you played.  We had a thriving community of 10 or so until we all lost interest.  You could change the world but only in very certain ways.  I feel pretty confident that the budget for that game is way, way, way higher than what we pay Nessalin, too (zero dollars!)  People have offered to pay the coders but we literally cannot do this because of the DIKU license.

[BadSkeelz]

So aside from getting promoted from assistant beetle masturbator to Chief Beetle Masturbator (which still takes enough playtime as to count as a part time job), what's there to do?

[Is Friday]

@seidhr Please edit your post to be less inflammatory. That's the sort of behavior that puts the nail in the coffin for experienced players, who just like you, have a lot of things on their plate IRL without being responded to like this is middle school detention. If you can't refrain from posting toxic things to your own players, then don't post and ask someone else to. Or wait 24 hours and have a friend edit your post before sending.

[Marauder Moe]

Hi Staff,

I'm glad you guys are reading.  I understand that not everyone's desires for the game are feasible.  Most of these things have been discussed extensively, likely with the very same people bringing them up again here.  I don't think explaining once again why something can't/won't be done is going to entice anyone into returning.

Can we try and focus on areas where maybe things can be improved?  It sounds like maybe there's some common and tillable ground regarding public info about current events.  I bet it's a bit of a pain updating the Chronology page, but I'd certainly be satisfied with something on the GDB like the announcements that used to come after HRPT events.

P.S. Brokkr, I liked your post, though.  You made some novel and compelling points.

[Lizzie]

I didn't find it toxic (that word is SO overused by the way - it's lost all significance at this point). I found it to be slightly more "honest and open" than it was snarky, but possessed of at least a modicum of snark. If we were to edit all snark from the GDB, no one would ever read it.

[Heade]

I didn't find it toxic (that word is SO overused by the way - it's lost all significance at this point). I found it to be slightly more "honest and open" than it was snarky, but possessed of at least a modicum of snark. If we were to edit all snark from the GDB, no one would ever read it.

I did find it so. Just didn't say anything.

Also, I found the "ways to change the world" section particularly disappointing after the aforementioned snark. Essentially reading it as:

"OF COURSE YOU CAN CHANGE THE WORLD! You just have to be a staff member, or do exactly what staff wants you to do in order to change the world in the way staff wants to change it. See! Perfect, your OWN mark on the world. Good job."

Which is another way of saying, "yeah, no. Players can't change the world."

But that's fine. I'm with Moe. Let's talk about the things that CAN be changed for the better.

[wizturbo]

I'd encourage people to read these perspectives and not try to rationalize away their concerns.   It's so easy to discount other people's opinions and try to point out why they're wrong...  But that isn't productive.  All it does is reinforce your own beliefs.

[BadSkeelz]

I'm certainly reinforced in my belief that staff cannot be relied upon to generate fun for you. If they do, great, but at least one of them would rather not.

I sound like a grumpy old man who doesn't want to do any work here, partially because I am

Staff making the random world fun for non-sponsored role PCs is certainly looking to be the exception rather than the rule.

[Eyeball]

I just don't understand why small events are so infrequent. You don't need earthshaking, heavens altering catastrophes to make a lot of players happy (although those are great when they happen). Just things like:

1. The outpost to the west of the city was attacked and needs some resupply. Take <stuff> out to them and be careful, a few gith might be lingering around.

2. A hole has appeared in the road in Luir's. Someone notices that when listening at the hole, you can hear water dripping. Orders come down to excavate. When the PCs do and swing pickaxes enough times, an entrance is opened up and suddenly a swarm of meer bats (or whatever) emerge and plague the outpost. Meer bat shit appears everywhere and players are ordered to hunt them down. Examination of the hole reveals a slow erosion near the well and the players are ordered to dump rocks into it, filling it.

3. A wagon gets stuck in the sands. PCs are dispatched to dig it out. When the show up, a pack of raptors has surrounded the wagon and need to be dealt with.

None of those take a lot of effort to set up, but they certainly (1) break the routine of clan life, and (2) give people something to talk about, even brag about.

Why don't we see more of this?

[Bebop]

The Artist formerly known as Mastercrafting - aka wah wha wah wah nobody can mastercraft anymore!1!!11
To quote the 'help custom craft' help file:

1. There are three situations that give rise to the ability to custom craft.  You choose the Custom Crafter subclass, you choose certain craft based extended subclasses, or you are guild merchant (legacy).

2. If you are a custom crafter, you may custom craft skills on your skill list, up to your current level of skill, with certain exceptions noted in the custom crafter subclass helpfile.  If you have a craft based extended subclass, you may have the ability to custom craft select skills, as noted in the helpfile for that extended subclass.

So yes, you can custom craft, you just have to pick the right (sub)guild - basically the same as it ever was.

I do not enjoy the snark personally, and I think it's damaging for player/staff relations.  But since merchant class is gone that leaves two ways to master craft.  1) Special app a merchant which you are only allowed to do so often.  2) Get a special subclass ... which I couldn't tell you what subclasses those are and I'm wondering if those are also special app?

I was saying that if you have master level in a craft skill you should be able to master craft.

[Vex]

Staff making the random world fun for non-sponsored role PCs is certainly looking to be the exception rather than the rule.

I don't know, in most games I've played, staff never interacted with players, at all. In some, there are strict rules in place to enforce it, to prevent various social issues, such as perceived (and real) injustices and inequities.

Here, I've always had some animations happening, on my pcs. I don't know if it's luck, or if it's because I'm a habitual self-entertainer, and usually spend an excess of my time alone. I've had barkeeps giving me lip, to piss-throwing gith, to a rat who conned me out of cheese, to jerks who stab the fuck right out of me, and murder my virtual family.

It isn't a lot, but its enough, I'd call it consistent.

[BadSkeelz]

The Artist formerly known as Mastercrafting - aka wah wha wah wah nobody can mastercraft anymore!1!!11
To quote the 'help custom craft' help file:

1. There are three situations that give rise to the ability to custom craft.  You choose the Custom Crafter subclass, you choose certain craft based extended subclasses, or you are guild merchant (legacy).

2. If you are a custom crafter, you may custom craft skills on your skill list, up to your current level of skill, with certain exceptions noted in the custom crafter subclass helpfile.  If you have a craft based extended subclass, you may have the ability to custom craft select skills, as noted in the helpfile for that extended subclass.

So yes, you can custom craft, you just have to pick the right (sub)guild - basically the same as it ever was.

I do not enjoy the snark personally, and I think it's damaging for player/staff relations.  But since merchant class is gone that leaves two ways to master craft.  1) Special app a merchant which you are only allowed to do so often.  2) Get a special subclass ... which I couldn't tell you what subclasses those are and I'm wondering if those are also special app?

I was saying that if you have master level in a craft skill you should be able to master craft.

To Custom Craft, you either take the Customer Crafter subclass (https://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Custom%20Crafter) or one of the "Master Crafter" extended subguilds  (such as Master Weaponcrafter, Master Chef, etc).

[seidhr]

re: Eyeball
We do stuff like this all the time, probably a dozen or more times per week.  The storytellers are constantly doing animations for things like this, perhaps minus the world-building aspect of idea #2.  That does happen also, but admittedly less often.

re: BadSkeelz
While every staff is different, generally it's the storytellers that are plot-interacting with players.  As an Administrator, my Arm-job is more about supporting them, who in turn support the players.  I do occasionally get a wild hair and do my own animations though.  I do agree though that it's not staff's job to generate fun for the playerbase, at least not 100% of the time.  The players should be interacting with each other for most of that, and we can turn dials or pull our levers along the way.  Then there's the big staff plots which are absolutely staff-generated fun, but those are often frameworks around changes that are larger in nature.

re: Is Friday / Heade
My bad about the snark!  You guys should look at yourselves through staff's eyes sometimes though.  We all play a game about harsh desert survival, tagline and all, and a little sarcasm still slices like a knife.

re: Others re: worldchange
Define "change the world" - do so in a way that encompasses whatever Arm doesn't let you do that you so desperately want it to.  I'm listening.  Change my mind.

re: further back in the thread
There are some good ideas here.  There are also some ideas that simply won't work for a variety of reasons, but that's fine too.

[Bebop]

re: Is Friday / Heade
My bad about the snark!  You guys should look at yourselves through staff's eyes sometimes though.  We all play a game about harsh desert survival, tagline and all, and a little sarcasm still slices like a knife.

I agree with them about the snark.  I play a game about murder, corruption and betrayl - doesn't mean I want to engage in any of that IRL or that sarcasm OOC is warranted.  We're voicing valid issues respectfully.  That respect should be mutual.  I'm one of the people that vocalized my issue with the master crafting system, or lack thereof and inferring I'm crying about it isn't really productive.  Edited to add - especially when some people on here are already saying they've struggled with staff relations.

[seidhr]

Re: Staff rotations why and how often
We rotate responsibilities for a few reasons but I think the biggest is just so that we can all learn about the game and keep up to date with what is going on - as well as just not getting burned out dealing with the same thing day in and day out.  I think there's supposed to be some kind of official rotation cycle time, but it seems to happen mostly just when it's convenient, as we get an influx of new blood most often.  Good clean break.

Re: Staff only working on things that interest them
Well - there's still some room for that, and I think the Admins (for myself speaking personally, for sure) try to let the STs run the clans that most interest them.  Certain people are very interested in reviewing and approving apps, other people like to fix typos, other people like to animate a lot - it just depends on the person and their interests.  We do split up into teams to cover the clans just so all the players have someone being their storyteller (and Admin) and therefore has an advocate in staff land.  If we just let staff run wild west and do whatever they want, minus whatever they didn't care to work on - certain things/clans would inevitably fall by the wayside.  And what those things would be would shift as the staff team itself did.

[Decameron]

Re: Staff only working on things that interest them
Well - there's still some room for that, and I think the Admins (for myself speaking personally, for sure) try to let the STs run the clans that most interest them.  Certain people are very interested in reviewing and approving apps, other people like to fix typos, other people like to animate a lot - it just depends on the person and their interests.  We do split up into teams to cover the clans just so all the players have someone being their storyteller (and Admin) and therefore has an advocate in staff land.  If we just let staff run wild west and do whatever they want, minus whatever they didn't care to work on - certain things/clans would inevitably fall by the wayside.  And what those things would be would shift as the staff team itself did.

Of course, and no one wants for plots to fall the wayside, which does naturally happen. It isn't anyone's fault. The characters involve die off, store, someone attempts to go in another direction, etc. I was just spit-balling, mostly, and wondering if there's a different metric to use other than clans as the division of responsibility. Something that would span and interweave clan plots a little more concisely, while also keeping the indies in the loop. Wasn't suggesting I have a better idea, either. Just brain-storming / ranting, mostly.

[Heade]

re: Is Friday / Heade
My bad about the snark!  You guys should look at yourselves through staff's eyes sometimes though.  We all play a game about harsh desert survival, tagline and all, and a little sarcasm still slices like a knife.

Yeah, my bad, too. While, I generally attempt to keep snark out of my posts, my last one was most certainly a riposte.

Sorry.

[Brokkr]

re: Others re: worldchange
Define "change the world" - do so in a way that encompasses whatever Arm doesn't let you do that you so desperately want it to.  I'm listening.  Change my mind.

I am listening too.  What would be helpful is specific things.  What steps you would go through.  How much time and effort from the player you think it would take.

[Heade]

re: Others re: worldchange
Define "change the world" - do so in a way that encompasses whatever Arm doesn't let you do that you so desperately want it to.  I'm listening.  Change my mind.

I am listening too.  What would be helpful is specific things.  What steps you would go through.  How much time and effort from the player you think it would take.

The issue is that we can't get into specifics here. It's just the generall stamping out of plot ideas before they've even had time to be developed, or have been developed up to a point where further development would require builder time and changing things IG, and so their progress is stopped via an OOC "No." response to a request or something, where it provides plenty of opportunity for staff to stamp out their progress IC instead.

I'd rather you murder my PC with NPCs for completely legitimate IG reasons than for my character progress to be halted because continuing my progress would OOCly be inconvenient, basically. Of course, I'd expect those NPCs to have found out via a legitimate IG path, or to have leaked information to a PC that they obtained via a legitimate IG path, but in either case, I'd rather have the IC world tell my PC "no" than to hear it via a request. Wouldn't even have to be murder to stop their progress on something. Could be being recruited into whoever is interested in stopping them from doing whatever it is they are trying to do. It would just be far more engaging, and the world would feel far more dynamic and alive.

Extreme Example: I want to kill Tektolnes. No staff are going to let me do that, because of just how much would need to be changed in the gameworld. But rather than tell me "No. Think of something else to do." I'd rather have staff say, ok, give it a shot. How are you going about it? How would you solve X, Y, and Z problems that you'd obviously face along the way?

Then, let me answer IC, let me try, and watch me fizzle out and die along the way. Or not. But let whatever happens, happen IC.

[Is Friday]

re: Is Friday / Heade
My bad about the snark!  You guys should look at yourselves through staff's eyes sometimes though.  We all play a game about harsh desert survival, tagline and all, and a little sarcasm still slices like a knife.

I'm just pointing this out for you because no one else was going to. When you're in a position of power over these players your casually dismissive tone and mocking turns people away. I mean shit, this thread is about jaded vets and why they're not playing anymore. You can add rudeness and disrespect from staff to the list. I've never had a bad interaction with you personally Seidhr but if you ever gave me a response like that as my clan staff I would just store. It's not about being a tough guy--it's more just that I wouldn't want to continue wasting my time with a person who displays the opposite of a collaborative attitude.