Estranged Veterans' Perspective

[Malken]

I have a feeling that you'll be gone in about two months, Bebop. Not because I'm trying to be mean but mostly because you now understand why many of us have left a while back. Right now you're in the stage where you are trying to convince yourself that things are going to change but deep inside you know you're just hoping for something that will definitely not happen in the time frame you feel acceptable. Discussing changes endlessly is much different than seeing these changes in game. We've been talking about what needs to be done on the GDB for the last 15 years.

Have you seen all the great games out recently and the upcoming ones? This is naturally eating in what time staff are also willing to give to Arm, on top of family and jobs. This isn't 2001 when muds were still somewhat popular. There's also the fact that you can say just recruit more Staff, but most veterans who would make a good staff probably have already been there before and the pool of players to recruit from is really tiny by now. No new players equal less decent staff and much less manpower left to dedicate to the game. Stabilizing armageddon is probably the best you can hope for nowadays, with tiny advancement done once in a blue moon.

[Bebop]

I just feel like it doesn't have to be so top-heavy. Don't get me wrong. I love the oppressiveness of the city-states and the deification of the kings, but do we really need to make them too big to ever fail? I think we could take the power level of the higher-ups down a few notches and still maintain the same themes, while opening up more rebellious plots and schemes (among those who aren't literally insane with delusions of grandeur) and making higher echelons of power (not just horizontal 'promotions') more feasible for PCs to be able to realistically play.

What I'm trying to clumsily say is...is there a reason that black robes HAVE to be able to snap their fingers and kill your future descendents for generations, or level an entire city-state before breakfast? Isn't that overkill? I think we can enforce the idea of a totalitarian state run by terrifyingly powerful sorcerers without taking things to the highest possible extreme. It just kills plots before they have a chance to even start.

I agree.  And I'm glad things are being worked, that's reassuring.

What I don't understand is what was unsuccessful?  Liet.  Paryl of the Arm, Liet. Raul of the Byn (<3), Great Lord Samos, Senior Lady Ceylara ... what was unsuccessful about these characters?  They handled their IG power well, earned it and they are all noteworthy characters that added to the game.  Even more so, they gave the game trusted leaders that didn't require staff intervention of some dusty, animated NPC.

What I don't get is ... what needs fixing?  It's been proven that these kinds of roles work in game when earned and given to trustworthy players.  They give players long-term goals to work towards.  I absolutely do not understand shutting them down.  Even the term "junior noble" sounds lame, and it is.  The lack of power that title entails is brought up constantly IG when convenient.  Characters are constantly reminded of their lack of power despite taking steps IG that might increase their power and notoriety.

To me the current system, across all clans feels broken with the exception of GMH which working from Merchant, to Apprentice Agent, to Agent seems a decent system and power level.  Though - the dynamic of turning Luir's into a mini-city state because Tuluk closed is completely upside down.  Allanak would not stand for "mini-GMH" nobles having their own city between them and Tuluk.  Tuluk probably would give them the smack down too for that matter.

In the meantime, since this is being looked at, I would also ask what are players in leadership roles supposed to do to not stagnate?
Part of my PK thread was to infer that leaders should busy themselves with adding depth to the game.  They should not diminishing it or trying to assert power by simply PKing which often times I believe is due to boredom and the game not properly reflecting that acting an ass will get you shut down or doing well will get you promoted.  Because there is no real ladder to climb in most scenarios.

Combined with the fact that most IG leaders don't have much room for reward or ascendancy you then have the fact that now someone who is a master crafter... can't custom craft things unless they sent in an e-mail to specify that.  In a game there should be reward and less red tape to achieve that but in fact the opposite seems to have occurred and now there all of these OOC steps to jump through to be able to play, create and ascend.

Another thing that bothers me is that ascension really does come down to the staff, and I often wonder how the temperature of the game itself is actually being read because the success of a PC is really open to interpretation and I don't like that it's so objective.  Things being overly objective is a big part of why friction between staff and players happen - vary ideas of interpretation.

In short what I'm trying to say is --- I believe player, staff relations have improved (at least I feel on my end they have.)  But what I don't like is, it seems that staff are holding all of the power cards.  Full magickers are gone.  People can't ascend to the higher levels they once could.  And people that have maxed their crafting skills can't submit a custom craft without sending an arbitrary email in before their character is created for approval and ... possibly using karma?  I really couldn't tell you what the process is because I don't understand it full myself.  The fact that it's not intuitive is an issue.  Combine all of this with the fact that Tuluk has been shut down, there's a totally new social dynamic, and you can't escape Allanak if you want to keep playing a city-based, politicking character?  Things will stagnate rapidly because there isn't a newness and sense of reward. 

I also believe this is part of the reason the social system IG is so deeply out of whack.  There are no real promotions so people just treat PCs that have been around a long time like they're worth more socially than they are and no one has titles to reflect where they stand in regards to their clan/Houses.  And in general, I think especially since Allanak is the only open city-state the nuances of class should be FAR more emphasized than they are currently being RP'd in game.

Things seem much more convoluted and it should be going the opposite direction so that players feel more independent to create, drive plots, and lead clans.

I have to ask the question.  If you can't get promoted, if you can't make custom crafts, if you can't battle between two-city states, if you can't be a powerful magicker... honestly, once you get past surface level here, what is their left for PCs to do other than have flashpan, surface level conflicts, PK, skill grind and time sink?

Being brutally honest, after five months back I find myself ---

To what ends am I playing?  What can I actually achieve with my character?
Is there a point to adding to game history if it won't be around in a few years?

I used to play to become Lieutenant.  Or a Red Robe or... whatever the Faithful promotion was, I forget but I saw that IG too.  Eunoli was it?  Felysia too maybe?  Elithan?  With Sweet Roll she was a pickpocket but once I maxed out my cooking I got to make a custom craft of ... you guessed it.  Sweet Rolls.  A simple achievement but one that brought fun and a sense of reward to bust out my sekret sweet roll recipe and teach it to others.  It was fun for them too, to learn something new.  No e-mail before the character was every created to ask if I could custom craft with her one maxed crafting skill required.  There were still rules.  One master craft a week or a month?  And you had to write everything up yourself so we're talking some simple data entry into the game every few weeks.  Even if there were 10 master crafters IG you're talking one or two pages of text per character a month.  In my example of Sweet Roll, she had one crafting skill I didn't even know I could max at the time.  I would have never thought to send an e-mail before character creation. 

There were little rewards I enjoyed striving for.  I was always having fun and looking forward to the next cool thing I could do.  The next craft I could make.  The next promotion I could get.  And when I died I could switch it up and see what was going on on the other side of the world.  Or fiddle with a magicker and switch it up.  And each magicker had totally different skills so it would take forever to get a feel for all of the roles. 

Now the skills are mostly interchangable between the available classes just at different levels of availability.  Magickers are mostly gone and again the process of getting one is so confusing and convoluted that after my return I still don't understand it. 

The sense of discovery and pursuit is dwindling and that's very clearly because this is a game without a real sense of reward which is what games are generally all about.  Competition, and that sense of accomplishment - fun and entertainment.  I feel there needs to really be more intent around that for players.  Right now the game seems to me, to be more about petty squabbles and less about depth of story, player driven plots and a sense of discovery and reward.

To clarify  --- that is not to say the game should be easier.  It's so say that if you live long enough to max out a craft, if you've been around awhile and thriving in a leadership role, if you're trusted enough to not abuse power - it should be given to you IG.  It doesn't have to be easy to come by, but it SHOULD be available to come by without arbitrary exchange of emails before character creation etc or just not available at all.

Custom crafting is too much work - let's take it away.  We're not sure how to handle promotions in game so we're taking them away until we figure it out.  Magickers are too powerful so we've mostly taken them away.  Mhm, we have less players so ... Tuluk, we're taking it away.  Taking everything away little by little is not a great solution in my eyes.  I'm not saying it to be mean, I'm sure that wasn't the intent but to my eyes after being gone for five years it certainly looks like a lot has been removed and I'm not sure what is really replacing it or what characters are kind of meant to do in an overarching way individually or collectively. A lot has been taken away that was a draw to the game and retained players and it seems it's just expected everyone is supposed to be cool with that. 

A lot of people are saying little to no guidance has been given in the interim of these things being withheld from players.  Tuluk is currently a huge elephant in the room with no one knowing really how to RP it or treat it and many pining for it but we're being told that probably won't be looked at for a RL half year or more.  I would say the same for PC leaders that don't have the option for real coded promotions.  Or people that enjoyed full magickers and so on.  What is the stand in?  What is the expectation?  And beyond that what do players expect from staff so the game retains a sense of fun and reward?  That is really the heart of what I'm getting to.

Since we're on a different page, I'm quoting myself to respond to you Malken because I don't want it to get missed.

I may not play as hard in two months, no.  I believe it's good to have healthy limits of play anyway.  Arm is not something I would let take over my life for years on end again (and I'll be honest it has in the past.)  But I do really love the game and I hope I will stick around in some form to see it get better, to help and to play when I can.  Regardless, there's no point in speculating on me leaving again ATM.

[solera]

Could not those few promoted lieutenants etc gain  storyteller powers solely focused on their character (if these are necessary for their jobs)? That is of course if they would tick all the boxes necessary for anyone becoming staff.
I feel this is a dumb question, but I can't see why, so I'm asking.

[Brokkr]

Tek and Muk Utep and their higher ups offset each other.  And they generally don't care enough about the unwashed masses to want to harm (or help) them.

At what stage of escalation, would they become involved? That is, say an Allanaki rebellion formed, and got busy. How far could players realistically expect, to soldier on, towards glorious revolution, before staff were forced to address them, with a black robed fly swatter?

I find, the hardest thing to conceptually grasp, is "where would you have to stop", or even, "how would you stop" in a way, that isn't essentially being annihilated, by a super NPC, in a tower somewhere.

Player clans, for example... how far, could players take a clan, until it hit the point, where it either had to be taken out of player hands, or had to be annihilated, because players hit the point, where their scope was greater, than could adequately be handled?

The obvious example would be Ironsword.

[Brokkr]

...
What I'm trying to clumsily say is...is there a reason that black robes HAVE to be able to snap their fingers and kill your future descendents for generations, or level an entire city-state before breakfast? Isn't that overkill? I think we can enforce the idea of a totalitarian state run by terrifyingly powerful sorcerers without taking things to the highest possible extreme. It just kills plots before they have a chance to even start.

You give PCs too much coded power and that kills plots though.  Look at Tuluk, 5 years ago.

What does this even mean? What aspect of Tuluk was too much coded power? Psionic? It's really nothing compared to full sorcery,

We (Staff includes) are rooted in the idea of too big to fail, fear of wild dynamics, and things like "there are 15-20 red robes" and "black robes snap and you die". These are all functions Staff stands behind and wills into being. That doesn't necessarily mean it's the best or only way.

You do realize one of the initial hooks of Dark Sun is the death of Kalak of Tyr? It is never entirely solved, but it places the city in endless turmoil, infighting between nobles and Templars, commoner and slave rebellion, not to mention the Veiled Alliance.

Honestly, I see a marked reticence and trepidation to take risks from Staff. It just doesn't lend itself to the creative mindset. Sometimes you need to take risks. Walk back mistakes. Try again. Tek dies and shit is going sideways? A black robe takes on the mantle of immortal sorcerer king.

It's just endlessly odd that Staff is still so delicate of touching the power structure of Allanak or altering documentation. But fuck Tuluk.

We just killed two Black Robes.  Players were involved in the struggle and aligned themselves with Red Robes and those NPC desires for advancement. There was a PC action that completely changed the outcome of which NPCs ascended to Black Robe.

This may also be a reflection on how some of us, at least, view timelines.  Since that was like 3 years ago.

[Brokkr]

This is really interesting to watch.

Can anyone give me some details (or a pointer to reading) on the role of white robe templars?  Could any good come from opening them for play?  Could they/are they somehow placed beneath blue robes to give newbie templar players some vertical movement?

Hopefully they are all gone now.  They were an order rooted in history and don't really have a place now.

[Brokkr]

Bebop, I have absolutely no idea where you got the idea that an email was necessary for custom crafting, and I would expect a veteran to know that the right location to correspond would be the request tool in any case.

If you want to custom craft:

If you are a legacy merchant, continue as you always did.
If you have a crafting Extended Subclass, there will be specific skills you get through it that you can custom craft.
If you choose the 0 karma Custom Crafter subclass, you can custom craft skills that you get through your main class, even if they don't go to master.

As for mages, again, email not necessary.  Choose a subclass that has magick.  Or do a special app if you are 1 karma below the magick subclass you would like to play.

Don't spread misinformation trying to bolster an argument with hyperbole.

[sleepyhead]

Brokkr, they [white robes] are not all gone. They exist in echoes and in the water temple at the very least, and I've had some echoes manually thrown at me by staff about them, so I don't think everyone is on the same page about that.

[Veselka]

Not on the same page? Huh.

[Veselka]

...
What I'm trying to clumsily say is...is there a reason that black robes HAVE to be able to snap their fingers and kill your future descendents for generations, or level an entire city-state before breakfast? Isn't that overkill? I think we can enforce the idea of a totalitarian state run by terrifyingly powerful sorcerers without taking things to the highest possible extreme. It just kills plots before they have a chance to even start.

You give PCs too much coded power and that kills plots though.  Look at Tuluk, 5 years ago.

What does this even mean? What aspect of Tuluk was too much coded power? Psionic? It's really nothing compared to full sorcery,

We (Staff includes) are rooted in the idea of too big to fail, fear of wild dynamics, and things like "there are 15-20 red robes" and "black robes snap and you die". These are all functions Staff stands behind and wills into being. That doesn't necessarily mean it's the best or only way.

You do realize one of the initial hooks of Dark Sun is the death of Kalak of Tyr? It is never entirely solved, but it places the city in endless turmoil, infighting between nobles and Templars, commoner and slave rebellion, not to mention the Veiled Alliance.

Honestly, I see a marked reticence and trepidation to take risks from Staff. It just doesn't lend itself to the creative mindset. Sometimes you need to take risks. Walk back mistakes. Try again. Tek dies and shit is going sideways? A black robe takes on the mantle of immortal sorcerer king.

It's just endlessly odd that Staff is still so delicate of touching the power structure of Allanak or altering documentation. But fuck Tuluk.

We just killed two Black Robes.  Players were involved in the struggle and aligned themselves with Red Robes and those NPC desires for advancement. There was a PC action that completely changed the outcome of which NPCs ascended to Black Robe.

This may also be a reflection on how some of us, at least, view timelines.  Since that was like 3 years ago.

1-4 Noble/Templar PCs involved in which NPC ascended to generational genocidal deus ex machina position. Cool plot in theory. But how life altering/game altering was it really? 3 years later — it's not even in the history chronology. Newbies making new characters wouldn't know about it or be able to reference it. Veterans coming back to the game wouldn't know about it. If anything it's a perfect example of an endemic issue plaguing the game. If you know, you know. If you don't know, you don't need to know. At least according to the people who are in the know.

[Bebop]

Bebop, I have absolutely no idea where you got the idea that an email was necessary for custom crafting, and I would expect a veteran to know that the right location to correspond would be the request tool in any case.

If you want to custom craft:

If you are a legacy merchant, continue as you always did.
If you have a crafting Extended Subclass, there will be specific skills you get through it that you can custom craft.
If you choose the 0 karma Custom Crafter subclass, you can custom craft skills that you get through your main class, even if they don't go to master.

As for mages, again, email not necessary.  Choose a subclass that has magick.  Or do a special app if you are 1 karma below the magick subclass you would like to play.

Don't spread misinformation trying to bolster an argument with hyperbole.

Sending an e-mail, I meant the request tool -- I am reverting hard.  And as I said, I don't fully understand how it works because I wasn't here when it was all implemented.  I still find it a bit confusing.

[sleepyhead]

Sorry, my post about being on the same page was in reference to white robed templars. I edited it to make that more clear.

[Aruven]

3. Let leaders advance

We're going to make you sweat like C&C Music Factory to get it

I don't remember anything else, but it was well said.  Challenge accepted.

Also, I guess I feel like red robes are suddenly way more powerful than I ever imagined. Getting carried around on bone slave pallets and all sorts of crazy stuff. Don't get me wrong: They are a big deal. A lot of the things being attributed to their 'power level over 9000' is my magnitude of a black robe. My perception is a little skewed because my impression came from interacting with PC 'red robes' mostly.

I'd love feedback on this thought. I feel like this area of the game, players want to be able to achieve long-term things, and that includes progression and change of the game itself. IC'ly. There's a perceived overall theme that prevents this. The theme is that the gameworld has a strict series of settings. The map doesn't change much, amongst whatever other things you want to pick at. There was a situation in Tuluk where some people wanted to develop ballistae basically to fight the kryl. The upside response was that it just felt too technological or unfitting to the theme of the game or something like that. This isn't a devastating blow to the game or anything, however it dawned on me that  maybe I wasn't seeing it the right way at all. Is it a progressive story that'll develop with the actions and decisions of the players? Is it a world that has a timeline simply to accommodate big events? Is it a good idea to keep things generally as they are? What would happen if we spun the wheel and let the floodwaters go?

Whatever the answer, one thing that maybe just took a lot of attention I felt was great: The entire striasiri, Qynar divisions in Tuluk. Seemed like a lot of playability on the noble side.

[evilcabbage]

white robes are not just an order rooted in history and are not all gone, they sprouted up i believe after thrain ironsword as an order of templars dedicated to worship of the dragon, and they manage the cities water resources.

as far as i know, that's from the coming soon story threads, where their formation was noted. to say that "they have no place" and "they are an order rooted in history" doesn't make any sense. if they're rooted in history, they have a place. if it's the staff's directive to begin removing things that are rooted in history, then i'm sorry to say, but i believe you're going to inevitably start driving even more people away from the game.

[Veselka]

Don't spread misinformation trying to bolster an argument with hyperbole.

Maybe she made an honest mistake?

Spread misinformation? C'mon man. We aren't bolsheviks trying to overthrow the government. We're just trying to offer our opinions about what keeps us around, what turns us away, and what might bring some other folks back into the fold.

From an estranged veteran point of view -- Staff might spend some time on their public image, how they are perceived. Who will and won't be the face to the player base. Some of Staff have great player advocate mentalities, exhibited both through their public posting and request tool etiquette. Others certainly do not. Any team understands who makes the cogs oiled and working correctly, and who's customer service.

[evilcabbage]

nevermind, i found it.

1395 (Year 9 Age 19)

    Exactly one year after the beginning of the siege of Allanak, Tektolnes reappears in the guise of a dragon and breathes death upon the sieging army - the army ceases to exist. Over the course of the next few years, a temple is built near the entrance of the city, in which the newly formed white-robe templarate preach the worship of He Who Rescued Us, the Mighty Dragon Tektolnes.


they aren't just a 'part of lore and history' that 'doesn't belong'. they formed for a pretty obvious and good reason.

[Decameron]

We just killed two Black Robes.  Players were involved in the struggle and aligned themselves with Red Robes and those NPC desires for advancement. There was a PC action that completely changed the outcome of which NPCs ascended to Black Robe.

This may also be a reflection on how some of us, at least, view timelines.  Since that was like 3 years ago.

I'll admit, as a veteran whose returned, I .. had no idea that any of this happened. So, today I learned something.

I realize this reflects a few other's desires but would it be possible to have a smaller section or perhaps a reflection on the GDB from the IC boards that reflect events that one might know about on a large scale, and maybe their status (pending / concluded)? I know 'FOIC' has been out mantra for a long time, but logging into the middle of a rainstorm, snowstorm, earthquake, gith attack, fire-kanks, which have been occurring on a regular basis and acting accordingly like 'WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING!?!!" and getting the response of: "What do you mean? This has been happening every week! Where have you been?!" and trying to explain that you've been hiding out in Nilaz and that you're a Nilazi, to your animated corpses, gets a little impractical. I feel like far-reaching world events should be posted on the GDB immediately after they've happened. It'll serve the dual purpose of getting people interested in log in, and keep the player-base up to date whose not available to be on during those events.

Think I saw some tidbit of this referenced as well, but if the position of blue -> red is too great to offer to a PC, would there be an issue with having an intermediary position? We lowered the ceiling to promote positions that are 'playable', so why not simply create more positions in that sphere of play? I understand that we would run the risk of everyone becoming Lord / Lady  'Meh' Mediocre of House Middling Position, but as long as they have enough authority / power to warrant the pursuit of power and as long as that power is hard enough to reach, I feel there will be players who take it and run with it. It should involve titles, and others perks, as people seem to go nuts for that shit. While we do have something akin to this presently with 'Middle Tier' Nobility or long-lived Blue-Robes, I am speaking of fleshing this out more to be a much steeper and longer climb to that peak of being stored for reaching Senior / Red-Robed. It gives the PC something to reach for, other than storage.

[Nao]

This is really interesting to watch.

Can anyone give me some details (or a pointer to reading) on the role of white robe templars?  Could any good come from opening them for play?  Could they/are they somehow placed beneath blue robes to give newbie templar players some vertical movement?

Hopefully they are all gone now.  They were an order rooted in history and don't really have a place now.

The templar handing out water is still a white robe.

[Brytta Léofa]

We just killed two Black Robes.  Players were involved in the struggle and aligned themselves with Red Robes and those NPC desires for advancement. There was a PC action that completely changed the outcome of which NPCs ascended to Black Robe.

Here's a radical proposal: lift the veil on game lore.

Right now there's game history that is many years old and not public knowledge. Some of it will never be found out IC. Some of it will be forgotten/lost/retconned. Many secrets will only ever be legitimately known to a handful of players.

The state of game lore is a bit like the state of mastercrafting: lots of effort put in, but the payoff maybe not scaling as well as it should.

Imagine that there is a staff chronology page that is a superset of the public chronology, comprising the definitive guide to everything that can be known about Zalanthas' history. It contains whole entries that aren't publicly known, as well as secret annotations on the public entries. Every entry has a secrecy rating: PUBLIC (immediately known to the player base), SECRET ("Allanak intended for Tuluk to get all the copper because it's radioactive and will kill them", or SUPER SECRET ("Zalanthas is a puddle in New Mexico; the Dragon is a rattlesnake").

Such a page doesn't exist as described (AFAIK) but it's a reasonable way of modeling Game Lore.

My proposal:
- Continuously make public everything rated "SECRET" that is over two RL years old.
- Continuously make public everything rated "SUPER SECRET" that is over five RL years old.

Benefits:
- We get to see the Story. The Story does Work proportional to the thousands of hours of effort put into it by staff and players. The Story is cool and keeps sucking us in. We want to affect The Story.
- We're forced to keep coming up with new History content.

Downsides:
- No deep dark secrets that are more than five (or whatever) years old.
- We're forced to keep coming up with new History content. Honestly I think this is a good thing, but I'm not on staff.

In a nutshell: if you view this as a secrets vs. dynamism lever, we've been far over on the "secrets" side for years. This has its value...but I'm interested in what "dynamism" could do for us.

[Brokkr]

We have a subset of players that have access to all that.  So we have experience.  Unlikely to ever happen.

[Veselka]

Do you mean...Staff? Sorry if I'm a bit dense, but I can't quite understand what you mean. A subset of players has access to all of what, secret game lore? So we have experience...Experience with what, or to what end? Unlikely to ever happen...Due to lack of resources or desire to do so?

[Brokkr]

Yes, staff.  Current and previous.

Because of what it would do to the game play environment.  It often changes, for folks that have been on staff.  Even for players sometimes when they get a peek at things.  For example, one thing we've seen repeatedly, is that a player knows some secret thing with one character.  Then on a subsequent character (sadly, often a noble or templar), they decide that character would know it.

Now multiply times however many less diligent folks for all the secret stuff behind the veil.

[Veselka]

I suppose I'm less interested in the secrets behind the veil thingy (because I agree with that assessment). More interested in a more up-to-date chronology, and a way for it to be easier updated or maintained. Posting that on the main website, so people can keep track of the interesting tidbits going on in the game, and maybe get excited or hooked back in that way.

[Brokkr]

As far as updating, this is me, several days ago:

I can update the Chronology.  We've typically had a level of importance to what we post there, as well as waiting on posting most events, with exceptions for HRPT world events.

Outside of the GMH moving into Luirs and the formation of the Garrison, what do folks rises up to the traditional level of importance in your minds?

As for how, it is fairly easy to update.  It is more a matter of remembering, often after waiting an amount of time before we post, so that having information IG about what happened has value.

[BadSkeelz]

Anyone remember what the hell this was about?

https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,49223.0.html

Was two weeks before Tuluk closed. I don't think it was the red robe DBZ fight, but I don't remember the exact order of events. Nor have I had much luck finding a relevant tavern post in any of my logs from that time.