New Player will not be Returning

[Hanyo]

I do not know if this is typical of this MUD, or if it's just my bad luck but even in a Non-Consent environment it might behoove the game as a whole not to railroad brand new players and kill them for something they could not POSSIBLY have done just to be a dick.

I thought the game was pretty cool, but I will not be returning as this is what I expect is normal for the player base. I don't mind being ganked, but over something I couldn't have done and as someone who's been playing less than a full real time week? That just smells like a big pile of bantha poo.

I'm sure this will be taken as whining, but hopefully it comes across as something more like maybe a small piece of viable advice for trying to retain new players. Caio.

[Riev]

RIP man. I saw what happened.

I hope after the grief wears off, you try again. A similar situation happened to me where I lost 10days played because I 'joined the wrong clan' and got assassinated for it. One prompt. No combat. Just dead.

You were appreciated.

[mansa]

Hey Hanyo,

I'm sorry to see you go.  I have experienced the same thing you have.   Loss of a loved character really sucks, especially if you were just getting into it!

My only advice is to do one of two things:   Get on a new character and explore more of the game, or take a break and reassess what sort of fun you want to have with your spare time.  I like this roleplaying game, and it's incredibly sad when my characters die when they are so young and inexperienced!

[kahuna]

Dealing with pk on a perm-death mud is tough. I grew up on a hardcore pk mud so I learned to deal with it early on. I empathize with your response but I would urge you to give the game a few more shots with other types of PCs. I've had hundreds of characters on Arm and at one point would go through a PC once a week or so while learning the ins and outs.

[WarriorPoet]

Know why it hurts and breaks your heart? Because the game is great. Especially when it is a dope scene that you are going to remember 10 years later with hate and longing and all of the good shit Arm is about.

Good luck, mate. Hope you play again.

[Mazy]

One of the worst feelings you can experience in Armageddon Mud is being obliterated in PvP with no possible chance of winning. It's no consolation but a lot of us have had it happen. I daresay everyone who's stayed here long enough has either gotten the old fashioned apartment gank, gruesome betrayal, or an entire clan gives you the curb stomp. Even worse than that, is being framed for something you didn't do. Been there, done that - as victims for all of them.

Yeah, it sucks.

The tag line on the server is Murder, Corruption, and Betrayal. It's not about dictating your own story. It's a gruesome experience that rarely has happy endings. The same thing that makes it horrifying also makes it one of the most real, and endearing, and meaningful experiences. Because the mantis head (death) can spring up at you from around the corner at any time, each moment and scene is all the more precious. Give it a while and think things over, and maybe, in the mean time, you can come up with an amazing character for your next one.

[Heade]

You survived a week on your first character? Man...I remember back in the day when I first started arm, when there were deathtrap rooms not far from your starting position, and I'm pretty sure my first character died within like 15 minutes of making it. Then I had to wait like 24 hours for a new PC, then I fell in a hole within an hour, got knocked out, then waited forever to wake up, only to find I didn't have climb, so I starved to death in a hole. Then I made another PC and within a couple hours, a magick thing happened that caused me to end up next to a halfling, and I got eaten by a halfling. I remember thinking...wow, it didn't LOOK dangerous...

Things are significantly less dangerous than they were many years ago. We get warnings sometimes about not walking off a cliff now.

Hopefully you'll give it another shot.

[Dracul]

A week?

Shiite. I've got a 15 year old account and I still struggle to keep a character past a week. Ahem. I mean.

On another note...if I PKed you...come back....join me...jump into the other side of the map with a different character....write a new character up to replace your old that 'doesn't know' about who killed you, and you do your best to not let your IC knowledge overwhelm your brand spanking new characters knowledge.

Welcome to Armageddon.

[Gentleboy]

Totally valid.

I'm the posterchild for newbie

I am still navigating not getting myself killed- and failing. I play too boldly or am in the wrong place at the wrong time. I feel that veteran players are excited to play out a macho scene in their head in the game in real life- or like flexing their power. We're just the best fodder for older characters to make a point.

That being said, when the going get tough, the tough get going.

As a new generation of players, we can change the game world and what is the norms by bringing a fresh take on personality- especially for those of us who lack the knowledge of history in game. Our players most likely don't as well. We can change so much and put play like that out of style. Or not. IDK i'm an optimist.

[ShaLeah]

i'm an optimist.

Optimism on Armageddon is daring to step into a new character every time your last one dies no matter HOW it died. 
Everyone's an optimist on Arm.

[mansa]

Alas, Hanyo has not logged into the GDB since making this post, so he's not seen any of our replies.   

[Night Queen]

They could still read while logged out It's not as bad as it could be, the staff obviously have some kind of line drawn to stop it falling into random spam killing or it'd be worse than it is, but at the same time it seems like some people behave like this maybe more than they should
- maybe it could be good if it was made more clear what kind of killing is acceptable and where the line is with regards to rules and RP build-up/valid motivation beyond OOC urges to PK?

I think it'd give more encouragement to people that would try the game and want to make stories and contribute more to the game than wordless game command but might get put off by seeing these kind of stories, people do contribute a lot to some amazing stories in the game but it seems most stay close to the NPC law areas

[Lizzie]

For all we know, the events leading up to that death were totally legit, and the target intentionally selected and not because the player was new.

Hypothetical (since I don't know anything about the circumstances of the OP's situation):

Someone's been going around robbing apartments. Recently, a favored noble's senior aide's apartment was robbed. Lord Noble tells Lord Templar, who is under pressure for a promotion in the war ministry. So he tells his templar's aide to have the Arm find an elf and bring in his head.  Arm Sargent goes to the Gaj, finds an elf, arrests him, kills him, and brings in his head.

It doesn't matter that this elf did nothing. What matters, is that the templar brought in an elf's head and was able to tell the noble, "We got him!"

Wrong place wrong time is 100% legit.

Again no idea if it happened like this, but there are a LOT of possibilities that make no sense on the surface but make total sense when you peel back the layers.

[titansfan]

A lot of this pk stuff lately is a trend of leading pcs showing new players, mid age players how to handle conflict. Arm is only partially about murder and what makes it an RPI is the lead up to said murder. Veteran players need to show newer players how to handle situations without the "Kill anyone you see, kill them all, let's kill so and so for that snotty look...". Replace those with "Lets cut off their profits,  let's make their lives harder,  lets piss in their wine cask." PK plot wise, if not lead up to and contextualized is boring and fruitless. If everyone's dying all the time where is building happening,  or progress to the world,  or motivation. That's my two cents.

[Alesan]

I am actually kind of curious as to how many genuinely new players have been gained and retained in the last few years.

Sometimes this game feels like a clubhouse of the same players year after year.

[kahuna]

I don't think PK is the problem. Things just aren't fair most of the time. Most PKs that occur are the result of skilled up PCs in one group going after unskilled PCs in another. Or worse 4-5 PCs in one group going after 1 or 2 antagonists to that group. I don't mind the numbers differential it's just a bit disheartening to play against these organizations that are setup from the get-go to be way stronger and to go against it is futile. I don't think anyone finds it very fun to have zero enemies because.. well you killed them all.

[Dar]

Arm always had a low new player retention. Not every person can overcome spending a month on some character and then lose it all in 10 seconds of walking in on a mek.

Those who remain tend to be hard core and awesome.

[HavokBlue]

Hanyo, if you're reading this at all:

You're already doing better than most folks their first go round. My first PC made it maybe 3 hours before falling down a hole and breaking his neck.

Sometimes PK happens in this game. It's a world of conflict big and small. Sometimes, like in real life, PCs get blamed for things that they didn't do, or mistaken for other PCs. And sometimes, if you die for reasons that don't seem apparent or reasonable at all, it's really frustrating.

Anyone that's played Armageddon for a long time will tell you it's okay to take breaks between character losses. I've played for nearly a decade now and I take breaks. But if you stick around, I think you'll find out why folks have been coming back to this game for longer than I've been alive.

[tapas]

First of all. Don't listen to anyone that tells you it's not bullshit. You didn't need to lose your character. The player on the other side of the screen just didn't give a fuck. And that's just something you need to deal with while playing this mud.

Secondly. Surviving in Armageddon is often a compromise between role play and ooc motivated behaviors. You need to check the right boxes, make the right allies, avoid certain areas, elevate your characters to Stepford levels of agreeableness. All of which are honestly suspect if you take a completely in character perspective. Nor would I expect any of these to be evident to a new player.

As an example. The leaders of clans will frequently summon you to their clan compounds so they can trap you and off you ezpz. There's nothing in the documentation that would suggest this is a frequent occurrence. And you would also think that a living breathing world there would be a consequence for this sort of thing. There isn't. And staff don't care. So you as a player just need to adopt the ooc imperative never to visit clan compounds you don't have control over.

This is my cynical take. But I think it's more honest than posts saying "This is Armageddon, death happens sometimes, sorrynotsorry it sucked for you."

EDIT: I should correct myself to say that staff do care. Obviously they wouldn't put so much time into the game if they didn't. My issue is with staff policy that allows for certain types of abuse to occur.

[Riev]

This is my cynical take. But I think it's more honest than posts saying "This is Armageddon, death happens sometimes, sorrynotsorry it sucked for you."

I'm usually the salty one, but I don't recall anyone saying anything like this in this specific thread.

I will say enough that I know what happened. I will not say if it was good, okay, bad, poor play, or judge either side. If you have a problem with what someone has said, call THEM out, not a blanket statement.

[Lizzie]

Tapas, you don't know what happened from the other player's perspective in the OP's circumstances. I feel that's a disservice to whoever that player is, when you just make an assumption like that. Yes it's absolutely possible. But none of us know. The only person who does know, is the person who did it and possibly the staff. Since the staff chooses not to "out" everyone who does anything wrong to the public, it's not likely they are going to give details to us here.

Secondly, ALL roleplay gaming is a compromise between roleplay and OOC motivated behaviors. Making the right allies, avoiding certain areas, etc- are all part of roleplay. It's a learning curve, a steep one, and it hasn't stopped hundreds of players from playing Arm past their first few characters over the course of the past 20-something years. Dozens of people playing now, have been playing for over a decade. And every single one of them was a clueless newbie when they started out.

Regarding the clan compound deaths: what of it? If you are playing a character involved in city politics and you want someone "quietly out of the way" what better way to do that than to bring them to your turf and handle it quietly? Do you feel every PK needs to be a public execution with jury and trial? Do you feel every PC who has spent weeks raiding and robbing travellers, should be asked consent to a death scene?

In a living breathing world such as the one of Zalanthas, commoners disappear all the time and no one thinks much of it. Such is life in the big bad city. There's a "oh no not another one!" for a few days and the world continues on without them.

Armageddon has rejected Disneyfication. There are plenty of games that have gone the "fair" route. Most of them are defunct, and some of them have become trading card games. The ones that reject disneyfication are few and far between and have a very limited playerbase. But that's because this *type* of game is only attractive to people who embrace the genre. I'd rather keep the genre and have a limited playerbase, than change the genre just for a chance of increasing the playerbase.

[Dar]

Agreed with Lizzie mostly.

Except the bringing a person into the faction HQ for the kill part. I mean you can do it, but only if the actual kill is done by you and the PCs that agreed to help you. Not the NPCs the are coded to auto assist. Staff voiced their opinion numerous times, saying that doing that is considered abuse of AI limitations.

[Lizzie]

Agreed with Lizzie mostly.

Except the bringing a person into the faction HQ for the kill part. I mean you can do it, but only if the actual kill is done by you and the PCs that agreed to help you. Not the NPCs the are coded to auto assist. Staff voiced their opinion numerous times, saying that doing that is considered abuse of AI limitations.

Oh - definitely. I'm not promoting the idea of leading PCs into NPCs in clan compounds. In fact I'd actually promote the ability for clan leaders to DISABLE the auto-gank flag on NPCs in clan compounds on an as-needed basis for just this purpose. So for example - if I was Jojo Kadius and I wanted Jimbob Salarr dead...

I'd bring Jimbob over for lunch. I'd have my co-clannies (pcs) waiting for him. As soon as MY clannies engage in combat - combat would begin, and the NPCs in the room would back off (since we got it handled). Only if Jimbob attacked me/mine FIRST, would the NPCs come in to assist.

[tapas]

"Hey you don't know all the details. Maybe it's not as shitty as you think."

--Lizzie

"That shitty strategy that is routinely deployed for easy player killing is totally legit."

--Lizzie, literally the same post

[kahuna]

Clan compound pkills are complete and utter shit and add nothing to the game. Those that dump PCs from a clan in order to take advantage of them being trapped in the compound are the types of players I will go out of my way to not encounter ever again in the game.