Feedback on playing and log-ins

[kahuna]

I really don't wanna derail this thread any further but to compare D&D and MUDs is unwise. Armageddon is a very niche game, MUDs at their peak had maybe 100,000 players playing thousands of games in the 90s and early 2000's, that number is far far less these days. D&D on the other hand is far more main stream, its got millions of players.

https://dungeonvault.com/how-many-dnd-players-are-there-worldwide/

There is nothing productive gained in comparing a MUD to anything main stream. Neither one is better than the other, it's just what people choose to do as a hobby with their free time.

[Abaya]

Always check your sources, or you'll end up like those founders of dungeons & dragons and screaming at people that they can't wear masks because it's a conspiracy... There's no mention of where those numbers came from, and it all seems to originate from companies trying to advertise themselves (probably using the topmudsites method of just padding out when feel like it, because no one is checking), including that website

I've never heard much talk about dungeons and dragons until playing Armageddon, it just doesn't really come up in most modern chat/forums for most online roleplaying games. I think it's probably something that is more a thing that people who already like it like, but definitely not mainstream in the way online games are.

Yeah won't go offtopic anymore

[kahuna]

Wizards of the Coast themselves have released the data. They estimate 50 million players in 2020. I'm not exactly sure what kind of source you want? The creators of the game have the data on how many D&D books they sell worldwide. What possible source could satisfy your skepticism? If your argument is that there isn't that many people playing D&D, or that MUDs are somehow more popular that's just not true, sorry.

Here's the infographic released by WOTC:
https://gamerant.com/dungeons-and-dragons-infographic-2021/

[Abaya]

You literally just linked marketing material direct from a company lol! Don't blindly trust sources without proof of being unbiased

[Riev]

It is slightly concerning that, in a thread where players are stating they don't often feel heard, you're demanding information that conforms to what your opinion on "true facts" are.

Who else, but the company that owns a product, would have the information on how many units are sold?
Who else. but the player who felt abused or mistreated, would have the information on why they felt that way?
Who else, but the staffer who is accused of something, would have the information on what they did to defend themselves?

What?

[Abaya]

Usually when you want to get a statistic for something, an independent party carries out research, you don't just trust some random corporation's press release - As abusive as some companies are with the truth, it seems a bit demeaning to compare that abuse. With abuse people know exactly what happened and how it happened. And evidence is obvious how it was collected, without opaqueness.

[Dar]

Critical Role, a podcast where people play D&D has like 17 mill viewers.  Every MMMORPG is based either completely, or distantly on D&D. Europe has their own version of D&D that has nothing to do with Wizards of the Coast.


How is this freaking relevant to people playing Armageddon?

[Is Friday]

Usually when you want to get a statistic for something, an independent party carries out research, you don't just trust some random corporation's press release - As abusive as some companies are with the truth, it seems a bit demeaning to compare that abuse. With abuse people know exactly what happened and how it happened. And evidence is obvious how it was collected, without opaqueness.

Your entire platform is incorrect, because Hasbro is a public company. They cannot lie about their numbers (legally) or have fraud be brought against them. It's speculated that public companies might inflate their numbers by 10% or so and get away with it, sometimes - which in essence isn't a big deal for the point being made.


SAFETY TOOLS:
A person asked I post about Safety Tools here so I shall do so. Whether or not Arm decides to make changes to the consent system is up to y'all. I don't play here anymore. (And based on some of the critics in this thread of ArmMUD, many of it stems from a lack of safety for its players.) For those of you who say: "Just use the OOC command to say you're uncomfortable, file a report, log off" - I think you're beyond reasoning with. This includes some staff. You'd rather bury your heads in the sand than see the perspective of other players and will continue to wonder why the abused do not return.

To the person in Discord who said "I doubt this person is a saint" and to Shaloonsh who insinuated that I am an abusive person:
Yes, I have been abusive to other players and members of staff. That's why you should have safety tools. No one person can decide what the standard of safe play is in a cooperative environment. Communication about safety ought to be made as integrated into the play experience as possible for the game. I've had many conversations with players where I was personally unaware of harm or "thought it was cool" what we had been roleplaying, only to find out they had lasting trauma over it.

I am hoping staff are open to criticism and reflection on the matter.

MCDM Safety Tools:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/73512191

[kahuna]

How is this freaking relevant to people playing Armageddon?

It's not I think the derail was intentional though. Reminds me why I stopped posting here.

[Abaya]

There's no relation at all, it was just subtle attempts at advertising I think.

Because no publicly-traded corporation ever habitually broke the law in almost undetectable ways when it suited them - Seriously? I wish we lived on that planet.

Safety tools sounds like a good idea, but it feels super ironic it being on Patreon given the real names and emails of everyone who used it was leaked a few years ago. That's just one example of not trusting companies not to mess up things that are important to you.

After looking at it, I saw one of these (not filled in) floating around years ago. I don't think it's a good idea to be giving potential abusers a list of fears and hoping that never gets used against, shared, or stolen.

[Dar]

To be honest. Since 'clearly' it is affecting other people so much (One person affected is enough really), we truly should expend some time and energy to create a few layers of consent related safety tools. Even if a percentage (of which I am one of) would immediately go 'consent all'.   Someone else may prefer that extra level of protection from ... ickier sides of human nature.

[Dar]

How is this freaking relevant to people playing Armageddon?

It's not I think the derail was intentional though. Reminds me why I stopped posting here.

Orrrrrr, we can assume a honest mistake. Maybe ask Moderator to clean thread and get back to productive posting?

[Abaya]

I'd say hard code it so no one else can view the preferences (because of the many issues around that being unsafe or opening people to harassment) but if something comes up, do a silent test that whatever concept is going to come up and if pings back, then they need to ask (or just not do it)

[CirclelessBard]

Usually when you want to get a statistic for something, an independent party carries out research, you don't just trust some random corporation's press release - As abusive as some companies are with the truth, it seems a bit demeaning to compare that abuse. With abuse people know exactly what happened and how it happened. And evidence is obvious how it was collected, without opaqueness.

Your entire platform is incorrect, because Hasbro is a public company. They cannot lie about their numbers (legally) or have fraud be brought against them. It's speculated that public companies might inflate their numbers by 10% or so and get away with it, sometimes - which in essence isn't a big deal for the point being made.


SAFETY TOOLS:
A person asked I post about Safety Tools here so I shall do so. Whether or not Arm decides to make changes to the consent system is up to y'all. I don't play here anymore. (And based on some of the critics in this thread of ArmMUD, many of it stems from a lack of safety for its players.) For those of you who say: "Just use the OOC command to say you're uncomfortable, file a report, log off" - I think you're beyond reasoning with. This includes some staff. You'd rather bury your heads in the sand than see the perspective of other players and will continue to wonder why the abused do not return.

To the person in Discord who said "I doubt this person is a saint" and to Shaloonsh who insinuated that I am an abusive person:
Yes, I have been abusive to other players and members of staff. That's why you should have safety tools. No one person can decide what the standard of safe play is in a cooperative environment. Communication about safety ought to be made as integrated into the play experience as possible for the game. I've had many conversations with players where I was personally unaware of harm or "thought it was cool" what we had been roleplaying, only to find out they had lasting trauma over it.

I am hoping staff are open to criticism and reflection on the matter.

MCDM Safety Tools:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/73512191

I appreciate reading about Safety Tools. Although I was not the one who asked about it, I appreciate the link.

I wonder how you feel about the idea of a session zero being implemented in Armageddon (or a MUD setting in a more general sense). With my RP background in tabletop I always wished the MU*s I roleplayed on could somehow hold one whenever a new player joined, involving some of the staff and veteran players, letting the new player establish lines and veils, that sort of thing.

It's frustrating to see that staff and players are impugning your character on the Discord server for simply posting criticism. This is just a few days after Halaster apologized for doing similar to Delirium. It feels like community behavior isn't fundamentally improving. Given this, I don't know how the community would even tolerate a session zero if the kneejerk reaction to those saying that elements of the game makes them uncomfortable, is to insult them.

[Is Friday]

The Newbie walk through can be considered a Session 0 and adapted to include content warnings for various topics. This can be copied & reiterated with "common practices to facilitate safe play" in clan forums. e.g. I'm playing in the Allanak: I'm going to be interacting with a Templar, that Templar is going to exert authority due to classism and be racist if I'm not "human enough", or xenophobic if I'm not from Allanak.

I don't think small changes like that fix core issues of interpersonal safety, but they provide a better Opt In environment than what is currently presented.

[CirclelessBard]

I suppose the lingering question is: how will staff actually address all of the accounts of abuse?

When I initially brought up negative reviews and allegations of abuse on Reddit, the staff response was essentially that these were demonstrably false and staff did not deem them worth looking into. Now that multiple players have raised concerns on the GDB that are similar to those abuse allegations on Reddit, are they being looked into?

What is staff's plan for handling the concerns in this thread related to staff aggression directed at players in communications, as this continues to be an issue on the GDB and Discord?

[Blink]

I believe that this thread has gone way beyond the point of being useful and has devolved into a mass "let's randomly attack the staff over and over."  I too have felt annoyed/angry/betrayed/ etc with a staff member from time to time so I understand that.  However, for some of you I cannot understand why you would still be playing after such negative interactions as you've had.  The fact that you come back means you must believe there is hope of resolution.  Further attacking is not going to resolve anything.

[Riev]

I believe that this thread has gone way beyond the point of being useful and has devolved into a mass "let's randomly attack the staff over and over."  I too have felt annoyed/angry/betrayed/ etc with a staff member from time to time so I understand that.  However, for some of you I cannot understand why you would still be playing after such negative interactions as you've had.  The fact that you come back means you must believe there is hope of resolution.  Further attacking is not going to resolve anything.

The point. Of the thread. Is people that ARENT playing.

Are you for real right now? Very disingenuous.

[kahuna]

SAFETY TOOLS:

You know what grinds my gears? I proposed a system for something a few years ago here:
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,55102.msg1037763.html#msg1037763

Funnily enough it was shot down by most members and ridiculed as being weird. Is Friday you responded with this:

I am always respectful of other people's preference in the game and like to roleplay in 95% of scenes with those who are into super dark shit.

One thing I think this community needs to do is figure out whether you want it or not. It's fine if you've changed your mind now that you don't play I just wanna point out that back then when I made that thread you seemed to be totally against it.

[Is Friday]

SAFETY TOOLS:

You know what grinds my gears? I proposed a system for something a few years ago here:
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,55102.msg1037763.html#msg1037763

Funnily enough it was shot down by most members and ridiculed as being weird. Is Friday you responded with this:

I am always respectful of other people's preference in the game and like to roleplay in 95% of scenes with those who are into super dark shit.

One thing I think this community needs to do is figure out whether you want it or not. It's fine if you've changed your mind now that you don't play I just wanna point out that back then when I made that thread you seemed to be totally against it.

I was also a man and wildly out of touch with any form of empathy. A lot has changed.

That being said you cherry picked my statement. I was not against something that can be used organically and/or wasn't a publicly displayed checklist at the time.

[Dar]

SAFETY TOOLS:

You know what grinds my gears? I proposed a system for something a few years ago here:
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,55102.msg1037763.html#msg1037763

Funnily enough it was shot down by most members and ridiculed as being weird. Is Friday you responded with this:

I am always respectful of other people's preference in the game and like to roleplay in 95% of scenes with those who are into super dark shit.

One thing I think this community needs to do is figure out whether you want it or not. It's fine if you've changed your mind now that you don't play I just wanna point out that back then when I made that thread you seemed to be totally against it.

i personally do not want/care much. But with one coveat.  If absence of this genuinely triggers even a single person, then put them right in.

I love causing anguish in your characters, not the players.

[Krath]

I suppose the lingering question is: how will staff actually address all of the accounts of abuse?

When I initially brought up negative reviews and allegations of abuse on Reddit, the staff response was essentially that these were demonstrably false and staff did not deem them worth looking into. Now that multiple players have raised concerns on the GDB that are similar to those abuse allegations on Reddit, are they being looked into?

What is staff's plan for handling the concerns in this thread related to staff aggression directed at players in communications, as this continues to be an issue on the GDB and Discord?

[Lotion]

+1 for having more effective safety tools in arm and ensuring players know about them

[Tailong]

Hestia here - this post was in agreement with a player who deleted their own post and asked for the quoted, now-deleted post to be removed as well. Out of respect for that, I've removed this member's response to it since it was just agreeing with the now-deleted post that they quoted in-line.

Carry on!

[Riev]

"Safety Tools" was not specifically referencing an OOC channel. Please read up on what they are, and what they are for.

Also, "but people will complain about dying" was not the point. It was that people are SPECIFICALLY NOT PLAYING because in past scenes and experiences, THEY FEEL THEIR VOICES ARE BEING SUBDUED OR IGNORED ENTIRELY.

The person who brought up safety tools even said they won't fix much, if anything, but they are an option. At least there is an idea there. If we had ONE idea, for every 3 "Yeah but.." we'd have a thread full of ideas.

I've advocated before and I will say it again. Player Advocates. Non-Staff-Appointed people whose ONLY job in staff land is to be given the information being used in a judgement to a player's actions. Someone whose job is to see what the staff has seen, what notes have been written, and communicate with the players to come to a conclusion. Even if its a ban-worthy conclusion, it could build some trust in staff decisions when its not feeling like 12 vs 1.