Feedback on playing and log-ins

[dwarven fists of doom]

staff

staff

Everyone in this community needs to treat each other with a boatload more respect and be more easygoing when people can come across as disrespectful.

Because I don't want to rag anyone here, take a quick metaphor. When I was in HS I ran a D&D game for my wrestling team friends. I was the only female there and the rest were male but otherwise we were diverse and very different people. Only 3 out of 12 of us ever played D&D and it was a shit show of a game.

Let's consider how this game went and how the game would hypothetically go if it were played by the most obnoxious, HYPOTHETICAL Armageddon staff and players we have today.

Scenario: the thief in the group was constantly AWOL and slow during combat because he was busy eating tuna and bodybuilding OOCly.
How this might go down in Armageddon: His character is stored for idling, or he was permakilled by something that realistically wouldn't kill him like an alley rat. Player decides not to play anymore.
How it went with my chill friends: we told our friend he could do whatever, skipped his turn, and poked fun until he did play.

Scenario: The DM has a damsel in distress plot in the story. A player who was a goody two shoes virgin comments that he hasn't done something like this before.
How this would go down in Armageddon: player blows the situation out of proportion because of their own discomfort, saying that a damsel in distress plotline is triggering and somehow sexist or rapey. They loudly quit and use overblown discourse to compel other players to quit.
How it went down with our chill friends: I teased the player for exactly one second and then dialed down the damsel in distress plotline for him.

Scenario in the game: Hyper competitive dude gets permakilled and in a worked up moment says "What? Fuck you!" to the DM.
How this would go down on Armageddon: thin skinned staff drops the player's karma or even bans them entirely.
How me and my friends handled it: I laughed off his comment and told him welcome to roleplaying games. We kept hanging out as friends and teammates.

I am not at all exaggerating with the hypothetical "How this would go down on Arm" scenarios and many of you know of similar incidents among the staff and players of this game.

My old wrestling buddies started a discord for a reunion game about two years ago and we had a reunion game. I've been thinking about this a lot lately because that experience was so different from my experience here. We've lost countless people because of a lack of self reflection, good humor and respect from players and staff alike.

[Barsook]

Why though? Why does it need to be months? This, I believe and I could be wrong is the stagnation everyone is referring to. What is objective or problem are you solving by making it take more than a month?

I would challenge staff with this: Make things that take a month or more, happen in less than a month.

For the same reason any volunteer project takes as long as it takes, and not shorter: people work on things when they have time, space, and motivation. Sometimes those are in short supply. Sometimes they aren't.

Valid point, but I think giving an estimated timeframe might help us understand how long a project could take? Because that's something I'm always wondering is when we will see this. Sometimes it seems like be like empty promises, sorry to say that.

[Brokkr]

Why though? Why does it need to be months? This, I believe and I could be wrong is the stagnation everyone is referring to. What is objective or problem are you solving by making it take more than a month?

I would challenge staff with this: Make things that take a month or more, happen in less than a month.

For the same reason any volunteer project takes as long as it takes, and not shorter: people work on things when they have time, space, and motivation. Sometimes those are in short supply. Sometimes they aren't.

Valid point, but I think giving an estimated timeframe might help us understand how long a project could take? Because that's something I'm always wondering is when we will see this. Sometimes it seems like be like empty promises, sorry to say that.

Let's just say at one point we had a policy of not telling Players about future stuff at all, precisely because of setting expectations then having stuff take much longer or not get done at all.

[Oleupata]

Valid point, but I think giving an estimated timeframe might help us understand how long a project could take? Because that's something I'm always wondering is when we will see this. Sometimes it seems like be like empty promises, sorry to say that.

I understand where you're coming from. I play other games, too; games where I'm in the player community exclusively and the devs, managers, and admins are volunteers. In these games it would be amazing to have some kind of timeline I could look to, though non-binding, to see what's coming up and when, to be excited about it, to jump on the hype train or fuel discussion with other players about ideas and changes and so forth.

On this side of the curtain, though, were I to put out a timeline, it would be a huge pressure on me to get things done on time. I already feel that at work all day. I come to Arm, like the rest of you, to relax and enjoy something I love with friends, those friends being the other people in this community who love this weird niche game. If, instead, I committed myself to timelines and said "I mean to get X project done by Y time," I'd burn out and go away.

As for empty promises, yes, that happens. Sometimes things get dropped. Sometimes they get changed. Most games with active development and active communities like this one don't publish roadmaps or promises or timelines for exactly that reason. Again, if a system were put in place to minimize that by holding us to productivity levels or some such, I'd leave, and I dare say I'm not the only one.

In many ways I think Armageddon is a victim of its own success. I've played other MUDs and other games with active communities, and Armageddon is the only one I've ever found with such a tight-knit feedback mechanism between staff and players. Look at the request tool. For all its warts and drawbacks (like how it feels like you're playing the request tool instead of the game sometimes), have you ever seen another game with such a formal, regular, carefully-structured and effective coordination tool between the administration of the game and those who play it?

I haven't. I think people get used to how involved and dynamic staff are for this game, fall in love with that, and want more than it can actually afford, because it has already given them so much more stake in the game we all play than they get anywhere else.

Please always remember that staff are just people, like all of us. Staff have day jobs and we come home tired. Staff use this hobby to unwind and feel good about something personal after a long day at the office (or in the fields, or driving a truck, or managing a shop... you get the idea.) Only, instead of coming home and logging in to see what they can get done with their cool character they're hopefully in love with, staff come home and log in to see what they can do to help keep this place alive from the other end: animating the world, telling stories, answering wishes and helping players, responding to requests in the request tool, brainstorming and working on projects for the expansion of Armaggedon's capabilities. That's the only difference.

We're all stakeholders here.

(I also want to clarify I'm not picking on Krath or Barsook here. They're just the ones who happened to say something that inspired me to respond.)

[CirclelessBard]

I returned to the game when I heard Tuluk reopened, on a break right now, and "stagnation" definitely felt like the right word. It felt like players are trying their best to make things happen, but we can only do so much without some extra direction from staff. The world felt static and like there was nothing to react to.

When I'm not playing Armageddon, I'm playing a MUSH that has a playerbase about Armageddon's size, with less than half the staff. The game world is smaller, players are closer together, but there are still a lot of clans. It feels like there is something new and different going on all of the time. With a staff team as large as Armageddon's I think it's natural to expect some action. To be clear, I am not saying Armageddon staff are lazy. I have known several staff members personally and they were some of the most industrious people I ever knew. But I do think it would be nice to see what staff are working on. I don't need timetables or promises... just an idea of what staff are working on at any given time. So that we can at least look forward to something.

Reading some of the comments here about how there are too many open areas and clans makes me a little wary. So many people left the game after Tuluk closed. Maybe Armageddon's scope is large. But is that a mistake we want to repeat with other locations? Can the game world be shrunk without the world losing its variety and identity? If the game world was more of a hub city with all kinds of clan representation in it, would that be better than the large sprawling world where everyone is spread out?

[Filthy_Grey_Rat]

If my post came off as 'It's Staff's fault', I'd like to apologize for that lack of clarity. Sometimes brevity can be more clear, from me at least.


As a vet, my lack of play often comes from not knowing expectations when it's not plain RL interference. What /can/ I do? What's expected of /me/ from staff? And what do I, at that time, expect from /staff/. These questions and my lack of concrete answers leave me in a nebulous place where I sometimes feel daydreaming about things to do in Arm are more rewarding than logging in.


I do notice the vast disparity between different players' feedback, and find that quite interesting, and a touch telling. Elaborating on that, as tempting as it is, is unlikely to be constructive. Arm can continue as it is, change nothing, and I'd keep logging in when I can. I'm addicted, and have found nothing better.

[pilgrim]

Armageddon hooked me and then lost me slowly over the course of several disappointments. In the end, I think I would blame staff attitudes for a lot of it, but not all staff. I'd blame the attitudes of some other players almost as much, were it not for the power dynamic that comes from being staff on a game. I hadn't played for that long when I quit, so I had the advantage of not being as entrenched in my addiction as some long-time players.

Here's a couple vague scenarios of situations that made me quit. I'm leaving out the ones that can't be helped, given what sort of game Armageddon is, and just listing a few that could help steer a way forward.

1. A questionable, previously-warned player is allowed a special role as the leader of a large organization. Borderline sexually abuses newbies to the game, makes me want to store multiple times, makes terrible decisions compounded by lack of OOC communication staff-side, completely ruins my enjoyment. Later I found out that this person made many people store through other iterations, from this borderline behavior, had been warned before, and that I probably should have reported it every time. You can fix this by not letting known sex pests play your game at all, let alone take the reins.

2. An antagonistically-bent player keeps reappearing through multiple characters, harassing my character and his friends, using borderline metagaming knowledge from past characters to try to get under people's skins more. I report this person, but nothing happens, and I continue to deal with their wild string of characters that all try to annoy my character or kill his friends or get them killed in stupid ways. Whatever happened to the general integrity of just leaving the things that your dead alt was playing with alone? You can fix this by clamping down a hell of a lot harder on someone who keeps antagonizing the same characters over and over. Take all their karma or temporarily freeze their account for a time-out.

I still have feelings about the game, even though I quit. I stored my character as soon as I got the point that logging in felt like a chore. It got to that point because of these kinds of issues, plus the general problems I have with what kind of game Armageddon is (it's a hack-and-slash engine jumped into a roleplay game zipsuit, and lacking many coded mechanics that are just basic must-haves for roleplay games in my opinion), combined with the sense of... well, the feeling I got from staff interactions. "Being a whiny problem" doesn't totally cover how I felt. I perceived at times that staff saw me as an RL antagonist that they had to argue down, or just vaguely tolerate, or course-correct through shady and inexplicable means. This is one thing I don't really know how you can fix. It's a cultural problem that can probably only be fixed by a total and complete staff wipe. Pick a few promising new volunteers and everyone else on staff can step down and just play for a few years.

Anyway, I hope this helps? At least maybe this post will give me some closure to my resentment for what the reality of the game did to my initial star-crossed vision of it.

... but reflecting on this made me feel bad for being mean to staff of the game, especially since some of them were helpful and nice and kind. Obviously you're not going to do any kind of staff-wipe, but if you do, I recommend using a poll to let players pick which staff they like best who should be in charge. It'd be like some kind of democracy.

[Shabago]

Here's an open offer to any whom have listed staff issues as a reason for avoidance/quitting or what-have-you.

I have an open door.

No, really. Anyone can submit a request on issues and tag me to address them. If there is discomfort due to thinking someone beside me may read it - DM me on discord. OR you can come into the game and I'll bring you up staff side to chat it out. Will this solve everything? Maybe, maybe not. But at the very least, the offer should be made to you all, for a bare minimum level of shown respect to your put in time and efforts.

As to everyone else posting, I'm keeping pace and making notes. Staff discussion is underway on some things already said here - and rather significant headway has been made on a few things. Once some further hammered out details are had, there will be a fresh transparency post made.

[Shabago]

Adding, as it's come up a few times now:

Some of you know but others seemed to not! My computer blew up a few months back and wiped out everything. Including my initial discord stuff. I couldn't get that handle back. So - if you contacted me before, that DM is defunct. Please right click/message me in the active staff list if you wish to DM.

[Halcyon]

I think the poll running in this folder shows that there is a nonzero number of people not playing due to the karma timer.

I submit that the karma timer might have been the wrong solution to a problem.  I would like to suggest some A/B testing to find a replacement solution that doesnt reduce player interest.

[Ol 55]

I think the poll running in this folder shows that there is a nonzero number of people not playing due to the karma timer.

I submit that the karma timer might have been the wrong solution to a problem.  I would like to suggest some A/B testing to find a replacement solution that doesnt reduce player interest.

Yeah!  YOU GO!  WOOO!!!

Wrong thread, though, champ.

[Evilone]

I started Armageddon mud about 20 years ago. Armageddon was a muck around for me then as I was mostly focused on other RPI muds at the time. I had a big gap and then started playing more seriously around 2012.

One big reason I stepped away from Armageddon earlier in the year was a RL injury. For a period I couldn't be at the computer, but that's sorted now, and most of my spare time has been spent playing tbc classic. I've logged back in a few times to Arm on my current character, but I can't seem to find the motivation. I think a big reason for that is having to try and start over again from scratch. Most of my characters get well fleshed out and can tend to live for long periods of time (one of them I had for like 4 RL years I played on and off), and it's daunting to go from having everything and being useful, to a nobody and unable to do anything.

Being Australian can make for lonely playing, and I tend to play outdoor characters so I have something to do solo, which can be 80% of the time. Trying to get into a clan can be a painful experience for me. Right now I'm wishing I could just get into the clan I'm wanting, and then the character might grow and I could be more interested, but I'm stuck at this point of I don't want to do anything with the character until I get clanned, so I just way leader PC and if they can't be reached I log off.

I do miss the Shadows of Isildur RRP options of being able to pick professions to start in that aren't just noble, templar, or GMH. The staff player call for the Steel Talons PC's was something I thought was a fantastic idea, and that sort of process should be further developed or more frequent, or just always available for those with karma. Leading onto another sort of problem I face, and that is picking a clan I can try and catch some players to RP with, especially the leaders.

I am in full support of a list on the GDB or webpage that has information on the current leader playtimes. I don't think we need to have names, just clan and FiC and SiC playtimes. This would make picking a new concept much easier, for me anyhow, because there are times I can play peak on my RDO's.

Something that has frustrated me over the years is when a OOC time restriction is imposed on achieving something when there would be no call for it when large sums of money/bribes should negate it. If I have the wealth, and certainly have friends either earned or paid for to support me, things should be able to progress. This sort of policy might have changed as I haven't looked into the player created clan process for a while now, but hopefully it's been made more easier, and I do like the sound of the Tuluk shop options. I would LOVE to see shops developed more, and the GMH utilising them. Each GMH merchant could sell from their own stall, and that way much of their time can be freed up to socialise and rub face with the elite and common plebs, and less time running about trying to deliver orders, and it still allows for competition in house.

Karma regen is not something that bothers me as I barely ever spend it, but it does look to be a little slow. Just a small boost might be worth seeing how it goes, and might help people come back sooner if they have breaks waiting for karma to regen.

As for stagnation, I feel to keep up with other games a sort of seasonal main plot needs to be running, and advertised. Over the past year or so one of the most exciting times for me as a player was the events leading up to the opening of Tuluk. I felt like I was someone important helping out the cause and there were lots of players in Morin's and it was easy to socialise and group up. Once Tuluk opened that died off. Allanak and Tuluk need NPC enemies. We need another Steinal for example, and the borders and empire of Allanak and Tuluk need to be threatened. I hate PVP in Arm, but I love PVE as I feel it's more easy to manage. PVE is ultimately better for players and we can mostly ALL get to be the heroes, cause that's part of the reason why we play games like this?

The Empire of Tuluk also needs to be expanded. It seems so silly to me there are no other villages or settlements beyond Morin's Village that is controlled by Tuluk. Each place needs a purpose, and a reason for the economy to benefit from it. E.g Dusten Village - is a farming village found in the Pymlithe groves of the Great Eastern Plains. Main export is pymlithe wood, but also a majority of Tuluk's silk production is gathered from these same groves during Ascending Sun. If people need raw silk, it would be sold from here at a cheaper price. Those merchants wishing to turn a profit could organize expeditions to then sell in Tuluk and beyond at higher prices.

Anyway, that's where I am at with Armageddon. I have a huge passion for RPI muds, but I am sorta lost with what to do currently. A big part of the problem for me is being Aussie in an American dominated game, which is nothing anyone can change. What I would like to be able to do is spend 1, 2, or 3 karma if need be and start as a Private or Corporal in the Legion or Arm, or as a Merchant in a GMH and so on, without going through the same boring recruitment phase each time, and not having to worry about catching a PC leader. Staff are much easier to arrange a time to meet, pickup an equipment bag and get my clan membership and go on my way.

[Armaddict]

I'm mostly a broken record when it comes to these things, but I'll try to at least put it in different terms.

Armageddon, to me, was never a 'pure RP' setting.  That's not to say that it was not an RPI.  That's not to say that RP is secondary to anything else.  Its primary focus -is- RP, and RP is the single most important thing within it.  But Armageddon, when it grabs me by the boo-boo, is a juxtaposition of several different things that can't be found anywhere else, and in multiple facets.  Armageddon is a hardcore-roguelike with a varying, environment produced narrative.  Armageddon is a chore-simulator/grinding game with storyline AND random obstacles.  Armageddon is a social game with no pressure on socializing, just interweaving social networks filled with 'I-dos' and 'To-dos' and 'To-get-dones'.

I can find 'Pure RP' settings in IRC chatrooms, mushes, mucks, whatever.  Armageddon was the only one that had a driven, player-induced urgency to reach a level of autonomy and success and interaction and 'make something cool'.

There has been a shift, over time, to make Armageddon have a 'long term' view of each character that matches the length of the skill grind, the time investment, so on and so forth.  People got really frustrated that they dumped time into a thing that did not provide a return at the end.  For me, the journey -was- the return.  The 'traditional' return looked for at the end was more of a direction than a reward.  This made strife and conflict expected, not an impediment.  This made it part of the narrative that made 'cool things happen'.  I could be completely happy with that random PK-happy dude over there and the one who built out an elaborate plot; they both provided me the same thing, which was the urgency to be able to defend myself, to accomplish things under the threatening clouds of failure, and situations to overcome.

Sometimes, I die quickly to some guy who decided I was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong stuff (because he wanted it).  Sometimes, I beat that guy, only to move into a place where this other person is preventing me from accomplishing this.  But sometimes I accomplish it anyway.  Every character was a series of trials, tribulations, and random events that could lead to my death.  Death was the fear, but not because it made the character wasted; it was because I'm invested.  That investment grows as the character does.  You get more and more amped up at how cool your character is getting.

Now.  I cannot say -absolutely certainly 100% no way it's another way-.  But over time, we have attracted less and less enthusiasm for that randomness, for that ability for each and every person to just 'create events' by pursuing their own goals.  We've pushed more towards 'The important thing is RP, and ONLY RP', without taking into account those other elements that provided actual -content-.  It leaves people scratching their heads, looking around, wondering why they have to grind to do anything, because the original purpose of that grind was 'You're not safe without it'.  It didn't matter whether that person who killed you made a great scene of it or not, what mattered was that between the last time it happened, and this time that it happened, did I fill up my playtime preparing for it?  The death sucks.  The downtime between was driven, with a direction, which was character development, improvement, and accomplishment.

The moment we started, as a community, downplaying the importance of feeling unsafe in 'safe places', the moment we made law and order super efficient, the moment we started demanding 'this should never happen', we began cutting out on the possibilities of random events in favor of a safer, more predictable direction.  We demanded that everyone feel like everything had to be completely drawn out and justified to make our characters 'worth it'.  And the problem with that is, it nullifies downtime, then expands it.  It fills up more and more of our characters life with what IS NOW a meaningless grind, where it was NOT meaningless grind before, it was absolutely necessary.  All that networking, plotting, practicing, pushing was in pursuit of making 'a notable' before in a place that pushed down relentlessly on you becoming actually important.

I haven't logged in now for a pretty decent amount of time.  I can tell you the exact experience that took me out of that mindset of THINGS TO DO THINGS TO DO THINGS TO DO to 'Meh.'  And it has to do with the world/game culture that we've created, with all the best intentions, but with 0 regard for how content is actually made in this sandbox.  We can't just have a bunch of long, drawn out vendettas and high-bars for conflict; it may make out for a great story, but it makes for really -boring- lapses of time as the legwork has to be done on them.

I don't believe the game is malfunctioning.  I don't believe we got anything other than what everyone was demanding for a long time.  I just don't think people actually understood how slow-paced, predictable, and boring that demand was.  And at this point, I think we've lost a lot of the people who were different types of player who routinely spiced up the world around them, and now we nitpick over what makes a good antagonist or what justifies conflict or how we can make conflicts let us stay alive longer.  Stop making 'returns on the investment of time' the end goal.  Make 'exciting periods of time' the end goal.  Would you rather have a 50 day character who is slow-paced, or 10 5 day characters that are embroiled in constant struggles and conflicts and random milestones?  One of those two things leads to boredom, despite having a great story.  The other leads to a lot more short-term enjoyment that STILL tells all the stories around them.  One of them requires everyone around them to provide content to engage in, one of them, when played on large scale, is absolutely non-stop content where you never know what to expect when you log in.

I don't know that our current playerbase can truly enjoy either one.  Everyone hates one or the other.  Whenever one dominates, the other suffers the drawbacks of its counterpart not being present, and we lose those people.

[cali]

I think some changes make things more "realistic" but not more fun.

For example: all the maintenance changes to spice, cures, and poisons. Now I need to spend a lot more time maintaining these things instead of role playing or having fun, instead of once in a while.

[dumbstruck]

I think some changes make things more "realistic" but not more fun.

For example: all the maintenance changes to spice, cures, and poisons. Now I need to spend a lot more time maintaining these things instead of role playing or having fun, instead of once in a while.

This. I get that people having huge stockpiles of things sucks. So animate a vnpc burglar and wipe the stockpile. Don't make everyone suffer a constant needless grind to prevent something that is a nonissue for 90% of players. And if it's a clan hall issue, purge the items and write them off as being used by vnpc parts of the clan rather than being a burglary. There are ways around letting stockpiles accrue and sit that don't require everyone to deal with these timers which are just... not a source of joy. And for me in particular, this applies to special food items and spice. Poisons and cures I get how they can change the game to make it more deadly/more easy, but spice and (special item) food is mostly for RP, so what is even the point aside from the preventing of these stockpiles which, again, can be manually purged if they are that big of an issue.

[Nao]

I think some changes make things more "realistic" but not more fun.

For example: all the maintenance changes to spice, cures, and poisons. Now I need to spend a lot more time maintaining these things instead of role playing or having fun, instead of once in a while.

Food is another one of these things. Yes, your sandwich shouldn't last for months, but why can't it decay/be consumed virtually and a fresh sandwich prepared virtually? This also makes it much harder for PCs to provide piles of snacks for RPTs or any larger event with food.

[Oleupata]

I think some changes make things more "realistic" but not more fun.

For example: all the maintenance changes to spice, cures, and poisons. Now I need to spend a lot more time maintaining these things instead of role playing or having fun, instead of once in a while.

Setting aside poisons/cures/herbs as new changes, have you (or anyone else) noticed problems from spice degradation? Are you actually losing out on spice you were/would have used, or is the issue the psychic pressure of the degradation timer, or something else?

Similarly, has food degradation caused issues that lead to unfun, rather than more fun or something basically fun-neutral?

This is a general question, sparked by the above quote but not aimed at the poster.

[Brokkr]

The accumulation of spice/food in save rooms created game performance issues.  No, this couldn't effectively be handled by manually purging, unless it is ok that we purge the whole room without regard for everything else in it.

[cali]

I think some changes make things more "realistic" but not more fun.

For example: all the maintenance changes to spice, cures, and poisons. Now I need to spend a lot more time maintaining these things instead of role playing or having fun, instead of once in a while.

Setting aside poisons/cures/herbs as new changes, have you (or anyone else) noticed problems from spice degradation? Are you actually losing out on spice you were/would have used, or is the issue the psychic pressure of the degradation timer, or something else?

Similarly, has food degradation caused issues that lead to unfun, rather than more fun or something basically fun-neutral?

This is a general question, sparked by the above quote but not aimed at the poster.

Well it's just my character uses spice for practical purposes. By the time they need it, it has decayed and is useless to me. So I can't keep spice on me. Which would be convenient.  I don't mind food.  Food is plentiful but I can see  how it could be annoying trying to prep a large amount of cooking for RPT. Maybe items you actually carry on your person shouldn't decay as some sort of compromise. But you can't just stockpile it.

[dumbstruck]

I have had spice become weird on me before since the change and as a result have engaged with it less because I would rather not waste time and coins on something that's going to become useless on me just because I was logged in and it's on a timer.

[Nao]

I think some changes make things more "realistic" but not more fun.

For example: all the maintenance changes to spice, cures, and poisons. Now I need to spend a lot more time maintaining these things instead of role playing or having fun, instead of once in a while.

Setting aside poisons/cures/herbs as new changes, have you (or anyone else) noticed problems from spice degradation? Are you actually losing out on spice you were/would have used, or is the issue the psychic pressure of the degradation timer, or something else?

Similarly, has food degradation caused issues that lead to unfun, rather than more fun or something basically fun-neutral?

This is a general question, sparked by the above quote but not aimed at the poster.

Food degradation has made me unable to feed my clannies. My PC wanted to provide food to minions and had another PC bring in meat for the clan members (most of them were city-based and didn't hunt). This was completely infeasible because the food was decayed within a RL day or two, even in food containers, so I stopped paying the guy to bring in food. I ran into similar issues when I was trying to sell food to another PC who was looking to buy - decay is so fast that it wasn't feasible.

Spice degradation made the spice trade very hard. As a spice distributor (I'm sure you can figure out the clan), I would have to buy everything in larger amounts (thal or ideally, a whole brick) because small accounts decayed so fast. There'd still be something left over and decaying, driving up prices and really making the whole thing pretty unprofitable. This really killed a lot of spice trade, although it improved with better storage. There also seems to be some unannounced change (or a bug?) with spice decay - I've noticed that bricks last a LONG time now on more recent PCs. I'm not sure if I'd run into the same issues with the current rate.

The accumulation of spice/food in save rooms created game performance issues.  No, this couldn't effectively be handled by manually purging, unless it is ok that we purge the whole room without regard for everything else in it.

Spice/food caused this because of the associated timers, or do players just stockpile food and spice more than other items?

[Brokkr]

The accumulation of spice/food in save rooms created game performance issues.  No, this couldn't effectively be handled by manually purging, unless it is ok that we purge the whole room without regard for everything else in it.

Spice/food caused this because of the associated timers, or do players just stockpile food and spice more than other items?

Save rooms are not designated by a flag.  Specific zones are designated, every room within them is a save room.

Every so often one of the zones is saved.  And when this kicks off, it goes through and saves everything in every room in the zone.

Zone blocks are 1000 rooms.  We have at least one save zone where all the rooms are used, and the majority of them in the others.

There were, at one point, literally tens of thousands of spice/food items in save rooms.  The other problematic item is herbs.  Why?  Folks stockpile them because maybe they or someone will need it someday, or they just picked it up and it fits or whatever.  Combine this with low item weights (which is why stuff like armor is not so much a problem) and there is massive accumulation of specific types of items.

[Lotion]

The accumulation of spice/food in save rooms created game performance issues.  No, this couldn't effectively be handled by manually purging, unless it is ok that we purge the whole room without regard for everything else in it.

A good craftsman never blames his tools.
If you can't imagine a world where you can selectively purge things from a save room then create it.

[Oleupata]

I have had spice become weird on me before since the change and as a result have engaged with it less because I would rather not waste time and coins on something that's going to become useless on me just because I was logged in and it's on a timer.

What do you mean when you say 'become weird'? Do you mean start getting descriptions like 'sticky' or 'rock hard' or do you mean having unexpected effects?

Well it's just my character uses spice for practical purposes. By the time they need it, it has decayed and is useless to me. So I can't keep spice on me. Which would be convenient.  I don't mind food.  Food is plentiful but I can see  how it could be annoying trying to prep a large amount of cooking for RPT. Maybe items you actually carry on your person shouldn't decay as some sort of compromise. But you can't just stockpile it.

Was this pinches and grains in a pipe or the like, or larger quantities?

[Wday]

I had hoped that the decaying items would have caused more player mingling.