Feedback on playing and log-ins

[geminferno]

However, we could not yet rule out one final scenario that would have produced the same patterns in the data, even if management responses had no effect on ratings: What if hotels made improvements specifically tailored to the preferences of TripAdvisor users at the time they started responding to TripAdvisor reviews? In that case, we would see TripAdvisor ratings improve relative to Expedia ratings, even if management responses had no effect.

In the article you linked it said this in one of the paragraphs. This is currently what the staff are doing. Listening to current complaints and past troubles. They're trying to fix the mistakes of the former staff members.

Overall, these analyses suggested that improved ratings can be directly linked to management responses. And, perhaps surprisingly, we also found that when managers respond to positive reviews, it has the same benefits as when they respond to negative reviews

So, in a way not responding to the negative ones and responding to the positive ones would give a better result. Nobody wants to engage with someone who is—rightfully—angry and hurt about something that A.) They weren't apart of or B.) Can do nothing but apologize and promise to do better? In reality no one who is actually just there to spread negativity because they're angry want to hear an apology because that's not what they're posting it for. They're posting it so other people don't play the game and have their rage stoked by other people agreeing how shitty it is.

I have actually seen someone from staff respond to one and they got absolutely shredded when they tried to apologize.

[Abaya]

Why would they do it outside of the community? Most of those "review" posts on Reddit or any other place is just to take a monumental dump on the game. Yes, there are some that are genuine reviews giving actual constructive criticism. They do it here because it matters. Nobody gives a shit about their story outside of the community because what the hell are they gonna do about it? If there's someone outside of the game community who swears they'll never return then what's the point?

My gut feeling is that you probably should respond to those people for a variety of reasons but even a quick google search proves that gut feeling.

I'll direct you to people who are way smarter than me here: https://hbr.org/2018/02/study-replying-to-customer-reviews-results-in-better-ratings

You can read the study if you want, basically it's saying why you should respond to people outside of your own inner circle or "community" as you call it. It is crucial to respond to negative criticism promptly.

Just wanted to point this out before the thread was locked, negative reviews remain in perpetuity on the internet. Not responding to them is about the worst decision you could make.

That site uses Tripadvisor as an example but a quick Startpage search has pages about an independent investigation into it that showed it having literally no proof what is posted is true: https://www.itv.com/news/2019-09-06/tripadvisor-failing-to-stop-fake-hotel-reviews-which

https://aboutmanchester.co.uk/tripadvisor-fails-to-stop-highest-ranked-hotels-being-boosted-by-fake-reviews-which-finds/

Reviews are not verified and therefore it is not clear whether reviewers have even stayed at a hotel when they rate it.

Travellers do not know whether hotels have been trying to cheat the system. Despite 14 of the hotels flagged having had at least one suspicious review removed in the last year, none of them carried any kind of warning at the time Which? looked. And TripAdvisor's most serious warning – the red badge – remains on hotel sites for just a matter of weeks.

The findings come as the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is carrying out a programme of work aimed at tackling the increasing problem of fake and misleading reviews.

Just like reddit which has a whole industry grown around it dedicated to fake votes and promotion, trading the services of users with admin accounts to delete posts of competitors, etc - I don't think anyone under 30 takes online voting seriously it's just ridiculously easy to mess with.

[CirclelessBard]

Going to add some of my final thoughts:

- The thread being locked for personal attacks is understandable. What I don't get is why these attacks are allowed to stand. Throughout the course of the thread, it seems like attacks against the game's critics have largely been allowed to stand, while attacks against staff or players defending how the game is run get moderated. To be clear, all personal attacks have no place in a healthy discussion. But I did notice this pattern. Even though it was likely an unintentional pattern, it's exactly why rules enforcement around communication should apply equally to everyone involved with the game.

- The above also happens with blaming former staff and players for the game's current challenges. Backbiting is incredibly unhealthy from an ethical and emotional standpoint, and from a practical standpoint it just focuses people's attention on things that were done wrong instead of what to do moving forward. While this behavior didn't happen much in this thread, it seems to happen a decent amount on the Discord, just from what I can see glancing back through the server's history a couple months.

- While it's encouraging to see staff try to put their best foot forward with all communication going forward, writing effective and sincere apologies for past events is really something worth considering. Not just for events involving players that have posted here, but for players that deserve an apology more generally.

- Overall, I'm hopeful for what's to come, but honestly I feel like I haven't seen a huge commitment to the new way of communicating yet. Largely because it's only been a couple days, but also partly because it feels like certain conversations about how staff will go about it feel half-finished.

[Pariah]

So last time I played "Hardcore" (Logging in nearly daily, multiple hours per login) was in August of this year.  I had some awesome plots going and was able to play a character that was fun for me oocly as well as IC stir up some shit and do various things.

He died to a stupid thing, and was relatively older, so able to do all the things I enjoy, hunting, exploring etc etc.

So I stopped playing for a few reasons:

1.  I didn't really feel like the grind of say two weeks real time to be able to get my dude to the area where he isn't gonna get killed if a random dark beetle wandered into me.

2. I didn't want to recycle the same type of things I was doing on the last character just with a new clan.

Now, I'm only a... well shitI forgot what Karma I am, but I only can play d-elfs and touched types without special apps, whatever that is, 2? I don't remember.

So being that I am more of a go hunt, kill things type of guy (NPCS mostly, not really into PVP), it limits my character choices that I find -fun-.

So sure I could go be a merchant, crafter, bynner etc etc and make a go at it, but I tend to find not much going on with those roles and tend to end up sitting in a bar waiting on someone to stop by or interact with me till I inevitably log off.

So for me, I'd say if I had access to the "real" magicker lists on my whim, at whatever karma that is, 3?  I'd have more flavor choices to play with, without burning a special app.

So maybe lowering the gate for that stuff would keep me more interested and refreshed?

The sad strength and weakness of this game is it relies on one another.  So if I make a kickass hunter but there are no people to buy my skinnings and shit, well that's pointless, now I'm a badass hunter carrying around max endurance of scrab shells and shit because nobody needs it.

So that's why, in my humble opinion, having more interesting roles for us lower tier folks to play would be a good thing.  Maybe a restructuring of the merchant houses and how they operate with crafters would be nice too, because I remember last time I worked for them it was rules after rules and it made it exhausting as you're waiting for dealer this or merchant that to log in.

It's not an easy thing to answer or a simple thing to change either and I get that.  One hand wants to maintain the ambiance and rarity of things, the other hand wants to explore the available possibilities to the fullest and you really can't have one without killing the other.

[Halcyon]

I think we should know what makes you a "problem player".

We collectively havent and wont agree on what the game should be.  I personally draw the line at continued, willful bug abuse.  Its really obvious with a hair of research that some of the most pk focused characters were abusing the snot of a "power" bug for at least five years.   Yes, the bug is now resolved, by the good work of Halaster.

A couple of those people are now crying about being potentially limited from our common addiction.   #set sympathy 0.

[ShaiHulud]

I just want to say another small thing. I'm not as passionate about being salty as some. Salt is bad for the heart. Be nicer to each other, for fu-sakes
That said, I -know- for a fact that each and every staff member does this job because they love this game as much as any and all the players.  I've a number of stories where I think I got the short end of the shaft. It is what it is. I come back (never really left) because this is a -great- game and -great- community, and I know the staff have been working hard to make all aspects of the game...Better.
I applaud the staff and players for making my time here (since 94), a continued enjoyment in my life.
So, I want to thank all of you, for what you do.
Peace.

[Dar]

Heh. Apologies.

Had a conversation with a client. The dude refused to pay the whole amount because of something very small that he badly explained wasnt done.  Didnt want it done anymore, just wanted to not pay.   My office worker, a 23yr old kid, told the client we'd pull the equipment if not paid.

Anyways. I intervened. Had a chat. Blah blah blah.  Some Celven double talk. The dude wrote the cheque. But then sent me this message.

I do want to have apologies from Natalie for threatening me for removing the unit, is that fair?


Result?  I pulled all of the equipment. Refunded him the money at 2k loss to myself and black listed the motherfucker.
The desire to wagon circle is strong within us all. 

[Brisket]

Heh. Apologies.

Had a conversation with a client. The dude refused to pay the whole amount because of something very small that he badly explained wasnt done.  Didnt want it done anymore, just wanted to not pay.   My office worker, a 23yr old kid, told the client we'd pull the equipment if not paid.

Anyways. I intervened. Had a chat. Blah blah blah.  Some Celven double talk. The dude wrote the cheque. But then sent me this message.

I do want to have apologies from Natalie for threatening me for removing the unit, is that fair?


Result?  I pulled all of the equipment. Refunded him the money at 2k loss to myself and black listed the motherfucker.
The desire to wagon circle is strong within us all.

This does not make you look good, that seems like a relatively polite request.  You could've just said - no they were following policy, but I'm glad we got it worked out.

Any time you're circling wagons, you're closing yourself off to outside perspectives and that's going to upset people.  In the business world that can make some amount of sense (not dealing with a client you don't need or whatever) but in an online collaborative roleplaying game concerned about its numbers, approaching from a place of empathy is the best thing to do.

[Dar]

Im not arguing that. Even in a business world it was a dumb move. Regardless of my circulation, tossing 2k out and other matters is just dumb.  I was willing to give the client discounts, extra warranties, etc. But the moment he went "I want one of your people to humiliate themselves to satisfy me" I went completely bananas.

Had a few hrs to contemplate it and realized a correlation with Arm situation.

[Bebop]

My final thoughts.  I'm going to say this from the heart (sigh, gross) -

I've been in this community (on and off) since roughly 2006 which is, much to my horror, going on about eighteen years played.

I got into Armageddon a couple of years out of high school because an ex long in the past was telling me about this game where you could do anything.  I didn't believe him.  I had never heard of a MUD but I had been a gamer since the 90's.  As a writer once I got engaged in the game world and play?  I was hooked.  And I sort of had to be.  My ex, a very abusive person, had an addictive personality and the game soon became my escape as years went by.  Time passed, as did that relationship.

At one point, a couple of years after that, I went five years without playing Armageddon, and just when I thought I would never return again... I did!

I'm not going to lie, at every single 'era' of my own personal play I've witnessed horribly toxic staff, good staff and really genuinely wonderful staff.  However up until recently I would say the bad staff generally outweighed the good staff.

I have met people from this community, had romantic relationships from this community.  I met my very best friend from this community, who years later just came to my wedding in January.  I love her like a sister.  Many people have been married from this community (that includes myself).  To some of us, this has not just been an online world - but a living, breathing community that has impacted the flow of our very lives forever.  Sounds lame, and I wanted to deny it to myself for a long while but now I've accepted it.  It's been almost twenty years of my life.

When I talk about feeling "groomed" or a fear of "physical safety" these aren't hot button words I'm trying to throw around needlessly.  There are real people behind these screens.  The onus is 100% on staff to protect the players.  That is how the power dynamic is arrayed.

I am in a really good place in my life right now and I genuinely do not want to rehash the past for my own selfish reasons.  Because frankly, I just don't have the energy and I've learned over time it's a wasted cause.  I don't want to dig up receipts.  I don't want to come for anyone.  I'm not ready for that, maybe never will be.

But what I will say is that there are power dynamics at play in this game out of character unlike any other game.  You don't have to "get in good" with the developers to be able to win a game on play station.  There is the real threat of a slippery slope for abuse.  Abuse that not only can hurt someone's gaming experience - but their actual lives.  Especially because the gateway to abuse is deceitfully easy.  All someone has to do is begin playing.  Maybe it's weeks, maybe it's years, but eventually the "other side" of the game comes through.  When I was twenty three and in a very vulnerable emotional position this happened to me.

What I'm trying to say is that above all else, game mechanics, lore, etc aside ---

The staff has an onus to protect the players against predatory behavior, sexual harassment, from minors being involved in the mature themes of this game and to actually enforce not only rules but to embolden a culture of consent and gender equity.

It does not take a magnifying glass to reveal the common vein running through this very large thread - staff have hurt me.

I really want to emphasize the impact of that.  We're talking mental health, sexual safety, preventing groom etc.

And so far the solution offered by staff lacks transparency.  It should not.  I, like so many others, have not seen results from my complaints made in Discord or through the complaints system.  As a community we either have transparency and work out issues as a community with full accountability.  Or?  Staff continue to take complaints about their own kind behind the proverbial closed door.  You can't be transparent, open and honest and still have this as a policy.  And I frankly, do not trust the policy because I, as so many others have said, have not seen the staff genuinely holding one another accountable.  The staff are a close knit group of friends that are going to be reluctant to penalize their peers.  The infrastructure does not have proper due process from what I can tell.  I understand you're all volunteers, but you're volunteers with power over a hobby that is very significant to some and can even represent a desperate escapism at the current state of their lives.

At the end of the day, I don't think staff are bad people, at least not all of them.  And I have no intention of hyper focusing on every slight.  I can see that an overload of criticism has led staff to minimalizing and compartmentalizing serious issues that have arisen over time.  While I understand that's a coping mechanism it really can not be a crutch when people's lives are the collateral damage.  And yes, I mean that literally.  Even if people, like myself, come back to the game - it shouldn't negate their lived in experiences.  You can't expect senior players to come back and then compartmentalize their own distress in turn.  It's all going to continue to fester to the surface in a cycle of inconsistent player numbers and GDB drama until there is a genuine way to address this and change the culture.

My opinion is that right now I see the staff genuinely trying to foster a better culture and work hard not to tune players out.  I really like my current staff members and I hope I get to keep them because it really can make or break the experience here on Arm.  I have sent several staff kudos over the recent years, alongside my complaints.  I can appreciate the game and the good experiences I have while still being deeply troubled at other things I've witnessed.  I feel and hope, the game's culture might be taking slow steps in a good direction.  But it's 2022, technology is fast and a lot of us are getting old.  Things need to change a little faster than they used to.

Some of the senior players swearing off the game makes me sad because we as a community lose when we lose people like Delirium and Ender.  They've had some integral, wonderful characters over the years, have been wonderful and integral people and I genuinely hope they return.  I think people like them could serve as an excellent player advocate.

Overall, there can't be backroom deals and transparency.  There can't be strides towards regrowth and still opting to focus on bad blood with former players.  They're can't be a mature game of sex, drugs and murder - and also a safe space for minors.  The cognitive dissonance needs to end.  It's a big turn off for a lot of us.

Staff need to seriously consider everything that's been said here and genuinely pick the identity they want the game to have and the culture surrounding it and then embrace it and their players further.  I love the increasingly collaborative approach the staff has continued to take with players.  I hope that will grow but I also hope (but don't hold my breath) that staff will embrace a genuine, transparent system to root out predatory and harmful behaviors.  Stop claiming that doing things in the darkness protects players... it doesn't.  There is a way to hold staff accountable (who have the upper hand in the OOC power dynamic) without hurting players.  As long as staff do not do this it will not go unnoticed and players will not go unharmed or missing from the community.

Long story short - at the end of the day the mechanics are whatever, I'm concerned about the people on the other end of the screens and it was this issue that drove me away during my most recent one year break.

[Dar]

If I could thumbs up Bebop post, I would. 



Here is a question to the community.


Mechanically, how do we create transparancy. How do people imagine this working?

[Patuk]

If I could thumbs up Bebop post, I would. 



Here is a question to the community.


Mechanically, how do we create transparancy. How do people imagine this working?

You have someone, or a small group of people, handle such complaints. Someone completely separate from each and every one other staffer; someone with the full privileges to delve into anything to get to the bottom of what issues are around and whose judgment is made to stick.

tl;dr: separation of powers. 1700s political philosophy is a bit ornery, but here we are.

[dumbstruck]

Literally have it be visible which staff are on when they are on, and if they are idle or not, because it is very easy to narrow down who is doing what in anonymous tells and animations if you know only 3 people could have and 1 of them was idle. I don't like this idea of having 1 person in a special position. Why? Who do you think is going to select that person? The very people they are supposed to be holding accountable. That doesn't sound like a good motivation to find a neutral party. But if everyone knows that this one guy always seems to be on when these shitty animations happen... it becomes pretty easy to peg pretty quick.

Not to say anyone is doing shitty animations at current, that's just an example, it could extend to someone that got sent an anonymous tell that made them feel bad as well.

[Dresan]

No offense to anyone, but I think I have been playing as long as I have because I mostly focus on the mechanics and mundane roles of the game and avoid interacting with the community OOCly. I really want to have some sympathy but the social drama and outcry from this thread feels little overblown.

To be fair, for years I have asked staff to continue to work to implement policies or code that reduce the impact of the favouritism and OOC cheating that goes on between staff and players. And I specifically say 'reduce the impact' because in all sincerity it is impossible to eliminate it. There are some players and staff here who are friends, lovers, or whatever else floats their boats and quite frankly I am okay with that. I don't expect them to prioritize my needs and I expect them to help each other out or just interact with each other more often than not. However, the game needs to keep working to ensure a balanced playing field for the everyone despite the fact that people will build these relationships which further promotes cheating and favoritism. Its taken a few steps in the right direction over the years, for example by being more open about code such as what skills class gets, but further work needs to be done.

Ultimately the game some people are describing here is not the same game I experience, which just often involves hoping the weather is good for grebbing or traveling.  And I have nothing against the old vets who wants to fix the interactions with their favorite staff member as they play their sponsors roles, sorcerers or secret roles with intricate and sometimes world changing plot lines filled with sex, murder and corruption...but I am still hoping the coded issues brought up get a bit more priority in this conversation.    :-/

[Patuk]

Who do you think is going to select that person?

We vote them in for half-year terms, of course. No issue judging the actions of staff or individual players when the community as a whole's who you're beholden to.

[Krath]

My Final thoughts:

There are three things I should staff should do:

1. Ask amongst themselves - What did old staffers like Sanvean, Vendyra, etc do differently, where they were universally loved, even when they rebuked people, and maintained the playerbase's respect and trust?

2. Ask amongst themselves - What did old staffers like Nyy do, who were universally hated, that lost the trust and respect of staff?

3. After you have both lists, identify which items on each you are being told you are doing and not doing, evaluate and make the changes necessary.

For Players we should:

1. Identify the behaviors we do and do not appreciate from staff
2. Look over the behaviors and see which ones staff have said we do, evaluate and make the changes necessary

It is a two way street, and self awareness and acknowledgement of both the good and the bad is the path forward.

[wizturbo]

My final thoughts.  I'm going to say this from the heart (sigh, gross) .......

This is a fantastic post.  I have never experienced the things you posted about to a harmful degree, but absolutely believe what you outlined is a real issue for this community (and many others). 

The fact that I've never experienced these things is exactly why the problem persists.  It's out of sight and out of mind.  It's hard to accept that people you like may have done unpleasant things to others, especially if you've never seen them do it yourself.  What accusations are true, and which are false?  How much did an incident in Armageddon hurt someone on the other side of the monitor?

I don't think there are any easy solves for these problems.  Give people power over others, and inevitably there will be cases of abuse.  Eliminating abuse is an impossibility, but we can strive to create an environment where it's harder to conceal, and verified abuse cases are addressed.  Having staff leadership think about the best way to achieve this would be fruitful.  Having that solution be inclusive of all members of this community, both staff and players, would be ideal.  There's been enough complaints by thoughtful, mature members of this community that I think we can safely say the current system isn't cutting it and needs to be improved.

[Bast]

Xenophobia is the bane of the game. We have too many tribes that are outright so xenophobic they basically play in their own isolated bubble. I would like some sort of diplomatic exchange from north to south and between the tribes and the cities that would force more interaction. You can't have conflict if everyone is sitting in their own backyard refusing to go talk to anyone outside out of constant fear of death or because they would be ignoring the heavily xenophobic documentation of their race/tribe/whatnot.

This happens in the cities too. My last noble was very successful as nobles go but I was so isolated. I go to a common places; commoners either all one by one leave because they are worried I'm just there to fuck with them or someone tries to murder me for no other reason than to snatch my metal ring and put a notch on their belt.

Conflict and role-play (the fun stuff)  comes naturally when lots of people are forced to interact. To get that they need to be in the room. I really feel like the isolation stagnants a the game. Playing with the same 3-4 people in a sandbox gets old. Sometimes I think the game has become a haven for murder hobos as well. I like my PCs I invest in them I don't want them to die. Sometimes it feels like if I leave my sandbox I'm more likely to get killed so someone else can put a notch on their belt.

P.S. Also all that said I have been playing on and off since 2003. I'm having more fun right now than I have in a long time. I love seeing staff led plots happening again. I love seeing things coming from player led plots. Arm just requires a huge amount of time and that's hard for me with young kids. Sometimes I just exhausted and ready for bed at 8:30 pm

[Orlau]

Xenophobia is the bane of the game. We have too many tribes that are outright so xenophobic they basically play in their own isolated bubble. I would like some sort of diplomatic exchange from north to south and between the tribes and the cities that would force more interaction. You can't have conflict if everyone is sitting in their own backyard refusing to go talk to anyone outside out of constant fear of death or because they would be ignoring the heavily xenophobic documentation of their race/tribe/whatnot.

This happens in the cities too. My last noble was very successful as nobles go but I was so isolated. I go to a common places; commoners either all one by one leave because they are worried I'm just there to fuck with them or someone tries to murder me for no other reason than to snatch my metal ring and put a notch on their belt.

Conflict and role-play (the fun stuff)  comes naturally when lots of people are forced to interact. To get that they need to be in the room. I really feel like the isolation stagnants a the game. Playing with the same 3-4 people in a sandbox gets old. Sometimes I think the game has become a haven for murder hobos as well. I like my PCs I invest in them I don't want them to die. Sometimes it feels like if I leave my sandbox I'm more likely to get killed so someone else can put a notch on their belt.

P.S. Also all that said I have been playing on and off since 2003. I'm having more fun right now than I have in a long time. I love seeing staff led plots happening again. I love seeing things coming from player led plots. Arm just requires a huge amount of time and that's hard for me with young kids. Sometimes I just exhausted and ready for bed at 8:30 pm

All very true.

I think this upcoming HRPT has launched alot of cool plots and storylines that have been basically unheard of for quite some time now. Why? Because leaving things in player-plot limbo only leads to general stagnation and the biggest city drama being a Templar harassing some grebber in the tavern because they lack anything else to do. Players simply aren't given enough tools to create interesting plots that don't involve around simple things like murder or mudsecks or pointless vengeance quests over very minor things.

Staff need to be actively pushing players together to butt heads, with plots and plot hooks, and with no fear about disturbing things. The DMs are meant to stir the pot. This is being done lately, and I think it's made the game world feel much more alive then it was a couple months ago when peaks were in the 20s.

[Inks]

Staff are doing so much plot wise at the moment and really for the last 8 months, it's pretty awe inspiring to see, in my opinion. And I feel overall said plots are far less railroaded than back in the day.

I for one am overall excited and cautiously optimistic about what the future holds, and I think we as players should play as ic as humanly possible so we all get the full enjoyment out of it together.

But that's just like, my opinion man.

[Bast]

I'd like to see each city and tribe have at least one resource that they exclusively have control over and one they need from an outside source. Make Luirs a safe zone for everyone as long as you don't act a fool. Maybe have need to trade important enough that Nak and Tuluki need to establish embassy's with a pc noble rep being sent opposite city for diplomatic purposes regarding trade. Even during the Cold War we had ambassadors from Russia in America ect. A sign war is coming might be embassies getting shut down that would reopen after the conflict because Tuluki needs salt and Allanak needs cotton certain plants for cures or what not. Get people out of their compounds. Maybe make some public  areas a lot safer and trade routes patrolled by npcs to facilitate more travel between places. 

[tiny rainbow]

I played a pretty well known-tribal that did all this stuff without any special help (in fact I had the room I was using at the start entirely removed lol), and it worked great, because it's pretty much why Luir's exists Problem is that sometimes if you don't have that line in the docs, some people (even with karma) in tribal roles sometimes then end up sitting around in taverns in Allanak or Tuluk instead of Luir's and end up losing everything that would distinguish them from being just another aide - a great example was a closed clan that got reopened, but then ended just another boring puppet due to a bad leader, and their boosted skills (which didn't even make sense for the role or theme) got abused as a bodyguard. Got to have a line somewhere or there just isn't one

Staff probably do need to make sure that people have reasons to leave their wagons/estates/walled waterslides though, and build that more often into areas and lore instead of giving everyone everything they need with no danger to them (WHEN SO MUCH OF THE GAME IC IS ABOUT ACCESS TO FOOD AND WATER AND SO HAVING REASONS TO TALK TO THE OTHERS THAT NEED TO EAT AS WELL!), you do have a point there though - I think in a few cases people made pretty obvious and avoidable mistakes when building clans There should also be more nudges if players hide away - so it's not just a staff oversight here, I remember - and appreciating it at the time - getting told at one point we were not seen enough in public, and need to be out there making stories and waves with the new players instead of being invisible - I did notice Hestia's recent role call mentioned wanting nobles to be seen publicly, that seemed cool - you've said the lore, but at the same time, you've said that part of it is OOC fear of being killed, but staff don't seem to approve at all of just killing people for no reason, so I think part of that might be the vision of how the game used to be sticking with people, even if times have moved on a bit for the better (to the point Armaddict keeps saying he wishes people were killing people more without any RP, lol! I think you're probably ok)

I think staff are trying to be better, I have a good sense for stuff like that - and have pointed out a few times when there's been mistakes, it's actually really touching when you read how some of how vicious OOCly the Armageddon meta-backstory has been, it feels like they are genuinely trying to listen more



I think the idea of being able to see staff names might make things worse unintentionally, because if if people were able to see which staff are around, and know if one new staff only watches their clan - crappy things players can do when they think staff might not be watching, which affects the enjoyment of other players, would also go up maaaaassively.

I think it'd be a good idea to move off Discord and build the website up more in a way that none of this OOC badness has a chance to happen and keep things IC and at arms reach - so people can give playtimes in check-boxes without needing to be in a situation where they're exposing themselves to an avenue of people slipping into DMs where at some point they're probably going to have peer pressure put on them from players for their character to take certain actions or not do things (and it would stop a lot of potential staff issues too) - It's silly to put people that are often mentally vulnerable to it in a situation and expect them to not get abused by people, they're random newbies not people trained in a piece of agricultural architecture to resist interrogation, it's setting people up to fail - it'd change things so immensely to cut that part of Armageddon out that has apparently plagued it from the start

[Barsook]

Something that recently gotten me with the request tool is the wait times and not knowing if the request in question is being discussed in the Staffland.  It would be nice if there was a canned response saying that it's being actively discussed. That would allow us to know what it's seem at least. 

[Brisket]

Im not arguing that. Even in a business world it was a dumb move. Regardless of my circulation, tossing 2k out and other matters is just dumb.  I was willing to give the client discounts, extra warranties, etc. But the moment he went "I want one of your people to humiliate themselves to satisfy me" I went completely bananas.

Had a few hrs to contemplate it and realized a correlation with Arm situation.

Fair! Sorry for assuming.  But the circle-the-wagons is a destructive instinct, not a constructive one.  You have to kill your darlings and do what's best for the greater community.

[Dar]

Something that recently gotten me with the request tool is the wait times and not knowing if the request in question is being discussed in the Staffland.  It would be nice if there was a canned response saying that it's being actively discussed. That would allow us to know what it's seem at least.

Rathustra and a few others used to do that a lot.  Just threw a message that request has been read and they're actively discussing it. Once some kind if plan of action manifests, he'd reply properly.