Allanaki Gates - Flavour versus Playability

[Sugarpuff]

Following a discussion on discord recently, I wanted to raise the topic of the gates of Allanak and their closing.

Currently closing at dusk, and reopening at dawn (so being closed 1/3 of the time) seems really heavy on the flavour side and not enough on the playability side, especially for off peak players when the city itself can, at times, be very quiet.

The response in discord to this was highly pro, so I wanted to ask more widely, and see if there any chance it would ever be considered that perhaps they could be closed only for the coded night time? It would seem like a good compromise to retain the "gates shut at dark to shut out the world" but enable a little longer for active play. Ten minutes every hour and a half is way easier to bear than half hour.

[Krath]

Yeah, I like this idea....Or even take it a step further, Allanak has a strong and large army, why not leave it open 24/7 and have a higher guard count at the gates?

[Patuk]

I agree that closing them as night actually falls seems like a good idea. It'd make being locked in or out a lot more palatable than it is currently.

[Riev]

Stuck outside the gates?

Lets introduce a new functionality.

rent me
Pay 100 coins to a gate guard to sneak you in the side entrance, but any spice or illegal things in your inventory WILL be confiscated. Also your mount is too big to fit through this door so it stays outside.

[dumbstruck]

Stuck outside the gates?

Lets introduce a new functionality.

rent me
Pay 100 coins to a gate guard to sneak you in the side entrance, but any spice or illegal things in your inventory WILL be confiscated. Also your mount is too big to fit through this door so it stays outside.

I like this but think it should come with some newbieproof script like 'The big guy won't fit, are you sure you want in?' from the guard and an OOC prompt your mount will be left behind if you proceed so if you mean it enter rent me again or something that way no one accidentally loses an animal that way.

[Riev]

rent me confirm

but also it could be an issue when like ... the gates are shut for a REASON (bad animal, HRPT, etc) and the bad guys could just spend 100 coins to "sneak in".

Not that you can't sneak in 3 other ways, but still.

[Kavrick]

I love being locked inside allanak with no shops open and the gaj empty.

[Lizzie]

I love being locked inside allanak with no shops open and the gaj empty.

Most of the shops in Allanak are open 24/7. Only some close from dusk til dawn. I know one that closes at a strange time and opens at mid-day. I think there are two that close at night and open early morning.  As far as I know all of the shops in the bazaar are open all day every day.

[Sugarpuff]

I havent tested all the shops in the bazaar but I know SOME are definitely shut.

[Kavrick]

I love being locked inside allanak with no shops open and the gaj empty.

Most of the shops in Allanak are open 24/7. Only some close from dusk til dawn. I know one that closes at a strange time and opens at mid-day. I think there are two that close at night and open early morning.  As far as I know all of the shops in the bazaar are open all day every day.

After going out of my way and checking myself, it's basically a 50/50 split between shops that close at night and shops that don't. Some in the bazaar close and most in the southern market close.

[Lotion]

If you really don't want to stand outside the gate for 30 minutes maximum in a game where you are expected to wait frequently and often for long periods of time because you are afraid of a raider or scrab you can quit at the gates.

[Sugarpuff]

If you really don't want to stand outside the gate for 30 minutes maximum in a game where you are expected to wait frequently and often for long periods of time because you are afraid of a raider or scrab you can quit at the gates.

This isn't the issue. I've logged in twice today so far when I had a spare hour, both times it's been dusk, there's been nobody about, and I have half hour of being locked inside, it just seems unnecessary. If it was ten minutes out of ninety it would be playable but 1/3 of the time is just overkill.

[CirclelessBard]

Denying players access to things on a rigid timer serves to push players to log out of the game. Taking breaks from the game is healthy! But when you have 1-2 hours to play, it is significantly easier to justify logging out and starting your next activity of the day early. If my character was stuck at a gate or waiting for a shop to open with only 30 minutes left to play, that would be my cue to stop Arming for that session (and possibly for the rest of the day). Whereas with a more playable system I could theoretically eke out 30 more minutes of RP, entertaining myself and ideally others.

All this to say I think we should push for maximizing players' RP times, not minimize them. My hunch is that adjusting how gates and shops work to be a little more lenient to the player is going to be a much bigger boon to the RP experience than it would be a detriment to the flavor/immersion side of things.

[Lizzie]

Maybe if the gates stayed open at dusk, until late night, it'd make more sense and be more playable. Might also be pretty cool if someone blew a horn from the top of the gate at Dusk, so anyone who's out there grebbing or hunting within 3 rooms of the walls would hear the horn blow and know it's time to finish up and get into the city.  Sort of like the Byn horn that you can hear just outside the compound gates.

[Miradus]

How much MORE of the harsh world and survival experience must be sacrificed on the altar of limited gameplay times and real world responsibilities?

[Windstorm]

Plenty more! We're not adding more players, or retaining them, by making ArmageddonMUD less accessible and more difficult to find time windows to play in while the entire medium becomes more ancient and our playerbase gets older, builds families, and so becomes more career and family-focused. RPIs are not a big medium and they're not getting any bigger or less divided between the limited number of options available.

What's keeping players here and giving us any chance at all to bring more in is the idea of immersive roleplay.

What's not keeping players here and in some cases keeping them away is an inability of PCs to do the relatively basic thing of making a home for oneself, or making them wait 30 minutes before they perform some of the other basic functionalities of play and IC life, let alone just being able to log out somewhere reasonable.

Armageddon's always had this tug of war where "harsh" "survivalist" players want to make even playability difficult and daunting for new players without realizing the overall impact. You don't struggle with the harshness or survivability anymore, and the new players it overwhelmingly affects don't enjoy it.

The trickle of people who come into Armageddon anymore are interested in and looking for a roleplaying experience, not to die from starvation because the shopkeeper doesn't open for another half hour.

[seltzer]

The game doesn't strike me as any more or less harsh based on gates being shut.

It is a huge waste of time though to be blocked off from potential roleplay.

Raider spawns are harsh. Poisonous snakes every-fucking-where are harsh. Kryl are harsh.

Gates are strictly whatever and only in the way.

[Miradus]

The trickle of people who come into Armageddon anymore are interested in and looking for a roleplaying experience, not to die from starvation because the shopkeeper doesn't open for another half hour.

I've seen no survey that asks that question from new players: What drew you here? Why are you here?

From where does your statement spring?

Since survival hardcore games in other venues (glancing at Steam) seem to be thriving, growing in number, and scope ... I'd say there's plenty of younger people who are interested in a hardcore survival experience rather than Fantasy Medieval Mean-Girl Simulator where all the corners get rounded off and the storytellers use fuzzy, cuddly nerf monsters.

[Windstorm]

The trickle of people who come into Armageddon anymore are interested in and looking for a roleplaying experience, not to die from starvation because the shopkeeper doesn't open for another half hour.

I've seen no survey that asks that question from new players: What drew you here? Why are you here?

From where does your statement spring?

Since survival hardcore games in other venues (glancing at Steam) seem to be thriving, growing in number, and scope ... I'd say there's plenty of younger people who are interested in a hardcore survival experience rather than Fantasy Medieval Mean-Girl Simulator where all the corners get rounded off and the storytellers use fuzzy, cuddly nerf monsters.

lol, if you're comparing ArmageddonMUD to anything on Steam I've got some bad news for you!

This doesn't compare to any of that.

It compares to MUSHes, mildly to other MUDs where roleplay is encouraged, and other RPIs. Maybe, on a stretch, a few D&D players who like a text medium. On and off, I've played a range of those and talk to people who've tried ArmageddonMUD, found it wasn't for them, and left to find places where they can have PCs who have homes, immersion without unnecessary inconvenience, and a respect for their time.

Those other places have their problems too, and ArmageddonMUD is better than them in ways. But then it comes back to inconvenience, murderhobos, and honestly, a small element of the community that refuses to advance itself because they're still attached to how things were in the fucking 80s or whatever.

Text-based semi-roleplaying PACman isn't it. There's other places to get that kind of game, and a few people hanging on to the olden days when more people were satisfied and had the time for that is one of the biggest things holding Armageddon back from getting more than 3 new players a year whether you want to admit it or not.

[CirclelessBard]

Armageddon is a roleplaying game just as much as it is a survival game. Players are expected to roleplay just as much as they are expected to do their best to ensure they survive in Zalanthas. It's understandable that that would present a conundrum where changes to benefit one side might be a drawback to the other.

That being said, I fail to see how closing the gates for less time robs the game of its harshness. I -can- see how it could undo the work of some players who carefully time and plan their outings, but at the same time, I can see how keeping the gates open for longer would allow for more roleplaying while traveling, too.

As for "Fantasy Medieval Mean-Girl Simulator" this feels like a depreciation of the players and staff that have helped keep the world lively and in-theme over the years. I think if this game had really degraded that much, it wouldn't be around right now. And I think we have a tendency to look back with rose-colored glasses and pretend there are no anomalies in the game's RP and flavor. There are always challenges and always have been. Ideally, we become better roleplayers through discussing and learning from them so that we can represent the harsh world better.

Is there a logical argument that directly ties keeping the gate open for longer to a debasement of the survival experience? Or is it general skepticism about prior changes to the game having already eroded it, with this proposed change being a further erosion?

[Miradus]

Is there a logical argument that directly ties keeping the gate open for longer to a debasement of the survival experience? Or is it general skepticism about prior changes to the game having already eroded it, with this proposed change being a further erosion?

Absolutely. It's yet another situation where complete safety is less than 5-10 rooms away and you can spam there with minimal risk if danger rears its ugly head.

Yet another change that, once you can flee and ride without falling off, makes desert survival absolutely trivial.

[mansa]

Does the gates close immediately on the 10s of the hour?

Example:
Late Afternoon - 10:48
Late Afternoon - 10:49
Dusk - 10:50 - GATES SHUT IMMEDIATELY.


I'd like to see it change so that it pushes it back to the later half of Dusk, with warnings being shouted at 5 minutes after dusk.

Example:
Dusk - 10:54
Dusk - 10:55 - Soldier shouts "Gates are closing soon!"
Dusk - 10:56 - Soldier shouts "Gates are closing soon!  Last Chance!"
Dusk - 10:57 - Soldier shouts "Gates are closing now!"
             - Soldier shuts gates.

[Miradus]

The outstanding claim, Mansa, is that people are stacking up outside of the closed gates and wishing they could roleplay in the Gaj.

Why, if there are so many of them, they can't roleplay at the gate .... I'm not sure.

Or, where they all are, when I ride by the gate at 'before dawn'.

[seltzer]

Come on dude. You've played the game for long enough to appreciate that there are quite a few things that are extremely time consuming. Being stuck outside the city from dusk til dawn is one of them.

You're talking about ~30 minutes of someone's time where they might just log out and go do something productive instead of play this game; this game that's desperate for players. As the game bleeds people who are interested in a strictly hardcore experience, it would benefit us to look at quality of life improvements to open the spread to less insane players. Allowing people to move more freely is a pretty easy ask.

If antagonist roleplay hinges on the ability to keep someone as a captive audience - that's an entirely different issue.

[LidlessEye]

Does the gates close immediately on the 10s of the hour?

Example:
Late Afternoon - 10:48
Late Afternoon - 10:49
Dusk - 10:50 - GATES SHUT IMMEDIATELY.


I'd like to see it change so that it pushes it back to the later half of Dusk, with warnings being shouted at 5 minutes after dusk.

Example:
Dusk - 10:54
Dusk - 10:55 - Soldier shouts "Gates are closing soon!"
Dusk - 10:56 - Soldier shouts "Gates are closing soon!  Last Chance!"
Dusk - 10:57 - Soldier shouts "Gates are closing now!"
             - Soldier shuts gates.

b

This already happens.