Think we need to close some stuff.

[Patuk]

I disagree.

It's fairly clear at least to me that an unwillingness and fear of meaningful change in the world to accomodate a lower playerbase and facilitate more (and better) interaction is a roadblock that Arm's failed to address and backed down from at every turn, probably since before I even got here.

In addition I think we're viewing the results of that, imo short-sighted, decisionmaking - maybe in truth, lack of decisionmaking.

Storytime!

I logged off last night because my play area was dead. I logged into somewhere else that shares part of our playerbase with us and 76 unique accounts were logged in. That's half of our weekly total. It's a place where you can just message the highest staffers and have a conversation. It's a place that's closing soon to make broad, sweeping improvements, because what was good enough when they made it isn't currently good enough for their vision.

I think Arm could take some lessons from them, honestly.

You've talked about better places and things that need closed down a lot, but provide no concrete examples of where and what that should be.

Who's first on the chopping block if you get your way?

[Pariah]

Look I knew this wouldn't be a popular take when I posted it, and while I do enjoy being a bit of a shit stir'er.  I do think, honestly and without snark that what Windstorm here said is right on point.

I also think the "way" Tuluk was shutdown is what lead to our mass exodus of players at that time.

But I don't understand the takes of people like Lizzie who say, "It's fine, it's working, nothing wrong here." essentially either.

Maybe it's because I started playing back in the day when you could sometimes have five people in just Salarr as hunters alone and there were still fifty other people doing their shit.  Maybe I'm yearning for the old days a bit.

However, to look at unique player logins is deceptive.  If a dude logs in for two minutes it's a unique log in, but he did shit all to improve the world.  They should really make a metric that somehow pulls unique logins greater than an hour played, because what are you really gonna do in under an hour on arm?  Besides if you just log in, go fail foraging, go fail hiding, go fail sneaking, go lose concentration on a spell, go fail all your crafts and log off to let your timers run while you're off in the real world and rinse and repeat?

I'm not -against- casual players or people with lives, hell I just left for like three months cause work got crazy.  But to look at the current tree of roles, sponsored or otherwise, and all the available play spaces, all the available open clans/tribes, it's literally a huge tree, with a bunch of struggling branches with one or two leaves clinging on for all their worth.

I think it's folly to just be like, "It's fine!"

[Pariah]

Who's first on the chopping block if you get your way?

I would limit nobles to one open at a time per city state and make sure it was ones that actually had a point and could hire a variety of different roles or had niche needs like Oash and Jal.

Desert Elves would be smashed into one tribe, maybe with different sects of it, hunters/gatherers, crafters, mages.

Human Tribals same.

One Templar per city state, because the playerbase doesn't support two right now.

One sorcerer running around at a time, one psionicist running around at a time.

Just the cutdown in the nobles and templars, plus consolidation of human and elf tribals would make the game world more condensed and easier to manage.

[Windstorm]

@Patuk

Actually, I think my signature illustrates my views and the direction I'd like to see best, and I think that's actually the most concrete way I'd put it.

I don't think I'd target any individuals, but rather the bad idea and stance that Armageddon cannot/should not ever be changed. Despite what some may think given how strong my voice is when I write, I feel that most individuals on Arm are well intended and enjoy interaction above code spam, by an absolutely overwhelming margin. I just don't think Armageddon in its current state facilitates that and any time you bring it up you run into the other Armageddon thing: "Nothing should ever be changed ever because it worked in 1995 and you're just playing wrong!"

The world - and particularly sometimes, the heavy-handed enforcement of it - is, full stop, just badly outdated in terms of player structure and doesn't facilitate a roleplay-centric vision that everyone here, over a long term, would actually like a lot better.

[Windstorm]

The types of vast, sweeping world changes I would endorse:

* Templars become an earned IC position, where their power and authority increase over time following good leadership. When they are first made templars, they are trainees, roughly equivalent to a militia sergeant that happened to be a noble or bastard noble. They could become what we know of blue-robes over time, but military power and influence are things they will have to earn, IC, through play - not handed to them after a good special app write-in.

* PC militia presence would be reduced or possibly fully eliminated. In their place, Noble Houses would have standing militaries restored and then, templars would have to earn and maintain the favor of nobles or independent population in order to have that sort of power to project their will outside of the city. Nobles would have meaningful power and templars would have less PCs they have to do everything for. In addition, lifesworn Noble House employees would be immune to basic law. Example: currently, a senior aide being attacked by an elf in the street would not be treated the same under the law, like they currently are. This is, in my view, a glaring oversight of the current social structure. Note this is basic law - Oashi Gemmed could not go casting fireballs in the streets.

* Elven Pah tribes would effectively be grouped into one clan. Want to make a Sun Runner anytime you like? Go for it, you're in the Pah clan and you can still play out your tribal-ness, but you're in the Pah Clan and will have lots of interaction/unity with other Elf players, reducing isolationist play. The unity (under Blackwing) would also give them potential for a more complex political scene. Maybe there's even a human or dwarf tribe or two in the Pah Clan, also.

* An idea once voiced by Halaster: Gemmed would be declared full citizens of Allanak. They can now interact and participate. They will still be hunted and hated and unable to travel or do anything outside the city, but at least in the city, they can participate. If necessary to avoid over-representation, the number of Gemmed roles ingame would be limited as a result. Let's say 5-7. Again, templars would have less people they had to do everything for.

[Usiku]

I don't think it's really fair to say that we are in denial or have a fear of change. We're very much aware of the situation, and we are very open to change, there are lots of ideas and discussions floating around, but we do need time and manpower to make a lot of changes happen. We can't just click our fingers and make things so. I would absolutely overhaul the stealth system and the crim-code if I could, but those are vast jobs and I could sit and ideate how to make them perfect, but that doesn't mean any of it would ever actually get coded.

As for closing stuff? Sure, we probably should. But what? Everyone loves their corner of the game. If we close something people love because we want to consolidate the playerbase, do you think those players will just come and play in the place where you love to play? That we didn't close? It's not that easy. And yes, we are resistant to changing core documentation and watering down parts of the culture and history that makes Arm unique. There are plenty of role and concept options that don't require antagonistic or exclusionary play.. why not just pick those instead?

As for Hal's comment about the Gemmed.. it's something that we discussed, very loosely, after watching Shadow and Bone, where they have a similar vibe for magick (honestly, it made me wonder if the author had played Arm) but the world has progressed a little and a well known magicker has helped turn the tide of war and earned magickers a slightly more respected social state. When we discussed it, we agreed that we would be open to something similar to that as a story arc that could shift the culture in Allanak via player action if it happened. But then there is still the question of how to balance them (and yes, they do need to be balanced, and no, simply limiting how many people can play them is not the answer to that).

[Kaathe]

It's hard to put effort into an honest reply because so much that is asked for has been done, so much change takes place, and so much is planned. But I'll try because I share the same high level concerns.

Desert Elves would be smashed into one tribe, maybe with different sects of it, hunters/gatherers, crafters, mages.

I'd consider it but zero elves are crying for lack of interaction with other elves. I've considered going from 3 to 2, but then we'd probably never rotate and there would be a permanent gap somewhere. As far as going down to one... do you reallly want 12 elves all in one -staff enforced- cuddle puddle?

Human Tribals same.

We closed the twin tribes when VR opened. Prior to that it was just twin tribes which had been empty awhile. The mystery tribe isn't active right now. So you already have 1 tribe open essentially and it's pretty empty.

One Templar per city state, because the playerbase doesn't support two right now.

Frequently we've left one templar in a city state, but once you add a second and they live awhile what do you do? Store them? What if they have minions and interaction and plots and are happy? Still store them? Also consider how useful it is to play templars off each other. That's not an option if there is one. Regardless, we've let cities run with one templar and even no templar at times as needed.

One sorcerer running around at a time, one psionicist running around at a time.

For sorcs this also happens off and on, and are often designed to compete with one another. For psionicsts, they generally aren't just in  hole somewhere mindworming everyone. They blend in with the populace. So limiting them won't help like you think it would help.[/quote]

Just the cutdown in the nobles and templars, plus consolidation of human and elf tribals would make the game world more condensed and easier to manage.

We generally cap at 2 templars and 2 nobles per city state. I already explained human tribes are empty and elves (capped at 12 in spite of there being 3 tribes) aren't crying about lack of interaction. So what do you think storing 1 noble and 1 templar per city state is going to achieve? I know what it would cost. It would cut the player-led plot that's backed by virtual coin and virtual status in half.

There are so many hurdles to interaction that even many if not most of the players you run into ingame are people you finger wag aren't allowed to associate with, or you're supposed to hate, or whatever. - Windstorm

I agree that this is a problem: "I'm supposed to hate them so I'll just go elsewhere or ignore them." It's compounded by that being the easiest way to follow the docs. But the expectation is antagonistic interaction! Hate them, use them. Despise them, undermine their success. Pretend to like them, betray them.  I'm very interested in upping non-lethal antagonistic interactions, but that's a whole separate thread really.

[Pariah]

I mean, it's all just guessing and perception when you're a player and not an omnipotent staff that can fly and watch things invisibly.

But I'd say most of my longer lived characters tend to be pretty far reaching, run around the world type for various reasons, be it hunting, bored and looking for interaction, networking etc etc.

My "perception" with that in mind is that most GMH folks are just hidden in their compounds with one or two crafters.  Most nobles aren't in the public eye all that much or if they are they are just sitting there doing nothing (Maybe waying).

I have only seen two desert elves I believe in like three months, so maybe they are all just desert ninjas and I'm missing them.

I play mostly in Allanak, but visit RS, LUIRS and Tuluk with regularity and if their taverns are any clue in the middle of the night, they ain't much going on.

The Byn seems to be always busy, because murderhobo training of course.

I dunno the world just feels super fucking empty, once you get past being scared of creatures outdoors, you can go explore and not run into a single person for weeks at a time.

I'm just wondering where the "active" spots are minus the Byn cause it sucks.

[Windstorm]

There are plenty of role and concept options that don't require antagonistic or exclusionary play.. why not just pick those instead?

This is what we'd call a reductionist attitude and attempts to minimize a problem into one example, or one person. In short, it's missing the point. Why aren't you staffing on Harshlands, Usiku? Because that's not what you like and it's not that simple.

Having a bunch of roles in your gameworld that are isolated, whether they're Gemmed, whether they're tribes that never go anywhere or see anyone else, or are forbidden from it, or whatever, isn't good for your low-population interaction-based roleplaying-intensive game. There are few enough players in parts of your world that (see Pariah's post) badly need more interaction but are being actively, in some cases ruthlessly restricted from it to the benefit of absolutely no one's play. If a role isn't something that can be interacted with, even in secret, the way it's written is part of the problem and should be changed.

Interaction is the point. Roleplay is the point. When you're protecting decades-old documentation that's crushing roleplay at the expense of your players' enjoyment of the game, you're very simply doing it wrong. Players are the point. Enjoyment is the point. Documentation that gets in the way of those things isn't enhancing Armageddon, it's holding it back.

See: population decreases, dead play areas
See: scattered playerbase that is discouraged from interaction
See: denialism/fear of change

[Pariah]

Plus Usiku, say I want to one day play a full blown crafter again (Highly doubtful) but let's play make believe.

They /NEED/ hunters to help them, or they /NEED/ to spend a year in the Byn to get capable of even taking out things that give them bones and hides etc.

There is an interconnectivity built between us.  We need those other roles we don't wanna play to play OUR roles.

I personally can't stand playing a GMH family member (unless the rules change) because it's boring as dogshit.  However, they are VERY important to the game world.  How is my hunter gonna get their GOOD weapon or GOOD armor without them?  So they are a required role.

I feel like we need to set priorities on what keeps the world going.  What generates the coins, what keeps the economy going.  We already know that Nobles don't make enough money to just wholesale fund all indies, we already know that GMH doesn't get free coin (thought they can become disgusting rich fast) and all that to just hand out.

But then it comes the hard decisions right?  Who do we want to prop up, is it cities we want filled out?  Is it tribes?  Is it indy/mage/sorcerers?

I feel like we are trying to do too much, and while that's noble in itself, it's causing us to have shitty experiences on the ground level of regular every day commoners.

[dumbstruck]

Wow. That comment about antagonism and the docs and antagonism versus leaving really drilled down into something for me.

I tend to avoid playing with people in game who aren't the love interest of whatever character I'm currently playing or something similar like a specific friend, or someone who they hit it off like mad with, etc. And it's because I just plain don't enjoy antagonizing people. If you make it so that the only reasonable way I can interact with a pc is to antagonize or be at odds, my pc is literally just gonna bounce and thanks for all the fish. It's stressful and not enjoyable for me.

There should absolutely be room for anyone to decide to be an antagonistic prick. But I hate being forced into it via documentation. I would literally rather avoid a character entirely. My real life day is stressful enough. I wish there were more excuses for people to work together than there is. It seems like everyone is at everyone's throats, and if you aren't you're violating something here or there.

I want to play a druid (yes I said druid, they aren't in arm but elementalists are the second best you can get to it) out in nature raising flowers and shit who is completely removed from other humanoids. Being around other humanoids is stressful, in game and in real life. I will typically try to do what makes sense for a character, but all of my characters are kind of marked by my dislike of confrontation and conflict.

[Lizzie]

Armageddon closed Tuluk for play and half the player base quit - along with many staffers.

When Tuluk re-opened, that half that left, didn't return. So it's clear to me that it wasn't the closure itself that caused the players to leave. It was the fact that the game drastically changed - that caused them to leave. They didn't WANT these kinds of changes, and they were made anyway. They felt victimized, and they chose not to participate in a game in which they felt this way.

Whenever the game shuts down options (such as making just one templar and noble role) we lose players. We lose them because we don't WANT staff to make these kinds of changes, and they make them anyway.  If it was the closures themselves that was the problem, those players would return when the options are re-opened. That isn't happening in the numbers we need to sustain the game.

Having just one noble in a city is ridiculous because that means the ONLY time you'll find a noble to interact with, is when that one singular noble is logged in. This game runs 24/7. If you know 100% that you will NEVER run into a noble - and you're hoping to play a social character who maybe aspires to become someone's aide - what are the odds that you'll keep playing this game, if that singular noble is still playing and alive 6 months after they're created?

Having more than one allows for a greater chance of actually running into one of these kinds of roles. Armageddon thrives most when players are able to interact with the variety of role types. Imagine how un-fun it'd be to play a Guild boss, when you know for a fact the Oash noble will NEVER contract you to rob the Borsail's aide's apartment - because there's no Oash, and the Borsail noble is doing well and showing no signs of quitting, and his expected nemesis is a role that isn't allowed to be played, as long as he exists?

[Windstorm]

@Lizzie I think you're responding to the wrong person.

I didn't suggest closing anything, or limiting the number of nobles.

That said, I mostly agree with what you wrote, even if it was a little confusing in that way.

[RheaGhe]

What they suggested was quite earnestly, a radical departure from the current state, but likely a better organization too it all.

Without closing anything. Just shunting things around.

[Pariah]

I was just about to say the same thing.  However, again, I'm just tossing out hail mary's here.  Someone from staff would actually have to do fuck all about it if they wanted.  I just noticed two more nobles in Tuluk were opened when I play a pretty good chunk of hours and can't find fuck all for interaction most of the time.

[burble]

I don't think you should close anything because players have their favorite class/race and you wouldn't want to take that option away.

But, you could render all those old animosities moot by oh..say..bringing in something far worse.
Something tough enough to bring down all of civilization.

[mansa]

Don't purposely troll threads.

This thread will be unlocked in the future.
::edit:: unlocked

[Usiku]

Having a bunch of roles in your gameworld that are isolated, whether they're Gemmed, whether they're tribes that never go anywhere or see anyone else, or are forbidden from it, or whatever, isn't good for your low-population interaction-based roleplaying-intensive game.

We don't have a bunch of roles in the game world that are isolated and designed to never go anywhere or interact with other people or are forbidden from it. Thryzn are a bit of an aside, I'm not really sure where they stand right now, but their whole path was player driven. But even most of the tribal clans have different levels of interaction and reasons for interaction built into their docs, most of them are supposed to be going out and meeting people and trading with people of other cultures and races etc. Each of the 'groups' in Arm is basically designed to have, to simplify it somewhat, 'likes and dislikes' when it comes to other races, cultures, 'types' of people etc, this adds variance, flavour, things for your character to bond with other characters over, things to for you to hook into to explore different sides of your PC and their emotional range and so on.

I can't think of any concept that is essentially forbidden from interaction. Even sorcerers and psis can choose to live their lives amongst people, keeping their true selves secret. All of the races can co-mingle and be friendly to a degree, with half-elves being more challenging in that respect, it's only romantic interaction that is shunned there. Magickers bear the brunt of the social cost as a balancing to their power, but they also can operate in secret and benefit from the full range of social interaction, unless they are caught, then they pay the price for their power - be that through death in most parts of the world, or the restrictions that come with the gem in Allanak. Even Gemmed are not prohibited from interaction, they have employment opportunities with the Templarate, Oash & Jal. They can have peer-like relationships with other Gemmed (and potentially secret magickers). They can usually leverage pretty decent neutral relationships with most folks in Allanak who might need them or need to deal with them. They can risk secret positive relationships and friendships with non-magickers. Even rinthers can try to pass themselves off as non-rinth and attempt to elevate their status.

The point is that depending on which races, classes, starting location and background you choose to play, the game will provide different benefits, advantages, challenges, hurdles, potential story arcs and role play cues for you to leverage. If you want a game with less antagonism, then there are options for that. For players who want a game with more social challenge and probably more antagonism.. then those options are there too. There is not an expectation that everyone in the game can and will and should be able to interact with every other person in game on an even level.

This seems like quite a bit divergence from the original topic though.

[Boggis]

My own view is that the game doesn't really support both Allanak and Tuluk as two major population centres with noble houses, GMHs, etc. I thought this back in 2012 before I took a long hiatus and after coming back recently I don't think my view has changed. It's a difficult problem to resolve as different groups of players feel an affinity with one place or the other. So closing one leads to a swathe of disgruntled players not playing. The only way I see the problem being resolved is both of them going and being replaced by a single population centre. Then when doing this it maybe opens up some opportunities to do a general rehaul on some things to address some longstanding issues, lessen some roadblocks to players interacting, etc. As a quick completely not through at all scenario I'd see something like:

• Bad stuff happens. Allanak and Tuluk are somehow essentially destroyed. Tek and Muk are gone
• The remnants from both cities migrate to Luirs and decide to band together to increase their odds of survival
• Luirs gets a total makeover + expansion but the rest of the world doesn't really need to be touched much
• Have say 2 noble houses survive from both Allanak & Tuluk - there's a huge amount of history in both places as well as conflict between them so despite them agreeing to band together all that history & conflict isn't going to go away and provides some tension, latent grudges, etc. They're now in reduced circumstances despite maintaining some of their wealth so interactions with commoners can be made a bit easier
• Get rid of the current GMHs completely or retool them somehow - the current monopolies don't really help drive player competition. Have new/retooled GMHs take their place but they are in competition with each other over resources, goods, etc.
• Have New Luirs led by some higher power - mostly just to keep Templars & Militia as they provide that single point of law enforcement that is ultimately regulated by the Staff and they also provide plenty of opportunities for power games, conflict, corruption, etc.
• Keep gemmed elementalists but have the general population's attitudes change towards them somewhat for whatever reason. Sure people should always have a healthy fear of magick but they're also not idiots so can see the benefit of somebody who can literally make unlimited quantities of the most important liquid in the world
• Have one frontier trade post settlement somewhere else in the world. Basically just a place for those who don't like city / clan heavy play to have somewhere else to play out of. Maybe the GMHs run this place. Have goods run between here and New Luirs. Keep this place deliberately fairly small though as we can't have 2 major population centres
• Have a 'rinth type place in New Luirs - need that Guild type criminal element play for all that it can bring when added to the mix above
• Have a bardic circle or something similar for those who want that sort of thing

It'd be a big change and a lot of work - potentially quite risky as we'd be more or less jettisoning a huge amount of history. Also, it's easy to write something like the above and the devil is usually in the detail. But I could see a number of benefits:

• Neither the Allanak or Tuluk camp wins or loses. They both get to start sort of fresh but also keeping some of their history alive - instant potential for conflict as we get a culture clash all happening in the one location as opposed to now where there effectively isn't any real conflict between them apart from the very occasional big blow-up
• The GMHs now have something to compete over - instant potential for conflict & interplay with the various powers. Perhaps they could be granted resource fiefdoms by the powers-that-be which could be won or lost depending on how things go IC
• More people are in the same location - just naturally leads to more interesting play, cooperation, tension & conflict
• Militia/Houses/GMHs all have a bigger pool of players to draw from - more potential for intra-clan play/conflict as well as all the good stuff that happens when organisations start sticking their noses into each others business
• Potential to take the levels in the game down a notch or two - having a few less layers beween the leader PCs and the top of the organisation they're a part of would probably be a good thing and would maybe allow for more changes to realistically occur through player agency over time
• Potential to re-focus the game a bit more on the mundane side of things (though I appreciate that steps are being taken in this direction anyway)

[CirclelessBard]

Older MUDs like Armageddon were built for the 90s, when the MUD player base was at its highest and no one could possibly see a decline in the future. This is why a lot of older MUDs have a ton of different zones. The old non-RP MUDs tend to be theme park-ish, where you have your city, another zone that's a living chess board, a zone next to that that's a haunted house, another that's an amusement park, etc.

Then games like Armageddon came along and understood the need for thematic consistency, but at the same time, made a large world because all the other big games had large worlds too. The end result is an older version of the world we currently have. If you went back in time 25 years and logged into the game, the game setting would still be fairly recognizable, even if you might be sitting next to a halfling at the bar.

As the MUD player base declined, the RP games that got created in the 2010s forward were tailored to those changing winds. A lot of newer RP games narrow the scope of their setting down. Now instead of taking place in entire worlds like Armageddon, they take place in towns, in spaceships, in haunted houses etc. Every player is in the same place, and finding interaction is a breeze. There is still collaborative storytelling, even if not every character is cooperating with one another.

What I like about @Boggis's idea is that it would transform Armageddon into what has been tried and tested over the years for new games. It would work. At the same time, I think Armageddon would lose a lot of its richness in the process. One of the things that makes Armageddon unique is that it is still an "entire world" RP MUD. Those are increasingly hard to find nowadays.

[MeTekillot]

If you make the game small, nothing is stopping you from making it big again later.

If you don't have a big amount of players, stretching that small amount over a big world just lessens the interactivity for everyone.

[Pariah]

I woke up for work and have to say great last few posts, I think we have some amazing ideas here.  Maybe someone with some juice will act on them.

[Triskelion]

I mean, it's kind of an impossible situation.

The game is very clearly too big for the number of players, so much so that the majority of clans and character concepts are essentially non-functional. The wheels just aren't turning. It's a wagon stuck in the muck, and playing anywhere outside of the last handful of decently-populated clans means spending nearly all your time alone, without anything to do besides menial stuff like hunting and crafting with no real purpose behind it.

But at the same time, any talk of trimming the game down leads to handwringing about the players who will allegedly quit if that happens. Any given sliver of Armageddon is somebody's favorite thing and they'll throw in the towel if it goes away. Apparently we can't do anything about it, nor can we really be satisfied with the way it is. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

One thing seems clear, at least: we have something like 20 clans in a game that struggles to break 30 players at peak and sits at 20-25ish for the majority of the EU/US timeslot. Even if we fool ourselves into pretending that most characters are in clans, that's approximately one PC per clan at any given time during the busier hours, and that's to say nothing of off-peak when probably 75% of clans have no online representatives. That simply isn't viable.

There's almost nothing going on in the game. Even when you can get together with people, they mostly just sit around and merely exist, because there's nothing to work with. The few pockets of players who actually seem to get anything done are so stacked with coded power and OOC networking that they can't really be opposed, so you either join and add yourself to the stack or stay the hell away.

What are tribes meant to do? Hunt and gather? Hardly a solid foundation for gameplay. Trade? Trade what and with whom? There's no demand for anything they might offer, and no use for wealth when you live in a camp in the desert. Fight? Against whom, unless you want to just pointlessly throw your PC's life away against the aforementioned powerstack?

What are soldiers meant to do? There are no wars to fight in, so it's just NPC gith, going on six or seven years now. Or dying to the powerstack guys because you're a mundane human. Fight crime? What crime? You can go from recruit to corporal and never encounter a PC criminal.

What are the powerstack guys meant to do? They can't exactly go and hang out at the bar, so even finding other PCs is a struggle when there's approximately one thousand rooms per player online during peak hours; and after a year and a half of curbstomping everyone through unstoppable coded might, it's hard to get anyone to trust you enough to have any other type of interaction even if you have the best intentions.

What should indies be doing? Technically they can do anything they want within reason, but it's like being shoved into an empty room with a stick and a bucket and the promise that you can do anything you want, have fun! You better really enjoy sticks and buckets. You could compose the best drum solo anyone's ever heard, but that's kind of a tall order when you have a stick and a bucket to work with.

Most of the things that are meant to be the meat on the bones of this game don't work when it's difficult to even find other players, let alone a reason to interact with them beyond banal pleasantries or mindless fighting. You might be lucky enough (or sufficiently connected OOCly) to find your way into a rare pocket of activity, but that's the exception, not the norm. There's probably a handful of seasoned players with their fingers in all kinds of pies, but if most players never get a whiff of pie-scent, the average Armageddon experience is a pieless one.

One thing is for sure: the things in this game's history that are lauded as the pillars of Armageddon's story - your occupation and liberation of Tuluk, your great copper war, your mantis invasion of Luir's, your legendary Guild bosses, etc. - are in the distant past. These things don't happen anymore, and it's hard to see how they even could when the game is so stuck. I don't think there are too few players for these kinds of things to happen at all, but where the game may once have resembled a bangin' party spread across a few festive banquet halls, it's now more like a hotel where everyone's in their own room and only meet if they invite their two neighbors in for coffee or come across another guest in the hallway on the way to breakfast. There's still enough guests to have a bangin' party, but if the hotel doesn't have a party venue and nobody has anything to celebrate, there won't be one.

[Windstorm]

One thing is for sure: the things this game's history that are lauded as the pillars of Armageddon's story - your occupation and liberation of Tuluk, your Copper War, your mantis invasion of Luir's, your legendary Guild bosses, etc. - are in the distant past.

I don't think this is quite true. Stuff went on early this year that was on that scale that pulled 63+ players online after a long-developed storyline that, from my view, was awesome from start to  finish! Though, you might've missed it, or even missed all of the interesting things that followed.

I often wish the depth of these stories were more accessible, which is sort of what I mean to advocate for all in this: accessibility, involvement, and quality of interaction for more players. Letting them be in the room! The divides in and slices of playerbase being so sharply and heavy-handedly at times restricted from one another is unfortunately such a constant obstacle that a lot of amazing stuff can and has gone on even recently, or was at least planned, but not a lot of players got to know how or what or that the roots of these things were long building ingame. They are even today.

My suggestions above were kind of trying to consolidate and urge interaction between various parts of the playerbase without removing them. Templars that need support to function. Unity and a social/political scene in the Pah, of a sort. Gemmed who get to be in the room. Nobles who have power of their own to use.

I also see the wisdom in what @Boggis suggested, but that would be a major project indeed and Armageddon is an older game that tends to move much more slowly than that - look at the obstacles we run into asking for something so small as keeping the gates of Allanak open just for playability's sake.

That said, I agree with a lot of the rest that you wrote. Arm would very likely benefit from some playerbase consolidation. It's just going to be impossible to come up with something that doesn't upset some section of players or another.

I was happy to see 40+ish players on last night though, and some activity ingame! I never mean to doomsay and I love when people turn up to show support. However, that doesn't mean problems don't exist. I will continue to do my best to advocate for positive change.

Also, not all players are OOCly networked, if even some likely are. Many happily play without ever engaging in that. Be careful believing everything you hear, and do try to have some faith that most people are playing fairly. I choose to believe they are if even like-minded players do also sort of wind up in the same areas at times. The best we can do is have discipline enough individually to turn away from things like Discord channel invites - which in my experience in roleplay are always, always bad - and protect the legitimacy of roleplay through not talking about current stuff.

[Triskelion]

I don't think this is quite true. Stuff went on early this year that was on that scale that pulled 63+ players online after a long-developed storyline that, from my view, was awesome from start to  finish! Though, you might've missed it, or even missed all of the interesting things that followed.

You mean the war that was called off before any two soldiers had ever crossed blades? I played while it happened, and what I remember was a build-up to war and then one day I heard that it just wasn't happening anyway and both sides had withdrawn. Never heard a word of it again since.